Dragon 427 posted and Upcoming Hiatus

[jodyjohnson]

Hiatus for Dragon and Dungeon after December.

Editorial page 3
"In years past, when we found ourselves at the lonely
crossroads between game editions, the magazines
simply went from one edition to the next with nary a
breath in between. This time is different. As we turn
our attention to the next D&D® rules set, we’re putting
Dragon® and Dungeon® on hiatus.
The D&D magazines are going dark beginning in
January. In other words, the December issues (#221
of Dungeon and #430 of Dragon) will be the last issues
you see for a while."

Dragon 427 Editorial

 

[darjr]

Wait, what?!

Edit: I can't see this as good. Is it just me?

 

[Kinak]

Wow... can't say I saw that one coming. Admittedly, in retrospect, the decreasing page count and intermittent content was a bit of a giveaway.

I suppose, in a perfect world, this would be the start of them transitioning back to print publication.

In the meantime, I hope the 4th Edition (and 4thish) third party publishers can ramp up to fill the gap. I have a feeling they'll be able to, as long as groups are wiling to use them.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Remathilis]

Sounds like it will be back in some form whenever Next becomes the de facto D&D ruleset.

 

[the Jester]

Sad and tragic, but honestly, it was only a matter of time once they went electronic, especially since they didn't really treated the e-mags as real magazines until the last year or so. (See: Inconsistent page count, failure to adhere to deadlines, etc.)

 

[Hussar]

I wonder what effect this will have on subscription rates.

 

[jodyjohnson]

So I went back to look at the Paizo/3.5 to WotC/4e transition.

359: Sept. 2007, Last Paizo issue
360: October 2007, First eZine issue - not entirely sure when it was posted but feels like left over Paizo content. (The Graz'zt issue - article by James Jacobs)
361-363: 3 Issues spread between Dec 2007 and March 2008. All web content and no compled issue.
364: June 2008, compiled issue syched with 4e launch. (The Yeenoghu issue)

I think they're planning ahead to avoid the mess of the 2007-2008 transition where there were 3 'issues' over 7 months. But they weren't really PDF magazines.

 

[darjr]

If it is going to effectively happen anyway it's good that they communicate that.

edit: I don't mean this sarcastically.

 

[amerigoV]

I guess we can add D&D to the list of franchises without an official RPG....

 

[MarkB]

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I doubt we'll see the return of Dragon or Dungeon. More likely, they'll transition entirely to web articles, abandoning any last remnants of a "magazine" concept to tie them together.