Frog God Games acquires Necromancer Games

[Havard]

Came across this via my friend Omote:
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Press Release:

Frog God Games
Poulsbo, WA 98370
Bill Webb, CEO
FrogGodGames@Gmail.com
FROG GOD GAMES ACQUIRES NECROMANCER GAMES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dallas, TX, (June 7th 2012) – FROG GOD GAMES, the makers of roleplaying games and books, today announced that they are acquiring Necromancer Games, the award-winning publishing house known for Necropolis, Rappan Athuk, City of Brass, Tomb of Abysthor, Crucible of Freya, Tome of Horrors, and many other famous titles.

The purchase of Necromancer Games considerably increases Frog God Games’ influence in the tabletop gaming industry. “The merging of the companies made sense,” said Bill Webb, CEO of Frog God Games. “As primary developer of the Necromancer line of products, I created Frog God Games with the same aesthetics and design principles in mind. We are all about capturing that hard-edged Retro feel in both our Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and our Swords & Wizardry product lines.” The acquisition will provide Frog God Games with the use of Necromancer Games extensive intellectual property, allowing re-imagination and expansion of existing work, as well as new products under both labels. Frog God Games will maintain a separate product line of Necromancer Games products, which so far has included the Tome of Horrors Complete and will soon include Rappan Athuk.

Frog God Games will re-animate several of Necromancer Games’ products in the future to provide its customers with revised and expanded products for a variety of tabletop editions. “The integration of both companies will take place over the next few months. Our customers will continue to receive the same high quality books which they have come to expect” stated Webb.

Necromancer Games, which will continue to operate under that name, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Frog God Games. The company has not published new material since 2007, although it produced nearly 100 titles from 1999-2007. The Company’s other founder, Clark Peterson will remain involved in an advisory capacity, and will continue to contribute to the company’s success.

About Frog God Games
Founded in April 2010, Frog God Games publishes resources for the tabletop roleplaying games Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and Swords & Wizardry. Its products are known for their grand adventure settings and high quality production values. “If our hardcovers won’t last you a lifetime of use, we have not made a high enough quality product”, said Webb. Frog God Games currently serves over 2500 customers in USA, Canada, Brazil, Europe, South America, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and has produced over 70 books for Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and Swords & Wizardry in the past two years. The writers of Frog God Games have won numerous ENnie Awards. For more information about Frog God Games visit its website at http://www.talesofthefroggod.com

For More information please contact
Rachel Ventura, Marketing Director
Frog God Games
815-954-1981


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Source: http://tsathogga.blogspot.no/2012/06/press-release.html


This means that Frog God Games now has access to the entire back catalog of Necromancer Games products and possibly a few lisences that NG might own.

-Havard

[Rafael]

That's good news, as far as I am concerned. NG had some of the best 3e books in its catalogue.

However, I feel bad for the many authors whose manuscripts will now supposedly be rereleased
without them earning any sort of profit from the sales. Much like with TSR, a lot of the earlier,
and more famous books from NG came from hobby authors and their home campaigns.
That kind of stuff shouldn't be touched without the authors' consenting.

But then again, that's the law of the rpg land...

[Havard]

Necromancer Games did the Wilderlands of High Adventure Box. There has been some speculation on other boards to whether this could mean new Wilderlands products.

I asked around and got this from Robert Bledsaw III via the Wilderlands Fans Facebook Group:

I don't have time right now for a lot of detail, but there's no chance at all.

...

Yeah, sorry I was on the road when I made my previous post. I cannot say much on the subject. From my understanding Frog God is owned by Bill Webb who was the co-owner of Necro (so no surprise they are merging). We have no interest in dealing with people from the Necro camp based on principle.

I guess the good thing here is that Bledsaw is not ruling out new WL material from another publisher.

-Havard

[Rafael]

Well, you might know by now that the Frog God's, and in general, the Necros' reputation isn't necessarily the best in the business.

Not only is their business model, as I insinuated, rather unfriendly towards the original content creators,
but also did they try in particular to mess with JG after the release of the WL Box. Read up all the annoying man-drama for
yourself, but let's put it like that: I am glad that JG is not associated with them any more, and even if they ever put out
anything again that I could find even remotely interesting, I would think twice if I bought from them.

Not to take anything away from the authors that work for them - "Demonheart" and "Glades of Death" remain two
of my favorite adventures; I might even run them this year.

[Havard]

Ok,
I havent really followed that side of the industry much. But you are right, they did produce some excellent game books.

-Havard