Forums of the Megaverse®

After Kevin retires or God forbid dies anytime soon. What is going to happen to Palladium Books? Is it going to shut down? Is their someone chosen to take the reigns and advance the company into the future?

Lukterran wrote:After Kevin retires or God forbid dies anytime soon. What is going to happen to Palladium Books? Is it going to shut down? Is their someone chosen to take the reigns and advance the company into the future?

I don't really have an answer, no one (well maybe Kevin, but I don't think so) really knows. I even heard this question asked at the last POH with Kevin not giving a real answer.

However,

I have a few theories, most of which involve him leaving his rights to the company. I don't know if there is someone designated as VP of the company or if all the remaining employees would vote and rule by executive committee.

1. They might try to carry on without him. (How successful this would be is uncertain.)
2. They might sell to a larger game company like Steve Jackson Games (Kev has known him for years, so I see this as the most likely possibility)
3. They might sell of their individual IPs. (Rifts would be sold to WOTC, Dead Reign would be sold to Pazio, Beyond the Supernatual would be sold to White Wolf, ect.)
4. The company could go public (this one I view as the least likely). As a public company, individuals could by stock in Palladium. Palladium would now be owned by the fans! (or other individuals simply looking for an investment.)
5. (Sadly, and probably the most likely) Palladium would simply fold. Their remaining assets would be liquidated to pay off the company's debts and any remainder would probably be divided among the Palladium staff as severance pay.

I can't remember if Kevin has answered this publicly, so I won't relay what I know of said answer here. However, I do know that there is a plan for who owns the company when Mr. Siembieda passes (which is hopefully quite a long time from now).

Well the only thing I can recall is that he planned to pass it on to his son. I don't know how accurate that is though. One thing I'm willing to bet though is that no company's going to seriously consider purchasing PB while the fecal storm that is RTT is ongoing. They may purchase individual IPs though, but even then there's only a few that could be considered unique enough to go after.