Friday, August 29, 2008
Into the Asylum
Recent posts steeped in foreboding aside, we still at the very least have a couple sets in the pipeline, warts and all, with the next of them being another DC set, Arkham Asylum, due October 22.
Official previews (written in advance by the set's designer, Seth Johnson, before he left the company) are set to start next week. This week, however, someone appears to have leaked the main set list, complete with numbering and experience level. The holder of the info's being cagey about details, though. For instance, he knows the point totals for each of the pieces, but is making a short-term contest of that.
Still, I'll present the info that's known. (Edit: A list with the point values for each piece is at the end of the post.)
Here's the named set list, complete with REVU status for each. I've provided the breaks for rarity levels, too.
It's an... interesting list. If one's not a fan of the Legion of Superheroes and/or up on recent arcs involving the Green Lantern/Sinestro Corps, etc., there are likely to be quite a few "Huh? Who?!" moments -- I must confess this is the first set where I found I had to Wiki more than one or two for clarification. Though it's over the top, I've included reference links for all but a few which were either too generic or vague.
I definitely like the rise in number of generics - pieces a theme player would have reason to hold onto multiples of.
COMMONS
001 Veteran WHITE MARTIAN (generic)
002 Rookie MANHUNTER (We don't know if these are the human versions or the robotic ones.)
003 Experienced MULTIPLEX (effectively a generic)
004 Rookie THE QUESTION
005 Experienced FLORONIC MAN
006 Veteran GOTHAM CITY DETECTIVE (generic, with a Crispus Allen LE)
007 Veteran TWO-FACE
008 Rookie STREET THUG (a surprising generic)
009 Rookie KID DEVIL
010 Veteran GORILLA GRODD
011 Veteran THE RIDDLER
012 Veteran AMANDA WALLER
013 Rookie HUMAN BOMB
014 Experienced SCANDAL SAVAGE
015 Experienced PLASMUS
016 Rookie BATMAN
UNCOMMONS
017 Rookie MAN-BAT ASSASSIN (curious generic -- these are League of Assassin members who've been given the Man-Bat serum.)
018 Experienced SOLOMON GRUNDY
019 Unique LASHINA
020 Experienced ANARKY
021 Rookie MISS MARTIAN
022 Experienced HITMAN
023 Veteran WONDER WOMAN
024 Veteran COUNT VERTIGO
025 Unique JOHNNY SORROW
026 Experienced NIGHTSHADE
027 Experienced FIREFLY
028 Rookie ARKILLO
029 Unique PER DEGATON
030 Veteran AMON SUR
031 Experienced CAPTAIN GORDON
032 Veteran LIGHTNING LORD
RARES
033 Unique THINKER
034 Veteran ROBIN
035 Experienced GHOST FOX KILLER
036 Unique ZOOM
037 Rookie ELEMENT LAD
038 Veteran PENGUIN
039 Veteran COSMIC KING
040 Experienced DOCTOR DESTINY
041 Veteran FRANKENSTEIN
042 Experienced VENTRILOQUIST
043 Unique CALCULATOR
044 Rookie YELLOW LANTERN
045 Unique CIRCE
046 Experienced LYSSA DRAK
047 Veteran ULTRA-HUMANITE
048 Veteran BIZARRO #1
SUPER RARES
049 Veteran BLACK MANTA
050 Unique METRON
051 Veteran MAD HATTER
052 Experienced BATGIRL
053 Veteran THE TOP
054 Unique DESPERO
055 Rookie SABBAC
056 Unique THE FLASH
057 Veteran SATURN QUEEN
058 Unique CHANG TZU
059 Unique THE JOKER
060 Unique SUPERMAN PRIME
061 Unique THE CLOWN PRINCE OF CRIME (Buy It By the Brick mail-away.)
Also reportedly (see that contest link earlier in the post) the point breakdowns for these 61 pieces group as follows (Point Value: Number of clix in the set at that value):
70 : 5
55 : 4
50,68,75,90 : 3
64,72,80 : 2
19,27,30,37,40,45,47,60,61,65,66,74,76,85,88,89,97,98,99,107,115,116,120,126,130,145,149,150,157,177,195,199,248 & 318: 1
...a fairly good point spread. Looking at it another way:
1-50: 10
51-100: 36
101-150: 9
151-200: 4
201-250: 1
251-300: 0
301+: 1
...we see that this should be solid for team-building, especially within 300 pt builds, which remain a standard tournament build.
