New Printing Facility

[Rurik]

Now this new printing facility has been touted as being a great thing for Mongoose and it's customers. And I can see how there will be benefits in flexibility as to what gets printed and book sizes.

But from where I stand, I was getting 96 page color books for $25 and 160 page color books for $35. Now the first book coming off of the new press is going to be $25 for 96 pages B&W. What gives? It is hard to excited about this from where I stand.

MRQ books are high priced, there are no two ways about it. I'm not bitching Price per Page or any of that here - I have even defending the pricing of MRQ books on other forums. The prices seem to be in line with a couple of other companies, and are definitely the high end of what RPG books cost.

If there is a switch to all B&W while the prices remain the same I think that will definitely make these the most expensive books on the market - all comparably priced products I am aware of are color.

I was pretty excited when I heard Mongoose was getting its own printing facility - it is a great thing for a RPG company to have it's own press, and I am happy for Mongoose. But if the end result is I get less for my money, my enthusiasm is definitely dampened.

 

[Exubae]

Just wondering where on the globe the printing facility resides?

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hi guys,

The printing facility will be here in Swindon, the UK.

As for the prices of the books, they are very reasonable - we charge £15 for the RQ main book in the UK. The US price is woefully low. How so?

We _should_ be charging $29.95 for it - remember, there are nearsasdammit two Dollars to the Pound now. This has a serious effect on a company trading with the US, to the point where we are operating as low as we can go across the Atlantic.

Moral of the story: If you want cheaper RPG books, find someone who can strengthen your Dollar!

 

[CharlieMonster]

I tend to agree although, Matt did say that a lot of products slated for release where still formatted for the old production method, but that this would change, which is fair enough. Still a price revision might be nice if this facility is cutting costs for them.

It is certainly capable of colour production so that presumably isn't the issue with forthcoming monochromity (is that even a real word? Who cares I like it!). I know there are plans for a Glorantha Box set, wiv poster maps 'n' stuff, which, one assumes, will issue forth from Mongoose Print Control.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Mongoose Print Control.

I like that name

 

[lastbesthope]

Mongoose Print Control.

I like that name

If he'd named it Mongoose Controlled Printing you could have said "End Of Line"

:lol:

LBH

 

[Rurik]

Hi guys,

The printing facility will be here in Swindon, the UK.

As for the prices of the books, they are very reasonable - we charge £15 for the RQ main book in the UK. The US price is woefully low. How so?

We _should_ be charging $29.95 for it - remember, there are nearsasdammit two Dollars to the Pound now. This has a serious effect on a company trading with the US, to the point where we are operating as low as we can go across the Atlantic.

Moral of the story: If you want cheaper RPG books, find someone who can strengthen your Dollar!

The point has nothing to do with the dollar though (and for the record, the last U.S. president I voted for that won had a strong dollar policy - which makes a lot of sense if you are country that imports more than it exports).

Dollars or Pounds or brightly colored sheashells, all of a sudden what we get for the same money has just gone down in quality.

Granted the Companion was $25 dollars for a 96 page B&W, but honestly at that point I was ready to walk away from the system - if the Ralios PDF hadn't kept my interest in GtSA. Since then I have bought:

GtSA: 160 color pages. Great book, well worth it.
Monsters: 160 color Pages. No GtSA but it is what it is, and overall very good.
Cults 1: 96 Pages Color. Very Solid (I won't rehash 'the issue').
Magic of Glorantha: 96 Pages Color and another solid title.
Cults 2: 96 Pages Color. O.K, I don't have it yet, but it's on order.

Now the switch to Mongooses own press, and:

Players Guide: 96 Pages B&W. Same cost as all the nice color books I have become accustomed to.

So the quality of the product has gone down while the price has remained the same, regardless of currency.To me all this equals "more expensive" - which isn't really what I was hoping for when printing went in-house.

Now as far as the books cost in the U.S. the color versions seem to be in line with what White Wolf and WHFRP offerings cost - which is to say the upper end of what RPG books go for. To the best of my knowledge, all other RPG books that cost the same as MRQ books are color. As B&W books, I can't think of any other product that costs the same.

 

[simonh]

So the quality of the product has gone down while the price has remained the same, regardless of currency....

Exchange rates matter. You can't just wave them away and pretend they don't exist. Presumably the other vendors have a print source that is coping better with the Dollar's fall from grace.

 

[Rurik]

So the quality of the product has gone down while the price has remained the same, regardless of currency....

Exchange rates matter. You can't just wave them away and pretend they don't exist. Presumably the other vendors have a print source that is coping better with the Dollar's fall from grace.

I'm not waving them away - the book costs the same for a cheaper printing process no matter what currency you use. CoG1&2, MoG are all 25 us dollars or 15 british pounds, 96 pages color. Players Guide is also 25 dollars and 15 pounds, for the same 96 pages only in B&W. I don't see how the exchange rate has anything to do with that - unless of course, brits get color copies of the players guide while us yanks get B&W copies .

