PinkSplice
SOC-12
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CAHOKIA IL, 2238Z 30 MAY 2001
Pink Splice (42), of 10 Archview Drive in Cahokia has announced the indefinite cancellation of his plans to invest his lottery winnings in either T^20 or a possible venture to finance a Traveller based computer game.
"The returns just are not there" said Pink. "Especially when you look at investing approximately two million in just writing the software alone, for a potential audience of a few thousand gamers at most. When Traveller started, two decades ago, over a hundred thosand copies of the ruleset were sold. That trailed off to sales in the 5-10 thousand range only a few years later. Now, there are a few hundred participants on various fora who maintain interest, and
Steve Jackson Games is doing well releasing material under license. But even he is only printing five thousand copies at a time, not a large enough audience to justify the investment."
Splice also noted that there are many more competitors in the CRPG market, all better funded and known.
"Most of my trainee engineers, when asked what an RPG is, reply 'Baldur's Gate' or 'Everquest'".
An online version of Traveller already exists, and there have even been fan-based adaptations of programs such as "The Sims". Some software was written for Apple by GDW, and there was an earlier Traveller game for the PC, but both have faded off into the never-never world of pirateware. A company called Tantalus hold the computer rights to many of GDW's old games, but has never published a single title.
"Those guys are squatters. No deals for them" quoth Splice.
Splice also noted that the 2+ million would buy him an aircraft, with a small field and luxury house to boot. "Since flying is better than sex, and we know what relationship sex has to RPG's, well..." said Pink. "No more renting ratty old 172's for me".
As for entering the pen-and-paper RPG arena, Splice had this to say: "You've been smoking crayons again, right?"
Previous lottery plans had included gaming companies, paying off friends and relatives debts, and other geek enterprises.
"I'm now just giong to be taking the bridge across to the Federal Reserve Bank, and putting it all into Treasuries."
END******************************************
CAHOKIA IL, 2238Z 30 MAY 2001
Pink Splice (42), of 10 Archview Drive in Cahokia has announced the indefinite cancellation of his plans to invest his lottery winnings in either T^20 or a possible venture to finance a Traveller based computer game.
"The returns just are not there" said Pink. "Especially when you look at investing approximately two million in just writing the software alone, for a potential audience of a few thousand gamers at most. When Traveller started, two decades ago, over a hundred thosand copies of the ruleset were sold. That trailed off to sales in the 5-10 thousand range only a few years later. Now, there are a few hundred participants on various fora who maintain interest, and
Steve Jackson Games is doing well releasing material under license. But even he is only printing five thousand copies at a time, not a large enough audience to justify the investment."
Splice also noted that there are many more competitors in the CRPG market, all better funded and known.
"Most of my trainee engineers, when asked what an RPG is, reply 'Baldur's Gate' or 'Everquest'".
An online version of Traveller already exists, and there have even been fan-based adaptations of programs such as "The Sims". Some software was written for Apple by GDW, and there was an earlier Traveller game for the PC, but both have faded off into the never-never world of pirateware. A company called Tantalus hold the computer rights to many of GDW's old games, but has never published a single title.
"Those guys are squatters. No deals for them" quoth Splice.
Splice also noted that the 2+ million would buy him an aircraft, with a small field and luxury house to boot. "Since flying is better than sex, and we know what relationship sex has to RPG's, well..." said Pink. "No more renting ratty old 172's for me".
As for entering the pen-and-paper RPG arena, Splice had this to say: "You've been smoking crayons again, right?"
Previous lottery plans had included gaming companies, paying off friends and relatives debts, and other geek enterprises.
"I'm now just giong to be taking the bridge across to the Federal Reserve Bank, and putting it all into Treasuries."
END******************************************