Jake Theis, current brand manager, also released a promotional article that ended with some clues about the list. At the moment I'm mostly sticking with the guesses boneyard's presented below, though I've added one or two of my own:
A character with both the Past and Future keywords - Metron or Per Dagaton
A Special Power that begins "In Contact With..." - Calculator
A classic character that Alan Moore revitalized - Floronic Man (in Swamp Thing)
A classic character that Neil Gaiman revitalized - Dr Destiny (in Sandman)
The named power "EAT THE HOSTAGES" - Gorilla Grodd
An Uncommon figure with a starting Damage value of five … and Perplex - Bizarro #1
A named power written in German - Plasmus
At least one character chosen by a Top-16 player at the HeroClix World Championships - Superman (boy) Prime (To bad they didn't make the Ace the Bathound/Streaky combo instead)
At least one character that first appeared in Charlton comics - Nightshade
At least one character with the Batman-Enemy Team Ability and the Wing Speed Symbol - Firefly/Man-Bat Assassins
A trio of villains - Saturn Queen, Lightning Lord, Cosmic King
A soldier that’s a little late for roll-call - Frankenstein (a Sevcen Soldiers of Victory reference.)
A duo figure that isn't a duo figure - Ventriloquist/Scarface
At least one Golden Age villain - Ultra-Humanite/Per Degaton
The named power "GRRRRRAGH!" - Solomon Grundy
A figure that had the shortest comic book appearance of any DC HeroClix character done to date - Yellow Lantern
The highest-point version of one of the “DC Trinity” EVER done by a full 50 points - Wonder Woman (So that should be 248 points.)
A figure with 20 Defense! - Superman Prime, the Top, Zoom, Jak Garrick or the Thinker
Edit: Below is the list with the point values for each piece attached. I lack the time to edit them into the list above.
001 WHITE MARTIAN (generic) -90
002 MANHUNTER (Paul Kirk? Mark Shaw? Robot? clone Paul Kirk? Kirk DePaul? Kate Spencer?) - 64
003 MULTIPLEX -30
004 THE QUESTION (Renee Montoya?) - 37
005 FLORONIC MAN - 47
006 GOTHAM CITY DETECTIVE (Crispus Allen?) - 27
007 TWO-FACE - 75
008 STREET THUG - 19
009 KID DEVIL - 55
010 GORILLA GRODD - 157
011 THE RIDDLER - 90
012 AMANDA WALLER - 75
013 HUMAN BOMB - 45
014 SCANDAL SAVAGE - 60
015 PLASMUS - 80
016 BATMAN (crouching on gargoyle?) - 64
017 MAN-BAT ASSASSIN - 40
018 SOLOMON GRUNDY - 115
019 LASHINA - 72
020 ANARKY - 70
021 MISS MARTIAN - 76
022 HITMAN - 61
023 WONDER WOMAN (Diana Prince) - 248
024 COUNT VERTIGO - 74
025 JOHNNY SORROW - 55
026 NIGHTSHADE - 50
027 FIREFLY - 68
028 ARKILLO - 126
029 PER DEGATON - 90
030 AMON SUR - 70
031 CAPTAIN GORDON - 50
032 LIGHTNING LORD - 89
033 THINKER - 55
034 ROBIN - 66
035 GHOST FOX KILLER - 68
036 ZOOM - 130
037 ELEMENT LAD - 70
038 PENGUIN - 70
039 COSMIC KING - 85
040 DOCTOR DESTINY - 99
041 FRANKENSTEIN (from 7 Soldiers) - 98
042 VENTRILOQUIST (w/Scarface) - 70
043 CALCULATOR (Purple costume?) - 55
044 YELLOW LANTERN (Bizarro) - 65
045 CIRCE - 149
046 LYSSA DRAK - 72
047 ULTRA-HUMANITE - 177
048 BIZARRO #1 - 199
049 BLACK MANTA - 68
050 METRON - 195
051 MAD HATTER - 75
052 BATGIRL - 50
053 THE TOP - 80
054 DESPERO - 88
055 SABBAC - 145
056 THE FLASH (Jay Garrick) - 120
057 SATURN QUEEN - 116
058 CHANG TZU (aka Egg Fu) - 107
059 THE JOKER (Straightjacket?) - 97
060 SUPERMAN PRIME - 318
BITB Clix: 061 THE CLOWN PRINCE OF CRIME - Joker escaping Arkham Asylum - 150
Want the rest of the post?
