Now WotC has taken Dragonlance (merged)

[pawsplay]

You know...if you are considering selling a company, you usually first consolidate intellectual property under you wing first. That way, you don't give a third party veto power over the transaction.

I doubt this is the plan, but it's possible.

The same logic would apply if they wanted to bring WotC "in house," that is, roll them into Hasbro proper, or merge them with another interesting division.

 

[teitan]

They've also eliminated all "official" competition in the adventure market.

They have? How?

 

[broghammerj]

WotC is a corporation, corporations do different things at different times. I'm sure they have their reasons.

Unfortunately whatever those reasons may be, they are beginning to erode consumer confidence. Consumer perception is a very important thing. Being from Detroit it vaguely reminds me of the American car companies. They put out some poorly made cars back in the 80s and began losing the race with Japan. Now they make great quality cars but everyone's perception is that they still aren't good enough, despite massive strides in quality. They're not even really making a comeback.

Now there is no real competitor for WOTC especially since they are snapping up all of their licenses. But what will happen to consumer perception. A couple of things come to mind:

1. Maybe 4e isn't so far off. I guess I should stop buying books for now because apparently it will be a sudden announcement with no foreshadowing. We won't get any warning like 3E.

2. What if I prepay for my digital initiative subscription and WOTC suddenly decides it's not profitable or wants to change the format? This apparently could happen at anytime

All these actions make me clutch my 3.5 books a little tighter. As others have concluded WOTC can't go back on the current version of OGL. That should keep 3rd party companies going for a while. I can always play the version I have in my hand. Look at Diaglo he still plays DND the "antique" edition (only kidding)

 

[Kanegrundar]

You know...if you are considering selling a company, you usually first consolidate intellectual property under you wing first. That way, you don't give a third party veto power over the transaction.

I doubt this is the plan, but it's possible.

Possibly, but with the huge value of the brand name alone I'd sooner expect a 4E announcement than that D&D is selling. (Not saying that I am expecting a 4E announcement however.) After all, the D&D name alone on video games is likely worth more than the book sales. They have big plans and whatever those plans entail require getting the house in order...

 

[teitan]

WotC giving away the Oriental Adventures license to Rokugan was pure stupidity. Especially with all the anime fans out there now and Americans in love with Asian culture.

I hope they renew OA under Kara-Tur, a setting filled wit more cultural variety, generalization, and the OA home of the Forgotten Realms (yet simltaneously generalized and big enough to stick in any campaign).

And, yes, they did update OA to 3.5 in the pages of Dragon Magazine. There was an OA 3.5 update article done a couple years ago I believe. Can't remember the exact issue.

WOTC was licensing Rokugan, not the other way around...

 

[TheAuldGrump]

That is fan speculation. No data or info from WotC or WW confirms this.

Joël

Errr, if I recall correctly WW did mention this publicly. Feel free to go digging and prove me wrong, but I am pretty sure that they did announce this.

The RL license was fairly expensive, going up in price with renewal, and WW was disappointed with the sales of all their D20 lines - they also closed the Scarred Lands in the same announcement, and they owned that setting outright. After the changeover to 3.5 a lot of companies were feeling the pinch. So, WW pretty much dropped out of directly producing D20 materials in preparation for their new and improved World of Darkness.... (Which, locally at least, has been a bit of a flop.) They did continue to distribute some companies' D20 material, Malhavoc, etc.

But I will admit that I find the timing of this latest closing of a license disturbing.

The Auld Grump

 

[Cam Banks]

Depends on Cam Banks and Jamie Chambers I would guess.

Still hard at work!

I really like Cam's stuff. He's a great designer and a great author. Not shy with the word count either! Have you seen the SIZE of Price of Courage?

Biggest DL game product ever!

Thanks for the support, by the way. We like our fans a lot.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Mistwell]

Hmm, actually the more I look at the announcement, and what they had already done with it, and the fact that these are sold as 4 year licenses, the more I become convinced that it was not WOTC that pulled the license, but Weis who opted to not renew it.

 

[Mistwell]

If it looks like a duck ...
and sounds like a duck ...

I know we have no definitive proof, but to me the lack of any WotC statements over the last 6 days, despite all the outpouring of emotions speaks more to this subject (for me) than anything else.

Wait wait...the lack of WOTC statements, except for two of them one of which was long. And over the last 6 days, except this only happened 48 hours ago. What time stream are you living in?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

WOTC was licensing Rokugan, not the other way around...

The history of the Legend of the Five Rings IP is, in fact, quite complicated.

Suffice to say that Wizards of the Coast, at the time Oriental Adventures was published, owned the Rokugan IP but was licensing it to AEG, and that AEG came into possession of the IP later.

It's actually covered on the Wikipedia page:

AEG and Isomedia designed the original card game. A group of the original people formed the Five Rings Publishing Group with some investors so that they could really publicise the game, and Five Rings bought the Legend of the Five Rings IP - essentially, AEG now licensed the IP from Five Rings. Later, they licensed the rights to make a tabletop RPG from Five Rings, too.

Wizards of the Coast bought the Five Rings Publishing Group, but AEG's licenses remained in effect - though Wizards of the Coast became the publisher of the card game, AEG designed it. Nothing about this setup changed when Hasbro bought Wizards of the Coast, either.

Later on, Wizards of the Coast decided to sell off the Legend of the Five Rings IP - and, luckily for them, AEG won the bidding war.