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are ceasing to be :how to completely feth up my day

28/January/2008 - Black Industries Announcement
Black Industries regret to announce that Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods out in September will be the final product to be released from Black Industries.

Kevin Rountree General Manager of BL Publishing said ‘As a result of the continued and impressive success of our core novels business, which we have built around 40K and Warhammer, we have decided to focus all of our efforts on growing this part of our business. Black Industries has seen fantastic success, most recently with Talisman and Dark Heresy. This change does not take away from that achievement rather it allows BL Publishing to focus on producing the best novels we can. This is a purely commercial decision and will enable us to carry on the huge growth that we have recently been experiencing with our novels’

For the time being Black Industries will continue to post articles in support of the products on their official website, which is a fantastic resource for scenarios and gaming tools for GM’s and players alike.

How the feth did this happen ? So one day you sell out of your new product in record time and the next you're gone !


Guess that Talisman addition won't be out. feth.

No Rogue Trader or marine supplement for Dark heresy either...?!


I like this swear word editor .

Wow. How completely screwed up is that?

I know there was a huge buzz about this game at my LGS. Now they decided that they are going to concentrait somewhere else? What a load.

Whoa!

Kind of glad I held off on that impulse buy now.

(Though this might just drive the prices up on the secondary market to ridiculous levels...)

After selling a 200 copies of a limited book in 6 minutes (at a rate of one every 2 seconds) and after the initial run of Dark Heresy has been completely sold prior to its release, they drop this product line.

Seems they were making too much money from roleplaying games. They're here to seek a challenge, you know.

I want to say hurtful and mean things about the company right now, I really do, but I'm still just kind of bewildered. Absolutely ridiculous.

Heh.

Remember kiddos! Drink Games Workshop brand Guinness!



Its Brilliant!

That right Kiddos! Dont let the "Games" in Games Workshop brand name fool you! They produce anything but!

Fething morons....

Wow. Stupid decision of the week.

I mean, wow.
Seriously.
...

oh, now that is indeed very interesting. because just today, I was told by my friend and local gamestore manager, that the black libary took the help of GW for distributing the dark heresy rule books. and GW (as usual) completly fragged it up. they've got whole boxes full of damaged goods.

coincedence? I think not.

So they are neither making more copies of Dark Heresy and not making any more addons to it.

Hmm are GW in the business of making money or are they simply here to throw money away.

I guess we'll all have to make up our own rules for Space Marines now... this sux

Voodoo_Chile wrote:So they are neither making more copies of Dark Heresy and not making any more addons to it.

Hmm are GW in the business of making money or are they simply here to throw money away.

WHOA WHOA WHOA wait.

They're not doing a second printing?!

I'd really like to know where you heard that. Shutting down Black Industries does not mean that they won't be printing any more existing books.

Translation:

We make more money doing x, so we'll be dropping
niche market y.

Was it Black Industries that bought the DC comics rpg license last year?

malfred wrote:Translation:

We make more money doing x, so we'll be dropping
niche market y.

Which seems really goddamn silly considering they're still turning a profit on Y.

The funny thing about this to me is that in economics and law we just had an assignment and one of the questions was just like this. Except the accountant that advised against the venture was transferred to the cleaning department.

WAAAAAA?

I’ve been waiting for a 40k RPG for well over a decade and now with the book on its way to my front door I'm being told that's it, it's over. I know the company has been having profit issues lately and I’m sure the board of directors has told them to trim the fat, but when you sell out a product in record time, it’s a sign that you have something people are interested in buying and will continue to do so as long as you keep supporting it.

I love the spin they put this.

"This change does not take away from that achievement rather it allows BL Publishing to focus on producing the best novels we can."

WTF does this even mean? It's nonsense. It’s a nonsensical statement. It absolutely takes away from “that achievement”. It means that no matter how successful a product might be (or potentially be) it could be dropped to focus on something they believe is a safer bet to garner them more profit. It’s basically telling us they are unwilling to take risks. I think this decision is really short sighted.

At least they let us know that’s a “purely commercial decision”. What else would it be? A rational decision? An emotional decision? They just couldn’t go on anymore it was making them too sad?

And how does this decision allow them to better produce novels? Was RPG production really impeding their ability to publish more Gaunt’s Ghosts books or another craptastic C.S. Goto rape of the eldar fluff? I don’t get it…(don't get me wrong, I love reading Gaunt's Ghosts).

Maybe they could sell the license to another company to produce. After all WHFRP has been the red headed step child of GW for two decades now. First it was GW, then It was Flame (a GW sub) then they sold the rights Hog’s Head who actually kept the game alive by updating older products and then they brought it back in house where I think it’s been moderately successful ( I really don’t know, but it is a good RPG and better than any d20 product I’ve seen).

So maybe another company could keep the 40k game going until GW once again realizes that they made a big mistake and start producing it in-house again.

The only silver lining I see in this is that perhaps the player community will pick up the slack and start to produce their own supplements for the game. After all, Dark Heresy only really covers =I= and we were told there would be books for Rogue Traders and even Astartes so those of us who were lucky enough to get our hands on the book can start to develop our own material for it safe in the knowledge that no “official” product will ever come out to trump our efforts.


