Has UKG Publishing vanished?

[Alzrius]

A friend of mine recently pointed something out: UKG Publishing, the company that put out the acclaimed Year of the Zombie sourcebook for d20 Modern, seems to have vanished.

Or at least, their website has. Their products are still for sale, though they haven't released anything new in several months now, and there's no way to get in contact with the publishers that I'm aware of. Is this a case of their website just expiring when they weren't looking, or has something happened to which I remain unaware?

If you know more (or how to get in touch with them) please let me know!

 

[jdrakeh]

I hope they haven't gone the way of the dodo, but it wouldn't surprise me. The number of companies that turned a profit publishing OGL supplements has shrunk considerably since that particular bubble burst. Most of those that remain have turned to publishing things for other game systems (e.g., I see a lot of stuff that was d20/OGL now being published for Savage Worlds) or developing and supporting their own game systems (e.g., Green Ronin, Mongoose, etc).

 

[Wolv0rine]

Neat, I haven't seen YotZ mentioned in a while.

I can't say what's happened RE: the websites, or what John and Kevin are doing in particular, but UKG Publishing and YotZ are not dead. Things have, however, been somewhat in hibernation.

This is partially my fault, actually. Being the primary artist for the YotZ line I've had a number of difficult personal issues crop up over the last year or two. As such I've managed to build up a healthy and starved-for-attention stack of back-work. I am currently starting to dig into the backlog of books that need art duties so they can see release.

Tim Willard and I have also been splitting our time working for author JanRae Frank's small publishing company Daverana Enterprises in layout & art director capacities (respectively), and put out two issues of Flashing Swords Magazine before necessary budget cuts forced Ms. Frank to put the magazine on extended hiatus.

In short, UGK Publishing should (hopefully) be able to start releasing some YotZ product in the near future.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I too have wondered what happened to their website. I haven't been able to get to it for a month or two now.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Bit of necromancy here, but the UKG website still is dead. Does anyone know what happened to these guys?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Morrus]

I wonder just how many defunct publishers' products are still sold at various sites such as RPGNow - and what happens to that revenue? There must be hundreds of defunct publishers with many thousands of products between them.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Many publishers may be defunct in terms of their work, but still exist as entities that can collect additional revenue. Lots of small businesses may be organized as proprietorships or file some minor paperwork to remain active as corporations.

I run a small partnership making iPhone apps in my spare time with some friends. If we reached the point where we pulled the plug, we would just stop making new apps--the minor effort to keep paying taxes and to handle the accounting to pay some royalties would still be worth it. The same is probably true for many of the disappeared RPG publishers.

 

[Ghostwind]

I wish new YotZ material would come out. That stuff has always been top notch.

 

[vagabundo]

After a bit of digging through the google cache:

https://twitter.com/ukgpublishing

Last entry was April. And there was a new release this year. So they seem to be around in some form, just their web presence is thin.