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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 2261772" data-attributes="member: 8835">Intellectual Property is any idea I can make money off of (as the owner of said IP).  Additionally, preventing the competition from making money by controlling IP is kinda the same as making money.As some one who gets paid for his ideas, I can say with some certainty that that's pretty much what IP is.  Some of my ideas are patentable, some are trade secrets (ex. we don't want the competition to know about).  Of the patentable, we might license out some of those ideas, or patent to direct prevent the competition from finding an advantage in that space.In D&D's case, pretty much all the books probably counts as IP.  The OGL/SRD content would be ideas that are given away freely, to stimulate the industry and provide some benefit to Wotc, beyond direct sales to customers.  The D&D brand is valuable, but is a TradeMark and probably not technically considered IP (IANAL).Now the D&D concept is IP.  And that IP has a history from the beginning to the present.  That means, while 1E had memorable adventures, and 2E had memorable settings, the D&D concept contains all of that.  It's the history, that supports the brand, and that is the concept that is valuable.  Tome of Horrors isn't worth a hill of beans as a product, but its value is the memories of the older players have and the attraction it generates to the current D&D products.What are those products?  As Phill and somebody else said:Novels (everybody can read)video games (some number of non-gamers play, free exposure)RPG system (all RPG players)players add-on books (mostly players which is 4/5 of a group)Campaign settings (mostly DM's which is 1/5 of a group)modules (dm's only which is 1/5 of a group)To maximize profit, WotC is likely to put the focus on what's got the most people that are candidates to buy it.  Novels, Video Games, and player add-ons win that.Now celebrim may be questioning how long player add-ons will last, before all that's doable has been done.  Certainly feeding the less profitable components supports the system, but WotC is going to try to find the balance so they can get the best bang for buck (least development to most sales ratio).  Companies always have a hard time figuring out how much time to spend in the less profitable pools, because the direct sales value is minimal, but it's hard to measure the indirect impact those products have on the major products.  For example, a computer company makes money selling servers and options.  They may sell desktop machines because it gets brand recognition out there to increase the chance you'll the good stuff later.  They don't make money on the desktops (at least not much if they do).  So one PHB may decide the desktop group doesn't make money, so they spin it off or shut it down.  What's hard to measure is the value the desktop line provided to sales of other products.  Same problem in D&D, just a different industry.Janx</blockquote>

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