State of Mongoose 2010

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45806

- "There is a school of thought that says that when a recession comes along, sales of RPGs go up. In the main, that is probably true, and we certainly saw an upsurge in 2009 (indeed, we had some of our best sales months for some time in that period). However, it could not last, and the RPG market overall (with the notable exception of one company – Paizo, with their Pathfinder system) has been rather depressing. The word we would use is 'challenging.' Things always go in cycles in the hobby games market, and RPGs are on the low swing at the moment."

- "For the first time in nine years, I would advise anyone looking to launch a new RPG company to halt their plans, and wait to see what happens in the market next. Now is not a good time to launch a new company."

Many people have been unemployed for months. RPG's are  a luxury item that will quickly get culled from those people's lists, especially when the rent and food prices are both rising.

(My grocery bills have jumped, and I still buy much of the same stuff I always did. And some items have the same price, but not as much food.)

RPGs can be some of the cheapest entertainment. You can download a book for under $10 which is less than most movie tickets now. You're likely going to get more out of the book than one showing of a film.

On one hand, I see a helpful warning to future entreprenuers. On the other however, it seems like a company saying "please don't compete with us, we're already struggling as it is."

When viewed as books that give you months or years of play, RPGs are a cheap form of entertainment. Even if you go for glossy, expensive hardcovers (and there are a crapload of systems out there for free or printing costs), you can really amortise those buy-in costs. The game playing hobby is dirt cheap.

When viewed as collectibles, the per-dollar value plunges. That book habit quickly adds up if you just look at your new shinies before putting them on the shelf. The game collecting hobby is not dirt cheap.

Guess which hobby Mongoose's products tend to support.

[Note: they also published The Pocket Player's Handbook. That was a product for the game playing hobby.]

Quote from: Melan;422452When viewed as books that give you months or years of play, RPGs are a cheap form of entertainment. Even if you go for glossy, expensive hardcovers (and there are a crapload of systems out there for free or printing costs), you can really amortise those buy-in costs. The game playing hobby is dirt cheap.

When viewed as collectibles, the per-dollar value plunges. That book habit quickly adds up if you just look at your new shinies before putting them on the shelf. The game collecting hobby is not dirt cheap.

Guess which hobby Mongoose's products tend to support.

That sounds plausible, credible, but I'm not sure it stands when you test it against what's happening. Let's suppose that Paizo is currently doing really well measured against their expectations, and WotC is doing poorly measured against theirs. (We need double standards or else the argument doesn't take off at all.) But then think what the companies are doing now. Both are building on a product delivery that makes their customers subscribers. The flagship product of both companies are subscription based - Adventure Paths and DDI respectively. Both subscriptions arguably give you, the customer, many times over than what you'd need for your actual gaming. And both companies target exactly people like you. Because it's easier to please an extant customer than to win over a new one.

All that said, 4E Essentials is ALL about delivering play products. The clear focus is on 'adventures in a box, contains all you ever need (tokens, maps)' and on toolkits which, once bought, will have you wishing for little more. Still I'm unsure it works.

Hence the correlation towards 'producing for the collector fails in times of economic depression' doesn't take off.

Also, Mongoose is a special case. They've had so many people walk out on them for poor product standards that to blame the recession for it is yet another attempt for them to avoid their own blame. If one company can thrive under the recession (Paizo) I can't see why others could not. It's not as if Paizo have got the secret recipe for success. Most of what they do is mimicking WotC at the heyday of 3.5.

I will add that while I really like Runequest II and Mongoose Traveller, I don't buy supplements until I've seen reviews. Their editing has gone downhill, mainly due to them trying to publish so many books every month. And even then, they've published enough books I'm not interested in that I don't even buy all the books with good reviews.

And it ticks me off that they canceled Power Armor. That is one book I was really looking forward to. But enough grognards were bitching over on the Mongoose boards that power armor doesn't belong in Traveller, that I guess they caved.

Back in early 2010, I thought I would be on the Mongoose Runequest 2 (MRQ2) treadmill.  But after seeing the major botch job in the Arms & Equipment book, and minor botch job in the Necromancy book, I jumped off the MRQ2 treadmill just as fast.

