Timewaster's Guide Archive

Games => Role-Playing Games => Topic started by: Spriggan on April 26, 2007, 01:54:32 AM

Title: Wizard's not renewing D&D licenses for 3rd parties. What does it mean?
Post by: Spriggan on April 26, 2007, 01:54:32 AM

So apparently Wizard's has chosen to not renew the Dragonlance license that Sovereign Press had, much in the same way they chose not to renew the Ravenloft one a year ago.  There's a thread on Wizard's forum that mention that there are 9 others not being renewed (with Dragon and Dungeon) but the poster can't provide proof (thus I'm not going to bother to link), the claim is then stated that since no 2008 licenses are being allowed that 4.0 is coming out or something more radical like the selling or re-branding of WoTC by Hasbro.  Oh, and they're going to pull the OGL (which is funny since it's "irrevocable") now that they've "killed" all the non d20 games there's no need for "free" content.

I personally think the DL license wasn't renewed because of the animated movie coming out and Wizards wanting to cash in on the possible success and the reasoning for Dragon/Dungeon's demise is magazines don't do well in this internet age so why not move that content online and remove the middle man? 

Of course I could be wrong and next year we could all be plaining "Pepsi presents: D&D 4.0 where you collect your stats from under the bottle cap", but I'm not much of a conspiracy guy unless there are shape-shifting Nazi reptiles involved.

Title: Re: Wizard's not renewing D&D licenses for 3rd parties. What does it mean?
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on April 26, 2007, 03:12:12 AM

what about magic using ones? (http://saintehlers.com/misc/images/twg/nazikobold.jpg)

Title: Re: Wizard's not renewing D&D licenses for 3rd parties. What does it mean?
Post by: stacer on April 26, 2007, 05:15:49 AM

We did discontinue the license for Paizo for Dungeon and Dragon, the press release for which you can find here on Paizo's main page: http://paizo.com/paizo. Most of the detail regarding that particular situation is in that release.

Title: Re: Wizard's not renewing D&D licenses for 3rd parties. What does it mean?
Post by: Spriggan on April 26, 2007, 06:16:18 PM

Yes, but if you want a good laugh Stacer goto the D&D forum at Wizards and read how the cancellation of those two magazines are a sign of the end of OGL, D&D 3.5, WoTC and the gaming industry in general.  I'm not kidding, some people are totally ignoring the reasons in that press release for this stuff.

Title: Re: Wizard's not renewing D&D licenses for 3rd parties. What does it mean?
Post by: Mad Dr Jeffe on May 01, 2007, 12:31:35 AM

not to jump on an old thread, but it makes sense. Dungeon and Dragon have been kind of a bust for years. I actually never knew why Wizards didn't just kill one of them off a while ago. Doing a web version is slicker, and frankly all the content they have game wise has been online for a while... Ok maybe not all the content, but online has had a lot of interactive and fun stuff.... Fo sho.