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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mattrex" data-source="post: 5688280" data-attributes="member: 81794">Whenever I see a company--any company--start talking about "looking to the future" while simultaneously being very secretive about exactly what it is they're planning, I get a little suspicious. This combined with 4E's reduced product schedule and slipping in the sales charts suggests to me that some men in suits at Wizards (or Hasbro) are starting to get very worried. The question I have--and one which won't be answered for a while, I suspect--is whether they're formulating a masterstroke which will seize the market, or whether they're fumbling in the dark and trying to keep anyone from finding out.If the first, their relative secrecy combined with the rehiring of Monte Cook would mean to me that they're working on something like 4.5 for D&D, something to revamp the existing game, reinvigorate the base, spike product sales of revised core rulebooks, and give the game a new lease, the same as what happened with Third Edition back in 2003 (which was also three years after 3E's release).If the second, then I'd think they were starting to panic at being overtaken by their once-marginal competitor, Paizo, and the rehiring of Cook would suggest that they're going to try to recapture the market or stymie Paizo's runaway growth by essentially beating them at their own game and trying to inject or revise 4E toward some sort of 3.5/4E hybrid (or even make 4.5 much closer to 3.5 than it is currently).There will always be some reason for vagueness and secrecy, but when it comes to a company that releases a product like an ongoing RPG, I think the biggest ones boil down to(a) wanting to catch competitors unawares, not giving them time to react strategically to moves in the market; or(b) not wanting to let customers know beforehand that the books they're about to buy will soon be obsolete (because of a new edition, a significant revision, etc.).One thing I've come to understand by following Paizo's rationalizations for why it does or doesn't do certain things is that market forces play a huge role in determining what a company like Paizo or Wizards does, when they do it, and how they do it. These aren't starry-eyed idealists slaving away in their basements on a labor of love that will be perfectly crafted masterpieces (though some of them may also be that). They're corporations worth millions of dollars which rely on a steady revenue stream for their survival. Everything has to be weighed against the question of "will this move more product?" So in the end, while I think that everyone involved in writing material for D&D has only the best motives and expectations and good faith, the people who cut their paychecks (and hence, the strategic decision makers) are more concerned about the market.</blockquote>

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