German publisher of D&D 4E won't renew contract

[Jhaelen]

Since I haven't seen anyone mentioning it and I thought it might be of interest in light of some of the recent news regarding WotC and Hasbro:

The German publisher for D&D 4E (Feder & Schwert) has announced to allow their contract with Hasbro to expire on December 31st, 2008 (source). They want to concentrate on translations of their novel lines, the Warhammer rpg, and 'new projects' instead.

A representative of 'Feder & Schwert' elaborated somewhat on this (source):
- This means that after publishing the translated versions of the three Core books they'll be allowed to sell their D&D publications until March 31st, 2009.
- It was a very short-term decision. It's worth noting that translations for D&D 4E supplements had already begun.
- It seems that Hasbro has no plans regarding the future of German D&D products beyond that, at this time.

Another item worth noting is that I was made aware of this by a newsletter from Dragonworld, an (online) rpg/boardgame shop. They also mentioned that they were having problems with the current WotC sales and distribution department responsible for Europe (e.g. having to make making binding preorders 8 months in advance to find that the purchase price had gone up).

Taken together, these are dire news for D&D 4E here in Germany. Imho, this practically guarantees that except for the (few) hardcore 4E fans who've been buying the English books anyway, D&D is dead over here.

For me personally, it probably means, I'm never going to play 4E, unless some other German publisher is willing to put up with Hasbro's terms. Sad news, indeed, since I was really looking forward to switching after finishing my 3E campaign.

 

[Baron Opal]

Feder & Schwert are the original publishers of Engel, aren't they?

 

[justanobody]

That is just crazy! But I can understand the bit about warhammer since it is a product of Europe to begin with. To think GW is outdoing HASBRO on something is just insane!

 

[Shemeska]

I mentioned it offhand a few days ago in another thread, but I don't think anyone picked up on it. Or they all ignored me... *sniff sniff*

Me, I'm not inclined to project a failure of D&D in the German market onto 4e as a whole. As I understand it, D&D was a pretty minor player in the German RPG market in the first place. But I wonder if any of the recent layoffs at WotC affected anyone involved in this (since the layoffs apparently include more names than the ones confirmed here on Enworld, just nobody with as large a profile).

Was F&S dropping the license their decision or WotC's decision?

 

[Klaus]

I do know that the single RPG magazine in Brazil will remain 3.5e, and there were still 3.5e books coming out through the local D&D licensee (Devir).

 

[Protagonist]

Well both F&S and the previous translators did a pretty awful job. You had to literally wait years to get translations of non-core books (and quite a few 3.x books were never translated at all) and some of the translations were really awkward. (quick example: the 4E translation for warlock is the same word they used for sorcerer in 3.x) Most people I know simply buy the English books. The fact that German books may not be sold below MSRP doesn't improve things either: the 4E core book gift set is priced 31,10€ at Amazon.de, while the German translations cost 34,95€ per book!

 

[frankthedm]

Now was it Germany that had a FRPG that rivaled D&D but had little exposure elsewere?

 

[Aus_Snow]

Now was it Germany that had a FRPG that rivaled D&D but had little exposure elsewere?

DSE, I think.

 

[DandD]

Yeah, The Dark Eye in englisch, Das Schwarze Auge (lit. the black eye) in german. Fanpro attempted to bring TDE in the U.S.A and to rival Wotc's D&D-game... Suffice to say they failed... miserably... as everybody expected...

 

[Protagonist]

DSA/TDE is (now) pretty dead in Germany, too. Shadowrun and CoC seem to be rather popular over here, but I'm pretty sure D&D is the best selling / most played pen&paper rpg.