Out of curiosity, is there some advantage to woking on completing the print version of RMU prior to completing and releasing the PDF version of the remaining books (Spell, Creature, Treasure). Seems that it might help continue with buzz for the game to release all the PDF versions of the books for sale (lots of people these days buy those) and while people have those in the field for play purposes and catching errors, the continued work on the revisions, clarifications, etc, could be done in the background.
Might that be a better allocation of resources?
Might that be a more profit friendly model?
Might that encourage more interaction with the gaming community since they have a complete game and when the paper versions are released, they will be all available and they will require fewer errata. Also, as noted in the most recent Directors Briefing, something like typesetting won't delay everything else in the pipeline.
From what I've heard, most of those working on the books are either academic or computer-related professionals in real life.
For those not in academic or computer field, such as myself, the publication time does seem slow.
I don't think that profit, sales, and PR have much focus beyond being a bonus. That type of team would be more of an economic, business, or marketing focus which might in turn unfortunately try to squeeze out as much money—quickly as possible—sacrificing quality for quantities. There is enough of those products already.
While new customers may look at RMU as being a
new game, I don't think that is the lens being used.
Rather, more important is that another
iteration or
version of RM is being created—much based on prior knowledge, established expectations, and traditional rules.
Because of this, I tend to look at RMU releases through a lens of someone publishing a scholarly paper, computer documentation, or code. Rather than them looking at profit and resources from a business approach of supply and demand. While profit, sales, and PR seem great, focus more seems to be on the actual information, systems, processes, and numbers to make sense—instead, like in a computer program or game engine.
