EGG, TSR: GDW got a good portion of the money out of the investment it made in DJ, or at least that is what Loren and Frank's press release said. What couldn't be replaced was the wasted time. As you have indicated elsewhere, that was in constant short supply or more precious than gold.
Freelancers: All the joys of cat herding combined with the efficiency of 19th century strip mining. Still, it wasn't like hiring at least another couple of staff members full time to work on Traveller was ever going to happen. Even if it had, CCGs... :-P
Children of Earth: Looking back 20 years later, I really didn't do a good job selling it to you. Certainly my initial presentation could have been much better. But ultimately unless you bought the essential premise, that you could do a story in which religion *may* be a central theme in a sci-fi setting, and it could hold together without becoming "jihadists in space" (actually I was aiming more for the Spanish in the New World during the Age of Exploration), then none of the other cool stuff associated with it mattered. For what it's worth though, I never saw the Terrans marching relentless out in all directions conquering the Universe. Indeed, I saw the storyline developing such that I wanted to avoid contact between the RC and the Terrans as long as possible, and then it would have been the sort encounter where the RC would not be particularly impressed with the Terrans, nor the Terrans all that interested in contact with "Hiver client states". The Terrans focus would be firmly rimward and on the Dingir League spinward, oh and whatever was going on trailing in the area simply known as "The Abyss" (around Cymbeline). Ultimately the Terrans would have certainly showed up for the final big showdown with whatever was behind the Black Curtain, but they were more a replacement for the Solomani Confederation in the end, not co-founders of any new Imperium.
The Stars: You did what you could. Ultimately it's hard to have an intelligent conversation with the detractors on the issue when they think a 'M6D' means that the star is a red dwarf (no, that's a M6V) or a brown dwarf (no, those have a different designation) or they get that 'D' means white dwarf, but don't understand that a white dwarf that dim would be very, very rare, not the most common star on the bloody star map.
Kevin Knight: I think he had the best of intentions, but he clearly wasn't ready to make the transition from being a wrangler of freelancers and journal publisher to being a full time publisher of sourcebooks. Heck, I even toyed with the idea of taking over Kevin's magazine and doing some TNE manuals when I was sort of between jobs, and even found an investor. When we looked over the numbers after the license fee though...nope. Publishing in that era and making money at it was hard--too hard ultimately for GDW, TSR, Avalon Hill, and a number of other major industry players. Publishing when you don't own the copyright? That would have been the real science-fiction. I'm still trying to figure out how the market dynamics changed to make it doable again...or maybe they haven't and people who want to publish just find a way.
Freelancers: All the joys of cat herding combined with the efficiency of 19th century strip mining. Still, it wasn't like hiring at least another couple of staff members full time to work on Traveller was ever going to happen. Even if it had, CCGs... :-P
Children of Earth: Looking back 20 years later, I really didn't do a good job selling it to you. Certainly my initial presentation could have been much better. But ultimately unless you bought the essential premise, that you could do a story in which religion *may* be a central theme in a sci-fi setting, and it could hold together without becoming "jihadists in space" (actually I was aiming more for the Spanish in the New World during the Age of Exploration), then none of the other cool stuff associated with it mattered. For what it's worth though, I never saw the Terrans marching relentless out in all directions conquering the Universe. Indeed, I saw the storyline developing such that I wanted to avoid contact between the RC and the Terrans as long as possible, and then it would have been the sort encounter where the RC would not be particularly impressed with the Terrans, nor the Terrans all that interested in contact with "Hiver client states". The Terrans focus would be firmly rimward and on the Dingir League spinward, oh and whatever was going on trailing in the area simply known as "The Abyss" (around Cymbeline). Ultimately the Terrans would have certainly showed up for the final big showdown with whatever was behind the Black Curtain, but they were more a replacement for the Solomani Confederation in the end, not co-founders of any new Imperium.
The Stars: You did what you could. Ultimately it's hard to have an intelligent conversation with the detractors on the issue when they think a 'M6D' means that the star is a red dwarf (no, that's a M6V) or a brown dwarf (no, those have a different designation) or they get that 'D' means white dwarf, but don't understand that a white dwarf that dim would be very, very rare, not the most common star on the bloody star map.
Kevin Knight: I think he had the best of intentions, but he clearly wasn't ready to make the transition from being a wrangler of freelancers and journal publisher to being a full time publisher of sourcebooks. Heck, I even toyed with the idea of taking over Kevin's magazine and doing some TNE manuals when I was sort of between jobs, and even found an investor. When we looked over the numbers after the license fee though...nope. Publishing in that era and making money at it was hard--too hard ultimately for GDW, TSR, Avalon Hill, and a number of other major industry players. Publishing when you don't own the copyright? That would have been the real science-fiction. I'm still trying to figure out how the market dynamics changed to make it doable again...or maybe they haven't and people who want to publish just find a way.