There's been some talk about how the game-companies are doing over the last few months. For understandable reasons, the buzz in this corner of the internets has mostly been about Wizards, and to a certain extent, about Paizo. My system of choice is nWoD, and so my dealer is White Wolf.
Back in July 2010, I blogged on White Wolf's discontinuing of the Mage: the Awakening line, and since then I've picked up rumours about other lines being scheduled for cancelling as well. Apparently that is not so:
"We haven't ended print runs on the World of Darkness. Most of our releases will be electronic first, and we're going to be leveraging PoD, but PoD's just another printing method. For example, we've used small PoD runs to supplement our other printing for a while now, though I don't think anyone's noticed. [...] PoD will be an option for many books -- right now, we're rolling out our back catalog in PoD. Not every electronic release will immediately have a PoD counterpart, though."
The quote is drawn from the White Wolf forums, and I think this is nothing short of brilliant. First and foremost, this means that out-of-print will cease to be an issue, then there is the lowered price, and there are the environmental issues. The down-side here can be that game-stores may find it harder to market White Wolf's products, but here I'm only speculating -- there may well be deals and/or strategies already in place to make products available over the counter.
The new place to go for your Storyteller-fix is DriveThruRPG.
[Picture source: Julien Robitaille Photographie on Flickr]
Yeah it seems they are dropping off. Not sure what it will take for them to succeed.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I guess only time will tell whether this is a shrewd business move, or merely forestalling the inevitable.
ReplyDeleteShows how behind the times I am - I hadn't even noticed Mage was being discontinued (well, sort of discontinued... you know what I mean!).
ReplyDeleteI agree with the reaction in the post. Good news, hoping Trey's first option is the one.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that as a brick & mortar outlet, this is tough news. We have a small but fervent nWOD crowd, and we try to keep one of every core book on the shelf for them. Now if we sell out and the distribution chain doesn't have it, we have no choice but to tell folks to go online. =/
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is a sign of WW's imminent doom, but this may be wishful thinking. I do think the is a result of cut-backs and a poor economy in general. But the company does have a steady and loyal fan-base.
ReplyDelete@Loq:
I see that, but since you guys didn't already know about this, I wouldn't be too worried just yet. I can picture PoD being interpreted as quite literally print on demand, i.e. if you order X amount of books for your store, they'll print your books and ship them to you. But this I'm pulling straight out of my ass.