They cannot even come up with original artwork.

Now they deface a classic:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/redbox.aspx


Sad, so sad  

Many vintage artworks have appeared recently: the RedBox, character sheets, the bus...

And did you notice that they're doing a Rules Compendium?

(I suspect that someone is trying to recapture the '80s boom by simily reproducing its imagery, unable to recapture its substance.)

It remains to be seen whether any of this lures players of OOP D&D (what I call the "First Family" of FRP games, OD&D thru RC) into buying their new line of 4.x (which is still fiercely defended as being 4.0, despite hundreds of pages of 'errata' aka rules changes).

ExTSR wrote:It remains to be seen whether any of this lures players of OOP D&D (what I call the "First Family" of FRP games, OD&D thru RC) into buying their new line ...

Magic 8-ball says no.  

The art used for the covers of the Player and DM booklet in the Boxed set are not the Elmore print (which I found odd).  If you pop by the WotC D&D site you'll see quite a bit of art that you'll recognize (mace swinging cleric from VoH for instance).  

The line looks like it's on its third manager in as many years (Heinsoo, some other guy, and now Mike Mearls).  At least Mearls knows that all is not well in 4E land and has avoided the WotC Kool-Aid dispenser that the last two guys relied on to sell the edition.

serleran wrote:Maybe they figured "we have this art already... why pay some other new artist money for something we can print for free?" Not like TSR never recycled art.

Would make sense for a corporation into squeezing every bit of cash they can, but... I recall there being a handfull of pieces which were recycled from 1E into 2E, but I am not aware of any recycling in 3E, and until this recent mass rush, none in 4E. New editions usually are marked by new art as part of a new identity.

If it smells like bait...

I think most of the art was commissioned as "work for hire", meaning the company owns all rights to the publishing of the art in any media they choose.

You watch ... they'll start recycling Gangbusters, Star Frontiers and whatever else onto their D&D 4e boxes and books to try and light that nostalgia fire

In the course of doing some market research in '96 about the publishing industry and copyright, I found out that a 1 trillion dollar industry (per year) results in authors receiving a mere 2 billion of it.
<disgusted>
<sad>

misterspock wrote:I think most of the art was commissioned as "work for hire", meaning the company owns all rights to the publishing of the art in any media they choose.

You watch ... they'll start recycling Gangbusters, Star Frontiers and whatever else onto their D&D 4e boxes and books to try and light that nostalgia fire

Covers of DRAGON magazine and the like were purchased as first publishing rights.  The artwork remained the property of the artists.

In-house artwork naturally belonged to TSR.

All TSR published writing work was contracted as "work for hire," so TSR would not have to worry about getting permission to re-print and support their own products.

puterdragon wrote:In the course of doing some market research in '96 about the publishing industry and copyright, I found out that a 1 trillion dollar industry (per year) results in authors receiving a mere 2 billion of it.
<disgusted>
<sad>

I am not sure what the point is here. The authors supplied a product and were paid for the product. Are you suggesting they were ripped off because the purchaser of their products may made more money than the author?

Let's see, the publisher has to research and design the product, pay for any and all IP items included (writing, artwork, etc), pay for editing, pay for production, pay staff to distribute and track, pay lawyers, pay truck drivers, pay insurance, pay taxes (not a small amount by any stretch), pay operating costs, take a risk that the product will actually sell as predicted (never a consistent thing), and a whole host of other cash-sucking issues. Oh, and have some money left so that the product actually turns a profit so they can hire more people and create more products and keep paying that underpaid, chained-to-a-desk author to keep producing material.

I am sorry, but I have no pity for authors or illustrators who actually sell their stuff. It is really easy to suggest they are on the short end, but in the end, it is typically the other way around.