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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6526451" data-attributes="member: 22779">I'm not sure I'd agree that 2006 was the height of 3.5.  By that point, virtually no one was producing 3pp - we had Goodman games, Green Ronin with a  couple of modules, and some odds and sods, but, outside of Paizo with Dungeon and Dragon (which weren't actually 3pp), the field was pretty empty.  4e had been in development for about a year by that point and would be announced in 2007 (Good grief, has it really been almost eight years already?).  Even on the forums at that time there was a fair bit of chatter about possibilities of a new edition because 3e was seen as pretty much played out.I think there's a lot of magic 8 ball style guesswork going on when we start talking about sales and whatnot.  Sure, the core 3 sell well, but, we know that later books don't.  The question is, in my mind, how much don't they sell?  What is the ratio to core books?  Does a supplement get 50% of the sales level of a core book?  20%?  10?  5?  I certainly don't know, but, I do admit that my gut feeling is that it's probably less than 5%.  Sure, the player books (Complete whatever class) might sell better than the fifth Forgotten Realms supplement, but, that's a pretty low bar.  How much is the drop off after core sales?Because if the drop off really is 95%, then that would very much explain why we don't see supplements coming out for 5e.  What's the point of cannibalising your profits?  At some point, you have to ask if it's worth it to produce the book.  If the ROI is so small, then why not just put your money in the bank and take vacations?</blockquote>

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