Anyone who has been around long enough knows that games come and go. Some just barely get a foothold and then die off. Others fade into the sunset after having run their course. However, yet others can be very popular and then suddenly implode. It is these rapid declines that are still somewhat of a mystery to me. I am thinking of the decline of games such as Warmachine, X Wing, Malifaux, Flames of War, and Mage Knight.

It seems unlikely that local factors cause the decline, as the games are popular in many countries. There are usually more global factors that could contribute to such decline. Things that are commonly blamed are a broken game system, poor new edition, the new hot game stealing the spotlight, ending support for 'ringleaders', changing the scale of the miniatures, kickstarters, etc. I find it difficult to believe that some of these factors could cause such a large shift. For example, what miniature game is balanced? They are all basically broken and we still play them. Most of us have had armies that have gone from tournament viable to trash. But has it killed the game in a short period of time? No. Infinity changed its scale and even killed off parts of a faction and did not implode.

Miniature gaming is somewhat different than other industries, in that fans invest heavily in the miniatures and in the fluff, making the sudden abandonment of a game less likely. Nobody wants hundreds of dollars in books and minis to become worthless. I get the feeling that there is more to these declines than simply the obvious factors named above. Maybe it involves their success, and thus the prevalence of newbs. Maybe it involves some dynamic between tournament gamers and hobbyists. Another factor could be a lack of diversity in fan base. For example it is notable that x wing and mage knight do not necessarily involve hobbying. Flames of War does not involve fluff that is newly created. Warmachine is known as a tournament game. They all lack a breadth of fans.

What are your thoughts?

I can attest to two of those games from being in close proximity to others who play them regularly, which are x-wing and flames of war.

In x-wings case it was bloat from all the cards and unique units/rules that in most players eyes made a mockery of balance and established fluff. Wedge was never flown because other pilots were used due to snowflake rules that were flat out better than wedge - the FETHING leader of Gold attack Wing! People in my group would play casual lists but it meant buying ships you didn't want or characters you had no use for. Add in the fact only scum and rebel ships could take astro droids, that meant imperial shops were completely out arched most times and you have a recipe for stale games.

In flames of war case, everyone in my group though the newest edition of the rules were really shonky and as such just drifted away. Doesn't help that 40k has had a massive resurgence in the area and with 8th being easier to learn and play we've got people who last played in 3rd coming back, which also knocks FoW down the peg of games I want to play but lack time to.

I suspect it’s at least partially a matter of over specialisation.

Consider. 40k and Warhammer are the Grandparents of modern wargaming. And they cast their net very wide.

And within the GW range, there’s various takes on those. Epic, main game, Kill Team etc. No matter your preference on scale or budget, chances are GW has something to offer.

X-Wing? It’s a good game, a very good game. But. How they chose to market it isn’t to my taste (stuff buying new ships I won’t use just to get a card I will use). It’s scale is also so precise, it has a very definite ceiling, beyond which the mechanics just don’t work that well.

And that’s a common thing among many new games. By necessity, they have to start small. No point in designing a 40k scaled game if it’s going to take you years to release enough stuff that armies are suitably varied between each other (not accounting for Netlisting etc).

Any time you seek to occupy a particular niche, there comes an element of limitation.

Now I understand PP is experiencing a bit of a doldrum at the moment. But that doesn’t mean their games are defunct, just struggling. GW went through the same thing and came out ok.

But stuff like X-Wing? Whilst I think the game itself is bloody good, it’s too limited to show proper staying power. From god awful EU goo like the K-Wing (does not look Star Wars, at all) to the X-Wing itself being a bit lack lustre (can’t speak for 2nd Ed, I’ve long since packed up. Feel free to correct and educate me, folks!). If I can assemble a force for under £100, where’s the incentive for me and mine to continue spending?

A few thoughts:

1) Attention and update speed. Most people might play one faction at a time, even if over the time of their gaming they use more than one army. As a result as a game matures it becomes increasingly difficult to add more and more models and units to a faction without bloating the faction. Ergo the new things end being outright better or worse than other units in the line up. Or they are very specialist units that, in open standard play, are just too specialist for most people to make use of them.
So people start to lose interest because either their old models are being defunct or the new are just not interesting or the company is paying more attention to newer smaller factions and ignoring the older ones.

2) Rules - a lot of games change over time. Warmachine is a fantastic example whereby the early game was very small skirmish based and the newer game is much bigger armies. Warhammer did the same and many companies do it. Basically its VERY hard to start off a company with a big full army approach - kickstarter has made it more possible but not exceptionally so. So a lot of games start as "that small skirmish you only need 5 models for" and then gradually get bigger and bigger as they get a popular user base who own dozens of models and want to play with them.
Evolution of the game can mean that the original attracting feature can vanish and many might get disillusioned with that and drop the game when a minor hiccup comes along and unsettles things.

3) Bad marketing choices. Sometimes a company makes mistakes. They don't do proper research, they bungle a release (esp of rules); their growth requires them to up their prices to a higher value that pushes out a majority of their original player base etc.. Ergo something happens that is nothing to do with the lore or models but everything to do with the company and sale of models.

4) Something else comes along. Take the big recent rise of 40K and AoS and how its pulled a lot of people back and away from other games. Because of how long wargames take to play and setup, many people might only get one or two games a week so that puts a strict limit on how much they can viably play in any one setting. Add into that the need for opponents and you can fast see that if something new and shiny comes along it can sweep out the feet from other games

5) Local player scene. Warmachine is agreat example here, the Pressganger system worked great for encouraging play because there was always at least one person in each local club who had a vested interest in promoting the game and organising things. Once that shut down it helped knock out many of the local scenes as the basic organising of matches and events dried up and people drifted away.

6) Attention. Spartan Games is the best example here, they had multiple games but could only ever focus attention on one at a time which left their other games ignored for long periods. Coupled to that their marketing would often hint or show things months if not years off being released (if ever). This

7) Communication and marketing - Spartan games and Warhammer (old kirby no-community website era). Bad marketing can kill you. In SG's case it was hinting and showing previews on things that were years away or only concepts that never appeared; coupled to hinting at big releases, missing deadlines and then never communicating until pressured and then often moving onto something else. It frustrated fans no end and sunk popularity on many of their lines.
Warhammer had different issues which was more linked to a lack of social media and onlin interaction and a general sense of a big divide between the store managers interaction and the focus and attention of the upper management of the company (the latter being focused on the shareholders only it seemed to many). Again this harmed their marketing and impact.
In their defence GW is generally very good at only showing what IS coming and not showing things so far in advance that it builds up frustraition at the time it takes to come out (though their fans do dream of wanting many many many things all the same

7) Combo - often its not one thing; rarely is it one thing. Most times its several things that, each on their own isn't too bad, but which all happen at around the same time and all build up and pile on one atop the other. Essentially causing a snowball effect. Plus once it starts and if people see a lot of other people leaving that can dissuade others joining in - esp if some are those who once were big supporters and promoters of the game.

First, I should make clear, that I did not mean to imply that any of the games that I mentioned in the OP are dead. That is far from the case. There are new releases for Warmachine, Flames of War, etc. all the time. They also have a dedicated set of players.

This being said, those games did suffer a sudden and dramatic decline in players, hence my post.

I appreciate the detailed responses. It gives me things to think about.

It may be that numerous factors combine to form the dramatic drop offs, which if one or two factors alone would not have the same effect.

For the sake of argument, I do find the case of x wing kind of curious. It was super hot when it started. It spawned Star Trek and DnD versions. However, many of the flaws that people claim for its downturn, were present from the start or from very early on. The A wing was an early ship. It was never really any good. People did not drop off in large numbers. People bought special repaints to get cards. Again people did not flee the game. (I do not recall in enough detail specific ships being needed for certain cards, but I am reasonably sure that was the way it was very early on. Maybe the y wing. I just forget.) Maybe the game just got too stale. Maybe it was taken up by the kiddos and drove off some vets.

All of the above, plus:
The basic pitfall of all wargaming is the massive time commitment to the game. It is why the hobby side of even 40k seems to be dropping off (my group of four goes to our local FLGS and we have 3 of the 6 painted armies of the dozen plus there, and this seems common). Even a 3-4 hour time commitment has become a burden on younger generations. Competing with short (30 minute) games grows harder and harder (and let's not talk about the phone or computer).
That said...
In my opinion some games self-destruct themselves with their own target audience. Anytime you are marketing to younger people (say age 12-16) your market is fluid and likely to change drastically in a short bit of time. Pulling in young fans from the Flavor of the Month movie (or even a franchise) has a high risk of losing those fans within a short period of time. LoTR, Star Wars, etc pulls in the "that's cool!" crowd, who then move on, change interest, lose interest, etc. If you cannot retain enough of them for long term purchasing power (and this is the game mechanics/miniature production side) you will have to release enough new COOL!! material to continually turn over the crowd you draw in. This is extremely hard to do. Can spike sales when the latest franchise movie is released hold you through the lean times? Sometimes...
I am NOT saying this is a foolish marketing theory in any way, you can make a killing on Flavor of the Month Merchandise. For long term success, it can be volatile.
Wargaming is a long-term hobby, and only a small percentage of individuals commit and find it a more enjoyable way to spend their time than the million other things in this world (especially if you are at the age where fitting in with your peers is far more important).
My group has a core of 3-4 players who are ALWAYS around to play, 1-2 players who occasionally play when available but do not make time to, and then generally a rotating player or two who see a game, think it looks interesting, and drift as soon as the time commitment becomes obvious. I would really like to see the statistics on retention from FLGS' for a game like X-wing over a six month period after a movie release say.

