The Great CGL Rumors and Speculation Thread Options

[Tiger Eyes]

I won't comment on Frank's post at this time.

However, I will state that on Monday, March 15th, I resigned from working as CGL's bookkeeper and office manager, due to a conflict involving my personal ethics. The Operations Manager resigned the week before that, for similar personal reasons. I have been told that Adam Jury, our Layout Guru and Overall Awesome Guy, resigned as well.

[Fatum]

Oh the irony of the real life.

[Axl]

$850,000? I hope the selfish bastard who did this gets locked away for a long time.

[JM Hardy]

oh. Frag. This sucks.

Hope things work out.

Any word from CGL employees as to how the fans can help?

Yes! The best way Dumpshockers can help out is to slow down, take a deep breath, and not let rumors get out of control. I have heard the rumors, I know there are problems, but I have also talked to the entire management team at CGL and have not heard plans to shut anything down. There are matters that definitely need to be addressed--specifically, the future of CGL as an organization and the outstanding, long-past-due payments to freelancers. I've asked management to address those issues, and they will be meeting tomorrow to discuss their best options.

So in the meantime I'd ask everyone to calm down and not spread rumors. I'm very sad that CGL has recently lost some very good people, but I remain hopeful that we will continue producing great Shadowrun products for you, and that the people who worked on those products will be paid what they are owed.

I'm happy to answer questions in this thread or through PM, but I again ask people to keep speculation on this thread to a minimum.

Jason H.
Shadowrun Line Developer

[Stahlseele]

I again ask people to keep speculation on this thread to a minimum.

but . . but . . this is dumpshock . . this is what we do O.o

[knasser]

I'm happy to answer questions in this thread or through PM, but I again ask people to keep speculation on this thread to a minimum.

Jason H.
Shadowrun Line Developer

I asked some questions in my first post in this thread. If you are able or willing to answer any of them...

Thanks,

K.

[JM Hardy]

Hey folks:

Just want to throw in a couple things:

1) I definitely appreciate people's enthusiasm for Shadowrun and their willingness to find a way to help the game continue. That said, the advice given on this thread to not work for free is good advice. If you've got a skill like writing, drawing, or laying things out and are willing to put it to use on a project that's going to be sold, you deserve to be compensated for your efforts. All Shadowrun freelancers deserve to be paid, and I am hopeful there will be a plan to make this happen.

2) It's amazing how quickly a thread about rumors of possible malfeasance turned into statements of seeming fact. I'd ask people to be careful with their assumptions.

Thank you all for your passion on behalf of Shadowrun.

Jason H.
Shadowrun Line Developer

[TW]

Adam Jury resigned from CGL

[cndblank]

Sorry to hear this.

Been some great stuff coming out of CGL.

Certainly sounds like a viable business especially when ever a real Shadowrun computer games gets made.

[JM Hardy]

Let me go through and put answers beneath each of knasser's questions.

Wow. I guess first thing to say is thank you for being so forthcoming with details and specifics. The worst possible thing for us is to not know what's going on or to have to live off rumours. I guess the second thing is to be glad of the optimism in your post. Shadowrun has been through company failure before. Hopefully it will do it again.

I guess I have the following questions which you may or may not be able to answer. I expect others share some of the same questions.

Given that it seems certain there aren't going to be any upcoming print runs, what's the availability of Shadowrun books going to be like? Are there still substantial stocks lying around and if there are, is there going to be a company still shipping them out to FLGS, etc? I know that's a compound question because the answer will be different for different books, but any general answers (or specific ones) you can answer would be interesting. For example, I was holding off from Arsenal for a second printing but if it's going to start disappearing, I'll grab it. (I was also holding out from Augmentation in the hope that it would get printed with a less awful cover, but that's a different issue).

The whole question is based on the premise that there is not going to be upcoming print runs. I have not heard that that's the case; if I do, I'll provide updates about the supply.

Is this going to affect PDF sellers - i.e. presumably we can still buy things from Battlecorps and DriveThruRPG.com?

Correct--there is not reason for PDF sales to change at the moment.

Does this affect fiction rights? When I made enquiries previously, I understood that game and fiction rights were separate. However, when I previously enquired about fiction, I was directed to approach said Loren Coleman. Do you know who the current rights holder for fiction line is and if they have any active licencees for this? It's an outlying chance, but it's not impossible that I might have some interest in this.

Catalyst has fiction rights and has been working on new fiction for both Battletech and Shadowrun. New fiction for Battletech still comes out regularly through battlecorps.com, and there are novels in the works. I know there is a Shadowrun anthology that is about ready to go, as well as two novels that have been through their first drafts. I don't have more information about the timing of their releases.

Do you have any inkling as to what Topps' approach to this matter will be regarding re-licencing. Basically, at what point are they going to say: "this licence is available, make us an offer" or is it going to remain tied up with Catalyst? Presumably Catalyst have licenced it for a set period and this is already paid for? Do you know when the licence would expire / be forfeit?

The license is set to expire in the next few months. I've asked management to address this issue in a public statement.

