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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4864242" data-attributes="member: 2067">Assuming everyone who is playing a 1e ruleset would be playing a 5e ruleset if 1e was unavailable, yes.Assuming everyone who is playing a 1e ruleset would be playing OSRIC instead, no.The truth probably isn't so binary, but I'm not sure cannibalism is a given, at least any more than OSRIC and Pathfinder and Castles & Crusades and WHFRP and blah blah blah already hurt the market.You'd still find the vast majority under the newest edition, probably, and letting the kids tinker around with earlier editions in your backyard makes sure you keep them where you can still sell them stuff, rather than going off on their own in some dangerous back alley. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />People want WotC to support the game they love. Of course, "the game they love" is always their own home games. My view was more like a Flat Earth Publishing model. Flat Earth Publishing is in the college textbook industry. They don't make anything they publish in-house. What they do is rely on individual professors to find the stuff the professors like, and then they package it together for that specific course and professor, selling the individualized packets in multiple forms (mp3's, for instance).In this wild theory of an industry, WotC becomes the publisher, but less the designer. They rely on individual DMs to find the stuff the DMs like, and then package it together for that spcific group and DM, selling the packets as PDF's, as PoD books, as customized campaign websites, whatever.So the idea is that WotC isn't really creating much in-house content anymore.Rather, they rely on D&D's extensive network of homebrewers, tinkerers, and hobbyists to do most of the design. These gamers submit stuff to WotC to be published, and whenever someone pays for a publication of that gamer's material, that gamer maybe gets a small cut of the profits. The submitted material is evaluated based on the users ranking and commenting on them (other hobbyists and creators). The best stuff rises to the surface, and gets published more often. Maybe WotC has a small staff of experts (say, a team of 5 designers) who comb over the best submitted stuff. Maybe they have an in-hosue team of adventure writers and they also sell subscriptions. Maybe. But even that is probably superfluous. How much more profit do you think WotC would make if they could eliminate 60% of their staff, and only pay for work that was effectively already selling?I mean, these are basically just wild ideas, but I don't forsee profitability being a problem under this wild idea. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> There are probably other problems, not the least of which is that making this wild idea a reality would require a pretty huge change in the habits of the market and the industry -- that's a pretty significant challenge. The OGL was never really embraced by WotC, but I'm under the impression that 3e was wildly successful! The OGL might not've helped that, but it certainly didn't hurt it (only the accountants with the numbers from 3e under OGL and 4e under nothing-then-GSL can say for sure if it had any effect for sure, but it certainly didn't seem to be a negative one).There's people out there buying 3e stuff (Pathfinder) whether or not WotC wants them to be. If at all possible, they should still be buying 3e stuff from WotC. That hasn't been possible in a world where you need to publish books to have a game system, but that's not the only way to have a game, and if WotC doesn't realize that, perhaps some other company will sooner or later... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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