Should the VEKN officially sanction printed proxies?

jamesatzephyr wrote:

1) Could we enforce it? Possibly yes, possibly no.

I honestly don't see why there would be problems enforcing it. Many play groups have already admitted to allowing proxy cards in their casual games, but they all switch to using physical cards when playing in tournaments. That seems to offer proof that "once you go proxy, you can never go back" isn't true.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

2) Would a company think "I know, I'll sink tens of thousands of dollars of work into a product where the players currently play for free by printing out and photocopying stuff?" It's a risk for them, even if it's one they're willing to take. And even if they do take it, it might affect how you go about things. Would you, for instance, print a set that has a lot of reprints in it(*), if you were worried that fewer players would buy it, because they're happy using their photocopies for that - driving sales down overall?

Oh, I totally agree with you - allowing proxies will destroy any chance that a company is able to buy the rights to reprint old cards (although I think this will have no bearing on a company wanting to make a different Vampire or WoD card game). No company would want to start negotiations under those circumstances. The question is - how long are will willing to wait for printed cards. I know of three separate attempts to negotiate for this all of which failed. Perhaps I'm just being a pessimist, but I honestly don't see any hope of printed cards in the near to moderate (1-5 years) future. And I think that if we wait another 5 years, the game will be truly be dead (according to the steady decrease in attendance at events since 2012). I guess that I see allowing proxies as putting a bullet into an already dead horse. Am I wrong? Is there hope worth waiting for?

hat would be ignoring the massive success that Fantasy Flight Games has had with their Living Card Game system, which literally has no secondary market.

To clarify something very important. LCGs do have a secondary market. You can buy singles directly from several vendors online to avoid having to buy cards from groups you would never want cards from. (ex. I play Grayjoy and I would rather not have to spend $15 to get 3 copies of 3 cards that I want to play. So instead another person opens it and sells me my 3 copies, another guy his copies and another theirs. This lowers the overall cost of an LCG while still encouraging an indirect purchase. It is essentially the same thing as what is done in a CCG.

I'm also curious why you are unhappy with the printed cards - may I ask what specific problems you have with the system? Maybe we could change something to make it more palatable.

My biggest problem is that they look like proxies because you need to use thin paper to make it less obvious you are playing with proxies.

However, that doesn't appear to be an option any more - multiple companies have approached CCP and WotC looking to acquire the license to the game and they have all been rebuffed.

This all feels very false. I find it difficult to believe that none of these companies want this money. We know that most of what WotC can claim rights to has fallen out of Copyright and CCP allowed someone to talk to them about a new WoD system. So there are clearly reachable people. I think the best plan would be to seek a final number on costs and then present those costs to the public and announce a Kick Starter to gather the funds needed to seal these deals. If it doesn't go off, then we discuss official proxies because the game is actually dead. Otherwise, the game gets the shot in the arm it needs. Right now we're all just whining because no company wants to pick up the game where the players keep begging to get unlimited copies of their cards for essentially free.

*didn't realize I had repeated some rhetoric.

I stated that you seek a final number for costs.

I expected that you would know I was implying all costs and securing agreements for those costs.

TheLich wrote:

This all feels very false. I find it difficult to believe that none of these companies want this money. We know that most of what WotC can claim rights to has fallen out of Copyright and CCP allowed someone to talk to them about a new WoD system. So there are clearly reachable people. I think the best plan would be to seek a final number on costs and then present those costs to the public and announce a Kick Starter to gather the funds needed to seal these deals. If it doesn't go off, then we discuss official proxies because the game is actually dead. Otherwise, the game gets the shot in the arm it needs. Right now we're all just whining because no company wants to pick up the game where the players keep begging to get unlimited copies of their cards for essentially free.

I agree that they should want to license this out, but they haven't thus far. I'll list the failed attempts (that I know of...) below. Maybe CCP and WotC just want too much money - I have no idea what the snag has been.

Onebookshelf.com: The owner of Onebookshelf.com even used to be a high exec in White Wolf... maybe the former owner of White Wolf? This was (as far as I know), the closest anybody has come to making Print-On-Demand possible:
News during negotations
News that negotations had been put on ice
Interestingly, the last article says that there would be no news until mid 2014 (which lines up with the experation date of the Gamemaster copyright). So... has there been any news? I didn't play during 2014 - does anybody remember this coming back up?

Fantasy Flight Games: They were interested in just licensing the World of Darkness setting (so I have no idea if WotC was involved in any way), and there are a number of reports of early playtesting of the LCG game that this would have been. It was (supposedly) a 2 or 4 player game that kept a lot of ideas like stealth / intercept, predator and prey (for multiplayer), but the factions were Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc, rather than clan. Richard Garfield even did an interview where he talked about how excited he was that FFG was picking up VTES.
BBG post that contains links to relevant posts - including an FFG exec verifying that negotiations had happened, but were no longer

Kickstarter Campaign: Hrmm... people on the forums told me about this (and it's mentioned earlier in this thread... but I can't find anything else about it by searching on this site, so I have to assume that this was never seriously considered / negotiated.

So I guess I only have info on those two attempts.