"Huh, yup, it's still here. Five years later, and no one's so much as sniffed at it." Since, really, who wants to pay $100 for 1) an RPG that 2) sits in a very niche demographic that 3) based on all customer reviews bears no mechanical resemblance to other popular RPGs?
I keep thinking I should buy it, then eBay it for more than I paid for it, since I'm sure in 5-10 years somebody will be dying to find a copy. There's always a collector out there somewhere.
Whilst 1 is certainly true, 2 wasn't really something that was immediately clear, indeed, at the time WFRP3 came out, the "really complicated boardgame" market was absolutely blossoming, and a lot of the people buying in it were ex-RPGers, so I think there was an expectation (a frustrated one, in the end) that they would want to get in on it. 3 cuts both ways - if I want a game to be easily accepted by my main group, I certainly want something with accessible mechanics - one way for mechanics to be accessible is to be similar to mechanics they already know (the other main way is to have simple, easily-learned, sense-making mechanics) - but at the same time, I actually shy away from dropping large sums on RPGs which are basically "The same again!" mechanics-wise. YMMV of course on that.
So I'm just saying it's more "it seemed like a good idea a the time" than the "obviously dumb" idea some are trying to use hindsight to suggest it was.
I note, though, that despite being an RPGer and into complicated boardgames and knowing a lot of people who might have been interested, I didn't get WFRP3, because the whole deal with all the specialized dice and stuff seemed waaaay too like:
A) A naked cash-grab - I mean, there's new systems, then there's trying to force me to buy a new dice bucket, and I draw the line somewhere!
and
B) Likely to force me to haul lots of lose-able components around with me to play (ugh) - I don't mind hauling some stuff, but only if it's essentially easily replaced.
EDIT - Example of "shying away" - There's just no way I'd have bought a WFRP3 which was basically just a slightly mechanically refined and visually updated WFRP2, personally, because, well, I have WFRP2, so why would I need that? You'd need a significantly different and improved system for me to ever buy a WFRP again.
