Author: Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

RIP WizKids Games

Posted on By Wil

The shit ass economy claims another victim, and this one will hit close to home for a lot of geeks. Topps announced that “WizKids will immediately cease operations and discontinue its product lines.“

Allow me to be the first to say (on this blog, anyway) well, shit.

WizKids Games is an awesome company. They’re best known for their Heroclix and Horrorclix games, but my personal favorite is their Pirates game. Pirates packs an entire game into something the size of a pack of trading cards, including Dinky Dungeons-esque dice. It’s really fun to play, and scales well with gamers of varying experience levels.

HeroClix and HorrorClix are really fun tabletop minis games that take all the bookkeeping and stats of a wargame and put them right into the base of the figures. I got Nolan into 40K via HeroClix when he was in 6th or 7th grade, and I’ve heard similar tales from countless other Geekdads. As I write this, a HorrorClix Great Cthulhu sits on top of the bookcase behind me, keeping watch over everything I do, ready to devour me if I ever slack off.

I don’t know anything about the business behind this decision, but I wonder if this has more to do with Topps consolidating and returning a focus to trading cards, instead of WizKids’ games not selling well or enjoying popularity among gamers. In fact, I kind of hope that’s the case. According to GeekDad, “Topps will immediately pursue strategic alternatives so that viable brands and properties, including HeroClix, can continue without noticeable disruption.” Hopefully, gamers won’t experience much of a disruption, but I’m sure the people who work at WizKids and lost their jobs will notice one, and that sucks. I’ve been lucky enough to meet several WizKids employees, and they’re all great people.

I hope that WizKids will find a way to stay together and keep putting out their unique games, not only because they’re fun on their own, but because they are perfect entry points for GamerDads like me, who have a vested interest in creating the capital-G Gamers of tomorrow.

I Propelled this story earlier today. If you’re a propeller member, would you Prop it for me?

Spot Us: community funded reporting

Posted on By Wil

My fellow Propeller Scout, David Cohn, founded something awesome that I think everyone should check out. It’s a project called Spot Us:

Spot.Us is a nonprofit project of the Center for Media Change. We are an open source project, to pioneer “community funded reporting.” Through Spot.Us the public can commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. All donations are tax deductible and if a news organization buys exclusive rights to the content, your donation will be reimbursed. Otherwise, all content is made available to all through a Creative Commons license. It’s a marketplace where independent reporters, community members and news organizations can come together and collaborate.

Ever since I started my first lame Where’s My Burrito? website and weblog, I’ve been excited by the potential we have in the 21st century to use the immediacy and ubiquity of the internets to deliver a serious challenge to the status quo. I can’t wait to see what happens with Spot Us and the people it inspires over the coming months.

who’s gonna drive you home tonight?

Posted on By Wil

Anne and I took Nolan out to Glendale tonight for this art thing he likes to do. After we dropped him off, Anne said, “Hey, I want to have a dinner date with my husband.”

Bonus, unexpected dinner dates are always awesome, so I didn’t even put up token resistance, and we had an awesome meal together while Nolan did his thing a few blocks away.

When we were finished, Nolan met us in the parking garage, and wanted to drive home. He’s had his permit for about 5 weeks, and though he’s a very competent and careful driver, we were both a little nervous about letting him drive on the freeway at night.

“You’ve never driven on the freeway at night,” Anne said. “Maybe we should just take side streets.”

“But the freeway is much faster, and we have Family Guy on TiVo at home,” Nolan said.

“We’re concerned that you don’t have a lot of nighttime freeway driving experience,” she said, invoking the dreaded Royal We.

He put his hand on my shoulder and quite seriously said, “Wil, how am I going to get that experience if I don’t drive on the freeway at night?”

I looked at Anne. “He has a point,” I said.

I felt like The Old Man, the keys to my car a Red Rider Carbine Action Range Model Air Rifle With A Compass In The Stock And This Thing That Tells Time.

“Okay, just be careful,” Anne said. I can’t be certain, but I think I heard her add, “just don’t shoot your eye out.”

A few minutes later, as we drove down the freeway, I sat quietly and gently nudged Nolan with driving reminders. He’s really quite good, and I didn’t have to point out too many things to him, but on one ramp, one of those spiffy milk carton-looking Scions sped up and cut in front of us without using a turn indicator.

“You’ve got to watch for drivers like that,” I said, “and remember my fundamental rule of driving, which is . . .? “

Nolan scrunched up his face like he was thinking, and said, “Don’t be a dick?”

“That’s my fundamental rule for life,” I said. “My fundamental rule for driving is –“

“Oh, everyone on the road is an idiot, and they’re actively trying to kill you.” He said.

“That’s the one,” I said.

“I got it,” he said.

“But, you know, you can use them both,” I said.

“Okay, Wil,” he said, patiently. “I got it.”

“If you need them,” I added.

“I’m trying to drive here, Wil.” He said.

“Sorry.”