TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future - The Something Awful Forums

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gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

moths posted:

Honestly it just makes me angrier that I didn't act sooner on my fake blog that was going to expose Gygax and Arneson as hacks who stole D&D from an unknown designer.

I just wanted to piss off the OSR, and had no idea it would be proven true.

In a bizarre twist, Playing at the World does this constantly and they don't seem to mind.

# ? Jan 23, 2016 06:21

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# ? May 9, 2024 17:16

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

Evil Mastermind posted:

I don't know if they still have copies; I didn't remember seeing any when I went a few months back.

Still, you should go there anyway because it's a good store.

I will go to this store. I will see you there, as I assume your astral self is constantly projected inside.

Halloween Jack posted:

Eric Gibson, I presume? Your story sounds consistent with...how that whole situation shook out, yeah.

Edit: It also doesn't surprise me that he apparently didn't know how to order a cheap used copy from Abebooks.

That is the one. And he seemed like a very nice guy, at least until his complete disinterest in my rescue mission. But I also was worried from the get-go that the person who had purchased TORG had, like, high-school-science-fair-level booth presentation graphics.

Loxbourne posted:

Any chance you could expand on this story? TORG just kinda vanished one day from my point of view. It would be nice to know where it went.

Evil Mastermind covered the recent stuff nicely, but as far as my TORG-obsessed friends could tell, West End Games just sort of quietly disappeared in the late 1990s, and Eric Gibson may have paid as little as ~$5,000 in the early 2000s for the rights to the game and all the back stock (though this could also be entirely fabricated ... but this IS gaming, so it also makes perfect sense). Certainly what is seemingly true is that anyone could have bought West End Games around that time, but he was the first person to think to do so.

gradenko_2000 posted:

In a bizarre twist, Playing at the World does this constantly and they don't seem to mind.

That is because Jon Peterson is beyond reproach. Even as he continually unearths more evidence that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson basically just took a bunch of other things other people were already doing and combined them (albeit in a profoundly compelling fashion). The chapter in "Playing at the World" about science fiction society fancy dress parties is an amazingly good partial explanation of where D&D came from, and it should be considered functional heresy, yet here we are with everyone still loving him and his work.

Anyone who has no idea what we are talking about, watching the video in this link can sort of sum up how astoundingly convoluted (but legible from a modern perspective) some of its many influences were: http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2014/01/history-of-d-in-12-treasures.html

Speaking of things I do not understand, I cannot find much of anything on the Mark Rein*Hagen's plagiarism debacle. And 1975 Wisconsin warehouses are totally my jam, too

# ? Jan 23, 2016 09:23

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

To expand on things a little bit, some dude named Eric Gibson bought West End Games in the early 2000s and had some big plans, namely he wanted to revitalize the WEG brand by producing multiple new lines of games, establishing an OpenD6 system similar to how D&D3E (and other games later on) established open game licenses, and to top it all off one of the new WEGs inaugural releases was going to be a brand new sci-fi RPG by ex-Palladium writer Bill Coffin. Bill Coffin has always been regarded as one of Palladium's actual good writers, and the fact that this was around the same time he'd posted his scathing takedown of Kevin Sembieda's personal and professional behaviors probably helped give his name an extra little boost.

This was in the days before crowdfunding so Eric Gibson took preorders for Coffin's game Septimus which was apparently already rather far along in development, and since everyone trusted that Bill Coffin wouldn't be soliciting preorders if he wasn't confident that there would be a game real soon now a bunch of people paid in, myself included. Well it turns out that Eric Gibson is a colossal fuckup. Deadlines went by and people began asking where Septimus was, Bill Coffin would post an update saying that everything on his end was done but Eric was telling him that things were being held up by art and editing, it went back and forth like that a few times, and people began getting more insistent about the status of their preorders as people tend to when they feel like they've just thrown their money into a hole somewhere.

The culmination of this was Eric Gibson having a nuclear meltdown on RPGnet where he called out the people hounding him for refunds as "the reason this toxic, incestuous hobby is loving dying," proving that it's possible to possess negative levels of self-awareness. I did eventually receive a refund, though I don't know how many people who'd preordered did, and that was basically the end of the new WEG which had, in its brief existence, produced absolutely fuckall. Bill Coffin went on to release a free version of Septimus for anyone who still wanted it, and I think you can still get it from DTRPG. It's, y'know, okay.

