WotC has a plan for their D&D archive. What is it!?

[Dire Bare]

The latest "Confessions of a Full-Time Wizard" column by Shelly Mazzanoble just went up late tonight (for Wednesday). I don't read Mazzanoble's column regularly, but this time she talks about the warehouse-sized D&D archive TSR had kept in Wisconsin, that it was recently shipped to Renton, and that the company has a "plan" for the core of the archive materials. Duplicates got raffled off to current WotC employees, which is what most of the article is about.

Mazzanoble mentions that there is a "plan", and that the "plan" will be revealed soon, but doesn't say what the "plan" is. The archive isn't just RPG material (although there is plenty of that), but all sorts of licensed toys, games, and collectibles from the 80's D&D boom.

You can read the article here.

My hope is that they create a quality photo archive of all that great stuff, so that those of us who can't own the items or hold them in our hot little hands can at least see the combination of awesome and crazy that was 1980s era D&D licensing.

 

[Stormonu]

I'd love to see the old D&D figure collection come back. I'll never understand why D&D, a subsidiary of a toy company, hasn't approached the Boys Toys section and said "we need to resurrect this line..."

Warduke and Zaray the Assassin action figure? I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

I wonder if this warehouse was the one in the Peter Atkinson (sp?) article talking about pallets of 1E material shrink-wrapped on pallets "ready to go" as one of the failures of TSR management. If so, that's rather ironic there's such fanfare over it now being distributed.

And just as a side note, my old favorite hobby shop gave me about 30 various D&D rub-on transfer sheets a few years back that I still pull out and sigh over every so often.

 

[delericho]

It strikes me there are a couple of possibilities -

The one that leaps most immediately to mind is some sort of D&D museum - either in physical form or (maybe in addition) some sort of virtual museum. If they've got a whole load of toy and other merchandise, then that is probably what I would put my money on.

The alternative, for books at least, is to redo all the scans to get really high quality electronic versions. (The quality of the existing PDFs is distinctly variable.) Whether they then use those to create new collector's editions, create a virtual library (with all-new 5e conversions?), or simply resume the sale of PDFs, would be up to them - and there's no reason they couldn't do all of the above.

(Of course, if they're really smart, they'll have kept two copies of all of the 'book' items, one for the museum and one to destroy in the process of scanning. That way they can have both.)

 

[Dire Bare]

I wonder if this warehouse was the one in the Peter Atkinson (sp?) article talking about pallets of 1E material shrink-wrapped on pallets "ready to go" as one of the failures of TSR management. If so, that's rather ironic there's such fanfare over it now being distributed.

Nope. This is not a warehouse full of unsold product, but a deliberate archive of TSR products and licensed products. I am kinda surprised it managed to survive up until now, rent ain't cheap.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

I hope WotC's plan is nothing like the plan the Cylons had.

 

[Greatwyrm]

It'd be kind of cool if they did some kind of charity auction with it. Or maybe for that Gygax memorial.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

If they need a place for that all stuff, my house and yard has a lot of available room.

 

[Deset Gled]

If I were head of D+D, I would create a special message board and put out an open call for all the armchair-businessmen of the internet to post their ideas about what WotC should do with the archive to make money and preserve the history of D+D. I would then watch them argue about it incessantly on the internet for months. When I got bored, I would review all of the ideas proposed, and do the exact opposite.

And that's why I'm not in charge of D+D. That, and my lack of game design experience. Well, my lack of game design experience and refusal to relocate my family. That thing above, lack of experience, refusal to relocate, and an annoying number of Monty Python references are among the reasons why I am not in charge of D+D.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Anything electronically preserved will probably have to be accessed through D&D insider. I'm hoping they aren't just going to auction it off, though I would love to have a piece of it once it is auctioned most of it will be gone forever. A museum would be nice especially with a virtual tour for those of us who can't get up to the Pacific Northwest (but they will probably charge admission).

 

[Dire Bare]

Anything electronically preserved will probably have to be accessed through D&D insider. I'm hoping they aren't just going to auction it off, though I would love to have a piece of it once it is auctioned most of it will be gone forever. A museum would be nice especially with a virtual tour for those of us who can't get up to the Pacific Northwest (but they will probably charge admission).

I can see digital copies of game materials requiring a DDI subscription, but a photo archive of all the licensed stuff is unlikely to be behind a pay wall. Either way, I'm cool, as I have no problem with subscribers getting benefits that non-subscribers don't.

I really don't see them creating a physical D&D museum, a place you could go visit in person. That would be cool, but very unlikely to happen.