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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6214372" data-attributes="member: 27160">That's true that you can find them - but I wouldn't call them cheap, at least not here in the UK. Plus - since some of the proposed moves I list are actually being developed by WotC now - there are the "Premium" versions available (with errata included).But the whole thing is a bit of "wishes for fishes" thing anyway - we are where we are and WotC didn't go down the "live and let live" route. To do so might arguably have called for starting on 4E earlier (but did I hear something about an earlier start that actually was aborted and restarted? I may be wrong on that). But, just as now, 3E pulling in enough sales was not an actual hard limitation with M:tG filling the cash cow role. It was "necessary" only in the minds of those directing the business plan due to their assumed world-view. A different business plan would have required a different set of expectations and assumptions, naturally.But that's the natural state of play in a competitive market, anyway! You compete with what is already available - that's business! Imagine if a different company had made 4E - or if D&D hadn't had a dominant position in the market at the time 4E was released. In that circumstance 4E would have had to compete with 3.x; that's the "natural" way of things. The fact that WotC could frig the market because they held a dominant position (though perhaps not as dominant as they assumed!) was the oddity, here - not the possibility that 4E might have to compete with what was already available on a reasonably even playing field.Yeah, life is tough when you have to compete on even terms. Who knew? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />If they had left the 'zines with Paizo the effort would have been much reduced - the occasional article and teasers for the new edition instead of all the hassle of publishing.That depends what you mean by "did well". The Core-Splats-New Edition model is a short-term bubble model; it has booms (and busts). But there are several companies that have been doing OK - keeping a product line going in a low-key way with decent (but not stellar) sales, enough to keep the business going for year after year. Pelgrane Press started in 1999 and have a very nice stable of systems and some established writers associated with them. Atlas Games have been around since at least 2004 and have a nice portfolio. Steve Jackson Games still has GURPS and a range around that. Columbia Games have been publishing Hârn Materials solidly since 1983; sure, they are not a market leader (nor likely to become one), but longevity has to count for something in a single brand, surely? Solid, long term quality with open products (GURPS can be used for many genres/settings, Hârn can be used with many game systems) and a committment to the customers is not a "sexy" way to do business - but it's one that lasts and it's one I am increasingly enamoured by as a customer.OK, but intelligence can be bought - quite possibly for less than it would cost to run the magazine operation (especially including setup costs, as you highlight).I think the main driver was probably the desire to eliminate support for 3e - and I think that was a bad move.I agree that feedback from the marketplace was sorely needed (and apparently lacking) in WotC during 3E and early 4E - but you say yourself that Paizo has achieved the same 'connection' as WotC has, now, so it clearly isn't an issue connected to the OGL. In fact, I could argue that the tendency of WotC to be insular while the OGL was active was a major part of their problem with managing the OGL.It's funny that the design team trumpeted that they started on the DDN process by going back and playing old editions of D&D; with or without OGL supplements, I wonder? And what about the OSR? Surely, professional game designers should be encouraged at all times to be aware of and conversant with the "state of the art"? Feedback from the customers can be crucial, here, certainly - but the design team should still be trying out what the competition are coming out with, it seems to me. In this respect, swapping of staff back and forth between game companies is a good thing, not a "problem".Plagiarism - of a sort - is a natural and even desirable part of any creative business. The line between "using the best state of the art" and "ripping off someone else's product" is a narrow one, but one where a fair degree of precedent exists to guide us*. Let standards arise, let licensing become considered normal and grow more relaxed and let natural (but not manic) competition have its head and I think you'll see a more healthy market, a more healthy hobby and a more healthy set of companies in the RPG "industry".*: That's not to say that I don't think the legal structures and processes around IP aren't in dire need of reform, both here in Europe and (even more so) in the USA. Big companies can get away with far too much these days without the case ever being tried in court (which most likely would and should go poorly for them if it were actually to happen).</blockquote>

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