MongooseMatt
First Post
Hi guys,
I acknowledge in advance that I may regret stepping into this one
I'll try to give some figures where I can (and I'll be general where I deem it wise - your call whether you want to believe me or not) but remember that I speak only for my corner of the industry. My credentials are that I run an RPG company, I watch sales daily, track them against costs and compare them with past performance to work out how to steer the company a month, six months, a year, or further from now. I have managed to do this for more than four years now, with at least a degree of success.
A lot of people have weighed in on this thread already and some know what they are talking about. However, keep in mind that people have a natural tendency to seem as if they know more than they really do (particularly in this industry, draw your own conclusions as to why), so apply filters where you feel necessary (and feel free to include this post!). That said, a PDF publisher is unlikely to know a great deal about the paper publishing side of the industry. An employee of a company is not going to have the same handle on things that his boss does, no matter how many meetings there are (no offence intended here, Mr Mearls, keep up the good work). A freelance writer, no matter how many 'contacts' they do or do not have, is _really_ on the outside of things. But I guess most of you figured all that out already.
People talk about shrinking print runs as an indication of an industry failing - and it is worth keeping in mind that even a shrunken print run can be over printed. The number 10,000 keeps getting cited as a bastion for 'real' success these days. So, looking at Mongoose, let's start by ignoring the likes of the Slayer's Guides and the Quintessentials - they were released during the d20 boom days and so cannot be representative, right? Well, we have other titles that have shot past the 10,000 mark, starting with Babylon 5. But then, that kind of tailed in with the d20 boom days too. There is Conan, of course, but let's call that fluke. Paranoia, but let's call that a foregone conclusion. We also have Starship Troopers, released just a short while ago - and that is where things start to get a bit hazy, you see. We'll come back to this.
Let's look at employment figures. In the past 12 months, Mongoose has roughly doubled its full-time, permanent staff members. Not too impressive if we had just one guy working for us last year, true. However, today we currently have 22 people employed at Mongoose. A healthy proportion of the increase has been from our expansion into miniatures but the RPG department has increased in staff as well, following a restructuring and, wait for it - increased demand. It is also worth bearing in mind that Mongoose has not borrowed any money to move into miniatures production, even though we needed to fund production of not one but seven plastic kits (currently on sale - more out this year). The entire investment came from RPG revenue. I would have to tot all those figures up but off the top of my head, the Starship Troopers miniatures game has required an investment of over half a million Dollars. That is RPG money.
Worth talking about revenue, of course - the lifeblood of any business. For reasons of competition, I don't want to go into actual figures here (though it is likely that any switched on competitor already has a pretty good idea of what our turnover is - I'll come back to that) but I can give you statistics. Mongoose's total revenue over the past 12 months has increased something like 120% over the preceding 12 months. Mongoose's total revenue from RPGs alone has increased by something like a third. Our forecasts show no slowdown in the RPG sector as we move into 2006, spearheaded as it is with two large game releases (one of which is RuneQuest). We also know that our revenue in April (an odd month to pick, but I have figures to immediate hand for it) was greater than the total revenue for the past 12 months of another well known RPG company (no, not WotC or White Wolf).
That brings another point into play. There is a lot of talk about figures for this industry and their general untrustworthiness. You can believe that. However, there _are_ figures which _are_ solid. They are just not made public For example, we know the turnovers of most other publishers (those who sell above a certain threshold, at least) with an error margin of around 10% - and you might appreciate that this is information that company owners do not want thrown about. However, it is not rocket science and I imagine that the top five publishers (at least) have this information too. For all the good it does. However, it is nice (or, at least, interesting) to know how your own efforts stack up among your peers and, over time, you can get a sense of the industry as an (almost) whole.
So, back to the original question - is the industry (or, rather, its customer base) shrinking? The answer is a conditional yes. At this precise moment, it is. But it is not a) going to shrivel and die any time soon and b) it is not shrinking as quickly or as much as some would have you believe. That said, I have never seen this industry in a truly static condition. As with individual companies, it either goes forwards or backwards, it never stands still. There have certainly been enough recent successes (Vampire, Warhammer, yes, even Starship Troopers) to keep it burbling along until the next Big One comes. Maybe that will be RuneQuest (he said, I hope). Maybe Mr Pramas will get to write the 40k RPG (I believe that will be MASSIVE, though it might not necessarily help the RPG industry directly in the long term - but I'll be first in line). And there is always 4e
I am not surprised to see some publishers in trouble. Some have made some massive errors in their business decisions lately (I won't go into specifics on that - the rumours you hear will probably be more fun). Others have been publishing the wrong titles, running their subject material as if it were still the d20 boom days. Ultimately, I believe (with some evidence of sales to back me up, I feel) that if you publish the right books, people will come.
Remember, all of this is just my own ramblings and I can already see some things I meant to talk about left out - but this post is too long already, I fear. It is accurate, but only from my perspective. It is entirely possible the guys running WotC and WW know something I don't about how the industry will change over the next year or so I imagine a few feathers may be ruffled by all of this but other publishers do not (directly) keep us in business - you chaps do. I'll be as open as I can with you.
Oh, and I am going to presume the talk of wargaming decline was about boardgame-based wargames - the miniatures industry is very healthy right now, yes, even the historical side is showing promise.
Ah, and another thing - never write off Kevin from Palladium. That guy knows what he is doing
(Hoping that last one is not a Murray Walker).
