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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbm" data-source="post: 9816362" data-attributes="member: 8014">I think it depends on where a company gets it money from. Smaller RPG companies with one tent-pole property kind of need to keep generating content that will sell, and that usually means player content, typically new classes or the equivalent. That tends to mean the game starts to sag under its own weight over time, plus the volume of stuff becomes a barrier to entry and sales start to dry up. So the commercially viable thing to do at that point is to publish a new edition to re-baseline the rules, generate some repeat sales (hopefully a lot of repeat sales…) and make onboarding new players easier.  D&D is the main outlier in this regard, since WotC and Hasbro are looking for alternative long-term revenue streams like D&D Beyond and merchandising / multi-media as the main way of generating repeat revenue. So they are a poor indicator for over all trends in my opinion - no one else has the scale or market presence to pull this off. The other outlier are games which are basically static. No new materials are being published and the ‘company’ is primarily just making existing materials available as PDF / PoD for existing players and opportunistic sales to new players. They are a side-hustle for the people who previously might have put more focus on gaming but have come to the reality that they aren’t going to get rich as an RPG publisher. (Shocking revelation, I know!)The mid-tier publishers with active lines are the interesting ones. Companies like EN Publishing and Free League. Their model seems to be more horizontal growth than vertical growth - add new lines rather than endlessly adding to a small number of lines which accelerates the point where a new edition becomes essential.  I am sure there will eventually be a new edition of Level Up but I wouldn’t expect to see it a long time. GURPS is another outlier as SJG get their money from Munchkin so GURPS is more a passion project than a stand-alone commercially viable offering.</blockquote>

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