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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5847359" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, yes and no. I think there are just deeper goals, or maybe it would be better to say intermediate goals, in there. It is clear from the whole "$100 million sales target" thing that the basic goal for 4e was to double or more the sales of 3.5. Clearly you do that with customers, but it is not as straightforward as "write some rules that appeal to the most people who will buy your game." There are at least a couple reasons for that.1) EVERY new edition further fragments the player base, and players of old editions aren't active paying customers. 2) The demographics of the whole game, and maybe the whole industry, are evolving unfavorably.3) The very concept of a TT PnP freeform RPG with face-to-face play and significant time investment is decreasingly well matched to people's behavior and wants.These are all statements made by knowledgeable people in the industry, not things I pulled out of my back pocket (and pardon to any of those people if I might not be understanding them of course). So achieving your #1-3 NO DOUBT is something WotC would like to do, but it may well be lower on the list of priorities than creating a business around the D&D IP that can survive and grow and be a high value cashflow producer for Hasbro. While it was never quite said that Hasbro has said "be a major product or else" that subtext certainly seemed to be there. Thus recapturing every player that played D&D in 2003 or whatever the peak of 3.x was, AND every one that has been a customer since then with the existing business model appears to be existential suicide for D&D because it simply can't lift them up to the requirements Hasbro has. Maybe if #4 is successful enough then for a while they might do that with the old business model, but they obviously didn't think so. That's why 4e with the DDI business model and anticipated other digital offerings, which was pitched as a roadmap to huge growth. Without that move to a different business model and evolution to a product that matches what people want to do and how they want to do it now today vs 1975 the attraction of a few OSR/PF fans is moot, the game will fold. Thus my original statement, there is no going back, only forward. Back is death. Forward might be death too, but better to try and fail then to slink into extinction.</blockquote>

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