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Lorraine Williams, unfairly lambasted?
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7833699" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>Maybe. But.. could we have <em>expected</em> it to be handled better? TSR was tiny, and Public Relations management was not nearly so well-understood in the day (and if it was, could TSR have afforded a team smart enough to handle it?). Plus, the panic may have help[ed drive sales - so limiting the negative impact might have limited growth!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Maybe? What we've heard is that Arneson was not interested in the business end and was not good at codifying and productizing - that seems to have been Gygax's forte. Arneson was an idea man. There's only so many great ideas you can expect the starting market to swallow. </p><p></p><p>It could have been handled better, in that Arneson personally should have been treated better.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nobody, and I mean nobody, understood the dynamics of the RPG market at the time. Heck, it could be said that nobody has really understood them until.. about now, actually - with 5e they seem to have finally found the sweet spot of content and rules generation. </p><p></p><p>So, yes, smarter business decisions could have been made, but the knowledge to <em>expect</em> anyone to be able to make them didn't exist yet.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I am not sure harder-bigger-faster is actually the best way to move creative products forward. They did bloom massively. They already couldn't handle that well. Blooming even more would only have taken them beyond their ability to manage further.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 7833699, member: 177"] Maybe. But.. could we have [I]expected[/I] it to be handled better? TSR was tiny, and Public Relations management was not nearly so well-understood in the day (and if it was, could TSR have afforded a team smart enough to handle it?). Plus, the panic may have help[ed drive sales - so limiting the negative impact might have limited growth! Maybe? What we've heard is that Arneson was not interested in the business end and was not good at codifying and productizing - that seems to have been Gygax's forte. Arneson was an idea man. There's only so many great ideas you can expect the starting market to swallow. It could have been handled better, in that Arneson personally should have been treated better. Nobody, and I mean nobody, understood the dynamics of the RPG market at the time. Heck, it could be said that nobody has really understood them until.. about now, actually - with 5e they seem to have finally found the sweet spot of content and rules generation. So, yes, smarter business decisions could have been made, but the knowledge to [I]expect[/I] anyone to be able to make them didn't exist yet. I am not sure harder-bigger-faster is actually the best way to move creative products forward. They did bloom massively. They already couldn't handle that well. Blooming even more would only have taken them beyond their ability to manage further. [/QUOTE]
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