# ? Jan 23, 2016 09:44

moths: Aug 25, 2004; I would also still appreciate some danger.

Dr. Quarex posted:

That is the one. And he seemed like a very nice guy, at least until his complete disinterest in my rescue mission.

It sounds like he preferred having his anecdote to actually having the book. Or you weren't the first to help him out and he had a moment of shame and/or embarrassment.

# ? Jan 23, 2016 15:49

nesbit37: Dec 12, 2003; Emperor of Rome
(500 BC - 500 AD)

Dr. Quarex posted:

That is because Jon Peterson is beyond reproach. Even as he continually unearths more evidence that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson basically just took a bunch of other things other people were already doing and combined them (albeit in a profoundly compelling fashion). The chapter in "Playing at the World" about science fiction society fancy dress parties is an amazingly good partial explanation of where D&D came from, and it should be considered functional heresy, yet here we are with everyone still loving him and his work.

Jon is a great guy and I love the work he is doing, but I seriously wonder how many people have read his work all the way through. I know a lot of gamers that own it and have admitted they can't get through. Even in person he tells people to don't read it and skip around because it is written more like, and reads like, an academic history text, but so many just start at page 1 and try to get through that dense monster. I wouldn't be surprised if most just piggy back on others who say it is about time someone took a serious look at the hobby and how great its doing for it (which it is, but that doesn't change the fact they may be praising things they wouldn't if they did all the homework).

# ? Jan 23, 2016 15:58

EverettLO: Jul 2, 2007; I'm a lurker no more

nesbit37 posted:

Jon is a great guy and I love the work he is doing, but I seriously wonder how many people have read his work all the way through. I know a lot of gamers that own it and have admitted they can't get through. Even in person he tells people to don't read it and skip around because it is written more like, and reads like, an academic history text, but so many just start at page 1 and try to get through that dense monster. I wouldn't be surprised if most just piggy back on others who say it is about time someone took a serious look at the hobby and how great its doing for it (which it is, but that doesn't change the fact they may be praising things they wouldn't if they did all the homework).

I read the whole thing and I think the problem is that it doesn't aim to be what people want it to be. It is a history of basically every influence on the creation of D&D going back 150 years. There's like 150 pages of very dry, well researched material about games that existed before Gygax was born. I know more about Kriegsspiel than I ever would have cared to know. Follow that up with a couple hundred more pages about the wargame and zine scene from the 1960s that birthed Chainmail. It's incredibly interesting for what it is, but if you're looking for stories about the early days of D&D then it's not ideal.

I think most people are looking for a more detailed version of the TSR chapter of Designers and Dragons, but its scope and depth are so far beyond that that it's not a good comparison.

EverettLO fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jan 23, 2016

# ? Jan 23, 2016 17:11

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

moths posted:

It sounds like he preferred having his anecdote to actually having the book. Or you weren't the first to help him out and he had a moment of shame and/or embarrassment.

That is a fair point I had not considered. It would be hilarious if I was, like, the fourth person he had told that anecdote who then dutifully brought him back a copy of Sourcebook: Tokyo. By the end of the convention he had more copies of that than of any other book, and made a KILLING when he sold them again. At like $2/each, which I believe was a fair going rate for TORG books.

nesbit37 posted:

Jon is a great guy and I love the work he is doing, but I seriously wonder how many people have read his work all the way through. I know a lot of gamers that own it and have admitted they can't get through. Even in person he tells people to don't read it and skip around because it is written more like, and reads like, an academic history text, but so many just start at page 1 and try to get through that dense monster. I wouldn't be surprised if most just piggy back on others who say it is about time someone took a serious look at the hobby and how great its doing for it (which it is, but that doesn't change the fact they may be praising things they wouldn't if they did all the homework).

I suppose the fact that 99% of my book-reading has been of academic textbooks for the last ten years is probably then why it is one of my favorite books ever. I think I still have about 50 pages left to go, but I would have finished it by now if not for the fact that I will never be able to read it for the first time again, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, it is basically like an encyclopedia that only covers the topic "where did D&D come from?" for all the good and ill that implies.