What Would Be As Bad Or Worse...
A year ago the Supreme Court decided that manufacturers could impose limits on the discounts retailers can give on the selling of their products, overturning an antitrust ruling that had stood for 96 years. The central argument revolved around product image, and wanting to protect retail outlets that the manufacturer approved of; the subtleties depend on the product line and the manufacturer in question.
Wizkids had already taken a preliminary step in the direction of controls earlier by unceremoniously gutting their distribution system a couple years back and signing an exclusive distribution partnership with Alliance/Diamond, restricting the primary (wholesale) sales of their product to brick and mortar retail establishments. This was the latest step in responding to such retailers' complaints that Internet-based retailers were seriously undercutting their sales by offering much deeper discounts than they felt they could afford.
While Wizkids has yet to take any more steps, in the past couple years they've vecome increasingly imitative of other "industry standard" practices, so today's announcement that Mayfair Games will be imposing a 20% cap on discounts offered by retailers could be worrisome.
My most recent bulk purchase - for Secret Invasion - was (including shipping) a 36.4% discount over MSRP, and a hair shy of 40% when one adds in the PA state tax that would have accompanied the higher price. Even at that, I've been gravely reconsidering my purchases due to the difficulty of completing even the basic 60-piece set, much less any notions of actually getting the damned chase pieces.
Were Wizkids to step in, especially after having raided their MSRP twice in the past couple years, and limit discounts to 20% -- or even 30% -- that would essentially mark the end of the line for me and new Clix.
For the sake of maintaining the archive, I've reprinted the two article links below, starting with the earlier decision:
Supreme Court Drops Ban on Vertical Pricing
Could Have a Major Effect on Hobby Gaming
Published: 07/03/07, Last Updated: 01/01/50 12:00am
On the last day of its term the Supreme Court reversed a ruling that had stood for 96 years and ruled instead that it was not automatically a violation for manufacturers and distributors to enforce minimum retail pricing on retailers. The case, Leegin vs. PSKS, was based on an appeal from Leegin Creative Leather Products of a $1.2 million judgment stemming from the company's decision to cut off Texas retailer Kay's Kloset for its refusal to adhere to Leegin's no-discount policy.
In deciding in favor of Leegin the Supreme Court overturned the flat ban on resale price agreements, based on the Sherman Antitrust Act, enunciated by the Court in 1911 in the case involving Dr. Miles Medical Company. In that 1911 case, the court decided that these vertical pricing agreements did not benefit the consumer and banned them outright. Now, in a 5-4 decision, the Court's new conservative majority has decided that in certain cases these pricing agreements may actually promote competition.
