Is Hasbro the death knell of D&D?
Wil
news:37dd24b5...@news.bestnetpc.com...
> Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC as the death
> knell for Dungeons & Dragons?
Not particularly - I honestly don't see how the acquisition will change much
about D&D at all except for possibly opening up new areas and markets that
D&D can be sold in.
> I had faith that WOTC would be devoted to D&D and continue to develop
> the game. I can't see much reason to believe that Hasbro will be
> devoted to it, or that they will allow things in the game that leave
> the company vulnerable to criticism (devils, demons, evil player
> characters and the like). A large corporation that markets most of its
> products to children at national retail outlets isn't going to stand
> up for the editorial freedom to include Asmodeus in a game. They're
> more likely to produce Anatomically Correct Barbie.
I honestly don't think that Hasbro will bother WoTC at all when it comes to
what is or is not D&D. It affects so little of their bottom line that they
probably won't blink unless WoTC goes into the red. The company will be run
exactly as it had been, the planned game lines will come out on schedule and
we'll probably get a few surprises.
Let me ask you this: do you honestly think the owners of WoTC would have
sold it to Hasbro if they didn't have assurances on the quality and nature
of the product they would produce? They knew the company was being bought
at GenCon when they announced 3rd Ed. D&D. It's not like Hasbro wrote out a
check for $325 million dollars and the owners said, "Well, they offered us
more than the company was worth....we have to take it " These are the minds
behind WoTC, their families and their friends that were the private owners,
and they wouldn't hand the keys over to anybody (and especially not for
money).
In addition, Magic: the Gathering injected sales of an unheard of potential
into the adventure gaming industry. In one year it nearly tripled the gross
sales in the industry as a whole, and has not stopped since. MtG is also a
frequent target of religious groups, much more so than D&D is. However,
these groups do little more than yell and scream and few people listen; they
haven't changed the video game industry, and I doubt they'll have much
impact on Hasbro. This isn't a case of a "screw fell out of your toy and my
kid choked" or "the tricycle turned over and my kid broke his leg". This is
a case of "My kid worships Satan because he's a PokeMaster and he thinks
he's above God!", which Hasbro's customer service will politely record, tell
them they'll look into it, and blow soda through their noses from laughing
when they hang up.
> I was planning to buy the new edition of D&D upon its release next
> year, but Hasbro's acquisition of WOTC probably kills that idea. Why
> spend a bunch of money on a product that will either be (a)
> unsupported or (b) unrecognizeable in a few years? Seems like time to
> move completely away from TSR's properties and spend more money on the
> smaller stalwarts like Steve Jackson Games.
How can you honestly know if it kills the idea until you've seen the
product? This is jumping to a completely unsubstantiated conclusion, and
seems contradictory of the actual circumcstances.
(a) In all likelihood, WoTC knew about Hasbro's interest in them when they
announced D&D 3rd Edition.
(b) In all likelihood, Hasbro has no interest in changing how WoTC operates.
(c) Hasbro is likely to be unaffected by any kind of complaining by any
group. Groups try this against the large parent companies of small
subsidiaries all the time and very rarely see results.
I'll reserve all judgement until I see what happens.
--
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rcade
mainstream game companies entered the roleplaying game market in the
early '80s when RPGs were hot, and how quickly they abandoned it.
I had faith that WOTC would be devoted to D&D and continue to develop
the game. I can't see much reason to believe that Hasbro will be
devoted to it, or that they will allow things in the game that leave
the company vulnerable to criticism (devils, demons, evil player
characters and the like). A large corporation that markets most of its
products to children at national retail outlets isn't going to stand
up for the editorial freedom to include Asmodeus in a game. They're
more likely to produce Anatomically Correct Barbie.
I was planning to buy the new edition of D&D upon its release next
David Crowe
: Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC as the death
Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
before making such a decision.
--
David "No Nickname" Crowe http://www.primenet.com/~jetman
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find out who this Cubone guy is. Any
cute cartoon animal who wears the skull of one of his defeated enemies as
headwear is my kinda cute cartoon animal.
-Kurt Busiek on Pokemon
Monte Ferguson
> This isn't a case of a "screw fell out of your toy and my
> kid choked" or "the tricycle turned over and my kid broke his leg". This is
> a case of "My kid worships Satan because he's a PokeMaster and he thinks
> he's above God!", which Hasbro's customer service will politely record, tell
> them they'll look into it, and blow soda through their noses from laughing
> when they hang up.
Right. Proctor & gamble will *never* change their logo. Justa buncha
whackos. Don't amount to a thing.
--
Monte Ferguson
montexf...@compuxservex.com
Remove X's for email
Die Killfile
>knell for Dungeons & Dragons? I can remember well the way that
>mainstream game companies entered the roleplaying game market in the
>early '80s when RPGs were hot, and how quickly they abandoned it.
Right now, I see it as a very real possibility. Odds are they acquired WotC for
4 things; Magic, Pokemon, established retail outlets, and the electronic rights
side of D&D (CRPGs based on D&D have typically been quite successful). I think
Hasbro expects to profit the most from those CRPG rights; They'll own every
step of the way for game production and distribution, making the games
incredibly profitable in comparison to the usual methods in the computer game
industry (1 company writes, a second company produces, a third company
distributes, possibly a fourth company markets....). If you can make over $100
million annually on computer games based on one property, why waste the effort
and manpower for the $12-$20 million on paper-based products based on the same
properties?
On the bright side, Hasbro is pretty damn loose about licensing to small
industries like this one. Take a look at all the Axis & Allies variants and
accessories listed in Games Quarterly; almost enough material to be its own
category! They're all unofficial and unlicensed products, made with the
permission of Hasbro.
I think that's the biggest surprise to me from the Avalon Hill buyout a year or
so ago; I've yet to see any unofficial RuneQuest products based upon AH's
portion of the game.
And another glimmer on that bright side... TSR owns all those old SPI games, as
well as a few board games of their own. Maybe Dugeon! will reappear on store
shelves in the next year or two, as well as some of the SPI games returning in
some form...
D. Jorgensen
Alternate Realities Publications
http://world-of-barador.com
David Crowe
: In article <7rfb3b$6fl$1...@madmax.keyway.net>, sin...@keyway.net says...
: > This isn't a case of a "screw fell out of your toy and my
: > kid choked" or "the tricycle turned over and my kid broke his leg". This is
: > a case of "My kid worships Satan because he's a PokeMaster and he thinks
: > he's above God!", which Hasbro's customer service will politely record, tell
: > them they'll look into it, and blow soda through their noses from laughing
: > when they hang up.
: Right. Proctor & gamble will *never* change their logo. Justa buncha
: whackos. Don't amount to a thing.
Actually, it does. I was watching a news show (maybe 60 Minutes) that was
doing some interesting poking around into reports that one of P&G's
competitors was the party keeping the "Satanist logo" story alive in an
effort to damage the compitetion.
Mr. Tines
<laund...@email.com> writes
>I was planning to buy the new edition of D&D upon its release next
>year, but Hasbro's acquisition of WOTC probably kills that idea. Why
>spend a bunch of money on a product that will either be (a)
>unsupported or (b) unrecognizeable in a few years? Seems like time to
What the hell has support got to do with it anyway? There are plenty of
games out there which are getting plenty of play without any support :
the obvious ones with big and enduring followings are AD&D1 and
Runequest
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bubba
Die Killfile wrote in message
<19990912020855...@ng-ba1.aol.com>...
<major snip>
>And another glimmer on that bright side... TSR owns all those old SPI
games, as
>well as a few board games of their own. Maybe Dugeon! will reappear on
store
>shelves in the next year or two, as well as some of the SPI games returning
in
>some form...
>
>
>
>D. Jorgensen
>Alternate Realities Publications
>http://world-of-barador.com
>
>
umm... Decision Games (???) bought most of the SPI catelogue a few years ago
and have rereleased several of the classic board game titles. They never
did redo Empires of the Middle Ages, but they did put out several Quad
games. I believe TSR kept the RPG's, so maybe Hasbro will update the Dallas
rpg for BH 90210?
Gebhard Blucher
> Actually, it does. I was watching a news show (maybe 60 Minutes) that was
> doing some interesting poking around into reports that one of P&G's
> competitors was the party keeping the "Satanist logo" story alive in an
> effort to damage the compitetion.
Heh. That's funny. So is was Steve Jackson behind all the furor in
the '80s! Bwahaha! And everyone thinks the Illuminati is just a
joke! ;-)
GB
Wil
news:diBZcSBl...@windsong.demon.co.uk...
> In article <37dd24b5...@news.bestnetpc.com>, rcade
> <laund...@email.com> writes
>
> >I was planning to buy the new edition of D&D upon its release next
> >year, but Hasbro's acquisition of WOTC probably kills that idea. Why
> >spend a bunch of money on a product that will either be (a)
> >unsupported or (b) unrecognizeable in a few years? Seems like time to
>
> What the hell has support got to do with it anyway? There are plenty of
> games out there which are getting plenty of play without any support :
> the obvious ones with big and enduring followings are AD&D1 and
> Runequest
I was thinking along the same lines, but really what struck me is why
anybody assumes that just because WoTC sold to Hasbro (which is something
that they had complete control over) that it'll be gloom and doom for their
favorite games. It seems much more likely that it's a more solid
relationship between Hasbro and WoTC than, say, IeN and the distributors
that they purchased.
Jeremy Reaban
Mr. Tines wrote in message ...
<snip>
>What the hell has support got to do with it anyway? There are plenty of
>games out there which are getting plenty of play without any support :
>the obvious ones with big and enduring followings are AD&D1 and
>Runequest
Good point. Scott Palter of WEG just posted the sales of science-fiction
games (apparently taken from the October Comic Shopper), and the SW RPG was
the 7th rated game, apparently the highest SF game. Just ahead of Star Trek.
And the SW RPG hasn't had any new items in a year and a half.
Also, Traveller, from Imperium games, is doing only slightly worse than
Alternity, despite the fact that IG is out of business, and WOTC puts out
new Alternity stuff all the time....
"Product Mfg Rank #sold %change turnout
SW RPG WEG 7 2.96 +30% 54%
other SF RPG's rate as follows
Star Trek Last 9 2.61 +59% 37%
Next gen Unicorn
Trinity WW 18 0.57 +9% 11%
Alternity WOTC 21 0.36 -49% 16%
Traveller Imperium 25 0.17 unranked 2%"
Allister Huggins
<snip>
> Good point. Scott Palter of WEG just posted the sales of science-fiction
> games (apparently taken from the October Comic Shopper), and the SW RPG was
<snip>
Question: Where can I find the original post? I kind of want to see the
entire listing.
> Also, Traveller, from Imperium games, is doing only slightly worse than
> Alternity, despite the fact that IG is out of business, and WOTC puts out
> new Alternity stuff all the time....
Um..wouldn't this be the Traveller stuff that SJG is producing? Also,
the %change, change over what exactly? Yearly, monthly?
Allister H.
Lizard
<7rfajj$ogp$3...@nnrp03.primenet.com>:
>Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
>corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
>before making such a decision.
Sheesh, if everyone did that, Usenet as we know it would vanish!
