There is the belief that "no new products" = "dead game" = difficulty in getting new people to play it. So then, "new products" = "living system" = grow the player base... just by virtue of new products existing.
I don't think it's that easy... but it certainly doesn't hurt.
It certainly is a mindset that is both narrow and blinkered and the paranoid cynic in me thinks it's probably a result of subtle propaganda by the big companies (or should that be company?)
On the other hand, new products are both exciting and encouraging. I've said before that the whole retro-clone movement has excited me more about role-playing, than anything that has been produced since the early 80's. The fact that the retro-clone movement began at all, demonstrates how incorrect the whole "no new products" = "dead game" thinking actually is.
