Hi guys,
Sitting here stuffed full of beef (no turkey this year, just what seemed like half a cow), now is a good a time as any to look back over the past 12 months and wonder what the New Year has to bring to this hobby and industry of ours.
This time last year, people were singing the death of d20 - in fact, they had been doing that for a few months. Sales are plummeting, they cried, companies will consolidate or simply go under.
Never happened, did it?
Some of what they preached was true, no doubt. All but four or five publishers regularly producing d20 books and supplements felt their sales squeezed to the absolute limit. You have all heard of the three month cycle whereby a company releases a book and gains the vast majority of its sales in the first month, a few hundred (at best) in the second, a few dozen in the third and then absolutely nothing thereafter. Throughout 2003 there were many companies who suddenly found themselves selling less (way less) than a thousand copies on the first month of release whereas previously they may have enjoyed two or three times that amount. With their three month cycle rapidly crunching into a two month cycle, existing projects became impossible to fund and any ideas of full-time staff went out of the window. As an interesting exercise, look at how the advertising in Dragon today differs from that 12 months ago. . .
Simply put, there were too many companies all chasing after the centre ground (the oft-quoted slicing of the pie) and those that tried to distance themselves found, in the main part, their ideas were too niche-like to attract a large enough interest to support them anyway.
So where are all the consolidations? On various forums, there have been announcements of people formerly working apart now teaming up. However, this is all it tends to be - individuals aligning themselves to a better known name or company in order to get better coverage or navigate the publishing process a little easier, not true consolidation in this sense. For our part, I have lost track of the number of companies we have spoken to this year looking to be bailed out of financial trouble. The thing was, we could never make the numbers work when it came down to sorting out a deal, and it began to be amusing how many people automatically gravitated to 'one million Dollars' when asked what they believed their company was worth That was the stumbling block, time and again. When someone has put their heart and soul into their company and then gets offered just a few thousand, it is hard for them to not become offended. In the reality of business, however, that may be all their company was worth. Other deals can be made, of course - more than a few were confident that they could make their business work if they had access to the same distribution channels as Mongoose. All well and good, but we were looking for companies and individuals who did not have to dilute our own distribution to make things work, or we would just be taking bread out of our own hands. So, no consolidations for us.
Then all these companies just disappeared, right? Wrong! One in particular (whom I will not name in case of any embarrassment) did a damn good job of not only completely reinventing his company, but began making serious headway in the face of _massive_ debts. This was the kind of debt that most RPG companies would be happy to have in terms of an annual turnover. However, he readjusted his position, had a good think about things and now has emerged as strong as he has ever appeared to be. My friend, I wish I could name you - sterling work!
The others contracted their dreams somewhat and settled with the idea that they would not be rivalling WotC in 5 years time. Many went back to work - most of the d20-only companies you have known since the licence was released are now part-time concerns with just one or two individuals running them in the evenings and weekends. Herein lies the secret of the lack of hordes of d20 companies being thrown to the wall. As soon as you lose your staff and, indeed, no longer have to find a monthly wage for yourself, your company instantly becomes streamlined. In fact, the largest bill you will face will be from the printers and if you are only thinking about softbacks with print runs of 1,500 or less, these bills will be for just a few thousand Dollars ($2-3k maximum). All of a sudden, cashflow problems can be answered by a credit card or that monthly income from a full-time job. And so disappears a vast quantity of stress. . .
There will never be a huge crash of companies in an industry/hobby such as this one, simply because there will always be room for tiny publishers to be run as an extension of the hobby for their owners, and they will always have their fans. That is the absolute nature of the RPG market, it always has been and, unless someone comes up with an idea of how to make the games purely mainstream, it always will be. There will be a few out there who will not like to hear this - sorry, but these guys will be staying in the industry for a good many years yet - they enjoy it!
This time last year there were many debates and theories that (after all the other companies had fallen) just 4-5 companies would remain to prop up the frontline of the d20 market - that battle was being fought in 2002. . .
There also seemed to be far less disputes between companies in 2003, at least as far as I am aware. One publisher did tell me to take a stick out of my bottom (!) but that was the only fracas that springs to mind. The industry as a whole seems a little quieter now, with everyone beavering away on their own projects and being less interested (though no less watchful) about the activities of competitors.
So, what about 2004? What can we expect there? Loads of RPG companies going to the wall in the face of financial ruin? Ah, no. . .
Diversification. That will be the watchword for 2004, I think. Companies will think to themselves 'you know, this d20 thing was pretty cool - what can we do now?' D20 books will continue to sell, of course, as there will always be a home for them. Babylon 5, for example, has had absolutely ballistic sales but even if Mongoose had not released that line, the last six months would still have been our best ever in terms of sales - there are plenty of guys out there who still hunger for d20 material. But companies who have traditionally been d20-only will begin to move away. The OGL rulebooks you are seeing now (which we have started doing as well, of course) are just the start of that. Companies will begin developing their own RPG systems, in part to separate themselves from d20 as a whole but also to carve their own unique niche in the market.
