NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5513970" data-attributes="member: 22424">Not necessarily true.At present, some (very high) percentage of players buy the PHB1. Some (signficantly lower) percentage then go and buy the DMG1 and MM1. Those latter two books sell far fewer copies than the PHB1. (It would be interesting to see the numbers, but I'd expect they sell about a third as many copies - that may of course be wrong.)However, there are also a certain number of people who might be interested in trying the game, but who take a look at that $100 buy-in, and take a look at the 800+ pages of reading that they have to do, all for a game they might like... and they give it a pass. (And yes, we know that the actual buy-in is much less; new players [/i]do not[/i].)If, by switching to a one-book model, WotC could double the sales of their single Core Rulebook, this could well make up for the loss of sales of the DMG/MM. (Assuming the "one third" estimate I gave above.)Additionally, it's probably better to get people in the door with a low entry point, so they might buy something else, rather than turn them away with a high entry point, so they definitely won't.Also...My guess is that to keep the hardcore interested, digital is the way to go. So, rather than a costly monthly hardback (at $30 a month, but which only a tiny and unknown fraction of players buy), they would be better served getting people to subscribe to DDI (at $6 to $15 per month, but with the resulting guaranteed monthly income stream).(Is there any 4e supplement that sold through its entire print run? I bet there weren't many - WotC always have to estimate the number of copies to print, which is inevitably inefficient. Online that's not an issue - everyone gets everything, and pays a fixed price per month.)If this is the case, then physical product is essentially a loss-leader, something that gets put out to entice new players, with a view to then converting as many to subscribers (by virtue of your excellent online materials). In this case, any losses due to going to one book instead of three are irrelevant - you're not in the business of selling books; the books are advertising for the real business of selling subscriptions, and so want to be placed in as many hands as possible.</blockquote>

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