Luke
In article <37DBCFE2...@usa.net>, Gebhard Blucher
<blu...@usa.net> writes
--
Luke "ZZzzzZZZzzzzZZZ" - my signature
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
> On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
> >Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
> >corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
> >before making such a decision.
>
> that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
> as TSR has. Show me any example of a mainstream game company that
> didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
> TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the field they invented, and why
> none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
> Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry. They don't understand the
> hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is easier to churn out
> games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses. I think Hasbro's buyout
> of WOTC is the worst thing to happen to the hobby in years.
At what point has a major game company attempted to get into the RPG
market, as opposed to trying to sell products that capitalized on genres
that were popular in the RPG market?
I remember a computerized-board game with a knight and a dragon, but it
wasn't an RPG, and other similar products. The closest anyone came was
when AH and MB teamed up to produce some high quality board games (Axis and
Allies, Fortress America, Shogun, etc) ... but this wasn't a venture into
the _RPG_ market, it was a venture into strategy gaming. There's also
Games Workshop's team up with (MB again?) for the Hero Quest and Space
Quest games. Again, high quality board games, not RPGs.
Further, the only REALLY bad cross over I can remember was by an RPG
company trying to get into the mainstream board game market. Anyone
remember TSR's "Dungeon"?
I can't think of any attempt, good or bad, by a major game company to get
into the RPG market. This recent move by Hasbro is pretty much the first
such move. It remains to be seen what will or wont happen.
--
John "kzin" Rudd kz...@domain.org http://www.domain.org/users/kzin
Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely charm. Charm
ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last. (Physics of Quarks)
-----===== Kein Mitleid Fu:r MicroSoft (www.kmfms.com) ======-----
Auntyr Daerevagha (Jon)
> >Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
> >corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
> >before making such a decision.
>
> What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think that
> Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly as TSR has.
> Show me any example of a mainstream game company that didn't completely suck
> as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason TSR came out of nowhere to
> dominate the field they invented,
Wasn't the reason that they came out of nowhere because they came out of
nowhere?
I mean, come on, TSR was floundering a bit when WotC picked them up. Has D&D
died since WotC came around? No! ITS PROFITABLE!
That's why WotC got bought!!!
IT MAKES MONEY!!!
Will Hasbro make more money by watering it down/killing it/changing it? Maybe,
but it sure will create a minority that will not like it. (believe it or not,
in Hasbro's demographics, we are a minority)
Remember, its not likely to happen on a grand scale for another few years when
Dancy's contract is up.
> and why none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
> Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry.
BECAUSE THEY NEVER REALLY TRIED!
> They don't understand the hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is
> easier to churn out games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses.
THEY SELL MASS QUANTITIES!!! That's all that matters in economics. If it
doesn't make money, OUT!!!
> I think Hasbro's buyout of WOTC is the worst thing to happen to the hobby in
> years.
Can I use your time machine too? You've gotta have one because I haven't seen
any evidence either way...
--
Auntyr Daerevagha--Gold dragon
(Wise Young Gold) DC2.D Gm A- L- W T Pfhltw Bf/"chlorine" Fm- R+
"Mr. Dragon! Mr. Dragon! Will you test these dragonbreath proof suits for us?"
Assorted Gnomes' Last Words
Wil
> Assurances don't mean anything in the long run. If Hasbro owns WOTC,
> they can do what they want with the company and its products.
> Companies always claim to value and respect the people in charge of
> their acquisition targets. AOL bought Netscape and just sent
> Netscape's golden boy, Marc Andreesen, from their CTO position to a
> make-busy job less than a year after the deal.
This is comparing apples and oranges. Technology, especially Internet and
software companies, are a far cry from brick-and-mortar publishing
companies. In nearly all cases, the parent company of a more traditional
subsidiary allows said sunsidiary to operate wholly on their own. The
parent company will only pull the strings if they don't operate within
projected numbers, which are set down in the beginning and are usually based
on what the company was doing vs. what the parent thinks they should be
doing. There will always be some streamlining; the company being bought
knows this, but the effects of becoming leaner and meaner are usually too
good to whine and moan over some (relatively) small losses. Cases in point
are FedEx's acquisition of both DHL and Roadway. Both of the companies
still operate the same as they used to (in fact, Roadway is union while
FedEx isn't - yet) - FedEx just has the ownership.
> I'm not worried about MTG, because collectible card games are still
> huge. I'm worried about D&D because it isn't, and the slump in the
> roleplaying industry is all the justification Hasbro would need to
> bowdlerize D&D. Why go to the wall with the fundamentalists over a
> poor-selling product?
Hmm...are there any numbers to support this slump? You can't really say
that all of the game companies going bankrupt is evidence, because there are
up-and-coming companies advancing to fill the holes. My local game stores
nearly always have customers in them, and I'm certainly still buying the
same amount that I always have. I'm not sure the slump exists anymore.
In addition, I seriously doubt that Hasbro bought WoTC just for Magic (which
is currently a big target for religious groups - why would a multi-billion
dollar company go to the wall for a $100 million dollar a year product?).
They *knew* WoTC had TSR and D&D, and they wanted it to get them into the
adventure game market. D&D is, for good or ill, a household word. They're
also aware of the fact that there are millions of fans worldwide. They
won't make any moves to alienate them in order to attract 12 year olds. In
fact, I'm willing to bet that Hasbro would be more than happy to have buyers
in the 16-2x age bracket.
> Roleplaying games aren't chump change. I wouldn't want to spend $100
> or more on the new edition of D&D if I thought Hasbro was going to
> orphan the line.
But you're still making the assumption before you've seen the product. I'm
sorry, but it's simply not something that I'd worry about it. When it hits
the stores, look at it and then buy it. If you're lucky, you'll be able to
pick it up at Toys 'R Us for a few bucks less than anywhere else.
> Most companies aren't marketing the majority of their products to
> children, either. That leaves Hasbro more vulnerable than other
> companies, and there's also going to be internal pressure at the
> company to soften the edges of WOTC products for the company's core
> audience.
Hmmmm....let's see the companies that get criticized by parent's groups all
the time: Sega, Nintendo, a score of computer game manufacturers,
entertainment companies and others. They have the same target audience as
D&D, and there's very little change going on. I see eight year olds with
WWF shirts all the time. Hasbro is in no special category because of it's
status as a toy manufacturer. They have products marketed for all age
levels. They certainly won't be putting D&D in with it's toddler toy lines;
it'll be marketed (and advertised as such) for teenagers, like it almost
always has.
Wil
> The last thing WOTC had complete control over is the sale of the
> company. From now on, it's Hasbro's baby. That's more than enough
> reason for gloom and doom in my book.
>
See my other post. Normally this isn't the case: Hasbro will allow WoTC to
continue to operate as they always have. WoTC will keep its own books,
handle its own operations, and Hasbro will only say anything if something
goes horribly wrong.
rcade
>Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
>corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
>before making such a decision.
What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think
that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
as TSR has. Show me any example of a mainstream game company that
didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the field they invented, and why
none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry. They don't understand the
hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is easier to churn out
games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses. I think Hasbro's buyout
rcade
>Let me ask you this: do you honestly think the owners of WoTC would have
>sold it to Hasbro if they didn't have assurances on the quality and nature
>of the product they would produce?
Assurances don't mean anything in the long run. If Hasbro owns WOTC,
they can do what they want with the company and its products.
Companies always claim to value and respect the people in charge of
their acquisition targets. AOL bought Netscape and just sent
Netscape's golden boy, Marc Andreesen, from their CTO position to a
make-busy job less than a year after the deal.
>In addition, Magic: the Gathering injected sales of an unheard of potential
>into the adventure gaming industry. In one year it nearly tripled the gross
>sales in the industry as a whole, and has not stopped since.
I'm not worried about MTG, because collectible card games are still
huge. I'm worried about D&D because it isn't, and the slump in the
roleplaying industry is all the justification Hasbro would need to
bowdlerize D&D. Why go to the wall with the fundamentalists over a
poor-selling product?
>How can you honestly know if it kills the idea until you've seen the
>product? This is jumping to a completely unsubstantiated conclusion, and
>seems contradictory of the actual circumcstances.
Roleplaying games aren't chump change. I wouldn't want to spend $100
or more on the new edition of D&D if I thought Hasbro was going to
orphan the line.
>(c) Hasbro is likely to be unaffected by any kind of complaining by any
>group. Groups try this against the large parent companies of small
>subsidiaries all the time and very rarely see results.
Most companies aren't marketing the majority of their products to
rcade
<ti...@ravnaandtines.com> wrote:
>What the hell has support got to do with it anyway? There are plenty of
>games out there which are getting plenty of play without any support :
>the obvious ones with big and enduring followings are AD&D1 and
>Runequest
Benefits of support: more players are interested in the game, more
people are working on creative projects related to the game, and the
industry as a whole benefits from return customers going into stores
to buy new stuff.
Some unsupported games are great -- you could play for years on the
original PH, DMG, and MM with nothing else. If you want to see the
roleplaying hobby avoid the fate of wargames, though, you need
popular, well-supported games. No one's paying the electric bills at
their gaming shop in 1999 on the strength of The Fantasy Trip sales.
rcade
> I was thinking along the same lines, but really what struck me is why
>anybody assumes that just because WoTC sold to Hasbro (which is something
>that they had complete control over) that it'll be gloom and doom for their
>favorite games.
The last thing WOTC had complete control over is the sale of the
Electric Monk
Well, on the press conference that Peter Atkinson (I could be bungling
his name, that's not the point) held, he said that Hasbro has no
intention of altering the format of DnD, nor of getting rid of any of
WotC's employees, nor of assuming any control over the creative
process. This means that DnD will be the same game that some people
enjoy and forces others to spout out meaningless rhetoric over and
over. Let's all decide which category we belong in.
Let's also all learn from the WotC buyout of TSR. I sat here and read
25,000 postings saying that WotC was going to ruin DnD, when instead,
they made it profitable again so that we can all enjoy our respective
versions of this hobby, whether that be roleplaying, or repititious
posts on Usenet.
John Hofmann
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Matthew
>On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
>as TSR has. Show me any example of a mainstream game company that
>didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
>TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the field they invented, and why
How many have tried?
And please, define 'dominate'. In terms of money, market share, quality of
product, quantity shipped, or state of the art development?
>none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
>Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry. They don't understand the
The number one reason groups like Hasbro have never tried to get into the RPG
market is sheer size. Why spend millions of dollars on a sector that will net
you (proportionally) hundreds of dollars? Better to do a generic mass-market,
high-return/low-overhead product.
>hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is easier to churn out
>games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses. I think Hasbro's buyout
>of WOTC is the worst thing to happen to the hobby in years.
I think first off:
1. you should get over the RPG elitism that drips from your post.
2. Realize that WotC never really cared about RPGs after they discovered the
CCG cash cow.
3. That there ARE other games and companies out there.
4. You can always still play D&D using your current editions (unlike cars,
computers, or Significant Others, there is no real need to upgrade to the
newest model).
--
Matthew Hickey aka Tiama'at ][ WS/Soc (H) III - Carleton U
matthe...@hotmail.com ][ "Hold On To Nothing
ICQ: 12954569 (Tiama'at) ][ As Fast As You Can" - T.A.
