D20 saturation at an end?

[Doctor Futurity]

This from the latest news on Enworld:
Steve Creech of Bastion Press has posted the following information about d20 publishers leaving the d20 market:
I talked to MonkeyGod at Origins and they told me then that Frost & Fur was their last release. Financially, it didn't make sense to spend four times the effort and money to produce a roleplaying game that only sold a few hundred copies at best when they could make board games under their other name, Face 2 Face Games, at a fraction of the cost and have sales that numbered in the thousands. They also confirmed it again to me at Gen Con when they said Arms & Armor v3.5 would be the only 3.5 collection of weapons and armor because they were not going to do a 3.5 version of From Stone to Steel.

Of course, MonkeyGod isn't the only company no longer producing d20 materials. To my knowledge, Atlas only has one or two products in development and they are done with d20 supplements for the time being. AEG has no plans to do anymore one-word titles, instead doing Spycraft driven and Warlords d20 lines. Fast Foward is done completely. Living Imagination is done and is going back to focusing on their LARP business. Rumor (and I stress that word) has it that Fantasy Flight is done with their Legends & Lairs line for the forseeable future. There are also a couple of other companies on the bubble who I expect to call it quits in the near future.

As far as an official notice, don't hold your breath. I doubt any company will make a public announcement saying they are giving up. No one wants to admit defeat and many will probably try to get back in the game if things pick up again.
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I kind of hope this is true. It's not that I begrudge any of the publishers mentioned above, but the fact is that most of the book lines for D20 that they published were either redundant or poorly conceived. At one time or another I have picked up books from all of their lines, usually at a bargain discount because the FLGS was unable to move them at full price. While on average any single FFE, FFG, Bastion, etc. book might have some useful content, the overall redundancy of the products from publisher to publisher might be a greater sink to value than any other factor. Another thread in the open gaming forum was talking about the dearth of modules, as well. Oddly, a few years ago it seemed like the problem with D20 was that there were too many shoddy modules in production, and not enough really worth buying.

On the other hand, I don't think that a handful of companies deciding not to make bad publishing decisions is such a blow to the D20 market, as those products out there worth buying are clearly succeeding (Spycraft, for example). New games this year that are worth owning, keeping, and dare I say it, running are plentiful, and eating up my free money, which guarantees I have no extra cash for redundant, useless junk which treads on old turf. Eberron, Conan RPG, HARP, Malhavoc Press, these are all holding their own in a saturated market by virtue of their quality (okay, well in spite of editing issues with Conan....still a great game).

In short, my feeling here is that the market deserves this break, and it is a good thing that publishers who approached publishing D20 products like more of a business and less of an exercise in creative, stimulating writing, should leave the market for ground which they do better with. I would like to say that of all the above mentioned publishers, Monkey God deserves better than it got; they produced some fine modules for D20, and their Stone to Steel book remains in my (very small) list of "must have" D20 books. To everyone else, I look forward to your board games or non D20 rpgs (Fireborn, anyone?).

 

[Gnarlo]

Was just wanting to second your sentiments on Monkey God, they deserved to be as successful as Malhavoc or Mongoose, and it's a shame to see them drop out

I will agree the early days of redundancy was bewildering; whether by sheer synchronicity or "hey they've got one we've got to have one too", when you have 3 companies coming out with books on ocean adventures or airships or large scale combat or a particular race all at the same time, it got to be very difficult to decide which to buy; with all the conflicting reviews, I often ended up buying none of them

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Very true, some subjects were seriously overdone (airships, for example, and class splatbooks). It would have been nicer to see one book on airships, for example, followed by some line support, rather than a gaggle of books which individually are only peripherally useful. Another thing I forgot to mention: many of the companies which are getting out of the business or disappearing tended, on average, to have lower-quality standards for editing and rules interpretation. I like a lot of Fantasy Flight stuff, for example, but many of their early splatbooks had some akward rules gaffs and errata issues that suggested bad editing or (gasp!) no playtesting. In fact, I often wonder if many of these products ever get playtested at all.....and I also suspect that the companies with a better reputation of quality and production do have actual playtesters, and recognize the importance of putting out a solid product. I don't to say one can blame lack of playtesting and no editing for a game's failure, but rather that when you expect someone to shell out $20-40 for your book over the other four or five books on the same subject, yours had better be the one that looks and feels like a well-oiled gaming machine.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

It's a shame that Monkey God's getting out. Song of Storms was just too awesome.

 

[Crothian]

The saturations really wasn't that bad. Sure I might have 4 or 5 books that all cover the rogue, but they do so differently. The exact same ideas are rarely in all the books. So instead of having a lot of reprinted ideas we have 4 or 5 books on the rogue and together they cover the subject with ease.

 

[Bagpuss]

I didn't realise board games other than the obvious ones like Risk, Cluedo, and the like sold that well. I consider my self a gamer, in that I buy multiple RPG's, wargames, miniature games, card games, computer games, console and some board games, but I can't say I buy that many boardgames.

Is there some massive group of boardgame enthusiasts that I've never heard of? Do they have conventions, websites and message board where they chat about the new releases? I'ld never heard of Face 2 Face before this announcement and having looked at their website I can say I've never seen a single one of thier games in any shop.

