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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 8928859" data-attributes="member: 14159">TSR failed for a number of reasons:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Total and complete lack of market research.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Low-quality products that were never playtested (as Lorraine Williams forbade the playtesting of products on company time).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spreading out the product line across a vast number of settings, making many books setting-specific that could have been made more appealing to more players by making them setting-neutral.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A large number of poorly selling dubious product launches like Dragonlance Saga and Dragon Dice.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A large number of Buck Rogers games printed that virtually nobody wanted to buy (and no stores wanted to sell, so they sat in warehouses) that were made entirely because Lorraine Williams personally got royalties for each product printed as the heir to the Buck Rogers IP.</li> </ul>. . .and yeah, some absurdly mismanaged finances too.TSR failed for a number of reasons, and its a tribute to how successful and popular D&D is that it took years of that kind of extreme mismanagement to drive it into the ground.  It survived for a long time in spite of incredible mismanagement.As to the idea of microtransactions. . .while I'm generally skeptical of microtransactions in general, all I can think is how many times people bought a specific splatbook for one specific race, class, feat, or spell.  How many people bought a book for just a few "crunchy bits?  I also know people who would have bought those books, but couldn't justify spending $20 or $30 for just one thing they want, so I can see the appeal from a sales angle of just being able to sell the ONE thing that people want.  I didn't want to buy the Eberron Campaign Setting for 3e, because I never really got the appeal of Eberron as a setting and couldn't justify a $50 purchase for a hardcover of a setting I'd never play or run, but I was interested in the Warforged race and Artificer class.  If they'd had a cheaper publication that just had those elements, I would have bought those at the time instead.</blockquote>

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