Robert Baldwin
>On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
>>Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
>>corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
>>before making such a decision.
>
>What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think
>that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
>as TSR has.
"TSR" AKA Lorraine Williams damn near sank the ship. So you want a
return to *that* attitude?
Show me any example of a mainstream game company that
>didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
>TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the field they invented,
They "came out of nowhere" because TSR was originally a creator-owned
company.
and why
>none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
>Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry.
They never "made a dent" in the industry because, until CCG's and WOTC
the entire RPG industry was insignificant to their bottom line.
They don't understand the
>hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is easier to churn out
>games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses. I think Hasbro's buyout
>of WOTC is the worst thing to happen to the hobby in years.
Rank speculation. It could also be the best thing which could happen,
*if* they put the corporate resources of Hasbro behind the creative
team at WOTC. No way to know, and no basis to assume, at this time.
In any event, 3E is almost certainly to continue as planned, and that
looks quite promissing.
--
Saint Baldwin, definer of the unholy darkspawn.
"Everyone dies someday; the trick is doing it well."
"Don't be so open minded that your brains fall out" [MSB].
-
Spam Satan! www.sluggy.com
Remove the spam-block to reply
Nightshade
>so ago; I've yet to see any unofficial RuneQuest products based upon AH's
>portion of the game.
The problem was that at that point all Avalon Hill effectively had was
the _name_. They were working on a new system/background (Runequest:
Slayers) which some say was junk, though it looked conceptually
interesting. But apparently the project was never completed and the
designers let go. So there's not much for Hasbro to work with there
unless they want to restart the AH RPG unit.
Patrick M. Berry
> Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC as the death
> knell for Dungeons & Dragons?
No one who knows anything about the acquisition, no.
> I had faith that WOTC would be devoted to D&D and continue to develop
> the game. I can't see much reason to believe that Hasbro will be
> devoted to it, or that they will allow things in the game that leave
> the company vulnerable to criticism (devils, demons, evil player
> characters and the like).
Nor do you have any reason to think they won't. Lack of information is not
a valid reason to reach any conclusion.
> A large corporation that markets most of its
> products to children at national retail outlets isn't going to stand
> up for the editorial freedom to include Asmodeus in a game. They're
> more likely to produce Anatomically Correct Barbie.
You're just making assumptions here. We've now heard from several WotC
employees from Peter Adkison on down, and they all tell us the same thing:
Hasbro does not intend to interfere in their operations.
> I was planning to buy the new edition of D&D upon its release next
> year, but Hasbro's acquisition of WOTC probably kills that idea.
Only if you're determined to make you decisision a year in advance, based
on a total lack of relevant data. That strikes me a foolish, but it's
your money.
> Why
> spend a bunch of money on a product that will either be (a)
> unsupported or (b) unrecognizeable in a few years? Seems like time to
> move completely away from TSR's properties and spend more money on the
> smaller stalwarts like Steve Jackson Games.
Why make a bunch of assumptions about events that (a) haven't happened yet
and (b) are far from predetermined? Seems like time to reserve judgement,
maintain an open mind, and wait to see what happens.
As for Steve Jackson Games, if you like their stuff, why not buy it too?
That's what I'm doing. We're not required to commit ourselves to only one
game system and play nothing but that. I like D&D *and* GURPS.
Patrick M. Berry
> In article <7rfb3b$6fl$1...@madmax.keyway.net>, sin...@keyway.net says...
> > This isn't a case of a "screw fell out of your toy and my
> > kid choked" or "the tricycle turned over and my kid broke his leg". This is
> > a case of "My kid worships Satan because he's a PokeMaster and he thinks
> > he's above God!", which Hasbro's customer service will politely record, tell
> > them they'll look into it, and blow soda through their noses from laughing
> > when they hang up.
>
> Right. Proctor & gamble will *never* change their logo. Justa buncha
> whackos. Don't amount to a thing.
Different company, different industry, different issue, different action,
different decade. The relevance of P&G's action to what Hasbro will do is
minuscule.
Patrick M. Berry
> Monte Ferguson <montexf...@compuxservex.com> wrote:
>
> : Right. Proctor & gamble will *never* change their logo. Justa buncha
>
> doing some interesting poking around into reports that one of P&G's
> competitors was the party keeping the "Satanist logo" story alive in an
> effort to damage the compitetion.
It's also significant that it didn't really cost P&G anything to change a
logo. Especially when nobody except the whackos ever paid any attention to
it anyway. This is not at all the same as killing a product line, as some
people are claiming that Hasbro will do.
The two cases are not even slightly comparable.
Patrick M. Berry
> Also, Traveller, from Imperium games, is doing only slightly worse than
> Alternity, despite the fact that IG is out of business, and WOTC puts out
> new Alternity stuff all the time....
That may be due to Steve Jackson Games, whose GURPS Traveller line of products
is alive and well. I'm planning to start a Traveller campaign for my local
gaming group next year, and it will be run in the GURPS framework because
that's the most readily available form of the game.
Patrick M. Berry
> On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
> >Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
> >corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
> >before making such a decision.
>
> What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think
> that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
> as TSR has.
Show me a reason to think that they *will* water it down and *won't*
support it.
We don't *know* what Hasbro will do. Maybe they will wreck the game, and
maybe they won't. Assuming that one of these outcomes is assured, in the
complete absence of any evidence either way, is foolish. Wait and see.
Patrick M. Berry
You don't know anything about the terms of the sale, so how can you make
these statements and expect to be taken seriously?
You don't know how much control WotC surrendered over its own operations.
You don't know what Hasbro's intentions are.
You don't know *anything* about this acquisition.
Neither do I. The difference is, you don't see me making predictions about
how it will turn out.
Alexander Bernert
>
> In article <37dd24b5...@news.bestnetpc.com>, laund...@email.com (rcade) writes:
> Nor do you have any reason to think they won't. Lack of information is not
> a valid reason to reach any conclusion.
Lack of information = lack of interest ? (why has HASBRO not announced
any statement as to the future of AD&D ? While WotC did I would like to
hear the new mother)
Alexander
Wil
news:r69aeqq...@amalthea.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de...
> Lack of information = lack of interest ? (why has HASBRO not announced
> any statement as to the future of AD&D ? While WotC did I would like to
> hear the new mother)
Why would they? WoTC is in charge of D&D - Hasbro will just soon own WoTC.
A statement by Hasbro, when WoTC has already made one, would be redundant.
Ross W. Maker
>
> Hang on, satanist logo? Who's P&G? Sorry to off-topic.
Proctor & Gamble. Their old logo was the man in the moon and some
stars.
RWM
Patrick M. Berry
> On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 21:38:37 -0700, "Wil" <sin...@keyway.net> wrote:
> >Let me ask you this: do you honestly think the owners of WoTC would have
> >sold it to Hasbro if they didn't have assurances on the quality and nature
> >of the product they would produce?
>
> Assurances don't mean anything in the long run. If Hasbro owns WOTC,
> they can do what they want with the company and its products.
Sure. And if they really want to, they can take a successful, money-making
company and destroy it. But there is no reason for them to do that, and no
reason to assume that they will.
> I'm not worried about MTG, because collectible card games are still
> huge. I'm worried about D&D because it isn't, and the slump in the
> roleplaying industry is all the justification Hasbro would need to
> bowdlerize D&D. Why go to the wall with the fundamentalists over a
> poor-selling product?
Because (a) it's not a poor-selling product, it's the most successful
role-playing game of all time, and (b) the fundamentalists are utterly
insignificant to Hasbro, who would be insane to wreck a successful and
lucrative product just to appease a tiny fringe group of loonies.
> Most companies aren't marketing the majority of their products to
> children, either. That leaves Hasbro more vulnerable than other
> companies, and there's also going to be internal pressure at the
> company to soften the edges of WOTC products for the company's core
> audience.
You could say exactly the same thing about Disney, which was targeted
by the religious nuts and simply ignored them. Those people aren't even
a blip on Hasbro's radar. They have no power and no influence. Why do
you think Hasbro would be afraid of them?
Michael T. Richter
> Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC
> as the death knell for Dungeons & Dragons?
Only in my dreams.
--
Michael T. Richter <m...@ottawa.com> http://www.igs.net/~mtr/
"get a life. its a plastic box with wires in it."
-- Nadia Mizner <nad...@onthenet.com.au> (in private correspondence)
Arthur Boff
laund...@email.com (rcade) wrote:
> On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
> >Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
> >corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
> >before making such a decision.
>
> What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think
> that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
> didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
> none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
> hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is easier to churn out
> games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses. I think Hasbro's buyout
> of WOTC is the worst thing to happen to the hobby in years.
Da! The Kapitalist Korporations do nyet desire to keep the comrades of the
smaller Kompanies they swallow up. Dey will attempt strongly to make of going
away all old TSR customers for no real reason. TSR was being Communist
company run for good of all, not profit! Da, Comrade!
COMMIE MUTANT TRAITORS UNITE
Arthur Boffski
Ross W. Maker
>
> > Assurances don't mean anything in the long run. If Hasbro owns WOTC,
>
> <snip> In nearly all cases, the parent company of a more traditional
> subsidiary allows said sunsidiary to operate wholly on their own. The
> parent company will only pull the strings if they don't operate within
> projected numbers, which are set down in the beginning and are usually based
> on what the company was doing vs. what the parent thinks they should be
> doing. There will always be some streamlining; the company being bought
> knows this, but the effects of becoming leaner and meaner are usually too
In this case, especially. Hasbro does NOT want to own the game store
chain directly. THAT opens it up to serious anti-trust charges. But if
WotC is a wholly owned, but independent (and this means TRULY
independent), subsidiary, the problem goes away. So it is in Hasbro's
best interest to maintain WotC's independence. By the way, the same
argument applies to WotC Event Management (formerly Andon).
>
> <snip>
> > Most companies aren't marketing the majority of their products to
> > children, either. That leaves Hasbro more vulnerable than other
> > companies, and there's also going to be internal pressure at the
> > company to soften the edges of WOTC products for the company's core
> > audience.
>
> Hmmmm....let's see the companies that get criticized by parent's groups all
> the time: Sega, Nintendo, a score of computer game manufacturers,
> entertainment companies and others. They have the same target audience as
> D&D, and there's very little change going on. I see eight year olds with
> WWF shirts all the time. Hasbro is in no special category because of it's
> status as a toy manufacturer. They have products marketed for all age
> levels. They certainly won't be putting D&D in with it's toddler toy lines;
> it'll be marketed (and advertised as such) for teenagers, like it almost
> always has.
Actually, Hasbro and Mattel have always been the target of activists,
both from the right and from the left. They listened to the complaints
that made marketing sense and ignored the rest. And the Hassenfells
(yes, Hassenfell Brothers is still a family run company) aren't stupid.
They know that no matter what changes they made to D&D, Jerry Falwell's
followers wouldn't buy it. But those changes might mean that the
present audience wouldn't buy it either. So why change?
RWM
rcade
wrote:
>The number one reason groups like Hasbro have never tried to get into the RPG
>market is sheer size. Why spend millions of dollars on a sector that will net
>you (proportionally) hundreds of dollars? Better to do a generic mass-market,
>high-return/low-overhead product.
