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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Akrasia" data-source="post: 2505037" data-attributes="member: 23012">This comment was interesting: Q: We see things splintering away from core rulebook, is that good or bad?A: Chris: From our point of view, things went back for D20 when D&D 3.5 came out, if you were a 3rd party publisher, WOTC kicked you in the nuts (can't sell your backstock). Issue: Are you playing D&D right now, are you going to switch to those rules. Wizards definitely didn't sell as many 3.5 core rulebooks as 3.0, that excitement level can't be kept. It would be fine if they were really going to fix what was needed, instead of endless tweaks and changes (death of a thousand cuts). You can date the decline of the core D20 market from July 2003. We've continued to do core stuff, but when 3.5 came out, our line that was immune was Mutants and Masterminds. Well, D20 core sales going down, M&M continued to sell very strong. That is the economic message that we cannot afford to ignore. Frankly when Blue Rose came out, I wasn't expecting the story to be the rules set. If that works well, between us and other publishers helping us with True 20, we're creating our own network, stand on our own. What is Wizards going to do with 4.0? They could even have it not be open. It would drastically affect a lot of people. It's likely in 2007 or 2008, do 4th edition. Books they're putting out are getting more and more obtuse (oooh - sourcebook about cold places). They're not getting those numbers they got in like Manual of Planes with these specialist books. What happens to us then is an open question. If in the interim we built up our own network, that insulates us. Do we still like D20, sure. Would we like to do more: of course. We'll see.Interesting -- though not surprising -- that GR is gradually deemphasizing their focus on d20 products, and building up their 'independent' games (M&M, True 20). Mongoose appears to be doing the same (e.g. making more things OGL rather than d20, their new Runequest game coming out next year, etc.). It seems to be a general trend -- and rational, given that there is no guarantee that 4e D&D will keep the OGL.</blockquote>

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