>You're right...all I know about is from direct interaction with other
>players and what I read here for the most part. Hm, well, the 4-5 play
>groups I personally know/participate in, and the 20-25 RQ/Glorantha
>players I have associated with have all stop playing Glorantha-based
>games.
I don't think it's entirely a fluke. RuneQuest really got the short end of the stick under the Avalon Hill regime (something that's not entirely their fault, I should be quick to note). Sales fell off to the point where it wasn't profitable to print RQ (though AH continued to do so), so it's not a surprise at all that there are less groups in the world now. *THIS* is why Hero Wars is required: to rejuvenate the Gloranthan community.
>Let me ask you a question...if you had $30 to your name (until next payday)
>and walked into a store and saw the following 2 products on sale, which would
>you buy first?
>
>1. Hero Wars box set with rules and entry-level basic scenario
>2. Reprint of RQ2 Pavis box set bundled with a new RQ scenario book for Pavis
>
>Let's assume here that you haven't photocopied the Pavis boxed set. Ok,
>maybe you'll choose #1. More people will choose #2, IMO.
If that's correct you might as well just dump Glorantha on the refuse heap of dead games with Boot Hill, Gamma World, and Man, Myth & Magic. To repeat: RuneQuest did not have adequate sales to support a game line and has not for many years. It has a core group of loyal fans that we're very grateful for, but in order to make it successful we need to double or triple that number. A new game that will appeal to new gamers should do this. (And I'm sure old fans will still be pleased, because we'll be printing background supplements on all kinds of interesting Glorantha places.)
By the by, knowing a little bit about how the gaming market works, I can double-dog guarantee you that the Hero Wars box set, a completely new rule system for an interesting fantasy world, will sell better than a reprint of a supplement for an almost twenty-year old game that's been effectively dead for the last three years or so.
>Ironically enough, I went out and got a commercial-class web site, started
>overhauling a couple of 100+ page scenarios, and submitted my ideas for the
>site to Chaosium and Avalon Hill for approval. Avalon Hill gave theirs within
>2 weeks...I'm still waiting for Rob Heinsoo to respond with anything other than
>"I'll get back to you later, wait for Issaries Inc."...oh, wait a minute,
>that's right, my most recent follow-up turned up the fact that he lost my
>original request.
Well, for one, Rob Heinsoo isn't working for Issaries any more (except in a freelance capacity) and hasn't been for, I dunno, maybe close to a year now. Second, as it's been pointed out, we have a clean and simple policy for approval of fan web sites. It's a link off of the main Glorantha web site:
The most important points are: note our trademarks; and don't make money off the site.
>> Anyway, the international sales figures for RQ were, in fact, high enough fo
>r it
>> to be viable. It continues to sell, even now.
>
>-..and if Chaosium jumped on the opportunity to buy RQ's rights back from
>Hasbro, they could actually continue to sell.
One more time: the sales of RQ were not adequate for a profitable game line. Period. End of sentence. Ask MOB what his royalty statements for Sun County looked like some time. Foreign sales help a little but not a lot because they usually involve a flat licensing fee and thus you can't just add that priting on to the original one; to be successful a game needs to be able to sell enough of its native/original print run, which for us is predominantly sales to the U.S., the U.K., and Canada.
No doubt Issaries *could* get the RQ rights from Hasbro, and they could continue to publish RQ supplements, and they could continue to lose money on every one, and they could go out of business faster than you could say TSR.
>I'll admit that Hero Wars will sell, but it will be as a heroquesting
>supplement to RQ...new consumers seem, well, unlikely...
If there are no new consumers, Glorantha is dead. I don't think that's going to be the case though.
>Glorantha is a great world, however, it is not good enough to stand on
>its own as HW will force it to do. Find me a copy of a Glorantha-based
>work of fiction in any bookstore that's not in the gaming section and I could
>be persuaded to change my mind... :)
You'll be pleased to know that Glorantha fiction is planned in the future of Issaries, Inc.
Shannon
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