You're making my point for me. Hasbro, more than any other publisher
that has owned the rights to D&D, produces mainstream products for a
mass audience. That puts more pressure for D&D to become one of those
products, instead of being a specialized game serving a niche market.
>1. you should get over the RPG elitism that drips from your post.
There's nothing elitist about it -- I prefer roleplaying games to
mass-market games like Yahtzee and Monopoly. Hasbro and companies like
it have been clueless about roleplaying for 25 years, and I don't see
any reason to think this will change.
>3. That there ARE other games and companies out there.
As I said originally, if Hasbro's buyout causes me to abandon D&D,
I'll move to one of the smaller companies that's still in roleplaying.
Probably Steve Jackson Games.
rcade
Baldwin) wrote:
>"TSR" AKA Lorraine Williams damn near sank the ship. So you want a
>return to *that* attitude?
Over the decades that it owned D&D, TSR supported the product well and
brought millions of people into the hobby. Poor business decisions
were made that prompted the WOTC buyout, but the overall record of TSR
was pretty good.
>They never "made a dent" in the industry because, until CCG's and WOTC
>the entire RPG industry was insignificant to their bottom line.
In the early '80s, roleplaying games were as hot as collectible card
games are now. Flattering magazine articles were written about that
former shoe salesman Gary Gygax and his gaming phenomenon. All kinds
of efforts were made to capitalize on the hobby.
>Rank speculation.
Of course it is speculation, but the best anyone can offer in support
of Hasbro is "wait and see." The company has no track record in
roleplaying.
rcade
<jont...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Wasn't the reason that they came out of nowhere because they came out of
>nowhere?
TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the hobby because the big game
companies were too clueless to take the market away from them.
>THEY SELL MASS QUANTITIES!!! That's all that matters in economics. If it
>doesn't make money, OUT!!!
This is a reason to feel good about Hasbro's acquisition of D&D?
rcade
email address)" <us...@domain.org> wrote:
>At what point has a major game company attempted to get into the RPG
>market, as opposed to trying to sell products that capitalized on genres
>that were popular in the RPG market?
When roleplaying games were huge, the best the major game companies
could come up with was board games, computerized games, and other lame
knockoffs that contained the trappings of roleplaying but none of the
best features of the hobby.
Maybe this represents the canny sensibility of these companies to stay
out of roleplaying. I think it's more likely they thought those board
games and other knockoffs *were* roleplaying, and that Hasbro is
filled with the same kind of mental giants.
rcade
wrote:
>> Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC as the death
>> knell for Dungeons & Dragons?
>No one who knows anything about the acquisition, no.
You don't know much about the acquisition either, if the best reasons
for optimism you have come up with are "wait and see" and "WOTC says
Hasbro won't interfere." Of course the people at WOTC think that. The
employees of an acquired company always say things like that, because
they are about to have new bosses. I'd say that, too.
>You're just making assumptions here. We've now heard from several WotC
>employees from Peter Adkison on down, and they all tell us the same thing:
>Hasbro does not intend to interfere in their operations.
Hasbro did not pay $325 million to establish WOTC as a blind trust.
>Why make a bunch of assumptions about events that (a) haven't happened yet
>and (b) are far from predetermined? Seems like time to reserve judgement,
>maintain an open mind, and wait to see what happens.
Are you saying the same thing to people who are expressing blind
optimism about the sale? When WOTC bought TSR, I felt good about the
prospects for D&D because WOTC was named after an RPG campaign, run by
someone who was knowledgeable about the hobby, and showed with the
relaunch of Greyhawk that it was interested in longtime gamers.
No one called me a fool or an idiot when I expressed optimism about
that acquisition, or told me not to make statements until all the
facts were in. Suddenly I'm the world's biggest moron because I think
Hasbro will sink D&D. Funny how that works -- I must've gotten real
stupid recently without my knowledge.
rcade
wrote:
>You could say exactly the same thing about Disney, which was targeted
>by the religious nuts and simply ignored them. Those people aren't even
>a blip on Hasbro's radar. They have no power and no influence. Why do
>you think Hasbro would be afraid of them?
Large corporations have a long history of spinelessness when faced
with criticism about the content of their products, especially when
politicians jump on board the bandwagon. Look how quickly the
television networks adopted ratings for their TV shows, and how movie
theaters enforce a voluntary ratings system. Those supposedly
powerless religious nuts are the reason you can't rent an NC-17 movie
at Blockbuster, the most successful video store chain in the U.S., and
why neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush will speak out against the
Kansas no-evolution-in-school decision. You really think those nuts
can't get Hasbro's attention about "satanic" content in the company's
games?
Bryan J. Maloney
> Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC as the death
> knell for Dungeons & Dragons? I can remember well the way that
Yeah, sure, okay. Whatever. Works for me. Big deal. Hoo ha. Tra la la
la la la la.
> up for the editorial freedom to include Asmodeus in a game. They're
> more likely to produce Anatomically Correct Barbie.
Mattel does Barbie, not Hasbro.
> I was planning to buy the new edition of D&D upon its release next
> year, but Hasbro's acquisition of WOTC probably kills that idea. Why
> spend a bunch of money on a product that will either be (a)
> unsupported or (b) unrecognizeable in a few years? Seems like time to
Heh hee! Either a very well-crafted troll or the spouting of a true
moron! "Duh, chee, me no buy game me never even look at!" So, have you
found a market for those buckets of drool you generate?
Bryan J. Maloney
Ah, c'mon, let the idiot spew his idiocy. It gives us something to snicker at.
Bryan J. Maloney
Is the Hassenfels toy store still in business?
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 09:27:53 -0700, "Auntyr Daerevagha (Jon)"
> <jont...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Wasn't the reason that they came out of nowhere because they came out of
> >nowhere?
>
> TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the hobby because the big game
> companies were too clueless to take the market away from them.
Please document a SINGLE roleplaying game published by one of the true big
companies. Avalon Hill was never truly a big company. Compared to
Hasbro, AH was small change. I challenge you to provide a SINGLE bit of
evidence for this claim you keep making. Of course, you have none and are
simply lying.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
> >Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
> >corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
> >before making such a decision.
>
> What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think
> that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
> as TSR has. Show me any example of a mainstream game company that
> didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
Show me any example of a mainstream game company that has ever published a
roleplaying game. (Free clue to keep you from looking like a total
moron: Avalon Hill is not a mainstream company.)
wro...@my-deja.com
ber...@aur.alcatel.com wrote:
> In article <37dd24b5...@news.bestnetpc.com>, laund...@email.com
(rcade) writes:
>
> > knell for Dungeons & Dragons?
>
>
develop
> > the game. I can't see much reason to believe that Hasbro will be
> > devoted to it, or that they will allow things in the game that leave
> > the company vulnerable to criticism (devils, demons, evil player
> > characters and the like).
>
is not
> a valid reason to reach any conclusion.
>
> > products to children at national retail outlets isn't going to stand
> > more likely to produce Anatomically Correct Barbie.
>
WotC
> employees from Peter Adkison on down, and they all tell us the same
thing:
> Hasbro does not intend to interfere in their operations.
>
> > year, but Hasbro's acquisition of WOTC probably kills that idea.
>
based
> on a total lack of relevant data. That strikes me a foolish, but it's
> your money.
>
> > spend a bunch of money on a product that will either be (a)
> > unsupported or (b) unrecognizeable in a few years? Seems like time
to
the
> > smaller stalwarts like Steve Jackson Games.
>
yet
> and (b) are far from predetermined? Seems like time to reserve
judgement,
> maintain an open mind, and wait to see what happens.
>
too?
> That's what I'm doing. We're not required to commit ourselves to only
one
> game system and play nothing but that. I like D&D *and* GURPS.
>
Ryan Dancey, Keith Strohm) seems pretty reassuring. Is it right that we
ask what's going on? Yes! The WoTC view (from Adkison's on-line chat) is
that Hasbro will let them have creative control. To me, that is the key
issue. Also, there is an irony here. RPG companies have usually been
privately owned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time
that gamers can buy stock in a company in the industry. The last time I
checked, Hasbro's stock was about $25, roughly the price of a hardcover
book. For now, I say we should not panic. I also have to assume that
Adkison and company are not complete morons who have been sold a bill of
goods by Hasbro. (Unlike some previous owners of TSR, Adkison does have
an MBA). William Ronald
Ross W. Maker
The movie and TV ratings were put in place to fend of Congressional
action, not because of the rantings of a small minority. And they are,
in effect, meaningless. As far as the Kansas ruling, maybe you should
read it. It doesn't ban teaching evolution. It merely refuses to
require it. There's a big difference. Besides, Kansas isn't the whole
country, and the Kansas State School Board isn't necessarily
representative of Kansas.
RWM
rcade
Maloney) wrote:
>Mattel does Barbie, not Hasbro.
True. Hasbro bought Kenner in 1991, and I thought Barbie was a Kenner
product instead of a Mattel product. I can't say I'm big into dolls.
>So, have you found a market for those buckets of drool you generate?
If you want to exchange personal attacks with me, you need to
contribute something more interesting than "you drool!" Otherwise I'm
not interested in playing.
Alexander Bernert
>
> Alexander Bernert <aber...@amalthea.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de> wrote in message
> news:r69aeqq...@amalthea.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de...
>
> > Lack of information = lack of interest ? (why has HASBRO not announced
> > any statement as to the future of AD&D ? While WotC did I would like to
> > hear the new mother)
>
> Why would they? WoTC is in charge of D&D - Hasbro will just soon own WoTC.
> A statement by Hasbro, when WoTC has already made one, would be redundant.
To increase trust ? A number of changes are coming to the customers
this/next year:
1. a new edition which, while arguably preserving the D&D
style, will apparently require a conversion book; one could also call
it a "new system", which IMHO it seems to be.
2. a change of ownership from a company which has begun with RPGs and
then created the CCG (which have some faint RPG background and were
first marketed to the RPGers) to a mass-market-board-game company.
Now, the WotClers may tell us again and again that nothing will really
change (which I doubt; why buy something with which you do not want to
do anything - there will be changes, otherwise taking control of the
company seems like a dumb move: I do not know the ROI of WotC but I
guess you could invest for a higher return, provided the reason to buy
WotC is not a strategic one - which I think and which implies
changes), yet I would like a comment from the new owners as well. When
TSR sank people told us that nothing would really change (except for
the better) - but WotC immediately gave their own message.
Among my friends most do not want to buy a single book of 3rd ed. I
wanted to, but since I am afraid the Hasbro will kill AD&D shortly or
not give it enough support so that 3rd ed will not truly "replace" 2nd
ed (and sales/informal support *has* to come from the established
gamer base first - most people learn RPGs from other people, not on
their own) and AD&D ends up a splintered system with too many variants
to remain alive. 3rd ed will be a success if and only if most of the
former gamers make the move. But they might not if they fear that the
system will not be given enough support. It is a bad circle:
gamers fear that system will not be supported enough
-> gamers will not readily buy new system/introduce new gamers to
it (A)
-> sales do not meet expectancies (B)
-> HASBRO "orders" support to be decreased, to avoid losing money
(C)
-> gamers fear...
