So as I was reading the Are you Switching? thread I had a thought, and a not so pleasant one at that. What happens if SR4 falls flat on its face? Does the good people at Shadowrun close up shop? Do they jus loose their asses and hope to build on the game and make it better, and draw a fanbase?

In that same vein has this happened before? Has FASA, or Fan Pro, or whomever just had to eat their shorts on a book?

This isn't meant to say the game is bad or it will fail, it's just idle curiosity.

It won't fail, as there are enough people that will buy it if only for the world material that it contains. Those people will then strip and reverse-engineer what FanPro did to make it usable in SR3 and continue with that system.

And you can bet there will be plenty of websites with that sort of reverse-engineered source. I already know one or two people, personally, that are going to do it no matter if they like the new system or not.

If it fails, there are three possibilities I could see:

1) Dive back to 3rd ed.

2) FanPro goes under or drops SR/loses license (latter more likely), WizKids licenses to someone else.

3) FanPro goes under or drops SR/loses license (again, latter more likely), WizKids decides not to relicense Shadowrun at this time.

#3 is very likely the worst of these options, though #2 has the potential to be very bad (or very good) as well.

~J

Hmmm... FanPro/ Wizkids is after all still a company which wants to earn money with their products. So when sr4 doesn't sell, what can they do? Change it and try to cover new buyers and if that fails simpoly drop the game.

But i guess that won't happen.

Ritual suicide is the only answer !!

I offer my service as a second. If you are about to dishonor yourself by not spilling your own guts, I'm more than willing to decapitate you. I'm just that sort of guy.

hehehehe there will be much moaning and grinding of teeth!

torz x

Considering how big Das Schwarze Auge appears to be, I can't really see FanPro going under due to this. Losing or dropping the license seems much more plausible.

~J

I think realistically the core rulebook will probably sell pretty well the question is whether there will be enough interest to support a new round of sourcebooks and rule extensions.

While core rulebook sales are great a good business model requires sustained sales thus the near omnipresent release of additional gaming materials.

Master Shake will be appointed line developer.

~J

New Coke. You remember New Coke? Also known as "Essence of Yuck"? Some genius working for the Coca Cola Company though back in the eighties that it would be cool to tool around with the coke formula and sell a "new and improved" Coke. After the product failed miserably (partly because it tasted like... words fail me), they went back to selling good old classic coke. The genius in question now does guest appearances in webcomics, and the company is still doing fine.

So if SR4 should indeed fail (I won't bet on it), then chances are we will still be able to get our good old classic SR3 fix somehow. As for the game designers and QA team...



EDIT: Damn you, Grinder!
*shakes his fist*

Somehow I doubt that fanpro can be meaningfully compared with coca-cola.

Admittedly the same dollar amounts might not be invloved, but the concept of replacing a standard with a new offering still stands.

The concept of recovering from a dramatic failure does not necessarily apply to both.

~J

I'm remembering a lot of similar grumbling that went on when the change from SR2 to SR3 took place, but the line at Gen Con to buy the BABY stretched all the way from one end of the dealers' room to the other, and IIRC the softcover SR3 rulebook sold pretty briskly as well. Now, here we are 7 years later, SR3 is going strong, and the same grumbles are erupting about the SR3-->SR4 change.

Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.... (I hope French readers will forgive my lack of proper accents there...)

I don't think SR4 is going to cause FanPro to fall on its face. I think, as happened with the SR2-->SR3 change, that inevitably some old players are going to be lost (in the sense that they'll stick with SR3, usually, though some will leave completely), but I don't think it's as many as people might fear. I also think that it will pick up some new players, though, if for no other reason than curiosity. If they stick around, and if more new ones are gained than old ones lost, then that will be a good thing for FanPro.

They're not totally revamping the game. They're not removing the things that made Shadowrun fun. Hell, I remember the SR1-->SR2 change, which was pretty painful too (though ultimately for the better). Every edition removes some things that people like and adds some other things that other people (sometimes even the same people) like better.

I don't know exactly where I'm going with this--just rambling, really--but I just don't think that the doomsaying is warranted, or that the release of SR4 is going to cause the downfall of FanPro (or of FanPro's SR licensing rights from WizKids). I know this isn't a popular subject with a lot of people, but look at the American election--people were swearing up and down that Kerry was going to sweep the country, based on a lot of polls conducted in blue states, but when the votes came in, it didn't quite work that way. I predict that SR4 will do well, not in small part due to a large fan base that's never even heard of Dumpshock and whose opinions are not being heard in this debate.

I still firmly believe that there are worse fates than the dormancy or even discontinuation of the line.

~J

Eh... you mean Gungans right? Not giant mechs-in-space? 'Cause Fanpro's already got a game like that.

Heh, Shadowrun with lightsabers.

Lightsabers will be the new STR + 3 M damage reach 1 weapon, whereas katanas will be downgraded to STR + 2 M damage reach 1, and "sword" will be made into STR L so we can all laugh at it.

See this thread.

Does this mean the 3RD edition rules system is up for grabs?

The metaplot has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the metaplot?

Midnightghost: some of us are already hacking it to pieces over in the main Shadowrun forum. If by "up for grabs" you mean "up for commercial exploitation" the answer is no, but it's probably a golden age of revisions.

~J

While I admit that I waste a lot of time here, I'd like to think that after conducting a massive revision of the SR3 rules I'm going to at least remember to keep a copy

But yeah, unless WizKids licenses or FanPro sublicenses (or reverts for any reason), 3rd is commercially dead as of August.

~J

I don't think it will fail. There are legions of D20 (the target audience) players who will line up to play because Fanpro will have "simplified" the rules. They will at the very least buy the core book. Once they have done that the setting will keep them. That is assuming FP doesn't screw the pooch so badly on the rules that no one will want to play it.

Someone said it before, no one sets out to build a bad game system, yet it happens. I just hope it doesn't happen to Fanpro.

It's been my experience that the setting kept out more people than it brought in.

The point of new players not wanting to learn back history is valid. The SR world is so rich, richer than any other RPG I've had experience with, that it all can be extremely intimidating for new players. You just have to learn to feed it to them in small bits. I personally will stick with 3rd Edition mostly because I've got over a grand invested in SR books, and I simply don't want to change game mechanics at this point in my nearly-40 life!

Crimsondude, I'd be careful on that issue only in that there are real dwarves, and I know of at least one that plays Shadowrun. This is just to help keep you from getting flamed. It shouldn't have to be said that you were talking about SR races, and not real life little people, but you know how it is today. Cheers.

If someone's too stupid to not appreciate context and understand that I mean the SR race and not the RL group of "little people" then it only matters to the extent that it's something I have to read around.