The decision does not mean that it is now acceptable for manufacturers to immediately implement programs that will turn their 'minimum suggested retail prices' into ironclad minimum retail prices, which, if not followed at the retail level, would result in the cut-off of supply or other punitive measures. What the Supreme Court decision means is that cases involving the imposition of vertical pricing by producers and distributors will now be considered on a 'case-by-case' basis in which courts will endeavor to determine the impact of such a pricing policy on competition. The only certain outcome of the precedent-shattering decision will be a slew of court cases as various groups of manufacturers attempt to establish their right to control retail prices.
The arguments cited by the Justices in the Leegin case do provide some potential insights in how the courts might decide similar cases in the future. Leegin's pricing policy was part of a marketing strategy for an upscale line of leather goods that were to be sold only in small boutiques that could provide copious amounts of customer service, so customer service can be considered an important factor. The court also cited 'product demonstrations' and the provision of specialized consumer services -- two elements that could certainly apply to hobby game stores that regularly provide demonstration of new games and hold organized play events, while losing sales on the very products that they are demonstrating and supporting to non-brick-and-mortar Internet discounters. Using this criteria the Leegin decision would appear to clear the way for game manufacturers to implement minimum retail prices, but the companies will have to be prepared to litigate to gain this right -- and under antitrust laws litigants face the possibility of triple penalties if they lose.
Now the Mayfair Games decision:
Online Discounting of Games—One Year Later
Mayfair Using Supreme Court Decision to Control Pricing
August 29, 2008
Roughly a year after the Supreme Court decision allowing companies to control the prices at which retailers sell their products under certain circumstances (see “Supreme Court Drops Ban on Vertical Pricing”), one game company that we’re aware of, Mayfair Games, has used the decision aggressively to control the prices at which its products are sold.
Mayfair has instituted a policy, the Mayfair Authorized Retailer Program, that restricts discounts above 20% off retail on its games. VP-Sales Bob Carty talked about the status of the program in the Future of the Hobby Channel panel at Gen Con Trade Day (see “The Future of the Hobby Channel”). “We're in the process of the second stage of enforcement,” he told the audience. “We’ve gone from 113 retailers discounting product in November… when we started releasing Third Edition [of Settlers of Catan]; we now have between six and 11 in any given week. And I think that's a big step. Six of them are habitual and on the blacklist but they're still getting product, and we know where, and we're going to deal with them very shortly.”
One other game company, WizKids Games, has made significant efforts to reduce Internet discounting by controlling sales to Internet-only retailers (it began this strategy prior to the Leegin decision, see “Joe Hauck, WizKids EVP on Internet Retailing”), although it is not using price controls based on Leegin to our knowledge.
Want the rest of the post?
A year ago the Supreme Court decided that manufacturers could impose limits on the discounts retailers can give on the selling of their products, overturning an antitrust ruling that had stood for 96 years. The central argument revolved around product image, and wanting to protect retail outlets that the manufacturer approved of; the subtleties depend on the product line and the manufacturer in question.
Wizkids had already taken a preliminary step in the direction of controls earlier by unceremoniously gutting their distribution system a couple years back and signing an exclusive distribution partnership with Alliance/Diamond, restricting the primary (wholesale) sales of their product to brick and mortar retail establishments. This was the latest step in responding to such retailers' complaints that Internet-based retailers were seriously undercutting their sales by offering much deeper discounts than they felt they could afford.
While Wizkids has yet to take any more steps, in the past couple years they've vecome increasingly imitative of other "industry standard" practices, so today's announcement that Mayfair Games will be imposing a 20% cap on discounts offered by retailers could be worrisome.
My most recent bulk purchase - for Secret Invasion - was (including shipping) a 36.4% discount over MSRP, and a hair shy of 40% when one adds in the PA state tax that would have accompanied the higher price. Even at that, I've been gravely reconsidering my purchases due to the difficulty of completing even the basic 60-piece set, much less any notions of actually getting the damned chase pieces.
Were Wizkids to step in, especially after having raided their MSRP twice in the past couple years, and limit discounts to 20% -- or even 30% -- that would essentially mark the end of the line for me and new Clix.