Right now, I assume that (A) will be the case whether HASBRO would
have joined the picture or not. With all the optimism about 3rd which
caem through the channels I assume that (B) will be the case as well,
although this depends on the exact models used to plan. (C) is now
where HASBRO comes in - and the fact that they did not give any
statement to the gamers (us, on the newsgroup) makes it a little bit
more likelier/expected that the circle comes into effect.
That's why I want to have a statement. The longer it is not given the
more people (might) think that it is not given because former
statements were not accurate. Why *not* give a statement ? It costs
nothing and generates trust.
Alexander
rcade
Maloney) wrote:
>Please document a SINGLE roleplaying game published by one of the true big
>companies. Avalon Hill was never truly a big company. Compared to
>Hasbro, AH was small change. I challenge you to provide a SINGLE bit of
>evidence for this claim you keep making.
During the roleplaying boom, I think that big companies produced board
games with the trappings of fantasy roleplaying because that was the
best they could do. They couldn't come up with real competition for
D&D because they didn't make a commitment to this style of gaming.
Instead, in the past two decades, the big companies have produced
things like the Dungeons and Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game (Mattel),
HeroQuest (Milton Bradley), Lionheart (Parker Brothers) and
BattleMasters (Milton Bradley).
That's one of the reasons I am skeptical of Hasbro displaying a
commitment to the roleplaying hobby now.
Another reason: When Hasbro bought Avalon Hill, they fired the
company's designers, decided only 20 of 200 Avalon Hill games would
remain in print, and a Hasbro manager said "any game taking longer
than an hour isn't really a game," according to game designer Greg
Costikyan.
rcade
<rma...@4dintsys.com> wrote:
>The movie and TV ratings were put in place to fend of Congressional
>action, not because of the rantings of a small minority.
Where do you think Congress got the pressure to take action from?
>It doesn't ban teaching evolution. It merely refuses to require it.
The Kansas Board of Education removed evolution from the state's
science curriculum as part of an effort to get it out of schools. I'd
love to dismiss the Donald Wildmon types as a bunch of fringe kooks
with no real power, but I don't think that's the case.
DailyRich
>games are now
Now that's hyperbole. Kids weren't begging their parents to drive all over
town looking for that new AD&D module the way they do for Pokemon boosters. I
can't credit Hasbro with enough stupidity to turn it's back on a small but
loyal audience that will be sure to buy the product in favor of a larger
audience that might respond with a collective "So?" Look at it this way:
Hasbro is the big TV network, and D&D is the show that may not be in the top 10
but is number one among a certain valuable demographic.
DailyRich
"The ability to type does not make one intelligent."
Patrick M. Berry
> On 13 Sep 1999 13:40:55 GMT, ber...@aur.alcatel.com (Patrick M. Berry)
> wrote:
> >> Is anyone else viewing the Hasbro acquisition of WOTC as the death
> >> knell for Dungeons & Dragons?
>
> >No one who knows anything about the acquisition, no.
>
> for optimism you have come up with are "wait and see" and "WOTC says
> Hasbro won't interfere."
Yes, exactly. That's my point. I don't know what will happen. Neither
do you. Neither does anyone. In the absence of information, "wait and
see" is the only rational response.
I'm not advocating optimism. I'm urging everyone to *not* make up their
minds, to reserve judgement until the facts are in. It makes no sense
to claim that you know what will happen when you *don't*.
> Of course the people at WOTC think that. The
> employees of an acquired company always say things like that, because
> they are about to have new bosses. I'd say that, too.
So you just automatically assume, in the complete absence of any evidence,
that the entire WotC management team have turned into lying toadies
overnight? That's simply not plausible. They remain the same people they
have been over the past two years, and those people have been honest with us.
> >You're just making assumptions here. We've now heard from several WotC
> >employees from Peter Adkison on down, and they all tell us the same thing:
> >Hasbro does not intend to interfere in their operations.
>
> Hasbro did not pay $325 million to establish WOTC as a blind trust.
No one said anything about a blind trust. In the September 10 online chat,
Adkison said, "They've assured me I'm still running the business with full
autonomy. And I'm sure that's true as long as things are going well. But I'm
not naive. It'll be there company so they can always change their minds. But
they are good people. Really. I believe they honestly value what we do here
and want us to keep going on."
Now, either Adkison is lying through his teeth, or you are mistaken. And
Adkison's record over the past two years does not show him to be a liar.
> >Why make a bunch of assumptions about events that (a) haven't happened yet
> >and (b) are far from predetermined? Seems like time to reserve judgement,
> >maintain an open mind, and wait to see what happens.
>
> Are you saying the same thing to people who are expressing blind
> optimism about the sale?
I have seen no blind optimism here. I have seen cautious, qualified
optimism, and a lot of wait-and-see neutrality. In the absence of evidence,
certainty of any sort is unwise, whether it be optimisitic or pessimistic.
> No one called me a fool or an idiot when I expressed optimism about
> that acquisition, or told me not to make statements until all the
> facts were in. Suddenly I'm the world's biggest moron because I think
> Hasbro will sink D&D.
It isn't necessary to call anyone a fool, idiot, or moron. Name-calling
is pointless. What some of us *are* doing is to point out that it makes no
sense to jump to conclusions, bad or good, at this point. We just don't know
enough. Why rush to judgement? What's the hurry? If the cries of doom are
correct and Hasbro does destroy D&D, is there some kind of prize for the person
who said so first?
David Crowe
: On 13 Sep 1999 06:48:35 GMT, Matthew <matthe...@hotmail.com>
: wrote:
: >The number one reason groups like Hasbro have never tried to get into the RPG
: >market is sheer size. Why spend millions of dollars on a sector that will net
: >high-return/low-overhead product.
: You're making my point for me. Hasbro, more than any other publisher
: that has owned the rights to D&D, produces mainstream products for a
: mass audience. That puts more pressure for D&D to become one of those
: products, instead of being a specialized game serving a niche market.
Hasbro certainly knows how to cater to niche markets AND mainstream ones
at the same time, with the same product. Just look at the current
GI Joe lines. Mass-marketed basic soldiers on one hand and collectors
editions of Teddy Roosevelt and the 442nd Nisei Infantry on the other.
--
David "No Nickname" Crowe http://www.primenet.com/~jetman
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find out who this Cubone guy is. Any
cute cartoon animal who wears the skull of one of his defeated enemies as
headwear is my kinda cute cartoon animal.
-Kurt Busiek on Pokemon
Matthew
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 06:54:11 GMT, rbal...@rio.STOPSPAM.com (Robert
>Baldwin) wrote:
>>"TSR" AKA Lorraine Williams damn near sank the ship. So you want a
>>return to *that* attitude?
>
>Over the decades that it owned D&D, TSR supported the product well and
>brought millions of people into the hobby. Poor business decisions
>were made that prompted the WOTC buyout, but the overall record of TSR
>was pretty good.
Many Greyhawk players will disagree with you...
Many Spelljammer/al-Qadim/Birthright/etc players will agree with you...
Many Boot Hill/Star Frontiers/Gamma World players will agree with you...
Many OD&D (who lost their only official game world, then lost their
rules system... again) will disagree with you...
>>They never "made a dent" in the industry because, until CCG's and WOTC
>>the entire RPG industry was insignificant to their bottom line.
>
>In the early '80s, roleplaying games were as hot as collectible card
>games are now. Flattering magazine articles were written about that
>former shoe salesman Gary Gygax and his gaming phenomenon. All kinds
>of efforts were made to capitalize on the hobby.
I have never seen a Parker Brothers RPG, a Bicycle Cards CCG, or a
Hasboro 'The Lost Shopping Mall' module series for Barbie the RPG.
Please outline 'all kinds of efforts'.
>Of course it is speculation, but the best anyone can offer in support
>of Hasbro is "wait and see." The company has no track record in
>roleplaying.
Neither did Steve Jackson, does this means we should have ignored GURPS
when it came out?
Basically you are upset because the world isn't working like it did in
1982 (when TSR was the biggest boy on the block).
--
Matthew Hickey aka Tiama'at ][ WS/Soc (H) III - Carleton U
matthe...@hotmail.com ][ "Hold On To Nothing
ICQ: 12954569 (Tiama'at) ][ As Fast As You Can" - T.A.
Gebhard Blucher
[snips]
> Yes, exactly. That's my point. I don't know what will happen. Neither
> do you. Neither does anyone. In the absence of information, "wait and
> see" is the only rational response.
I prefer to expect the worst. That way, any surprises are likely to
be pleasant. ;-)
GB
Michael T. Richter
news:7rjlv2$c0q$1...@aurwww.aur.alcatel.com...
> So you just automatically assume, in the complete absence of any
> evidence, that the entire WotC management team have turned into
> lying toadies overnight? That's simply not plausible. They
> remain the same people they have been over the past two years,
> and those people have been honest with us.
While I agree with you concerning jumping to conclusions about Hasbro's
takeover, I would have to point out that there was a time in WotC's past --
shortly after the Magic miracle -- that Peter Adkison made all sorts of
noise about the great RPGs he was going to publish to support the hobby that
he loved so much. Several games were purchased and/or launched to great
fanfare. Then he killed all the lines.
WotC hasn't always been completely honest with us. That's why "wait and
see" is the right attitude, not "trust WotC to do right by us".
> Now, either Adkison is lying through his teeth, or you are
> mistaken. And Adkison's record over the past two years does
> not show him to be a liar.
The past two years perhaps not, but over the history of the company he
hasn't had a blemish-free record.
kurt63
>cow you just bought?
I went to an auction where what I wanted was put into a lot
with other stuff I couldn't have cared less about. When I
got home the other stuff went into the trash can. If Hasbro
wanted Pokemon, and not D&D...
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Matthew
>wrote:
>>The number one reason groups like Hasbro have never tried to get into
>>the RPG market is sheer size. Why spend millions of dollars on a
>>sector that will net you (proportionally) hundreds of dollars?
>>Better to do a generic mass-market, high-return/low-overhead product.
>
>You're making my point for me. Hasbro, more than any other publisher
>that has owned the rights to D&D, produces mainstream products for a
>mass audience. That puts more pressure for D&D to become one of those
>products, instead of being a specialized game serving a niche market.
Put down that crack pipe for a moment...
Okay, you're Hasbro, you buy WotC, why crash and burn the cow you just
bought?
My opinion? Hasbro wanted a finger in the RPG/CCG pie. Paying $325M
for a corporate resource that will, in a few years, pay you back and
continue to transfuse black ink into the bottom line (making you a bit
more stable so you can take risks with your computer game development).
They could care less what they actually make. The fact that they are
also in the home entertainment market just gives Hasbro a few more
percentage points of control over that market.
>>1. you should get over the RPG elitism that drips from your post.
>
>There's nothing elitist about it -- I prefer roleplaying games to
>mass-market games like Yahtzee and Monopoly. Hasbro and companies like
>it have been clueless about roleplaying for 25 years, and I don't see
>any reason to think this will change.
So why would they interfere with the company or its products? They can
just show up once a year, pick up their chunk of the annual profits,
listen to a few seminars on what the next CCG is going to be, and then
leave.
rcade
wrote:
>So you just automatically assume, in the complete absence of any evidence,
>that the entire WotC management team have turned into lying toadies
>overnight?
