Most Transformers fans consider the second season to be the high water mark of the series.

Vivendi Universal's Vu Games has announced the upcoming launch of Lord of the Rings: Middle Earth Online , a massively multi-player online roleplaying game (MMORPG) based on the Tolkien works.

A controversy has erupted over the sealed 'mature content' sections of Dragon #300, prompted by the arrival of the first subscription copies in mailboxes last week. R etailers, distributors, publishers, and creators have in turn attacked and defended its publication.

Dragon #300 was noteworthy not only for the milestone issue number, but also because new Dragon publisher Paizo Publishing included sealed sections of 'mature' content in the most recent issues of Dungeon and Dragon . Here Paizo president Johnny Wilson talks about the decision.

Wizards of the Coast announced new details of its agreement with Sovereign Press of Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The Dragonlance Campaign Setting hardcover to be published by WotC next summer will be written by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin of Sovereign Press.

In a press release from Gen Con LLC, which is run by ex-WotC honcho Peter Adkison, the company announced new Gen Con conventions for 2003. In addition to the 'original' Gen Con, there will also be a Gen Con Europe (which replaces Gen Con UK), as well as a Gen Con So Cal.

Diamond Book Distributors announced the hiring of Doug White as a Sales Manager. White comes to Diamond from Holtzbrinck Publishers, the company that markets Wizards of the Coast's role-playing games and books to the traditional bookstores.

Two other game companies have also reduced staff recently. Interactive Imagination has gone through a 'restructuring,' and, living up to its name, Cheapass Games has laid off its sales and marketing staff,...

Wizards of the Coast has eliminated 60 employees as part of a company-wide reorganization. While t he layoffs are quite wide-spread (ranging from senior VPs to game designers with considerable experience including Jeff Grubb and J.D. Wiker), the number of positions eliminated represents only 6% of WOTC's approximately 1000 employees.

The Spider-Man film spurred increased sales of Spider-Man merchandise, a track record that will easily justify additional outreach efforts synchronized with the wallcrawler's video release on Nov.2.