Traction is a thing.... the man cave has a number of excellent games sitting on the shelf (looking at you, Star Ship Troopers and others). But unless a group get hooked at the same time, that's where they sit bar an occasional outing. For some I ended up buying two forces, but never really persuading others to invest. On the other hand, I used to travel a lot. With a case of 40K in the boot, it wasn't that hard to find a game in many places.

Investment is my next key - and perception of investment. I've spent mumble mumble on GW over the last 20 years. I HAVE drawn a line with the indexes, but the odd purchase since has been a drop in a big GW pond. Going to 2nd edition X wing would have cost me more than my total 1st edition spend, so I didn't.

I have a decent collection of skirmish forces for FoW, supplemented by Zvesta. I play small games with a group of friends - we don't NEED to upgrade, as it's a closed group, and when we want a change we play Tanks! or one of the other myriad WW2 games.

For several small games (or small in my circle), there's no benefit to upgrading, so, again, no traction...

YMMV

A successful game is like a steam engine. The only way to keep it moving is to keep adding fuel to the fire to keep it running. The problem is, you need lots of different fuels to do it. Steady stream of new models/rules/etc to keep sales going. Events, splash releases, and big news to get people's attention. Good rules so people actually enjoy playing the game. Good models so people actually enjoy the look of the game. Good story/background so people actually enjoy thinking about the game and their models.

And you can still have all of that and still fail. Why? Because that fire in the steam engine also needs one last fuel that the maker of the game cannot provide: the public's interest. You can have the best skirmish game ever in the history of skirmish games, but if the market currently has a glut of skirmish games, many people won't even give your new game a second look. You can have the best ever steampunk setting based on a wildly popular novel or video game series, but if you're just one more steampunk game in a sea of them, you'll barely make a wave.

Games get stale, there are only so many "new" units you can add before they all start looking the same.

Star Fleet Battles had this, by the time they were issuing modular war destroyers to everyone and books of "conjectural" ships (and factions) it all became a bit cookie cutter when its a very sound game as it was.

Flames of War is a case of "gun-foot-aim-fire" from Battlefront who were trying to bring in new players at the cost of the established player base and took what was a pretty good game and basically threw out the good bits in the name of "simplicity" - they would have done a lot better calling FoW v4 as "Team Patton" (as its basically the Team Yankee spin off) and releasing it as a separate game. V3 was more or less finished if they had re-done the mid war books alongside the new "Team Patton" ones - established players have a complete game, new players have a new game, people are happy.

Battlefront ended up nuking their own forums such was the response.

X-Wing has fallen to bloat, hopefully the reboot will help.

Other games are also being hammered by 40k actually being half decent for once.


Any good game can get stale with nothing new, and eventually you run out of things to add to it.


With FoW instead of rebooting WW2 I wish they had just moved the timeline on with the same basic rules, but gradually adapting them, e.g. the Koean war etc

leopard wrote:
Games get stale, there are only so many "new" units you can add before they all start looking the same.

In essence this. There is only so much design space in any given system. A game without regular updates becomes boring and loses players' interest, but a game that expands will eventually become bloated with rules and units that end up being slight variations of the same thing once all battlefield roles are filled several times over, and as all factions naturally expand to cover all unit types, their identity is watered down. So it's really a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario at all stages of game development. The industry needs to accept that no matter how they are handled, all games (except 40k apparently) have a finite lifespan and there comes a point where new editions can't fix the core issue of a game simply having too much stuff.

I think 40k gets a pass largely because while there are oh so many flavours of the same thing with more or less interchangeable rules, the rules are not what generally brings people in - its a way of collecting some nice looking models coupled to what was a pretty good background.

the game is secondary really, this is where newer games seriously struggle, the game can be excellent but its never going to get the depth 40k has to the background anytime soon.

40k in effect has lasted despite the rules more than because of them, having a good few factions helps, as GW have held back on "faction "x" gets this, so does everyone else" (well they have had a drive to give everyone larger models but at least they tend not to play the same)

Human beings seek pleasure in novelty. We see this happening at different scales every day in the choices we make, from the foods we eat, to the people we hang out with, to the hobbies and leisure activities we participate in.

For things like games it's really simple. You get bored of playing the same old game and eventually you replace it with some other activity that seems fresh and exciting. The community of people surrounding the game gradually declines, the people comprising it get older and find new interests, and then are eventually replaced by a brand new generation of people that will likely have very different criteria for what constitutes a good game.

On an even more meta level, everything dies, man. Look at Star Wars

barboggo wrote:
Human beings seek pleasure in novelty. We see this happening at different scales every day in the choices we make, from the foods we eat, to the people we hang out with, to the hobbies and leisure activities we participate in.

For things like games it's really simple. You get bored of playing the same old game and eventually you replace it with some other activity that seems fresh and exciting. The community of people surrounding the game gradually declines, the people comprising it get older and find new interests, and then are eventually replaced by a brand new generation of people that will likely have very different criteria for what constitutes a good game.

On an even more meta level, everything dies, man. Look at Star Wars

in borad terms yes and no, keep in mind Chess has been about a fair while, not seen many expansion packs for it in recent years (though Assassins chess is worth a look), whats driving modern games is sales and sales are driven by "new", once a game is more or less complete whats left to add? hence unless its very good it may as well be dead and gone.

A solid game is one you can play over any over, there is enough variation in the game play to overcome the fixed forces, fixed deployment and only one scenario.

Same with stuff like Snooker, it doesn't exactly change much, but the actual game is solid enough not to need to.

A lot of modern games, FFG are terrible for this, are built around the idea of not being complete without expansions, and can become seriously stale without them.

There seem to be essentially no companies trying to create a game you can buy once, then spend a lifetime trying to master, where are the repeat sales going to come from (answer, create another, different game that people buy once and spend ages trying to master), have a set or rules that doesn't need constant adjustments because its actually pretty simple and right in the first place.

now try getting commercial backing for that...

I am still left a bit puzzled. Yes, things get stale. Some things age and ride off into the sunset. However, such processes strike me as being gradual. I would not expect a whole community, or even less likely a national community to get bored in one fell swoop.

Maybe this is just the conspiracy theorist in me, but some companies could even nuke their own games, to come out with new ones to make money off of new product. Heres looking at you Fantasy.

There was a thread on why warmachine is seeing a decline and it's not just that everyone got board and left it was a combination of a game that's bloated and competitive so it's hard to get new people to replace the standard loss of players any game has mixed with MK3 being rushed and poorly done in some aspects and the death of the Pressgangers to keep local communities alive. Add in that there's a glut of good tabletop games so there's strong competition and you have why Privateer is having issues.

Maybe this is just the conspiracy theorist in me, but some companies could even nuke their own games, to come out with new ones to make money off of new product. Heres looking at you Fantasy.

I really only think GW could do that and it took a few years of them getting some really quality miniatures out, changing CEOs and changing their attatude towards their fans to do so. FF could probably get away with something like that with the Starwars license as people will always buy that IP in our hobby.

Sinking your own product line to then try and revitalise it isn't really a sane move. See in order to revitalise you've got to spend WAY more resources to get things off the ground; plus its often got to be spent and coordinated over a short period of time.

Consider an individual army that launches with a handful of units. If you support it normally you release a few new units every so often to keep it ticking over; to keep adding new things and expanding its options and attractable features to new games. Ideally each option is high quality and using the latest of what you've got, whilst also fitting to hte armies visual style.

Now in contrast if you let the army flounder without updates and let it nearly tank to nothing; then to bring it back you've got to comission a selection of new models and moulds all at the same time to do a bit relaunch. And you've got to advertise that; and market it and produce enough stock in bulk (and store and ship it) for a bigger launch.


Yes this can work, GW even did it many times, but it was never a good thing for them or gamers really; it was more a function of how things just were.

Now expand that to a whole game and the costs go WAY up. Plus there's the added difficulty that you've got to get more people in on the first few weeks in order to generate interest in the game so that its got a local scene in as many clubs as possible. One army of many being weaker is a problem; all armies being weaker is a major issue.



Also people move on. If its just one army that has issues then you can hope that many who move on just move onto another army in the game. If its the game itself then there's a greater chance of people moving on to another company entirely - that means bleeding customers who won't or can't come back.

