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> Wizkids having Problems?, News...
Eldritch
post Jun 19 2006, 06:56 AM
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QUOTE

WizKids
Damon White Reports: From Marc Lore, Chief Operating Officer of WizKids:

"Dear Hobby Game Community,
Due to changing demands within our industry and within our own company, WizKids is reorganizing to strengthen itself within the marketplace. Unfortunately, this brought about a tough decision to have a reduction in force. This is necessary to realign

overheads with revenues as well as refocus our resources on the functions that we believe will create value to the industry and growth for our company.

These steps are necessary for the long term health of WizKids., and will allow us to focus on our core Brands of Battlestar Galactica, HeroClix, HorrorClix, MechWarrior and Pirates. Our company is firmly committed to supporting the Core Hobby Game industry and plans to serve this industry for years to come.

WizKids’ commitment to innovation and excellence has not changed and we look forward to working with all of the folks that make this industry great to help transform the marketplace once more into one that is vibrant and exciting.

In the next few weeks, we will share with you the results of our deliberations, and our plans for the future of the great games you have come to know and love."


From: http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=21450


I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of the Wizkids/Fanpro/Shadowrun corp structure - but what does this mean for the futrue of SR? Any thing?
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Abbandon
post Jun 19 2006, 08:03 AM
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Sounds like the beginning of the end to me for wizkids in general. More specifically it sounded like they were gonna dump all there *clix games. Which includes Shadworun duels.

"What you mean nobody wants to a buy a stupid 16$+ action model to play table top battles??"

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Shrike30
post Jun 19 2006, 09:39 AM
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What part of "will allow us to focus on our core Brands of Battlestar Galactica, HeroClix, HorrorClix, MechWarrior and Pirates" indicated to you that they planned to dump the 'Clix games? My understanding is that HeroClix was the thing that managed to get WizKids into the "nicely profitable" range. If $16 seems like too much to pay for a model for tabletop battles, I hate to tell you what even the beginnings of a decent Warhammer 40k army goes for, and that's a phenomenally successful game.

The failure to list Shadowrun has me concerned.
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Ophis
post Jun 19 2006, 11:25 AM
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Wizkids don't produce Shadowrun, people who know more please correct me if I'm wrong, but Wizkids involvement in SR is only as the holders of the license(rights, Int Prop whatever they have), Fanpro a seperate company licensed to produce it, Wizkid cutting back their range won't affect that at all.
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JM Hardy
post Jun 19 2006, 01:32 PM
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A few things:

1) I'm not sure that I'd call this the beginning of the end for WizKids. They went through a similar re-org a little over two years ago and came out of it okay. It's just something that happens in corps on occasion. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm guaranteeing the health of WizKids--just that I'm not guaranteeing its downfall, either.

2) The news certainly doesn't change anything for Shadowrun Duels. Nothing was going on with that game, and nothing will continue to go on with that game.

3) The corporate re-org affects the RPG side of Shadowrun minimally if at all. Ophis pretty much has that right.

4) The one area of SR that WizKids is directly involved in is the novels--they commission and edit them. As part of this re-org, the editor at WizKids who handles their novels (both MechWarrior and Shadowrun) was laid off. I'm not sure what this means for the future of the novels at this moment. I'm almost positive the remaining two novels in the original contract will come out, but future novels now have a more iffy status. I'll let people here know anything as I find anything out.

Jason H.
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Cain
post Jun 19 2006, 05:52 PM
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QUOTE (Ophis)
Wizkids don't produce Shadowrun, people who know more please correct me if I'm wrong, but Wizkids involvement in SR is only as the holders of the license(rights, Int Prop whatever they have), Fanpro a seperate company licensed to produce it, Wizkid cutting back their range won't affect that at all.

Sort of. Wizkids (more specifically, Jordan Wiseman) owns the Shadowrun RPG rights. They've licensed the rights to publish the RPG to Fanpro, but they kept the miniatures and CCG rights to themselves (even though Duels didn't really do very well). The video game rights are held by FASA interactive, which was bought out by Microsoft sometime in the 90's.

What might afftect the Fanpro license is that Wizkids has now contracted with Great White Games/Pinnacle to produce a RPG version of Pirates and Battletech. Since Wizkids also owns the rights to Battletech, which is licensed to Fanpro, this makes things look bad for a rerelease of Mechwarrior. Pinnacle produces the spectacularily popular Savage Worlds game system, and the upcoming Pirates RPG will be running with that system. If they do exceptionally well, Fanpro's continued holding of the Shadowrun license could be jeopardized, and then we'd see an official Savage Shadowrun version on the market.
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Eldritch
post Jun 19 2006, 06:07 PM
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Thanks guys.


Any other feedback form 'Those in the know' would be appreciated.

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James McMurray
post Jun 19 2006, 06:18 PM
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QUOTE
Pinnacle produces the spectacularily popular Savage Worlds


Spectacularly popular in the sense that I've never seen it mentioned anywhere but dumpshock, and usually by Cain. :)

I'm not saying it isn't a great game. I've never even seen it on a shelf, so I'm the last one to ask about it. I've just gotten the impression that Cain has some sort of hardon for the game, so you may want to take his statements about it with a grain of salt.
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PBTHHHHT
post Jun 19 2006, 06:57 PM
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Savage Worlds isn't too bad, I play it and there's quite a few folks I know that do use this system.
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James McMurray
post Jun 19 2006, 07:04 PM
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I'm not saying it isn't well known, just that it probably isn't as "spectacularly popular" as Cain likes to believe. He has frequently shown an ability to confuse his own opinion with Truth, so when I see statements as dubious as that one coming from him I feel obliged to speak up.

