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When I look at games like Magic the gathering and whats going on with that right now, with websites like twitch live streaming the tournaments (30k tuned in to watch a finals match as I type this right now) I cant help but think with a similar setup with several war game systems if done well, they could attract a similar viewership. Then with sponsers involved this would lead to large prize pools for these games to the point where someone could possibly play a game system professionally... Can you foresee this happening with this hobby in the future?

The biggest wargaming company is GW and its my understanding that GW is a horrible company to work with and have very draconian rules about how other companies can sell, promote, and utilize their products. I doubt advertisers would want to support a game that is owned by a company that seems to have a dislike for any sort of tournament scene, has zero outside marketing, and isn't trying to promote itself outside of its isolated bubble.

Tournament organizations like the ITC seem to have some support from some 3rd party model manufacturers but until they get higher numbers (numbers big enough to attract non wargaming companies) and a better way to generate large media exposure then I doubt there will be much outside money coming in to promote wargaming.

Magic has a very structured rule set, the rules are consistent. You can only cheat by actually fiddling with the deck or deliberately deceiving your opponent. Wargames are much harder because you have many things that are unclear, you have people arguing the toss about whether something has LoS or nudging their figures a bit and trying it on, it's wide open to abuse and the greater the prizes the more douchery you will get. You get some of that in MtG but if you know the rules you can brush off someone being a knob, there's nothing they can do short of actual cheating. There's no such thing as making a die roll to resolve a rules query in MtG.

Card gaming and wargaming are very very different animals, I could write a book as to why it happened for card gaming and not for wargaming. It might still transpire that one day wargaming gets the same treatment, but itll be a long time before that happens (and when it does, my money is on either Warmachine/Hordes or X-Wing)

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Magic has a very structured rule set, the rules are consistent. You can only cheat by actually fiddling with the deck or deliberately deceiving your opponent. Wargames are much harder because you have many things that are unclear, you have people arguing the toss about whether something has LoS or nudging their figures a bit and trying it on, it's wide open to abuse and the greater the prizes the more douchery you will get. You get some of that in MtG but if you know the rules you can brush off someone being a knob, there's nothing they can do short of actual cheating. There's no such thing as making a die roll to resolve a rules query in MtG.

But with a good group of judges at these tournaments overseeing the games doesnt that problem go away?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vankraken wrote:
The biggest wargaming company is GW and its my understanding that GW is a horrible company to work with and have very draconian rules about how other companies can sell, promote, and utilize their products. I doubt advertisers would want to support a game that is owned by a company that seems to have a dislike for any sort of tournament scene, has zero outside marketing, and isn't trying to promote itself outside of its isolated bubble.

While that may be true for GW and the games they own the rights too.... there's so many other games out there that have a good following and decent sized competitive scene right now. Warmachine, Malifaux, Infinity to name a few.... and some of the companys that own these games would love to see their game get that kind of attention?

 Vankraken wrote:
Tournament organizations like the ITC seem to have some support from some 3rd party model manufacturers but until they get higher numbers (numbers big enough to attract non wargaming companies) and a better way to generate large media exposure then I doubt there will be much outside money coming in to promote wargaming.

Isnt this where a website like twitch could help immensely? Its a low investment to gain HUGE exposure....and while it may not get a huge viewership initially, overtime that could grow like it has done for Magic the Gathering.. IIRC they were nowhere near 30k viewers a couple years back on twitch for their tournaments.

Maybe even something kick-starter could get the ball rolling if the company's are to afraid to make the initial investments themselves to ensure the production values are there on the streams... good camera work, commentators etc etc.

The majority of wargamers are in it for the fun of building armies and terrain, researching history and playing games on a social basis.

This includes competitions but the overall ethos is different to MRG or computer games where you just buy stuff off the shelf and learn some rules.

Another reason: individual wargames don't gross anywhere near what Magic the Gathering or Pokemon / Nintendo do. A 10 -50k purse isn't a big deal to M:tG or Pokemon. It very well might be a big deal to a minis company. To say nothing of multiple purses like that over the course of a year.