Also god drat, I am reading the "precursor to Chainmail" thing Gradenko_2000 posted and it is astounding to read about yet another set of elements (in this case "hero," "antihero," "fire ball") wholesale lifted from another pre-existing game. Though at least in the case of "fireball" Gary Gygax himself always acknowledged it was just converting another rule, though he claimed it was just reskinning the radius damage of a catapult stone (which could still be true, just perhaps someone else did it first?).

# ? Jan 24, 2016 01:21

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Loxbourne posted:

Any chance you could expand on this story? TORG just kinda vanished one day from my point of view. It would be nice to know where it went.

I was typing up a big summary last night, but then there was a Doug Williams/Colt Cabana match, and then Mass Effect, and then my wife finally made me go to bed. So I'll post it anyway to add a few things to what Kai Tave said:

West End Games declared bankruptcy in 1998, though it published a DC Universe RPG and a few supplements until its output died with a whimper in 2001. Eric Gibson bought the company in 2003. He had no previous industry experience that I know of, and to paraphrase another goon, he was the epitome of the geek with a dream of becoming an industry pro but zero business sense.

Gibson's plan for the WEG properties was to release D6 as a universal system with supplements, a la GURPS. (This gave us D6 Adventure, D6 Fantasy, D6 Space, and D6 Bloodshadows, the only WEG original setting to get a book.) The initial line of books were well-regarded, I think, with former WEG writer Nikola Vrtis as the primary author. There was a lot of goodwill from people who hoped to see TORG or Shatterzone again. But the flagship game was going to be Septimus, an original sci-fi setting by Bill Coffin (the former Palladium writer who famously went off on Siembieda).

Apparently, he took the lowest bid he could get to print the books, never thinking that maybe such a company would be shady or incompetent. After endless delays and additional fees, he had nothing to show for it but a handful of POD copies. Some who'd preordered the book got their money back, others didn't, and by the end Gibson couldn't even afford the postage to mail to people who'd agreed to take their refund in old WEG stock. Coffin eventually released Septimus as a free PDF (still available on DriveThru).

Toward the end, he also decided that he should make D6 a free-to-use OGL system. He spouted cargo-culty nonsense about how he would monetize OGL D6 through "online developer tools" that would let you put together and download a piecemeal version of D6 with all the optional rules and plugins that suited your campaign. Other than that, he could never provide concrete answers about what these online tools would do or how it would be profitable.

I don't know what he paid for WEG, but by the end he'd sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into the company, financially ruining himself in the process. He also squandered a lot of goodwill--even as frustration mounted over the lateness of Septimus and Gibson going incommunicado for long periods of time, he had well-wishers trying to gently explain to him that most of WEG's success came from their long-gone Star Wars license and there wasn't an audience for thousands of copies of D6 Space, that releasing D6 under an OGL just reduced the value of the IP to $0.00, and on and on. He refused to listen to anyone and maintained a veneer, at least, of blind optimism, insisting that everything was going to plan.

Which makes it ironic that he essentially exited the business with a "permaban me, gently caress all y'all" post for the ages. It was really amazing. He did one of those my-fault-not-my-fault things where he essentially said that he's too passionate about gaming to actually be a responsible industry professional, acted like a martyr, and said that the hobby is doomed because gamers are all terrible, disgusting people who deserve to die. (This because all those well-wishing fans wanted a book they'd already paid for, or at least an explanation of where the money went.) I remember something Orwell said about how nasty sentimentalists can become when their naivete comes in contact with reality.

I find this an interesting case because it isn't the first time I've seen someone publicly set out to become a gaming industry pro, have it all go wrong, and express bewilderment that the "community" didn't "support" their efforts. These people don't understand that taking a shot at becoming a full-time game designer is not an inherently noble act, as if they were joining Doctors Without Borders. They also don't understand that "We both like elfgames" does not create some kind of bond between us, like we stormed the beaches at Normandy together or some poo poo.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 04:00

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

I love that in a post from 2008, the most loathed person on the forums was saying "at least I am not Ken Whitman." How did Ken Whitman continue getting people's money until last year if everyone already knew that long ago?

# ? Jan 25, 2016 05:13

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

Halloween Jack posted:

I find this an interesting case because it isn't the first time I've seen someone publicly set out to become a gaming industry pro, have it all go wrong, and express bewilderment that the "community" didn't "support" their efforts. These people don't understand that taking a shot at becoming a full-time game designer is not an inherently noble act, as if they were joining Doctors Without Borders. They also don't understand that "We both like elfgames" does not create some kind of bond between us, like we stormed the beaches at Normandy together or some poo poo.

