Whoa! Chaosium News.

[Shannon Mac]

One of their other employees was laid off. I won't say who now as it was on said person's Facebook and not public. It will probably come out later so yeah definitely some restructuring.

[Gladius]

Who owns Chaosium?

[Keeper Dan]

I think it's Greg Stafford again. Hopefully they'll be able to tell us some info without it being rude to the leaving guard. They did keep the company going, rather than letting it just fade away.
I do see this is very good news though, particularly since Sandy confirmed that Mike is sticking on. That was my primary thought when this came down. In the years of doing this show, he's the only one from the company to interact with us.
I did try to release a special report this morning before work, but I rushed a missed an important step. I forgot to convert the Wav to MP3 before dropping on the feed. RSS feeds have no idea what to do with that, so it kinda bombed out.
Go to the posting on the home page of the site if you don't get a download of the proper MP3 in the feed now. You can play it there, or download it. It's under 2 minutes.

[Keeper Dan]

I bought my first Chaosium book in 1984. I'm an old loyalist. But I think a lot of people are kidding themselves with their rose-colored glasses when it comes to evaluating how the company has been doing. It's the one thing I take issue with regards to the news section that leads off the MU podcast:; when the news items are presented, what is said can typically be boiled down to one of two things: "that's cool" or "I need to get that".

I know the MU podcast isn't supposed to be hard-hitting journalism or anything, but to be fair I usually just skip past the front of the show and listen to the featured topic because of this. So consider this some good-natured listener feedback.

Point taken. Thank you for your honesty.

Know that at no time are we lying or just putting on a face for the podcast. These are our feelings on the topics. I know that there have been behind the scenes issues with the company, but would it have benefited the community to call out Charlie on any of these things? I honestly don't think so. I'd rather focus on the things that are positive in the genre and not approach a tabloid rumor kind of thing. I totally get the frustrations that backers have felt, I just have had honest faith that Mike and Co would come through for us.
Now more than ever.

[Gladius]

Quite a bit of interesting info from Sandy here on YSDC:
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/topic/28763- ... ium/page-2

[PirateLawyer]

I bought my first Chaosium book in 1984. I'm an old loyalist. But I think a lot of people are kidding themselves with their rose-colored glasses when it comes to evaluating how the company has been doing. It's the one thing I take issue with regards to the news section that leads off the MU podcast:; when the news items are presented, what is said can typically be boiled down to one of two things: "that's cool" or "I need to get that".

I know the MU podcast isn't supposed to be hard-hitting journalism or anything, but to be fair I usually just skip past the front of the show and listen to the featured topic because of this. So consider this some good-natured listener feedback.

Point taken. Thank you for your honesty.

Know that at no time are we lying or just putting on a face for the podcast. These are our feelings on the topics. I know that there have been behind the scenes issues with the company, but would it have benefited the community to call out Charlie on any of these things? I honestly don't think so. I'd rather focus on the things that are positive in the genre and not approach a tabloid rumor kind of thing. I totally get the frustrations that backers have felt, I just have had honest faith that Mike and Co would come through for us.
Now more than ever.

Dan, please believe me when I say that by no means was I implying the MU hosts were ever being dishonest, and I'm not being dismissive of your honest feelings about the news items you do present. My observation was more along the lines of ... the MU news segment to me comes across as a very light beer, whereas I prefer a robust ale. Typically you'll spend, say, 20-30 minutes going over the headlines in the industry, mostly what things have made it to the street, so to speak, from a company's release schedule. But there's little in depth analysis, and almost never any discussion of behind the scenes stuff that I would find interesting (which I concede would stray towards informed speculation or discussion of rumours). So I tend to skip that segment, and peek at the show notes for the summary of news items for a minute or two because that's a more efficient use of my time.

I'm reasonably confident the Kickstarter projects will eventually be fulfilled in their entirety. My observations are quite separate from that one big ongoing issue vis-a-vis Chaosium's crowdfunding initiatives.

[Dr. Gerard]

My observation was more along the lines of ... the MU news segment to me comes across as a very light beer, whereas I prefer a robust ale. Typically you'll spend, say, 20-30 minutes going over the headlines in the industry, mostly what things have made it to the street, so to speak, from a company's release schedule. But there's little in depth analysis, and almost never any discussion of behind the scenes stuff that I would find interesting (which I concede would stray towards informed speculation or discussion of rumours). So I tend to skip that segment, and peek at the show notes for the summary of news items for a minute or two because that's a more efficient use of my time.

