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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2097773" data-attributes="member: 14159">And that's what we call the "T$R" mentality.  It isn't protecting rights, it's overprotective.  It alienates the fans, builds corporate ill-will, and slowly poisons a company.  Palladium got some C&D letters early in the internet age, as a lot of the details were still being feeled out.  This was the same era when TSR demanded all fan-written material was their copyright and had to be hosted on their servers, and when Paramount was going around trying to shut every Star Trek fan site down claiming "copyright infringement" for having a web site that talked about Trek.  However, Cease and Desist letters mean squat.  All they mean is "Our lawyers are unhappy with you."  They are often more of an intimidation tactic than anything.  C&D's are often written for claims that wouldn't stand up in court but they hope they'll intimidate people into stop doing things that they could never get a court to order, and some people in gaming have ignored them repeatedly knowing they are nonsense (I love the editorial/retrospective in KoDT #100 where they talk about the huge file of TSR C&D's Shadis regularly got for mentioning AD&D and ignored knowing they were legally in the clear).I seriously doubt that Palladium is still the #3 company in roleplaying.  The 2000 WotC market data is 5 years old (predating the entire d20 era), and the Ken Hite data is highly suspect even by his own admissions.  We have no accurate, up-to-date information on the status of the industry.We generally know that WotC is #1 and White Wolf is #2, and from there it is debatable.  AEG, Mongoose, Steve Jackson, Palladium, FanPro and such are jockeying for position.  From what I've seen, I'd say Mongoose is #3 or #4, and Palladium has slipped, since the amount of space I've seen devoted to them in the several FLGS I know has shrank steadily over the course of the last 5 years.  Steve Jackson just announced a gross of $2.8 million last year, I doubt that makes him 3% of the industry, gaming isn't a particularly huge industry I'm afraid.Also, if Palladium is mainly selling through comic book stores, as is proposed, are they really even in the same industry anymore if they are selling to a different fan-base who doesn't play other games, doesn't want anything to do with any other company, and doesn't really compete for shelf-space or customer's dollars with D&D or GURPS or whatever?</blockquote>

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