The RPGnet Interview
This interview with Matthew Sprange, one of the company's founders, talks about the past, present, and future of Mongoose. It was conducted by Shannon Appelcline via email. This is RPGnet's second recent interview with Matthew; the last one was all about RuneQuest
Mongoose Origins
SA: So let's start at the beginning. Mongoose Publishing has now been around for almost six years now. What made you decide to make the leap into publishing?
MS: Well, you may find the links below extremely useful.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp33wg.pdf
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/sp34wargamer.pdf
We started to run a series in S&P [Mongoose's monthly magazine –ed] detailing how Mongoose started, as much to remind ourselves of the details as much as anything. There is no part three - it was pointed out that some of the things I said in that were 'actionable' and it, as yet, has not been re-written. However, these two articles pretty much cover the entire formation of the company and it first few months.
SA: That's certainly an extensive overview of Mongoose that covers a lot of the "why"s and "how"s alike. You talk in it about doing work for Games Workshop prior to Mongoose's launch and even naming the company in relation to Games Workshop--in a sort of roundabout way.
How much of an influence do you think Games Workshop has had on Mongoose? You certainly seem to have picked up some of the projects that they abandoned in the 1980s, including the Paranoia RPG, the RuneQuest RPG, and a Judge Dredd game, all of which were licensed by GW about twenty years ago.
MS: A good question. In terms of the games we have done, actually very little--there was certainly no plan behind picking up their old games. We almost fell into most of those properties!
However, in terms of design philosophy, quite a bit. When writing for GW, I spent quite a lot of time at their headquarters, and had long chats with many of their designers and editors (such as Jervis Johnson--officially the nicest guy in gaming--Andy Chambers, Paul Sawyer, etc), and that certainly had an impact, from the way we structured our books (see the notes in the articles about how we set up standard chapter titles for our Slayer's Guides and Quintessentials so almost anyone could write them after the first had been done) to actual game design--though the latter would not kick in fully until we started doing miniatures games, much later.
The experience with GW still boils through today in, for example, how we run our tournaments and Open Days. As a first hand look at how a (highly successful) gaming company runs, it is probably fair to say it had a powerful effect in the creative area. In terms of how business is done, there is less. Our aim is that, at some point, all gamers will buy at least one of our books, rather than looking for people buying Mongoose to the exclusion of all others.
A subtle difference, maybe, but an important one.
SA: You mentioned your miniatures games, and that certainly seems to be an area where you're following in GW's footsteps. What's kept Mongoose in roleplaying games, unlike GW's later trajectory?
MS: In a word, sales. RPGs continue to be Mongoose's main source of revenue.
This is one of the things that honks me off about the naysayers in the industry, as they tend to put two and two together, and come up with five. RPGs can still be highly successful, and it is still possible to sell 10,000 copies or more of a book on its initial release--if you have the right title.
To put both points in another context, you may have heard that we have set up our own printing facility. This cost the best part of a half million dollars and a) was funded entirely by RPG sales and b) was done because we believe that RPG sales will remain high for at least the next five years.
That and, of course, we actually like RPGs, and do them well.
A New Printing Facility & Flaming Cobra
SA: Mongoose setting up its own printing facility is definitely an interesting innovation. I think TSR might have had some printing facilities, but I'm not aware of any smaller companies having them, at least not in post-mimeograph days. What advantages do you expect the printing facility to deliver to Mongoose? More color? Cheaper books? Or just faster turnaround?
MS: You would actually be surprised--there are at least a handful of companies either with printing equipment or planning to get hold of it. However, I flatter myself to think Mongoose's facility is somewhat grander than most.
Basically, whereas some other companies have bought in equipment to do relatively low runs of 32 page saddle-stitched (stapled) scenarios and the like, we have the full bore, full colour machines capable of producing hardbacks (which is the majority of what we produce). Overall, we have invested about half a million dollars into this equipment - which, again, should give you some idea of the true size of the RPG market.
To be honest, we have barely scraped the advantages this equipment can give us, but here is a run down;
- True, cost. Our charges can match those of China.
- Efficiency. Instead of being tied to print runs of several thousands, we can now print to order. If a retailer orders one book, we can print just that one book. Or, to put it another way, there are no economies of scale. It costs us the same to print 1,000 copies of one book as it does one copy of 1,000 books.
- Quality. The digital process we use knocks litho printing into the dirt in terms of reproduction. Pick up one of our new colour books when you have the chance. In a direct comparison, you will see far richer colours and (get this) you will actually see things in the artwork that were invisible before. Think of it as High Definition for books (actually, that is not a bad slogan. . .).