For the sake of maintaining the archive, I've reprinted the two article links below, starting with the earlier decision:
Supreme Court Drops Ban on Vertical Pricing
Could Have a Major Effect on Hobby Gaming
Published: 07/03/07, Last Updated: 01/01/50 12:00am
On the last day of its term the Supreme Court reversed a ruling that had stood for 96 years and ruled instead that it was not automatically a violation for manufacturers and distributors to enforce minimum retail pricing on retailers. The case, Leegin vs. PSKS, was based on an appeal from Leegin Creative Leather Products of a $1.2 million judgment stemming from the company's decision to cut off Texas retailer Kay's Kloset for its refusal to adhere to Leegin's no-discount policy.
In deciding in favor of Leegin the Supreme Court overturned the flat ban on resale price agreements, based on the Sherman Antitrust Act, enunciated by the Court in 1911 in the case involving Dr. Miles Medical Company. In that 1911 case, the court decided that these vertical pricing agreements did not benefit the consumer and banned them outright. Now, in a 5-4 decision, the Court's new conservative majority has decided that in certain cases these pricing agreements may actually promote competition.
The decision does not mean that it is now acceptable for manufacturers to immediately implement programs that will turn their 'minimum suggested retail prices' into ironclad minimum retail prices, which, if not followed at the retail level, would result in the cut-off of supply or other punitive measures. What the Supreme Court decision means is that cases involving the imposition of vertical pricing by producers and distributors will now be considered on a 'case-by-case' basis in which courts will endeavor to determine the impact of such a pricing policy on competition. The only certain outcome of the precedent-shattering decision will be a slew of court cases as various groups of manufacturers attempt to establish their right to control retail prices.
The arguments cited by the Justices in the Leegin case do provide some potential insights in how the courts might decide similar cases in the future. Leegin's pricing policy was part of a marketing strategy for an upscale line of leather goods that were to be sold only in small boutiques that could provide copious amounts of customer service, so customer service can be considered an important factor. The court also cited 'product demonstrations' and the provision of specialized consumer services -- two elements that could certainly apply to hobby game stores that regularly provide demonstration of new games and hold organized play events, while losing sales on the very products that they are demonstrating and supporting to non-brick-and-mortar Internet discounters. Using this criteria the Leegin decision would appear to clear the way for game manufacturers to implement minimum retail prices, but the companies will have to be prepared to litigate to gain this right -- and under antitrust laws litigants face the possibility of triple penalties if they lose.
Now the Mayfair Games decision:
Online Discounting of Games—One Year Later
Mayfair Using Supreme Court Decision to Control Pricing
August 29, 2008
Roughly a year after the Supreme Court decision allowing companies to control the prices at which retailers sell their products under certain circumstances (see “Supreme Court Drops Ban on Vertical Pricing”), one game company that we’re aware of, Mayfair Games, has used the decision aggressively to control the prices at which its products are sold.
Mayfair has instituted a policy, the Mayfair Authorized Retailer Program, that restricts discounts above 20% off retail on its games. VP-Sales Bob Carty talked about the status of the program in the Future of the Hobby Channel panel at Gen Con Trade Day (see “The Future of the Hobby Channel”). “We're in the process of the second stage of enforcement,” he told the audience. “We’ve gone from 113 retailers discounting product in November… when we started releasing Third Edition [of Settlers of Catan]; we now have between six and 11 in any given week. And I think that's a big step. Six of them are habitual and on the blacklist but they're still getting product, and we know where, and we're going to deal with them very shortly.”
One other game company, WizKids Games, has made significant efforts to reduce Internet discounting by controlling sales to Internet-only retailers (it began this strategy prior to the Leegin decision, see “Joe Hauck, WizKids EVP on Internet Retailing”), although it is not using price controls based on Leegin to our knowledge.
Want the rest of the post?
Friday, August 15, 2008
Footsteps In the Hall
A day for potentially dire information leaking from WizKids. Several elements remain speculative, but it's difficult to put a positive spin on this.
