Monte Cook on publishing a successful d20 product

[edbonny]

The article can be summed up in two phrases: good marketing strategies and enormous amounts of hype.

What you so negatively attack as marketing and hype is actually an ages-old sound and trusted business practice -- that of building strong relationships with your customers.

Why so negative on something so fundamentally good for business and equally good for customers? Do you have something against building relationships? Just curious.

 

[Odhanan]

If you are a fan of his, you think he's successful because he's a genius, he's cool, yada yada yada.

If you aren't, then it seems like there is a cult of personality-like quality to his success.

Then it seems obvious you're no fan of his, since you are overblowing something that's actually minor to non-existant. I'm speaking specifically about the pseudo-"cult of personality" you think there is.

I'm a fan of Malhavoc products, and I consider Monte's a friend. I share some tastes with him, I think the stuff he writes is usually excellent. He is talented and smart. He's the kind of person I appreciate, because he's an articulate person with some common interests and tastes. That's what I really think, and I think that's awesome he's trying out some other things now, because he has the kind of talent in my opinion that can be nurtured and lead to concrete achievements on one hand, and he has the intelligence to use his talents in efficient ways on the other.

Is he "cool"? I don't know. Can't tell. I haven't met him, and even if I did, I suspect he would be no "cooler" than any of us geeks on this board. He's a guy just like you and me. Do I agree with everything he posts or says anywhere? No, and I don't feel like I can't tell him when I don't agree on something because I admire his skills as a designer. Is he a genius? I don't know. Maybe he is, maybe not. I think it takes more than RPG publications and exchanges on the web to be able to tell if someone's a genius or not.

Now, the whole thing about "fanboys worshipping Monte" is frankly insulting. You're not a fan of his stuff, nor do you think there is anything special about the stuff he designs? Sure, you're entitled to your opinion. But bitching because some people like his stuff, and tell them that they are some kinds of retarded people who can't appreciate products without worshipping the designer like a rockstar? You're either naive (which, I must precise, I don't think is the case) or downright rude.

 

[Odhanan]

What you so negatively attack as marketing and hype is actually an ages-old sound and trusted business practice -- that of building strong relationships with your customers.

Why so negative on something so fundamentally good for business and equally good for customers? Do you have something against building relationships? Just curious.

Maybe some people feel cheated or lied to, somehow. I agree with your interrogations.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I don't think Sammael was being negative; I think he was just calling a spade a spade. Neither "hype" nor "marketing" are words Eric's Grandma can't hear.

Yes, hype is generally an irritant to those of us who get blasted with it (e.g. those who go to multiple Cons each year, those on ENWorld and other RPG industry sites, etc) but the bulk of visitors to those sites do so sporadically and don't get inundated with the info.

His marketing plan was a long term process (lots of info online, pre-release promos & vignettes, demos, design notes, etc) that targeted distributors, retailers, and end customers. He made sure to release items with enough meat that EN & other sites were justified it posting it as more than another press release. His visibility was very high.

He then followed through with product delivery. Malhavoc avoided the shotgun approach and went to release each product as a top-shelf endeavor. Compare that to Mongoose's Quintessential line with gold text on a pattern cover. AU/AE and IH are in a different category just in visual appeal.

Mongoose minimized their risk by making each unsold copy hurt the bottom line as little as possible with "good enough" production standards.

Monte maximized his return by making production quality incredibly high.

Mongoose's approach is safer, Monte's does great if you can deliver consistently. The fact that he sold 1,000 preorders of Ptolus up to a year in advance speaks to how well he had delivered in the past. And I'm confident that having ~$120,000 in revenue while the book was in development cut the stress down, allowed him to guarantee payment to artists & staff, and focus on just putting the thing together.

By hyping Malhavoc, Monte made a giant target of the company, and himself in particular. Had he not delivered good products near their predicted delivery date his rep would have tanked. Hard. Companies can easily get a bad rap from the Internet and Monte's products were, if not to everyone's taste, at least well put together, internally consistent, and generally easy to read. Plus he'd dribbled out enough info that you knew before you bought a Malhavoc if you wanted it so he didn't get the anti-press that some books (Tome of Battle *cough*) get.

 

[Cadfan]

Monte Cook also has the advantage of positioning himself as a sort of rebel against "da man." He gets to be the game designer who was good enough to work for WOTC, but who was too cool for school, and set out on his own. That way he gets the credibility of working for the pros, but the counterculture appeal of not.

