What exactly is 'Modern' about MRQ?

[frobisher]

I am not sure how "successful" Last Unicorn was, seeing how they were bought out by WotC.

That speaks volumes - Wizards thought they were worth buying... Of course when it turned out that the two big licenses didn't come with company it didn't look like such a good deal after all...

 

[mthomason]

That speaks volumes - Wizards thought they were worth buying... Of course when it turned out that the two big licenses didn't come with company it didn't look like such a good deal after all...

Yup, I always think of Wizards as the Microsoft of the gaming industry, running around buying up all the companies producing stuff they couldn't write themselves

It wasn't a buyout of a failed company (as far as I can work out, at least), it was a buyout of a successful one they had the money to afford.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Wizards thought they were worth buying... Of course when it turned out that the two big licenses didn't come with company it didn't look like such a good deal after all...

Wizards weren't after the licences - what they wanted was a design team capable of producing innovative and high quality product in a short timescale - which LUG had demonstrated they were able to do.

The fact that the LUG team were made redundant shortly thereafter was mostly the effect of internal politics in a large company with directors and senior managers more interested in the numbers on the bottom line than the reasoning behind them...

 

[frobisher]

Wizards weren't after the licences - what they wanted was a design team capable of producing innovative and high quality product in a short timescale - which LUG had demonstrated they were able to do.

The fact that the LUG team were made redundant shortly thereafter was mostly the effect of internal politics in a large company with directors and senior managers more interested in the numbers on the bottom line than the reasoning behind them...

Your paragraph 1 is the spin that was put on it after it was clear the licenses didn't come with the company. Your paragraph 2 is the result of the fact that the spin wasn't actually true.

Now tell me the migration of the former LUG guys en masse to Decipher (the company to which the license passed) was entirely coincidental...

 

[Greg Smith]

Wizards weren't after the licences - what they wanted was a design team capable of producing innovative and high quality product in a short timescale - which LUG had demonstrated they were able to do.

The fact that the LUG team were made redundant shortly thereafter was mostly the effect of internal politics in a large company with directors and senior managers more interested in the numbers on the bottom line than the reasoning behind them...

Your paragraph 1 is the spin that was put on it after it was clear the licenses didn't come with the company. Your paragraph 2 is the result of the fact that the spin wasn't actually true.

The LUG team remained almost intact after Wizards took over. These guys remained in LA while WotC was near Seattle. When Wizards/Hasbro cut back their RPG staff, all of the LUG team opted for redundancy rather than moving away from friends & family.

Now tell me the migration of the former LUG guys en masse to Decipher (the company to which the license passed) was entirely coincidental...

There was quite a gap between the redundancy and the hiring of the ex-LUG guys by Decipher. Many of them worked on D&D, Wheel of Time etc for a length of time before they were let go. It wasn't coincidence exactly, more a case of a bunch of guys who had done exactly what Decipher required who were without jobs. And they managed to work a deal that got them jobs that they were good at and stay in LA (rather than moving to Norfolk where Decipher are based).

Another thing to remember is that WotC did release one Star Trek product: Red Alert.