Game News Roundup

Today seems to be a busy day in the gaming industry.

Slitherine has finally put up a pre-order page for the hard copy version of their Field of Glory miniatures rules version 2.0. FoG was very successful when it launched, owing in no small part to the outstanding design of the books themselves. When it was announced that the 2nd version of the rules would be available in electronic format only, it put off a lot of fans of the game, including myself. Fortunately, though, they reversed themselves, and now we Luddites can see the goodness for ourselves.

FASA has decided to fold their ludicrously overpriced Kickstarter for their 1879 game. After a week and a half, they had only raised $2,354 of their $325,000 (!) goal. I'm convinced that much of the problem stems from the sheer sprawl of it all. Not only was it going to be a new RPG in a new setting (a sort of Victorian-era steampunk on an alien world thing), but also a set of miniatures combat rules with full lines of figures and army books, plus a mobile app for the iPad to play an electronic version of the minis game. I think they'll do slightly better if they break it up into digestible chunks.

Mongoose Publishing has released their State of the Mongoose 2012 report. I love how they're so open about the inner workings of the company. Highlights include; fewer, but better, products; switching from full-time writers to freelancers; markets are "miserable" for RPGs and miniatures; apparently selling "a couple of hundred" copies of a new release is doing well, and even WotC (albeit not specifically named-- it could have been Paizo) couldn't make that modest goal with their latest offering; plus mentions of all the lines they produce. Very interesting stuff, and highly recommended.

Goblinworks has updated their Pathfinder Online Kickstarter to include a bunch of what they're calling "reward enhancements". Offerings include miniatures, battlemat books, and a hard copy of a "superdungeon". I'm a bit confused as to why such tabletop gaming items would be offered as part of the MMO Kickstarter (and even weirder, with the Pathfinder Online logo, rather than the regular Pathfinder logo), but stranger things have happened. Some are quite displeased with this approach.

Well, there 'tis. Enjoy!

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