Didn't Dee and Herman publish V&V 3rd ed. a few years ago? Who owns the rights now?

Quote from: Phillip;857924Didn't Dee and Herman publish V&V 3rd ed. a few years ago? Who owns the rights now?

Sounds like they had it back briefly. And then FGU won another case and took it back.

Quote from: Phillip;857924Didn't Dee and Herman publish V&V 3rd ed. a few years ago? Who owns the rights now?

No. It was are revision to the last edition FGU published. They've been playtesting 3rd, but put it on hold until everything is resolved. Right now, this current case is over the trademark

Quote from: Omega;857942Sounds like they had it back briefly. And then FGU won another case and took it back.

A judge ruled in Dee & Herman's favor back in 2013, but FGU appealed.

Quote from: urbwar;858000No. It was are revision to the last edition FGU published. They've been playtesting 3rd, but put it on hold until everything is resolved. Right now, this current case is over the trademark

Sounds alot like Abrams-Gentle and how they stonewalled Takara on the Micronauts/Microman line for decades despite being a very dead manufacturer.

Quote from: David Johansen;857329He already tried that and it flopped.  Like it or not crusty old trademarks are mostly what drives this hobby and too few people want to see anyone's latest ideas.

There's no assurance that V&V wouldn't flop.  A lot of times old trademarks don't do it, either.

Quote from: RPGPundit;858397There's no assurance that V&V wouldn't flop.  A lot of times old trademarks don't do it, either.

Old trademarks done badly tend to fail.

Gamma World would be the posterchild for that. 4e D&D the runner up.

This has been going back and forth for a while now. Yes, this goes deeper than just being willing to work out an agreement. In regards to royalties mentioned above, it is my understanding that FGU has always sent payments to Dee and Herman, which they cashed until these legal issues arose.

Quote from: Omega;858004Sounds alot like Abrams-Gentle and how they stonewalled Takara on the Micronauts/Microman line for decades despite being a very dead manufacturer.

I had the thought that the Micronauts would have been great to throw into the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie, but guessed that they remained someone else's trademark rather than Marvel's. Gotta wonder what it's worth, though, without toys in stores, and what a boost a movie could be for selling those.

Quote from: RPGPundit;858397There's no assurance that V&V wouldn't flop.  A lot of times old trademarks don't do it, either.

I recall Games Workshop's Golden Heroes as having a V&V-ish flavor as well as GW's marketing oomph, and that Dee published a more closely related successor under a title I forget.

What constitutes a 'flop' or 'heartbreaker' depends on the ambitions. Nonetheless, given the revised edition a few years ago, and that I'm probably not the only old-timer quite happy to keep using his copies of 2nd ed., I'm thinking that reasonable expectations are very modest with or without the trademark.

If there's a brave new world demanding V&V, I'm not seeing it. Sure, superhero RPGs generally seem dead in my neighborhood, but Mutants & Masterminds seems to satisfy a lot of folks elsewhere.

When it comes to old computer games, I reckon a significant enough number of people don't consider a system complete without Elite; but another favorite of mine, The Sentinel, could vanish and hardly anyone would notice.

Doesn't mean it's not a great game, but it does mean there's not likely to be much money in it no matter what it's called.