We recently (July 23rd) had the release of Secret Invasion, which was still a nicely-designed set (both in terms of character selection and dials) but had some rough elements in the area of production -- some issues with sculpts but mostly with paint. Some odd and even unfortunate choices made, too, but I've already talked about the set in a previous post.
We'd already known that Seth Johnson, the designer for the past several years, left a little while back, but that he designed everything through this fall's Arkham Asylum set, and had a shepherding hand on Hammer of Thor, which will be the next Marvel set (February '09), though Kelly Bonilla was actually the one to do the designs (stats, keywords, etc.) for that set. Kelly seemed to have Seth's full confidence, and I expect that in those respects at least the set will be solid.
Today, however, was the next big layoff date for WizKids staff. A fairly reliable, if admittedly biased, source ran a post this afternoon, which I'll reprint below.
Just to be sure everyone is on the same page, remember that Topps currently owns WizKids. Okay, here's Hair10's post. (Link is to the HCRealms thread.) I'll resume on the far side of it.
My initial reactions weren't positive.
It seems amazing that they could so misjudge things. Am I the only one who is getting weird echoes of some bad decisions made in the history of the comics industry, as when some people decided that storytelling was relatively unimportant?
A completely inexperienced designer with little comics knowledge in charge of a game based on comics characters, and their sculptors let go..? Someone, somewhere up the chain apparently made the decision that these sets will sell on their own - just print anything with the comics connection and emphasize that it's going to be produced in limited numbers, and people will buy it. Yeah, it at least seems that whatever wasn't crushed under the boot of "Industry Standard" WotC approaches will be wiped out by the Topps "collectible" steamroller.
Some of the immediate speculation is that Topps may be making all of these immense trims so that the next two quarters come out as staggeringly profitable, and are intending to shop Wizkids to a new buyer. (Wizards of the Coast is the top postential buyer most are rushing towards.) All of that is strongly in the Speculation column.
I know I'm not about to just jump ship this early -- it at least appears we'll have some good things coming in Arkham Asylum and Hammer of Thor, so I'll deal with each as it comes and chart the course for the rest of '09 as information dictates. Worst case? This time next year I won't be spending any more money on clix, but I'll still have a huge collection covering the vast majority of the characters and plenty of extras to modify into characters that remained unmade.
Heroclix appears to continue to be a money-maker for the company, though, so I'm not expecting them to simply shut it down. What's more likely is that they'll push through what will essentially be more quality drops and increase the aggravation factor as concerns the true collectibility of the game.
As stated earlier, much of the info isn't heartening, but not all of it is immediately damning. None of it is immediately encouraging either, but I'm trying to step back from it and take a second look. It isn't as if we don't have time.
I'll be curious to see if any of the creative staff being let go will still be offered contract work. This wouldn't be the first operation that decided to cut its immediate overhead to the bone and then outsource most of it to people they have no long-term obligations to, including any benefits. However, if much of this is to be done post-HoT, they'll have to start dishing that work out soon. Hopefully WizKids' NDAs won't prevent the sculptors from saying something about it in advance -- even if it's just to say how many characters they have them working on -- and WizKids itself will start giving out heartening information about such things... though I guess they won't be likely to do that for at least a while, with two sets in the pipeline ahead of any such sets, which we've been given little to no info on.
Irking me a little is knowing that on some level the success of the next two sets will (likely) reflect positively back on those who remain, despite their having little to nothing to do with any of the aspects that matter. I shudder to think what little marketing tweaks might be coming from these muddled middle management types, especially if they're kowtowing to Topps' execs with their harder to get = more "exciting"/more collectible" mentality.
Want the rest of the post?
A day for potentially dire information leaking from WizKids. Several elements remain speculative, but it's difficult to put a positive spin on this.
We recently (July 23rd) had the release of Secret Invasion, which was still a nicely-designed set (both in terms of character selection and dials) but had some rough elements in the area of production -- some issues with sculpts but mostly with paint. Some odd and even unfortunate choices made, too, but I've already talked about the set in a previous post.
