Dragon/Dungeon sold, Chainmail axed

[Morrus]

Check the news page, folks. Things are a-happenin'!

 

[Skarp Hedin]

This seems to be a Big Announcement Week, what with these and the one from Necromancer Games.

I do wonder who'll buy the magazines. I wasn't into Chainmail, though I have some miniatures from the line.. but I do subscribe to Dragon and Dungeon, heh.

I hope someone decent buys them (definition of "decent" kind of ambiguous, of course), and that the interregnum is as short as is possible. We'll see.

 

[Geoffrey]

What, exactly, does that mean for Dragon magazine? Will there be a hiatus in its publication (like when TSR stopped publishing it)?

 

[Morrus]

I know who it is, but can't for the life of me remember her name. She financed the mags for a while, years back, and worked on M:tG, if I remember correctly. Ring any bells?

 

[Agamon]

Oh, man, that's bad. The beginning of the end for those great mags. Not that I think that others can't make magazines as good as WotC or TSR did, just that it might not always be in someone else's best interest to publish "D&D" mags, when you don't own D&D.

Edit: and while a d20 company would be preferable, it still won't be the same.

 

[rounser]

I wonder what will happen to Polyhedron? What will happen to the current editorial staff of the magazines?

I hope Dungeon retains it's quality under it's new owner. To me, it's the most valuable RPG product on the market.

Nikchik was right about the fate of Chainmail.

 

[starwolf]

Well, if the mag's have been purchased by a big mainline publishing house, expect a $2 or $3 cover price hike....

 

[Limper]

Well, if the mag's have been purchased by a big mainline publishing house, expect a $2 or $3 cover price hike....

Oooooorrr... a whole lot more ads.

 

[Nikchick]

I wonder what will happen to Polyhedron? What will happen to the current editorial staff of the magazines?

I hope Dungeon retains it's quality under it's new owner. To me, it's the most valuable RPG product on the market.

Nikchik was right about the fate of Chainmail.

Thanks Rounser. I'm as disappointed as anyone that I was right about Chainmail, but the writing was on the wall, I'm afraid. And this announcement comes with the Core Book laid out and greens of miniatures ready to be cast. Sad, sad, sad.

I think Lisa Stevens is the name Morrus was trying to come up with re: the periodicals buyout. (Lisa is a former co-worker from my Lion Rampant/White Wolf days and was WotC's Employee #1; she's as gamer as gamers get, so if she's bankrolling in the periodicals division, there's no fear that it will be overrun with corporate wonks, at least.)

As I understand it, the whole staff of the periodicals division was purchased, lock stock and (two smoking) barrel(s), so there's essentially no change in what you all should expect wrto the magazines. In fact, I personally would consider the periodicals to be in a much *safer* and more stable position now that they're not controlled by WotC/Hasbro any longer.

My opinion is that WotC's selling everything that's not bolted down, and they can put as much pleasant spin on it as they want but the result is the same.

Nicole

 

[Psychotic Dreamer]

None of this sounds terrible good for WOTC. Could this mean there is more badnews coming from them soon? All in all very scary.