- Low Runs. We can now consider projects we would not have considered in a million years with traditional printing. For example, we could compile our Quintessentials (or whatever) into one almighty tome and price it at, say, 0. Maybe we get a few hundred buyers. Now, you would never print just a few hundred books at any traditional printers - but all of a sudden, this kind of project is viable. We can also do personalised copies with your name on them.
- Because economies of scale do not apply, we can now consider doing foreign language editions ourselves, instead of relying on licensing them out. After all, once a book is translated, it makes no difference to us whether we produce an English version, or an Italian one. We have already done this for Battlefield Evolution.
- We can offer the cost and efficiency savings to other publishers - expect to see a lot of people join Flaming Cobra this year (we already have Spycraft and Cthulhutech waiting in the wings, and we are talking to several others).
- The greater portion of costs switch from printing to content. Expect to see higher paid writers (and, contrary to what you might hear, I am pretty sure our writers are among the highest paid in the industry) and better quality artwork.
- We are no longer tied to a printer's pricing matrix--no more locked into producing 96pp or 160pp because that is where a printer is most efficient. If we want to produce a 104 page book (or whatever), we can.
However, this is what we can do right now. We can go much further. Consider this. . .
RuneQuest 2.0 is released in 2009 and, as the previous edition, it is Open Content. However, as well as a 'standard' version you buy in the shops, you could go to a web site and start 'speccing' it.
Going through the various tick boxes you might select Quick Character Generation, Realistic Level Combat, Medieval Armour, Bronze Age Weapons, and Gloranthan Theme. You might also add Early Firearms, the optional Luck Rules, and Science Fiction Alien Bestiary. Going to 3rd Party Add-Ons, you choose the Dark Vale introductory scenario, Bill's Drinking Rules, and Advanced Parrying.
Basically, you could spec your own rulebook, which may well be unique to you, tailored specifically to your group.
This then gets piped down the Internet to our facility, the book is automatically printed and bound in hardback (or did you select the Leather option with personalised front plate, Sir?), packaged up, then sent to you within minutes.
Now, the development time behind such a game system is at least a couple of years away, probably more. But we already have the technology to do this, right now. If you are remotely techy, it is kinda cool.
Umm, does that answer your question?
SA: Extensively!
I'm curious about the Flaming Cobra initiative that you mentioned. Your press releases have been a bit sparse, just saying that you're bringing the best indie books out in nice hardcovers. What's the underlying model? Are you forming permanent partnerships with notable small publishers, or are you picking and choosing individual books?
MS: We are going to be bringing out a new web site this summer for FC but, in a nutshell ...
We are interested in building long term partnerships with FC, but we also have very loose arrangements. In effect, partners can literally treat it as a 'per book' (that is book, not title) arrangement, having the freedom to walk away at any time--but our belief is they won't. They provide us with print-ready files, we manufacture the books, market and distribute them. We claim back the costs of producing the book, then split the profits between them and us.
This results in a completely risk free, no money up-front, entry into the market for these publishers, with a larger company that can place them in hobby and book stores around the world. For our part, it is also 'risk free', as we only print what is actually ordered, and claim costs back first (the risk is actually in the purchase of the colossal amount of equipment required to do this in the first place, but this is offset by our own book production). They literally start earning almost from the first book that comes off the presses, rather than having to wait until a few hundred are sold to cover the costs of a traditional print run.
It is all about utilising the technology we have for best effect, and once we figured out we could offer a risk free approach to the market, there was no looking back. It looks like it will be a highly successful programme.
SA: You talked about how easy it is for people to get started with Flaming Cobra, but how hard is it? In particular, are you using specific criteria for selecting participants, or are you open to all comers?
MS: It has to be of good quality (text and art) and it has to be marketable. Other than that, we will look at almost anything.
d20, OGL, and Other Licenses
SA: So you guys got your start in d20, and I wanted to touch upon that a bit. You were one of the first companies to really build your publication around sourcebooks rather than adventures, and you broke open that market as a result.
MS: Aside from White Wolf's Creature Collection, I have a feeling we were the first.
SA: I thought your OGL games--including Ancients, Horror, Wild West, and the rest--was another line that really had the potential to open new markets, since it introduced d20 to entirely new genres, but it seems to have faded pretty quickly.
Any thoughts about why the line had somewhat limited appeal?
MS: It depends what you mean by fading quickly--they were published over the course of at least a year (perhaps two, the memory is hazy), and they continue to sell, regularly, today.
However, to tackle your question directly, I think two things caught them. First, they were too generic. If we had released a Rome or Deadwood (even without the attachment to obvious TV series) instead of Ancients or Wild West, they could probably have done better. Also, they were completely unsupported by supplements, the eternal deathknell of any RPG.