I acknowledge in advance that I may regret stepping into this one
I'll try to give some figures where I can (and I'll be general where I deem it wise - your call whether you want to believe me or not
) but remember that I speak only for my corner of the industry. My credentials are that I run an RPG company, I watch sales daily, track them against costs and compare them with past performance to work out how to steer the company a month, six months, a year, or further from now. I have managed to do this for more than four years now, with at least a degree of success.A lot of people have weighed in on this thread already and some know what they are talking about. However, keep in mind that people have a natural tendency to seem as if they know more than they really do (particularly in this industry, draw your own conclusions as to why), so apply filters where you feel necessary (and feel free to include this post!). That said, a PDF publisher is unlikely to know a great deal about the paper publishing side of the industry. An employee of a company is not going to have the same handle on things that his boss does, no matter how many meetings there are (no offence intended here, Mr Mearls, keep up the good work). A freelance writer, no matter how many 'contacts' they do or do not have, is _really_ on the outside of things. But I guess most of you figured all that out already.
People talk about shrinking print runs as an indication of an industry failing - and it is worth keeping in mind that even a shrunken print run can be over printed. The number 10,000 keeps getting cited as a bastion for 'real' success these days. So, looking at Mongoose, let's start by ignoring the likes of the Slayer's Guides and the Quintessentials - they were released during the d20 boom days and so cannot be representative, right? Well, we have other titles that have shot past the 10,000 mark, starting with Babylon 5. But then, that kind of tailed in with the d20 boom days too. There is Conan, of course, but let's call that fluke. Paranoia, but let's call that a foregone conclusion. We also have Starship Troopers, released just a short while ago - and that is where things start to get a bit hazy, you see. We'll come back to this.
Let's look at employment figures. In the past 12 months, Mongoose has roughly doubled its full-time, permanent staff members. Not too impressive if we had just one guy working for us last year, true. However, today we currently have 22 people employed at Mongoose. A healthy proportion of the increase has been from our expansion into miniatures but the RPG department has increased in staff as well, following a restructuring and, wait for it - increased demand. It is also worth bearing in mind that Mongoose has not borrowed any money to move into miniatures production, even though we needed to fund production of not one but seven plastic kits (currently on sale - more out this year). The entire investment came from RPG revenue. I would have to tot all those figures up but off the top of my head, the Starship Troopers miniatures game has required an investment of over half a million Dollars. That is RPG money.
Worth talking about revenue, of course - the lifeblood of any business. For reasons of competition, I don't want to go into actual figures here (though it is likely that any switched on competitor already has a pretty good idea of what our turnover is - I'll come back to that) but I can give you statistics. Mongoose's total revenue over the past 12 months has increased something like 120% over the preceding 12 months. Mongoose's total revenue from RPGs alone has increased by something like a third. Our forecasts show no slowdown in the RPG sector as we move into 2006, spearheaded as it is with two large game releases (one of which is RuneQuest). We also know that our revenue in April (an odd month to pick, but I have figures to immediate hand for it) was greater than the total revenue for the past 12 months of another well known RPG company (no, not WotC or White Wolf
).That brings another point into play. There is a lot of talk about figures for this industry and their general untrustworthiness. You can believe that. However, there _are_ figures which _are_ solid. They are just not made public
For example, we know the turnovers of most other publishers (those who sell above a certain threshold, at least) with an error margin of around 10% - and you might appreciate that this is information that company owners do not want thrown about. However, it is not rocket science and I imagine that the top five publishers (at least) have this information too. For all the good it does. However, it is nice (or, at least, interesting) to know how your own efforts stack up among your peers and, over time, you can get a sense of the industry as an (almost) whole.So, back to the original question - is the industry (or, rather, its customer base) shrinking? The answer is a conditional yes. At this precise moment, it is. But it is not a) going to shrivel and die any time soon and b) it is not shrinking as quickly or as much as some would have you believe. That said, I have never seen this industry in a truly static condition. As with individual companies, it either goes forwards or backwards, it never stands still. There have certainly been enough recent successes (Vampire, Warhammer, yes, even Starship Troopers
) to keep it burbling along until the next Big One comes. Maybe that will be RuneQuest (he said, I hope). Maybe Mr Pramas will get to write the 40k RPG (I believe that will be MASSIVE, though it might not necessarily help the RPG industry directly in the long term - but I'll be first in line). And there is always 4e I am not surprised to see some publishers in trouble. Some have made some massive errors in their business decisions lately (I won't go into specifics on that - the rumours you hear will probably be more fun). Others have been publishing the wrong titles, running their subject material as if it were still the d20 boom days. Ultimately, I believe (with some evidence of sales to back me up, I feel) that if you publish the right books, people will come.
Remember, all of this is just my own ramblings and I can already see some things I meant to talk about left out - but this post is too long already, I fear. It is accurate, but only from my perspective. It is entirely possible the guys running WotC and WW know something I don't about how the industry will change over the next year or so
I imagine a few feathers may be ruffled by all of this but other publishers do not (directly) keep us in business - you chaps do. I'll be as open as I can with you.Oh, and I am going to presume the talk of wargaming decline was about boardgame-based wargames - the miniatures industry is very healthy right now, yes, even the historical side is showing promise.
Ah, and another thing - never write off Kevin from Palladium. That guy knows what he is doing
(Hoping that last one is not a Murray Walker).
