It's been a while since I've frequented these forums and I haven't touched SR4 yet since I've last played SR3 (Not because I hated the change, I just honestly haven't gotten around to it.) Anyways, I'm noticing the Shadowrun license has been handed around twice since FASA... And on the website of the new owners, there's no link to purchase the book directly from the site as well as the book is apparently out of print temporarily...

Is this a good time to try picking up SR4?
Am I forced to buy books for SR4 from Amazon or other book vendors or did I miss something on Catalysts site?
Is Catalyst planning on keeping the property and what happened with Wizkids?!

Any info at all would be really appreciated from someone looking to get back into the game

I've picked up all my books from my Friendly Neighbourhood Game Store.

You can also pick them up as PDFs. The BBB is available as a download from drivethrurpg.com, but none of Catalyst's releases are there. I'm not sure where you would go if you have no local shop to order them in, but they are available. Several of my players have bought their own copies of all the books recently.

So far as I'm aware Catalyst are planning on keeping the license, but one of the devs posting here would be able to tell you more.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong:

WizKids owns the property and licenses it out. CGL just renewed their license to publish Shadowrun for another 2 years. (Oh, and BattleTech too, if you like BattleTech.) Not sure exactly what happened with FanPro.

SR4 5th printing is out in brick-and-mortar store, at least it is here in the US. Not sure about Amazon or BattleCorps.

Given the recent re-upping of the license, I'd say that now is very a good time to get into Shadowrun. Barring any unforeseen events, we should be able to expect at least 2 more years of productivity from the current crew.

EDIT: Here's the link to the DS thread announcing the renewed license.

Hope this helps,
paws

Why doesn't Wizkids just sell the rights to Catalyst?
Unfortunately I'm not near any local gaming stores so online is my only choice. I'd rather not use Amazon or other book vendors online, but why is SR4 5th printing not available to order online?

You can buy the books through The BattleCorps Site. BattleCorp is part of the same company as Catalyst.

And CGL just extended the license for 2 more years, as well as opened some new options.

Catalyst is also most of the same folks as were at FanPro, who were a lot of the same folks from FASA.

As for why they don't sell the license outright, well... <shrug> Money, to some degree. Same reason people rent houses or cars, rather than always selling.

Bull

Oh, wow, thanks Bull! It's a bit confusing, being that you have to go to another website to look at buying the books directly from Catalyst/BattleCorp.

Any word on when there going to print a new 6th printing of the Main Core books? (I don't wanna get my friends into the new stuff then have them be hard pressed to find a book to buy online if there's only a few left.)

The 5th printing was very recently released. Like, a month ago or so. I'd be both inpressed and pleased if they were almost sold out!

That's odd, on the Catalyst Shadowrun page, it says it's Temporarily Sold Out.
http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/product...26000&m=cat

Erm... I dunno. Maybe Adam or someone else from CGL will pop in an offer some insight.

Well, that's ... interesting. The database says "fifth printing", the web page says "temp oop". I'll look into that.

The Fifth Printing is widely available and was the largest single printing of SR4 ever.

Really? How come it's the largest selling printing of the SR4 main book if you don't mind me asking?

Adam didn't actually say it was the largest selling printing, although that may very well be the case, if not now then eventually. He said it was the largest single printing (meanng single print run, or version), compared to the four earlier printings. Since more books were actually printed of this version (1.5), there are more books available to be sold, hence (eventually) fulfilling your prophesy.

Everything AFAIK and IIRC:
FanPro LLC was, though a separate company, basically the US office of Fantasy Productions GmbH (Germany). FanPro GmbH was the SR licensee til early 2007 when they announced the closing of their games department to focus on novels and let the license for SR (and BattleTech as well) revert to Wizkids.
As FanPro LLC did not hold any licenses themselves they had no more business to do and folded...

To add to this...

In Media Res (CG:'s main/parent company) was handling the BattleCorp fan site, selling FanPro's books through their site, and doing T-shirts and such. When FanPro decided to get out of the Game prodction business, IMR made a bid for the license and brought the FanPro US guys over to the newly formed Catalyst to form the core of the new games division.

And yes, it's complicated and confusing

Bull

It's supposed to be! It's Shadowrun!

A word on amazon etc: there are many game publishers whose works do not make it to Amazon or other mainstream bookstores; they have every good reasons, though I don't know all the details - there are threads on these elsewhere.

This means that while on Amazon you might find the titles (not always the case), they will usually be listed "unavailable" or "out of print" or something, except MAYBE the main corebook (which may or may not be the newest print run with updated errata) and yet if you go to your local game store, they can order as many as they want, and may even have all the books on the shelves in quantity.

The books sell better in these stores, and do terribly at regular mainstream bookstores where the average shopper isn't likely an RPG player, so dealing with these Big Bullies of the print industry isn't worth it for most RPG publishers. Personally I've only ever seen White Wolf and official Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons books at Chapters (Canada's largest book retailer) and have had a very hard time ordering supplements online from them or amazon.ca.

Since I started ordering from my local game shop, i've been much more successful and much happier.

I suggest looking around for an RPG shop in your area: often they are small and you won't even know they exist , so check your phonebook and search google for "game store <city name>" and variations of it.

If you absolutely cannot find a local shop, and are 100% stuck with ordering online, you'll have to get them from Catalyst directly or from a third party online gaming store that sells more than just PDF's.

The Shadowrun PDF's are, of course, very high quality, and bringing your PDF to a Kinkos or something to have important sections printed out shouldn't be too expensive.

Actually -- FanPro LLC held the license for the WizKids' properties, and Fantasy Productions GmbH sublicensed it through them.

I take that to mean: Since WotC got greedy and decided to produce an unnecassary 4th edition of DnD, we realized gamers would want to take their money elsewhere and that the ones not attracted to the Dragonborn are the type that would love/come back to the depth and background of the Shadowrun brand.

So any chance of seeing an update to the PDF?

Any chance of us with a PDF from FanPro ever getting an update from CGL?

Lars

Yes. Now that our licensed is actually signed, we can do things like re-establish relations with companies like OneBookShelf [DriveThruRPG/RPGNow] and get new and updated CBT/SR stuff on their sites.

And there was much rejoicing...

Lars

As I said - AFAIK...