Most of the examples you listed come down purely to a new edition change, and the hesitation that comes from such. Warmachine and Flames of War had their new editions hit, and the general attitude towards them was highly negative. This, coupled with the companies themselves deriding the playerbase for not liking the new game, led to huge chunks of the communities up and disappearing, with little to no hope of regrowth unlike new 40k and AoS (as in lose lots of old players, keep new ones coming in). X-Wing and Malifaux are by no means declining, the online communities are on an uptick if anything, but the issue of a new edition hit them just as much. Locally, X-Wing was the biggest money maker for my LGS after MTG. Then came the announcement of a new edition and sales completely stopped. Not reduced, stock didn't move at all. No one was buying because of the new edition coming, and most people were playing other games in anticipation for the new edition. Now that it's out, the community have flocked back, and it's actually growing in big ways again(X-Wings are actually good! What a huge draw for promotion). Malifaux is a bit different, because the new edition was leaked prior to announcement and as such information dripped out in small parts. A lot of things caused major issues in isolation, but now that closed beta testing has begun the community sentiment has smoothed out a bit more. That said, because of the beta requiring NDAs, you're a lot less likely to see people playing the game in a game store. Playing 2E has largely dried up, because those in the beta may as well beta test (which has to be done in a private setting), and those outside the beta are apprehensive and are waiting.

I'd like to add another game to the discussion that I have had a great deal of experience with, Batman Miniatures. This time last year they launched a second edition of the game, streamlining things in a great way that was very well received by the community at large, and drew in a ton of new gamers. However, in the last year we have only had 6 months of "monthly" releases, and this lack of momentum did a great job at killing the growth they were experiencing at the launch of the new edition. On top of that, the most popular Facebook group has flopped between official and unofficial, and is run pretty poorly. The largest voices in the community have been systematically removed from the group by overbearing admins, so there are virtually no podcasts or blogs for further discussion here, forcing people to find them elsewhere, and this is another reason the game has largely stagnated. Knight Models have done an excellent job in the last 2 months at regaining momentum in terms of what is actually releasing, but huge delays and no information about it has had its own effect on the community.

I think it's a simple relationship between a couple of factors.

The more successful a large game is, the more money and support is put behind it...in turn meaning more and more sales are required for it to continue and grow and succeed. This is inverse to the spending of most people in a game, where you often spend a good chunk to get into it, and then progressively less and less as you carry on. It's generally a bad relationship. A few (very very few) games are able to keep interest that long. Doesn't mean the game is dead, but the ever increasing sales will stop, it just happens. Once the purchases drop off, the money and effort behind the product often start to diminish as the company struggles to justify spending the same money building/promoting it. At some point the company just says "okey doke, move onto the next thing". They may leave the game is a decent state to carry on for a few years, but I think it's just a natural process.

I also think that most wargaming is done with old minis, and old rules...or from components which don't require constant money/purchase/investment. Older gamers often have entire rubbermaid bins of minis/terrain for games and still enjoy playing them, even if they're 20 years old. The game, hell, the company behind it may have folded...but it doesn't stop you from playing the game.

Consider something like X-Wing, first edition. To the casual player, a dozen models per side might be as big as the collection ever gets. It'll still be played, still pulled out on occasion for a night of X-Wing, but that doesn't mean the player or owner has to buy every new release, chase any kind of meta, or even buy more products. Plenty of games are fine with just a handful of models or expansions. An increasingly small percentage of a game's initial buyers will be in for the 10-15 year long haul and will gobble up everything that is produced.

We considered games to decline because we don't see them in game stores or at conventions, or getting new releases. To me that's the beauty of a decent game; one which can be purchased, assembled, put away and enjoyed for the next 10-15-20 years without having to chase the dragon so to speak.

Miniature games require quality miniatures. I’ve never play war machine but have done quite a few commissions, their model are cast in hard plastic=making it hard to clean or multiple pewter parts=agonizing time spent pinning each piece together.

Cost: genuine flames of war miniature are expensive for what you get. Platoon of 5 panzer IV=$80

Direction: I’ve never played any of the Star Wars games, they come like toys, pre painted miniatures in low quality cast. Directed toward an audience like MtG players where you can open the box and play right away. The audience tend to lose interest after a short while, as there is no investment other than money spent.

 Big Mac wrote:
The audience tend to lose interest after a short while, as there is no investment other than money spent.

If that was actually a thing, MtG wouldn't be still around, either. But it is, so clearly there's more to it than that.


From what I've seen over the years, the key to keeping a game 'alive' is largely just down to keeping it interesting. Whether that's done through new model releases, new ways to play or (the GW model) by just re-writing the core rules every few years, there's a careful balance to maintain between adding new content and not annoying the existing customer base with the 'wrong' changes, and when that balance is not maintained, support for the game will just collapse.

 Big Mac wrote:
Direction: I’ve never played any of the Star Wars games, they come like toys, pre painted miniatures in low quality cast. Directed toward an audience like MtG players where you can open the box and play right away. The audience tend to lose interest after a short while, as there is no investment other than money spent.

Just to correct you here - of the FFG Star Wars miniature lines, only the X-Wing line comes fully pre-painted. The fighter squadrons for Armada are unpainted - or they were the last time I looked - and none of the Imperial Assault or Legion models have any degree of paint on them when you purchase them.

barboggo wrote:
Human beings seek pleasure in novelty. We see this happening at different scales every day in the choices we make, from the foods we eat, to the people we hang out with, to the hobbies and leisure activities we participate in.

For things like games it's really simple. You get bored of playing the same old game and eventually you replace it with some other activity that seems fresh and exciting. The community of people surrounding the game gradually declines, the people comprising it get older and find new interests, and then are eventually replaced by a brand new generation of people that will likely have very different criteria for what constitutes a good game.

On an even more meta level, everything dies, man. Look at Star Wars

How much you value novelty is by no means as universal as you claim, plenty of people value the exact opposite and wish only to continue repeating an experience they already find enjoyable. Star Wars perfectly illustrates the point, having split the dedicated fanbase(as opposed to general moviegoers who don't know and don't care to know the difference between the Empire and the First Order or the Rebellion and the Resistance etc) right down the middle by pushing that line.

Yeah, I'm certainly not discounting those that end up finding 40k as one of the few hobbies that they end up never getting bored of and will keep coming back to for years and years regardless of what happens to the game or community. Plenty of "dead" multiplayer games still have very devoted followings years after support has been dropped.

The distinction I'm trying to make is that unless your game somehow strikes on a chord on some deep societal level, it is unlikely to last as long as something like chess or basketball.

With stuff like Warhammer especially, where most of the appeal is so strongly tied to very specific (and arguably niche) cultural themes and references, it seems natural that as the fanbase ages and non-diehard fans find other pursuits, the community shrinks and the company has gradually less incentive to sustain development. Not only that but it's even possible that the game itself simply becomes worse as the creative talent behind the game shifts from the "old guard" to newer, younger designers who may or may not have what it takes to keep the product culturally relevant. Even if they continue hiring the best designers, artists, and writers available to them as the decades pass, there is no guarantee that these new teams will be able to consistently market their version of the product to the next generation. And all the while the clock is ticking as the die hard fans get old and literally, die off.

I really do think Star Wars is a great example of how such a titanic cultural phenomenon could experience such a huge decline in audience perception so rapidly. When I was a kid I thought Star Wars was one of those things that was "too big to fail" but talk to anyone under 20 these days and kids hardly know what you're talking about anymore, outside of some really legacy memes like "It's a trap!".

I've worked in the entertainment industry for around a decade now (on the creative side) and can say with lots of confidence that the team currently behind the Star Wars IP is undoubtedly the best of the best, the cream of the crop, the most talented, high powered, creative veterans in the whole industry. It's the best set of creative leadership and supremely talented artists that Star Wars is ever going to have access to in the year 2018. And it's a team that possibly venerates the original source material more than anyone else on the planet.

And yet even that is not enough to prevent flops like Solo and what I suspect will be a long and painful dilution of the brand over the next few years. Or maybe it will be a surprisingly quick death, who knows.

One thing that I think many fans sometimes forget is that fandom is fundamentally a relationship between two groups of people: the creators and the audience. Those two parties are going to change over time because people change, either their interest slowly dies or they literally, die. Given enough time the relationship between creators, IP, and audience will have transformed so much that the core attributes that made that IP great during its prime, may not even be relevant anymore.

Consider how much of the appeal of Star Wars when we were kids was in the fantastic, "pseudo-futuristic", sci-fi setting. Lightsabers and blasters and droids and stuff. Now consider that kids these days are growing up with drone strikes and hyperloops and virtual reality and social media algorithms and AI. Suddenly one of core pillars of Stars Wars appeal doesn't seem to make sense anymore does it? Going back to what I was saying about novelty, for the kids that grow up in an age of endless technology and entertainment, it becomes more and more likely that the novelty value of something like Star Wars or Warhammer 40k will simply no longer have any effect on them.

More thoughts (sorry for wall of text, but this question is interesting to me):

- MtG is a great example of a game system, setting, and business that managed to successfully adapt their team and product across cultural/generational shifts over the past 3 decades

- Comparing MtG to Star Wars and to an extent Warhammer 40,000, it seems like the emphasis on developing a compelling setting for fans to engage with in different ways benefits a successful long term strategy

- The setting needs to be flexible and able to adapt to cultural shifts while also retaining a strong core identity

- Star Wars was so ahead of its time, it sustained massive interest for nearly half a century until, I suspect, IRL technology caught up and outpaced it and made the "fantasy, sci-fi, wonder" part of its appeal obsolete

- MtG has an incredibly flexible game system and a format for delivering setting that is extremely open ended (art and flavor text basically). The core identity of MtG hasn't changed though (an outwardly simple game based on fantastic creatures, mana, spells), and that's what makes it so great.