 

[scourger]

I'll be glad to see the market corrected

For me, the market got fragmented when too many publishers were putting out too many books with what I'll call much form with little substance. [Another way to say it is too much crunch with too little fluff.] Here's what I mean. Form is the way a game is played--the rules. Substance is the subject of gameplay--the adventures. For d20, the form was already pretty fully detailed (especially 3.0, which needed no revisions or additions for me to play my favorite fantasy game). So, I was not interested when WotC or 3rd parties stared putting out a panoply of books for D&D with more form (more rules) and no substance (no adventures). The worst is the proliferation of campaign settings with no adventures.

I learned with 2e not to buy "splat" books, so I don't. I can understand why they are initially successful. They are easier to produce and appeal to a broader market than adventures. Why should a publisher work harder to write an adventure that requires creativity and thought when a book of new classes and feats can be slap-dashed together, especially when a module only sells to DMs while a setting/options books appeals to any player? The answer is the phenomenon of market saturation that we currently see for d20. Adventures grow the market by giving people a way to actually play the game and drive sales of core books (even core setting books). Sourcebooks exploit the market by selling new rules that eventually overwhelm the consumer.

A publisher can only get away with this strategy with me by making a product that offers something truly different. For me, this usually means a different genre than fantasy altogether such as Dragon Star, Omega World or Star Wars. Judge Dredd is my favorite example. I knew little about Judge Dredd before the d20 RPG came out. I had seen the movie. I was intrigued. So, I borrowed some old comics from some friends. It looked good (and ironic), so I bought the JD d20 core book. It was a fantastic read. It presented just enough changes to 3.0 to make it happen without overwhelming me with new options. The real hook was that the company (Mongoose) shortly published four adventures: an intro and a trilogy. I was hooked. I buy everything for it, even though I haven't used any of the sourcebooks in play and notwithstanding that fact that I haven't run it past the first two modules almost 2 years ago. And, the RPG prompted me to make cross-market purchases of comics, books, miniatures and a video game (things I do not buy routinely). Overall good marketing.

For D&D, I'll combat market saturation by selectively buying products that grow the hobby through adventures. I'm keeping my subscription to Dungeon (consistently the best buy in gaming and the last thing I would cut if I had to make cuts). I've got my eye on Mesopotamia by Necromancer Games because the posts indicate that it is really a big adventure playable under the core rules with source material and new rules added as a bonus. Kudos to Necromancer if that is true. I also love the Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games. I played one, bought one, and have my eye on another. I am confident that it will be worth it. Lastly, I may pick up Mongoose's Signs & Portents #14 & #15 since those magazines feature a Judge Dredd adventure (I've passed on it otherwise).

P.S.: I hope Fantasy Flight continues their Horizin Line. I have really enjoyed that line of mini-games. I've only been able to run Spellslinger, but they are worth picking up becase each one presents a short but complete setting in 64 pages or less. Brilliant!

 

[broghammerj]

First off, let me prefice this post by saying I have never purchased a Monkey God product so I can't comment on quality. I have heard they're good so I may have to buy a book before it goes out of print. Not to pick on MonkeyGod games directly because I know that people are hurt by this announcement and they're has to be a sense of personal defeat and dissappointment associated with this news, but here goes. I think their next product release Frost and Fur is a perfect example of what is wrong with the d20 market and they're not the only publisher doing this.

They publish a product on artic/cold adventuring, Frost and Fur. They beat WOTC to the punch before the 300 lbs gorilla releases its product, Frost Burn. I am generally a canonnist and tend to buy 3rd party products only if they offer something NEW and/or DIFFERENT. If your going to compete with the maker of my game, ie WOTC, directly one on one, you'll lose. They have more marketing, distribution, advertising, etc. You could have come up with the idea first, had better writing/editing, and an overall better book. The bottom line is this is not a good decision to compete with the Mike Tyson of RPGs.

That being said. Don't get me started on the failure of TSR due to their expanding product line. It seems strangely similar to the current WOTC race/class/elemental books now coming out. I thought all the prestige classes were the downfall of TSR......oh I mean kits.....oh I mean WOTC.....you know what I mean.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Is there some massive group of boardgame enthusiasts that I've never heard of? Do they have conventions, websites and message board where they chat about the new releases? I'ld never heard of Face 2 Face before this announcement and having looked at their website I can say I've never seen a single one of thier games in any shop.

The number of board game websites, message boards, mailing lists, conventions, world championships, etc. is too numerous to cover, but I suggest that you'd do well to start your search at www.boardgamegeek.com

 

[Vrecknidj]

[WHINE]
Back in the 1800's the railroads, I think, didn't realize they were in the transportation business, or else they'd own the trucking fleets and airlines today.

I think the same may be true in gaming. I think there are a whole bunch of small companies that think of themselves in the fantasy, pen-and-paper RPG business, when in fact they're in some broader category (the entertainment business?). If enough of these smaller companies were to get together (I know, I know, too many egos ruins things) and work on several lines at once (board games, modules, splat books, heck, even video games and possibly movies) then there'd be a lot more income. The products that didn't produce as much income could operate from the excess from those products that did produce income.

I know that, at bottom, many (most, probably) of these are businesses and not "gamer" businesses, but it doesn't have to be that way. If I could find a way to squeeze $40k a year out of the gaming industry for food and the mortgage, I'd switch fields today. I don't need to end up owning GenCon someday, I just want high quality gaming supplements.
[/WHINE]

Dave