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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TerraDave" data-source="post: 5894150" data-attributes="member: 22260">I think, from the point of view of the economics of the game, its a feature, not a bug.Though game designers sometimes get confused about it. Some people are more into the game. These people are more likely to buy stuff and DM. Some people are less into it, and spend less. And there are people in between, and correlation is not perfect. This makes it easier for more hard-core people to find people to play with (who can spend a lot less), lowers entry barriers to the game, but also means there are big spenders who do more to sustain the brand and hobby. I think this has been key pretty much from the start. BUT, game designers, or their managers, are obsessed with the idea that there are more players then DMs, and they strive and strive to sell to them. This probably works, up to a point, with gamers in the midpoint of the spectrum, who may buy the occasional splat or subscribe periodically to DDI (or Dragon back in the day).But I think it only works so well. I don't think Olaf is unusual in being a DM with a bunch of player splats. If DM only bought DM stuff, you wouldn't see many splats, because a large part of the market would go away.  And more committed players will sometimes buy DM stuff, and not just to cheat. But therein lies the problem. If things get too "player oriented" it may annoy or turn off the DMs who are also the biggest buyers. At some point, many DMs sort of get wise to what I am typing here, and cut back on things they don't need. They also get annoyed if they feel that some of their DM authority (which they now need to rationalize all that spending...its a vicious circle) is sapped by an excess of player options or doing things like putting magic items in player books. Annoying them means loosing both the biggest customers, and those that help get more casual players to buy anything at all.</blockquote>

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