- 40k has ridiculously rich setting and many different ways for new players to engage with it. Its reliance on a vast catalog of high quality miniatures that can be used to play a fairly dynamic game is a key differentiator and an extremely unique value proposition compared to other kinds of media competing for your hobby time.

Some as previous mentioned.


Bad/convoluted rules:

40K 7th Edition, X-Wing card-bloat, etc..


External popularity factors:

The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit wargames


Company being plain stupid:

Dust, late-years Kirby (though he was successful getting GW out of the post-LoTR hole), etc..



Also, for me, focus on tournament play limits the life-cycle IMO, because it is a more intensive hobby (e.g. Warmachine, X-Wing to a degree, since FFGs marketing/promotion emphasised store tournaments, etc.. a lot).

If you make "competitive" your main focus, you tend to draw in people who play A LOT and spend A LOT individually, but fewer people will be able to do so and even fewer will be able to sustain the punishing pace of keeping with a fast-evolving tournament-meta year after year after year. While theoretically possible, I find it practically impossible to play Warmachine or X-Wing (as the main examples) as a casual "every-so-often" game. You go out and play random guy X and you'll get nuked so hard, it'll destroy any chance to game, IMO. You're either in it completely, thinking about the game and it's latest releases at least once or twice a week, ideally playing at least once a week, or you're toast.

40K hard-core tournament circuit is similar. If you wanna compete, it's not only an expensive hobby, but also IMO a very time-intensive hobby. Unlike the above, 40K (thus far) is easier to also play on a back burner if you clearly signal you wanna be "casual", haven't read a 40K rulebook in 6 months and couldn't say on the top of your head how much damage a boltgun does. That, IMO, keeps players engaged with the game, even if they "leave" for a year or two, just playing the odd game once a year, read a BL novel maybe and perhaps get back in at a different phase in their life when career/private life/etc.. allows it. IMO, the same doesn't work, broadly speaking, for Warmachine, X-Wing, etc.. IMO (though it might locally in some places).

Very good comments here.
Warmachine is very prominent example of the game system which seems to shrink and shrink. It seems PP made a few bad decisions (e.g., no more press gangers) which led to a situation which could become fatal for the company. But this is how business goes, some wrong decisions and the company gets into rough waters.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Very good comments here.
Warmachine is very prominent example of the game system which seems to shrink and shrink. It seems PP made a few bad decisions (e.g., no more press gangers) which led to a situation which could become fatal for the company. But this is how business goes, some wrong decisions and the company gets into rough waters.

This highlights another interesting point. Companies that have managed to diversify their IP across many types of media are more resilient to the occasional flop or bad design direction. I'm guessing a game like Warmachine doesn't have the luxury of having tons of video games and book series for sustaining audience interest. Diversification here really increases the odds of long term success. The new GW seems to understand this, given the relative accessibility of 8th, the emphasis on plastic kits, and the pursuit of newer, even more accessible/diverse product lines (Kill Team, Warhammer Adventures, etc).

 insaniak wrote:

 Big Mac wrote:
The audience tend to lose interest after a short while, as there is no investment other than money spent.

If that was actually a thing, MtG wouldn't be still around, either. But it is, so clearly there's more to it than that.


From what I've seen over the years, the key to keeping a game 'alive' is largely just down to keeping it interesting. Whether that's done through new model releases, new ways to play or (the GW model) by just re-writing the core rules every few years, there's a careful balance to maintain between adding new content and not annoying the existing customer base with the 'wrong' changes, and when that balance is not maintained, support for the game will just collapse.

I should clarify: miniature games and card games are vastly different, one requires quite a bit of hobby time spent(assembling, painting, etc), the other is instant gratification. They tend to draw different crowds is what I’m referring to. I myself had play MtG for about 5 yrs prior to joining the miniature community.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

If you make "competitive" your main focus, you tend to draw in people who play A LOT and spend A LOT individually, but fewer people will be able to do so and even fewer will be able to sustain the punishing pace of keeping with a fast-evolving tournament-meta year after year after year. While theoretically possible, I find it practically impossible to play Warmachine or X-Wing (as the main examples) as a casual "every-so-often" game. You go out and play random guy X and you'll get nuked so hard, it'll destroy any chance to game, IMO. You're either in it completely, thinking about the game and it's latest releases at least once or twice a week, ideally playing at least once a week, or you're toast.

The problem with Warmachine isn't that it's competitive, it's that it's competitive in ways that require you to understand some rather convoluted meta. It's always been competitive, but back in its first edition it was still really easy to pick up and play, the casters were (mostly) all reasonably balanced (and yes, I did say 'mostly' so there's no need to mention Sorscha) and it worked just fine as a casual game. As it's grown, because of the way everything interacts with the various casters, it's become harder and harder to keep up with how it all fits together, and the gulf between a weak list and a strong list has gotten steadily wider.

Even there, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The market can sustain a game that is aimed solely at competitive players... but it has to be a game that people want to play, and the company has to put effort into supporting that competitive scene. So there again, the problem with Warmachine wasn't that it was competitive, it was that people largely disliked V3, and Privateer started taking pages out of Kirby's playbook and killing off community support and involvement.

Little wonder that large chunks of the playerbase took that as a sign that it was time to take their bat and ball elsewhere.

It depends what you mean by successful. In recent memory the only games I would describe as "big" that have declined have been Warhammer and Warmachine MkIII (and the jury is still somewhat out on WM/H, I suppose). A lot of other games that have disappeared or declined have been relatively small or brief success stories. Spartan Games comes to mind here. They released a few well-received games but I'm not sure how popular they really were. I certainly never saw them being played locally and never knew of anyone playing them either.

What we have to remember is that wargaming is still very niche, which makes it a lot easier for games to decline because the user base is often very small to start with. Momentum is such a huge part of wargaming too. It doesn't matter how good your rules are if nobody plays, and the opposite is also true. I'm not a huge fan of 40k's rules but they're functional enough and I know for sure if I turn up at a game night I can get a game.

 Big Mac wrote:

I should clarify: miniature games and card games are vastly different, one requires quite a bit of hobby time spent(assembling, painting, etc), the other is instant gratification. They tend to draw different crowds is what I’m referring to.

Yes, and no.

Not all miniature gamers are interested in the modeling side of it. Hence the vast seas of grey hordes on tables, and the attraction of games with prepainted miniatures. It's not about instant gratification at all... but gratification that comes from playing the game rather than from building and painting miniatures. If a game is challenging and faceted, that's not instant at all. Moreso if it's a game that keeps evolving and offering new challenges.

You personally may find the modeling side of the hobby to be important, but that's simply not the case for everyone, and it's not at all a key requirement of longevity.

barboggo wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Very good comments here.
Warmachine is very prominent example of the game system which seems to shrink and shrink. It seems PP made a few bad decisions (e.g., no more press gangers) which led to a situation which could become fatal for the company. But this is how business goes, some wrong decisions and the company gets into rough waters.

This highlights another interesting point. Companies that have managed to diversify their IP across many types of media are more resilient to the occasional flop or bad design direction. I'm guessing a game like Warmachine doesn't have the luxury of having tons of video games and book series for sustaining audience interest. Diversification here really increases the odds of long term success. The new GW seems to understand this, given the relative accessibility of 8th, the emphasis on plastic kits, and the pursuit of newer, even more accessible/diverse product lines (Kill Team, Warhammer Adventures, etc).

Diversification is another good point. GW has diversified their product line very well. On one hand, they have released several board games such as Necromunda and Blood Bowl which complement their main games 40k and AoS very well. On the other hand, they can promote their games very well through different media. While I'm not a fan of FB I like the Azyr app for list building in AoS.

Some just expand too much.

Most start off at a relative small scale, and as numbers and collections increase, you typically see the rules tweaked and adapted to accommodate, allowing for larger and larger games to be played, without needing a weekend set aside.

Sadly, if handled wrong, you end up with Fantasy. The mechanics changed little over the years, except to accommodate larger armies. This leads to the perception that a massive army is necessary for the game, which is of course off putting to newcomers.

But equally, if you don't streamline eventually, you risk people just not buying anymore, and instead relying on constant new blood.

Whilst hobby gaming isn't precisely zero sum most folks have money, and more importantly time constraints

So to pick up a new system you'll usually have to give an older system up or least cut back

For example my local nerd-herd gave up on 40k 7th Ed to embrace X-Wing, which we absolutely played into the ground, then shifted into Guildball once we'd OD'd on spaceships

While I can't say I'm aware of games dying on a shop level (since I play almost entirely at my own home) I have experienced the death of Flames of War online. When 4th edition came out me and my friend just dropped the game entirely after we found the changes to the ruleset had effectively wrecked the game and pushed it closer to Team Yankee (which is, imo, a pretty horrible game but for different reasons). We quickly switched to Battlegroup, and then to 40k.

