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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tx7321" data-source="post: 3220060" data-attributes="member: 43146">Zogmo: "It's like punk music from the 70's. It was unpolished, energetic and it was speaking to a very small specialized crowd of people who were not fitting in with the "norm" of society."Exactly, and great observation.  The art from the early days had true love of the game shining through (like the early punk musicians), it wasn't technically perfect, but then making it technically perfect would have ruined it (for the many reasons listed above by others) like the early punk movement, it wasn't about being perfect...it was about "something" else.  Later on as the game was moved more "mainstream" (by marketers for the most part...I think this first shows up in Dragon Lance in a big way) the less detailed ruddy  but inspired look was swapped for stiff and refined (similar to musical movements (or hell even movements in fine art)...until it gets so technically proficient, so acceptable to everyone, so mainstream...that everyone looses interest in it...effectively killing its mystery and edgyness; then the next trendy radical thing takes hold (ironically 1E was most "mainstream" in the beginning and declined from that point on).  There is some evidence for this.  Take a look at the sales data for TSR from the early 80 to the mid 90s, you get a rise from nowhere in the beginning (with the classic art of Tramp and Otus etc.) till we reach the late 90s with high realism but greatly reduced sales numbers.   Of course the artistic changes went along with changes in the writing and focus of the game...also IMO an attempt to make the game more mainstream (the branching out into other more "mainstream" products like novels seem to support this notion).  What ever TSR did, they destroyed themselves, and I suspect their change in artists, writers and general focus had something to do with that early boost in sales post-gygax, and then later decline. And before you say anything , it can't all be blamed on video games, and competition.</blockquote>

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