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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 8605965" data-attributes="member: 85870">This is a pretty good point. It's entirely reasonable to suppose that if Adkison had decided not to pick up D&amp;D, someone, somewhere out in the corporate world would have seriously considered it.Maybe it's Hasbro. Maybe it's another media company. My best guess, if WotC doesn't pick it up, the most likely alternate suitors would have been video game companies. Suppose, for example, that Baldur's Gate I comes out, sells enough, and Bioware throws together enough scratch to pick up the entire D&amp;D IP for themselves. Suddenly they already own the IP to the games they're producing and don't have to pay to license it in the first place. Or maybe Warren Specter --- video game producer for Ion Storm (Deus Ex), Looking Glass Studios (remember Ultima Underworld? System Shock?) decides that they can funnel a cool $50-$60 million to pick D&amp;D off the scrap heap. Or maybe John Carmack at id Software gets the same idea. Or maybe Bethesda, as the first two Elder Scrolls games are already on the market and reasonably popular in 1997 (Arena and Daggerfall). The first Tomb Raider came out on Playstation 1 in 1996. Maybe Eidos jumps on the bandwagon and buys another IP to go with its suddenly world-famous Lara Croft. Or maybe -- with Warcraft I and II already immensely popular, and StarCraft about to hit the market a year later in '98 -- Blizzard software brings the entire fantasy fiction universe full circle and purchases D&amp;D for themselves.With that in mind, it's probably safe to assume that even if Nu-Paizo gets off the ground in '99 or '00, that there would be an actual Dungeons &amp; Dragons branded re-entry into the RPG market at some point by somebody. If WotC doesn't buy it in '97, it's a safe bet that somebody picks it up sometime in the next 1-3 years after that, and &quot;Warcraft/Morrowind/Ultima/Baldur's Gate the RPG - Powered by Dungeons and Dragons&quot; hits the market sometime around 2002.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 8605965, member: 85870"] This is a pretty good point. It's entirely reasonable to suppose that if Adkison had decided not to pick up D&D, someone, somewhere out in the corporate world would have seriously considered it. Maybe it's Hasbro. Maybe it's another media company. My best guess, if WotC doesn't pick it up, the most likely alternate suitors would have been video game companies. Suppose, for example, that Baldur's Gate I comes out, sells enough, and Bioware throws together enough scratch to pick up the entire D&D IP for themselves. Suddenly they already own the IP to the games they're producing and don't have to pay to license it in the first place. Or maybe Warren Specter --- video game producer for Ion Storm (Deus Ex), Looking Glass Studios (remember Ultima Underworld? System Shock?) decides that they can funnel a cool $50-$60 million to pick D&D off the scrap heap. Or maybe John Carmack at id Software gets the same idea. Or maybe Bethesda, as the first two Elder Scrolls games are already on the market and reasonably popular in 1997 (Arena and Daggerfall). The first Tomb Raider came out on Playstation 1 in 1996. Maybe Eidos jumps on the bandwagon and buys another IP to go with its suddenly world-famous Lara Croft. Or maybe -- with Warcraft I and II already immensely popular, and StarCraft about to hit the market a year later in '98 -- Blizzard software brings the entire fantasy fiction universe full circle and purchases D&D for themselves. With that in mind, it's probably safe to assume that even if Nu-Paizo gets off the ground in '99 or '00, that there would be an actual Dungeons & Dragons branded re-entry into the RPG market [I]at some point[/I] by [I]somebody[/I]. If WotC doesn't buy it in '97, it's a safe bet that somebody picks it up sometime in the next 1-3 years after that, and "Warcraft/Morrowind/Ultima/Baldur's Gate the RPG - Powered by Dungeons and Dragons" hits the market sometime around 2002. [/QUOTE]

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