Online however all the FoW forums seemed to slow to a total crawl with a lot of posts becoming complaints about Battlefronts inability to actually manage the game. Added to this was the 'fantastic' decision to move to soft plastic for figures, who end up looking like melty face men. I know the decision to focus on the African Front threw people off, since it is somewhat of a sideshow theatre in the overall conflict. Others were alienated by the clear lack of planning on Battlefronts part in regards to other theatres (we finally get the Pacific, only for its future to look exceptionally bleak).

Since by this point Team Yankee and 4th ed FoW are effectively the same game but in different time periods, the problems of how Battlefront handle Team Yankee and its 'history' start to bleed into complaints regarding Flames of War. Battlefront's treatment of the Soviet Union borders on offensive - and certainly leaves a sour taste in the mouth of Soviet and WARPAC players.

I can explain the failure of Mage Knight as OP mentioned.

tl;dr Bloat, Chase, Figures, physical cards, no point in buying RNG booster packs, great ideas but never balanced or playtested, tournament prizes required to play, heavy focus on tournaments instead of casual play.



The first edition of the game MK1 had a few bad releases focusing on the subgame MK Dungeons. Chase figures in these sets were extremely low values heroes that were useless. You could simply buy a handful of figures required from the set and ignore 95% of the new releases. Placed less figures per box. No need to purchase boosters when they're all filled with junk. The game was extremely successful initially and slowly went on a downward spiral after the release of the Sinister expansion.


To place well at tournaments most players required a handful of extremely expensive limited edition figures or unique models. Some of these can only be obtained by winning events during a short monthly campaign from a local store - or by running events themselves. FAQ'd helped but the game needed a reboot and a ban list. The following situation occurred every release:

ex. Steve is a regular tournament player and spends maybe $50 a month of a few boosters each time he plays at an event as the entry fee. The new hot flavor of the month figure that's crushing events at the time is Bakus: http://www.knight-ware.com/cmg/mageknight/conq%20mt/%20%205.html - he's easily $150+ on eBay back in the day. Bakus is a tournament prize you can get by winning 1st place at a conquest event. A conquest event is a much larger all day event - similar to WH40k Apocalypse. Instead of 300 points you play at 1000 points with the sickest unique/limited edition/large model figure you have - which all arent used often in normal games. Steve wants to win Bakus at an event instead of buying him, but he needs to buy some siege equipment models, participate in the local escalation campaign which ends on week 4 with a conquest game with Bakus as the prize support. He now needs to 3-0 at the event and he has a super rare chase model that will win him most local events until the next expansion drops. Bakus will now dump in value to maybe 10% of it's worth. Oddly... my Bakus and the the other 7 Conquest LE's are rehosted by someone else on ebay for $320 right now. The most powerful figure in the base set of the first release was Anunub - a $500 figure that nearly breaks the game on his own. He was a prerelease freebie at a Gencon event... but ran the tournament scene.


They launched MK2 which seemed to be initially great. Great looking models, demos, but since the company was purchased by TOPPS they added a ton of cut out cards. Similar to the successful card Pirates game. These were little items the size of a space marine bolter you would place on a slot of your characters to equip them with gear. After Sorcery came out and a few other expansion you would have a dozen cards and 3-5 models for your list. Again, most of these cards where chase prizes and rares. Weather effects, terrain, spells, and so on. I'd run Chroma (tournament champ model) and a Caldera? Drac with a few cardstock items worth around $70 at the time. $200+ list in 6 cards and a few models. $200 would buy you 200 junk common figures....

They also invalidated all previously released models from seeing play in events. Luckily after multiple releases - players didn't need most of the junk models. The game was a herohammer type of game where you would choose a few tournament prize or rare chase warriors equipped with rare cards to compete at events. No need for formations, basic troops, or anything not expensive. The game died with one of it's best sets being released at the end (Nexus). I played for years at my local game store. Great game for a kid - prepaints werent half bad at the end.

The board game is fairly successful on the other hand.

Someone up-thread mentioned successful games being like steam engines in that they needed stoking. I think they're much like fire in that they need fuel, but they also need to spread horizontally, bringing in new people, all well as selling as much as possible (getting hotter) to established players.

I saw something advertising a regional final for Catan players, for example. Now I've played a lot of that game (I prefer the base game with the cards instead of dice) and I think it's a good example of a game growing horizontally as well as vertically through expansions.

Number of players leaving > Number of players coming in

Basically, not attracting new players in a sustainable quantity. Cost, bloat, competitiveness, lack of newbie-friendly ways to play and so on. Competitiveness can exist side by side with a good new player experience, but some games cater to it so exclusively that competitiveness comes to dominate new players.

I think targeting collectors (foil cards, pre-order bonuses, random packs, limited con models, monthly subscriptions where they destroy the molds) is a terrible idea as it is about the most anti-newbie approach you can have. You may make more money off fewer players, but it isn't sustainable for long and it ends up salting the earth such that nothing can grow in that space for a decade or two (see also: comic books, CCGs, toys-to-life)

I'd like to add one that hasn't hit miniature games (yet), and that's getting woke. We've seen it before in other industries (Pathfinder's new edition is having trouble, Marvel Comics is basically a zombie, Linux just lost Linus and added a code of conduct, movie reboots - you know the ones, prestigious scifi awards, open source, Magic the Gathering, etc) and it has ALWAYS ended up destroying whatever adopts it. We've been flirting with it for a while. Some places like BOLS have gone past flirting into full blown creep. It's going to happen sooner than later. My prediction is that the next major miniatures game that goes broke will be due to getting woke.

I think the single most important thing for the health of a game system is attracting new players. The new player experience is extremely important to GW and they do it well. Another one to watch is Infinity. Despite being one of the more complex miniature games out there, their starter sets are second to none - even beating GW's offerings in everything but ease of model assembly. It's not a coincidence that the most healthy games out there are the ones with the best new user experience.

@Sqorgar: Don't suppose you could describe what this 'getting woke' is?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/woke-meaning-origin

 Nurglitch wrote:
@Sqorgar: Don't suppose you could describe what this 'getting woke' is?

Generally speaking, it is the adoption of identity politics (as in, you are now awake to the truth), though I think it is more that identity politics becomes more important than anything else. It's not drinking the Kool-Aid. It's thinking everything but the Kool-Aid is poison, and wishing harm on anybody who doesn't drink it. Here's a few examples from other places:

- Code of conduct for players, saying what kind of behavior is and isn't acceptable, but vague and enforced selectively. Force FLGS to put up the CoC posters and to enforce it. Banning people from tournaments for unrelated things posted to their social media account. Disinviting guest speakers from cons. Removing people from forums and communities (especially ones they helped build) based on unsubstantiated accusations of harassment or misogyny. A CoC was used by GitHub to make open source political, and used to remove many projects that were not breaking any terms of service. Just being associated with a "known hate group" (like being conservative) was enough for them to refuse service due to the CoC.

- Creating terrible new lore which contradicts the old lore that is filled with a bunch of lazy mary sue characters used to preach politics at inappropriate times. I call it the Riri Problem, from when Iron Man was replaced by a 15 year old black girl who was smarter and more capable than Tony Stark and replaced him as the main character in his own book. This also extends to things like open source, where putting identity politics ahead of actual competence is becoming a real problem. For instance, Python just had an update that changed the terminology for master/slave, so as to not draw parallels to human trafficking.

- Insulting their current fan base in an attempt to target another fan base (which may or may not exist). Star Wars is a good example of this, with how Disney has been trying to paint everybody who didn't like The Last Jedi as a white supremacist. Or, you know, everything to do with the Ghostbusters reboot. If you don't think boob armor is wrong, then you must be oppressing women. Which, of course, is against the code of conduct, so please don't bother showing up to the con you were planning on going to.

It basically comes down to creating a subpar product and treating your fans like crap, but there's an ideology behind it that makes them commit to such mistakes long after their profits have started circling the drain and all the good will bought by one's legacy has been eradicated. Star Wars can recover, for example, but it won't.

Edit: Man, I answered you honestly, but I just checked your past posts in Dakka Discussions - you already know what woke means. I thought this was a legitimate question.

 Nurglitch wrote:
@Sqorgar: Don't suppose you could describe what this 'getting woke' is?

I read the definition and I'm still not sure how it relates to a successful or failing tabletop game3


edit: Thank you Sqorgar

 Nurglitch wrote:
@Sqorgar: Don't suppose you could describe what this 'getting woke' is?

I think he means bringing enforced diversity into a story or game at the expense of well-established lore and against the general wishes of the fanbase.

I can only speak for the 2 games that I play, in the locations that I play them. That being Warmachine/Hordes and Malifaux in London and SE of England.

In relation to Malifaux, It is by its nature a small to medium game in the UK and the community for it is as it has ever been. Medium sized with a decent tournament scene both locally and nationally. However the game itself suffers from two major issues. 1) many people don’t get the card mechanic and it’s a skill in itself to manage your hand and deck alongside playing the objectives on the tabletop. A skill which many people are not prepared to learn. And 2) Wyrd is pretty awful at advertising and promoting its game. Many of us really hope that the launch of M3E early next year is accompanied by fanfare, marching elephants playing tubas, a really good 2 person starter set and……well…… good promotion.

