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<blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 3875339" data-attributes="member: 3649">The significant thing is that of those, only two are produced by WoTC. TSR's failure was that they themselves produced FR, Ravenloft, Al-Quadim, Planescape, Kara-Tur, Birthright, etc etc etc. This led to the company effectively competing with itself.There's a thing called Brand Dilution. Simply, it's over exposure. Brand Dilution occurs when a new product bearing a brand is perceived as not being very different from previous products. Remember Dacey's letter about how TSR created a dozen variants on the same damn thing? This is brand dilution. TSR was trying to sell different variations of the same thing to the same pool of customers; they assumed that people would buy anything with the TSR name on it regardless if it was just the same old pig kitted out in different makeup and let's make no mistake: there simply isn't a lot of difference between the various game worlds. In face, with Spelljammer and the like, TSR actively sought to make them more the same.Later on, it looks like they tried to reverse this by creating things that were at least trying to address different segments of the gamer market with Alternity and&nbsp; Amazing Engine. It was pretty much 'too little too late' at that point, though. This would have been Brand Extension, which is a good thing: by recognizing that there are different sorts of customers, you target brands to those customers. You target the rules-light crowd with Amazing Engine, you target the SciFi or Generic Genre gamers with Alternity, etc. This comes back to the central reason TSR failed: they didn't listen to their customer base.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WayneLigon, post: 3875339, member: 3649"] The significant thing is that of those, only two are produced by WoTC. TSR's failure was that they themselves produced FR, Ravenloft, Al-Quadim, Planescape, Kara-Tur, Birthright, etc etc etc. This led to the company effectively competing with itself. There's a thing called Brand Dilution. Simply, it's over exposure. Brand Dilution occurs when a new product bearing a brand is perceived as not being very different from previous products. Remember Dacey's letter about how TSR created a dozen variants on the same damn thing? This is brand dilution. TSR was trying to sell different variations of the same thing to the same pool of customers; they assumed that people would buy anything with the TSR name on it regardless if it was just the same old pig kitted out in different makeup and let's make no mistake: there simply isn't a lot of difference between the various game worlds. In face, with Spelljammer and the like, TSR [I]actively sought [/I] to make them more the same. Later on, it looks like they tried to reverse this by creating things that were at least [I]trying [/I] to address different segments of the gamer market with Alternity and Amazing Engine. It was pretty much 'too little too late' at that point, though. This would have been Brand Extension, which is a good thing: by recognizing that there are different sorts of customers, you target brands to those customers. You target the rules-light crowd with Amazing Engine, you target the SciFi or Generic Genre gamers with Alternity, etc. This comes back to the central reason TSR failed: they didn't listen to their customer base. [/QUOTE]

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