As a game creator you have to hold two thoughts in your head simultaneously:

A: Everyone says they hate new editions.

B: When yo u do a new edition, everyone gets really excited.

I am not convinced that "perpetual update" / "living rulebooks" are ultimately viable though I am intending to set out to prove that they can be (through Patreon, please consider swinging by!) and if you are aiming at print first and foremost, the option is not really open to you in any event.

I wanted to just chat a bit about some of some of the motivations for a new edition, since I think from the players perspective it can be a bit opaque. (also it is not a given that a new edition costs money. When we went from Renegade Scout 1e to 2e, it was a free upgrade for example).

First you may want to significantly change a core mechanic. My gut feeling is usually that within an edition, it is okay to change up things but it should remain roughly along the same lines and principles. To use an example tweaking how often morale tests are taken or how the modifiers work is not something people will have an issue with. But changing from "break tests" to a multi-tiered morale stage system will be a pretty dramatic departure within an edition. 

My guess here is that when people know it is a new edition they are reading, they are more likely to take bigger changes in stride and give them a try, since it is a clean slate to an extent. 

Second it may be time to just pull the book apart and put it back together. A lot of wargame books have somewhat haphazard organisation and being able to go back through, reorder everything, pull in some new ideas and material and so on can be a really helpful thing. 

When doing this sort of thing within an edition, you risk bothering people who are used to looking up things in the current book ("Okay the morale rules are next to the picture of the guy with the sword"). Once again, when you signal that it is a new edition people will tend to accept that it is time to relearn a bit.

Third the game might just need an overhaul mechanically. A lot of good games will have numerous things the designer would do differently today, has changed their mind about or which just turned out to have a problem that wasn't predicted. I suppose this is another sort of maintenance update where the general approach of the game remains the same (unlike case 1 above) but you go in and root around the fine tuning of all the pieces. 

Now all of these can co-exist and most new editions feature elements of all three.

Finally there is the one nobody likes to admit but a new edition will sell copies. Updating core game rules does not ever correlate to increased sales in my experience. There is likely an indirect effect in that an updated game will stay on its players minds, but the effect is likely fairly small. Meanwhile a new book will show up on the front page of Wargame Vault and gets you a nice pile of cash immediately. It also gets a bit of talk going on the forums and message boards where gamers congregate. 

I want to see if this can be replaced through Patreon, but time will tell on that front. 

Sound off in the comments what you think.