In relation to Warmachine/Hordes the poor lunch of Mk3 and the game state at lunch really battered to the community. I still maintain that PP the best games company out there in terms of communication, community engagement etc and is filled with good people who are passionate about the game. But good people can still make a massive mess up of things even if it was well intended, and this is what happened at Mk3 launch. PP took ownership and has fixed the game state through the CID process and in my area, the community has recovered. We have lots of new players coming in and old players returning. We also enticed many basement players out of their homes and to gaming clubs etc to help further build the community. The introduction of the mini factions like Grymkin has made it possible for people to get into the game without having to commit to one of the old factions with their masses and masses of models and combination. The Warmachine/Hordes World Team Championships has just ended and there were teams from almost every conceivable part of the world. This bodes well for the future.

But what keeps these games and other smaller games like Infinity, Guildball etc going? It’s the communities they build and the positive vibes in those communities. Why do games die out? The communities become negative, stop caring, stop turning up to games nights, stop representing. Games don’t die. Players kill games.

YMMV, but locally what's killed off games seems to be focusing on organised/competitive play and relying on the publisher to do the thinking for you. Warmachine and Malifaux both had fairly strong showings locally, but with hindsight it seems to be because they had someone pushing events, tournaments, etc. When that one person goes away or moves on, n o-one is sufficiently committed to carry on, so they move on to the next thing (Warmachine - Malifaux - Guild Ball - X-Wing seems like a fairly common path). There was no real community, just gamers who'd turn up if someone else did the work.

Getting new players is probably the only thing that really matters. No matter how good a system is and how much people are invested in it, its not life and sooner or later life gets in the way of gaming. People grow up, get new jobs, change schedules, make new friends, start new relationships, have kids, get interested in other time consuming activities, get bored with the game, move to a new town and on and on and on. The point is, people leave and if the game is primarily driven by a single major influx of players instead of a regular stream, its going to dwindle and die out.

I do think our current internet culture is perhaps exacerbating the drama behind all of this. There's a lot of extreme entitlement driving geek culture currently and it feels like its no longer enough to walk away from a game; its now necessary to ensure it burns to the ground before you go. There's always been an undercurrent of this out there, but the era of Twitter culture makes this feel a bit more like the norm.

Sunno wrote:
Many of us really hope that the launch of M3E early next year is accompanied by fanfare, marching elephants playing tubas, a really good 2 person starter set and……well…… good promotion.

The last Malifaux starter set was one of the worst I've ever seen. I mean, I would hesitate to even call it a starter set, since you couldn't even, you know, start the game since it didn't include the rules. It also only had a few generic models. I haven't seen 3E's starter yet, but it has to be an improvement.

In relation to Warmachine/Hordes ... We have lots of new players coming in and old players returning.

Warmachine has good battle boxes (but poor models), but WMH has never had problems getting new players coming in. It has problems keeping them after the first few games. WMH's problem is a community problem.

I wonder if the rise of the "walled garden" model is to blame in part, too.

I mean, if you get bored of Warmachine and fancy Malifaux, you need new models - which often means getting rid of the old ones, so now you won't be playing Warmachine any more. However, if you were playing Frostgrave and you fancied A Song of Blades and heroes, well, all you need is the rulebook. If three months later someone new turns up and asks if anyone plays Frostgrave, then you might think "I've not played it in a while, why not?".

Making your game a closed system means you might retain some people due to sunk costs, but when they do go, they're more likely to go and not come back?

 Sqorgar wrote:

I'd like to add one that hasn't hit miniature games (yet), and that's getting woke. We've seen it before in other industries (Pathfinder's new edition is having trouble, Marvel Comics is basically a zombie, Linux just lost Linus and added a code of conduct, movie reboots - you know the ones, prestigious scifi awards, open source, Magic the Gathering, etc) and it has ALWAYS ended up destroying whatever adopts it. We've been flirting with it for a while. Some places like BOLS have gone past flirting into full blown creep. It's going to happen sooner than later. My prediction is that the next major miniatures game that goes broke will be due to getting woke.

I agree with many of your posts (AoS saving 40K being the most controversial), but I really dislike the way you throw around the term Woke.

Being woke has not hurt X-Men since it took that approach in 1975, I would say the Wolverine worship of more recent times has been much worse IMO.

There's also other extenuating circumstances that might affect popularity that could also easily explain decreased success apart from supposed "PC Culture."

Pathfinder's original success was based on overwhelming discontent with WotC's move to 4th Edition. Is it really surprising that its second edition isn't doing as well when D&D is currently in something of a new era of popularity with 5th?

And Star Wars is even easier - they're bad movies, recycling plots and ideas from the original with bunch of digital effects (and don't even get me started on the insanity that was The Last Jedi''s treatment of Poe. That traitor should have been shoved out an airlock halfway through the movie). Same goes for the Ghostbusters movie. Without the all-female lead controversy, it would have been better known for just being a mediocre reboot.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Nurglitch wrote:
@Sqorgar: Don't suppose you could describe what this 'getting woke' is?

Generally speaking, it is the adoption of identity politics (as in, you are now awake to the truth), though I think it is more that identity politics becomes more important than anything else. It's not drinking the Kool-Aid. It's thinking everything but the Kool-Aid is poison, and wishing harm on anybody who doesn't drink it. Here's a few examples from other places:

- Code of conduct for players, saying what kind of behavior is and isn't acceptable, but vague and enforced selectively. Force FLGS to put up the CoC posters and to enforce it. Banning people from tournaments for unrelated things posted to their social media account. Disinviting guest speakers from cons. Removing people from forums and communities (especially ones they helped build) based on unsubstantiated accusations of harassment or misogyny. A CoC was used by GitHub to make open source political, and used to remove many projects that were not breaking any terms of service. Just being associated with a "known hate group" (like being conservative) was enough for them to refuse service due to the CoC.

- Creating terrible new lore which contradicts the old lore that is filled with a bunch of lazy mary sue characters used to preach politics at inappropriate times. I call it the Riri Problem, from when Iron Man was replaced by a 15 year old black girl who was smarter and more capable than Tony Stark and replaced him as the main character in his own book. This also extends to things like open source, where putting identity politics ahead of actual competence is becoming a real problem. For instance, Python just had an update that changed the terminology for master/slave, so as to not draw parallels to human trafficking.

- Insulting their current fan base in an attempt to target another fan base (which may or may not exist). Star Wars is a good example of this, with how Disney has been trying to paint everybody who didn't like The Last Jedi as a white supremacist. Or, you know, everything to do with the Ghostbusters reboot. If you don't think boob armor is wrong, then you must be oppressing women. Which, of course, is against the code of conduct, so please don't bother showing up to the con you were planning on going to.

It basically comes down to creating a subpar product and treating your fans like crap, but there's an ideology behind it that makes them commit to such mistakes long after their profits have started circling the drain and all the good will bought by one's legacy has been eradicated. Star Wars can recover, for example, but it won't.

Edit: Man, I answered you honestly, but I just checked your past posts in Dakka Discussions - you already know what woke means. I thought this was a legitimate question.

Things sometimes seem to mean different things to different people. For example, I don't really get why someone might construe 'woke' as bad, but you've done a good job of explaining that. Thank you for answering honestly.

Warmachine has good battle boxes (but poor models), but WMH has never had problems getting new players coming in. It has problems keeping them after the first few games. WMH's problem is a community problem.

As a long time WM/H player, i totally 100% agree with your assessment. It frustrates me that some people in the wider community don't recognise this as well

And that has been our most successful change in our gaming group is setting up an environment where, yes we want to teach people the depth of WM/H and allow them to get better, play steamroller format and attend comps if they want to. But also we want to make it "fun". And you do that be having a good attitude and be good people. Its about building the community that you want to see. The person who taught me the most about WM/H was a judge at the WTC this year. And he is the funnest tabletop gamer i have met. As i said previously, the community makes the game and you get the community you deserve/create.

The WM/H community is changing fairly rapidly IMO and its the new wave of player that are affecting that change. We are keeping the hardcore competitive element and high end play but also combining it with a casual play and hobby (in WM/H, surely not.....!!)

As for the "poor models" comment, that the BB are of a slightly lower material quality but they are fine once painted up. The PP models over the last year have been killing it imo. But each to their own i suppose :-)

I'd like to add one that hasn't hit miniature games (yet), and that's getting woke. We've seen it before in other industries (Pathfinder's new edition is having trouble, Marvel Comics is basically a zombie, Linux just lost Linus and added a code of conduct, movie reboots - you know the ones, prestigious scifi awards, open source, Magic the Gathering, etc) and it has ALWAYS ended up destroying whatever adopts it. We've been flirting with it for a while. Some places like BOLS have gone past flirting into full blown creep. It's going to happen sooner than later. My prediction is that the next major miniatures game that goes broke will be due to getting woke.

Pathfinder's playtest isn't doing well because it's mechanically a poor system. Issues with how magic items work, the necessity of certain classes, heck even how the bonuses that separate trained and unskilled characters being pretty insignificant. It's a matter of mathematics, not "redpill" anti-PC masturbation.

