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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5404383" data-attributes="member: 82106">I know it is all fashionable to talk about 'corporate monstrosities' but lets remember one key fact here. The RPG hobby is not exactly a font of money. ANY sane objective business analysis of this business will tell you in 5 minutes that if you want to make a high ROI you should get the heck out of it and say buy tobacco stock or maybe just take your money and go drill for oil.Why then does WotC continue to put significant resources into D&D? I would suspect there are a few different reasons. Some of them are business reasons, but some of them aren't, or at least they are pretty intangible. One basic business reason that is pretty relevant is just that sunk costs are sunk. WotC presumably bought TSR's assets for a price so low that it DID make business sense for them. Sure the RPG industry isn't a great place to make money, but D&D itself at some price was still a decent investment for them at that time and place. Once you own it the price is irrelevant. All that matters is "If I put in $1 can I get out enough more than that in a short enough time frame with a low enough risk to make a decent ROI on that $1?" Why is this an interesting fact to keep in mind? Because it tells us that the D&D product line of WotC, if it is self-sufficient, that is makes enough money to return a profit and make the necessary investments in its own future, will continue to exist. Now maybe Hasbro would sell it. Surely they would if they could get a good enough price and put the money into something else, but who out there has the money to buy D&D at a price that is worth bothering? It costs money to make such a sale, and if you have a product that makes money and potential buyers that can only pay peanuts (and there's no other game company out there with ANY significant money to invest) then just keep it and run it. Heck, maybe it will make a big hit. If it tanks so what? You already spent the money for it, there's no getting it back. It only makes sense to shut it down if it actually LOSES money.Beyond that though look at the other motivations. They may not mean much to Hasbro, but the people running this business obviously WANT, for reasons not related to money, to keep making games. They have an actual love of games. This is what they do, and what they want to do. That isn't soulless. Note also that all of this indicates to me that the D&D product line is profitable and self-sufficient. For all we know it is highly profitable. With absolutely no other facts to go on except the product continues to exist and invest in its future the weight of evidence is entirely in favor of the hypothesis that it makes enough money to worth more than the peanuts it could sell for. Frankly as long as people with a decent business sense are running it I think it is pretty safe. TSR didn't tank because they had a product that couldn't make a profit. They tanked because they didn't know how to run a business. Hasbro DEFINITELY knows how to do that.</blockquote>

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