Earlier today, Wizards of the Coast made an announcement on the company’s message board confirming what has been rumored for a while now: when the Star Wars license comes up for renewal this May, Wizards will not seek to renew it. In the announcement, Greg Yahn, WotC’s Director of Marketing, states “We had a long and fantastic run, but with the economic downturn, we have made the tough decision to discontinue our Star Wars lines.” WotC products for the Star Wars Miniatures Game and Star Wars Roleplaying Game will be available through August, with multiple new releases scheduled through April. Wizards had first taken over the Star Wars license from Decipher back in 2002, starting with WotC’s version of the Star Wars CCG.
Yay! Maybe now a company that understands how to do a Star Wars RPG will get it. Especially with the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO and the awesome Clone Wars CGI series on Cartoon Network the franchise is cooler than its been in years. Perfect timing for it to be picked up by an RPG design group that will really do it justice. Hmm…who owns the D6 license now…?
Gamma World!
I didn’t think it was that bad. I actually like the game.
And weren’t a lot of the developers long time fans? Some even from the d6 days?
Bill Slavicsek, current Director of Roleplaying R&D at Wizards of the Coast, was an editor and developer for the West End Games (d6) version of Star Wars, yes.
I wouldn’t look for any game company to pony up the cash for the license (but that is pure guess on my part). The rights are expensive, you have to get approval from LucasFilm for everything (which I understand is a ‘hurry up and wait’ process) and that the Star Wars name and value was kind of damaged with the prequel films (although I will give you that both Clone Wars cartoons were/are well done).
Heck, I wouldn’t look for many licensed games at all (barring any where it was bought BEFORE the economy went into the toilet) unless said license can be gotten cheaply.
Maybe someone should skip Star Wars and just do a Toaster Wars RPG. 😀
I don’t see anyone picking it up for a few years. We can all wistfully hope that WEG gets the RPG license and Decipher gets the CCG license again. But it’s unlikely IMHO.
Peace,
-Troy