AndrewGPaul wrote:I wonder if the rise of the "walled garden" model is to blame in part, too.

Not in my opinion. I've never been a "one system, forever" type of gamer, and to me, a whole new system with all new models is a selling point. I don't even like Tolkien, but I'm inches away from pulling the trigger on Middle Earth SBG. BUT - and this is a big butt - there needs to be a good starter set for me to try out a new game.

StygianBeach wrote:I agree with many of your posts (AoS saving 40K being the most controversial), but I really dislike the way you throw around the term Woke.

Being woke has not hurt X-Men since it took that approach in 1975, I would say the Wolverine worship of more recent times has been much worse IMO.

First, I don't even agree with many of my posts. Second, the Chris Claremont era of X-Men was obviously the best. Days of Future Past. Dark Phoenix. 'Nuff said.

I used the term "woke" because "get woke, go broke" is cute and increasingly true. Certainly you can see the difference between <Unsolicited opinions on Israel> and the early X-Men comics? I don't want to derail the topic (more than I already have), but there's a difference between using metaphor to recontextualize a social ill and preaching about it. For instance, there's a Spider-man comic where the hero helps a sick homeless kid that is EXTREMELY effective. Like, I'm tearing up just thinking about it now. But if the comic had just been the hero lecturing me about the dangers of homelessness and how I'm not doing enough to help, it's effectiveness might be measured in how far below zero it drops.

Sunno wrote:As for the "poor models" comment, that the BB are of a slightly lower material quality but they are fine once painted up. The PP models over the last year have been killing it imo. But each to their own i suppose :-)

I haven't seen one of PP's resin models in person yet, but I'm sure they are fine. The metal models are almost universally great. The one plastic sprue model I have is good (not GW good, but good enough). But PP's restic models are an abomination. "Slightly lower material quality". Ha!

It's ironic that WMH was at its most popular when its models were at their worst quality.

I haven't seen one of PP's resin models in person yet, but I'm sure they are fine. The metal models are almost universally great. The one plastic sprue model I have is good (not GW good, but good enough). But PP's restic models are an abomination. "Slightly lower material quality". Ha!

It's ironic that WMH was at its most popular when its models were at their worst quality.

The Battle Boxes/faction starter sets are of lower quality. Maybe I was being a bit disingenuous But the standard PP plastics are all normal hard plastic exactly the same as GW. Mould line issues can still persist but a quick once over with the fine file sorts out any issues. All the new models are either plastic, or resin with some metal bits. The new models are lovely (apart from one or two odd Legion ones....), the gargantuans are beautiful IMO. Look at the Sea King, Storm Raptor etc.

But it could be a style thing. This isnt a thread about model quality.

I do agree with your point though that the WM/H community needs to fix itself and in my neck of the woods, that is what we are doing. :-)

I think the aspect of "getting new players" is one that needs more emphasis.

Especially during GW's dog days, there've been quite a few games/lines that managed to sustain a reasonably profitable niche simply/mostly by absorbing dissatisfied/bored/disgruntled former GW customers (but thus by definition people already "in the hobby").

GW's big strength (even in it's worst Kirby-days) was having good influx of brand-new players through it's store network (and some super-devoted hard-core fans, like those people keeping Blood Bowl alive with no support for nearly 20 years or so). PP actually had a reasonable set-up to bring in new players with press gangers, some board games, etc.., FFG obviously is working (with mixed success) at moving board gamers into "light" wargames of one type or another, etc.. but relying exclusively on "you're a GW customer looking to switch it up, here's my pitch" doesn't seem to be a sustainable long-term plan for a gaming company to stay in this business and grow (though it might work as a launch to get going).

 Big Mac wrote:

Cost: genuine flames of war miniature are expensive for what you get. Platoon of 5 panzer IV=$80

Or $40ish - depending upon wich site you order from. 5 plastic pz IV per box. Decent quality, made by Battlefront themselves.
Or you can track down the older metal/resin boxes & spend $50-$80....
Or you can spend about $80 & get a box of plastics that contain enough tanks/guns/etc to make a 100pt starter force (generally about 8 tanks & 4 guns)
But it's WWII. You don't HAVE to play FoW using Battlefront minis. Any decent 1:100 scale pz IV etc will work. (assuming you built it with the correct barrel) So you can choose your price range: $$$=Battlfront, $$=Plastic Soldier Co., $=Zveda. Of course most players learn about PSC & Z after they've joined the game.

 Big Mac wrote:

Direction: I’ve never played any of the Star Wars games, they come like toys, pre painted miniatures in low quality cast. Directed toward an audience like MtG players where you can open the box and play right away. The audience tend to lose interest after a short while, as there is no investment other than money spent.

The quality is fine. The paint jobs are fine as well. Being ready to go is the whole point of the game.

There's no problem with prepainted - the only issue tends to be when you do something like Rackham did which is when you go from unpainted to prepainted. Because you've already built a fanbase who are willing to paint and then you cut off their model supply and force them to either paint strip or accept your paint scheme only.

Things that grow fast die fast.

They're generally called fads by those who think longer term.

It's comparably easy to be big for a short period of time.

Even big things, like GW, have had declines, but them being bigger, and growing slower, has made them more resilient.

A fad generally has no long term commitment built-in.



People played Ark, then they all went to PUBG, then all to fortnite, then in a few months it will be everyone to the next fad.

X-Wing and Warmachine - compared to GW games, are just a short flicker in the long night of eternity - or something.


It takes insane luck, success and dedication to actually get something as stable and large as 40K.


It's important to remember that both X-Wing and Warmachine sold a lot on the premise of "small investment", i.e. minimal commitment, X-wing more so with no painting and barely a few hundred bucks

Minimal commitment, minimal barrier to entry, maximum market acceleration, minimal barrier to exit, maximum market exit speed.

Or something like that...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
but relying exclusively on "you're a GW customer looking to switch it up, here's my pitch" doesn't seem to be a sustainable long-term plan for a gaming company to stay in this business and grow (though it might work as a launch to get going).

Clearly, and it's mostly depending on how many customers GW is bleeding.

When that number turned negative, it started hurting bad for those companies.

They'll always have an easier time because of no need to educate the customer, but I doubt GW will go back to its terrible business practices any time soon. I think it was kind of an organizational maturity crisis going from "hey we inherited this pile of gold, let's sit on it", to "hey we inherited this dwindling pile of gold, let's try and invest it".

 Sqorgar wrote:

Sunno wrote:As for the "poor models" comment, that the BB are of a slightly lower material quality but they are fine once painted up. The PP models over the last year have been killing it imo. But each to their own i suppose :-)

I haven't seen one of PP's resin models in person yet, but I'm sure they are fine. The metal models are almost universally great. The one plastic sprue model I have is good (not GW good, but good enough). But PP's restic models are an abomination. "Slightly lower material quality". Ha!

It's ironic that WMH was at its most popular when its models were at their worst quality.

I'll have to disagree. I've recently bought a bunch of PP restic figures for the RPG and to try Company of Iron and it's been perfectly fine to work with. I'd rather have something in it then metal--especially anything larger then a human. I'm also comparing it to Mantic's first attempts at restrict (looking at you 1st edition Deadzone) which was a true horrible mess. Honestly don't get the restic hate. Mold lines aren't that hard to get rid of if you know how (plastic file and nylon brush).


Speaking of Company of Iron and the IK RPG. I think having different uses for the models you buy from a company make's it more likely you'll stick with the company. I think several people have been making that argument here with recent GW and I agree. I'm more likely to buy and paint something up if I know I have a lot of different uses for it.

You know, they dedicate entire college courses to these kinds of subjects and successful businesses still fail. You can't pinpoint why on a general level, only specific instances pertaining to that company.

From my experience, beyond what has been mentioned above, edition change seems to be large tipping point in the survival of a game. When a company changes a game edition, that’s when you discover how enthused and invested your fans are. Wizkid’s Mechwarrior seemed to suffer an edition change and quickly fading out. And we all know about the reaction of the shift from D&D 3E to 4E as well as the fallout of WHFB to AoS. Both took quite a beating at the switch, and while they recovered, they had fairly significant turnover (witnessing the creation of anti-systems/revolutions, in systems such as Pathfinder & 9th age, respectively).

Also, overall popularity of the property can have substantial effect on the longevity of the game. For example, the Terminator Genesys movie seems to have been a major factor in why the TT game couldn’t gain a foothold. I suspect Star Wars may be having a bit of a slump combined with an edition change and the apathy towards the last few movies. GW under Kirby certainly had its low point, and I’m sure there are many other examples.

 ProtoClone wrote:
You know, they dedicate entire college courses to these kinds of subjects and successful businesses still fail. You can't pinpoint why on a general level, only specific instances pertaining to that company.

True that! Its also much easier to analyse after the fact than to predict.I am not a business student/businessman, but I believe that gaming companies outside of basement/garage set-ups need to keep generating income. You have to keep selling models, but the models themselves have long lifespans. I figure you need to keep attracting new blood while also convincing existing players to expand/replace their own collections. While the road has had the odd bump, GW has succeeded at this for three decades.

