Pinnacle Entertainment 2009
14 Jan 2009

Der Autor

Wenn ich nicht gerade spiele verunstalte ich Medien. Kommt einem zu Gute bei eigenen Rollenspielen wie Malmsturm oder Projekten wie Ratten!, Savage Worlds Gentlemens Edition, Scion, Sundered Skies und ein paar anderen. An und für sich bin ich der Erzählonkel, daher auch die große liebe zu FATE. Manchmal muss es aber auch ein Burger statt Steak sein und so wird gern und oft auch Savage Worlds oder wenn es klasisch sein soll Pathfinder und Konsorten gespielt. Ich probier gern und oft Systeme aus aber die eigentliche Leidenschaft sind die Hintergrundwelten.

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Produktplan 09

Initial P

innacle Entertainmetn zünden die Lunte für dasJahr 2009 und stellen den Produktplan online. Es wird heiß hergehen kündigt der Verlag etwa die Necessary Evil: Explorers Edition für $ 19,99 an. und soll im Februar das Licht der Welt erblicken. Genauso ist eine Explorers Edition von Evernight für Ende 09 angedacht. Die Plot Point-Kampagne „The Flood“ für Deadlands: Reloaded ist beim Drucker und sollte im April zur Auslieferung bereit sein. Aber das war noch längst nicht alles. Mit The Path of Kane wird das Solomone Kane Setting in Form einer Abenteuersammlung unterstützt und Seefahrten werden mit The Savage Seas of Solomon Kane ein wenig spritziger. Im Original heißt es ausserdem:

A Pinnacle New Year

It’s 2009, and it’s time to talk a little about what we have in the works. But before we do, let’s talk a little about release dates, why we’re vague about them, and what might happen to any of the products we talk about below.
Development

The first reason a project might be late is the most obvious–maybe a freelance author or artist is late, or maybe the manuscript needs work. We’re not going to come out publicly and say „Freelancer Bob“ didn’t hit his deadlines, so we just push the project back, deal with it the best we can for everyone involved, and move on.

Often the problem is on our end. Our Plot Point Campaigns are extremely difficult to conceptualize and communicate, for example, and that’s often been a source of much head-banging and rewrites. We like them though, and what we’ve learned from the process should be apparent in future releases, like Deadlands: The Flood.

Once our manuscript is in good shape, the book goes into layout. That’s fairly straight-forward after a couple weeks of figuring out what you want and getting some basic elements in place. Here’s a sample from Weird War II that we’re working on right now: Weird Wars Sample Spread.

Weird Wars Nazi ZombieA quick glance at the sample spread shows you the basics. We’ve picked a header and body text font, and have a first pass at what sidebars and chapter headers will look like. What’s maybe not so apparent is working out the art style. The piece on the right here is one I absolutely love and am using as our „style“ setter for the artists involved.

After the basics are in place, the manuscript gets another development pass in layout. This takes a while–often months–and may mean moving large sections of text around, rewriting something that doesn’t work quite right, or making changes based on the playtester’s comments–which come in right up until the „master“ is done.
The Printing Process

We print large volumes of hardback, full-color books. That means we have to print overseas in the current world economy. Our printer, typically in Thailand, is fast but the books still have to be slow-boated over on an actual ship. Our books tend to land at customs in Los Angeles, go through 1889 pages of red tape, then go by rail or freight to Knoxville, TN, to our excellent fulfillment partners at Studio2. (Shane is in Arizona–the authors and artists who write and illustrate most of our books are spread out all over the world.)
Savage Worlds Supers CompanionBudgeting and Its Effect on the Schedule

Printing the large amounts we do in hardback and full-color means a tremendous outlay of cash. That means we carefully schedule when we release things so that we’re not over-exposed at any given time. Pinnacle and Studio2 are very profitable these days, with no debt, even while lowering our overall prices ($10 Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition, anyone?).

Savage Worlds Adventure DeckWhile we’re on the subject, lowering our prices is our second-highest goal (number one is making excellent games). That requires care, patience, and thoughtful planning if we’re going to keep making high-quality books like Solomon Kane, Slipstream, and Deadlands: Reloaded. It also means things are a little slower than we’d all like sometimes since we have to spread our releases out, but if we’re careless and start slipping, the first thing we have to do to recover is raise prices. You don’t want that and neither do we, so we’ll play the „tortoise“ in this particular race and keep it slow and steady.
2009

So now you understand why we try not to talk about release dates until it’s on the boat back from the printer. At that point we know it will be 3-4 months before it hits shelves and we can, more-or-less, feel good about the date.

With those warnings in place, we certainly know we’ll release Weird Wars: Weird War Two this year, hopefully at Origins or GenCon. We’ll also have at least two of the Savage Worlds Companions out by then, and the revised Adventure Deck in print as well.

Necessary EvilThe Necessary Evil Explorer’s Edition is already in the warehouse and hits shelves in February. This is a great revision with updates to both the powers and the campaign itself, thanks to Clint Black, Piotr Korys, Joel Kinstle, and those who played the original. And it’s only $19.99 in full-color, so we’re really excited about this one!

Evernight has long been sold out and will be returning in the same format sometime in late ’09.

The long overdue Plot Point Campaign for Deadlands: Reloaded, The Flood is at the printers and should hit shelves around April. We’re extremely excited about telling this story of the Weird West. It was a long difficult road to cast such an epic event in a way that wasn’t a linear adventure, but we think the extra effort made it work, and can’t wait to see what you think.

Savage Seas of Solomon KaneSolomon Kane continues to do well, so we’ve added more Savage Tales, area information, and Plot Point Campaign links to the upcoming The Path of Kane. And for the treacherous voyages in-between the far corners of the earth, we have The Savage Seas of Solomon Kane.

For those who are trying to complete their Deadlands: Classic collection, we’re slowly getting those books back into print via Print on Demand (and they’re already available as PDFs for those who didn’t know). Check the Online Store for these exclusives.

In addition to everything above, there are a number of adventures (both print and PDF-only), new GM screens, and a few other surprises on the schedule–one of which we’ll announce in about three weeks. You might even find some clues around our website if you look around a little…

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