We'd already known that Seth Johnson, the designer for the past several years, left a little while back, but that he designed everything through this fall's Arkham Asylum set, and had a shepherding hand on Hammer of Thor, which will be the next Marvel set (February '09), though Kelly Bonilla was actually the one to do the designs (stats, keywords, etc.) for that set. Kelly seemed to have Seth's full confidence, and I expect that in those respects at least the set will be solid.
Today, however, was the next big layoff date for WizKids staff. A fairly reliable, if admittedly biased, source ran a post this afternoon, which I'll reprint below.
Just to be sure everyone is on the same page, remember that Topps currently owns WizKids. Okay, here's Hair10's post. (Link is to the HCRealms thread.) I'll resume on the far side of it.
Here’s some more info from the inner workings of WK. I’ve known this for a bit but I promised the person who told me that I would hold on to it until at least the 15th. Why the 15th? As some of you may remember, it’s layoff day at WK.Whew.
As far as I know this information is accurate. I was told the below by a (now?) former WK employee and parts have been confirmed by other sources. But since it isn’t first-hand knowledge on my part I figured it was best placed in the “Rumor Mill” forum. It may be the last look at what goes on inside of WK as any contacts I might have had are now gone.
First, some old news but with some confirmation…
* Seth was let go, he didn’t leave of his own accord. When he was told he was going to be let go he chose his date rather than wait around until Aug. 15.
* Kelly Bonilla was given the helm of HC design. She’s a former MW lead designer and she did some Pirates too.
* Kelly has worked extensively on Hammer of Thor. In fact, the entire set was/is pretty much done by her.
* Kelly’s last day is today (August 15th) as she was also let go.
* There are two rounds of layoffs… August 15th and October 15th.
Now some new info…
* Anyone who may be left over now (after the Aug 15 date) is pretty much out the door on Oct 15. WK has cut something like 95% (guesstimate) of the staff.
* Pretty much the only people left are Jake Theis (HC Brand Manager), Wade and Rollie (Assistant Brand Managers), Justin Ziran (director of brand management), a few admin (such as financial and HR) people, and one other (who I’ll get to in a moment). Pretty much everyone else is gone. [Speculation – based on the Joe Huack article I saw early this month, I would expect the admin functions to be moved to Topps HQ in NY]
* Tiffany O’Brian was let go as well. As some of you know, she’s the Brand Manager for Pirates and Star Wars. [Speculation – both myself and the person I was talking to think that Pirates and Star Wars will be discontinued after whatever releases they have currently in the pipe.]
* All of the Consumer Experience Department is gone.
* All of the Editors are gone.
* All of the Marketing Department is gone.
* Some of those functions may go back to Topps corporate but there are no longer jobs in WK for them.
* Pretty much all of the Art Department is gone. Sculpting is being outsourced to China (we’re already seeing the effects in the SI set of that). Ben Misenar and Brian Dugas work will show up in Arkham and Hammer, but after that it’ll be Chinese sculpting shops. Ben and Brian will do some contract work only, but they are no longer on the WK payroll.
* The lease for the WK office is up in October (it’ll be interesting to see what happens there).
And now the 64 thousand dollar question… with Seth (and then Kelly) gone everyone wants to know who the new HC game designer will be? Well, it’s none other than Eric Engelhard (Caliban17), the current Consumer Experience Rep.
Before I say anything more, a bit of full disclosure… Engelhard is the guy that perma-banned me from the WK forums for “attempting to start an illegal mail campaign” when I posted that people should take their WF brick coupons that were getting returned and send them back to the WK offices to show that we were unhappy with the way it was handled.
