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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6614739" data-attributes="member: 7006">It really has nothing to do with how well the books for 3E and 4E sold... it's all about how fast the books get released.  And because 3E and 4E were released one way... it's why 5E is taking a different track.If we just say for the sake of argument that all three of these editions will end up selling about the same amount of books overall (when you include the core books, splat books, adventure books, and setting books)... 3E and 4E had very aggressive schedules.  Most of the books they sold occurred in Years 1, 2 & 3.  Thus, when you got to Years 4, 5, & 6 of the respective lines... a lot less money was coming in because the edition was front-loaded, and thus the feeling became that beginning work on a NEW edition was a good idea (as they could see that a new core book influx of cash would be probably two to three years down the line with the new edition's release.)But what has been one of the big complaints in recent years?  People feeling that new editions are being released too quickly and thus they are being forced to "buy all their books  over again".  So how does WotC assist those people?  By expanding the lifespan of the edition.  How do they do that?  By not making Years 4, 5 & 6 so barren of sales that they panic and feel like they need to start working on 6E.  And how do you not make Years 4, 5, & 6 so barren of sales?  By releasing good-selling product in those years that in years past would have been released in Years 1, 2, & 3.Can you imagine the influx of cash WotC would get in Year 4 of 5E's lifespan if that was the year the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting finally was released?  It'd be a huge Year 4 for them.  Now granted, yes... by that point there would be a contingent of players that might have "left" 5E because they didn't get that setting book immediately and they felt like if their needs weren't being served that they would go somewhere else where they were "wanted"... but a larger number of players would just keep playing 5E as they always had (because a lot of the players don't NEED a "campaign setting guide" to play the game, and another large group don't even use established campaign settings in the first place). Then these folks would then buy the Campaign Setting in Year 4 because it looked to be an awesome new book (detailing a lot of the history that occurred in the five or six FR adventure path books up until then, much of which were directly a result of player action from all the Adventurer's League material.)Here's the issue for a lot of people right now:  There is MORE than enough material in the Player's Handbook (and the subsequent Elemental Evil and Unearthed Arcana documents) to play in 5E games for years.  But if players are upset that there isn't enough material to BUY right now... it's pretty obvious you aren't getting this material to actually *play* with, you're getting it because you just want to buy it.  But if that's the case... you aren't the person WotC is interested in serving, because you have no stake in the long-term viability of the game.  You're not in it for the long haul because you aren't even concerned about playing the game right now.  Your focus is all about just buying stuff, not actually using the stuff you already have.  And thus you are a great person for a company that just wants to pump out a crapton of material right away in order to squeeze the stone dry immediately... but for a company looking at the sales in the latter half of this decade... they need to hold *some* product back so there's something worth releasing down the line.</blockquote>

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