I know that's likely not as long on specifics as you might have wanted, but I'm afraid that's what I have at the moment.

Jason H.

[The Jake]

Wow. Just wow.

Hopefully this all gets sorted. I've seen this phoenix arise from the arises more than once. I am supremely confident that the brand will survive - unless of course WOTC pick it up and WOWify it as they did with D&D.

- J.

[Draco18s]

unless of course WOTC pick it up and WOWify it as they did with D&D.

I think most here can attest to thinking the same. I'm almost certain no one would buy a WotC 5th Edition ShadowRun, unfortunately if it does come to that, we might inadvertently kill off the game forever (other than all of us still playing 4E).

Anyway, I'm sure this can get sorted out and we can all go back to embezzling fictional currency of non-existent mega-corps run by mythological creatures.

[Bull]

Ok kids. See my Sticky thread about this. But I'm leaving the thread open for the time being on one condition... Everyone plays nice and is very, very civil about the situation.

Right now, there's no public facts, just speculation and rumor coming in 2nd and 3rd hand. Right now, I know about as much as the rest of you at this point.

I'm asking everyone to contain discussion to this thread only, and as I said, play nice.

And Don't Panic.

Bull

[Udoshi]

I know that's likely not as long on specifics as you might have wanted, but I'm afraid that's what I have at the moment.

Jason H.

Hey Jason, one more question.
What can we do to help? For those of us inclined to try, give us a direction.

[ravensmuse]

I just want to say two things:

1. This sucks. I thought that for a change, Shadowrun was going to be stable for awhile.

2. I love how everyone turns this into an opportunity to rag on another company and for bringing edition wars FOR A DIFFERENT GAME IN A DIFFERENT GENRE ENTIRELY into this discussion.

WTF people.

[Patrick Goodman]

I would say that the right people would be the freelancers that have not yet been paid. CGL is in enough of a quagmire as it is, it seems. If there are freelancers out there not paid for past work, they deserve some compensation. Perhaps it would even lessen the animosity so they come back to work for whoever picks up the license in the future.

As Demonseed Elite said elsewhere, the animosity is not with the fans, it's with the company. I have the unhappy privilege of falling in with the group of freelancers that hasn't been paid yet, and it's one of the (many) reasons that I'm pretty much done with Shadowrun as a freelancer, even after the property moves to another developer (and it will; it's a very lucrative property).

[Dumori]

Its called defection we dont want to even think of SR going down the pan so we shug it off and make jokes about D&D 4th ed. Just a guess but it fits. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Murrdox]

I love Shadowrun and I love Catalyst. I just found out about Eclipse Phase and I'm very excited to get my hands on a print copy of the book.

I'll be hoping all the difficulties get worked out for the positive... and I'll be hoping I still receive my print copy of the 20th Anniversary Limited Edition I ordered last year (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'll also probably head to my LGS to buy any Shadowrun print edition I'm currently missing... on the off-chance that print runs suddenly become rare.

[BlackHat]

I hope this does work out for the freelancers, who certainly deserve to get paid. I also hope the rumors have been exaggerated, but am not expecting that to be the case. The confirmed resignations already sound like a really bad situation, getting worse. If there is anything we fans can do, I would love to hear about it, but it sounds a little out of our hands, at this point.

[Delarn]

Why can't we just push Topps to extend their licence for 6 months ? If we say, if you don't give them the time to get back on their feet we just don't show the money ? They are getting money out of this and we has customers are have the power to change everything ... we own the money

[Sengir]

Alright, something that is (presumably) not based on speculation: Could somebody enlighten me on which company exactly owns or has licensed what? So far I only knew about CGL which are owned by In Media Res (headed by Coleman and Bills IIRC), now there is one more level of it?

[Tanegar]

If CGL does lose the rights to Shadowrun, I hope they get snapped right up by a developer who will do right by the franchise (no matter who that might be; I'm not wild about WotC, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt). I also hope everybody from CGL lands on their feet (with the exception of any putative embezzler(s). Finally, I really, really, REALLY hope that the SR4A limited edition that I preordered over a year ago does actually find its way into my hands. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Penta]

Because to Topps, who make billions off of baseball cards, we are not even a blip on the radar.

[BishopMcQ]

Topps owns the BattleTech and Shadowrun licenses for print products. Microsoft had owned the electronic rights, and I am not sure if they sold or simply sublicensed those rights to Smith and Tinker.

InMediaRes Productions, LLC DBA Catalyst Game Labs has licensed the BattleTech and Shadowrun rights.

[nylanfs]

I would say that it's valid speculation on who would have the cash and "think" that they can handle the game world. I can see somebody in upper management at WotC or Hasbro thinking they could take it. I don't think they could UNLESS they brought in a bunch of outside designers (or horribly mutilate the system).

White Wolf is a possibility, they deal with dark game worlds. Paizo is a possibility as well, several of their adventure paths for 3.5 D&D and their Pathfinder system show that they have the creativity to deal with twists and turns. Crafty has experience with modern settings, but other than those I can't think of any other game publishers that might pick it up off the top of my head.