No, the entire WOTC management team has turned into Hasbro employees
overnight. As such, they're not going to express anything but glowing
enthusiasm for the takeover, just as the Netscape employees were
thrilled -- thrilled! -- to be working for AOL.
>No one said anything about a blind trust. In the September 10 online chat,
>Adkison said, "They've assured me I'm still running the business with full
>autonomy. And I'm sure that's true as long as things are going well. But I'm
>not naive. It'll be there company so they can always change their minds. But
>they are good people. Really. I believe they honestly value what we do here
>and want us to keep going on."
>Now, either Adkison is lying through his teeth, or you are mistaken.
Forget "full autonomy." The above quote shows who the boss is: Hasbro.
D&D is now in the hands of a company that has never produced a
roleplaying game before.
>If the cries of doom are correct and Hasbro does destroy D&D, is there some
>kind of prize for the person who said so first?
Let's assume for a moment that my gloom-and-doom suspicions prove
correct in two years. Doesn't it make sense to evaluate the
possibility now, while there's still a semblance of a professional
roleplaying industry? If a gaming retailer believes as I do, that
Hasbro is bad news for D&D, he can make a stronger effort to build a
customer base in other RPGs. If a roleplaying enthusiast believes as I
do, more money can be spent on publishers that are committed to the
roleplaying hobby instead of forking over bucks for Hasbro D&D.
rcade
wrote:
>Neither did Steve Jackson, does this means we should have ignored GURPS
>when it came out?
Before releasing GURPS, Steve Jackson was known for both The Fantasy
Trip and Car Wars.
>Basically you are upset because the world isn't working like it did in
>1982 (when TSR was the biggest boy on the block).
I would be against Hasbro's acquisition of D&D no matter when it took
place. This isn't about TSR boosterism -- it's about wanting the RPG
industry to avoid the fate of wargaming. If I thought D&D's demise
would turn Steve Jackson Games into the 600-pound gorilla of
roleplaying, or would create an opportunity for a new publisher as
innovative as TSR in its early days, Hasbro could bowdlerize D&D to
its heart's content.
Lycurgus
rcade wrote in message <37de4ca4...@news.bestnetpc.com>...
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 13:01:43 -0400, bj...@cornell.edu (Bryan J.
>Maloney) wrote:
>>Mattel does Barbie, not Hasbro.
>
>True. Hasbro bought Kenner in 1991, and I thought Barbie was a Kenner
>product instead of a Mattel product. I can't say I'm big into dolls.
Except the inflatable kind? <snigger>
Lycurgus. E-Mail: Ric...@Lycurgus.freeserve.co.uk
"This isn't about fart jokes, it's about freedom, and censorship, and...
stuff."
Stan, in South Park.
rcade
wrote:
>Okay, you're Hasbro, you buy WotC, why crash and burn the cow you just
>bought?
Why do corporations ever make bad decisions? If Hasbro had any
successful games as intricate and unusual as D&D, I might have more
confidence in the company.
>So why would they interfere with the company or its products? They can
>just show up once a year, pick up their chunk of the annual profits,
>listen to a few seminars on what the next CCG is going to be, and then
>leave.
I don't know a lot about Hasbro's corporate culture, but absentee
management doesn't seem to be their style. It certainly wasn't the way
they approached the purchase of Avalon Hill.
Nightshade
>On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 20:32:44 -0700, "John Rudd (yes, that's really my
>email address)" <us...@domain.org> wrote:
>>At what point has a major game company attempted to get into the RPG
>>market, as opposed to trying to sell products that capitalized on genres
>>that were popular in the RPG market?
>
>When roleplaying games were huge, the best the major game companies
>could come up with was board games, computerized games, and other lame
>knockoffs that contained the trappings of roleplaying but none of the
>best features of the hobby.
>
>Maybe this represents the canny sensibility of these companies to stay
>out of roleplaying. I think it's more likely they thought those board
>games and other knockoffs *were* roleplaying, and that Hasbro is
>filled with the same kind of mental giants.
This is entirely your paranoia talking. The reality is, even D&D was
only a marginal money-maker by the standards of the big toy and game
companies, and nothing else has come close. I can almost guarentee
that the reason Hasbro has bought WotC was primarily because they
could tap and gain benefit from Magic, and perhaps secondarily because
they might be able to utilize some name recognizition for D&D tie-in
products. They'll probably be more than happy to let WotC keep
managing the parts they understand, which produce profit but on a
small scale, because they _just don't care_. It's not a big enough
income source to concern them, and it likely doesn't utilize resources
at a level they'd find anything else to do with.
This doesn't mean Hasbro couldn't get a wild hair up their butt and
decide to meddle in the RPG part of the company for no sensible reason
(companies do that sort of thing sometimes) but that's just what it
would be. There's very little incentive for them to not just leave
that to the WotC people who have experience with it. I'd see it far
more likely for them to get their fingers in the CCG part of things,
since even though they don't know anything about it, there's actually
some profit to be made their on a scale that they'd concern themselves
with.
Shawn Vincent
rcade <laund...@email.com> wrote in message news:37e15e02...@news.bestnetpc.com...
> If a roleplaying enthusiast believes as I
> do, more money can be spent on publishers that are committed to the
> roleplaying hobby instead of forking over bucks for Hasbro D&D.
Erm... this seems like an exceptionally bad idea. I'm not sure
what will happen with Hasbro, but if we all stop buying D&D,
then profits on D&D will die, value of D&D will die, and Hasbro
will probably yank it.
On the other hand, I think it's very unlikely that we'll all stop
buying. :) I, for one, am looking forward to 3rd edition.
Just my two cents,
-Shawn.
rcade
wrote:
>Sorry, I knew people lost in the big Christmas lay-off a few years ago
>at WotC games division. But if you look at it - has WotC itself done
>any rpg development?
I think that Everway was an in-house production of WOTC.
rcade
(Nightshade) wrote:
>They'll probably be more than happy to let WotC keep
>managing the parts they understand, which produce profit but on a
>small scale, because they _just don't care_.
Hasbro fired all of Avalon Hill's game designers. If the company
doesn't care about D&D, they won't leave it around. They will kill it
and be happy to have the license for ancillary uses like computer
games.
rcade
<Ric...@lycurgus.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Except the inflatable kind? <snigger>
Forget inflatables. I want a love toy that can sit in the passenger
seat during long cross-country drives. http://www.realdoll.com.
Tim Isakson
> Hasbro fired all of Avalon Hill's game designers. If the company
> doesn't care about D&D, they won't leave it around. They will kill it
> and be happy to have the license for ancillary uses like computer
> games.
Worth pointing out here is that it was not Hasbro, but the former
owners of Avalon Hill (the Dotts) who fired the staff. From what I've
been able to gather, Hasbro was none to pleased with that action, but
that is, indeed, just a rumour.
========================================================================
Tim Isakson loi...@io.com | "...we are clearly an intolerant
Dallas, TX, USA | society largely devoted to pretending
http://www.io.com/~loiosh/index | otherwise" - Tom Tomorrow
Mark Langsdorf
rcade wrote in message <37df6dca...@news.bestnetpc.com>...
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:08:56 GMT, Night...@nightdark.com
>(Nightshade) wrote:
>>They'll probably be more than happy to let WotC keep
>>managing the parts they understand, which produce profit but on a
>>small scale, because they _just don't care_.
>
>doesn't care about D&D, they won't leave it around. They will kill it
>and be happy to have the license for ancillary uses like computer
>games.
They fired of all of Avalon Hill's designers because AH was losing
money hand over fist, and had been for quite some time. There's
a difference between "you make less per dollar than some of our
other lines" and "you lose money every time you make a new
product." TSR/WotC is in the first category, AH was in the second.
And even if Hasbro kills the entirety of the D&D line, so what?
What does that do to SJ Games, White Wolf, FASA, Dream Pod
Nine, and about a hundred other companies? Do you think they'll
just stop producing stuff because AD&D doesn't exist?
-Mark Langsdorf
Who almost hopes AD&D gets canned, so that all the AD&D players
have to buy other products instead...
Nightshade
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:08:56 GMT, Night...@nightdark.com
>(Nightshade) wrote:
>>They'll probably be more than happy to let WotC keep
>>managing the parts they understand, which produce profit but on a
>>small scale, because they _just don't care_.
>
>Hasbro fired all of Avalon Hill's game designers. If the company
>doesn't care about D&D, they won't leave it around. They will kill it
>and be happy to have the license for ancillary uses like computer
>games.
Incorrect. In fact, pretty much all those designers were fired by AH
management. AH was in serious trouble when Hasbro acquired it;
WotC/TSR aren't. Comparing the two is largely apples and oranges.
Karen J. Cravens
r>The Kansas Board of Education removed evolution from the state's
r>science curriculum as part of an effort to get it out of schools. I'd
r>love to dismiss the Donald Wildmon types as a bunch of fringe kooks
r>with no real power, but I don't think that's the case.
Um... yes it is. At least, if you pay attention to local reporting rather
than what the wire services think will sell, playing off stereotypes.
It isn't even managing to get it out of local *private* schools, much less
public schools.
--
Karen J. Cravens sil...@phoenyx.net
The Dog Ate My Sketchbook: http://silver.phoenyx.net/
Ross W. Maker
>
> Another reason: When Hasbro bought Avalon Hill, they fired the
> company's designers, decided only 20 of 200 Avalon Hill games would
> remain in print, and a Hasbro manager said "any game taking longer
> than an hour isn't really a game," according to game designer Greg
> Costikyan.
For the umpteenth time -- HASBRO DIDN'T FIRE ANYBODY AT TAHGC. JACK
DOTT, PRESIDENT OF MONARCH-AVALON, FIRED EVERYBODY BEFORE THE SALE WAS
FINALIZED.
As for Mr. Costikyan's comments, I'd like to know who said that and when
it was said. And I'll bet you will find out he was referring to
somebody at MB or PB BEFORE Hasbro bought them.
rcade also wrote:
>
> Why do corporations ever make bad decisions? If Hasbro had any
> successful games as intricate and unusual as D&D, I might have more
> confidence in the company.
And why do you assume they ALWAYS do?
> I don't know a lot about Hasbro's corporate culture, but absentee
> management doesn't seem to be their style. It certainly wasn't the
> way they approached the purchase of Avalon Hill.
In other words, you don't know what you're talking about, since you've
already proved you know little or nothing about the AH purchase (supra).
And he wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 13:25:51 -0500, "Ross W. Maker" <rma...@4dintsys.com> wrote:
>>The movie and TV ratings were put in place to fend of Congressional
>>action, not because of the rantings of a small minority.
> Where do you think Congress got the pressure to take action from?
From a much wider spectrum of opinion than the anti-D&D loonies have
been able to muster. Otherwise Congress would have at least
investigated RPG's by now.
>>It doesn't ban teaching evolution. It merely refuses to require it.
> The Kansas Board of Education removed evolution from the state's
> science curriculum as part of an effort to get it out of schools.
You clearly don't understand the idea of a State Ciriculum". It is what
the State requires to be taught. Period. Just because something isn't
on it does NOT mean that the subject is forbidden.
And finally:
>
> Forget "full autonomy." The above quote shows who the boss is: Hasbro.
> D&D is now in the hands of a company that has never produced a
> roleplaying game before.
