Wow.

[thebitterguy]

Jordan Weisman's termination agreement with Topps.

They have right of first refusal on anything he develops, and he gets 2% royalty on a Star Wars game. Star Wars game?

Comments

[kinra.livejournal.com]

So much for that whole Battletech thing.

[adamjury.livejournal.com]

Well, WizKids still included MechWarrior in their list of top brands in the reorganization press release (http://gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=21450), and BattleTech is basically just a sublicense of MechWarrior, in WizKids' eyes.

This might be one of those "Well - yes.. Duh..." questions...

[papajoemambo.livejournal.com]

...but am I right in thinking that Topps owns WizKids?

Re: This might be one of those "Well - yes.. Duh..." questions...

[adamjury.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Re: This might be one of those "Well - yes.. Duh..." questions...

[papajoemambo.livejournal.com]

Excellent, thanks.

Re: This might be one of those "Well - yes.. Duh..." questions...

[thebitterguy]

Does WK/Topps still own the P&P rights for SR & Battletech? Or are they held by a third party?

Re: This might be one of those "Well - yes.. Duh..." questions...

[adamjury.livejournal.com]

They own SR and BT, yes, except for the computer game rights, which MS owns.

Re: This might be one of those "Well - yes.. Duh..." questions...

[thebitterguy]

Hm. I wonder if there's any clauses regarding that in case WK gets shut down (God Forbid) and Topps ends up just sitting on them.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

seem to remember reading that part of the reason for shuffling JW's job position was to allow him a chance to be creative again by unburdening him of all the business responsibilities and decisions.

Jordan Weisman still works for WizKids (owned by Topps) as far as I know.

What I did find interesting is the utter lack of mention of the recent organization changes and layoffs online when punching the publically traded company *Topps* into Google. All you get is mention that Topps is a baseball and sports trading card company (revenues last year of $375 million),and that last Saturday was National Baseball Day.

As WizKids was purchased in July 2003 for a mere 28.5 million in cash (mostly for reasons of the constructible card game "Pirates of the Carribean") this shuffle is more interesting to gamers than to the larger business industry.

::B::