Judge Dredd Dies Again!

[nightrunner 11446xp 1]

Warlord Games are retiring all the 2000AD ranges, so if you want something, then go ahead and buy it.  I wanted the rulebooks and they are selling at 50% discount.

[sundancer 43441xp 0]

any bets on where the IP lands next?

[nightrunner 11446xp 0]

I’d go with Steamforged, Monolith or Modiphius.

[athelstaneParticipant 700xp 0]

@nightrunner,

Any idea why they aren’t continuing with the license?  Did it expire and was too expensive?  Or was it too expensive given the sales of the items?  Or what?

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 5 days ago by  athelstane.

[athelstaneParticipant 700xp 0]

I will answer my own post (I should have done the minimal amount of Googling BEFORE posting).

My guess is that it was a 10 year license, given that the news was first announced in 2016 and next year is 2026.

My guess is that the games did NOT sell ‘Well’.  By ‘Well’ I mean given the cost of developing.  Take for instance Judge Dredd. There is TONs of stuff.  It is a labour of love, without doubt. They’ve covered almost all I can think of.

Given that the license was up for renewal, the cost of renewing was too high given the license’s profitability.

[sundancer 43441xp 1]

Or they upped the price of the licence so much that it went from “we can make that work” to “Nope!”

[nightrunner 11446xp 0]

Sounds like perfectly good reasons to me @athelstane and @sundancer. Even though I didn’t buy their stuff (because I was too spread out financially), I did play with a friend at the club and I liked their system.  That is why I bought all the rule books.  It would have been nice to see them develop Slaine and ABC more.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 5 days ago by  nightrunner.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 5 days ago by  nightrunner.

[grantinvanman 2596xp 5]

I wonder how much had to do with Paul Sawyer as well: he was a MASSIVE 2000AD fan, and with his passing, maybe the licence interest wasn’t as complete with the remaining WG heads.

Just a thought.

[limburger 21954xp 2]

Maybe we should let the guys ask them at the expo or whenever they are scheduled to be interviewed by Gerry ?

It could be a combination of all of the above.
Plus they appear to be focussing on Konflikt ’47 next …

Maybe a few less things to worry about is better for them as a business too.

[sundancer 43441xp 2]

I wonder how much had to do with Paul Sawyer as well: he was a MASSIVE 2000AD fan, and with his passing, maybe the licence interest wasn’t as complete with the remaining WG heads.

He surely put some weight into the argument. Pardon the pun.

Maybe we should let the guys ask them at the expo or whenever they are scheduled to be interviewed by Gerry ?

Nice idea @brennon @avernos @warzan HEAR THAT?

[guillotine 16044xp 2]

Thanks for the heads up, grabbed few of the pieces I did not have from the Judge Dredd range.

Shame to see it go, the game is fun and miniatures good, I have both Strontium Dog and Judge Dredd. It would have been awesome to see them get to Rogue Trooper as well.

I do remember from some interviews Warlord guys saying the license required them to do annual releases and they couldn’t only do Judge Dredd. I can’t imagine other ranges than JD selling that well. Even with Judge Dredd, in terms of range, you will cover the big sellers pretty quickly. While there is wealth of material in the comics, who else (except completionists like myself) is going going to buy every villain that might have appeared in one issue.

[limburger 21954xp 1]

It’s kind of the same problem that X-wing (and to a lesser extend Legion?) has.
There’s stuff that ‘everyone’ will want and there’s stuff that gets so little screen time that only the completionists would want.

At least Warlord didn’t try to milk the range by having a dozen variant Judge Dredds out there just to fill their range.

[sundancer 43441xp 0]

I do remember from some interviews Warlord guys saying the license required them to do annual releases and they couldn’t only do Judge Dredd.

Oh forgot about that interview. Yeah I think you remember right. I guess 2000AD stuff only interesting for a certain generation and with all the iterations of JD games I guess we’ve just reached a point where “everybody had their share”?

[zoidpinhead 12567xp 0]

We were chatting about this in the unofficial weekender discussion after the announcement was made in Warlord’s email newsletter on Friday.  I was told the 2000AD license is going to Mongoose supported by Wargames Atlantic but I’ve not seen anything online to substantiate that.  Warlord don’t release sales data but you have to think that JD probably did enough business to justify the cost.  Slaine by their own admission caught them by surprise as it was a big hit and they brought out a second wave of minis that perhaps weren’t guaranteed a release but for the exceptional sales.  The very poor adaptation of the JD rules for the Slaine setting didn’t do the range any favours and once most of us played a game or two we moved on to other systems for our miniatures. I too don’t understand why they never went for Rogue Trooper but perhaps the rights weren’t in this license as there is a film on the way and therefore the rights for that title are more valuable and possibly already ceded to the filmmakers.

[moonunitParticipant 4514xp 0]

I remember seeing an interview where someone at WG said the game wouldn’t have been cost effective if it wasn’t for siocast, so it can’t have been a big seller.

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