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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9428973" data-attributes="member: 7035894">Game Wizards doesn't discuss the Williams years much at all - it basically concludes with Gygax losing control of TSR. Anything you read about poor financials in Game Wizards is from the Gygax/Blumes era. The Random House deal started becoming a problem-in-waiting for TSR after their sales projections started exceeding their actual sales by a significant degree in the early 80s.TSR was all but insolvent when Williams took over. That's well documented in Game Wizards and elsewhere, and made very clear in the podcast. I agree that part of her strategy to stabilize the company seemed to revolve around using the Random House deal as something like a line of credit to keep kicking the can down the road, always looking for the next big score to right the ship. It bought the company another decade, but absent that big score - another hit on the scale of 1e from 79-82 - TSR was probably doomed as an independent company from 1983 onwards.The main problem that TSR had, and that Williams inherited when she bought the company, is that book publishing is a tough racket, especially when your core product is still fairly niche by publishing standards. It's actually the same problem that Hasbro has with D&amp;D today. It's a globally recognized brand that doesn't make a ton of money (by the standards of globally recognized brands, and particularly compared to Magic: the Gathering) because it still makes most of its money off books, and there is a limited upside to that.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9428973, member: 7035894"] [I]Game Wizards[/I] doesn't discuss the Williams years much at all - it basically concludes with Gygax losing control of TSR. Anything you read about poor financials in [I]Game Wizards[/I] is from the Gygax/Blumes era. The Random House deal started becoming a problem-in-waiting for TSR after their sales projections started exceeding their actual sales by a significant degree in the early 80s. TSR was all but insolvent when Williams took over. That's well documented in [I]Game Wizards[/I] and elsewhere, and made very clear in the podcast. I agree that part of her strategy to stabilize the company seemed to revolve around using the Random House deal as something like a line of credit to keep kicking the can down the road, always looking for the next big score to right the ship. It bought the company another decade, but absent that big score - another hit on the scale of 1e from 79-82 - TSR was probably doomed as an independent company from 1983 onwards. The main problem that TSR had, and that Williams inherited when she bought the company, is that book publishing is a tough racket, especially when your core product is still fairly niche by publishing standards. It's actually the same problem that Hasbro has with D&D today. It's a globally recognized brand that doesn't make a ton of money (by the standards of globally recognized brands, and particularly compared to [I]Magic: the Gathering[/I]) because it still makes most of its money off books, and there is a limited upside to that. [/QUOTE]

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