That and I like giving him crap. ;)
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Squinky
post Jun 19 2006, 07:29 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
He has frequently shown an ability to confuse his own opinion with Truth.

I thought that was the whole point of dumpshock :)
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James McMurray
post Jun 19 2006, 07:35 PM
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Nah, just most of it. Some small portion of the populace likes to actually discuss things with the openmindedness necessary to change views if they're wrong. :)
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hobgoblin
post Jun 19 2006, 07:50 PM
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hmm, savage shadowrun. whatever...

seems to me that the only "special" thing about that system is that there are only 2-3 conditions for a combatant. and what keeps the characters standing is some kind of "edge" that allow them for some time to avoid getting those conditions if needed.

i see nothing special about it as its mostly the same that i have seen from feng shui, or could basicly add anywhere by applying a saving trow or whatever for the non-important npcs. they fail they fall, out of the game. and unless specificed by the oponent, not dead...
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PBTHHHHT
post Jun 19 2006, 08:11 PM
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QUOTE (James McMurray @ Jun 19 2006, 02:04 PM)
That and I like giving him crap. ;)

fair 'nough :smile:
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Kagetenshi
post Jun 19 2006, 08:25 PM
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There really isn't anything special about Savage Worlds. It follows the old path of not doing anything spectacularly badly (well, ok, a number of things, especially deviation on thrown items, but nothing too huge) by not doing anything particularly well.

It is, in my experience, not that far from the ultimate beer-and-pretzels game, though.

~J
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Brahm
post Jun 19 2006, 09:20 PM
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QUOTE (Cain)
If they do exceptionally well, Fanpro's continued holding of the Shadowrun license could be jeopardized, and then we'd see an official Savage Shadowrun version on the market.

For that to be a possibility it would depend heavily on what the current licensing conditions were. Given that Shadowrun 4 is just out a year and selling well itself, and with a number of products near release, yanking the rights from Fanpro or allowing a duplicate product to be produced by someone else might not only be difficult, but also I'd suggest outlandishly foolish.

Of course sillier things have happened, but that senario would have to be quite a longshot right now.
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James McMurray
post Jun 19 2006, 09:29 PM
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QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
It is, in my experience, not that far from the ultimate beer-and-pretzels game, though.

Better than Nuclear War (the card game, not the actual thing ;) )?
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Synner
post Jun 19 2006, 10:37 PM
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QUOTE (Cain @ Jun 19 2006, 05:52 PM)
What might afftect the Fanpro license is that Wizkids has now contracted with Great White Games/Pinnacle to produce a RPG version of Pirates and Battletech.  Since Wizkids also owns the rights to Battletech, which is licensed to Fanpro, this makes things look bad for a rerelease of Mechwarrior.  Pinnacle produces the spectacularily popular Savage Worlds game system, and the upcoming Pirates RPG will be running with that system.  If they do exceptionally well, Fanpro's continued holding of the Shadowrun license could be jeopardized, and then we'd see an official Savage Shadowrun version on the market.

No worries there, at last notice Wizkids was apparently pleased with Shadowrun's results and FanPro's license... but then again knowing the whole story behind Pinnacle's Mechwarrior, the Dark Ages license (and knowing that an RPG isn't currently on the docket, but rather scenario packs for Wizkid's clicky collectible miniatures game) would have put things in perspective anyway.
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Rock
post Jun 19 2006, 10:43 PM
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Why is Pinnicle getting a licence for a BattleTech PRG when FanPro already makes the Classic BattleTech PRG?
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James McMurray
post Jun 19 2006, 11:22 PM
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What's a PRG?
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Rock
post Jun 19 2006, 11:27 PM
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A typo for RPG.
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James McMurray
post Jun 19 2006, 11:40 PM
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Ah, I thought so, but since it happened twice I wasn't sure.

In that case the answer is "so Cain can dance a jig until he finds out they're not using the Savage World rules." ;)
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Kagetenshi
post Jun 20 2006, 12:05 AM
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QUOTE (James McMurray)
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jun 19 2006, 03:25 PM)
It is, in my experience, not that far from the ultimate beer-and-pretzels game, though.

Better than Nuclear War (the card game, not the actual thing ;) )?

I should qualify: beer-and-pretzels role-playing game. Few things can compare to Nuclear War (the card game or the real thing).

~J
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JM Hardy
post Jun 20 2006, 04:45 AM
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Quick update on SR novels--Roc apparently is not interested in publishing more, so with their disinterest and the loss of WizKids' editor, the prospect for future novels (beyond the two more scheduled to come out) is not good.

Jason H.
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JongWK
post Jun 20 2006, 06:32 AM
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QUOTE (stevenrockwell)
Why is Pinnicle getting a licence for a BattleTech PRG when FanPro already makes the Classic BattleTech PRG?

Different lines, I guess. MW Dark Ages isn't the same as Classic BT.
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