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[Musashi Wins!]

http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/viewtopic.php?t=57048

Apparently Palladium is about to fold, and Kevin Siembieda is asking for help. Too bad Rifts didn't end up on a better platform. I remember some of their PnP games quite well too. Not to play though, because their rule sets were ridiculous.

A Crisis of Treachery

At a time when Palladium Books’ future has never looked more promising, we have been dealt a crippling blow.

For legal reasons, I cannot go into details about exactly what happened. Suffice it to say that betrayal of trust, theft, and embezzlement has inflicted what we estimate to be $850,000 to 1.3 million dollars in damages to Palladium.

It is a blow from which Palladium cannot recover. At least, not without YOUR help.

Out of options . . .

I have borrowed tens of thousands in loans and sunk every dime I’ve had into Palladium Books. I’m selling everything I own to keep Palladium going. That’s the real reason I’m selling my 25 year old toy collection, art and other items at the Palladium Open House.

But it’s not enough.

For the last year I had kept Palladium going with the hope that something would break in our favor. After all, we had all kinds of exciting things going on behind the scenes, and the huge loss seemed, for a while, like something we could overcome. Then a string of misfortune.

A series of unfortunate events

- The truly wonderful Rifts® videogame – Rifts® Promise of Power – was stillborn. The N-Gage platform never took off in North America. That meant the N-Gage and Rifts® Promise of Power would NOT be available on the mass market in the USA and Canada. Finding it anywhere in North America required an act of God.

- There would be no Nokia royalty-based revenue stream.

- Nor would there be a Nokia videogame sequel and the money that might come from it.

Note: Nokia treated me nothing short of GREAT. They lost truckloads of money on this venture. We’re both the victims of marketing fallout. Please don’t blame these wonderful people for Palladium’s woes – circumstance just didn’t make them part of our solution.

- Minimal gains into the book trade (Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, etc.). PSI’s (Publisher Services Inc.) efforts to get Palladium RPG products into the book trade have been slow to say the least. Although we are confident PSI will be a good partner and get us into many national bookstore chains, it is taking much longer than anticipated.

- The Rifts movie? Stalled. Until Jerry Bruckheimer has a script he loves, the movie can’t get the green light. That makes perfect sense, but it doesn’t help Palladium’s bottom line right now.

- There were discussions with a company interested in doing a Rifts® MMOG but it didn’t pan out.

- Other potential deals have moved forward at a snail’s pace or have fallen to the wayside.

- Going public with this appeal may very well cost us getting the Robotech® license renewal.

- It doesn’t help that the role-playing game industry is in a slump and going through a transitional phase.

- Palladium has a team of amazing writers and artists brimming with ideas and enthusiasm. We have dozens and dozens of ideas and opportunities that will knock your socks off, but not the money to implement them.

- Palladium’s writers and artists have been troopers, waiting months to get paid, but their generosity is not enough.

- Treachery and skullduggery from within threatens to put us out of business.

Please help save Palladium Books®

They're selling a limited edition print in a last ditch effort to save the company. Check it out.

 

[Victrix]

That n-gage venture was the dumbest crap ever. I'd have loved to play some of their universes on any of the other consoles, or the pc. But no, they went with the fucking n-gage?

Ah well.

Attn: Shadowrun - good game please.

Can't say I feel tremendous sympathy for them, their rules systems were always sorta insane, and pnp gaming is suffering greatly in the face of online gaming.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

That n-gage venture was the dumbest crap ever. I'd have loved to play some of their universes on any of the other consoles, or the pc. But no, they went with the fucking n-gage?

Ah well.

Attn: Shadowrun - good game please.

Can't say I feel tremendous sympathy for them, their rules systems were always sorta insane, and pnp gaming is suffering greatly in the face of online gaming.

I'd have to agree on all points. While they had some interesting world ideas in some of their products, I never understood the popularity and shelf space they earned. In the sort of game shops that are all but dead now.

And Rifts was such a waste. I actually played it. Average, even though it revels in the source material.

