| From: | Steve Collins <steve_collins@********.ALEWIFE.KODAK.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: [Slightly OT] The death |
| Date: | Sat, 8 Feb 1997 15:45:56 U |
a rant
<snip stuff about why Marvel and TSR are failing>
>Ah well... FASA seems to be better connected to it's customers (After =
all,
>we have Mike AND Steve on the list, and Tom Dowd shows up on teh =
cyberpunk
>newsgroups), so hopefully they won't make the same mistakes that others
>have been.
>
>Don't overcommercialize! I can't stress that enough... Once something
>becomes popular, don't push it into the ground and force it on us... I
>don't think FASA will, after all, Mike's doing his best to squash the
>EI's... That right there could have been (and still could be) WAY
>overcommercialized... After all, even though the majority of the list
>seems to not like 'em, there's still plenty of gamers out tehre who do. =
In
>fact, I knew a guy once who wanted to play one...
Great points about TSR Bull the other MAJOR blunder they pulled recently =
(sometime in early 96) was to tell all of their Distributors that unless =
they bought $150,000 worth of books a year off them they just didn't want =
to do business with them. This dropped them from something like 23 US and =
12 overseas distributors to 6 US and 2 Overseas (1 in Europe and 1 in =
Asia) making it MUCH harder for game stores to get lower prices from =
competition or even find the stuff if they had to order it.
I think FASA is already making a concerted effort to avoid this and they =
have 1 thing TSR has never had, good Ideas. I read alot of SCI-FI and two =
of the 3 best future histories I have come across belong to FASA, =
Battletech and Shadowrun. Earthdawn seems to be ov the same Calibre but =
the only ED book I own is Barsaive and that's because I accidently ended =
up being one of the playtesters. That was the only time I have ever played =
ED too (I liked it BTW the step system seemed to work well). The other has =
nothing to do with any Role playing system and belongs to Jerry Pournelle. =
BTW FASAMike if you guys are looking to make a new game call him this =
world would be great it's the one with Mote in the Gods Eye and =
Falkinbergs Legion. I don't know about FASA's ownership. I don't even know =
who they are but the staff at FASA at least seams to be made of mostly =
Gamers. that hasn't been true at TSR for a while. Sure many of the people =
who work there played games but the people in charge (like an FASAMike's =
level) were more likely be business majors who never heard of a role =
playing game before they got the job. So like has been said before Keep up =
the Great work Mike.