They will begin looking at publishing in other avenues - related to RPGs to begin with but gradually moving outwards. After all, it takes a lot less hassle to lay out a novel than it does a typical RPG supplement. The trick is to be able to crack new markets Expect to see existing d20 publishers move into card games, board games and such like or, at least, expect them to plan it. Funding may be a problem - see above.
Core concepts will be revitalised and reinvigorated - you will see some material come out in 2004 that will have firm roots in books of past years. Again, nothing new in that concept for RPGs in general, but fairly new for d20. However, there will also be a lot of very new and very cool stuff to walk alongside the familiar faces. Think that you have every d20 book you could ever need already? There will be a whole bunch of new 'must-haves' by the time Gen Con rolls on next year.
The 'Licence Wars', if they ever existed, are more or less over. Funnily enough, there has only ever been one time we approached a company to grab a licence, only to find out a certain other publisher had already pinched it. New licences will arrive in 2004 of course (all hail to Conan in January!) but there is a certain type of licence that just seems to 'work' with RPGs, and grabbing the latest and greatest IPs will never cut it (there are, of course, exceptions to that). No company in its right mind will pay for the rights to do a Terminator RPG. However, I think you will see some familiar faces from other industries making their way into RPGs over 2004.
As for the Mongoose, well I'll make a little post in the next couple of weeks that will, more or less, cover our complete plans for 2004. New books, new lines, new staff (a familiar face or two - we are flying someone over from the US tomorrow to hammer out a deal), and lots of gaming goodness. However, I'll leave you with this, as much as many of you will hate me for it. . .
It was about this time last year (give or take a few months) that I announced the coming of a big licence. I gave a deadline for a further announcement revealing the game and that duly flew past. The game, of course, was Babylon 5, and the trouble was that we had been promised a contract and deadline to announce by a certain large company but legal and logistical problems at their end served to spanner our plans up - such is the life of a licensee! I really was not trying to drag things out. . .
However, at this minute, right now sitting on my desk, is another contract. From a different company. And I know this one actually exists, it is right there in black and white. I am told I can announce this in a couple of weeks time (Ha!) and I can say now that I truly believe this will do better for us than anything we have done before. It is going to be good. Really. And we will be all over this licence **Ducks**
Enough of my prattlings. Remember, these are just my views as I see them, sitting here in Mongoose Hall stuffed with food and drink (and plainly not enough of the latter).
Everyone will have their own opinion on these topics and there is absolutely no reason why you should listen to mine!
Sitting here stuffed full of beef (no turkey this year, just what seemed like half a cow), now is a good a time as any to look back over the past 12 months and wonder what the New Year has to bring to this hobby and industry of ours.
This time last year, people were singing the death of d20 - in fact, they had been doing that for a few months. Sales are plummeting, they cried, companies will consolidate or simply go under.
Never happened, did it?
Some of what they preached was true, no doubt. All but four or five publishers regularly producing d20 books and supplements felt their sales squeezed to the absolute limit. You have all heard of the three month cycle whereby a company releases a book and gains the vast majority of its sales in the first month, a few hundred (at best) in the second, a few dozen in the third and then absolutely nothing thereafter. Throughout 2003 there were many companies who suddenly found themselves selling less (way less) than a thousand copies on the first month of release whereas previously they may have enjoyed two or three times that amount. With their three month cycle rapidly crunching into a two month cycle, existing projects became impossible to fund and any ideas of full-time staff went out of the window. As an interesting exercise, look at how the advertising in Dragon today differs from that 12 months ago. . .Simply put, there were too many companies all chasing after the centre ground (the oft-quoted slicing of the pie) and those that tried to distance themselves found, in the main part, their ideas were too niche-like to attract a large enough interest to support them anyway.
So where are all the consolidations? On various forums, there have been announcements of people formerly working apart now teaming up. However, this is all it tends to be - individuals aligning themselves to a better known name or company in order to get better coverage or navigate the publishing process a little easier, not true consolidation in this sense. For our part, I have lost track of the number of companies we have spoken to this year looking to be bailed out of financial trouble. The thing was, we could never make the numbers work when it came down to sorting out a deal, and it began to be amusing how many people automatically gravitated to 'one million Dollars' when asked what they believed their company was worth
That was the stumbling block, time and again. When someone has put their heart and soul into their company and then gets offered just a few thousand, it is hard for them to not become offended. In the reality of business, however, that may be all their company was worth. Other deals can be made, of course - more than a few were confident that they could make their business work if they had access to the same distribution channels as Mongoose. All well and good, but we were looking for companies and individuals who did not have to dilute our own distribution to make things work, or we would just be taking bread out of our own hands. So, no consolidations for us.Then all these companies just disappeared, right? Wrong! One in particular (whom I will not name in case of any embarrassment) did a damn good job of not only completely reinventing his company, but began making serious headway in the face of _massive_ debts. This was the kind of debt that most RPG companies would be happy to have in terms of an annual turnover. However, he readjusted his position, had a good think about things and now has emerged as strong as he has ever appeared to be. My friend, I wish I could name you - sterling work!