 

[Funky Papa]

That n-gage venture was the dumbest crap ever. I'd have loved to play some of their universes on any of the other consoles, or the pc. But no, they went with the fucking n-gage?

IIRC the producer approached Palladium because he was a huge Rifts fan. Nokia pretty much paid for everything and was great (there are some really nice people there), this is a case of no revenue at all, not a negative balance one. AFAIK Palladium is free to license the name to other developers, but I am not sure if there's somebody interested on it.

It is pretty sad, I like the game quite a bit.

 

[shoplifter]

- There were discussions with a company interested in doing a Rifts® MMOG but it didn’t pan out.

GLITTERBOYS ALL AROUND

That said, I read this on rpg.net. Even though I'm not a big fan of the ruleset, Palladium has been in the industry for something like 25 years now, and I hope that this doesn't kill them.

 

[Victrix]

IIRC the producer approached Palladium because he was a huge Rifts fan. Nokia pretty much paid for everything and was great (there are some really nice people there), this is a case of no revenue at all, not a negative balance one. AFAIK Palladium is free to license the name to other developers, but I am not sure if there's somebody interested on it.

It is pretty sad, I like the game quite a bit.

To be clear, I'm not hating on the potential Rifts game, I'm just hating on the platform. It was stillborn from the word go, and a hardcore pnp rpg is NOT the sort of thing to launch on a platform like that. You're going to find a limited audience on even a console with a huge install base (or the pc), and he goes for the n-gage? That's a slice of a slice of a prospective audience.

But I suppose if they paid for it all, no harm done *shrug*

... minus not being able to play a good rifts game I suppose :/

 

[Funky Papa]

You're going to find a limited audience on even a console with a huge install base (or the pc), and he goes for the n-gage?

The problem is, there was no other developer interested on it. It was not like he decided to pick the N-Gage over the PS2 (well, I think)

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Maybe Microsoft will bail them out like they did FASA. Or maybe Sony could purchase them for a potential liscense to counter Microsoft's upcoming Shadowrun game. I can dream right?

 

[echoshifting]

The problem is, there was no other developer interested on it. It was not like he decided to pick the N-Gage over the PS2.

My understanding at the time was that he had been approached before but never with the "right" offer, and it was the passion of the Nokia team for his game that got them the go-ahead. Could be wrong but that seemed to be the impression he was making back then.

Anyway, no surprise there. It's a huge shame but it just seemed ludicrous to hand the license over to Nokia at a time when the N-Gage was already in its death throes. I'm sure they had something cooking before it was so abundantly clear to even the most casual observer that Nokia was screwed...I dunno.

Kevin talks a good game when it comes to marketing the Rifts license, but the truth is its appeal isn't nearly as universal as he'd like it to be. The universe he created, along with all those great artists that first worked on Rifts, was damn cool but as others have mentioned the rules system in the Palladium books is flat-out broken...the fact that it is one big megaverse makes it very difficult to get rid of some of the major flaws in the system without republishing every last book.

You know, it really is hard to feel bad for them. They've made some monumentally bad business decisions lately and have never been very good at protecting their franchises. The whole company has been plagued with horrible product delays/cancellations from the very beginning that they've never really managed to work out, and Rifts, at least, has always suffered from one-up syndrome...a new book comes out and everything is ridiculously overpowered compared to what has come before.

Anyway. I haven't touched a Rifts book in years...I barely ever played it due to all the rules problems but the books themselves were a lot of fun to read and mess around with. It will be sad if this is the death of Palladium. I just hope Kevin does the right thing and sells the Rifts franchise to a publisher who knows what they're doing.

 

[Gattsu25]

Maybe Microsoft will bail them out like they did FASA. Or maybe Sony could purchase them for a potential liscense to counter Microsoft's upcoming Shadowrun game. I can dream right?

Futile dreaming

 

[Maridia]

This sucks. I ordered their TMNT RPG out of an issue of GamePro for 50 cents and a stamp. Back in the day, I spent hours thumbing through that book, wishing it wasn't so fucking complicated. Good times.

