The Gaming Den

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for the short version.

FFG and Mongoose own EVERYTHING. But which one will eventually own D&D?

And when will one of them buy Warmachine off those bastards at PP?

These questions and more shall plague us for some time. Though at the rate these acquisitions seem to be going some time will actually be about 6-12 months...

If one of them eventually owns D&D, I think I'd rather it be FFG. Their books and stuff weren't perfect, but I like their stuff way better than Mongoose's.

I reckon that the dream scenario is that mongoose buys D&D and then FFG buys mongoose.

A foolish and needlessly convoluted dream but a dream all the same.

My vote would go to FFG. Maybe they will get better binding for their books.

I'd rather a company that isn't an investor's pyramids scheme and actually knows how to hire game editors and type editors...

-Crissa

Cool, one of them is a pyramid scheme? Which one?

By the editors comment I'm going to guess you mean the dread Mongoose.

But really dodgy finance and editing in a game company, I'm shocked, SHOCKED I say.

...Well, their basic business plan (and this goes for Fantasy flight as well) seems to be to get someone else to buy into their business.

It's not like they talk about Angels and Venture Capital, but instead partners... It gets a bit hairy. But I don't know their books (the accounting ones) intimately, so this is all just blowing steam. Still, from here, it doesn't look like it should balance. But many companies that don't look like they should work from the outside often do... And sometimes vice versa.

-Crissa

PhoneLobster wrote:I reckon that the dream scenario is that mongoose buys D&D and then FFG buys mongoose.

What purpose would be served by not letting Mongoose die?

Mongoose owns some cool stuff. If they just die cool stuff like Paranoia may vanish from sight for an extended period.

Also FFG produces quality products. Mongoose mostly doesn't. But Mongoose DOES know how to pick projects that people want to see.

For instance Mongoose did d20 class books for all the mainstream high demand cool character concepts you can think of before WOTC and more extensively than WOTC.

Any company that has the common sense to say "Hey, you know instead of Rune Forehead aliens and stupid ass spirit trophy magic like WOTC lets release books on stuff like Elementalist wizards." is doing something right.

I mean those guys did the first big d20 class handbooks, the first "monsters" as PCs handbooks, the best range of additional class books...

The material may have been of poor quality but seriously the actual ability to make the material about the stuff people wanted and NOT insist on publishing totally obscure moronic bullshit like Illumnians and Eberron in its place. That's pretty much pure genius compared to the industry paragon.

PhoneLobster at [unixtime wrote:1204165146[/unixtime]]
Also FFG produces quality products. Mongoose mostly doesn't. But Mongoose DOES know how to pick projects that people want to see.

Yeah, I'll give Mongoose that. Their writers basically have no clue as to how game design should work, but they do design stuff based on cool concepts.

Mongoose doesn't hire people to make things, it buys things that people make and prints them. Which means that quality is not really a trait they're looking for: Fast and cheap are their traits.

-Crissa