„Kleine Fragestunde“

[Edit: Mittlerweile gibt es den gesamten Chat Log als .PDF zum nachlesen, siehe Links am Ende des Artikels.] 

Heute fand um 19:00 ein kleiner “public developer’s chat” zu Shadowrun statt. Hier mal einige Auszüge, in Klammern redaktionelle Anmerkungen.

-Deutsche Shadowrun Lizenz:

“Unfortunatly there is some confusion about the legal status of current translation rights. Publications which continue to appear in germany seem to violate the licence we(Catalyst Gaming Labs) have negotiated with Wizkids. That said, we currently have our contract under review in with Wizkids and once that is approved, we move on with foreign sub-licences.” [background link 1, link 2]

“We are in negotiations with a german publisher to create German language books” [Pegasus]

-Die “übliche” Lizenzdauer beträgt übrigens 3 Jahre…

-Warum Catalyst Game Labs Artikel [Battletech/Shadowrun] teilweise schwer über Amazon.com zu beziehen sind:

“At this time Catalyst Game Labs has chosen not to list with Amazon.com while we focus on strengthening our commitment to local retail establishments.The strange reality of the beast is, that while Amazon.com is a widely looked at resource for Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun books, they on average sell as much as two good sized game stores. That’s it. However, their impact is much more far reaching than that. We hear many reports of people claiming that the Amazon.com price is the manufacturers suggested retail price of our books. This stems from the fact that while they may not sell a lot of books directly, they are a constant referral point for what a book is “worth”.Now at the end of the day, somewhere close to 90% of our product is sold through your local retail stores. I know that some people don’t buy that way, but both Classic BattleTech and Shadowrun are large properties and large amounts of books (thousands of each title) go through brick and mortar stores. And these stores try and stay competitive by monitoring prices, including those of places like Amazon.com. They frequently run into people quoting the online price and saying “why can’t I get it at 34% off?”. This makes retailers feel like they’re actually competing against Amazon. If the person buys the book, the retailer is worried that they won’t buy more because they’ll go to Amazon, and if they don’t buy it that day, then in the retailer’s mind its easy to imagine that they’ve gone home and ordered it online. And without full knowledge of how little Amazon really does in business, they tend to feel put out and less likely to try new products from us.As a business person, I honestly can’t blame them. There are MANY different game companies out there today, and its easy to change to a product from a company like Games WorkShop in which you know there’s little online competition. Game store owners have thousands of SKUs (individual listings) to manage and try and sell, in many cases, more than your average CostCo even! They need to constantly look at the market and choose those items that will sell, either through approved play, or through policies at the game company level that help them sell those products.I know this won’t make some of you happy. That’s why we have the BC store, to fulfill those of your needs who don’t have a local store to shop from. We intentionally sell at MSRP there as well. As we enter into 2008, we will begin more and more B&M friendly practices beginning with our retailer locator. Never the less, thank you for your passion for all of our games. It’s that passion that gets you posting and we appreciate it.”-Es wird übrigens kein zusätzliches spezielles Rigger[4] Buch geben, man hält das mit dem Arsenal für abgedeckt.-Es gab bereits letztes Jahr einen Deal mit Fanpro die Domains www.srrpg.com und www.shadowrunrpg.com zu kaufen, aber Fanpro hat den Deal dann abgelehnt. Zur Zeit versucht man es grade wieder.-Über das lang erwartete und stark vermisste SOLA[Shadows of Latin America]

“Years ago, when IMR[In Media Res Productions, die auch IRGENDWANN Holostreets – siehe Battlecorps – als online Shadowrun Fiction Plattform machen wollen, werden, eventuell] agreed to take on SOLA, it was believed that FanPro would be delivering them a product that was at *least* past the editing stage. However, the person developing SOLA dropped out of the project (for a better job opportunity — no complaints about him!) [Das klingt ohne PR-Formulierung und zwischen Zeilen teilweise ganz anders] and FanPro simply never had time to finish the project, as it was during the SR4 time crunch and the freelance developer was hired to keep the project on track while Rob concentrated on SR4.Now Catalyst is “stuck” with the task of finishing it, several years after it was relevant to the timeline, with several years more expectations built up, with more expenses than intended, with the authors annoyed that their work hasn’t been published and they haven’t been paid — and as you may have noticed, HoloStreets isn’t exactly moving fast, either [and that’s a whole other kettle of fish.]The above paragraph is not me complaining about SOLA: I’m just pointing out that the SOLA situation, bluntly, sucks for EVERYONE: Catalyst, the writers, and the fans.”

[Übersetzung: SOLA ist tot und wird ohne größeres Wunder auch nicht wieder Auferstehen.]

-Was die geklauten Arsenal 207X Bilder angeht:

“Man wird sich darum kümmern und die Namen in weiteren Druck-&PDF-Versionen berücksichtigen”

Ich will ehrlich sein, ich kenne einen Großteil der Leute und glaube nicht, dass das böse Absicht war, aber ich werde jetzt mal keinen Kommentar zum Lösungsansatz abgeben… 

shadowrun-developer-chat-log-january-2008.pdf [on sirdoomsbadcompany]

shadowrun-developer-chat-log-january-2008.pdf [on shadowrun4.com]