"Where mongoose went wrong with Starship Troopers" Topic

Just reread the goonhammer article.

I feel mongoose really dropped the ball.

For a catch up, Mongoose publishing got the rights to ST, released the minis game to great fanfare, then something went wrong and it died 2 years later.

They were trying for a second edition with prepaints that the factory screwed up. Then just pulled the plug.

It also sounds like it could have been the licence had been pulled/not renewed. Perhaps their creation of a fourth army, after bugs, humans, skinnies, didn't go down well with property owners???

If it was a licence issue, I feel they dropped the ball.

Dr Who immediately springs to mind.

There's a great doco on the DVDs on this.

After target books had been doing Dr Who novelizations in the 60s-70s (if I got that right), Virgin books picked it up.

They then ran out of books at the end of the show come the 90s.

So they called it "Dr Who the new adventures," and just made up new stories to print. Including their own made up companions, as things progressed.

A bit like the fourth army for Starship Troopers. And I suspect a few of the other armies troop types as well?

Back to Who, and there was a meeting in which it's felt the BBC realised how much money the publishers were actually making selling the new adventures books. After which the licence was pulled.

Hmm.., sounds familiar?

So what did they do? Give up? Let their readers down?

Not on your dynatrope!

They simply removed Dr Who from the stories, title and cover image, and went on publishing "New Adventures," with their aforementioned companions, for a further 2 years.

So where does that leave Mongoose?

If the licence was pulled, hmm..,

They have a popular game, players with armies of bugs and humans (how generic can you get?), and aspirations for a new edition and army.

So, why did they not just release, at least one rule book to begin with, with cleaned up rules, several army lists including "humans" "insectoides" "primitives" "fourth" "maybe 2 others".

They were making metal figures already, so pushing out some of those would have been quick and easy enough.

They just needed a book to get players by with the core rules and temperary lists. Just call it something else "Space Wars," or whatever. Army books could come later.

A new range for the forth and a few new units for the other "new" armies. Perhaps some lightly armoured human Infantry and a new type of insecticide warrior bug they found on a new planet. Maybe some primitive temple guard with wooden masks covering faces and traditional dress covering feet and body shape, coincidentally about the height of a skinny, later models could reveal their actual form. So existing players could add theses to existing armies, or use old figures to prioxy the new rule entries.

And off they go…

So much more, they already had the "Mongoose Infantry," didn't even need a rebrand there, just send them all a free copy of the book, maybe some figures, and they're off.

Shops selling Starship Troopers would be glad of the new game to go alongside any existing stock.

*****

Honestly, licence issues (if any) aside, I feel they were just going too big, too fast. All the releases over 2 years could have lasted them much longer. Let it soak, don't flood it.

It was gone in a blink of an eye, rather than being released to draw interest long term.

You are correct in the fact that while Mongoose made some bad calls on the game and products, the actual killer was Sony pulling the license from Mongoose. They had dropped a lot of money into producing the SST RPG and it was dead before it was ever really released, which is sad. I have some of the books and they are really well done.
Sony is more of the culprit behind SST's demise than Mongoose.

On another note, this April at Little Wars I am selling my entire SST stuff in one big bundle… I got into it and then got burned with the Sony license pull, and then I moved, and never got around to do anything with it.

Sounds like the new game was to do with a game called battlefield evolution that was going to also use prepaints.

So maybe they were already thinking along that line, sounds like there was rules crossover.

Also sounds like a fith ST army was planned as well.

Any ideas what these two armies were?

Apparently the fourth may be space dwarfs.

From the film, all I can think of are the Mormons. "Think of the casualty models," someone probably said to try to sell the idea. (As that's all we get in the film). But that's the only other group that's really mentioned, I think.

I think they were Mormons?

Rings a bit like first contact and the religious dude (from a certain other film, Bazinga) who blew up the gizmo. So they could do things like that, acting more espionage and diplomacy than straight combat.

Maybe post asteroid beunas Ares (however the heck that's spelt) survivors, vs bugs from the asteroid and mi trying to stop them flooding into other areas. Could have been a bit mars attacks with burning cattle and all.