The story. The deal hasn’t been approved by Cranium’s shareholders yet, and apparently the $77 mil “would be used to cover Cranium’s outstanding debt and to pay its shareholders.” Those shareholders are venture capitalists, including a firm co-founded by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz – recall the famous story of one
Category: Industry
Audio Report – Trends and microclimates
‘Tis the post season to be catching up, so here goes: another refugee from the holiday season, this Audio Report episode brings us back to the height of the season’s buying rush, just after Black Friday. Steve’s mind seems to have held up to the retail store pressure, but just
Weisman gets new gig infiltrating physical world with old-timey modern-fantasy mecha
“Jordan Weisman, founder of FASA, has licensed the rights to MechWarrior, Shadowrun and Crimson Skies from Microsoft to his latest startup, Smith & Tinker.” S&T apparently aims to draw on the lessons of ARGs, the medium Weisman helped pioneer at his company 42 Entertainment, and carry them into the realm
Something of WotC’s probably headed for Xbox Live Arcade, who knows what
“Wizards of the Coast […] today announced an agreement with leading UK video game developer Stainless Games to produce an exciting new online downloadable game.” Doesn’t “leading” usually mean that you don’t do your development work under some other company‘s name? Still, though, the Xbox Live versions of Asteroids and
Audio Report – Serving up hate with gravy
Turkey day and the resulting family obligations pushed this Audio Report episode back a bit, so we’re happy to get this one out there. We got some serious hate on for WotC’s Dungeon Survival Guide and the overall flawed 4th Edition preview marketing approach thus far. Miniatures throwing gang signs,
State of the Mongoose ’07: aggressive and hungry
For everyone’s safety, we try to keep tabs on any snake-eating mammals lurking nearby, and come to grips with what Mongoose Publishing plans to unleash on gamers in the year ahead. The traditional State of the Mongoose address was posted today, this time as a temporary forum, and so far,
Ready… set… buy gifts!
The turkey isn’t even carved yet, and sales are springing up all over. We’ll have our annual OgreCave Christmas Gift Guide up after a last edit and the requisite holiday feasting [EDIT: Now available!], but in the meantime, here’s a few places to start looking for deals: Any fan of
D&D senior brand manager confirms: no D20 License for D&D 4
This news is a few days old, but as OC’s Senior Licensing Analyst (I will kidneypunch anyone who takes that seriously), I should weigh in. D&D brand manager Scott Rouse has confirmed at ENworld that the D20 System phenomenon as we know it (by which I mean the D20 System
GAMES 100, give or take a few – Pillars of the Earth is Game of the Year
It’s that time of year again – GAMES Magazine has announced their top game picks for 2007, and the GotY winner is a nerdy-but-not-too strategy board game. No shockers here, except that GAMES now actually has a website that’s not completely useless. However, Funagain seems again to be the only
Bella Sara, Adkison in New York Times
If you already know about Bella Sara (and you should, if you’ve been paying attention), then today’s article in the New York Times won’t reveal anything earthshattering. However, it serves as a reminder that Peter Adkison is still out there, lurking, ready to take over the world’s CCG market again
Audio Report – Uneasy about the approach
Marketing – or to be more specific, the D&D 4e marketing approach thus far – is one of many things we dive into
Top 6 inches of Gleemax alpha front page look really great
Gleemax has opened to the public in an alpha version. “Alpha” is how web developers say “Mike, you really shouldn’t complain about how things look right now.” And, well, okay. If they hadn’t already done an enormous marketing push, it’d be no problem that they’re letting the general public see
Audio Report: Xcrawl Fiction Contest is go
We chat with Brendan LaSalle of Pandahead Productions, creators of XCrawl, about the new fiction contest they’ve put on with publisher Goodman Games. Yes, there are prizes, and yes, one of the judges tells you exactly how to curry favor. (It should not surprise you that the judge in question
James Wallis getting ARGy with Perplex City creator
Now and again, and it seems like lately it’s a little more often, I stumble across some neat little bit of info, and it may have been known to others already or by some much more obvious means, but it still makes me go “holy crap” and get all bouncy
Audio Report – Coming down after con season
We still have a bit of the shakes from all the convention news of the past month or so, so we let it all out in the latest OgreCave Audio Report episode. From how Gen Con developments reflected on our 2007 Ogre’s Choice Awards to the Penny Arcade Expo, and