Future of Shadowrun, How can we prevent Shadowrun from dieing off? Options

[TBRMInsanity]

Looking at what has happened in the past, and in the recent news, I've looked at similar events with other companies (such as TSR and Commodore). This worries me about the future of Shadowrun and what I as a consumer and creative individual can do to help make sure that Shadowrun doesn't fade into history.

One idea I had would be to take the Open Source root (kinda like what Netscape did with their browser (which lead to the creation of Firefox)). The Shadowrun community is huge and very creative. I think if the Shadowrun license was given to a community project that it would survive and thrive (and have less instances of "accounting irregularities" that we have seen in recent events). What I don't know is how would you create such a community project, how would it be managed, how they would obtain the licenses to Shadowrun, and how would they work with any/all publishers to get products to RPG stores and Shadowrun players in a timely and productive manner? I'm open to ideas.

[nezumi]

Poll could be improved if those options had the Swordfish Mustardball choice.

However... The game will not die as long as people are playing it. I'm still playing SR3. I know people who are still playing SR1. In other words, even if no new books came out, and even though maybe 80% of the fans would disappear, it would still be around.

The WORST thing that can happen is Shadowrun is handed over a company who remakes it into a hugely popular, hugely terrible product. Then you get a product which is successful enough to bring in new fans and kick around for a while, but the new blood it's bringing in is of poor quality, and the bloodline becomes diluted. Eventually that will push out the old fans, tear down the community, and Shadowrun as we know it will be restricted to recluses such as myself.

[Penta]

I'm not sure you could convince Topps to ever allow the license to head to an OS group - and I doubt they will ever sell the IP to go open-source, the money involved is just too seductive.

From a practical point of view, RPG book-creation is a job that needs the stability and resources of a corporation behind it, especially for an RPG with the "production values" of SR. It's low-margin, and I'm not sure on how much profit it actually makes. Certainly you'd have immense difficulty convincing all the people you'd need to convince that an OS project could meet its obligations.

This goes about double re anything involving money, like physical publishing. I would be totally unsurprised if a printer were to go, "Your money ain't wanted here", because they'd be nervous about dealing with something so new and strange.

Finally, marketing. Marketing. Marketing. No open-source group can match a professional group at that key task - whether it be doing booths at cons, marketing to distributors or game stores, direct marketing to the consumer...

Let's be realistic. As consumers, there is zilch we can do if some company is not publishing books. The moment SR stops as a currently-published RPG, its days are numbered. No amount of community involvement could stop the inevitable decline from that point. And the bitter truth is that as consumers, we have zero leverage in the corporate shaking going on. We cannot persuade Topps one way or the other on license renewal. I guarantee you that were Topps to decide not to license the IP out (I doubt that, but it's always a possibility), they'd go after fan efforts to produce books with their lawyers. They have to, in order to protect their IP.

No, the best we can do is keep buying the books that are actually on sale, so as to convince all parties involved that SR is still viable, and just hope SR winds up in good hands.

We may be all about fighting the system in our gaming, but we're incredibly dependent upon it to get our gaming.

[Dread Moores]

Will the community keep it going forever? No. Will it keeping for a while if new books were to stop? Probably. Heck, there's probably Tunnels and Trolls forums out there still providing fan support. Does that mean the game "continued?" Only in the loosest sense of the word. It's not providing new product and no new company picks it up, well...without actual commercial product and lacking the ability of the fanbase to legal generate new product? I don't really see that as anything resembling "it'll never die!" That's just the existing fanbase not really quitting.

[Dread Moores]

The WORST thing that can happen is Shadowrun is handed over a company who remakes it into a hugely popular, hugely terrible product.

I'd be cautious of equating hugely popular as automatically equaling hugely terrible.

[wizwyrm]

I believe SR is still marketable and viable to the gaming population, or else we wouldn't be playing it. Most of the people I game with had never heard of it before I introduced them, so there are still new players being exposed to the brand. Some new literature would be nice, but I don't think its necessary to the continuation of the game.

and for dreks sake learn to spell!

[tete]

Id like to see Jordan get his IP back but Catalyst to keep printing books.

