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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott_Rouse" data-source="post: 3485288" data-attributes="member: 51773">Drinking from the firehose. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> Wow I go a way for 24 hours and holy crap! Thanks for all the great comments. One observation: Gamers spend a lot of time reading on the bus and/or the toilet. Some may be in prison. :\  Lidda and I are here, we are trying to read everything (as are a few WOTC lurkers). We can't say a hell of a lot right now. We are NDA'd 8 ways until Sunday and there are just things we can't discuss. We will try to answer when posible and avoid the using the vague jibba jabba. This is largely on our own time as we have a lot of day to day stuff to do (unless you want us to stop making games haha) so it may be sporadic and we likely wont get into indivual conversations. But we really like the interaction and will do our best pop a beer (just me not Lidda), sit on the couch, and come in, hang out, and chat.So a few things i've thought about: Hasbro stays out of our day to day business of operating the D&D brand. We report up stuff like revenue but when it comes down to micro management (review of a book or miniature etc) that doesn't happen. They largely take the "if it's not broke don't fix it role". So why tell you this? They aren't selling D&D or worried that it isn't (and needs to be) WoW. D&D fills a very nice niche that very few other brands can deliver. D&D is stronger than ever. The success of D&D is due in large part to everyone on this site (and fans alike everywhere).People ask "were you expecting the reaction you got about the Paizo announcement?" Yes we pretty much knew people would be PO'd although it is not always easy to gauge the level of an "expected" reaction. That being said, yeah it sucks to be getting your butt chewed off on the boards but at least people care enough to complain. Not to sound crass, but in certain respects the day fans stop complaining is the day I pack up my desk beacuse it means people no longer care. It's easy to armchair QB the PR but the only thing I would have changed not letting this situation be the thing that finally got me out of lurkerdom and into posterville.Contrary to the popular belief I have seen on the boards, Hasbro is a great company to work for. I don't mean to sound like a corporate stooge but they treat their employees pretty darn well.  They are also really philanthropic, for example they do a ton for underprivledged kids and the troops (we just sent a huge package of games to Ziggurat con in Iraq).  This is not Enron or even Exxon, those companies don't make D&D.Again NDA'd up the wazzo but the Paizo thing went down the way we called it in the inetrview, I was in most of the meetings. They asked us for a date, we discussed a bit, and mutually agreed to a plan. The timing was as we said, this planned well in advance. We knew they would slingshot off the announcement to promote a new product (Pathfinder) and our goal was to  stay out of the way for a while and pretty much be the silent meat shield. They needed the timing to be as it was to take advantage of GAMA and face to face discussions with retailers, notify their newsstand and other distributors , and give subscribers and readers a chance to decide what to do with any residual subscription money. I truely wish them all the success with Pathfinder and look forward to working with them in the future. Lisa, Erik, Jason, James, Wil, Pierce, Sean and the other folks there are awesome. Paper is not going away. We have a product plan that goes out years (look we've already announced products through the end of 2007) and we are working on '08 stuff right now. We plan a long way out.  We've got an idea of products that go out 5 years and further. There is a ton of paper products (and plastic) on the plan. Table top roleplaying is at the heart of the brand and as Bill said we are not changing that. As I've said we plan a long way out on everything. For example my team is already working on marketing plans for 2008. We've done most of the product development and initial sell in on all titles through the  end of '07. Unless an asteroid hits Renton we largely know how the year will turn out. That being said we have a plan for the online stuff. Work is in progress.  Based on what I am reading I think most will be very happy. That being said we still have enough fluidity to incorporate feedback so keep it comingI like the fire hose.</blockquote>

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