Note to Matt: I'm not trying to give you any ideas there....

 

[Halfbat]

Exchange rates matter. You can't just wave them away and pretend they don't exist.

This bears repeating, so I will. I'm not surprised that Mongoose did well in Europe this last year as a result. And, iirc, what a dollar buys isn't half what a pound buys, but somewhat more.

Presumably the other vendors have a print source that is coping better with the Dollar's fall from grace.

Maybe, but we still have to pay higher relative prices over in the UK for US sourced products.

 

[Rurik]

Out of curiosity, how much does say Malleus Monstrorum cost in England?

 

[ninthcouncil]

Out of curiosity, how much does say Malleus Monstrorum cost in England?

Orcs Nest sell it for £19.99

 

[Rurik]

Well it looks as though I should correct myself - it appears that many recent WHFRP books are $25 for 96 page B&W, so Mongoose is not alone in charging this as I claimed earlier.

It also seems that Players Guide was formatted for the previous printing process - so maybe the move to B&W coinciding with the new printing facility is coincidence.

Perhaps I should ask this question instead:

What is the reason for going from the nice beautiful color Gloranthan books to yucky bland black and white books (note I am not trying to convey any preference for printing process by moy choice of words here)?

And also: Can we expect future color books or is B&W going to be the norm?

 

[Rurik]

Exchange rates matter. You can't just wave them away and pretend they don't exist.

This bears repeating, so I will. I'm not surprised that Mongoose did well in Europe this last year as a result. And, iirc, what a dollar buys isn't half what a pound buys, but somewhat more.

Actually, it seems at the end of November the dollar took a slide relative to the pound and is pretty much one half right now (very slightly over, as in around .51).

Presumably the other vendors have a print source that is coping better with the Dollar's fall from grace.

Maybe, but we still have to pay higher relative prices over in the UK for US sourced products.

One would expect the weak dollar should be a boon to UK buyers of US games.

Out of curiosity, how much does say Malleus Monstrorum cost in England?

Orcs Nest sell it for £19.99

Do you feel safe buying books from a nest of Orcs? I would be careful if I were you!

The reason I asked is that MM is $35 dollars (same as GtSA and Monsters), and I was curious what it cost in the UK. £19.99 is cheaper than the £25 the aforementioned MRQ books cost.

I see things from a US market point of view, and here MRQ is definitely on the expensive side (but not more than some other companies, and WOTC prints such huge volume it is not fair to directly compare prices to them). How is MRQ priced in the UK compared to other games prices?

 

[gamesmeister]

The reason I asked is that MM is $35 dollars (same as GtSA and Monsters), and I was curious what it cost in the UK. £19.99 is cheaper than the £25 the aforementioned MRQ books cost.

MRQ books are £15, not £25 - they are $25 in the US

 

[Rurik]

The reason I asked is that MM is $35 dollars (same as GtSA and Monsters), and I was curious what it cost in the UK. £19.99 is cheaper than the £25 the aforementioned MRQ books cost.

MRQ books are £15, not £25 - they are $25 in the US

Glorantha the Second Age(GtSA) and Monsters (the 160 page books) are listed as £25 on the Mongoose site. They cost $35 in the US (a relative steal by comparison).

 

[Banned Beetle]

The MRQ books gotta be among the most expensive RPG books published. Not really much to discuss there. Going from colour to greyscale is quite depressing, when you still pay the same amount. But we can always hope for better products when they've had their printing fascilities up and running for some time...

Trif.

 

[gamesmeister]

The reason I asked is that MM is $35 dollars (same as GtSA and Monsters), and I was curious what it cost in the UK. £19.99 is cheaper than the £25 the aforementioned MRQ books cost.

MRQ books are £15, not £25 - they are $25 in the US

Glorantha the Second Age(GtSA) and Monsters (the 160 page books) are listed as £25 on the Mongoose site. They cost $35 in the US (a relative steal by comparison).

Apologies, forgot you were comparing to the 160 page books.

The fact that MM is (presumably) printed in the US, while MRQ books will be printed in the UK must have some bearing on the cost of each book within our respective countries, due to the cost of shipping.

 

[Greg Smith]

The fact that MM is (presumably) printed in the US, while MRQ books will be printed in the UK must have some bearing on the cost of each book within our respective countries, due to the cost of shipping.

Mongoose books are currently printed in China. Take a look at the small print in the contents page.

 

[CharlieMonster]

The fact that MM is (presumably) printed in the US, while MRQ books will be printed in the UK must have some bearing on the cost of each book within our respective countries, due to the cost of shipping.

Mongoose books are currently printed in China. Take a look at the small print in the contents page.

A huge amount of RPG stuff seems to be produced in China these days due to the huge difference in production costs, off the top of my head I can only think of Mongoose, Wizards & Dwarven Forge, but I'm pretty sure there are others...