That said, they sold well enough and were intended as toolkits rather than full blown RPGs. (This was actually an experiment on our part, testing Ryan Dancey's theory that gamers wanted tools to create their own settings, rather than packaged settings in their own right--not convinced.)
SA: They also struck me as a bold attempt to really move up the food chain, becoming the licensor rather than the licensee by offering them under OGL. Now you've done the same thing with RuneQuest and are sort of moving in the same direction with Flaming Cobra. Is this an important factor in Mongoose's future direction? Do you envision the company as being a provider of services and IPs to many other companies in the near future?
MS: Overall, no. We did those games and RQ under the OGL simply because, well, we could, and we knew it would not do them any harm. None of these games (even RQ) has had a 'killer' 3rd party product yet, but the possibility is there. I have always said that someone looking to start their own RPG company could do very well with quality RQ supplements, much as we did with D20--for the right books, the sales would certainly be there.
As for Flaming Cobra, that is another example of doing something because we can. Our own use of our printing facility more than covers its costs, but we are still only using 60% of its capacity. Thus, it makes sense to offer our services, and we are in a position to offer something quite unique, above and beyond a simple printing service - a risk-free entrance into the international market is something to crow about!
SA: Mongoose hasn't developed a lot of original settings, instead depending on licenses. What made you decide to seek out licenses like Babylon 5, Conan, Slaine, and Judge Dredd, and do the benefits of licensing continue to outweight the costs?
MS: To answer your last question first, yes, so long as you are not a twit about it. For example, don't pay a 0,000 advance for purely RPG rights on a property--even if you get your money back (and we could be talking about ,000,000 revenue to do this, at distributor rates), the chances are the profits will not be that great compared to the effort.
On the other hand, if you are careful in your selections, there are a great deal of benefits. Judge Dredd, for example, opened a lot of doors for us, business-wise. Babylon 5 got us a foothold in the movie industry, and is allowing us to straddle several markets, such as miniatures games.
Others just kinda fall into your lap--Conan is an example. My business partner was on the phone to a translator one day, and he shouted across to me 'Hey, Matthew, do we want the Conan licence?'
Umm, yes, we do.
There are other benefits to licences too--with something like Babylon 5, your art budget is almost zero, as you can rely on the work of the studio and film capture (praise the DVD, and worship HD).
As to why we do it ... Well, we have always run Mongoose first and foremost as a business, not a hobby. However, we could make a lot more money making, I don't know, widgets. We do this because we enjoy it, because we have a passion for it. And licences follow this mould. We do them because we have a passion about the properties.
We would never take a licence on that at least one member of Mongoose is not completely dippy about. I'm a B5 nut. Also grew up with Judge Dredd. Thus, those were the first licences we took on.
Babylon 5
SA: On the topic of Babylon 5, you folks had some disagreements with JMS over the production of Babylon 5 novels, and they seem to have since disappeared from your web site. Have you decided not to publish B5 novels after all?
MS: Ha! One day, a few years from now, I may relate the whole sorry story of this episode. For now all I will say is never, ever meet your heroes …
No, we won't be publishing B5 novels, as both sides have effectively walked away from the idea, for a variety of reasons. However, we have plenty of other options with the Babylon 5 licence--we are currently working to put a special offer in the forthcoming Lost Tales DVDs that should be of special interest to B5 fans.
However, novels remain an ideal for us, but we are taking care to approach the market properly. Babylon 5 would have made our entry easier, but it is not essential. We have several Lone Wolf novels coming out later this year, along with the gamebooks, though that set will be more for collectors than mainstream interest.
SA: And will you be putting out sourcebooks related to the Lost Tales as well?
MS: It is pretty inevitable. We have just got round to completing the Legend of the Rangers book, so Lost Tales is the next logical step.
Controversies
SA: The one bit of controversy that I sometimes see regarding Mongoose has to do with their speed of product release. I've seen many people complain that they can't keep up, and it discourages them regarding the line because they want to collect them all, and I've seen other people state that they believe it's sometimes resulted in lower quality products. Thoughts?
MS: It is ironic that we haven't produced a single book in the past four months (due to the setting up of our printing facility).
This is not really an issue for us, and we have not seen any slow down of sales by following such a release schedule. Now, if we took six months to bring out a book for each line, then you would see complaints!
Overall, I think this issue is pretty much just hot air. Woe betide any RPG line that is not supported …
SA: It's certainly killed more RPG lines than I could easily list.
I've also heard vague mention of being "predatory" toward other companies' lines. Can you expand upon that?
MS: This was something that came about in the High Days of D20. Basically, someone would announce a dwarf book--and all of a sudden, Mongoose would release a dwarf book. Someone would do a book on shamans--and then Mongoose would, releasing it a month or so earlier. Everyone started getting very twitchy, and they stopped posting their extended release schedules online, lest the evil Mongoose doth pinch their ideas ...