Well in Eric Gibson's case part of it was probably bound up in the notion that he was "rescuing" WEG despite the fact that, as you point out, there were no real concrete plans to actually resurrect any beloved (or at least nostalgically-remembered) WEG games like Torg, and Star Wars was firmly in WotC's hands at that point so good luck there. So essentially Eric Gibson resurrecting WEG's name meant about as much as when Red Brick decided to change their name to FASA despite the fact that Shadowrun and Battletech, the two big games that everyone associates with FASA, are off doing their own thing these days so nobody really gives a poo poo.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 05:31

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Dr. Quarex posted:

I love that in a post from 2008, the most loathed person on the forums was saying "at least I am not Ken Whitman." How did Ken Whitman continue getting people's money until last year if everyone already knew that long ago?

One reason is that everyone didn't know. He mostly dealt with very small indie publishers looking to get their game printed, and people looking to get POD copies of out-of-print Traveller sourcebooks. (If you search old RPGnet threads, you'll find he has the full support of several indie publishers whose websites no longer load.) His fly-by-night companies flew under the radar for a long time, even moreso before there was as much hobby-related info on the Internet as there is now.Ten or fifteen years ago, you didn't have to be so willfully naive to get taken for a ride by a guy like Whitman offering a good deal.

Second, never underestimate the effect of Geek Social Fallacies even among actual long-time pros who should no better. If I'm not mistaken, Blackburn knew of Whitman's past but decided to "give him another chance." Gee, Jolly, maybe you should give a chance to a rookie, or at least to someone who hasn't proven several times that they take advantage of people's goodwill?

# ? Jan 25, 2016 15:09

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

IIRC, the reason West End started collapsing in the first place was because it turned out they hadn't been paying the licensing fees for Star Wars for a while.

Halloween Jack posted:

I find this an interesting case because it isn't the first time I've seen someone publicly set out to become a gaming industry pro, have it all go wrong, and express bewilderment that the "community" didn't "support" their efforts. These people don't understand that taking a shot at becoming a full-time game designer is not an inherently noble act, as if they were joining Doctors Without Borders. They also don't understand that "We both like elfgames" does not create some kind of bond between us, like we stormed the beaches at Normandy together or some poo poo.

Sadly, I don't find it that surprising. Even nowadays, people will support anyone's lovely RPG with "well at least he got it finished/published/whatever" regardless of how lovely it is. That somehow quality is a second concern to actually getting something published.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 15:41

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

Evil Mastermind posted:

IIRC, the reason West End started collapsing in the first place was because it turned out they hadn't been paying the licensing fees for Star Wars for a while.

I thought it was because of the OJ Simpson trial.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 16:08

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

I have fond memories of both Torg (though I'd never play it again) and Star Wars d6 (just getting into the Re-Up version now!)

Looking back at Star Wars d6, it's weird how much stuff an RPG company could get away with in the 80's and 90's. They basically invented the foundations of the EU 'canon' that was recently (and blessedly) wiped clean by Disney.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 16:24

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Yes, this does mean that WEG's crimes against the genre extend through multiple mediums.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 16:34

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

LatwPIAT posted:

I thought it was because of the OJ Simpson trial.

Oh man that's hilarious.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 16:37

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

dwarf74 posted:

I have fond memories of both Torg (though I'd never play it again) and Star Wars d6 (just getting into the Re-Up version now!)

Looking back at Star Wars d6, it's weird how much stuff an RPG company could get away with in the 80's and 90's. They basically invented the foundations of the EU 'canon' that was recently (and blessedly) wiped clean by Disney.

Hell, when some of the early tie-in fiction writers asked Lucas for a setting bible, they basically got sent crates of WEG gamebooks.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:23

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

unseenlibrarian posted:

Hell, when some of the early tie-in fiction writers asked Lucas for a setting bible, they basically got sent crates of WEG gamebooks.

