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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6975680" data-attributes="member: 6778044">Yeah, it doesn't really work that way.They set a business plan, and have their goals for the products they produce. If those products are making those sales goals, then they are a success. It's pretty simple.More importantly, in a hobby like this, the people producing the products spend lots of money at their "competitors" and play their games too. They are happy that you do that, because it builds a healthy hobby, and the larger the hobby base, the larger the customer base.Yes, because of the company and the fact that they own D&D, the original RPG, they certainly want to be the leader in the hobby. But the way the business world sees success is profits and sales numbers for individual products.If the sales goal is 50,000 units of the new AP, and they are selling 50,000 plus, then that's a success. So one person "taking their money to a competitor" doesn't have any impact at all. Not to mention, in hobbies like this, there really isn't a competitor. If you want to play D&D, then you buy it from WotC.Sure, Pathfinder is a branch of D&D, but it's also a different game at this point. Why? Because Wizards doesn't sell 3.5e material anymore. They really aren't a "competitor" in the way Coke is to Pepsi. Just like Gears of War isn't a competitor to Call of Duty. Gamers buy both.People will argue that Pathfinder outperformed 4e. I don't have the numbers, and that's quite possible. But the reality is, it's really not a question of whether Pathfinder sold more or not. It's a question as to how 4e performed against their own internal sales goals. If it's underperforming, or sales are declining, then you do something about it.Pathfinder may have been an indication that WotC was no longer producing the type of game that gamers wanted to buy. But I'm not really sure that's entirely true either. Because one of the major changes WotC made in their business plan was a smaller release schedule, with longer waits between products. If they had made that shift in 4e, then profits might have improved there as well since they were no longer cannibalizing their own releases. Regardless, they moved on to a new business model and a new edition. And from all accounts, it is quite possibly the most successful edition of D&D ever.One person complaining loudly on the internet is just part of the underlying noise on the internet. WotC has hundreds of noisy complainers. They might (might) consider the feedback of somebody like that, but it depends a lot on the tone and the content of their complaints. Regardless, it's still one person, and that one person might not line up with what thousands of others are saying or doing.Ultimately it will still come back to the same thing: This person is complaining about 'x.' Will that increase sales? Does it make a better game? Are other people also asking for that? How are our products selling? Are they still exceeding expectations? You have to remember, that a given product has a lead time of months, and the planning probably goes back a year or more. For example, they probably already know what they are releasing next fall, if not further, and have a rough synopsis, although actual writing may not start until spring. So while somebody here is complaining that they want more stuff other than APs, they may already have 3 books in the works. For various reasons, those won't be announced until later. They've been very open about their business plan: 2 APs each year, with some other content as well. The last two years it has been 2 APs plus an additional non-AP book. I don't see any reason why that won't continue. This is in addition to about 2 dozen AL adventures, Dragon+, video games, novels and comics, and the web content like the podcasts, Sage Advice and Unearthed Arcana. For a small team producing creative content, that's quite a bit of material each year. And the sales continue to show that they are making the "right" decisions.</blockquote>

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