Take away: Sandstorm LLC is now publishing for Wildfire. Perhaps more interestingly, Sansdtorm's kicker text at the end of the press release mentions a partnership with Posthuman. Sandstorm put out a press release about Closet Nerd earlier and the substance of this PR is about Wildfire, but there's not been a full blown statement regarding Posthuman. This is essentially a backdoor announcement that they'll also be publishing Eclipse Phase. Or a massive screwup. But they're probably publishing Eclipse Phase.

May 10, 2010
I’ve been neglecting this blog for too long, and now I have a pile of news and updates to catch up on.

Catalyst Woes: In March some unfortunate news came to light at Catalyst Game Labs concerning, as they put it, the improper “co-mingling” of company funds. I’m not going to comment on the situation here, but you can read what CGL has to say in the press releases on their website and there are numerous threads full of rumor and speculation on various RPG forums. Due to what was going on, however, both Adam Jury and myself decided to part ways with CGL. We also immediately went about severing the license between Posthuman Studios and CGL for Eclipse Phase, so now that game is entirely back in our hands. Many of our friends and former colleagues have also distanced themselves from CGL, and WildFire also severed their license and reclaimed their Cthulhutech line. It remains to be seen how the CGL situation will play out, but I’m very sad that many of my friends have had their livelihoods disrupted by this turn of events.

Posthuman Futures: On the positive side, Adam, Brian, and myself are making progress on taking Posthuman Studios up a few notches. We plan to continue publishing Eclipse Phase (and also some other games) in the future and are arranging our business so that Posthuman will handle all EP production itself. We are making an arrangement with a new publishing partner who will handle our printing, warehousing, and fulfillment. We’re doing our best to turn misfortune into opportunity, and we have some exciting plans in the works, so expect to hear much more from us soon.

Cross post from the Official Announcements thread.

Excerpt from Rob Boyle's blog:


Emphasis mine.

Does this mean that Sandstorm owns its own printers? If so...that could be good for those who publish through them.

I'm guessing they handle dealing with the printers, but you never know.

I would imagine, again pure speculation here, that if multiple companies are all placing orders through 1 name or business partner, Sandstorm in this instance, it would help with pricing. From the printer's perspective instead of 4 companies placing orders, one company is placing more orders.

I'm sure pricing is based, in large part, on quantity ordered per order, but having 1 company with 1 good relationship with the printers can't hurt things for their partners.

That's a fairly common economic principal. Many vendors will give a discount or price break if you send a certain # of orders in - ie, 0 discount for 1 order, 3% for 3, 5% for 5... etc. So if you have multiple companies sending in orders via one agent, everyone gets the benefit. You also can often negotiate a price savings if you are able to pay in full up front, versus having to have credit with the vendor. This goes from tee-shirts to books and everything in between. You can do this on a personal scale, too - go into an appliance store and offer to buy 5 laundry machines, and ask for a 5% discount from list price, and you'll probably get it. (Sometimes I think I'd like 5 laundry machines... get all the laundry done at once.... sigh...)

Sooooo, I've been away for a while. Is Shadowrun dead yet?

on the other side of things, posthuman studios is currently selling through drivethrurpg, so they may not be entirely switching over to another company (or that other company may be handling only print). certainly, the folks over at posthuman have relatively recently started a program where they'll basically transfer your purchase of eclipse phase over to drivethrurpg, which implies they intend to stay with them (for pdf media, at least) for a while. otherwise it's just a whole lot of wasted effort.

Sooooo, I've been away for a while. Is Shadowrun dead yet?

Does this mean that Sandstorm owns its own printers? If so...that could be good for those who publish through them.

How could they? They are start up just created by the those that left CGL. i doubt that they have financial resources to start a full blown printing enterpirse. What they do have is connections into the printing businenss and they can act as an intermeidary between the creative folks and the printers. They are going to be doing the same kind of job that CGL was doing for Wildfire and Posthuman.

The license was bought by The Evil Twirling Mustache Company owned by the Great Dragon Trollman and his band of Immortal Elves. They announced that on April 1, 2011, they will release SR6, the Cyber Unicorn Version. The first adventure will be titled "The Dumpshock Wars" which will include Lone Star Cops, Belly Button rings, Pixie Clanks, Drop Bears, and anything else they can squeeze in while changing the setting to a Steam Punk environment.

-M&P

Okay, that is the BEST version you've come up with yet. I love it.

The license was bought by The Evil Twirling Mustache Company owned by the Great Dragon Trollman and his band of Immortal Elves. They announced that on April 1, 2011, they will release SR6, the Cyber Unicorn Version. The first adventure will be titled "The Dumpshock Wars" which will include Lone Star Cops, Belly Button rings, Pixie Clanks, Drop Bears, and anything else they can squeeze in while changing the setting to a Steam Punk environment.

-M&P

The license was bought by The Evil Twirling Mustache Company owned by the Great Dragon Trollman and his band of Immortal Elves.

Since you are here Jennifer, would you care to comment on the little line in the release about the relationship between Sandstorm and Posthuman?

Man, I wish I worked in a dodgeball friendly industry...

I've come to like 4e a lot more recently as a rules system, but the world building and metaplot leave a lot to be desired.