[Warlordtheft]

Will the community keep it going forever? No. Will it keeping for a while if new books were to stop? Probably. Heck, there's probably Tunnels and Trolls forums out there still providing fan support. Does that mean the game "continued?" Only in the loosest sense of the word. It's not providing new product and no new company picks it up, well...without actual commercial product and lacking the ability of the fanbase to legal generate new product? I don't really see that as anything resembling "it'll never die!" That's just the existing fanbase not really quitting.

Without new realeases it will slowly die off. As the number of new SR fans goes down and the number of old vets stop playing goes up. Without new cannon material, getting new fans will be harder.

[Headshot_Joe]

Without new realeases it will slowly die off. As the number of new SR fans goes down and the number of old vets stop playing goes up. Without new cannon material, getting new fans will be harder.

Dude, I don't know about this. I personally know people who still play AD&D from the late eighties... Some things, THAC0 included, will never die...

Even if Shadowrun went out of print, with no new development, there would still be a strong, if small, fan-base for the game. We actually see this with most genres of RPGs, where even after one version of the game has ceased being printed, people still cling to it, regardless of the fact that there are newer versions available. I don't believe this would change if it went out of print, just as I wouldn't switch from SR4 to SR5 if it came out in a year. Sure, I might eventually change, once some of the better peripheral books came out, but I wouldn't need to, and would be happy playing SR4 for, well, possibly the rest of my tabletop gaming days. And I can tell you with certainty that I will be inducting new blood, as will every other player and GM who likes the game.

[tete]

Dude, I don't know about this. I personally know people who still play AD&D from the late eighties... Some things, THAC0 included, will never die...

Those people grow old though and getting young people interested in THAC0 is difficult making the numbers dwindle. It may be 100+ years before its just a footnote in RPG history but it will go away. Also D&D is still being made, its not like Amber where if it wasn't for the books there would probably be no new blood for a long dead RPG.

[Ophis]

I was going to vote pro CGL, but then I saw AH had quit and that's the last straw.

Someone else's turn.

[LurkerOutThere]

Commodore? You really want to use commodore as a source?

1) Shadowrun makes money, plain and simple, that's why it will not go out of production at least in the near future and not go into an open source or community environment. The company that owns the IP (tops at last look) sees it as an investment, and likely a fairly substantial one, why would they allow that to go into the public domain when it's still viable.

2) The corpse is still not cold.

[Summerstorm]

Hm... i have some unpopular opinions on that all, i think:

1. Doesn't matter. If somebody releases book and i like it its good. If not i am getting my fix somewhere else or write my own stuff.

2. Well in all fairnis: Only the one with the license. But making it completely free is fine too.

3. It will keep losing players, but somewhere someone will always play shadowrun. Hell there are people still playing AD&D unfazed by all the million-billion new editions and crap coming out there.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

I'd be cautious of equating hugely popular as automatically equaling hugely terrible.

I think he is stating his fear for a terrible product yet popular who would creat the scenario he posted before.

[Whipstitch]

N/m.

[CanadianWolverin...]

For me the future of pretty much any P&P RPG lies not in P&P but PC online multiplayer with GM run virtual settings. Not because I have anything against P&P or social interactions of the face to face nature but because increasingly it seems the only way to bridge the gap in scheduling conflicts and finding other people with similar interests.

[otakusensei]

By not full filling obligations to their freelancers, CGL has effectively shit where it sleeps. The company has shed it's talent (sorry Jason) and I don't see the parties involved kissing and making up. Things might change if CGL retains the license, but given the things that have come to light I'd be surprised if that happened now. Even if it does, Shadowrun with key talent isn't going to be the same. Creative product like this can't just have a new crew swapped in.

Maybe things will even out and CGL will clean up and make good. If the depth of the issue is to be believed that will be supremely difficult. I would love to see a world where all my favorite creatives come back and live under one big happy system where I buy books regularly and everyone gets paid.

Someone got greedy and fucked that up. Let the unfucking begin. I'll be here ready to do my part.