That's fair. In most cases we are probably going to keep playing it safe, because the consequences of speculation can be harmful to people involved. We could make some guesses about staff issues in one company or another before they break the surface, but we are probably going to wait for things to become public before discussing on the show. When someone tells us something in confidence, we have honored their request. And while we hear complaints, concerns and rumors from sundry insiders, not much of it is fit to broadcast. We're going to keep leading with compassion and integrity. And it's clear you're not asking us to change that.

It admittedly took some listener pressure to get us to revisit the issue of 7E and HotOE delays. We have tried to address companies' stumbles while staying professional. In doing so, we might have even nudged the conversation forward in one case. We also refrained from covering each delay announcement and each backer update. Maybe that was a mistake. As far as analysis of what was going on behind the scenes, we really didn't have solid information other than the reasons that were given. It wasn't until delay updates went from plausible (artist missing deadline, printer dropping ball) to puzzling (bookmarking PDFs) that we started to feel pressure to be more critical. Can't guarantee that won't happen again. Our point of view is genuinely optimistic. And for deep industry insight, we're not really the right guys for the job.

All that said, I'm sure there is room for growth. It seems there are varieties of ale left to serve that don't fall into the inappropriate zone. So let's make this feedback more robust. What kinds of stories over the last year would you have wanted to hear more analysis of? Anything other than the KS delays and the implosion of Chronicle City? What specific news topics would cause you to listen through the Crier? We're not going to become the TMZ (rumor mongers and privacy violators) or CNN (punditry on parade) of gaming podcasts, but there's plenty of remaining territory to grow into. Please do send us feedback emails and topic requests if the inspiration strikes you. How about sending us a recorded opinion spot or two? As long as it isn't unnecessarily mean or otherwise inappropriate, I'm sure we'd be thrilled to include some news commentary from listeners.

(Caveat: I don't speak for Dan or the show as a whole.)

[viscounteric]

We're not going to become the TMZ (rumor mongers and privacy violators) or CNN (punditry on parade) of gaming podcasts, but there's plenty of remaining territory to grow into.

I can not get the image of gaming paparazzi out of my head, harrassing Monte Cook or Sandy Peterson coming out of In-and-Out Burger about rules changes or shipping dates.

Fedoras, old-fashioned cameras, and dice bags are part of the dress code.

[Dr. Gerard]

Oh god, I can see the listicle headlines now. "10 Worst Fashion Crimes at Origins Awards," "You Won't Beleive Who Can't Hold Their Liquor at GenCon Panel Brunch," "Hotel Staff Horrified by Snacks Left in Con Suites"

[Gladius]

All that said, I'm sure there is room for growth. It seems there are varieties of ale left to serve that don't fall into the inappropriate zone. So let's make this feedback more robust. What kinds of stories over the last year would you have wanted to hear more analysis of? Anything other than the KS delays and the implosion of Chronicle City? What specific news topics would cause you to listen through the Crier? We're not going to become the TMZ (rumor mongers and privacy violators) or CNN (punditry on parade) of gaming podcasts, but there's plenty of remaining territory to grow into. Please do send us feedback emails and topic requests if the inspiration strikes you. How about sending us a recorded opinion spot or two? As long as it isn't unnecessarily mean or otherwise inappropriate, I'm sure we'd be thrilled to include some news commentary from listeners.

(Caveat: I don't speak for Dan or the show as a whole.)

Not speaking for PirateLawyer, but for myself:
I'd really like to know more about Chaosium, its history (good and bad), because I often hear people talk about "the dark times" when they almost went bankrupt, couldn't pay authors, didn't pay authors, lost their shirt to a CCG, etc. etc. But I also realize that much of this is rumor or incidents blown out of proportion by gossip-mongers and those "in the know" may not be interested in, or willing to talk about such things.

Beyond Petersen and Herber, I don't know much about the origins of the game or the early days of CoC (even though I first played in the '80s, I was too young to be interested in the industry aspects of the genre). I'd love to see an interview with Stafford or Petersen about the history of the company, and the game, if you could manage to get them to come on the show. Not so much to dig into the dirty details of who did what, but to give a "we were there" perspective of how the game came to be; the company's history, and the game's history, are inextricably entwined.

Now, maybe this would not be of much interest to the bulk of your listeners. I have more of an interest in the industry and its workings than the typical player of the game.