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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8783135" data-attributes="member: 6801252">Heh, you're a lot less cynical than me, I think that growth doesn't intrinsically equate to a superior product, we very much live in an era where products can leverage other strategies to push growth. I do think that Hasbro/WOTC has pursued active strategies, so coasting may not quite be the right word, but I don't think they're living and dying by the quality of the 5e system either. One thing that helps them is that they're pursuing a blue ocean strategy where their player base are specifically new to the hobby, and the barrier to try competing products is actually much higher than it would be in other industries. It is much easier to try a Pepsi than it is to try out Pathfinder or whatever (to a degree, the Pathfinder sub has noticed massive influxes of newbies every time WOTC releases a 5e book or makes a One DND announcement.)They're also setting up DND as a lifestyle brand with lots of different contact points someone can stay engaged with, so that you identify as a DND person even if your RPG group isn't much of a thing, in the same way most Marvel fans today probably don't read comic books-- and if your passion is channeled in other directions, maybe accepting the rules is just the cost of doing business with the other parts, we already get people reporting that they play dnd as the cost of getting an easy table. They're also setting the next edition of the game up as a walled garden-- if you buy into their proprietary virtual tabletop you own a lot of cool features for playing DND, but would have to leave that investment behind to try something else. That's a lot of very proactive strategies that allow them to leverage the brand, but that aren't oriented toward the rules of the game.Apple incidentally, does sell tech thats inferior for the price (they still perform adequately as modern computers, obviously), they depend heavily on the perception that their products are a prestige brand where owning one as a status symbol might be more important to you than the extra power, they also work to provide an interconnected infrastructure between their devices that's harder to use if you don't remain in their garden, and people who use apple devices daily have to relearn the basics of how to use other devices because of the differing GUI (though this has been changing since mobile interfaces have started picking up on their design, as opposed to ye olde traditional windows set up, starting with windows 8.) Amusingly, Apple recently announced a new business strategy where they're trying to reduce their businesses dependence on selling phones.</blockquote>

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