Hi Modiphius Community,
Just curious how this company goes about acquiring the rights to some existing content?
I’d love Planet of the Apes or Children of Time type settings, but unsure how yall go about developing such content.
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I know for the Dune IP Legendary went out to the market as at least one non-Modiphius publisher expressed interest (but didn’t get it obviously).
I suspect it was similar for Star Trek and Star Wars as they are both established IPs with historical RPGS to their name.
For others I think Modiphius has reached out to the IP owners with a proposal. I would be surprised if the Pratchett Estate had been actively looking to get an RPG made at the moment. (I may be mistaken)
Of the two mentioned Planet of the Apes is a Fox/Disney IP, they will have a team for non-film monetisation of the IP. Given it is currently being kickstarted by Magnetic Press Play I suspect that they reached out first as they aren’t a big player.
The Official Role-Playing Game of the PLANET OF THE APES by Magnetic Press Play — Kickstarter
For Children of Time as it is a small IP so unless it has a very driven author who knows of RPGs it would be entirely on the publishers side.
Even Ben Aaronovitch, who is a Roleplayer themselves, didn’t think to reach out before Chaosium asked him about Rivers of London.
Then that one day came when Lynne Hardy approached me at Waterstones in Newcastle and said she represented Chaosium, legendary creators of Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon , and Elric , amongst others, and would I like to talk about doing a Rivers of London RPG.
(Side note I read up on Children of Time and I think some of my players would run a mile screaming “Exterminatus!” if I introduced them to it 
)
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Thanks! Very thoughtful answer and gives me a lot of information to move forward with.
They can also make independent IPs, either out of whole cloth or inspired by existing IPs (e.g. the Cthulhu mythos, or Dreams & Machines, which not having read any materials for looks like a ‘we didn’t get the rights to Horizon Zero Dawn so we’ll make our own’ RPG).
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