My theory on why they keep printing books is different than those fielded here:
I'm not so sure that game publishers make tons of money off of their products. Sure, 4e sells tons of copies. But it has an expensive marketing campaign, probably an over-saturation in the form of attractive hobby store displays, and the books themselves (everyone crows about how nicely bound they are) are expensive to make. They probably don't make a lot of money off of splat books for similiar reasons.
What Hasbro/Wizards does, I think, is come pretty close to breaking even with D&D sales. The real utility of the line is the "prestige product" which adds legitimacy to their other games with higher profit margins. They can equivocate Magic to D&D -- a decade ago the consensus among D&D players I knew was that Magic was for 12 year olds. Now there's a lot of overlap in their fan base. They can license products like MMORPG and (much more profitable than the tabletop game, I would imagine) those Baldur's Gate/Drizzt games, whatever they're called. They can cross-market at conventions. That's what separates Wizards' seeming solvency in the brand with TSR's historic 90's insolvency.
As to whether or not it's essential, I guess it depends on how you define "hobby." Nintendo used to be a hobby -- playing fun games a few hours a day. To some people now, a video game hobby is about picking a system which will have edition after edition of classic series and new games made for it. Will it be supported, or will it go the way of the Neo Geo or the Sega Dreamcast? That matters to some people, I guess.
Usually, when you publish a new book, most of the people who are going to buy it buy it after a marketing push, and then sales are intemittent and -- if you wrote something good -- keep the book in print for a long time. If nobody ever made new editions to D&D, I bet they would keep the game in print without marketing. The hobby survived with very little marketing for a long time. If you want a game that's constantly supported with new material from the original publishing house, I think you have to put out new editions so that they can sell you books with 80% recycled ideas in new rules, and 20% new stuff that may or may not be something you like.
I'm not so sure that game publishers make tons of money off of their products. Sure, 4e sells tons of copies. But it has an expensive marketing campaign, probably an over-saturation in the form of attractive hobby store displays, and the books themselves (everyone crows about how nicely bound they are) are expensive to make. They probably don't make a lot of money off of splat books for similiar reasons.
What Hasbro/Wizards does, I think, is come pretty close to breaking even with D&D sales. The real utility of the line is the "prestige product" which adds legitimacy to their other games with higher profit margins. They can equivocate Magic to D&D -- a decade ago the consensus among D&D players I knew was that Magic was for 12 year olds. Now there's a lot of overlap in their fan base. They can license products like MMORPG and (much more profitable than the tabletop game, I would imagine) those Baldur's Gate/Drizzt games, whatever they're called. They can cross-market at conventions. That's what separates Wizards' seeming solvency in the brand with TSR's historic 90's insolvency.
As to whether or not it's essential, I guess it depends on how you define "hobby." Nintendo used to be a hobby -- playing fun games a few hours a day. To some people now, a video game hobby is about picking a system which will have edition after edition of classic series and new games made for it. Will it be supported, or will it go the way of the Neo Geo or the Sega Dreamcast? That matters to some people, I guess.
Usually, when you publish a new book, most of the people who are going to buy it buy it after a marketing push, and then sales are intemittent and -- if you wrote something good -- keep the book in print for a long time. If nobody ever made new editions to D&D, I bet they would keep the game in print without marketing. The hobby survived with very little marketing for a long time. If you want a game that's constantly supported with new material from the original publishing house, I think you have to put out new editions so that they can sell you books with 80% recycled ideas in new rules, and 20% new stuff that may or may not be something you like.
