WildFire, the company behind the stylish and award-winning CthulhuTech RPG, has been plagued with publisher problems from the beginning. Now WildFire has posted an update on its plans which don’t rely on a publisher to carry out. According to a press release from WildFire VP Matthew Grau (also repeated below), the long-awaited The Void RPG will be released for free download and under the Creative Commons license, allowing fans to generate their own materials for the game. Supplemental materials will be available for sale from WildFire as well at reasonable prices, but the core rules will be free online “within the next couple weeks”. A print-on-demand version will also be made available through DriveThruRPG. We’ll be interested to see how things develop in The Void community in the months ahead.
WildFire press release follows:
Wow, this is very exciting for us. We’ve been working on The Void for a while and we’ve been talking about our new release model for almost as long. It’s been a wonderful collaborative process, with each of the creatives involved having a strong voice in the design of the world and rules, as well as the way we are producing the product. We are all very excited to invite you to join in the fun.
We’re going to do something that’s new for us with The Void – we’re making it free-to-play. We’ve seen this work for video games, so why not try it for roleplaying games?
Here’s what we’ve written for the opening page of The Void:
“Seriously? Free to Play?
Imagination is powerful. To quote Albert Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Well said.
We believe in the power of imagination and how it creates wonder and inspiration. Roleplaying games are one of the few things that can do what they do. Some might say they are the last frontier for wild imagination and creativity. We certainly believe so. That’s why we make roleplaying games – to help make that possible.
Making roleplaying games the way we have hasn’t helped us spark imagination the way we’d hoped. We want to try something different.
First, we’re adopting the Creative Commons license, so that you can contribute to the game in a meaningful way. That way, we can support you in your awesome ideas and help you get them out to your fellow players.
Then, we’re going to give away electronic copies of the core book for free. We’ve all bought games that didn’t end up working out for us. That’s why we’re giving this to you for free – so that you can figure out if you like the game before you decide to spend money on it.
If you like The Void and you play it, we’re going to put out a bunch of cool material at very reasonable prices. We’re going to do it buffet-style, so you can pick and choose what works best for you and your group. Buying these supplements supports us making more cool material, along with the rest of your fellow players.
After all, life’s too short to waste time and money on games you don’t like.
– The Staff of WildFire”
If you like the idea, please spread the word!
We would love to hear your comments and answer your questions.
–
Matthew Grau
WildFire