I won't shed a tear for it's destruction, but I liked a lot of the EU stuff.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:47

whydirt: Apr 18, 2001; Gaz Posting Brigade

Now I want to base an RPG around glove-fitting as the core mechanic.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:49

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

If the glove don't fit, you critically hit.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 19:53

Jedi425: Dec 6, 2002; THOU ART THEE ART THOU STICK YOUR HAND IN THE TV DO IT DO IT DO IT

Evil Mastermind posted:

Oh man that's hilarious.

I had heard the shoe thing years ago, but I was never sure if it was true. Regardless, it helped me fill a bookshelf with Star Wars RPG books I'll never get to use again! :v:

# ? Jan 25, 2016 20:34

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

The story is either that WEG was set up to run a deficit in the first place, or that the owner had set his various businesses up so that the successful ones propped up the failing ones, and the shoe importer took everything down with it.

WEG games were some of my first, but they weren't the ones you'd think. I got the Tales from the Crypt one, then Tank Girl and Men In Black. I played Star Wars because a friend had it, but I never owned it, nor did I ever play or own Torg or any of their original games.

The Star Wars game is impressive in retrospect. If the books were snapped up by Star Wars geeks with only a passing interest in using them for gaming, at least D6 was a decent system and not some AD&D hybrid monstrosity that sucked the air out of the room as soon as you think about actually running it.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 21:45

moths: Aug 25, 2004; I would also still appreciate some danger.

I'm actually in a D6 Star Wars game right now, and the system's held up pretty well. I know we're ignoring a few awkward rules, but the base mechanic of "Roll all these dice, beat that number" is relatively unobtrusive.

And force points / session is such a good way to roll. Was that the first incarnation of fate / action points?

# ? Jan 25, 2016 22:16

Megaman's Jockstrap: Jul 16, 2000; What a horrible thread to have a post.

moths posted:

And force points / session is such a good way to roll. Was that the first incarnation of fate / action points?

I believe TSR's Top Secret holds that honor (but don't quote me).

# ? Jan 25, 2016 22:22

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

Paranoia 2nd edition is the good edition, and it's a WEG product.

# ? Jan 25, 2016 22:35

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

I believe TSR's Top Secret holds that honor (but don't quote me).

I've always heard either Ghostbusters or Marvel Super Heroes, depending on how you define it.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 00:32

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

rkajdi posted:

That's awesome, but I worry about abuse. As in, a bunch of gamer MRAs filing false reports on whoever is their current "SJW ruining our hobby" and getting stuff taken down or demonetized.

Nuns with Guns posted:

Funny enough MRAs and assorted whiny gamergate cast-offs are pretty convinced the SJW conspiracy plans to abuse the report system to do the exact same thing.

The moment OBS announced that they would institute a reporting system of some kind, the MRA/Gamergate/Rapegrog crowd lost their poo poo, assuming that OBS was going to make it so that if anyone clicked a report button, a product would be pulled from the "shelf" indefinitely pending review; thus the SJW Gaming Gestapo would enact a police state over what games could and couldn't be published. If they then made plans to use the same tactic based on their stupid assumptions, that doesn't surprise me.

FMguru posted:

It's fun to look at unlikely little retail stores and try to figure out what their real economic justification for existing is.

I am the one who casts knock!

Loxbourne posted:

Wow, dig those 70s library shelving units!

I love those.

gtrmp posted:

This is literally the first time I've ever seen anybody suggest that Disney paid anything to McFarlane, and considering that the courts consistently agreed that he didn't have a case at all, there wouldn't even be any reason to pay him when Marvel got the same result from paying Gaiman's legal fees instead.

Last I heard, the court found that the only part of Miracleman that McFarlane ever owned was Eclipse's trademark on the Miracleman logo, which had already expired when he claimed he owned the whole shebang.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 04:03

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Kai Tave posted:

Star Wars was firmly in WotC's hands at that point so good luck there.

Wait, now I want to hear about who made the mistake of dropping this license.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 06:13

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

DalaranJ posted:

Wait, now I want to hear about who made the mistake of dropping this license.