Just like it was when TSR first brought it out. Remeber, TSR was a
WARGAMES company. Do you recognize the titles "Chainmail", "Don't Give
Up The Ship", and "Fight In The Skies"? They, and several other sets of
miniatures rules were published by TSR before D&D.
Look, if you want to run around hollering "The sky is falling, the sky
is falling!", that's your right. But at least wait for the acorn, huh?
RWM
rcade
<mark.la...@amd.com> wrote:
> And even if Hasbro kills the entirety of the D&D line, so what?
>What does that do to SJ Games, White Wolf, FASA, Dream Pod
>Nine, and about a hundred other companies? Do you think they'll
>just stop producing stuff because AD&D doesn't exist?
If D&D dies, I think there's a good chance it will take the
professional roleplaying industry down with it. How many game
retailers can presently support themselves without the sales of
D&D-related products? They take up the majority of shelf space in most
stores that still sell RPGs (at least in the U.S.).
>Who almost hopes AD&D gets canned, so that all the AD&D players
>have to buy other products instead...
I used to think that if Marvel went belly up, the Marvel zombies would
support more independent comics. I now think they would just move on
to some other entertainment that's competing for their time, like
videogames, television or crack.
Adam H. Morse
privately owned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time
> that gamers can buy stock in a company in the industry. The last time I
> checked, Hasbro's stock was about $25, roughly the price of a hardcover
> book. For now, I say we should not panic. I also have to assume that
> Adkison and company are not complete morons who have been sold a bill of
> goods by Hasbro. (Unlike some previous owners of TSR, Adkison does have
> an MBA). William Ronald
>
I agree that it's interesting to be able to buy stock in an RPG
company; I might consider it and you might consider it and that's
cool, and that might help build relationships between the company and
the gamers that would be good (shareholder/company in addition to
company/consumer). That said, I don't think that it would be
reasonable for gamers to exert much control over Hasbro via stock.
Yes, each share is $25, but the total market capitalization is $4.7
BILLION (i.e. number of shares outstanding times $25). So yeah, we
could each buy one or ten shares without breaking a sweat, but if the
goal were to pressure Hasbro to boost D&D, we'd have to buy a lot more
than 10 shares each. Like millions of shares, or thousands of people
buying thousands. Otherwise, we're just not significant.
Personally, I think that if you want to keep D&D healthy, you should
just buy D&D, thus boosting profits. And if you want to see D&D die
but not the industry, you should buy other games. And if you want to
make big predictions about the fate of the market....well, you're more
confident than I. :)
Adam Morse
bubba
Auntyr Daerevagha (Jon) wrote in message <37DBD489...@yahoo.com>...
<snip>
>> and why none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
>> Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry.
>
>BECAUSE THEY NEVER REALLY TRIED!
>
<snip>
Prentis Hall tried by republishing Jeff Dillow's High Fantasy game along
with several supplements.
rcade
<rma...@4dintsys.com> wrote:
>For the umpteenth time -- HASBRO DIDN'T FIRE ANYBODY AT TAHGC. JACK
>DOTT, PRESIDENT OF MONARCH-AVALON, FIRED EVERYBODY BEFORE THE SALE WAS
>FINALIZED.
I can't quote the specifics as to when Avalon Hill's game designers
were fired and whose decision it was. However, if the firing took
place close to the time of Hasbro's acquisition and occurred as the
sale was being finalized, would it make a difference that Avalon
Hill's original management sent the memo instead of Hasbro?
The firings are one of the main reasons Greg Costikyan, a developer of
Avalon Hill games, was skeptical about Hasbro's long-term plans for
the company after the acquisition. If it was strictly a decision by
the company's original management, why would he hold it against
Hasbro?
>As for Mr. Costikyan's comments, I'd like to know who said that and when
>it was said. And I'll bet you will find out he was referring to
>somebody at MB or PB BEFORE Hasbro bought them.
"A Requiem for the Hill," Greg Costikyan:
http://www.happypuppy.com/press/features/avalonhill-ar1.html
>> Why do corporations ever make bad decisions? If Hasbro had any
>> successful games as intricate and unusual as D&D, I might have more
>> confidence in the company.
>And why do you assume they ALWAYS do?
I haven't assumed anything of the kind. WOTC is a corporation, too,
and I saw enough signs to believe in the company that I was looking
forward to WOTC D&D despite the Edsel-like failure of Everway.
>You clearly don't understand the idea of a State Ciriculum". It is what
>the State requires to be taught. Period. Just because something isn't
>on it does NOT mean that the subject is forbidden.
Removing evolution from the curriculum is part of a nationwide effort
to remove it from being taught at schools. What other reason could
there possibly be for fundamentalists to take this action -- a
constructive interest in science tutelage?
Marc A. Vezina
[snip]
> And even if Hasbro kills the entirety of the D&D line, so what?
>What does that do to SJ Games, White Wolf, FASA, Dream Pod
>Nine, and about a hundred other companies? Do you think they'll
>just stop producing stuff because AD&D doesn't exist?
Got to agree here. Regardless of what happens, it's good for us.
Either Hasbro/WotC make RPGs huge (and our sales go up) or
they go bust and leave a 50% (?) RPG market hole to be filled
(and our sales go up).
We really can't lose here. ^_^
---
Marc A. Vezina --> mave...@dp9.com
DP9 Editor, Writer and General Mechahead
Visit the DP9 Web site at <http://www.dp9.com>
rcade
away from RPGs during D&D's boom years in the early '80s. He offered
two possible reasons, which I'll briefly paraphrase: (a) the money
generated by roleplaying games amounted to about $30 million a year
back then, which was "small potatoes" to the toy-trade publishers, and
(b) the complexity of creating, supporting and distributing an RPG was
"foreign" to them.
Neither of these observations does anything to help my case against
the Hasbro acquisition, but I figured they were relevant so I'm
tossing them out. I've got to prepare for evacuation (my house is in
Hurricane Floyd's likely path), so I'm temporarily suspending my
efforts to reshape the roleplaying hobby into the image of 1982.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> Instead, in the past two decades, the big companies have produced
> things like the Dungeons and Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game (Mattel),
Under license from TSR.
> HeroQuest (Milton Bradley), Lionheart (Parker Brothers) and
> BattleMasters (Milton Bradley).
Because those games were in their target audience. They didn't even TRY
to get into the RPG field.
> Another reason: When Hasbro bought Avalon Hill, they fired the
> company's designers, decided only 20 of 200 Avalon Hill games would
You're REALLY PROUD of your ignorance, aren't you? This is at least the
THIRD time you've decided to spout this piece of nonsense. Once again,
moron, JACK DOTT fired the AH designers. By the time Hasbro got to it,
they were gone. Of course you will not respond to this, since it might
reveal that you don't know everything that goes on in the universe.
> remain in print, and a Hasbro manager said "any game taking longer
> than an hour isn't really a game," according to game designer Greg
> Costikyan.
Of course, Greg never IDENTIFIED this "manager" or the context of the
"quotation". I want to see NAMES and CONTEXT.
Bruce, The Ghost Who Writes
>Yes, exactly. That's my point. I don't know what will happen. Neither
>do you. Neither does anyone. In the absence of information, "wait and
>see" is the only rational response.
Works for me. I assume that it will mean something very significant, but
feel I have no grounds on which to decide what.
--
Bruce Baugh / bruce...@sff.net
"I have joyously shut myself up in the solitary domain where the mask
holds sway, wholly made up of violence, light and brilliance."
- James Ensor
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:18:47 -0500, "Ross W. Maker"
> <rma...@4dintsys.com> wrote:
> >For the umpteenth time -- HASBRO DIDN'T FIRE ANYBODY AT TAHGC. JACK
> >DOTT, PRESIDENT OF MONARCH-AVALON, FIRED EVERYBODY BEFORE THE SALE WAS
> >FINALIZED.
>
> I can't quote the specifics as to when Avalon Hill's game designers
> were fired and whose decision it was. However, if the firing took
> place close to the time of Hasbro's acquisition and occurred as the
> sale was being finalized, would it make a difference that Avalon
> Hill's original management sent the memo instead of Hasbro?
YES! The difference was that Dott had a free hand to do this up to the
time the sale was finalized.
> >As for Mr. Costikyan's comments, I'd like to know who said that and when
> >it was said. And I'll bet you will find out he was referring to
> >somebody at MB or PB BEFORE Hasbro bought them.
>
> "A Requiem for the Hill," Greg Costikyan:
> http://www.happypuppy.com/press/features/avalonhill-ar1.html
I've read it. He gives us NO specifics on the matter. I want SPECIFICS.
COME ON!!! GIVE ME SPECIFICS!!!!! I challenge you.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> customer base in other RPGs. If a roleplaying enthusiast believes as I
> do, more money can be spent on publishers that are committed to the
> roleplaying hobby instead of forking over bucks for Hasbro D&D.
I own more SJG and Chaosium stuff than TSR stuff already.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> Large corporations have a long history of spinelessness when faced
> with criticism about the content of their products, especially when
Y'mean like the Baptist Conference managed to shut down Disney World and
drive Disney corp. into bankrupcy last year?
Bryan J. Maloney
<m...@ottawa.com> wrote:
> he loved so much. Several games were purchased and/or launched to great
> fanfare. Then he killed all the lines.
>
> WotC hasn't always been completely honest with us. That's why "wait and
> see" is the right attitude, not "trust WotC to do right by us".
He's been perfectly honest. He has also been wrong. Or are you of the
opinion that all physicists who adhered to the Newtonian model before
other models replaced it to have also been "dishonest"?
Matt Blackwell
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:18:47 -0500, "Ross W. Maker"
><rma...@4dintsys.com> wrote:
>>For the umpteenth time -- HASBRO DIDN'T FIRE ANYBODY AT TAHGC. JACK
>>DOTT, PRESIDENT OF MONARCH-AVALON, FIRED EVERYBODY BEFORE THE SALE WAS
>>FINALIZED.
>
>I can't quote the specifics as to when Avalon Hill's game designers
>were fired and whose decision it was. However, if the firing took
>place close to the time of Hasbro's acquisition and occurred as the
>sale was being finalized, would it make a difference that Avalon
>Hill's original management sent the memo instead of Hasbro?
>
>The firings are one of the main reasons Greg Costikyan, a developer of
>Avalon Hill games, was skeptical about Hasbro's long-term plans for
>the company after the acquisition.
Except he wasn't ever a developer at AH. He did design "Dark Emperor"
for AH, and he did "Pax Brittanica" for Victury, but if he's done any
devlopment work for them, he's not owning up to it.
(source: The Greg Costikyan homepage at:
http://www.crossover.com/costik/games.html )
Oh, and yes, it would matter who fired them. "Hi! We've just bought
your company! You're all fired!" sends a different message to the
people being fired than "Hi! You're all fired! Oh, by the way, I'm
selling the company."
> If it was strictly a decision by
>the company's original management, why would he hold it against
>Hasbro?
>
>>As for Mr. Costikyan's comments, I'd like to know who said that and when
>>it was said. And I'll bet you will find out he was referring to
>>somebody at MB or PB BEFORE Hasbro bought them.
