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Thursday, January 19, 2012
WOTC to Reprint AD&D 1e Core Books to Benefit Gygax Memorial Fund
The big news today is that WOTC is going to do a limited printed of the original 1e player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide in April with part of the proceeds going to the Gygax Memorial Fund to help made the Gygax monument a reality. The interiors with remain unchanged, but they'll have new covers. I think this is a wonderful idea. The only problem I have with it is distribution is going to be limited to basically hobby shops in North America. Given that hobby shops aren't that common any more and there are 1e fans all over the world, this restriction seems weird to me. I suggest fans outside North America and those in North America but live where the closest FLAGS is a multihour drive write WOTC polite letters complaining about this silly restriction. After all, if the goal is both to help raise money for the Gygax Memorial Fund and to make a nice profit while doing so, you'll think they want to make these available to everyone who wants one. Limiting it to the hobby distribution channel in North America just seems silly.
I think they want to use it as a combination effort to get donations for the memorial and to get people to physical game stores. Making it a store-only offer forces customers to spend time in physical stores and helps the retailers that carry their stuff. If they sell it online or through online retailers, a lot of people will order multiple copies and snatch them up for resale before regular hobby players get a chance to get them.
ReplyDeleteI'm lucky that I have access to some great gaming stores here in St Louis. I've got my set of reprints reserved already, and can't wait for April! I think that if they sell out quickly, we'll see a much larger reprint a bit down the line for the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, maybe they'll even offer the old modules as PDFs again. After all, we'll need adventures too, right?