[MHR] Marvel RPG Discontinued, PDF sales ending next week

[Super Pony]

It's not necessarily the most current breaking news, being a couple days old. But I didn't see a thread for it yet.

And in Marvel news… the economics of licensing a tie-in product is always something we have to weigh carefully. We brokered an admittedly ambitious license with Marvel. Our first event, CIVIL WAR, was successful and well received, but it didn’t garner the level of sales necessary to sustain the rest of the line. We’ve learned from this and are taking a very different approach with the other licensed properties we’re bringing out to you in the next three years. We believe we created a great game. Those of you that have supported us have been terrific, and we appreciate you. But, unfortunately, we will not be bringing any new product out under the Marvel line. We know this affects our customers. Those that have pre-ordered Annihilation will receive a full refund or a credit worth 150% of their Annihilation order to use on existing or future product.


We’re sure much of this will inspire comments and questions from you, our community. We welcome them. Please contact us any time and we’ll respond as quickly as we can. In the meantime, Keep Flyin’.

Christi Cardenas

Direct Link


As for the PDF sales, they are going to be pulled at the end of the month (April 30th, Next Tuesday), so get em soon if you desire them at all.

In some sad RPG news the license for the Marvel Heroic RPG line from Margaret Weis Productions has ended and these PDFs are going away at the end of the month.

If you have not had the chance to scoop up this very cool evolution of the Cortex System, you definitely want to get them today. They vanish from DriveThruRPG after 4/30!

Get 'em before they are gone!

Google+ Post from DriveThruRPG

I am not sure how popular Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is/was around here, but I thought I'd pass on the info to anyone who may have missed the announcements.

Cheers all, and happy gaming!

:EDIT: DERP! Yeah so I failed my spot check, sorry Morrus. Still, the links are valid

 

[Umbran]

I wouldn't be surprised if the "event" structure was their real downfall, ultimately. The game plays well, but they needed better adventure support than "rehash events in the comics".

But, it plays well enough that I want to see if I can find a copy of the core rules somewhere...

 

[Super Pony]

Hard to say. So many things can weigh in on license agreements, and the business side of the equation. Still, I thought Cam Banks et al. put forth a cool system. I've hacked parts of it into other games I own, and I've got other plans for it. Heck I suffered the slings and arrows of my game group's initial taunting to uncork the awesomeness of Smallville relationship mapping (which I now use in most game systems I run in some form or another). So I hope that they will re-issue the game mechanics for Cortex+ Heroic in a generic fashion, if not dressed up with another IP.

I have a feeling that Marvel may have not fully grok'ed that selling 10,000 copies can make a game out to be a breakout indie success in the RPG bizz. I obviously don't have sales numbers for MHRPG. But I'd have to think that the accolades and sunny reception that the game garnered paled in comparison to the cash-flow. Given Marvel's previous history in their RPG lines, they don't have a lot of patience for gamers .

Ah well, onward and upward eh? I'd rather see a dead Marvel license agreement than a dead MW Publishing any day of the week.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Certainly terrible news. I really enjoyed the Event format and was looking forward to Annihilation. I wonder if Cam's departure is at all realted? I worried about the game's future when I heard he was leaving MWP.

 

[Evenglare]

GIVE THEM BACK DRAGONLANCE. Sorry just had to say that. Has nothing to do with anything except MWP....

 

[lin_fusan]

What I'm confused about is which pdfs are available. Is the Annihilation pdf avail? What about the other Civil War supplements?

 

[jekessler]

What I'm confused about is which pdfs are available. Is the Annihilation pdf avail? What about the other Civil War supplements?

The Annihilation Premium Book and Essential book pdfs are available, as are all of the Civil War Books (Premium and essential, as well as the 50 State Initiative, Young Avengers and X-Men books).

The Premium books are the same as the essentials, but the premium includes the Operations Manual (ie, 'the rules') from the Basic book (which is available itself for $10 in pdf format). Some good stuff there.

Plus you may want to grab material from the MWP website - they had two What If? DLCs (downloadable contents) containing stats for Thor and the Hulk.

Print Info: So the Annihilation book is NOT available in print, and the 3 Civil War supplements may or may not - they did a limited print run of those three to fulfill pre-orders back in February/March, but I have no idea if they have any left over or how many there might be. But the pdfs are still being sold until April 30th. FYI - Annihilation was just updated last week with some errata, and we were THIS close (days, it would seem) from getting 'printer-friendly' datafiles for the Annihilation characters, but I doubt that will go live before the end now. All the rest of the pdfs include a separate file for the characters that have the backgrounds removed to make them easier to print out.

 

[jekessler]

Certainly terrible news. I really enjoyed the Event format and was looking forward to Annihilation. I wonder if Cam's departure is at all realted? I worried about the game's future when I heard he was leaving MWP.

I doubt Cam's departure had much effect, really. He was still VERY responsive on the forums and via e-mail. He was still involved daily as far as I could tell, as a contractor if not as an employee. No, I think this was a licensing issue with Marvel and MWP, and whatever the new terms were couldn't be met. The short burn time for selling is a bit strange, though - not that I'm an expert in such things.

I hope you'll still be running Civil War ongoing...

Jack

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I hope you'll still be running Civil War ongoing...

Jack

I'm planning to. And I just bought the Annihilation pdf.

 

[jekessler]

I wouldn't be surprised if the "event" structure was their real downfall, ultimately. The game plays well, but they needed better adventure support than "rehash events in the comics".

But, it plays well enough that I want to see if I can find a copy of the core rules somewhere...

No inside info here, but from what others have said, it seems the 'Event Structure' was one of the ideas that sold Marvel on granting the license in the first place. So while I might agree the setup wasn't ideal (though I've mellowed on the idea since my original knee-jerk reaction), it may have been a necessary evil to get the great game that we did.

And I would recommend the Marvel Basic Book wholeheartedly. It goes for only $10 in pdf format and looks great (and includes cheat sheets, example of play, a random character creation dlc as well as separate printer-friendly datafiles in the same purchase at DriveThrurpg). If you prefer hardcopy, they are still selling it on the MWP website, which will get you a free pdf of it as well.

Jack