 

[Father_Brain]

Shadowrun won't need countering when people see its last-gen graphics. So says EGM, anyway.

 

[Funky Papa]

Shadowrun won't need countering when people see its last-gen graphics. So says EGM, anyway.

:doginmeatgrinder

 

[echoshifting]

Reading the rest of the thread at that link, it looks as though Kevin Siembieda is trying to sell his fans copies of a print that does not exist yet. He is begging people to buy 4,000 to 5,000 copies.

This will not end well. =(

 

[Ulairi]

They should have never signed with Nokia in the first place. I remember when it happened and Kevin was posting links to articles about how mobile gaming was where the growth was. It was a bad move when other publishers were looking to get the rights. Releasing the Rifts Ultimate edidtion was a bad move, they should have done a Rifts/Palladium Rules V 2.0, that would have built more hype.

Nokia should port the game to the DS.

 

[Funky Papa]

He must be really desperate, that's risking a ginormous lawsuit. No, that's begging for it.

He should sell the rights and close the shop.

 

[echoshifting]

Honestly, it would have been better to just open a Paypal account for any fan that wants to donate.

 

[Aaron]

This makes me sad. Even though I haven't PnP roleplayed for a long, long time, and Rifts system is as broken as everyone says, I had a lot of fun with the crazy world they put together and all the interesting sourcebooks they released. I always regretted moving to Shadowrun a bit because even though the rule system and character creation was a heck of a lot better, a bit of the magic was lost somehow...

I'm not sure if a game set in the universe could ever work since it's almost too diverse for it, but a movie would have been great. Pity.

 

[tahrikmili]

Sad. Palladium has always been a really big name in the RPG industry.. The industry has really been doing poorly. There are rumours that even Mongoose isn't doing well lately. That's a shame..

I loved their Robotech and TMNT stuff even though I cared very little for RIFTS. I doubt they'll recover, they'll probably liquidate.. Lots of good companies have been shutting down in the last few years

As for collecting pre-orders on a future book - that's not rare at all in the PnP RPG industry anymore. Pagan Publishing did it for their Delta Green repring AFAIK, and several other houses are using the model, keeping their PDF releases in the bag until enough copies to cover development costs are sold.

 

[Jugendstil]

Rifts was pretty ridiculous, but I have a lot of fond memories of playing it back when I was a kid. Sad news.

 

[GDJustin]

Here's what I don't get - if 4000-5000 people order this $50 book, they'll be ok? I agree its a significant sum of money, but damn. 200K, and they're fine? Not even that much. 200K minus what it will cost to print the damn thing. So closer to 100K...

How small is their payroll? How does that little amount o money cover even that most basic cost for more than a couple months?

 

[borghe]

it is not a book.. it is a limited edition print. it is just in the book section:

- I, Kevin Siembieda, will draw a special, pencil drawing with key characters from our entire game line to be made into a simple, black and white, toned piece of artwork, 11 x 14 inches, printed on a good quality paper.

- Each print will be hand signed by me. I’ll indicate which number that print is (i.e. #1, 2, 100, 1000, 2010, etc.). I don’t know how many there will be in the end; I pray for thousands!

- EVERYONE who purchases the print will see their names appear in the back pages of a major book listed as “Heroes of the Megaverse®!”

- The print will sell for $50.00 plus shipping and materials (envelope, protective cardboard, etc.), probably about $2.00-$5.00 by regular first class mail.

- We need those sales NOW!!! If 4,000 or 5,000 people all order that darn print within a month or two, it should give us the money we need to get back on our feet! Without a shot in the arm of some big cash, and fast, I fear Palladium is gone. That kind of jump start should carry us through the year and should enable us to do the other things we need to do to keep the company going for years to come!

the guy is a talented artist, there is no question about that. a limited edition print printed to order and handsigned and numbered for $50 is a really good deal, and even more significant given the scope of the offer.

I wish them the best of luck with this and I myself will order a copy of the print in the next week or so. Though I agree with others that they should also open up a paypal donation account.. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would be willing to donate and just don't have the $50 total or whatever.