At this point I'm already off the WotC D&D treadmill, and probably soon to jump off the Pathfinder AP treadmill.

Windjammer: Both the Pathfinder and Essential product lines try to give buyers something that will become (take over) their game. In the case of Paizo, it is the adventure path concept, in the case of WotC, it is the ready to play experience. Both are in a sense something that will largely see play, and both are in a sense disposable (they also have the advantage of discouraging you from buying into rival product lines - this is accomplished with different strategies). Not that much accumulation of excess material in the core product line - of course, you can get a lot of content out of DDI or the Pathfinder product line. The problem with collecting is that you don't really need or use what you buy. On their own, these subcriptions theoretically give you something you will use.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Quote from: ggroy;422462Back in early 2010, I thought I would be on the Mongoose Runequest 2 (MRQ2) treadmill.  But after seeing the major botch job in the Arms & Equipment book, and minor botch job in the Necromancy book, I jumped off the MRQ2 treadmill just as fast.

I suppose that I'm in a similar position, as I find Mongoose's incompetent editing exceedingly frustrating.

That said, I really like MRQII, and have a lot of respect for work of Lawrence Whitaker and Pete Nash.  The game they designed is great.  Pity the fruits of their labour have to be bruised and battered by Mongoose.

I do plan to get Nash's Vikings soon (hopefully at a post-X-mas sale).  Beyond that, though, not much from Mongoose looks tempting.

I prefer Cubicle 7's Clockwork & Chivalry line for my MRQII material.

Quote from: Akrasia;422540I suppose that I'm in a similar position, as I find Mongoose's incompetent editing exceedingly frustrating.

... and their art direction, and their printing, and their binding (sometimes - not across all lines and books).

Quote from: danbuter;422461And it ticks me off that they canceled Power Armor. That is one book I was really looking forward to. But enough grognards were bitching over on the Mongoose boards that power armor doesn't belong in Traveller, that I guess they caved.

Actually, Power Armour was cancelled because the original draft was badly flawed mechanistically and it needed rewriting from the ground up. Sadly, whilst there are more than enough troubles for us writers from the grognards, this particular occasion wasn't one of them.

Quote from: Akrasia;422540I suppose that I'm in a similar position, as I find Mongoose's incompetent editing exceedingly frustrating.

and

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke... and their art direction, and their printing, and their binding (sometimes - not across all lines and books).

I think you can guess my own sentiments...

However, to be fair, the company has been listening to the more vocal customer base and slowly changing to cater to their desires - albeit at the glacial rate of the publishing cycle. The paper quality has improved, they gave up on the in-house printing (at a significant financial loss due to the flawed equipment and offering to replace all books where the customer was unsatisfied), the RQ hardbacks are leather bound, there's no more wasted page space due to gratuitous borders, less use of eye-tiring watermarks, layout is better and so on.

That's not to say that other issues don't need improving too, but they are being worked on and with an extra editor now back at the company we shouldn't shouldn't see any more A&E or NA in the RQ line at least.

Recent releases such as Vikings and Pavis Rises are both very tight books and thus far have been well received. Hopefully, the current level of editorial competence will continue.

Art is a different matter since it is so subjective, but even there improvements are being applied in the background. It just takes a long time for suggestions and critiques to get applied to the next round of books which might be 4-5 months further down the line.

Role-playing games really are great entertainment per dollar spent. BUT, they are also the first thing on the chopping block for me when money is tight. I own enough games to keep me reading for years. And enough games to keep me playing for centuries. I just don't *need* new games.

Quote from: Akrasia;422540I prefer Cubicle 7's Clockwork & Chivalry line for my MRQII material.

Awhile ago I thought about picking up the main book for Clockwork & Chivalry (C&C).  From skimming it a few times at a gaming store, it looked semi-interesting.

But in the end I decided against jumping on the C&C treadmill.  I've only played one pickup game of MRQ2, and most likely will not play Runequest again for a long time.  I've been trying to avoid buying too many rpg books, which end up sitting on my bookshelf collecting dust for many years.

I'm toying with the idea of setting up a game shop of my own if the current trend continues and nobody employs me.

I don't make enough out of my current works.