Wizards of the Coast has pulled the plug on Paizo Publishing’s license to produce the Dungeon and Dragon magazines.
Today, Wizards of the Coast and Paizo Publishing announced the conclusion of Paizo’s license to publish Dragon and Dungeon magazines. The magazines will cease publication following the release of the September issues, which ship to subscribers and newsstands in August. The final issues will be Dragon #359 and Dungeon #150.
Wizards of the Coast will be moving the kind of content currently found in Dragon and Dungeon to an online model.
What’s Paizo doing instead? Well, they’re switching their machine over to producing a new magazine monthly book called Pathfinder, a “96-page, perfect-bound, OGL-compatible full-color softcover Adventure Path book.”
Personally, I think this stinks. As much as I like Paizo as a company, I’ve never gotten into their Adventure Path adventures, and now, it seems, that’s pretty much all they’re left with.
I’m not sure what WotC was/is thinking, but it apparently isn’t an issue about profitability, as publisher Erik Mona explained on Paizo’s message boards:
» Ikor wrote: Were the magazines losing money?
Absolutely not. As far as I know, the sales of the magazines were not a factor in this decision. We’re actually very pleased with the sales of the magazines, and in particular with our growing subscriber lists.
Here’s hoping that enough readers decide to give Pathfinder and our GameMastery Modules a try. We’re extremely excited about the new opportunities we’ll have with the new arrangement.
–Erik
Betcha dollars to donuts that Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid sees its subscriber numbers swell nicely in the weeks to come.
The full text of the announcement is after the cut.
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