Eden drop Buffy / Angel RPG

[ffutures]

While I was feeling crap over the weekend - fortunately I'm a little better today, and will probably get in to work tomorrow - I heard that Eden Studios have given up their Buffy and Angel licenses following renegotiation with Fox. A quick look at their site confirmed this; no new publications, continued online support. I suspect that the existing books will go out of print as stocks run out.

This unfortunately seems to be the common fate of licensed games based on popular shows and films - sooner or later the license costs more than it's worth, or the licensing company makes life so difficult that it isn't worth continuing.

The only exception I know of is Games Workshop, where Bryan Ansell is said to have given up the 2000 AD licenses, not because they were costing a lot but because he calculated that there was more money to be made by concentrating on figure-heavy games such as Warhammer. He was right, but I can't help wishing that we'd seen more for Dredd, Strontium Dog, etc.

Comments

[corone.livejournal.com]

Very great shame, especially with so many other books written and not published. Still, at least it lasted longer than the LUG Dune!

On one hand it would be nice to see more original games appearing.
However, the licenced ones have the oppotunity to bring in people new to gaming.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

the licenced ones have the oppotunity to bring in people new to gaming.

Very true - it's quite difficult to tempt people with, say, pure Traveller or pure D&D nowadays, but give them Firefly, Star Wars, Buffy or something else they've seen at the cinema or on tv and they'll give it a try.

The strangest one I've seen is the WotC "World of Warcraft" rpg, available even in the bookshop here. It's the idea of an rpg based on an online rpg that gets me. What next? GTA the RPG? The Sims Game?

[saranjeuhal.livejournal.com]

Everquest has been out for quite some time, so WoW isn't the first to do that. WoW is moving to a lot of offline content right now, with the launch of the CCG game (which allows you to get some in-game stuff with special cards).

The problem with these big licenses is that very often they suffer the fate of many RPGs; they get played for a little while and then sold on. In the local half-price bookstore I go to, there's usually a lot of RPGs there. Last week I counted about 10-12 licensed core products, including A Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time.

[uk-lemming.livejournal.com]

Suprisingly on offer to run a One Day campaign of Firefly at my Univsersity's RPGSoc I had exactly One taker. most people preferring things such as Exalted, The Doom board game, and Feng Shui.

[w00hoo.livejournal.com]

Odd, it's normally a huge draw at Cons. And I'm currently running one (using the BtVS system) for one of my 'home groups'.

[saranjeuhal.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Might just be that people weren't that into the universe, and the others were all much more comfortable with the other systems.

I can't wait for Battlestar Galactica to come out, as it's using the same system as Serenity RPG.

[corone.livejournal.com]

"World of Warcraft"

I am so very with you on that!
Why build a generic fantasy game, based on a generic fantasy computer game, based on generic fantasy. Waste of time.
RPGs are so far ahead of computers in terms of sociability, interaction, story, character and everything else except pretty graphics. So whyt are we trying to copy them?

Sorry, favourite rant.
I enjoy computer games, but they are so much less interesting than RPGs.

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. I've tried WoW and, frankly, it bored me. There's only so much dungeon-bashing I can take. I like an RPG to have a good plot, good characters who grow and change, and (preferably) a couple of bottles of wine and some good friends. There's no room in MMORGs for true creativity - how many times you've screwed up WoW by not doing things the way they wanted? How many times have you done that to a GM? And which was the most fun?

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

First, good to meet you last Thursday.

Didn't know about GW and 2000AD, but that makes sense. My memory is that after the original game came out there was only one substantive scenario? And then they just moved on to WFRP?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not quite true, there were three or four scenarios, a couple of games related to the RPG, and the Judge Dredd Companion which included some adventures, plus a lot of support and scenarios in White Dwarf for a while. I ought to know, I wrote an implausibly large proportion of it.

[tessarin.livejournal.com]

Yes this is a great shame given that there seemed to be some good books in the works.I was especially after Welcome to Sunnydale since I was running a sunnydale campaign. George Vasilikos is making an announcement later this week about the unpublished material.

I figure Fox pulled the license given Eden's inability to bring out any new products for three years.I think they spread their focus too thin.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I was eagerly awaiting 'Welcome to Sunnydale' too - except that after so long without it appearing the eagerness was wearing off somewhat.

[tessarin.livejournal.com]

Yes know that feeling. The perpetual being put back 6 months. I was hoping with the recent activity on the eden boards that at least it would get out on pdf but alas no. See no chance of it coming out in any form now too much of the detail was going to contribute to Buffy canon.

I was also waiting for the watchers sourcebook and the investigators one for Angel.I can still hope that given the unpublished notice was seperated from the main notice that the material may come out in some form.

[saranjeuhal.livejournal.com]

Well, it's Fox. They have a habit of killing things that people really like, have a loyal fan base, made a moderate amount of profit from and has the potential to be long-term and viable. Look to Firefly.

It's all about the Benjamins.