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Topic: Slightly OT - Farewell Dragon Magazine (Read 229 times) |
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deathchild
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Taken from http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/news/20070419a
April 19, 2007 (BELLEVUE, Wash.) – Paizo Publishing and Wizards of the Coast today announced the conclusion of Paizo’s license to produce DRAGON and DUNGEON magazines effective September 2007. Publication of DRAGON and DUNGEON will cease with issues number 359 and 150, respectively.
Hard to believe after all of these years, apparently they are going to begin producing a similar magazine distributed online. Hopefully the Dragon Magazine Complete Collection on DVD will be forthcoming.
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| « Last Edit: on: Apr 27, 2007, 12:05AM » |
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Dane Bramage
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I see it as evolution IF the online version of it can live up to the legacy of the pubs.
It's probably because they don't sell well. I mean, lets face it, if the pubs were doing well, then they wouldn't stop publishing them.
I haven't read either of them in a long, long time, but I did buy one recent to see if it was worthy of a subscription. Frankly, IMO, it wasn't. Like many pubs these days, there was more adverts in it then content. I was throughly disappointed.
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Lazybones
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on Apr 27, 2007, 12:04 AM, deathchild wrote:| Hopefully the Dragon Magazine Complete Collection on DVD will be forthcoming. |
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Obviously take everything you hear on message boards with a grain of salt;  but I heard that this is very unlikely, due to copyright issues and ownership rights for past issues. One reason why the #1-250 collection got out the door is because it was a new step into this kind of format. If they did it today, there would be a lot of legal hurdles, such as the digital reproduction rights for the art featured in past issues, for example. The most recent ones probably have some sort of digital rights included in the contracts, but that's probably not the case for the earlier stuff.
If someone has different information, please correct me. I'd love to see a Complete Dungeon collection on DVD-ROM.
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| « Last Edit: on: Apr 27, 2007, 2:42AM » |
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J'Dai Voisin
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Folks on my play-by-post sites are upset and cautious about the change as well. The ripples are traveling far and wide with this news.
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deathchild
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I have not bought one in quite a while either, I wish I had bought the issue 1-250 collection on CDROM, but did not as I had not realized there would be a limited number available. I had expected it to be available for many years.
It was a good rag however, I used to buy issues and trade them with my friends years ago, although I never had a subscription.
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Dane Bramage
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on Apr 27, 2007, 4:01 PM, deathchild wrote:| I wish I had bought the issue 1-250 collection on CDROM, but did not as I had not realized there would be a limited number available. |
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Ooh... so, it's collectable? Nice... I got one somewhere. Hrm... I wonder how much it would fetch on Ebay?
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Forrestwolf
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I've got my share of issues in my old gaming material - that's really sad news, I think. Makes me wonder where publishing is really going - Are ALL periodicals going to be online someday?
As for the 1-250 collection, having the GAMES in there was great - King of the Tabletop is one of my favorite games of all time (though Mertwig's Maze is another).
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Ghool
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Digging through the storage here (which is my job incidentally), I've come acros HEAPS (and by no small exagerration) of old Dragon and Dungeon mags, and to top it all off, we also have several boxed sets of the (Best of) Dragon mag games.
Strange how it seems, the periodicals didn't sell that bad, to be honest. I think WotC was expecting to sell a LOT more and went with large print runs. Thus, it's more economical to move the mags to online publications. The reason for this is the recent US tariff on all full colour, glossy paper imports. All WotC products are printed on full colour glossy stock, and imported from China.
I suspect this is the reason for it, as the HC's can generate a lot more revenue, in smaller runs.
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egpaul
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Sad to see, though I have to admit, I havent read Dragon Magazine in the last 20 odd years I still have a ton of issues from the 80's in a box in my garage and many fond memories to go with them. (jeez I'm old...)
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GM_ODA
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Time was, when a gaming magazing could have a few good pieces of art, a nice cover, and about 96 pages in all. That was a good format, not too expensive to print. Made right here in the USA for US distribution (and some global)... that was when the company was run by 'fans'. Enter the corporate types, starting with the Dille-Williams era, and you can very clearly see the nose-dive substance and creative issues took in the wake of soaring profits and marketing drive.
Glossy pages cost more. Color art costs more. Gamers have thin pockets (mostly) and value a good value. In time, no amount of glossy will replace honest palpable value. Gaming is not the 'big' market (ala cigarettes and fast food) that the corporate types like to think it is, and time will tell. I have no great love of the direction the biz took post 80's. NOT THAT THERE WERE NOT GOOD PRODUCTS AND GOOOD PEOPLE INVOLVED AT SOME LEVEL, but it just is not what it was before the suits came onto the scene. I miss the old crew, good friends they were, I miss them all. Bless you fellows, you are remembered.
For now, the market continues to squeeze the profit out at any cost. Cut US printers from the mix, improve the bottom line. Cut printing from the mix, improve the bottom line. Where do you cut next?
GM_ODA
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LIONofHUME
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I loved the Finieous Fingers strip myself. It was a great mag and for just a buck (or was it a buck fifty?) I hope they make a cd with them all on it as well, since I've lost most of the ones I bought.
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Etarnon
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I was one of those that saw the value in the Dragon mag 1-250 CD. It's a great resource, and allowed me to put the tree versions I had of old dragons on eBay.
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Digitalknightmare
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IMHO, things started to go downhill when they (Hasbro) tried to jazz up the magazine to attract younger and newer users. They lost a lot of their base (old timers) who have suscribed over the years, Paizo has been trying to save it for a while with little luck. Hopefully things get better with the online edition. After 20+ years its going to be odd not rushing to the mailbox/store to get my fix.
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Digitalknightmare
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on May 4, 2007, 7:57 PM, GM_ODA wrote:Time was, when a gaming magazing could have a few good pieces of art, a nice cover, and about 96 pages in all. That was a good format, not too expensive to print. Made right here in the USA for US distribution (and some global)... that was when the company was run by 'fans'. Enter the corporate types, starting with the Dille-Williams era, and you can very clearly see the nose-dive substance and creative issues took in the wake of soaring profits and marketing drive.
Glossy pages cost more. Color art costs more. Gamers have thin pockets (mostly) and value a good value. In time, no amount of glossy will replace honest palpable value. Gaming is not the 'big' market (ala cigarettes and fast food) that the corporate types like to think it is, and time will tell. I have no great love of the direction the biz took post 80's. NOT THAT THERE WERE NOT GOOD PRODUCTS AND GOOOD PEOPLE INVOLVED AT SOME LEVEL, but it just is not what it was before the suits came onto the scene. I miss the old crew, good friends they were, I miss them all. Bless you fellows, you are remembered.
For now, the market continues to squeeze the profit out at any cost. Cut US printers from the mix, improve the bottom line. Cut printing from the mix, improve the bottom line. Where do you cut next?
GM_ODA |
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Right On, As soon as this game left the hands of the hobbiest and went into the corperate world it has gone straight downhill, like almost every other creative venture bought and consumed by the corperate media jugernauts. It saddens me that more and more of american culture is owned by corperations and we the people have to buy a licence to access our own culture.
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