kitsune9
Adventurer
Just some idle speculation. I'm just having difficulty with the idea of "$50 million or mothballs" and the new edition.
Actually, this is a very realistic practice in Western corporations. I'm a financial analyst and I put together budgets, projections, and conduct cost-analysis.
Every business operation in which a business decision is made carries an opportunity cost. Basically, the business manager has to decide, "If I do X, then what is my opportunity cost for not doing Y?" While this may seem like kind of a dumb question, it's one that is constantly being asked and people like me has to create a number of scenarios.
The second part of the business decision is the required rate of return. Business managers in order to keep stockholders happy have to maximize returns on their stock performance for their level of risk. For example if you own Stock A and it's return is 1% that has medium risk or a 1 year CD and it's return is 1% that has safe risk, which would you choose? The CD of course. So Stock A not only needs to turn a profit, but they have to beat comparable investments as well. The required rate of return must be higher than the cost of capital for the company along with any comparable investments (most companies set this at the Treasury rate yields since that is technically the most safest rate you can get).
So getting back to Hasbro in which the company deals in billions of revenue. The setting of a $50 mm to $100 mm is more than likely because each product stream needs to 1. be able to exceed their required rate of return and needs to be at least this high in order to contribute toward the net profit, 2. exceed the opportunity cost.
So, the point is that I'm stating whether or not 4e turned or did not turn a profit or whether it reached that mark or not, or what the future of D&D will be. What I'm showing is that it is a very valid and reasonable business decision to have a business manager say, "$50 mm or mothballs" because of these factors and other similar circumstances involved.
When I dealt with clinical trials, pharmaceautical companies base their decision drug decisions and opportunity costs in the hundreds of millions range. A drug that will bring in $100 mm of profit to a big pharma like Pfizer won't even get made. Hasbro faces similar decisions with their product lines.
Happy gaming!