Quote from: David Johansen;999267I've read that TSR titled it XXVc. because their research showed that the name "Buck Rogers" actually reduced people's interest in buying it.

Hard to believe they actually did research.
I definitely think it's stupid to create a new setting for existing IP characters. People might want to fight the Han in AD 2419 or disco with the Draconian Empire in 2492, but existing space/planetary opera characters in a new semi-hard-sf setting seems senseless and certainly I had no desire for this, whereas I'd have likely bought a "generic D&D in space space opera game - oh and here's a setting".

Quote from: S'mon;1000854Hard to believe they actually did research.
I definitely think it's stupid to create a new setting for existing IP characters. People might want to fight the Han in AD 2419 or disco with the Draconian Empire in 2492, but existing space/planetary opera characters in a new semi-hard-sf setting seems senseless and certainly I had no desire for this, whereas I'd have likely bought a "generic D&D in space space opera game - oh and here's a setting".

Yeah.

It's also damning that people actively didn't want to buy Buck Rogers and yet Williams insisted a second game be made.

"News told, rumors heard, truth implied, facts buried."

The source, and it was long ago so my memory is foggy, was probably a Ryan Dancy post back around when third edition came out, there's a smaller chance it was in a post WotC Dragon magazine.  No promises, a number of TSR staffers have commented on things over the years and XXVc. has even been discussed on line every couple years in threads like this one.

Didn't Williams own TSR outright? Throwing resources at Buck Rogers was a bad idea, but I don't see how, given that she owned TSR, it was more financially advantageous to her to license her IP to her company than to pursue other things.

Perhaps, having grown up surrounded by Buck Rogers, in her mind it was the greatest thing ever and a surefire hit if it could just be marketed the right way.

Quote from: David Johansen;1001716The source, and it was long ago so my memory is foggy, was probably a Ryan Dancy post back around when third edition came out, there's a smaller chance it was in a post WotC Dragon magazine.  No promises, a number of TSR staffers have commented on things over the years and XXVc. has even been discussed on line every couple years in threads like this one.

And Dancy's internet statements, and that's all they are, have had elements refuted by subsquent research by Ewalt and Peterson so there's good reason to take his statements with a grain of salt until some actual facts from a reliable source are unearthed.

And internet threads are not reliable sources for anything. Particularly when who stated  what and when isn't even available.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1001766Didn't Williams own TSR outright? Throwing resources at Buck Rogers was a bad idea, but I don't see how, given that she owned TSR, it was more financially advantageous to her to license her IP to her company than to pursue other things.

Perhaps, having grown up surrounded by Buck Rogers, in her mind it was the greatest thing ever and a surefire hit if it could just be marketed the right way.

If that's the case and she was throwing money at it, all she was doing was losing her own money. I find it hard to believe anyone would deliberately lose money and bankrupt their own business with no apparent benefit from it.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1001766Didn't Williams own TSR outright? Throwing resources at Buck Rogers was a bad idea, but I don't see how, given that she owned TSR, it was more financially advantageous to her to license her IP to her company than to pursue other things.

First, she didn't own it. She was the head of the board of TSR.
Second, because it's double-dipping. If I rent out my land, say, to the company I run, I'm getting not only the profits everyone else gets but also the money from renting that land.

I really enjoyed XXVc, and I always felt that it could - or should - have been the science fiction AD&D core boxset that everyone used for general science fiction games. They could have simplified the starship rules a bit but it was a solid system.

I'm a huge fan of the original Buck Rogers serial so having the same kind of 'rocketships and ray-guns' imagery in the game was nice, but it was so far removed from the actual hard-ish science fiction setting it jarred. If they'd dropped the Buck Rogers angle, just released it as a core rulebook/boxset and then added campaign settings a la AD&D then I feel it could have done a lot better.

I got a couple of great campaigns out of it, and even used old AD&D modules for adventures and just swapped swords for rocket pistols. It was a good game.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1003519First, she didn't own it. She was the head of the board of TSR.

She bought the Blumes' and Gygax's shares; I think that was the entire company. AFAIK she didn't sell it to anyone else until the WotC buyout.

QuoteSecond, because it's double-dipping. If I rent out my land, say, to the company I run, I'm getting not only the profits everyone else gets but also the money from renting that land.

It's easier to just give yourself a pay increase if what you want is more money from your own company. Renting your land to yourself is more trouble than it's worth.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1003697She bought the Blumes' and Gygax's shares; I think that was the entire company. AFAIK she didn't sell it to anyone else until the WotC buyout.

If that was genuinely the case, then it was a solely owned corporation, and the ethical issues are less. If she was just a majority shareholder and head of the board, then it would be an issue if she funneled money from it to her and her families solely owned property. There's still some issues, as being sole owner of a company is different than owning the BR IP (for instance, she likely was able to hold onto the Buck Rogers IP when TSR declared bankruptcy), but much fewer.

I am trying to put the best spin on it. Even assuming nothing unethical, it's a good example of how compromised priorities lead to bad business decisions.

My guess is that given who Williams was, given how little she understood the burgeoning gaming world of the 1980s, and given how sci-fi like Star Trek: TNG, Star Wars, and so on were big hits, she thought Buck Rogers would be sure thing. It's a laughable idea to anyone outside. Buck Rogers? In the 1990s? Really? But I will bet that for Williams, she had a lot of feelings and love toward ol' Buck and was sure everyone else would feel the same way.

The follow-up to the first XXVc failure could just as well have been her refusal to admit to herself that no one under 65 gave a crap about Buck Rogers.

Buck Rogers was owned by a family trust.  It's entirely possible, for example, that by funneling revenue into the trust as opposed to taking profits directly from TSR that there were tax advantages.

I'm not saying there was or wasn't; only that to say there was no benefit either way isn't exactly a sure statement.

EDIT - another example would be if there was a profit-sharing plan in the TSR structure.  Revenue could be funneled to non-shared family trust and kept out of the share pool, because it would be a loss on TSRs ledgers from returned (non-sold) books out of the wholesale system.  There's lots of scenarios where it's financially a better deal to shift revenues from one entity to the other.

At the minimum, Gary Gygax wasn't going to get any royalties from XXVc.

Came across this tonight.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/question-who-owns-buck-rogers-heads-trial-1033309?