State of Mongoose 2008... with an interesting note about 4th edition

[frankthedm]

Not only is the climate different for 3rd party publishers, but the US is also in a recession at the moment. 3e was released around the height of the dot com bubble.

Indeed!

Also since everyone had to wait for months before 3rd party books hit the market, a good deal of impulse purchases never happened. By the time mongoose could sell their splat, plenty of folks had bought their 4E books and used them.

This means plenty of folks had said no thanks to 4E long before the mongoose books were available. Also DMs had plenty of time to understand the balances in the system to be apprehensive of splat material. Not to mention I hear some DM's had longstanding bans on Mongoose material.

 

[Obryn]

Mongoose does best when they are completely doing their own thing, or close to it, imho.

Conan? Brilliant. Paranoia XP? Incredible. Runequest... well, not really my cup of tea, but apparently successful.

Their generic D&D supplements were iffy at best. The Quintessential series was largely garbage, IIRC.

I'm really not surprised if their (neat-sounding but mechanics-light) setting isn't doing so well... And I didn't even know Quintessential Wizard existed, to be honest.

-O

 

[Darrin Drader]

The one thing about Matt is that you can count on him to give it to you straight about the business. When they take a lump, he owns up to it and talks about how they're going to fix it. When they do something right, he isn't afraid to proclaim it loudly. He also has a reputation for being absolutely mercenary in terms of trying new stuff. Some gambles succeed, others don't. The only horse he has in this race is on the side of 4E, not against it.

At any rate, Matt and I get much of our information from the same source, and his statement is consistent with everything I've read. It holds up regardless of how his company's sales on those few products have been.

 

[JVisgaitis]

And I didn't even know Quintessential Wizard existed, to be honest.

I was going to bring that up, but I thought it was just me. I know the Quintessential series sold tons of copies for them in the 3.x era. I wonder if it's a lack of marketing?

 

[Aristotle]

I'm fairly sure they are talking about their own 4e sales. That makes sense enough to me. I've purchased everything WotC has put out for 4e (except the adventures) but I haven't touched a third party book for it.

I love 4e (or at least major components of it), I'm going to keep buying and playing it, but I'm afraid the state of the GSL is making it much harder for the sort of products I'd buy from a third party to exist... and it has chased away most of the major players who I count on to bring them to market. I really like the game that 4e is, but I'm not all that hopeful that it'll ever be the game I think it might have been.

 

[Psion]

Their generic D&D supplements were iffy at best. The Quintessential series was largely garbage, IIRC.

Absolutely. You should distance yourself from whoever wrote utter rubbish like 3e Quintessential Wizard or Rogue.

 

[Hussar]

I don't know about regulations limiting telling the public the number of subscriptions. In the print version, they had to do it every year. But, besides that, look at all the websites that talk about the number of subscribers they have. WOW doesn't keep their subscription numbers secret, nor do most MMO's that I can think of. Heck, even En World on its front page trumpets that it has 70 k subscribers.

What SEC problems would there be in stating how many subscribers you have?

 

[DaveMage]

absolutely. You should distance yourself from whoever wrote utter rubbish like 3e quintessential wizard or rogue.

lol!!!!

 

[Darrin Drader]

Absolutely. You should distance yourself from whoever wrote utter rubbish like 3e Quintessential Wizard or Rogue.

I'm too lazy to look it up. Who wrote those?

(I have a guess, but I'll just wait for someone to explain the joke).

Edit - Nevermind. Modified my search and found that I was right.

 

[joethelawyer]

'

At any rate, Matt and I get much of our information from the same source, and his statement is consistent with everything I've read. It holds up regardless of how his company's sales on those few products have been.

what source is that?