[Daylen]

the polls don't matter this is not yet a communist or socialist country with economic democracy. If catalyst can't hack it and the rights and such go up for sale the person/group who ups the money for it will make the decision. And that's for the best anyway to get anyone out of business who cant hack it and let someone possibly more savvy give it a try.

[kjones]

The Shadowrun license is fairly lucrative, as far as game publishing goes. As long as there's money to be made, someone will pick it up - the best we can hope for is that whoever does appreciates what makes Shadowrun awesome.

[LurkerOutThere]

For me the future of pretty much any P&P RPG lies not in P&P but PC online multiplayer with GM run virtual settings. Not because I have anything against P&P or social interactions of the face to face nature but because increasingly it seems the only way to bridge the gap in scheduling conflicts and finding other people with similar interests.

Your in the far minority on that score. I'm running my monthly shadowrun game down at the local game store next weekend, there is the distincty possibility one of the players will have to break off and form a second table as interest in this seems to grow exponentially. On multiple occasions i've had to turn people down wishing to play in my home game because I just don't have enough room. Yes online is great if you want to play with a few select people who otherwise cannot meet. But i have no problem finding players for traditional games.

[Fatum]

I doubt that no more official books means death for a system, especially one with a good fan community - say, Planescape is still going strong enough, despite not really being officially supported since the second edition.
That said, I'd for one prefer CGL staying with the license - any change is to the worse, and they are working with the setting well enough for my liking.

[Fatum]

Your in the far minority on that score. I'm running my monthly shadowrun game down at the local game store next weekend, there is the distincty possibility one of the players will have to break off and form a second table as interest in this seems to grow exponentially. On multiple occasions i've had to turn people down wishing to play in my home game because I just don't have enough room. Yes online is great if you want to play with a few select people who otherwise cannot meet. But i have no problem finding players for traditional games.

Circumstances differ, and frankly, it's not that easy to find a group if you don't have rping acquaintances already; and online gaming is a saver. On the other hand, I fail to see how online invalidates the need for P&P sourcebooks.

[Cergorach]

CGL (they still own the SR license)

CGL doesn't own the SR license, Topps does for the pen & paper game and novels, Microsoft does for computer games. CGL just has a license to produce pen & paper RPG products, and I don't even know if it's an exclusive license. That also touches the OS idea, Topps and MS won't ever let a creative license like SR or BT go OS when they own it. If it were to go OS, you would have to buy the property in it's entirety, and not just the part Topps owns, also the part MS owns. And that's just to much money to raise. Why also the part MS owns, just look at all the OS licenses, if you were to inhibit such a license to only work for p&p RPG and fiction, it wouldn't really be an OS license IMHO.

Best situation that CGL keeps doing what it's doing, eventually it'll get SR to the same level as BT is today (production value wise).

[Stahlseele]

Pegasus Spiele in Germany.
Pegasus Spiele in Germany.
Shadowrun, no matter if it will live or not, will not be the same again, as long as the people who have been doing shadowrun for the last few years are not on board again.
The community, and please don't take this too personal, should not EVER get a hold of the universe. We get to play in it, and that is good enough.
Most of the time, we can't even agree on something that's more or less clearly stated in the books. And then think of the whole Pink Mohawk and Black Trench-Coat fiasco.

[TBRMInsanity]

Commodore? You really want to use commodore as a source?

1) Shadowrun makes money, plain and simple, that's why it will not go out of production at least in the near future and not go into an open source or community environment. The company that owns the IP (tops at last look) sees it as an investment, and likely a fairly substantial one, why would they allow that to go into the public domain when it's still viable.

2) The corpse is still not cold.

I used the Commodore company as an example because they had an excellent product (Amiga) and squandered it. While this isn't what is happening at CGL, it is an example of what can happen when bad management gets in the way of an excellent product.

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I will go on the record to say that CGL makes the most beautiful and useful Shadowrun books I have ever seen printed (and I've played since SR1). I'm not doubting the quality of their product or the people directly involved in the production of those products (they are obviously doing a better job then any other RPG in the market IMHO). What worries me is that all this great talent is being besmirched by some idiot in the higher echelons and I would be greatly saddened if one person's mistakes would cause the downfall of this great product, its stellar quality, and its awesome community.