Update – 24 June 2021: Remarkably, TSR Games are now distancing themselves from E. Gary Gygax Jr.
Update – 26 June 2021: Luke Gygax, Gary Con and the Gygax family say they are not part of TSR Games, TSR Games accuses Luke of making stuff up.
Original article follows.
EN World has a screen grab from James M. Ward’s Facebook account which reads;
TSR Relaunch
At the present time I know little or nothing about the relaunch of TSR.
Right now I don’t see how anyone could pick up where the old company left off. Yes it’s a name with some logos, that is all I know.
TSR Games had been claiming that GiantLands was now their game. GiantLands is James M. Ward’s project, the iconic game designer, is working on it along with Stephen E. Dinehart and E. Gary Gygax Jr, Larry Elmore, Jeff Dee and Josh Diffey. Several of those names are also linked with the new TSR Games.
Last night, E. Gary Gygax JR appeared on YouTube Live from the Bunker to clarify the position of TSR Games and claimed ownership of the new company.
It’s an uncomfortable watch.
Morrus has thoughtfuly done something of a transcript of the video.
In the video, we learn a court battle going on with Gail Gygax, his father’s widow. Gygax’s son said;
We are in court right now with Gail Gygax, my father’s last wife, who he impressed upon me, this is my wife, this was his last years, if you’re going to deal with me, you’re going to be dealing with my wife here. So ‘OK father, understood’. And he said ‘it doesn’t matter what you think because this is my wife’. That is important!
On the topic of how there can even be another TSR, we discover that E Gary grabbed the name once it lapsed, but now he licenses it back so the other company can continue while using it for these projects too.
The other TSR is a licensee because [Jayson Elliot] let it lapse. But he had absolutely … love for the game and the products. There was no reason to say ‘oh you’ve screwed up, oh it’s all ours, ha ha ha ha!’ Instead, Justin [LaNasa] came to him and said … we love that you’re doing Top Secret things, we have a much broader goal for the whole thing. But there’s no reason for you to stop or even have any troubles. Justin said, I’ll take care of the paperwork, you just give me $10 a year, and you put out all this love for old school gaming that you can. And we appreciate that you were there to try and pick up things, and you produced Gygax Magazine, for in its time that you’re also working on a game that you love to play … because Top Secret was Jayson’s love, as a young man.
E Gary has mixed things to say about the Top Secret magazine, though.
[Top Secret] hasn’t done real well, OK? But hopefully, there will be a little bit of extra energy involved with Jayson and his material too, because we will be openly talking about them, and saying there’s this fine gentleman, this ally. And there’ll be other allies.
James Ward is involved. Gygax JR says GiantLands is Ward’s project, and that GiantLands is TSR Games’ first licensee.
Giantlands is a first licensee of a product that we are working with. I was involved with Giantlands just before Hobby Shop Museum became a reality. Jim Ward, said, “Luke and Ernie, I would like either of you or both to be part of this project”. So I said, well Jim Ward’s got a project, it looks like it was Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, which I loved, and then I started reading more and said ‘oh there’s this other gentleman, Stephen Dinehart, and look at this, Aztecs flying around on hovercraft and beam weapons, alright, this is starting to look good.
While it’s not clear why James Ward hadn’t heard of TSR Games and knew nothing about it, he has now tweeted to confirm involvement.
Most significantly, the new TSR Games seems to be founded on bitterness. He says the great D&D has gone seems to say that this new TSR Games is for people who are against modern trends and who enforce gender identity.
TSR has been gone. There’s a ton of artists and game designers and people that play….. and recently they were dissed for being old-fashioned, possibly anti-modern trends, and enforcing, or even having the concepts of gender identity (laughs).
All I’m trying to do is fill in the strip mine, allow this old fertile soil to produce more games and products again. We’re not gonna be able to get back the diamond that was Dungeons & Dragons. We’ll be able to make things that might have chips of diamond material… we’re never gonna see that great D&D diamond again, I don’t think.
Gender Identity is a term used to describe someone’s sense of their own gender. Gender identity is often used by people discussing human rights, but it is hard to imagine people are against or enforce the concept.
As it stands now, it’s a false alarm with James M. Ward, he’s not distancing himself from the new TSR Games, GiantLands is a TSR Games, there’s a legal fight in the Gygax family and E. Gary Gygax Jr is running one of two TSR Games. The other TSR is doing the Top Secret magazine, which is struggling.
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E Gary has told us all we need to know about the ‘new’ TSR. He’s a transphobe who uses ‘woke’ as a prejorative. He doesn’t realise how many trans people are in the industry. His ‘bubble’ has told him he’s right and he just hasn’t read the room. He’s the living Steve Buscemi ‘fellow students’ meme. Gamers either support gender variance or just don’t care and E Gary just comes across as some old ‘get off my lawn’ fart. He’s the clown shoes of gaming and this will crash and burn.
I am very sure many people agree strongly with you. I wanted to curtail my editorialising on this post in favour of the news angle (responsible coverage encouraging that) but I will be exploring the points you make on the podcast.