The thing is, it never happened. You couldn't tell the other publishers (and some gamers) that, but it just didn't happen that way.
As you will see in the S&P articles I listed earlier, there were, at the time, over 100 publishers bringing D20 material out, or about to. It was inevitable that crossovers like this would happen. Imagine the thought process: "Hmm, let's do a book on magic. But what sort? I know, Necromancy and Undead are popular, we'll do that!" Now, can you imagine that same process going on in at least one other publisher among those 100, at the same time? Think that is possible?
In the interests of honesty, we only ever once purposefully changed our release schedule to target another publisher, and it was because we felt we were under attack.
When the Quintessentials came out, they were huge. I say this to put things into context--this wasn't a little fight in a sandbox, we were talking about 'real' money. However, we had only ever planned to do the first four basic classes (Fighter, Rogue, Cleric and Wizard) and then see how they go. If they went well, we would do other classes, and then start thinking about races.
Then another publisher announced "The Essential Elf".
That was way too close for our liking.
After all, our gimmick was that our books looked similar to the Complete Handbooks, and there was absolutely nothing to stop another publisher doing the same thing. If we had made an issue of it, we wouldn't have had a leg to stand on. The only option we had, as we saw it, was to get the Quintessential Elf out first.
As things turned out, the other publisher had their release delayed for several months, and they ended up changing the name anyway. However, the next book we released was the Quintessential Dwarf--the obvious one to do after Elf, right?
Unfortunately, this then came out in the same month as Green Ronin's dwarf book (the release dates were announced within days of one another, as I recall). Then our shaman's book came out within a month of theirs. I think a book on witches met the same fate. All sheer coincidence, but we never convinced them of that.
Paranoia
SA: I can understand why emotions were running high during the boom days of d20. It must have been like prospectors and gold mines.
MS: That is a very good analogy.
SA: And speaking of paranoia, let's get back to your other game lines. You said earlier that you'd mostly fallen into some of your properties. How did Paranoia end up at Mongoose?
MS: Casting my mind back, I think this was one we actively went after. We had some successes with RPGs based on systems of yesteryear and, in seeking to repeat this, Paranoia was an obvious one to go for.
SA: The game has been revamped a bit in your edition, mainly by returning to basics, which is to say the more serious first edition of the game. Did that idea originate from Mongoose, or from the authors of the game?
MS: There has been a bit of to-ing and fro-ing behind the scenes of Paranoia. There is a strong movement for the feel of the 1st edition, battling against those who want a more 2nd edition feel. The latter will likely win out (the licence owners are behind it!), but we will continue to support the 'straight' version of the game, potentially rebranding it slightly.
Looking to the Future
SA: With Paranoia (and RuneQuest) you've resurrected what were two of the most missed RPGs from the 1980s and early 1990s. In your dream world if you could resurrect one other older RPG that's now out-of-print, what would it be?
MS: Traveller. That game still has the chance to be the 'default' science fiction game (in the way D&D is for fantasy), but it is currently fragmented and has little direction.
SA: The TNE 1248 stuff being done by Avenger Enterprises is offering a bit of new direction, but I'm sure there are many fans who would love to see the game regain the shelf presence it once knew.
So let me segue from the far future to the future of Mongoose and talk about what's coming up. You've already mentioned Flaming Cobra, Lone Wolf, and the possibility of other novels, which are all largely new initiatives. It looks like RuneQuest, Babylon 5, and Paranoia are your top sellers, I'd guess in that order, and that you're continuing to supplement them.
Anything else new and exciting?
MS: Don't forget Conan--that is another big hitter, and a new edition is due out for Gen Con.
We also have the "licence-that-may-not-be-named" for RuneQuest, though a quick search should provide with what this is, if you do not already know. That we should be announcing officially in the next couple of weeks or so.
RuneQuest itself will continue to expand, with more Gloranthan titles, as well as other books that explore other areas of the game--such as the Pirates and Samurai books coming out this year.
We also have some development for games further down the road, such as Project Hyperion, which is taking a look at moving the workload from GM to gamers, allowing the former to concentrate on the scenario alone in a focused setting. And there are plenty of things happening on the miniatures front too.
Finally, there is the oft mentioned "holy grail" of RPGs, though that could take another year or more of negotiations! I am not holding my breath on that one.
SA: I was going to ask if you wanted to offer some cryptic hints too, but I see you're already well ahead of me.
Is it fair to say that the d20 era of Mongoose is over--or at least the d20-era-when-it-really-meant-D&D-supplements?
MS: The latter, yes--though Conan will still be based on the d20 engine …
SA: Any last thoughts or anything else you wanted to say before we finish up?
MS: I think we have about covered it!
