These stories have been rounded up from all over the internet but many of them come from GamingReport which, as a partner site, remains GameWyrd’s number one choice for industry news. Direct quotes from GamingReport appear in blue text.
- Topics
- Corruption at Wizards
- Chainmail left to rust
- Online retail branch hacked off and sold
- GURPS makes it online
- No mystery behind Maryann Siembieda’s departure from Palladium
- The World of Darkness threatens us with Demon: the Fallen
- Just when you thought it was safe to turn off your computer
Wizards of the Coast is the mothership of the RPG empire; love it or hate it, it’s pretty hard to argue against it. In the last year things have been shaking around in the company. Senior figures have left and even more senior figures have been caught with their hands in the till and fired. Wizards have sold off their own online retail division to SV Games
. They won’t be selling the Chainmail product line though since that’s been dropped.
[Posted 2002-06-05] Well, Wizards of the Coast seems to of take some interesting turns as of late. We have received several tips from readers and have now received several confirmations about some stunning changes at Wizards of the Coast. Here is the break down of all the tips from reliable, anonymous sources.
Recently there was in an internal investigation at Wizards of the Coast which allegedly unearthed a massive fraud operation within the employees. This resulted in the firing of several high level executives. It is alleged that Sr. VP of Production Tom Federline had setup a funneling operation to pipe money out of Wizards’ production department and into his own personal accounts. In addition, to the revelation concerning Mr. Federline, the Renton, Washington|King County Superior Court clerk’s office has reportedly received a filing, for a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Mr. Federline. The investigation apparently did not uncover any misdealing concerning Vince Caluori, however, in an internal company memo Vince announced his departure. Apparently, Vince’ is being replaced by a Hasbro representative from the main office and Loren Greenwood, former VP of Sales, is now taking on the duties of COO. The new CEO is based in Rhode Island so what that means for WotC’s Washington State future is uncertain.
This story goes on to reprint the internal leaving letter from Vince Caluori. You can read it and other WotC stories here.
[Posted 2002-06-30] We have some important news that we need to share with all of you. After a careful examination, the publishing business unit of Wizards of the Coast has determined that it needs to make a strategic shift in the miniatures category. We will no longer promote the Chainmail brand. Wizards will continue to produce miniatures, and we are currently working on our 2003 schedule, along with a business plan for a game that uses the Dungeons & Dragons brand.
We intend to make the new game backward-compatible with Chainmail.
What this decision means is that there will be a few changes to our release schedule for the remainder of 2002. The Chainmail Core Rulebook will be made available as an electronic download rather than a printed product, and the Set 5 miniatures boosters will not be released. We will, however, release the Kilsek faction box, the City of the Spider Queen box set, and Dragons I, Dragons II, Monsters II and III, and Heroes II and III box sets.
The article goes on to include a thank you note from Wizards. You can read it here and other stories here.
[Posted 2002-07-17] Wizards of the Coast, Inc. has reached a distribution and licensing agreement to outsource their online retail business to Sean Vanderdasson, owner and manager of SVGames, LLC. From this point forward, to place an online order for Wizards’ product, go to SVgames.com
The rest of the news contained phone numbers and email addresses customers worried about the change over could call. You can read this story and others here.
