Webbed Sphere, Inc. acquires long time game publisher Flying Buffalo, Inc.

In June it was revealed that Flying Buffalo -- the oldest RPG company currently in existence - was being sold to an undisclosed buyer. That buyer has now been announced as a holding company called Webbed Sphere, Inc., which describes itself as "a management and holding company for numerous ventures including online retailer Troll and Toad, home decor brands Darware, Decorae and AuldHome; game and toy publisher Toy Vault, and jigsaw puzzle manufacturer Mchezo. Its array of companies also specialize in property acquisition and development, business and consumer fulfillment services, liquidation outlets, and hobbyist gardening supplies."

Tunnels & Trolls - Rebellion Unplugged

World-renowned independent creative studio Rebellion is delighted to announce the acquisition of Tunnels & Trolls, one of the trailblazing games of the fantasy genre, and the second roleplaying game ever published.   First published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo as a more player-friendly...

flyingbuffalo.com

Webbed Sphere Inc. announced today that it finalized acquisition of pioneering, award-winning game publisher Flying Buffalo, Inc., best known for the Tunnels and Trolls role playing game and bestselling Nuclear War card game series.

The deal was finalized July 31 with the estate of Flying Buffalo founder Richard Loomis. Loomis created the play-by-mail game Nuclear Destruction in 1970, and founded Flying Buffalo with Steve MacGregor in 1972. The company initially focused on running play-by-mail games, and later became well known for publishing the second-ever role playing game Tunnels and Trolls, originally designed by Ken St. Andre, starting in 1975. The Scottsdale, Arizona company is currently the oldest active publisher of pen-and-paper role playing games in existence.

“Flying Buffalo and Rick Loomis hold an esteemed position in the history of gaming, and we are proud to now be a part of that legacy,” said John Ward, CEO of Webbed Sphere. “Flying Buffalo has thrilled generations of gamers over the past 50 years, and it will make a great compliment to our Toy Vault and Mchezo brand lines. I am excited about what the future holds.”

Since its founding, Flying Buffalo published many popular board games and roleplaying game titles including: Tunnels and Trolls, Nuclear War, Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes; Death Dice, Ace of Aces, Lost Worlds, Monsters! Monsters!, Imperialism, Origin’s award winning Citybooks and a series of role playing supplements that included the famous Grimtooth’s Traps. The company was also groundbreaking in its release of the first solo role playing game modules using it’s Tunnels and Trolls system, starting with “Buffalo Castle,” written by Rick Loomis and published in 1976.

“It's always hard when your child finally grows up and leaves home, but I'm looking forward to a bigger, brighter future for Tunnels & Trolls under the organization of Webbed Sphere,” said Ken St. Andre, creator of Tunnels and Trolls. “May T&T spread even further to the greater world than it already has, and may Webbed Sphere make all their saving throws going forward!”

Douglas Malewicki, the inventor of the Nuclear War™ card game in 1965, said he’s excited about the opportunities the purchase of Flying Buffalo represents.

“I’m excited and really look forward to working with the new Flying Buffalo team,” Malewicki said. “I definitely want to help ensure that Nuclear War continues to improve, evolve and thrill new generations of gamers. The fun begins!”

Specific announcements about Flying Buffalo properties will be forthcoming in the near future. The company plans to work diligently with retailers and distributors to make sure products are in stock and available to the public.

Flying Buffalo also plans to be an exhibitor at Gen Con, to be held in Indianapolis Sept. 16-19, and will release more exciting news as the show approaches.

About Webbed Sphere
Webbed Sphere Inc. is a management and holding company for numerous ventures including online retailer Troll and Toad, home decor brands Darware, Decorae and AuldHome; game and toy publisher Toy Vault, and jigsaw puzzle manufacturer Mchezo. Its array of companies also specialize in property acquisition and development, business and consumer fulfillment services, liquidation outlets, and hobbyist gardening supplies.

About Flying Buffalo, Inc.
Flying Buffalo, Inc. is a publishing company best known for the second ever role playing game distributed to the mass market - Tunnels and Trolls. It was founded in 1972 by Rick Loomis and Steve MacGregor as a play-by-mail game company, but also published numerous popular role playing games, card games, and gaming supplements. It is located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

And ultimately, these guys are hobby gamers, and seem to know what they are doing. So if folks care about Tunnels & Trolls, I have this sense that the game is in good hands.

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah. I guess the fans JUST HATE the workers getting paid more. Must cheese them off to no end! They'll go play heroclicks, or something, after hearing about those pay bonuses...

From my point of view, if they can afford significant (say, 5-figure or larger) bonuses, they are charging what I consider immoral margins.
Then again, I also consider any company where the range of salaries from lowest to highest employees, including benefits, exceeds a factor of 100 to be run in an immoral manner, too.
I also realize that, for 99.9% of US and European companies, moral pricing is unethical.

