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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pramas" data-source="post: 4578101" data-attributes="member: 995">Well, this has turned into quite the thread. I obviously can't comment on every post, but let me make a few points:1. I want D&D to attract a lot of new players so there will be more gamers to sell RPGs to. When I comment on 4E's level of success or acqusition strategy, this is where I'm coming from. D&D is the gateway through which most roleplayers enter the hobby, so it's in the best of anyone selling RPGs for it to remain strong. 2. I'm not worried about 4E failing. If this thing had crashed and burned on release, that would already be apparent. Clearly it has had some success. The questions are how much, how sustainable is it, and can it grow the hobby beyond that of the third edition era?3. Large publishers usually sell to online stores like Amazon through the book trade. That's how WotC did it when I was there and that's how GR does it too. 4. My sources were talking about 4E as a whole selling in well and then slowing down quickly. In addition to that commentary, one of them noted that new 4E supplements were selling at about the same level as latter day 3E supplements. The expectation was that the new products for a new edition would sell a lot better than books released 7-8 years into third edition. 5. Even were 4E to somehow fail, WotC would soldier on as long as Magic keeps selling. That's the real profit center of the company (Pokemon left the company 5 or so years ago). WotC's nightmare is not going out of business, but Hasbro shutting down the Renton office, laying off most of the employees, relocating a small staff of people to Rhode Island to pump out Magic sets, and hanging on to brands like D&D to use as licensing assets. Unless sales really go to hell, this is extremely unlikely. 6. I'd be careful about drawing conclusions from my original post. I've heard a few things from some interesting sources, but I don't pretend to know the full picture. The people with that info will be keeping it to themselves.Have a happy weekend, everyone. Go and play some games; I know I will!</blockquote>

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