News
Today, I boxed up all my RPGs. They're still in plain sight, they're still loved and memories cherished, but the boxing, for me, means the end of my involvement with tabletop gaming. This has literally been a long-time coming: when I first started Gamegrene back in 2000, my orbit was already slowly decaying, and I hoped that dedicating a site to my love would keep things going.
No surprise to anyone by now: Wizards of the Coast has started another round of Christmas layoffs. This year, so far, Rob Heinsoo (D&D 4e Lead Designer), Logan Bonner (Adventurer's Vault), Chris Sims (4e Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide) and Stephen Radney-McFarland have been cut.
The nominees for the 2009 ENnie Awards were announced today; HELLAS: Worlds of Sun & Stone (my game) was nominated twice. Voting begins on July 24 and runs through August 1. Winners will be announced at the 9th Annual ENnie Awards at GenCon on Friday, August 14. Be sure to vote for your favorites!
From the front page of RPGNow.com: "Wizards of the Coast has instructed us to suspend all sales and downloads of Wizards of the Coast titles. Unfortunately, this includes offering download access to previously purchased Wizards of the Coast titles. We are in discussions with Wizards about their decision to change their approach to digital sales of their titles and will post more information as we have it. If you would like to let Wizards know your opinion on offering D&D titles for download, we suggest the D&D Message Boards found here (linked to gleemax)."
Numerous sources now indicate that Wizards of the Coast has undergone a round of layoffs in what is unfortunately becoming an annual holiday event. According to sources approximately 24 people were laid off, out of a staff of 100.
According to various sources, an official Letter of Intent for the Purchase of the Assets of Gen Con LLC Chapter 11 was filed on November 20, 2008 with the bankruptcy court. The Letter of Intent contained a summary of the terms and conditions of a potential Gen Con purchase by one "Gen Con Acquisition Group.” However, the offer was rejected.
The Topps Company announced today that WizKids will immediately cease operations and discontinue its product lines.
According to a post by Randy Buehler, WOTC's Vice President of Digital Gaming, "Wizards of the Coast has made the decision to pull down its Gleemax social networking site in order to focus on other aspects of our digital initiatives, especially Magic Online and Dungeons & Dragons Insider. We continue to believe that fostering online community is an important part of taking care of our customers, but until we have our games up and running at a quality level we can be proud of, it will be the games themselves that receive the lion’s share of our attention and resources."
With today's release of D&D 4th Edition, Wizards has been updating their website in regards to D&D Insider, Dragon, and Dungeon. While there's nothing really new in the Insider section (save the utter lack of the project's health - nothing about the open beta, nothing about the lack of client applications for months, nothing about costs, etc.), we do have tables of content for their two magazines, and Dragon reveals Wizards promise of revisiting previous campaign worlds.
