31 July 2015

More changes at Chaosium

A surprising announcement today at Gen Con concerning Chaosium:
GEN CON, Indianapolis - Greg Stafford, founder of the iconic game company Chaosium, used the "Future of Chaosium" seminar at Gen Con today to announce that Moon Design Publications has become part of the Chaosium ownership group. 
The Michigan-based Moon Design acquired the rights to Stafford's legendary game setting Glorantha and the game systems RuneQuest and HeroQuest in 2013. It is the publisher of the critically acclaimed Guide to Glorantha, multiple nominee in this year's ENnie Awards, and winner of the 2015 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. 
Going forward, with Moon Design now part of the Chaosium ownership, Chaosium becomes the licensed publisher for RuneQuest, HeroQuest and other products related to Gloranthan universe, and will continue to publish the famous Call of Cthulhu line. 
"I'm really excited to see Glorantha and RuneQuest return to their proper home in Chaosium," said Greg Stafford, "The band is now back together, and we're ready to rock on". 
The four principals of Moon Design are the new management team of Chaosium. The new officers of the company are Rick Meints, President and Secretary; Jeff Richard, Vice President and Creative Director; Michael O'Brien, Vice President - Product Development & Community Outreach; and Neil Robinson, Chief Financial Officer. 
"Our first priority is leveraging the experience from Moon Design's previous successful Kickstarters to fulfill everything the backers are waiting on for Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, said Rick Meints, new Chaosium President. 
Greg Stafford, who founded Chaosium in 1975 and was its original creative force, becomes Chairman of the company's board of directors. Sandy Petersen, whose own involvement with Chaosium began in 1980, continues as a director of the company board, along with Meints, Richard, O'Brien and Robinson.
Chaosium will also continue to work in partnership with Sandy Petersen's Petersen Games, with upcoming releases including the Cthulhu Wars "Onslaught" expansion, and God's War, an epic boardgame set in Glorantha. 
"I for one welcome our new Lunar overlords", said Sandy Petersen at the announcement.
(From the Chaosium blog.)

It's hard to keep up with these developments!

And I wonder what impact this will have on RuneQuest 6, given Greg Stafford's comment concerning its "return to" its "proper home in Chaosium."  Hopefully this might mean that RQ6 will be distributed by Chaosium in the future?

4 comments:

  1. An e-mail from Lawrence Whitaker: "I'll be posting a press release this evening."
    So I guess we'll know the fate of RQ6, and the role of Design Mechanism in relation to the new Chaosium, in the very near future...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Discussion at RPGnet:
    http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?762340-Moon-Design-Takes-Over-Chaosium

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Design Mechanism discussion:
    http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/chaosium-is-under-new-management-t1217.html

    ReplyDelete

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I'm a Canadian political philosopher who lives primarily in Toronto but teaches in Milwaukee (sometimes in person, sometimes online).