AFAIK, amongst corporations, only non-profit or public benefit companies do not have an ethical and/or legal obligation to maximize profits...
Legal, ethical, and moral are separate terms because they mean different things...

 

[Jaeger]

Flying Buffalo has always been run on a shoe string budget, Tunnels and Trolls has always been a C list game. It would be interesting to see what might happen if they had an infusion of cash and some marketing prowess provided to them.

Ultimately this.

T&T was one of the first RPG's. But it made certain design choices that ensured it would never rival D&D.

I hate to say it but if t wasn't for this announcement most probably were probably unaware that Flying buffalo was still a thing...

 

[Iamoutofhere]

So much negativity in this thread...come on people, lighten up

 

[aramis erak]

So much negativity in this thread...come on people, lighten up

Why? There's no actual comfort in this sale; until we see how FBInc functions under the new ownership, if it even does, we don't know whether the games owned will be mangled by the new ownership. Or, possible, even, some of them sold off.

Sure, FB is known best for Nuclear War and Tunnels and Trolls, there are a bunch of older boardgames that they have, plus Lost Worlds...
It's also interesting to note that the PBM side was NOT sold. Crompton's noted he'll be supervising that.

 

[Iamoutofhere]

Why? Because nothing bad has happened yet. It’s like people want them (Webbed Sphere) to fail before they have even started. I don’t get the negativity. At some point all these old companies will have to be sold, passed on or have their doors shut...surely it is better to give some new people a chance to try and carry the baton?

 

[Eltab]

Why? Because nothing bad has happened yet. It’s like people want them (Webbed Sphere) to fail before they have even started. I don’t get the negativity. At some point all these old companies will have to be sold, passed on or have their doors shut...surely it is better to give some new people a chance to try and carry the baton?

Founders can bring in new talent, hire / contract an accountant and lawyer to get into professional shape, bring in a CEO with small-business experience. All that is growing pains.

When investment firms buy out companies that provide goods & services to the real world, the firms' knowledge of how to manipulate paper value is good but their knowledge of what the company does / the industry it is in is often poor. (This instance may be an exception; it sounds like FB has been bought by people who know how to run a company in the RPG space.) However even the mightiest of companies cannot withstand an investment firm or activist investor who wishes to transfer the company's productive assets to their own control.

What's the worst that could possibly happen? See the fate of Sears Roebuck & Co. - once the biggest retail company in America - over the last decade, while controlled by Sears Holdings.

 

[Iamoutofhere]

I give up. Enjoy your half empty glasses folks.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Founders can bring in new talent, hire / contract an accountant and lawyer to get into professional shape, bring in a CEO with small-business experience. All that is growing pains.

When investment firms buy out companies that provide goods & services to the real world, the firms' knowledge of how to manipulate paper value is good but their knowledge of what the company does / the industry it is in is often poor. (This instance may be an exception; it sounds like FB has been bought by people who know how to run a company in the RPG space.) However even the mightiest of companies cannot withstand an investment firm or activist investor who wishes to transfer the company's productive assets to their own control.

What's the worst that could possibly happen? See the fate of Sears Roebuck & Co. - once the biggest retail company in America - over the last decade, while controlled by Sears Holdings.

Sure, but for every highly publicised negative, there are no doubt multiple positive examples. It's just it doesn't make good copy "Company bought out by another and actually does better!" isn't a good headline.

 

[aramis erak]

Sure, but for every highly publicised negative, there are no doubt multiple positive examples. It's just it doesn't make good copy "Company bought out by another and actually does better!" isn't a good headline.

It has been more common in the gaming industry that the change is not for the better when a company is bought. The best known exception was/is TSR being bought by WotC. But it's also quite fair to say that it was not a good move for TSR Fans of anything other than D&D, and a large number of D&D fans were left in the cold.
Prior to TSR, WotC went on a buying spree... buying and then shutting down a number of companies, amongst which had been their pre-Magic competitors. Several others were their post-MTG RPG competitors. In one case, they absorbed a company they'd sold an IP to... then killed that company. In the end, they later resold the property.
Most "purchase the company" buys have been either buy out your competition or have been buy for one IP then ignore the rest. (Which is, largely, what WotC has done. TSR had a dozen settings/subsettings with product lines, and only recently has WotC decided they may as well get some of the money they're losing to "reluctant pirates" (Those who would buy if it was legally available, but aren't so principled to not acquire illegal scans when legal PDF isn't available).

Also fun, I've seen some pirate prints of long OOP RPG books... some being clearly not original, a few being forgeries. I once saw a near-perfect print of Cook Expert in a used book store... the paper weight was wrong, the blue on white maps were black on white, and if one looked carefully, the staples from the original weren't removed from the printing... and the stapling wasn't the same spots. The color cover was (with a magnifying glass) able to be seen as an inkjet run rather than an offset run. A very good inkjet... around 180-200 DPI... the gloss sheen of offset was faked with wax... parafin, I suspect.