Building off that: Magic is a much more cash intensive hobby than wargaming is. Players have to drop hundreds of dollars every few months to keep up with the meta shifts and new standards, etc. On top of that you have draft type events where players existing card collections become meaningless and they have to buy new cards during the day of the event in order to build new decks, so the cash investment required to be a competitive magic player is actually much higher than it is for a wargamer.

anab0lic wrote:
But with a good group of judges at these tournaments overseeing the games doesnt that problem go away?.

That would depend on the game. If you have a system that has some way of making sure that movement can't be fudged (as in, somethign that uses a grid instead of open measurement with a tape) and doesn't rely on physical Line of Sight, then sure, you could do it with decent judges.

For a system like 40K, or most of the other big games out there at the moment, the only way it would work once you get big money involved is for everything to be checked by a judge as it happens.

It's not just one judge though it dozens of them!

You'd need it at every round, and they'd need to monitor every move, LoS and arbitrate on any quibble over terrain cocked dice etc.

For a 32 player event (not a huge size) you'd need 16 judges - would they freely give up their time? Also the extra gaming time needed to resolve all the above stuff would stretch the game duration - another factor.

Just too many variables which cards don't have

You absolutely do not need 16 judges for a 32 player event, thats one judge per table, absolutely ridiculous. The average 40k event is 1 judge or rules official for 4-8 tables, from what I have seen of Magic the ratio is similar there as well.

The rules are terrible, inconsistent and the players themselves can't agree to play by a standard rule set. Also, time limits and how long it takes to finish a game makes it non-competitive. How often do you really see "TIME" called during MTG events? Not very often...

Generally speaking, 40k isnt pro-capable.. It's just a bunch of different amateur circuits. Until one FAQ runs all events then it's just not possible.

chaos0xomega wrote:
You absolutely do not need 16 judges for a 32 player event, thats one judge per table, absolutely ridiculous. The average 40k event is 1 judge or rules official for 4-8 tables, from what I have seen of Magic the ratio is similar there as well.

Yes, and the point being made its that this only works for 40k because most events are fairly low stakes.

Put $10000 on the line, as is the case fir MtG, and the 40k system simply allows too many avenues for potential abuse for the game to not be intensely scrutinised.

Think of the complaints that come out of tournaments now about players fudging movement, or disagreeing on LOS, or interpreting rules to suit themselves.

Now make those events actually worth something substantial, and imagine what would happen.

You would absolutely need a judge per table for that sort of event.


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 Kirasu wrote:
Until one FAQ runs all events then it's just not possible.

The problem isn't different events using different rules. It's just the existing rules not being something that could be rigidly controlled.

Star Wars Miniatures and Mageknight worked as tournament games, because they had solid rulesets and no way to abuse los or measurement due to working on a grid instead of an open table.

Open table games could only function like that if there was some way of accurately tracking movement and range measurement, and standardised model profiles for LOS.

Right.. as Insaniak says, if you put money on the table you will see abuse. Just look at the past 'ard boyz events for your example.

The prize was only like 1000$ and people turned into total tools. You would easily need 1 judge per table because the rules for 40k are not designed for any kind of serious competition.

chaos0xomega wrote:
You absolutely do not need 16 judges for a 32 player event, thats one judge per table, absolutely ridiculous. The average 40k event is 1 judge or rules official for 4-8 tables, from what I have seen of Magic the ratio is similar there as well.

When big money is involved you need oversight, you can't have players complaining they've lost as their opponent added an extra half inch to each move unless you have a judge at each table

It would never work for 40k ever.

The rules are leeky as all hell and if there is money involved then too many TFG fat guys will cheat that extra 1" every time they move or cheat that extra 1" for assaulting. Cheat cheat cheat because they have no morals and are less incentive to keep the honour code because at tournaments they play against total strangers.

At the end of the day wargaming is about honour code. You can't catch the cheaters.

