Necromancer Games shutting down next year.(UPDATE post 93)

[Shadowslayer]

Thats too bad. I think Necromancer's influence really helped make 3x more palatable for a lot of us old-schoolers. They will be sadly missed.

 

[Alzrius]

This really makes me sad. The Wizard's Amulet and its follow-up adventure The Crucible of Freya were the first d20 adventures I ever ran for my group. I still remember getting my first TPK in Rappan Athuk (the black skeletons on the second level butchered them). The first RPG-related article I ever had published in any form was A Brief History of Orcus, hostedon their website. I'm really going to miss Clark and Bill, and all of Necromancer Games. Given that they were "Third Edition Rules, First Edition Feel," then this feeling must be how the 1E gamers felt when 2E was announced...

EDIT: Does anyone know if the Necromancer Games website will be removed when they close their doors? There's a lot of great free stuff there, as well as web enhancements for various products that I haven't bought yet, but want to in the future.

 

[Ry]

This can't be the same Necromancer games that gave me Vault of Larin Karr and Lost City of Barakus ...

Can it?

 

[Treebore]

That's too bad. I feel diminished as a gamer when any publisher of gaming material goes under.

That said, I wonder if this is an inevitable by-product of too many choices in too limited a market. I don't own any Necromancer Games products (though I've meant to pick up a module or two), but I do own several Goodman Games modules from the Dungeon Crawl Classic line. Between those, Dungeon magazine, and now WOTC once again, the market for modules already seems fairly saturated.

I know Necromancer makes other products, but modules seemed to be a large portion of their line.

Lower sales is definitely a part of it. However they were never looking to be a big profit maker. This was done as a "hobby" for them so their money making goals were just to make enough to pay everyone and to show enough to keep their wives off their backs about the time they spent doing it.

The "back breaker" is two fold. WW selling out and cancelling their partnership with Necromancer. The second fold is that Kenzer has failed to get the modules out and visible to the general consumer, along with their own product lines.

I don't know why that is, and I love the Kalamar line, I even own a lot of the books and the awesome DM Screen (4 copies of that baby!). All I know is that Kenzer has had low visibility in gaming stores across the country for the last 3/4/5 years. So when I heard of Necro partnering with Kenzer I was afraid it was going to be a bad move.

Then WW was bought.

Like Clark says, though, if your going to go out you may as well do it while your still in good shape and on your own terms.

So yes, I am seriously bummed about this. I can only hope that something happens to keep them around before they actually close their doors. They have been my kind of company and published my kind of adventures. How can anyone not miss something like that?

At least we have 8 more products from Kenzer, plus the GenCon releases, and hopefully Tegal Manor, before the end will actually be here. Plus my daughters art work will be in 4 of those 8.

Its going to be a bitter sweet year for me.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

They have been my kind of company and published my kind of adventures. How can anyone not miss something like that?

Hear hear, I want my D&D to be old school, and along with Goodman Games they did it in spades. This is just too bad.

 

[froggie]

Not exactly

We are slowing down, and there are 8 releases (Kenzer) and 2 releases (WW) left BEFORE we decide what we will do....don't bury me alive in the coffin yet. Likely we will slow it down quite a bit, but as long as David wants to publish my books, I'll keep them rolling...like Clark said, we are looking at re-entry once (or if) the market improves. If sales justify staying around...e.g. paying the writer's at least some money and ourselves enough to buy-off our wives, then I'll keep doing this.

Bill

 

[DaveMage]

We are slowing down, and there are 8 releases (Kenzer) and 2 releases (WW) left BEFORE we decide what we will do....don't bury me alive in the coffin yet. Likely we will slow it down quite a bit, but as long as David wants to publish my books, I'll keep them rolling...like Clark said, we are looking at re-entry once (or if) the market improves. If sales justify staying around...e.g. paying the writer's at least some money and ourselves enough to buy-off our wives, then I'll keep doing this.

Bill

You sell it, I'll buy it.

(Unless it really sucks, of course. )

 

[LightPhoenix]

The "back breaker" is two fold. WW selling out and cancelling their partnership with Necromancer. The second fold is that Kenzer has failed to get the modules out and visible to the general consumer, along with their own product lines.

Someone asked upthread if the shutting down was a sign of too many choices for a limited product. Of course that answer is no, it's a sign of things just not lining up, and a sign of mismanagement by Necromancer's partners. Boo partners, boo.

However, I can see where "too much product" would be responsible for Kenzer not being able to move books. I happen to be lucky enough to live in a city where the main gaming stores have always had a lot of space - our current one is literally the basement of a warehouse (also RIP Twilight). However, many of the FLGS's, and many of the chains, just don't have enough room to keep books on shelves, card games, and miniatures (product), plus play space, storage space, and work space. A game store won't not carry WotC, so if that's all the room they have, Kenzer gets cut.

 

[froggie]

hehe

Nope, they won't siuck, but the books I have I am obligated (honor among writers) to publish. After several hundred hours of editing and writing by many folks, I want them in the stores. If all else fails and no one will do them, heck, I'll sell pdfs

 

[Psion]

Ah, man...

They were the last shining hope of d20 OGL products to me. Count this as a sad day for me.