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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steve Conan Trustrum" data-source="post: 2672469" data-attributes="member: 1620">My point wasn't so much about where the deflated sales are coming from so much as the fact that they'd happen, regardless. If sales go down because of a policy here or anywhere else, the nature of publishing is such that the publisher will try and make it up by putting more energy into some place that allows them to compensate. Say you find you simply aren't getting as many of your sales here because most of your customers have a long history with RPGnow or DriveThru and simply want to consolidate their provider (as just one possibility--it's not the only scenario in either direction of the debate, to be sure.) Now, there's not much you can really do about that because of the policy which means you've got to put more energy into promoting at another site that allows you to push your alternate vendors, be that a single alternate site or a bunch. While people looking for the perceived "faster fix" (meaning the ILLUSION of less clicks of buying at EnWorld--it will actually be no faster than following a direct to another provider) works for Morrus' purposes, as you point out, it may not work for yours, mine or any number of other publishers who may decide that EnWorld's store isn't where they want to focus their sales efforts, for whatever reasons.You'd not be trying to push RPGnow, Drivethru or any other site. You wouldn't even be snubbing EnWorld. You'd simply be a publisher reacting to the fact that a policy limiting how you can post links mean you're limiting the options you can offer customers here.Like I said, on the front end it works to EnWorld's advantage, but limiting sales venues simply doesn't work for product providers (that would be we publishers) because the nature of customers is to enjoy easy access to options. They like to shop around. So, keep in mind that while while this policy will likely decrease sales to competitors, that doesn't automatically mean any publisher's sales will simply shunt over to here and stay the same or even increase (although the latter can certainly happen too)--and if that is the case, what's the incentive for publishers to hang out here beyond the capacity of pushing their product rather than spending time elsewhere that allows them to do both? Consider the downside that such a possibility would have to the overall site over the long run.This isn't a definate scenario for any and all publishers, but it is indeed a possibility and a strong one if things I've seen happen in other industries are any indication.It basically boils down to one irrefutalbe fact of marketing to our sort of market: the wider you cast your net, the more likely you are to catch more fish. And why would you not want to cast your net wide if you already know you're sitting on a good fishing hole?</blockquote>

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