Advanced Class Codex by Green Ronin

[Twowolves]

Canceling the book is a serious bummer, but not a big surprise either. I can’t blame Green Ronin for being wary about committing too many resources into d20 right now. Consider the following factors: .....<snip> and (5) a sluggish US economy.

Sluggish economy? I hate to hijack a thread, but what reality are you living in where the US economy is "sluggish"? Lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, Dow over 11,000, housing just now slowing after a tremendous expansion, more tax revenue every year, 18 straight quarters of growth.... how is the economy "sluggish"??

 

[Psion]

Sluggish economy? I hate to hijack a thread,

Or tempt a political discussion. I know nobody here would do that. Right...

 

[Twowolves]

Or tempt a political discussion. I know nobody here would do that. Right...

Hey, I'm not the one that off-handedly made the remark, and I'm not trying to tempt anything, but I'm a little tired of letting unfounded fabrications go unchallenged as if they were gospel. "Repeat a lie often enough..." and all that jazz.



Anyway, back on topic, I bought all three Advanced books, and the Advanced Bestiary is the best d20 book since the Monster's Handbook from FFG. I have been able to slap a couple of templates on some bog-standard MM critters with this book and produce monstrosities that were unrecognizable (and sufficiently creepy). Green Ronin was still one of the few trusted 3rd party publishers whose work I'd almost buy sight unseen. But as Joe said, they support d20, not D&D (at least, anymore). Blue Rose, True 20, Mythic Vistas, Mutants and Masterminds, all books that probably cost a lot to make but have very "niche-y" appeal.

From what I understand, following the M&M boards over a year ago, didn't GR have some problem with their printer, causing them to not only have to push back some products by over 6 months (making the M&M "Annual" more like "Bi-Annual"), cause a loss of almost a year's worth of sales, and lead to a change in company policy about not announcing a release date for a product until they had the finished product in hand? Wouldn't THAT be much more to blame for any current woes of GR more than any "sluggish economy" or the "state of d20 in 2006"?

 

[Psion]

From what I understand, following the M&M boards over a year ago, didn't GR have some problem with their printer, causing them to not only have to push back some products by over 6 months (making the M&M "Annual" more like "Bi-Annual"),

Are you talking about the Osseum collapse? That wasn't a printer; that was a distributor. It's not like they had a slow printer who couldn't come up with the goods (someone posting in the thread knows about that, don't they.) They had the entire proceeds for several products go missing.

 

[Pramas]

But as Joe said, they support d20, not D&D (at least, anymore). Blue Rose, True 20, Mythic Vistas, Mutants and Masterminds, all books that probably cost a lot to make but have very "niche-y" appeal.

Mutants & Masterminds, True20, and Blue Rose are not d20 products. They use the OGL, so they are related, but they are stand-alone games. You may see them as "niche-y", but all of them have been outselling d20 by a large margin.

Wouldn't THAT be much more to blame for any current woes of GR more than any "sluggish economy" or the "state of d20 in 2006"?

The Osseum debacle certainly did have an effect on us, but it's not the reason we've been doing more M&M and True20 than d20. If d20 was selling better, we'd do more. It's that simple.

 

[Sammael]

Well, the Book of Fiends certainly sold well, so it seems that it's only a question of finding the right type of product to publish. I, for one, think the Advanced Class Codex would have sold, but I'm sure you did a market research before canceling it and I don't have any data to support my claims.

 

[Psion]

Well, the Book of Fiends certainly sold well, so it seems that it's only a question of finding the right type of product to publish. I, for one, think the Advanced Class Codex would have sold, but I'm sure you did a market research before canceling it and I don't have any data to support my claims.

I don't know how fast Chris will reply, but basically they said that their PDF sales are market research for the print products.

 

[Sammael]

Whoa. I know at least a dozen people who've never bought a single PDF product in their lives (and don't intend to do so), yet they keep buying RPG books from WotC - and other publishers.

 

[JustKim]

I own 40 books from Green Ronin and have zero interest in PDFs.

 

[Psion]

As Chris put it (in a thread that has probably been swept away), they aren't operating under the assumption that everyone who buys PDFs buys print, or vice versa. But there is a correlation between how many aggregate buyers there are of a pdf product an dthe same product in print.