>
>"A Requiem for the Hill," Greg Costikyan:
>http://www.happypuppy.com/press/features/avalonhill-ar1.html
>
Which was written soon after the takeover. In the year since the
article was written, more information has come to light, such as the
fact that AH didn't have any employees left when Hasbro bought them.
If Greg wrote that article today (And I imagine that he will write an
article about Hasbro/TSR/WotC in the near future) he'd probably make
slightly different statements.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> I don't know a lot about Hasbro's corporate culture, but absentee
> management doesn't seem to be their style. It certainly wasn't the way
> they approached the purchase of Avalon Hill.
You just ADORE showing off how ignorant you are about this point, don't you?
I know people who worked with the Dotts. Believe me, he'd fire all the
designers just for spite.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:08:56 GMT, Night...@nightdark.com
> (Nightshade) wrote:
> >They'll probably be more than happy to let WotC keep
> >managing the parts they understand, which produce profit but on a
> >small scale, because they _just don't care_.
>
> Hasbro fired all of Avalon Hill's game designers. If the company
> doesn't care about D&D, they won't leave it around. They will kill it
> and be happy to have the license for ancillary uses like computer
> games.
Once again you feel compelled to show off your ignorance. Hasbro fired
NOBODY from Avalon Hill. Jack Dott fired all the AH designers BEFORE he
sold the company. He stripped it bare of every asset he could (the
designers) before he sold the shell to Hasbro.
Bryan J. Maloney
> In rec.games.frp.industry rcade <laund...@email.com> wrote:
>
> > Hasbro fired all of Avalon Hill's game designers. If the company
> > doesn't care about D&D, they won't leave it around. They will kill it
> > and be happy to have the license for ancillary uses like computer
> > games.
>
> Worth pointing out here is that it was not Hasbro, but the former
> owners of Avalon Hill (the Dotts) who fired the staff. From what I've
> been able to gather, Hasbro was none to pleased with that action, but
> that is, indeed, just a rumour.
Don't confuse this moron with reality. He's got his mind made up and no
amount of facts will get him to change it.
Bryan J. Maloney
(rcade) wrote:
> On 13 Sep 1999 20:34:18 GMT, Matthew <matthe...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >Neither did Steve Jackson, does this means we should have ignored GURPS
> >when it came out?
>
> Before releasing GURPS, Steve Jackson was known for both The Fantasy
> Trip and Car Wars.
Once again, ignorance boy is so proud of his lack of knowledge that he has
to show it off! Steve Jackson Games NEVER published The Fantasy Trip.
Matt Blackwell
>On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 06:54:11 GMT, rbal...@rio.STOPSPAM.com (Robert
>Baldwin) wrote:
>
>>They never "made a dent" in the industry because, until CCG's and WOTC
>>the entire RPG industry was insignificant to their bottom line.
>
>In the early '80s, roleplaying games were as hot as collectible card
>games are now.
No. They weren't. Roleplaying was more readily available back then (I
recall buying AD&D modules and books at department stores back then.)
but easier availability doesn't equate hotness. Watching a store sell
out of 10 copies of Unearthed Arcana in a week after it came out isn't
equivalent to watching a store sell 100 Pokemon boosters in an hour.
People weren't walking into game shops every five minutes asking for a
copy of Tomb of Horrors. They do for Pokemon cards. The two aren't
even remotely comparable.
John Rudd (yes, that's really my email address)
>
> On Sun, 12 Sep 1999 20:32:44 -0700, "John Rudd (yes, that's really my
> email address)" <us...@domain.org> wrote:
> >At what point has a major game company attempted to get into the RPG
> >market, as opposed to trying to sell products that capitalized on genres
> >that were popular in the RPG market?
>
> When roleplaying games were huge, the best the major game companies
> could come up with was board games, computerized games, and other lame
> knockoffs that contained the trappings of roleplaying but none of the
> best features of the hobby.
>
> Maybe this represents the canny sensibility of these companies to stay
> out of roleplaying. I think it's more likely they thought those board
> games and other knockoffs *were* roleplaying, and that Hasbro is
> filled with the same kind of mental giants.
And, elsewhere in this thread you have named HeroQuest among those games.
Which is completely untrue. HeroQuest is an outgrowth of the Warhammer
miniatures/table-top games (basically, taking the 'art' out of miniatures
gaming, and making it just a fancy board game). It was the "Warhammer
Fantasy Battle" counterpart to SpaceQuest + Space Hulk (though, HeroQuest
came first, I think).
Care to name an actual attempt at a RPG by these companies, as opposed to
merely boardgames that use the same genre's? Trying to sell to the same
market is not at all the same as trying to produce the same product. What
you're saying it's a whole lot different from complaining that the
DragonLance novels were poor attempts at RPGs, because they were just
stories without any interaction nor game mechanics. The novels, and those
board games, were never attempts to make an RPG, they were just aimed at
the same market as some popular RPGs.
--
John "kzin" Rudd kz...@domain.org http://www.domain.org/users/kzin
Truth decays into beauty, while beauty soon becomes merely charm. Charm
ends up as strangeness, and even that doesn't last. (Physics of Quarks)
-----===== Kein Mitleid Fu:r MicroSoft (www.kmfms.com) ======-----
Duane VanderPol
>On 12 Sep 1999 04:36:03 GMT, David Crowe <jet...@primenet.com> wrote:
>>Same old, same old. Rather than spouting doom and gloom based on mindless
>>corporate-bashing cliches, you might actually wait and see what happens
>>before making such a decision.
>
>What kind of corporate reach-around is this? Show me a reason to think
>that Hasbro won't water down D&D and will support the line as strongly
>as TSR has.
Show me a good reason that it WILL water it down and WON'T
support it - especially since they've stated clearly they plan to
leave the whole thing up to WOTC to handle.
> Show me any example of a mainstream game company that
>didn't completely suck as a roleplaying publisher. There's a reason
>TSR came out of nowhere to dominate the field they invented, and why
>none of the more well-financed or well-distributed companies like
>Hasbro ever made a dent in this industry.
Yeah, and there's a reason why TSR went down in flames and
nearly took the game with it. As for why non of the SuperCorp's have
moved into RPG's - it's a hell of a small niche with thin profit
margins.
>They don't understand the
>hobby and don't care to learn it, because it is easier to churn out
>games like Yahtzee and Monopoly to the masses.
You're right. It IS easier. That's why they DO that and not
put in large amounts of effort to get what for them is a very small
return on investment.
>I think Hasbro's buyout
>of WOTC is the worst thing to happen to the hobby in years.
Oh so now they're going to do WORSE than TSR did before
Wizards bought them out. Wizards was bigger than TSR and saved D&D.
Hasbro is bigger than Wizards and is going to destroy the whole hobby?
Sure you're not overreacting just a _tad_?
Duane VanderPol
home.earthlink.net/~duanevp
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- IBM chairman, 1945
krystal_blade
laund...@email.com (rcade) wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 13:25:51 -0500, "Ross W. Maker"
> <rma...@4dintsys.com> wrote:
> >The movie and TV ratings were put in place to fend of Congressional
> >action, not because of the rantings of a small minority.
>
> Where do you think Congress got the pressure to take action from?
A more appropriate question would be "Where do you think Congress got
the power to take action from." Which, specifically, is voters.
The ballot box works, and sends a clearly defined message. Namely, "You
suck...you're fired."
> >It doesn't ban teaching evolution. It merely refuses to require it.
>
> The Kansas Board of Education removed evolution from the state's
> science curriculum as part of an effort to get it out of schools. I'd
> love to dismiss the Donald Wildmon types as a bunch of fringe kooks
> with no real power, but I don't think that's the case.
That's a Kansas problem. The law dictates that the use of the term
"creationism" and the use of the term "Evolutionism" are not to be used
in a public school, since they both represent, effectively a religous
beleif. Other terms have been used in science books since around 1992,
I think. I can pull up the article if you're really interested...I just
perused it this afternoon. (It's at home though...) Complete with Case
and ruling.
>
krysta...@hotmail.com
--
·ROFL!!! [thump!] [thump!]......... I just laughed my nuts off.
- QUENTIN FAI
·HOW CAN YOU BOTH USE THE LORDS NAME IN VEIN? - MARY SMITH
A large syringe and some sort of minced god? - BRIAN KO
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
krystal_blade
laund...@email.com (rcade) wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Sep 1999 13:10:10 -0400, bj...@cornell.edu (Bryan J.
> Maloney) wrote:
> >Please document a SINGLE roleplaying game published by one of the
true big
> >companies. Avalon Hill was never truly a big company. Compared to
> >Hasbro, AH was small change. I challenge you to provide a SINGLE bit
of
> >evidence for this claim you keep making.
>
> During the roleplaying boom, I think that big companies produced board
> games with the trappings of fantasy roleplaying because that was the
> best they could do.
No, they couldn't emulate an RPG without violating at least two
different copyrights (one for system, and one for creatures/settings)
Which is why they went with board games. They were not a RPG company,
and did not aspire to be one.
> They couldn't come up with real competition for
> D&D because they didn't make a commitment to this style of gaming.
They made board games. Commitment to an RPG is an entirely different
manner.
>
> Instead, in the past two decades, the big companies have produced
> things like the Dungeons and Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game (Mattel),
> HeroQuest (Milton Bradley), Lionheart (Parker Brothers) and
> BattleMasters (Milton Bradley).
So, a big company can't produce an RPG effectively. Good thing for
WOTC, and TSR that Hasbro has already admitted that they don't want to
run WOTC... They just want the profits from it.
>
> That's one of the reasons I am skeptical of Hasbro displaying a
> commitment to the roleplaying hobby now.
They don't have to display a commitment to anything other than making
money. Hasbro/WOTC have BOTH come out and said "Hey... We're going to
leave them the fuck alone/Hey, they're gonna leave us the fuck alone,
and let us do our thing. You'll just see a Hasbro sticker on it. It
happens. Business is a dog eat dog world. If it comes to pass that
Hasbro takes a hand in AD&D, and it sucks, then DON'T BUY IT. That
sends a distinct and hard hitting message to the company that you don't
like what they're doing.
>
> Another reason: When Hasbro bought Avalon Hill, they fired the
> company's designers,
So? Maybe they were incompetent. It happens.
> decided only 20 of 200 Avalon Hill games would
> remain in print,
We've already established that Hasbro isn't gonna have a whole lot of
influence over WOTC... period. If they do, and fuck up, then oh
well... Hasbro doesn't sell AD&D, and TSR may go private again.
> and a Hasbro manager said "any game taking longer
> than an hour isn't really a game," according to game designer Greg
> Costikyan.
*A* Hasbro manager. It's real easy to pile everone into the same group.
An Air Force "Manager" talked to me about being 5 minutes late today.
I'm about half a biscuit younger than him and we're both at the same
level on the totem pole. Being in charge of something doesn't mean
being in charge of everything. Once again, doom prophets are having fun
twisting things around. Patience and observance are the best answers to
all the questions everyone has. Take a pill or three, sit back, and
enjoy the supposedly "little time" left for AD&D. Maybe Avalon Hill was
so far in the hole that Hasbro bought them to clean them up, and make
money...which is why they'd cut down on what they printed.
WOTC isn't Avalon Hill, so don't worry about it till it happens. All
the bitching in the world won't help, or change the future.