Dosadi

It all makes sense to me now. GW (it may be a sub of GW, but they're all the same) made a product, it was super successful, they actually sold the crap out of it and fans didn't complain, instead they wanted more. GW's response? "Holy We did something right!?! Nah, EFF that idea. Scrap it, scrap it now. We can't let our fanbase know that we've got something hot on our hands. Shoot this in the head and fork those dumb more Space Marine crap... Wow, we almost got in over our heads.

Now I know this is going to be the typical feeling of most people after finding out about all this and it's really pointless in the end. However, this is just stupid. I don't know how else to explain it. I can't for the life of me think of why you would cut a product just a week after it goes live and then completely shut it down. Why the even bother? Whatever GW, this was a stupid move by you and one day you'll understand it.

Decision was probably made before the release. Let the company go until a certain date, but already work on closing it down. Looks a lot like corporate America.....

Sorry, you profit, but not enough for s to keep you around.

RPG world is really tough to turn a profit. Should be successful if it even just ekes by!

I'm sure RPGs, like all publishing, is very low margin business. But how could they jump into that arena and not realize that? Maybe they decided they weren't going to stay in the business long anyway, so it was better to kill it now before they pi$$ off even more people, I dunno. Bizarre.

Regarding GW and Black Library, the fact that GW's thus far been unwilling or unable to leverage the popularity of its HH books speaks volumes about its business sense lately.

"Hey, those HH books are flying off the shelves! Let's make sure we don't create any collectible miniatures, merchandise, game supplements or anything else that makes us lose focus on producing more novels!" Ugh.

I know they lost a lot of good game designers. Have they had a brain drain on the marketing and business side too?

Toreador wrote:Decision was probably made before the release. Let the company go until a certain date, but already work on closing it down. Looks a lot like corporate America.....

Sorry, you profit, but not enough for s to keep you around.

RPG world is really tough to turn a profit. Should be successful if it even just ekes by!

the staff on the BI forum say that this decision was made today, they seemed as shcoked as us mere loyal customers.

I guess we can hope they let someone else run with the license but seeing as that might dilute their precious IP I'm not holding my breath.

@ Mr. Crimson Devil... yeah it was them, but I gather that was under a different "section head" so I don'tt think anything would have come of it anyway. There goes my dream of plastic multipart JLA I guess. Lucky I've got so much of the old Mayfair Games stuff.

I want, no, need the Talisman expansions. Now where am I going to get them?

the staff on the BI forum say that this decision was made today, they seemed as shcoked as us mere loyal customers.

this could mean that it really IS related to their fudged up packaging.

reds8n wrote:

@ Mr. Crimson Devil... yeah it was them, but I gather that was under a different "section head" so I don'tt think anything would have come of it anyway. There goes my dream of plastic multipart JLA I guess. Lucky I've got so much of the old Mayfair Games stuff.

As I remember the rumor they hired Green Ronin to develop the game, and many fans were hoping for a M&M compatible game. So was I until I got fed up with anything D20 related. I unfortunately don't have much of the old Mayfair stuff anymore, a couple of modules and such. I do have the SE of Blood of Heroes, so I can play if I want to. I just have to ignore the hideous artwork.

Salvation122 wrote:

Voodoo_Chile wrote:So they are neither making more copies of Dark Heresy and not making any more addons to it.

Hmm are GW in the business of making money or are they simply here to throw money away.

WHOA WHOA WHOA wait.

They're not doing a second printing?!

I'd really like to know where you heard that. Shutting down Black Industries does not mean that they won't be printing any more existing books.

Oh sorry I miss read that thought they were shutting down now. Didnt see the September bit. My apologies

I've picked up a couple of couple of the "blood.." stuff, and the artwork does suck big time. Think I've got pretty much all of the Mayfair stuff, have to say it's my all time favourite system and their old Who's Who supplements set the standard for me. But enough thread derailment I guess.

I'd love to discuss thismore though eithe ron another thread or through PMs.

I'd call up and cancel my order or return the Dark Heresy book since they won't be finished the game. Let the rotten bastiches lose money on the deal.

Not like I didn't see this coming.

GW needs a way to keep paying for the Jervis debacal. What better way then to cut thier own throats.

How many more companies do they have to fall back on? Eventually they will be putting the GW IP up for the slaughter.
Anyone notice that the Ork truck doesn't say Games Workshop on it?


Blood sacrifices to the Jervis god. Money for the throne!!!


As long as they're doing it right, i guess.

Are you Fing kidding me? They've been hyping this for a while and the release it and arent supporting it?

Gods GW deserves to go under for their stupidity. I was looking folward to it but now? forget it.

Why oh why could it not have been Sabertooth instead. Have you guy seen seen the Univeral Fights System? Its the most slowed attempt at the card flopper market yet.

...And I was so excited that one of my FLAGS was having a Dark Heresy open game at Beer & Pizza Night.
Oh well I will still try it out, I just won't buy into it.

At least you know the game will never change...