Drakensang: TRoT - English Version Still OK?

[Alrik Fassbauer]

and noone ever tells us anything,

Well, in my case, I do post some news if I find them; I have, however, a life beyong RPGs, too.

But if you mean the marketing : Yes, it crystallising (as we say) more and more out that dtp's maketing is ... ahem ... "sub-optimal".

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Not true: the IP is owned by a company called Significant Fantasy, who license portions of the IP out to others: Ulisses (with a 'i' btw) only has a license to produce and publish the pen-and-paper game, Fantasy Productions licensed the novel rights, Chormatrix has the video game license (they sublicensed to Radon Labs and Silver Style), etc.

Yes, this is right, as far as I know, ans "Significant Fantasy", which a really *tiny* company, more or less just consists of the original makers/inventors of TDE (Fuchs, Alpers), plus the heirs of Ulrich Kiesow, who died in 1997 or so. Werner Fuchs, Hans-Joachim Alpers and Ulrich Kiesow were the *original* makers/inventors of TDE.

Fantasy Productions (in short: FanPro) also held the video game license plus the pen & paper license during the 80s-90s. This can be seen in the Realms Of Arcania games, I think.

 

[you]

So what is going to happen to the studio ? I thought Drakensang sold well in Europe (both versions) so I'm a bit sad to hear that even with a well selling game they still went bankrupt.

 

[Ergonpandilus]

I guess publisher (DTP) got scared and withdraw from publishing Drakensang 3, BUT they will release international version of River of Time and at least the addon in german if not internationally. Drakensang was a success in Germany, but I don't know about international sales.

One thing I know though, they have done really lausy marketing for the series!

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I really don't know what's happening with Radon Labs right now.

 

[Gorath]

So what is going to happen to the studio ? I thought Drakensang sold well in Europe (both versions) so I'm a bit sad to hear that even with a well selling game they still went bankrupt.

Unfortunately costs and income streams often don't overlap sufficiently enough to stay afloat. A medium sized studio like Radon Labs (big for Germany) has, according to figures published elsewhere by an industry insider, costs of ca. 4k€ per head per month. RL had close to 100 people.
So they burned ca. 400k€ (a feew months ago ca. 530k$) per month. It's easy to guess that RL depended on bread & butter development contracts (horse games for little girls) to pay the ongoing costs. This part of the business went down due to the general economic situation, the collapse of the NDS market and oversaturation in the low price segment.
My bet is that without external funding for Drakensang 3 they suddenly found themselves between a rock and a hard place: They have a lot of experienced employees, but they can no longer pay their salary. And on the other hand they couldn't fire them overnight to bring their costs down. In such a situation it's absolutely possible their legal counsel advised the bosses to file for bankruptcy to make sure that the damage doesn't move over from the RL GmbH (= limited) to the their private property.

 

[Avantenor]

Is Radon Labs a GmbH with "persönlich haftenden Gesellschaftern" (general partner) or why should the bankruptcy move over to their private property? I thought that's the clou about the GmbH, they are only liable with the company's registered capital, as long as the Executive don't act grossly negligent.

 

[Sir_Brennus]

Is Radon Labs a GmbH with "persönlich haftenden Gesellschaftern" (general partner) or why should the bankruptcy move over to their private property? I thought that's the clou about the GmbH, they are only liable with the company's registered capital, as long as the Executive don't act grossly negligent.

That's right - in theory.

In the real world no bank in Germany gives loans to companies into a "volatile business" (and computer games are as volatile as they get) without providing further bankable collaterals. In most cases the owners ("Gesellschafter") are asked to give personal guaranties for loans ("Persönliche Bürgschaften"), sometimes even the non-owning CEOs are asked to do so. On top of that they have to give an assignment of a claim.

Probably it went this way: The bank ultimatly asked Radon Labs to give an assignment of their claims for the development of DraSa3 or they would get a withdrawal notice for their current loans. DTP finally decided they would pull out of publishing DraSa3 (too big, too risky, too PC-only) and so RL could not provide such assignment. If they hadn't filed for bancruptcy the bank would have withrdrawn all loans, used their lien of all assets and the personal guaranties from the owners.

 

[Gorath]

Plus there are strict rules in Germany (found through thousands of court decisions) for the point of time when a company head must file for bankruptcy and what he is (not) allowed to do to keep the company afloat (in reality and on paper). (Stichwort "Insolvenzverschleppung")
One wrong step and his private property is in danger. That's one of the reasons why top management in big companies always has an insurance for management misbehaviour.