I don't begrudge him his success, and I do think he produces good material. I just don't like the way so many of his fans run down WOTC. I suspect that, for most of them, if they read Monte's material and WOTC's material with the same charitability, they'd find things to be pretty balanced in terms of quality. Both are worthwhile. But... there's sort of a geek-politik thing going on. I think Monte feeds into that dynamic a bit, and I wish he didn't... but meh, he's in business so he'll do what he needs to do in order to corner the non official d20 market, which he's done handily.

 

[Mercule]

If you are a fan of his, you think he's successful because he's a genius, he's cool, yada yada yada.

If you aren't, then it seems like there is a cult of personality-like quality to his success.

Not necessarily. Having bought only Iron Heroes from Malhavoc, I would not consider myself a "fan". None-the-less, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mr. Cook. The man is an extremely good designer/developer of games. He is also very good on the business end of things. Practically everything of his that I've seen is very solid at doing what it is intended to do.

The only reason I don't have more of his goods is a) I'm not a fan of PDF, which is where he started; and 2) some of his implied setting flavor doesn't exactly tickle me (most notably, I hate the AU races -- solid design, flavor doesn't agree with me). I'm starting to think that there are a few ideas I could raid, though.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I agree ; I'm not a big fan of the anthromorphic animal PC races thing, and while I bought arcana evolved, it didn't present a big enough improvement over traditional D&D for me to justify making my players go out and buy it. So I don't think it's fair for anyone to call me a fanboy. In fact, it's downright irritating.

But Ptolus , in my opinion, just defines what a city book should be. And I ask myself, why can't WoTC, with it's massive print runs, produce a book like this? And I get back to the fact that WoTC is a corporation, and Monte is a person. And I think that accounts for a lot.

Ken

 

[Wolv0rine]

Whether you like Monte Cook/are a fan of Monte Cook, or think he's an overhyped PR success, the fact remains that while he is being truthful throughout the article on what Malhavoc did and basically how they went about it that he regularly avoids the issue overall that in the end he does have his own name (and the recognition it invokes) not only to fall back on, but to bolster (if not carry, depending on the buyer) everything he's talking about.

It'd be like Larry Elmore writing an article on how his (fictional, for the purpose of this illustration) line of art books over the past 5 years have outsold most other artists' art books while completely ignoring the fact that he could have achieved that feat by phoning in the work and just putting LARRY ELMORE on the cover.

Monte's name can sell his books even if they suck. Not to everyone, of course not, that'd be ignorant. But it carries power that his glossing over that fact belies. Sure, he put out material that he and others thought were top-shelf quality, and he used good marketing and PR strategies. But the name-power shouldn't be cast aside, and it often is.

Sure, I'm glad for him. He's done fabulously for himself and Sue. I'd hate to look like I was just taking snipe-shots. I just think it should be acknowleged that it's there and is a factor. I mean, being a factor makes it part of the success story the article was supposed to be about.

 

[Michael Dean]

Whether you like Monte Cook/are a fan of Monte Cook, or think he's an overhyped PR success, the fact remains that while he is being truthful throughout the article on what Malhavoc did and basically how they went about it that he regularly avoids the issue overall that in the end he does have his own name (and the recognition it invokes) not only to fall back on, but to bolster (if not carry, depending on the buyer) everything he's talking about.

I agree with you up to a point. However, the fact is that AU and Ptolus were marketed darn near perfectly, Ptolus especially. I was initially in the "No way am I spending $120 on a rpg book" camp. I had bought AU but hadn't played it much (although it was very good), so I wasn't exactly a fanboy. But I did follow the promotion of Ptolus throughout the year, liked what I saw, and was first in line at Gen Con to get a copy. Monte does a terrific job of building interest and anticipation for a product.

I am also curious why WOTC has not or will not come up with a similar product as Ptolus. They have the marketing, and I can't believe Ptolus is not going to be a huge profit maker for Monte. At a guess, maybe the amount of time it would take to develop something on that scale would take away too much from developing other projects. Although after reading the last few reviews on WOTC products, they certainly seem to be saving a lot of money on editing! I can only cringe thinking of the size of the errata document for something like Ptolus if Wizards had written it.

 

[Christoph the Magus]

Eh. The article overestimates the quality of the PR campaign and underestimates the value of the name "Monte Cooke", IMO. As other posters have said, the "advice" in the article is pretty useless to someone without Monte's name recognition. I mean, a product of similar size, scope, and quality could follow the marketing pattern and easily be a huge flop, simply because the author was "John Smith" instead of Monte Cooke.

Kudos on the great sales and all, but let's not set ourselves up as "marketing wizards" before looking at all of the factors involved.