Should the VEKN officially sanction printed proxies?

TheLich wrote:

This all feels very false. I find it difficult to believe that none of these companies want this money.

It doesn't matter if some of the companies want the money: if any of the companies don't want it, there is no deal. (And by some and any, I mean one and either.)

WotC has a compelling reason to not license the game because the game is in competition with MtG. Back in '96, I basically stopped playing MtG because my playgroup got involved with VTES. MtG players are the most likely recruits to VTES because of the similarities between the games' mechanics. It is unlikely that a MtG player would just keep spending as much on MtG if he also started buying VTES.

CCP might have all kinds of business, creative, and arbitrary reasons not to want to license a product set in the OWoD.

Both entities could have real reasons to not want the money, which is probably not that much any way. Or, to make it worth their while, they may have made the asking price for the license so high as to make it an impossible proposition for the potential licensee. And it only requires one of the two to veto it.

My prediction is that the game is never going to be picked up again. Not-for-profit reprinting is the only way to keep it alive.

johannes wrote:

See the last point of my post. Securing the agreement usually means that you sit down and both sign a contract, for example that you are buying rights on VTES for 1.000.000.000€ from WotC. But that requires you having those €, because you have to pay even if you kickstarter doesn´t succeed. That´s why kickstarter is no option, it´s a deadlock. Can´t get the license without money but can´t get money unless you have the license.

Hi Johannes - I was actually just doing some digging on the forums, and I kept finding places where people were suggesting that things might change in 2014 for the Onebookshelf.com negotiations. This includes the final statement that you made about it just before Danse Macabre was release, and the 2013 NC meeting notes (sadly, I couldn't find any 2014 or 2015 NC meeting notes). And Ben posted this last year:

BenPeal wrote:

The idea of allowing proxies or printouts of difficult/expensive-to-acquire cards was proposed at the National Coordinator meeting at the Stockholm EC. It was agreed that we'd defer the idea for a year so we can see if there's any substantial update on getting the game back in print, and to test the idea of proxies in a tournament environment. It is to my understanding that such testing has been done in France for the French National Championship and its national qualifiers (not its continental qualifiers). It is also to my understanding that negotiations among OneBookshelf.com, White Wolf, and Hasbro are ongoing, but haven't had an update in about a year (apart from the sudden news that Fantasy Flight Games was in and then out of negotiations).

So, at the EC in Mannheim, we'll see what our French colleagues have to say about their proxy experiment, and we'll see if Johannes Walch or Steve Wieck have anything material to report. From there, we'll make a decision (or perhaps defer the decision again) on what to do (or not do) about allowing proxies.

So I guess I'm wondering if there is any news on these negotiations? Please feel free to just tell me that you can't talk about it, but if there is any indication that this deal was progressing at all (even just confirmation that WotC no longer needs to be involved in negotations), that would be amazing, and would really put to rest this idea of proxies! Thanks for all the time you've put into all this!

AaronC wrote:

CCP might have all kinds of business, creative, and arbitrary reasons not to want to license a product set in the OWoD.

Vampire: The Masquerade IV is going to be a thing . So, they might want another product to support that IP (or not).

TheLich wrote:

im pretty sure publishers give zero fucks about the secondary market, as people buying used cards aren't necessarily buying packs.

That's a very incorrect statement. [...]

i intended to say something more along the lines of 'publishers may not care about how much your collection is worth when deciding reprinting cards,' but i was rushed for time and typing on my phone.

Ben wrote:

So, at the EC in Mannheim, we'll see what our French colleagues have to say about their proxy experiment, and we'll see if Johannes Walch or Steve Wieck have anything material to report. From there, we'll make a decision (or perhaps defer the decision again) on what to do (or not do) about allowing proxies.

Brettscho wrote:

So I guess I'm wondering if there is any news on these negotiations?

Deathly silence around this forum on a big topic like "Are we going into print?" and with the VEKN in general is rarely a great sign.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Deathly silence around this forum on a big topic like "Are we going into print?" and with the VEKN in general is rarely a great sign.

while I agree that it doesn't bode well, the VEKN IC is also somewhat notorious for not always communicating effectively. There may still be "nothing to report."