Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnNephew" data-source="post: 2721170" data-attributes="member: 2171">Yes, I think it is typical, based on conversations I've had with publishers over the years, based on financial data I've reviewed as part of the due diligence process in providing loans/financing to other publishers, based on communication with fulfillment houses and distributors who handle multiple publishers' lines, etc.  I can't give you detailed information that I have received in confidence, but I think it's not any secret that most d20 publishers, large and small, have seen sharp declines in sales.  Every time a thread on the topic comes up here or on RPGNet, someone pipes in with "Company X says times have never been better!" -- which perhaps is true, but again, the proof is in what they do, not what they say.  (Maybe it's from spending a few years intensively engaging in studying troubled/failing companies and short selling their stock, but I've seen a lot of companies putting on a happy face while the foundation of their business is crumbling...and I've seen disbelieving investors willing to buy shares of a company that has already declared its intention to liquidate in bankruptcy and leave common stock holders with nothing at all...)Even in a category that is sharply declining, there are likely to be individual cases that buck the trend.  Obviously Malhavoc continues to do very well, for example; but no one else has Monte Cook -- the closest thing to his name brand is WotC itself, which I am certain has done better than d20 in general.  But look at other companies (including Malhavoc's publisher), and compare their current d20 release calendar with the past.  Look at companies who existed before d20, published d20 books, and then went back to what they were doing before; look at the companies who have produced the most d20 books, and compare the type and number of their releases now to the past.This could be true.  From conversations with distributors, for example, I knew that some of the generalist products were, back in the day, selling two or three times as much as niche products we were doing at the same time.  (It was no problem to me, since our niche products were profitable enough at the time to justify doing them as it pleased us.)  But from other conversations I know that the sales of those generalist products also declined (albeit from a higher starting level), so that a very successful generalist product in 2004, say, was probably selling half or less of what one of our niche products did in early 2001.-John NephewPresident, Atlas Games</blockquote>

Verification