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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JLowder" data-source="post: 9467035" data-attributes="member: 28003">That rumor circulated in-house at TSR in 1996 or so: upper management was supposedly mulling over closing down much of the RPG program and shifting the design and editing staff to fiction, as writers and editors, because novels cost less to produce and had a higher profit margin than the games. (I was not working there at the time, but still hung out with some of the staff, which was where I heard it; I recently confirmed the rumor with the staffer who originally told me, as part of my research for the 50th anniversary D&D fiction program panel at Gen Con this year.) The company was such a mess at the time, those kinds of rumors were common.This rumor may or may not have been true, but the (short-term) financial logic was sound. The novels did cost less to produce, sold well, and had a higher profit margin. I would also not be shocked to learn upper management was deperate enough to consider it, given the terrible financial shape the company was in, or that they (mistakenly) assumed the majority of their RPG staff could just become fiction writers and editors on command. With a few notable exceptions, TSR upper management from the mid-80s through the company's sale were ignorant of the products they produced and the skillsets possessed by their staff and freelancers.</blockquote>