Magic you can't freaking cheat. That alone makes a tournament scene impossible for a game like 40k.

 insaniak wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
You absolutely do not need 16 judges for a 32 player event, thats one judge per table, absolutely ridiculous. The average 40k event is 1 judge or rules official for 4-8 tables, from what I have seen of Magic the ratio is similar there as well.

Yes, and the point being made its that this only works for 40k because most events are fairly low stakes.

Put $10000 on the line, as is the case fir MtG, and the 40k system simply allows too many avenues for potential abuse for the game to not be intensely scrutinised.

Think of the complaints that come out of tournaments now about players fudging movement, or disagreeing on LOS, or interpreting rules to suit themselves.

Now make those events actually worth something substantial, and imagine what would happen.

You would absolutely need a judge per table for that sort of event.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kirasu wrote:
Until one FAQ runs all events then it's just not possible.

The problem isn't different events using different rules. It's just the existing rules not being something that could be rigidly controlled.

Star Wars Miniatures and Mageknight worked as tournament games, because they had solid rulesets and no way to abuse los or measurement due to working on a grid instead of an open table.

Open table games could only function like that if there was some way of accurately tracking movement and range measurement, and standardised model profiles for LOS.

If MtG is anything to go by, you simply wouldn't need that many judges as the player base becomes self moderating thanks to the wonders of technology and live broadcast games. Magic has its own issues with cheating, and several of them have been outed as the result of keen eyes watching the games from the comfort of their computer desks. Similar has happened within the Warmahordes tournament circuit, as well as the Ticket to Ride tournament circuit (if you can believe that such a thing actually exists). Granted, there is still more of a fudge factor to 40k than those other games, but the point is that its not quite as big of an issue as you may think, though I will agree that 40k (since that game in particular seems to be the focus of discussion, as opposed to a game like X-Wing where there is little to no 'fudge room' within its gameplay) would need a tighter ruleset for this to become a thing.

Another important factor to note is that Magic has the prize support it does because it has a standardized set of formats, practices, etc. all organized and backed by the company that owns and creates its IP and rules, and which scrutinizes 'big data' etc. in an effort to try to provide some semblance of balance via ban lists and new additions to the meta.

If MtG is anything to go by, you simply wouldn't need that many judges as the player base becomes self moderating thanks to the wonders of technology and live broadcast games

Tom Brady and the Patriots would prove otherwise. People will cheat because that's what people do during competitive events, you need lots of judges. MTG needs less because it's actually very hard to cheat.

chaos0xomega wrote:

If MtG is anything to go by,.

It isn't.

MtG is a system that had been specifically designed for tournament play, and that works in that format.

40k isn't, and requires both players to co-operate to function as a game at all, let alone competitively.

There are tabletop games that are made specifically for tournament play (Infinity, WM/H and KoW springs to mind). Unfortunately, they're just a fraction of what GW is. And GW games are gakky for tournament play.

 heartserenade wrote:
There are tabletop games that are made specifically for tournament play (Infinity, WM/H and KoW springs to mind). Unfortunately, they're just a fraction of what GW is. And GW games are gakky for tournament play.

But put aside GW games for a minute and it's still a valid question.

Some people play Hearthstone because the world championship pot is like, $250,000 USD or some such, with the prize for first place being $100k (in 2014, anyhow, not sure what happened this year). I mean, that's real money. And there are regional prize pots, too.

If Infinity or WMH had a prize pot like this, I'm sure it would attract tons of really ace players (not to mention, NEW players).

The point is Corvus Belli or PP can't afford to offer big prizes like that, at least for now.

Do you still use scatter dice in 40k? They were always a contentious issue when I used to play especially when the exact angle made a difference between which figure that damage landed on. It's genuinely difficult to say when looking at the arrow on the die and then trying to get it just right for something randomly scattering 10", even more difficult to agree when an inch either way at the end determines which of our figures takes the damage.

