Fairly interesting, the story of TSR, that is. I learned a LOT in the past few days about the company. From the standpoint of WOTC, it makes perfect sense to stop alot of the product lines that TSR did. As great, and as much fun as some of those lines were, it is not a good idea to branch out like they did. The following is a quote from an article about TSR:
"Unfortunately for Williams and TSR, this strategy, while presenting the initial appearance of success, is actually a strategy for long-term loss. The marketing term is "Brand Extension," but Bill Slavicsek director of RPGs, miniatures and R&D at Wizards of the Coast, just calls it the "Many Buckets" theory."
""Picture it this way," Slavicsek says, "it's raining money outside and you want to catch as much of it as you can. You can either make a really big bucket or waste your time and attention by creating a lot really small buckets -- either way, you're never going to make more rain." In plain English, TSR, by putting out a lot of product lines instead of supporting the main Dungeons & Dragons line, fragmented the marketplace. The same audience was giving the same amount of money to TSR every year, which had taken on the additional financial burden of creating, producing, and supporting hundreds of products. It needed to grow the marketplace, and these brand extensions weren't doing that.
The many settings also contributed to something called "Brand Dilution." The original Dungeons & Dragons brand stood for something. You knew essentially what you were getting when you bought a D&D product. All of these new settings began to play havoc with the rule sets and philosophy of the game. As the settings grew more popular, they began to diverge from one another, advancing along their chosen philosophical paths, essentially becoming their own separate games. "
It came from PC.gamespy.com.
Now, if another company would step up, like WhiteWolf with Ravenloft, then that is fine. I cannot see WOTC branching off with all those worlds anymore.