The others contracted their dreams somewhat and settled with the idea that they would not be rivalling WotC in 5 years time. Many went back to work - most of the d20-only companies you have known since the licence was released are now part-time concerns with just one or two individuals running them in the evenings and weekends. Herein lies the secret of the lack of hordes of d20 companies being thrown to the wall. As soon as you lose your staff and, indeed, no longer have to find a monthly wage for yourself, your company instantly becomes streamlined. In fact, the largest bill you will face will be from the printers and if you are only thinking about softbacks with print runs of 1,500 or less, these bills will be for just a few thousand Dollars ($2-3k maximum). All of a sudden, cashflow problems can be answered by a credit card or that monthly income from a full-time job. And so disappears a vast quantity of stress. . .
There will never be a huge crash of companies in an industry/hobby such as this one, simply because there will always be room for tiny publishers to be run as an extension of the hobby for their owners, and they will always have their fans. That is the absolute nature of the RPG market, it always has been and, unless someone comes up with an idea of how to make the games purely mainstream, it always will be. There will be a few out there who will not like to hear this - sorry, but these guys will be staying in the industry for a good many years yet - they enjoy it!
This time last year there were many debates and theories that (after all the other companies had fallen) just 4-5 companies would remain to prop up the frontline of the d20 market - that battle was being fought in 2002. . .
There also seemed to be far less disputes between companies in 2003, at least as far as I am aware. One publisher did tell me to take a stick out of my bottom (!) but that was the only fracas that springs to mind. The industry as a whole seems a little quieter now, with everyone beavering away on their own projects and being less interested (though no less watchful) about the activities of competitors.
So, what about 2004? What can we expect there? Loads of RPG companies going to the wall in the face of financial ruin? Ah, no. . .
Diversification. That will be the watchword for 2004, I think. Companies will think to themselves 'you know, this d20 thing was pretty cool - what can we do now?' D20 books will continue to sell, of course, as there will always be a home for them. Babylon 5, for example, has had absolutely ballistic sales but even if Mongoose had not released that line, the last six months would still have been our best ever in terms of sales - there are plenty of guys out there who still hunger for d20 material. But companies who have traditionally been d20-only will begin to move away. The OGL rulebooks you are seeing now (which we have started doing as well, of course) are just the start of that. Companies will begin developing their own RPG systems, in part to separate themselves from d20 as a whole but also to carve their own unique niche in the market.
They will begin looking at publishing in other avenues - related to RPGs to begin with but gradually moving outwards. After all, it takes a lot less hassle to lay out a novel than it does a typical RPG supplement. The trick is to be able to crack new markets
Expect to see existing d20 publishers move into card games, board games and such like or, at least, expect them to plan it. Funding may be a problem - see above.Core concepts will be revitalised and reinvigorated - you will see some material come out in 2004 that will have firm roots in books of past years. Again, nothing new in that concept for RPGs in general, but fairly new for d20. However, there will also be a lot of very new and very cool stuff to walk alongside the familiar faces. Think that you have every d20 book you could ever need already? There will be a whole bunch of new 'must-haves' by the time Gen Con rolls on next year.
The 'Licence Wars', if they ever existed, are more or less over. Funnily enough, there has only ever been one time we approached a company to grab a licence, only to find out a certain other publisher had already pinched it. New licences will arrive in 2004 of course (all hail to Conan in January!) but there is a certain type of licence that just seems to 'work' with RPGs, and grabbing the latest and greatest IPs will never cut it (there are, of course, exceptions to that). No company in its right mind will pay for the rights to do a Terminator RPG. However, I think you will see some familiar faces from other industries making their way into RPGs over 2004.
As for the Mongoose, well I'll make a little post in the next couple of weeks that will, more or less, cover our complete plans for 2004. New books, new lines, new staff (a familiar face or two - we are flying someone over from the US tomorrow to hammer out a deal), and lots of gaming goodness. However, I'll leave you with this, as much as many of you will hate me for it. . .
It was about this time last year (give or take a few months) that I announced the coming of a big licence. I gave a deadline for a further announcement revealing the game and that duly flew past. The game, of course, was Babylon 5, and the trouble was that we had been promised a contract and deadline to announce by a certain large company but legal and logistical problems at their end served to spanner our plans up - such is the life of a licensee! I really was not trying to drag things out. . .
However, at this minute, right now sitting on my desk, is another contract. From a different company. And I know this one actually exists, it is right there in black and white. I am told I can announce this in a couple of weeks time (Ha!) and I can say now that I truly believe this will do better for us than anything we have done before. It is going to be good. Really. And we will be all over this licence
**Ducks**Enough of my prattlings. Remember, these are just my views as I see them, sitting here in Mongoose Hall stuffed with food and drink (and plainly not enough of the latter).
Everyone will have their own opinion on these topics and there is absolutely no reason why you should listen to mine!
