Fantasy Flight Games plans to announce the acquisition of the Lord of the Rings board game license (formerly held by Wizards of the Coast), with distribution to be handled exclusively by Alliance Game Distributors and Diamond Comic Distributors.

The 'Comics' and 'Toy' categories got very competitive in May with the successful debut of Marvel's revamped X-Men titles and the release of new Simpsons and Tomb Raider toys.

Trends that we have seen during the first quarter, such as the increasing dominance of the DVD format, the overall sales importance of high ticket items, and the continuing reign of CCGs are even more apparent in the April numbers.

White Wolf Publishing has entered into an agreement to publish Fiery Dragon's line of d20 roleplaying games.

Dragonball has regained its position on top of the Lycos survey of most popular Internet searches.

Corsair Publishing, LLC is preparing to launch Campaign Magazine , which will focus on the d20 system, with original material, news, reviews, and previews.

In its first quarter report issued late last month, Hasbro reported a quarterly loss of $25 million, far worse than Wall Street estimates, and attributed the shortfall to rapidly falling sales of the Pokemon CCG.

In an open letter addressed to 'Friends of Magic' and posted on the Wizards of the Coast website, Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering , announced that he is stepping down to concentrate on personal interests.

Sovereign Stone , a fantasy-roleplaying world created by artist Larry Elmore and fleshed out fictionally by the best-selling novelists Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, is abandoning its current game-playing system in favor of the d20 system, which has been made available to third party creators by Wizards of the Coast.

Magazine publisher H& S Media has cancelled its monthly 'unofficial' Pokemon magazine, Pojo's Pokemon , which was selling 500,000 copies per month, primarily via newsstand distribution, at the height of the Pocket Monsters craze.