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Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6556966" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>That's a massive oversimplification. As I recall, <em>Unearthed Arcana</em> was printed when Gary got back from the West Coast and found that the Blumes had basically run TSR into the ground (e.g. they had TSR purchase a needle and quilting company, for some reason), rather than sales simply drying up all on their own.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, that's not the whole of the story. WotC printed the 3E Core Rulebooks at a loss and sold them below cost because they were more than making up for it with sales of M:tG; trying to grow the D&D market over the long-term was something that the then-heads of WotC felt very strongly about, even if it meant short-term losses (since they could afford those losses thanks to Magic). However, Hasbro put a stop to that strategy when it split the D&D and Magic divisions of WotC into different areas of responsibility. With D&D no longer being supported by Magic, then they had to kick-start a new "edition" in order to make up the difference - it had nothing to do with sales suddenly worsening.</p><p></p><p>The infamous "d20 bust" of late-2002/early-2003 was caused by the announcement and release of 3.5, rather than the other way around.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The explanation is Hasbro's corporate shenanigans yanking the rug out from under an otherwise-successful strategy of taking a short-term loss to try and grow a long-term future. By the time 4E came around, WotC didn't have to pivot on that stance any longer, and were focused on short-term profitability from the get-go.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6556966, member: 8461"] That's a massive oversimplification. As I recall, [i]Unearthed Arcana[/i] was printed when Gary got back from the West Coast and found that the Blumes had basically run TSR into the ground (e.g. they had TSR purchase a needle and quilting company, for some reason), rather than sales simply drying up all on their own. Again, that's not the whole of the story. WotC printed the 3E Core Rulebooks at a loss and sold them below cost because they were more than making up for it with sales of M:tG; trying to grow the D&D market over the long-term was something that the then-heads of WotC felt very strongly about, even if it meant short-term losses (since they could afford those losses thanks to Magic). However, Hasbro put a stop to that strategy when it split the D&D and Magic divisions of WotC into different areas of responsibility. With D&D no longer being supported by Magic, then they had to kick-start a new "edition" in order to make up the difference - it had nothing to do with sales suddenly worsening. The infamous "d20 bust" of late-2002/early-2003 was caused by the announcement and release of 3.5, rather than the other way around. The explanation is Hasbro's corporate shenanigans yanking the rug out from under an otherwise-successful strategy of taking a short-term loss to try and grow a long-term future. By the time 4E came around, WotC didn't have to pivot on that stance any longer, and were focused on short-term profitability from the get-go. [/QUOTE]
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