This gamer hadn’t heard of Andrews McMeel Universal until yesterday. That’s when the news broke that Daniel D. Fox had landed a role there to head up their new RPG division. His exact job title is Executive Creative Director of Games, and it looks like a pretty significant publisher is getting into the space. Welcome to the industry McMeel and congratulations, Daniel!
Fox is the brains behind the very popular ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG. Just how popular is that RPG? It came 6th on the list of other fantasy RPGs at OneBookShelf in 2018. In this case, ‘other’ means sold through DrivethruRPG rather than the DMs Guild.
President and Publisher Kirsty Melville explained that Daniel would develop and acquire RPGs and related products. Got a good RPG idea? Pitch it to him.
In a statement to the press, Melville said;
With our successful track record in both print and digital puzzles and games, the world of RPGs makes sense for us as a publisher,”
Daniel’s experience in game development and digital marketing make him a perfect fit for this role.”
So what does Andrews McMeel do? For a starter, they’ll now be publishing ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG. That’s an excellent way to enter the RPG market.
Andrews McMeel is an American company that takes a creator-first approach to comics, illustrated humour and inspiration content across multi-platforms. The company was founded in 1970 and now includes GoComics.
Titles in McMeel’s are include Sarah Andersen’s Herding Cats and Cube Kid’s Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior. They run Dilbert.com.
Fox looks like an excellent hire. In addition to ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous, his day job was as Director of Client Engagement at VMLY&R. VMLY&R is a full-service marketing agency. I’m not clear how close ‘client engagement’ is to planning and strategy, but the position will certainly have given Daniel D. Fox a good view of marketing strategies, partnerships and the pain points organisations like Andrews McMeel have.
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