I love Ghostwalker. I love technomancers (even if I think they're a tad overpowered as PCs).

The only problem with the way Tir Tairnegire's been handled in 4e is that it's all off-screen. 2 decades of story was resolved with a single line in the "How It Came to Pass" section of the new BBB, which pisses me off. Want to close it off and banish IEs to the far, far background? Cool. Just don't take a story I've been following since I was thirteen fucking years old with a lot of investment in all the characters, then just say "Oh, the rebels that may or may not have been lead by Harlequin won and took over and now the country's in economic collapse now let's move on to how awesome all the new stuff we wrote about Evo and Horizon is."

It's indicative of what I don't like about how 4e's metaplot has been handled -- focused exclusively on down-and-dirty street-level play and ignoring those of us who like the IEs and dragons and Deus turning the Archology into a horror show that would may the dude from Saw gag and Dunkelzahn's will and all that other stuff. I'm missing that in 4e and I want it back.

IMO, the last good book for Shadowrun I've read was Dragons of the Sixth World. That's not saying much though because the only competition is Emergence. Every other book has been core rulebook expansions (Street Magic, Augmentation, etc) or location books ("Ooh, let's do 2500 words on this place that had an entire sourcebook in 1st/2nd ed and spend the entire thing recapping what was said in there!") The potential stall in production due to the loss of the freelancers and the shady business practices that might cost the company the license pisses me off because, frankly, there's not much else they CAN write about other than getting back to the damn metaplot or coming out with a new edition of the rules and all the core books solely to attempt to make a buck.

because, frankly, there's not much else they CAN write about other than getting back to the damn metaplot or coming out with a new edition of the rules and all the core books

Isn't that supposed to be next year? I remember one of the CGL people saying once that some new book wasn't going to be coming out because it was too late in the product cycle for this edition. I could have misunderstood what he was saying, though.

I remember one of the CGL people saying once that some new book wasn't going to be coming out because it was too late in the product cycle for this edition.

Well fuck.

So is this the extension through GenCon or the whole next three years?

Isn't that supposed to be next year? I remember one of the CGL people saying once that some new book wasn't going to be coming out because it was too late in the product cycle for this edition. I could have misunderstood what he was saying, though.

Jason said so i the last chat. I asked when the "enhanced" versions (think SR4 -> SR4A) of the core rule books was comming out, and Jason said it was to late in the production cycle to re-publish them as "enhanced" versions.

Lars

I've come to like 4e a lot more recently as a rules system, but the world building and metaplot leave a lot to be desired.

I love Ghostwalker. I love technomancers (even if I think they're a tad overpowered as PCs).

The only problem with the way Tir Tairnegire's been handled in 4e is that it's all off-screen. 2 decades of story was resolved with a single line in the "How It Came to Pass" section of the new BBB, which pisses me off. Want to close it off and banish IEs to the far, far background? Cool. Just don't take a story I've been following since I was thirteen fucking years old with a lot of investment in all the characters, then just say "Oh, the rebels that may or may not have been lead by Harlequin won and took over and now the country's in economic collapse now let's move on to how awesome all the new stuff we wrote about Evo and Horizon is."

It's indicative of what I don't like about how 4e's metaplot has been handled -- focused exclusively on down-and-dirty street-level play and ignoring those of us who like the IEs and dragons and Deus turning the Archology into a horror show that would may the dude from Saw gag and Dunkelzahn's will and all that other stuff. I'm missing that in 4e and I want it back.

IMO, the last good book for Shadowrun I've read was Dragons of the Sixth World. That's not saying much though because the only competition is Emergence. Every other book has been core rulebook expansions (Street Magic, Augmentation, etc) or location books ("Ooh, let's do 2500 words on this place that had an entire sourcebook in 1st/2nd ed and spend the entire thing recapping what was said in there!") The potential stall in production due to the loss of the freelancers and the shady business practices that might cost the company the license pisses me off because, frankly, there's not much else they CAN write about other than getting back to the damn metaplot or coming out with a new edition of the rules and all the core books solely to attempt to make a buck.

By 'long term' I'm thinking minimum of 1 year. There could well be some additional outs for Topps in the new contract that we don't know about, making the duration less of an issue. I'd say it's clear that this is CGL's second chance, so hopefully they've learned their lessons.

at a guess, what he probably meant was "not enough people are going to repurchase the other books to make it financially viable" (and given their current financial situation, i expect they wouldn't want to do much of anything unless they're really confident it will turn a profit).

i mean, it's not like it's that much later than SR4A... the difference is that pretty much everyone with an interest in the game will pick up the main book, whereas maybe half, if that, would pick up the added books i'd say.

You've also clearly not checked out Dawn of the Artifacts, since their backplot is entirely stemming from Dunklezahn's will and various immortal elves. I won't say more to avoid spoilers, but everything you're "missing in 4e" is is pretty apparent in the first two DotAs. Maybe not coming right out and hitting you in the face with it, but there's two more planned and then a follow up book , so I think you'll be okay.

By 'long term' I'm thinking minimum of 1 year. There could well be some additional outs for Topps in the new contract that we don't know about, making the duration less of an issue. I'd say it's clear that this is CGL's second chance, so hopefully they've learned their lessons.