You mean who dropped it so WotC could get it? That was WEG which, as outlined earlier, lost it when their entire company imploded due to the owner's other business tanking and dragging it under. Do you mean who at WotC let it go so FFG could acquire it? That I'm less sure of, but I know that WotC published two different Star Wars RPGs, the initial d20 version and SAGA along with a spaceship miniatures game which I believe followed a Clix-style "rarity" system and consequently sucked. All Wikipedia has to say on the matter is "On January 28, 2010, Wizards of the Coast announced on their website that they would not be renewing their license to produce Star Wars products for their roleplaying and miniature gaming lines. Their license ended in May 2010." I don't think at any point when they were publishing either Star Wars RPG that it ever did better than D&D, which has always suggested to me that licensed RPGs aren't the magic bullet to pull fans into the RPG hobby that some people think they are, so it's entirely possible that someone at WotC looked at some numbers and decided that they'd rather divert the money and resources devoted to keeping a Star Wars gameline going towards other things.

edit; Remember, at that point it would be another two years before Disney bought out Star Wars lock, stock, and barrel. Nobody at the time was predicting that we'd be seeing Episode 7 in 2015.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 06:27

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

No. I meant who dropped it at WOTC so FFG could get it.

Okay, you sort of answered that too.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 07:36

Kai Tave: Jul 2, 2012; Fallen Rib

I mean these days WotC's RPG department feels like they're on a shoestring budget at best, minimal releases coupled with an absolutely anemic version of Dragon and now this whole Dungeon Master's Guild thing as they try to entice people into d20 Bubble 2.0 to churn out more shovelware for them, but I don't know if the decision not to renew the Star Wars license was an early symptom of tightening purse strings or simply an unrelated coincidence.

# ? Jan 26, 2016 08:04

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

It's been said before, but D&D is basically a fart in wind for what Hasbro really bought WotC for: M:tG. The money made from D&D was basically a rounding error versus the millions Magic rolled in, and that was before they shut down the free money that D&DI was and, uh, basically stopped printing books for it in general.

# ? Jan 27, 2016 04:20

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Is there an article/source for WOTC not attending GenCon this year?

# ? Jan 27, 2016 04:30

moths: Aug 25, 2004; I would also still appreciate some danger.

WotC has a where to find the D&D team article that ends with:

quote:

Where�s Gen Con?

Gen Con is not on this list because we are changing things up to support more conventions and locations. Even though the Dungeons & Dragons team won�t be there we know our friends at Baldman Games will be hosting plenty of D&D adventures. It�s safe to say there will be ample opportunity to play Dungeons & Dragons during Gen Con. We�re excited to head to some new conventions this year and meet folks who don�t have the opportunity to travel to Indianapolis.

But don't worry, they'll be at all the dad conventions!

# ? Jan 27, 2016 04:32

Alien Rope Burn: Dec 5, 2004; _{I wanna be a saikyo HERO!}

Asimo posted:

It's been said before, but D&D is basically a fart in wind for what Hasbro really bought WotC for: M:tG.

Well, Pokemon, which made over twice as much money as Magic, but that didn't last once Nintendo worked out they could just make the CCG themselves and cut out the middleman.

# ? Jan 27, 2016 04:37

Countblanc: Apr 20, 2005; _{Help a hero out!}

moths posted:

WotC has a where to find the D&D team article that ends with:

But don't worry, they'll be at all the dad conventions!

Jesus christ

# ? Jan 27, 2016 05:38

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

Countblanc posted:

Jesus christ

O.K., like...it is interesting, because their list of conventions does ALSO make sense for someone promoting a big deal game, but...who on their team hates Gen-Con, I wonder? Because someone has to, apparently.

# ? Jan 27, 2016 05:46

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

WotC hasn't officially been doing D&D at PAX East since 4e ended. And while 4e was a thing, they had a HUGE presence. Like, 30+ tables running all weekend. It was like a quarter to a half of the very large tabletop area.

Since 5e, it's been done by some third party company (Baldman Games maybe?) and they have like four tables. Games on Demand has a larger presence than 5e there.

# ? Jan 27, 2016 05:52

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

Countblanc posted:

Jesus christ

lol Garycon is great but yeah its a dad con. I guess the Magic department decided they needed the D&D team's space at Gencon because that's the only way this makes sense.

# ? Jan 27, 2016 05:52

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# ? May 9, 2024 17:16

Asimo: Sep 23, 2007

Big popular conventions are things you do when you actually want to grow your audience by introducing your game to new people. If you're comfortable with a small niche playerbase of aging diehards then it doesn't matter.

# ? Jan 27, 2016 05:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future

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