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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4842348" data-attributes="member: 40961">Feel free to read the rest of the post from which you quoted.  It will explain matters.  But since I can't seem to shut up, I'll explain again! The third party "bloat" that people talk about generally refers to a large number of 3pp releases which were purchased in a sort of speculative bubble by gaming stores.  As a group, these products did not sell as well as anticipated, though certain individual products sold quite well.  Gaming stores felt burned by the large number of products which did NOT sell well, and felt that they did not understand the third party press market well enough to adequately sort the wheat from the chaff- making further purchases a dicey proposition.  As a result they did not reorder much 3pp material, nor purchase as much additional 3pp material, as they otherwise might have.  This left significant amounts of picked through junk on the shelves.  Eventually, as time went on, this sorted itself out as companies went under, stopped releasing much in the way of product, and other companies built solid reputations on which gaming stores could rely in making purchasing decisions. If products sell well, and if gaming stores understand how much to stock of what, then this is not a problem.  That means that WotC products, which tend to sell better than 3pp products and with which gaming stores are likely more familiar, are less likely to suffer from that sort of bloat. Just counting up releases is useless.  Its not about the number.  Its about the ability to strategically purchase products for your shelves, which is easy in an information rich environment with known players, and difficult in an information poor environment with relative unknowns.</blockquote>

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