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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreyLord" data-source="post: 6867683" data-attributes="member: 4348">One of the myths that people like to spread around (and started by someone who thought they knew, but didn't tell the whole story) was that TSR died because it had too much brand dilution.That is not true.TSR died because they didn't balance costs.  You cannot spend 100K developing an item, and then print and sell it, where even if it sold every single copy, you'd only make 50K.  You will lose money.  On top of that, after you develop it for 100K, you never do assessments to evaluate how many you might sell, and so you overprint by several thousand copies of what you could sell, meaning that you only make 30K out of that 100K +5K in marketing.  You've just lost 75K.Do that over several dozen items, and you've lost several million dollars in the course of a year.  Do that over multiple years in increasing common occurrences...and you have a serious problem.I think this relates to the current idealogy in part of WoTC.  They've bought this fable of dilution of brands by too many campaigns settings, (instead of the real cause, which was lack of any common sense of any sort of business acumen) and enforced it like a giant fist on their publication.That said, it MAY be the RIGHT thing to do at this time.In 1983, TSR could have been making around 40-60 MILLION dollars, in 1980s values.1n 1991, TSR was making 90-100 MILLION dollars...in 1990s dollars.  You could say, they broke the 100 Million dollar mark according to some accounts. Unfortunately 100 Million doesn't last long when you are spending in excess of 150 million...Today, I've seen an estimate or two that states the ENTIRE RPG industry (that's more than just D&D) is only around 15 MILLION dollars...in today's money.That's less than One product line at TSR was making in the 80s or 90s.In that sense, another reason could be that, in relation to what was supportable in the 80s or 90s...there isn't enough customers out there to support more than one line.Of course, that calls into question about 3e...which didn't make anywhere close to the 80s or 90s overall (of course, with their estimates that the customers base was 1/5th what it was in the 80s and 90s...the numbers probably make more sense as well).They stated 3e sold 1,000,000 (that's a million core books...that's a LOT of books) in the first year of release (which most likely means the first few months in regards to the fiscal year).   Extracting that, this is 20 Million dollars (they published in bulk so they could sell the 3e books for less at $20 a pop).The second year they only sold around 800,000 to 900,000 but they also were selling other models and accessories.  I'd guestimate they were making around 20 Million to 35 Million a year at that point.Still around 2X what the ENTIRE hobby is worth today (as I said, according to some estimates...not that I am positive those estimates are actually correct).We know they were supporting Forgotten Realms, Oriental Adventures (at first with 3e), and Eberron.  That's around 10 Million (but those sales also included core rulebooks) a piece, if we split it evenly (which we can't, I don 't think OA actually did a terrific job compared to Eberron or Forgotten Realms).In 3.5 OA was sort of dropped and Dragonlance kind of was supported for a rulebook and then handed off to 3rd party...but then sales at the end of 3.5 were a little weaker.Overall, if looking at brands, I'd say the target of support is somewhere between 8-15 Million dollars for the WotC industry.So perhaps, part of the thing is seeing how much the market might support, and with the current market, it appears that only one official brand from WotC is worth it.Total guess on my part.And it doesn't make the Dragonlance or OA lover (like me) any happier, but it's something that I think can explain a reluctance to focus on more than FR currently...until they bleed it out and see if there's room for more (which I think they stuck a toe in the water with Ravenloft).</blockquote>

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