I personally never had a problem with the Palladium rules.. the were highly derivative of AD&D but they were so broad that it worked well... being able to play TMNT with superheroes and kungfu thrown into the mix was great.. we always planned to incorporate Robotech into that but never got around to it.. good company (never played rifts though)

 

[shoplifter]

Here's what I don't get - if 4000-5000 people order this $50 book, they'll be ok? I agree its a significant sum of money, but damn. 200K, and they're fine? Not even that much. 200K minus what it will cost to print the damn thing. So closer to 100K...

How small is their payroll? How does that little amount o money cover even that most basic cost for more than a couple months?

Aside from Kevin and Maryann, there probably IS no payroll. Most smaller (meaning non-white wolf and WotC) publishers have 2-3 people on the payroll and pay the other writers per project/per word.

The RPG industry really is pretty tiny when you factor out White Wolf and WotC. Most books are incredibly lucky to sell more than 5-10k copies.

edit: this reminds me though that my FLGS has a copy of the nice Rifts anniversary hardcover that I might just go pick up.

 

[Dr Zhivago]

Sad news. My Oblivion character is named after the warlock I used to play in the Palladium RPG years ago. The fun you could have casting 'River of Lava'...

 

[HocusPocus]

Hopefully Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo will buy them and make some really great RPG's based on the license .

 

[echoshifting]

Aside from Kevin and Maryann, there probably IS no payroll. Most smaller (meaning non-white wolf and WotC) publishers have 2-3 people on the payroll and pay the other writers per project/per word.

The RPG industry really is pretty tiny when you factor out White Wolf and WotC. Most books are incredibly lucky to sell more than 5-10k copies.

edit: this reminds me though that my FLGS has a copy of the nice Rifts anniversary hardcover that I might just go pick up.

Maryann and Kevin got divorced some time ago...she left Palladium around the same time, although she is still a big supporter of the company. If you look in that thread you'll see she's the first one to post that she'll be buying prints.

Also, if you read between the lines a little, it sounds as though they haven't paid any of their writers/artists in quite some time; the $200K Kevin is looking for here may be around what is needed to pay some overdue bills and creative fees. I'm sure that needs to happen sooner or later if the company is going to survive. While that sort of thing does tend to happen with any small publishing press, it will kill a company if it goes on for too long.

 

[shoplifter]

Maryann and Kevin got divorced some time ago...she left Palladium around the same time, although she is still a big supporter of the company. If you look in that thread you'll see she's the first one to post that she'll be buying prints.

Thanks, I knew that they had divorced, but I couldn't remember if she was still on the payroll or just 'around'.

I cracked open my old Rifts book last night. Rules wise, this is nearly as insane as Synnibar.

 

[Grimlock]

Whoa. I haven't thought about Palladium in years. I used to buy the Rifts World books just to read them for their crazy ideas. I think I stopped around the time they did the 2nd edition of the Palladium RPG. And I still have all of the books. Sad to hear about them folding.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Damn. While the play systems may have been questionable, I always loved reading Rifts material because of the creativity; it was so fresh and interesting compared to AD&D Book of Obscure Goblin Species #43.

I'd always really hoped to see a Rifts computer RPG or a movie or something.

 

[Azih]

Have no idea who these people are but they seem to have tried a whole buncha stuff to keep themselves going. Sad to see it not working.

 

[border]

I wish them the best of luck with this and I myself will order a copy of the print in the next week or so. Though I agree with others that they should also open up a paypal donation account.. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would be willing to donate and just don't have the $50 total or whatever.

I don't think it's legal for a company to just take donations from the public....

 

[echoshifting]

I don't think it's legal for a company to just take donations from the public....

Well then Palladium is in big trouble....a few hours after this thread was first posted they started doing exactly that. :lol

After at least some fans suggested that they allow them to donate, I should point out.

 

[Zen]

MMORPG games can never equal the experience you get from PnP. But the fact that PnP requires investments beyond just time on behalf of the players and DM is part of the reason that the market is in a slump facing off against the instant gratification of MMORPGs, however apples to Oranges the two may be.