This isn't people trying to cheat, it's henuinely difficult to decide, and these things occur all the time in wargaming. Anything relying on use of eyes and measurement by hand is open to interpretation, and unless both players really don't care about winning, you're going to want it to suit you. This doesn't happen in MtG, the rules are clear cut. You only want to call a judge to clarify how certain things may interact, but there's no arguing or personal bias in decisions, you are never in the position of having to roll off to make a decision because the rules are logical and consistent for all eventualities.

No one is playing for fun and 'doesn't care about winning' when there's $100,000 up for grabs. Warhammer just isn't rigid enough to play at a highly competitive level without constant supervision.

I'm curious: what's the biggest prize pot for MtG tournaments now?

I'm not suggesting a $250k prize pot for a wargaming tournament (at least not now), because the number of players just isn't big enough -- but a $50k pot with a $20k top prize would be a huge inducement, and PP/CB can most certainly afford that... I would think.

And I agree, nobody is playing for fun with significant prize money on the line.

If we were to play 40k tourneys for money at my store it would turn the witches into even bigger witches.

Cheaters ruin everything.

I think magic and x-wing are as close as to what we will ever get for quite some time in regards to competitive gaming. The rules are tight, balanced and mkes it very hard for players to cheat.

I find them amazing to watch, the format is very easy to capture with a single camera lens and isn't confusing for new spectators, unlike games like 40k which are too large.

If GW were serious they could have done smething similar years ag but I feel it's too late, I can't wait to see smaller companies follow in the footsteps of FF, Wizards, small games which are rewarding to play and spectate.

I think a huge obstacle to any kind of live-streamed wargaming is that it would be awful to watch. Unless there were commentators describing what was happening (and that they were right) it would be too difficult to determine what exactly was going on. There wold be too much "Who is that unit shooting at?" and "Why is that die being rolled?" It would take a lot of editing and commentating to make it interesting enough to attract an audience.

This is, of course, in addition to the fact that wargaming tournaments are just not run in a way that is conducive to larger prizes (too much cheating and rules ambiguity), as everybody has already pointed out.

Warhammer isn't Magic. Isn't close to Magic.

Doesn't have the work done to make a coherent rules set.

Does not have a system that links all venues, with tournament software and uploaded results.

Doesn't have a couple of decades of work by the company that makes the game put into developing organized play on several levels.

Doesn't have a system for training and keepting track of judges.

Hasn't integrated the stores selling the product into their network.

In short, GW has not done any of the infrastructure, developement of softwar and OP, the training of judges, or the rules needed for a system like MTG.
GW is anti-tournament, and doesn't run any events. Their mindset isn't there.

And without GW being involved, warhammer will never develope a system similar to what WOTC has done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:
I'm curious: what's the biggest prize pot for MtG tournaments now?

I'm not suggesting a $250k prize pot for a wargaming tournament (at least not now), because the number of players just isn't big enough -- but a $50k pot with a $20k top prize would be a huge inducement, and PP/CB can most certainly afford that... I would think.

And I agree, nobody is playing for fun with significant prize money on the line.

Shary would never fork over the money for prizes like that. Too cheap by far.

But the prize money is the least of it. The support for an event would cost a lot more.

 tomjoad wrote:
I think a huge obstacle to any kind of live-streamed wargaming is that it would be awful to watch. Unless there were commentators describing what was happening (and that they were right) it would be too difficult to determine what exactly was going on. There wold be too much "Who is that unit shooting at?" and "Why is that die being rolled?" It would take a lot of editing and commentating to make it interesting enough to attract an audience.

This is, of course, in addition to the fact that wargaming tournaments are just not run in a way that is conducive to larger prizes (too much cheating and rules ambiguity), as everybody has already pointed out.

It has been done on the TV in the UK several times, sometimes as part of a drama, sometimes as a tabletop game, and most recently using the Slitherine software that underpins the Total War series.

The thing is it's only interesting to the right audience, which is true of any programme really but the wargame audience is very small compared to home improvement or soap operas and the like.

I still propose that the main reason there are not big money tournaments is because wargamers are in it for the fun of the game, not to win big prizes.