I don’t really care about the banning (the WK forum is a joke anyway), but IMO the reasoning itself speaks volumes about the man. He was the person responsible for the CoG and Crisis events and all the screw-ups that went along with them (scheduling, mis-shipped prize support, lack of info, etc). The persons that I got this information from did not have kind things to say about him either (moron and brown-noser were the kinder terms used). A good many of the ex and current (at least until the 15th) employees were “horrified” to hear the news that he was taking over HC design (“horrified” was the exact word used). The kicker is that while he evidently reads a few comics, he barely knows HeroClix and he has no game design experience coming into this
The more I think about it, the more I realize that WK is an odd company. When faced with financial pressures, most companies refocus on their core products in an effort not to lose customers at the very least. If cuts are necessary, it’s middle management that usually takes the hit and not the guys in the trenches who are turning out product for you. But WK works in completely the opposite fashion. They farm out sculpting so the visual quality suffers. They sack the guys doing the work and turn it over to unqualified individuals to pick up the pieces and carry the future of your money makers. And somehow, through all of this, middle management remains.
Now, I realize I come off as a complainer here on these forums but I’ve never been a “THE END IS NEAR!” kind of guy. But I gotta say that it sure seems like Hammer of Thor might be the start of WizKids’ Ragnarok. We get one set designed by Kelly only to have the game handed over to a n00b after that. And IF Pirates and Star Wars are truly zombie game lines then that makes WK a one trick pony. WK appears to be in some pretty dire straights right now. Guess we wait and see what happens, but…
My initial reactions weren't positive.
It seems amazing that they could so misjudge things. Am I the only one who is getting weird echoes of some bad decisions made in the history of the comics industry, as when some people decided that storytelling was relatively unimportant?
A completely inexperienced designer with little comics knowledge in charge of a game based on comics characters, and their sculptors let go..? Someone, somewhere up the chain apparently made the decision that these sets will sell on their own - just print anything with the comics connection and emphasize that it's going to be produced in limited numbers, and people will buy it. Yeah, it at least seems that whatever wasn't crushed under the boot of "Industry Standard" WotC approaches will be wiped out by the Topps "collectible" steamroller.
Some of the immediate speculation is that Topps may be making all of these immense trims so that the next two quarters come out as staggeringly profitable, and are intending to shop Wizkids to a new buyer. (Wizards of the Coast is the top postential buyer most are rushing towards.) All of that is strongly in the Speculation column.
I know I'm not about to just jump ship this early -- it at least appears we'll have some good things coming in Arkham Asylum and Hammer of Thor, so I'll deal with each as it comes and chart the course for the rest of '09 as information dictates. Worst case? This time next year I won't be spending any more money on clix, but I'll still have a huge collection covering the vast majority of the characters and plenty of extras to modify into characters that remained unmade.
Heroclix appears to continue to be a money-maker for the company, though, so I'm not expecting them to simply shut it down. What's more likely is that they'll push through what will essentially be more quality drops and increase the aggravation factor as concerns the true collectibility of the game.
As stated earlier, much of the info isn't heartening, but not all of it is immediately damning. None of it is immediately encouraging either, but I'm trying to step back from it and take a second look. It isn't as if we don't have time.
I'll be curious to see if any of the creative staff being let go will still be offered contract work. This wouldn't be the first operation that decided to cut its immediate overhead to the bone and then outsource most of it to people they have no long-term obligations to, including any benefits. However, if much of this is to be done post-HoT, they'll have to start dishing that work out soon. Hopefully WizKids' NDAs won't prevent the sculptors from saying something about it in advance -- even if it's just to say how many characters they have them working on -- and WizKids itself will start giving out heartening information about such things... though I guess they won't be likely to do that for at least a while, with two sets in the pipeline ahead of any such sets, which we've been given little to no info on.
Irking me a little is knowing that on some level the success of the next two sets will (likely) reflect positively back on those who remain, despite their having little to nothing to do with any of the aspects that matter. I shudder to think what little marketing tweaks might be coming from these muddled middle management types, especially if they're kowtowing to Topps' execs with their harder to get = more "exciting"/more collectible" mentality.
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