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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5606773" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think DDI can, and is moving in the direction of, doing just that. Already it has a pretty decent subscriber base and it is hard to imagine that with 50k subscribers forking out something like $7 a month it isn't already a major source of cashflow. They may be plowing most of that back into developing it further, but with the low risk inherent to digital content and the fact that it represents a constant stream of cash it certainly seems to me that it represents the economic future of the game in some fashion. The thing is, it also simply gets better with time. There's always more content there, more tools, better tools, better integration, and clearly many opportunities to introduce new and compelling features like user content etc. Once you have that you really don't need, or maybe even want, a large mass of printed books out there. You can continue to sell a series of rules references similar to some of the Essentials stuff, modules, and other support products. People's desires for more crunch can also be channeled into other things like niche products aimed at specific genres and settings which might not be viable physical products but can easily be tossed out on DDI where they need only help attract a small number of extra users to justify their existence. Whatever crunch is in those little gardens need not weigh down the core product, and if a specific element proves to be really successful and relevant to the larger game it is again really easy to rework it to apply to the whole core system.And yes, AD&D was operating in a different sort of market, but there was still plenty of competition and it also wasn't always a steadily growing thing. There were downturns in the 80's and 90's too. You'll also note that the peaks of AD&D popularity corresponded rather closely with the release of additional material. There was a big bump around the time 2e was released in particular. So I'm not sure the same dynamics weren't at work back then. I think TSR simply didn't release core system books purely for the sake of a few more $s. They certainly DID release core books, but I think they did it when they thought it made the most sense and they were highly focused products for the most part. Oddly it was exactly when they started throwing new crunch out left and right in the later half of 2e where they hit the wall and died hard.</blockquote>

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