State of the Corp - June 2000

by Jennifer Clarke Wilkes

Hard times in HQ. That about sums it up as far as Netrunner - and any other "classic" game - is concerned. The DCI has announced that it will stop supporting the game, and the supply of prize materials available to me is drying up. This isn't exactly the same as not supporting the game at all (we still have the cards for sale), but it might as well be in the eyes of the average player.

I consider it a victory for the fans that Wizards printed the Classic mini-expansion at all, but a terrible failure that its sales - even for such a tiny print run - have been very weak. Perhaps one-third of the cards have been sold, making it one of the worst-performing products this company has ever made (even though there was little real expectation of profit). Of course, much of the blame lies at this end: We didn't market it, we didn't have it for sale in our stores or ship it overseas in a timely manner (if at all), and we gave it a misleading name. Still, I had hoped more players would purchase the new cards, or more of them.

I am still here, however, and I still have stuff to support the game for a while yet. I continue to push the idea of outsourcing the game or even transferring ownership. At this point, though, out best bet might be to work more with fan-generated sets like RIP, Open War, and the like, as text files to be used in conjunction with card sleeves, to keep the game environment fresh and interesting. Fans of the Mythos card game by Chaosium are doing this, and even have websites devoted to weird expansions like Scooby Doo. Chaosium is quite supportive of such efforts, and I think Wizards would be as well (as long as no trademarks are infringed, such as logos and distinctive card elements).

In the meantime, I continue to Fight the Good Fight.

Yours in the struggle, Jen of Arc