Shortman McLeod said:
I sincerely hope they *don't* release a new setting every year. It will significantly dilute the brand and split the market.
This is one of many things that killed 2e.
Actually this
is true, it is one of the things that hurt 2e. It didn't
kill 2e, however. That's a whole other ball of wax.
As for proof, you can go and look up any old designers and their notes on the demise of 2e. They mention all of their lines and how they were not sustainable. A friend of mine who is a consultant explained on splitting the market hurts the product. You produce, say, Birthright and you produce Planescape. Now, every month, you are producing twice as much product because you need to produce stuff for both settings. But your core base has not expanded. So 50% of the consumers are buying Birthright and 50% are buying Planescape. So you are producing twice as much product and getting half of the returns on both.
In any event, I am not concerned that this will happen to 4e
at all. I'm sure they've learned their lesson. The impression that I've gotten is that they will release a
single book for each setting a year. For example, just
one book for, say, Birthright. One book for Eberron. One book for Ravenloft.
My money is a book on Ravenloft, since they are coming out with new novels for that setting.