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

[scruffygrognard]

Taken from State of the Mongoose 2008:
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Dungeons & Dragons 4e
The fourth edition is something of an odd duck for us, and it is no secret that sales thus far have been somewhat behind those for third edition. The game itself is very different from its predecessors.
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From what I've read on ENWorld, I thought 4th edition was selling like hotcakes. This note seems to support what I've been seeing in with my local geeks... that 4th edition isn't doing as well as WotC would have hoped.

 

[Morrus]

Well, "behind third edition" doesn't mean "poor", and more than "a bit less than Bill Gates" means "poverty".

 

[JeffB]

I personally wouldn't take anything Mongoose has to say about thier own 4E products not so great sales as indicative of WOTC's sales of 4E. I mean what have they put out for 4E so far ? Some strange commando game based on it?

I dont think that Mongooses rep is all that good considering all the drivel they put out in 3.0's heyday. I've avoided the new Runequest, Traveller, and Conan games because of a few lame 3.X products I've owned and a multitude of reviews of "shoddy work" (editing, poor binding, general "broken-ness", power creep, etc etc)

That not to say I believe 4E is totally kicking @$$ and taking names, but rather that I think someone like Joe Goodman would have a far better grasp on such things than mongoose based on the quality, style, and amount of products they produce for 4E.

 

[Bagpuss]

Do they mean sale of WotC 4E stuff or sale of their own (currently very limited) 4E stuff?

If WotC stuff where are they getting their figures from?

If their own stuff, I'm not surprised, for a number of reasons.

 

[FourthBear]

I believe that the statement you quote above is referring to Mongoose's own 4e products, such as Quintesstial Wizard, not any WotC products. While I've heard many anecdotal statements about 4e's sales at brick and mortar stores on both extremes, I don't see any reason to doubt direct statements from Mearls that sales have been very good. They've had to go to core book reprinting pretty quickly, as I recall. We won't have any really reliable data on the sales of the major supplements for some time, if ever, IMO.

 

[fba827]

Also, it may be working just fine for WotC. So don't take one publisher's statement as a view of the "health" of the entire edition as a whole.


Edit: Ninjaed by all you faster typers!

 

[Victim]

The market environment isn't quite the same as the release of 3e for 3rd party publishers though. It seemed to me that 3rd party products (with the exception of Paizo) lost a lot of steam after 3.5 came out.

Especially since WotC is heavily previewing its upcoming supplements, there's less demand for competing 3pp available now.

 

[Maggan]

I think being a third party publisher this way around is a lot more difficult, because WotC aren't leaving any gaping holes in their own lineup.

They are supplying adventures, rules, splats, campaign books, tiles, what have you. So I think most sales of 4e stuff are WotC books, and that 3rd parties will have a more difficult time selling their alternatives in the market.

/M

 

[Aus_Snow]

Also, Dragon Magazine (the actual magazine, that is), in the Paizo era, advertised a *lot* of d20 and OGL 3rd party products, IIRC. That must have helped sales, to whatever degree.

The situation there is rather different as well. I wonder where Mongoose (and others) advertise now. . .

 

[Treebore]

I agree its most likely Mongoose's own 4E sales hurting.

Then again I know darn well that WOTC and every employee of WOTC will put everything in the most positive light they can.

I can name a bunch of banks who were saying similar positive comments about their business until a few months ago.

The whole reason you cannot find hard numbers is simply because they don't want you to know whether they are telling you the truth or are "embellishing" the story.