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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaguara" data-source="post: 9256737" data-attributes="member: 6703721">Many, many moons ago, I used to work in the gaming industry and I got to see the official TSR market research surveys and sales figures. Now, to be clear, this was a really long time ago (pre-WOTC and pre-Hasbro) and the hobby has changed significantly over the years. This information is decades old but the figures I saw showed more of a 60-40 split for home-brewed adventures over published ones but a much wider split (in the 70+ range) in favor of published settings. In other words, most people ran their own adventures in TSR's worlds (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, etc.). To be sure, many of those GMs tweaked the settings to suit their tastes and games but I don't feel that truly qualifies as home-brewing a setting.You can actually see the impact of this survey in TSR's publishing history. In the early days, TSR's strategy was to generate a steady revenue stream through the regular publication of adventure modules (which were easier and quicker to produce) with the occasional sourcebook. Then this survey hit and it prompted the Powers-That-Be to actually look at the sales figures. They quickly realized what most of us already knew - sourcebooks outsell adventures by a huge margin.This was around the late 80s - early 90s. TSR retooled their release schedule to prioritize sourcebooks and setting books over adventures and adventure modules kind of dried up with small third-party publishers stepping in to fill the gap. But people still wanted pre-published adventures - they just didn't buy them as often. So TSR pivoted again and began blending adventures with sourcebooks. The legacy of that decision can still be felt today. Look at the new Saltmarsh and Rime. These are more setting books with some adventures mixed in. In the case of Salt Marsh, you have what is essentially a mini-campaign setting and Hasbro-WOTC-TSR simply upcycled old adventures to wrap around it. Rime is a Ten-Towns sourcebook with some adventures added.</blockquote>

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