I think that Flames of War had a number of problems: design, it ran out of periods and competition. The game design worked well for the original forces, but the special rules were major problem by 2013 (heavy artillery, tank destroyers etc). Game balance was in peril, with the Blood Guts and Glory book being particularily troublesome. The Early War release had the BAR fiasco. EW never really took off, while the Pacific and WW1 languished. The V4 reboot drove away many older players with a botched MW release.

Plastic Soldier Company and Zvedsa were releasing 1:100 competition in plastic, and with no IP on the models BF was in trouble. I think that the cards that feature heavily in V4 were an attempt to have some sort of IP. I think that it just drove more people away. The success of Team Yankee is probably keeping the company afloat, and hopefully they can find their way. FOW is still hanging on around my area, and I keep running tournaments and trying to generate interest. Its just a lot more work since V4 came out.

Edition change does seem to be a major factor. It effects a large number of people at once, as opposed to local factors. Further, the edition change is something that people did not already buy into per say. They may not like to walk away from a game that they invested money and time into, but they never really bought into the new edition. If it is distasteful enough, they will flee.

Other factors that could effect groups at a certain period of time are going back to school, etc. However, in most cases communities are broad enough that some people leaving for school will not sink the community.

With respect to edition change, it screams for companies to make better games, thus edition changes will not be needed. Classic games like chess have been around for centuries. In terms of keeping people buying models, make better models. The companies that produce great models do seem to sell them.

 spaceelf wrote:

With respect to edition change, it screams for companies to make better games, thus edition changes will not be needed. .

Yes, and no.


Quite often, a 'better' game depends entirely on what players choose to do with it. 2nd edition 40k was a perfectly good (if buggy) skirmish game. GW could have simply revised those rules enough to clear up some of the things that needed clarification and released that as 3rd edition... but at the time, people were trying to play bigger and bigger games, and the 2nd edition rules were groaning at the seams as a result. 3rd edition was GW's attempt to give their players the game that they actually wanted to play, which was one that allowed for more models on the table without needing a week and a half to play. So as frustrating as it was at the time (particularly for Sisters players) to have to go and buy all the rules all over again and acclimatise to what was almost an entirely new game, it made for a better game at that time.

The trick is making sure you're across what your customers actually want... as WotC found out, it's easy to get it very, very wrong.

Edition changes seem to be a weak point specifically because they break momentum. Whatever you were working towards, or looking forward to, or planning to get - poof. In theory, a new edition should replace your momentum with a new, better, stronger momentum, but in practice, it tends to replace a certain amount of compulsion with hype, and hype is not as long lasting or as effective.

How many X-Wing players were lost in the months leading up to 2.0? Now FFG has to win those players back, rather than keep them on. But then, I think the argument could be made that many of them - perhaps even a majority of them - weren't really happy with X-Wing anyway, and the edition change just gave them the excuse they needed to move on.

 spaceelf wrote:
Edition change does seem to be a major factor. It effects a large number of people at once, as opposed to local factors.

One great example of a game falling off a cliff was Warzone.

In the mid to late-ish 90's Warzone came along with a very rich background, interesting models (of varying quality) and a really good d20 based ruleset. 40k Stopped being played and everyone was building and playing Warzone. Expansions came out, really cool settings on different planets and then they released a new edition and it fell off a cliff.

Why?

The factions became very similar, the personality of the game was stripped out, the rules were 'streamlined' and became boring.

How did this happen?

A few friends were plugged into the online community (for what it was back then) and they said that there was a VERY loud minority who heavily influenced 2nd edition and led to its rapid demise. It was a very stark lesson on the power of loud minority pressure and a company not understanding what the majority of their gamers wanted.

The company died and pulled its great fanatasy game Chronopia down with it.

 Sqorgar wrote:
How many X-Wing players were lost in the months leading up to 2.0?

I know at least in Australia, not many. The "gap" came from people not purchasing, because there were new versions of things coming that were fully up to date with 2nd edition, instead of buying last editions stock and having useless cards. Now that it is out, the community has exploded again to its previous numbers. That said, the players that are still around are pretty die hard, and they evolve as the game does for the most part. Those who left because of card creep and having to make unnecessary purchases for cards (myself included) are having to be won back, that's undeniable, but they are doing a decent job at doing it

 Rygnan wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
How many X-Wing players were lost in the months leading up to 2.0?

I know at least in Australia, not many. The "gap" came from people not purchasing, because there were new versions of things coming that were fully up to date with 2nd edition, instead of buying last editions stock and having useless cards. Now that it is out, the community has exploded again to its previous numbers. That said, the players that are still around are pretty die hard, and they evolve as the game does for the most part. Those who left because of card creep and having to make unnecessary purchases for cards (myself included) are having to be won back, that's undeniable, but they are doing a decent job at doing it

Even the old stock is moving my area, the local stores have it all at 20% off and with the cards in the conversion box that players are already picking up a lot of the stuff makes for good impulse buys.

Now whether there's enough forward impetus to really make the game a phoenix rising again? I personally think there is just from the rave reviews from experienced players (maneuvers matter again! Skill at flying is important now! etc etc).

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Rygnan wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
How many X-Wing players were lost in the months leading up to 2.0?

I know at least in Australia, not many. The "gap" came from people not purchasing, because there were new versions of things coming that were fully up to date with 2nd edition, instead of buying last editions stock and having useless cards. Now that it is out, the community has exploded again to its previous numbers. That said, the players that are still around are pretty die hard, and they evolve as the game does for the most part. Those who left because of card creep and having to make unnecessary purchases for cards (myself included) are having to be won back, that's undeniable, but they are doing a decent job at doing it

Even the old stock is moving my area, the local stores have it all at 20% off and with the cards in the conversion box that players are already picking up a lot of the stuff makes for good impulse buys.

Now whether there's enough forward impetus to really make the game a phoenix rising again? I personally think there is just from the rave reviews from experienced players (maneuvers matter again! Skill at flying is important now! etc etc).

On that note, our FLGS has put 1E X-Wing stock on 40% off. I actually went a little bananas and picked up several sets I had passed over at the tail end of 1E. Also, two new players have started, though we have one player who is doing his best to try and not have to pick up the 2E version. Overall, I'm won over - 2E X-Wing has been positive for me once you manage to get past repurchasing the cardboard (which I'll admit is a pretty good-sized hurdle).

What I can't figure out is what state Star Trek Attack Wing is in. D&D Attack Wing clearly died, but STAW has had a "stealth" 2E version with new starters, but I don't hear of anyone buying or playing. STAW seems to be a game for this pile of declining/dead games as interest has definately waned since they stopped doing new models and have just been recoloring/reprinting. I'm not sure what caused it to fizzle so - Star Trek reboot? Discovery? Lack of tournament support? Lack of new releases?

I played a lot of X-Wing competitively. I dropped out around the time just before the great decline most people are referring to.

For me it had two reasons:
1. Because of how FFG handles their release and support. X-Wing expansions dropped at breakneck speed and you had to get multiple of every little new ship because the cards were scattered among them and '3x new ship' (laser turrets ughhh) was bound to be the new meta. Then, you know FFG is just going to drop support or gut the game to start 2.0 at some point doing it all over again like they do with their LCGs.

Basically their marketing model is "you have to buy multiples of everything we release if you want to stick around". They know that is unsustainable so it's all just leading up to 2.0.
I have a hard time still getting into any FFG game that is not standalone.

2. Because of the insanely cheap power creep, which goes hand in hand with their selling model of course. Twin Laser Turrets, ugh. Palpatine (smart: you had to buy a 100 dollar ship to get the Palp card), ugh. Those obnoxious twinbots when they released (God I hated those). Flying squadrons was an abandoned principle after the first three waves or so. I used to fly Tie Swarm mostly though until that became pointless

I sound way more sour than I actually am though. I had heaps of fun with X-Wing, won some tournaments, won a bunch of limited edition cards, dice and rulers and whatnot. But times come and times go

Edition change does seem to be a major factor. It effects a large number of people at once, as opposed to local factors. Further, the edition change is something that people did not already buy into per say. They may not like to walk away from a game that they invested money and time into, but they never really bought into the new edition. If it is distasteful enough, they will flee.

Edition change can be a factor.
A basic example is MK3 of WMH. Players bought into the game during MK2 and had decent armies to play - as in our gaming group. Then MK3 changed the game play of several armies. Not all of them were affected but some like Cryx and others were. Today, the WHM game play in our group is largely dead. There are just two dudes who show up on Wednesdays and play consistently against each other. But the other gamers around dont really care about their battles.

I find it funny because a decade ago, an edition change was when a game would really take off and get players. I think the edition change issue is a little worse these days where the internet facilitates a collective meta. The meta evolves so rapidly that most players really don't have time to test and experiment and just end up chasing the next big thing to keep up.

When the edition change happens there's a gap before the meta reestablishes itself where no one knows where to start, particularly in the massively expanded set of options that needed the reboot in the first place. This time also seems particularly prone for players to play gimmicky or under tuned lists and run into some power disparity that they quickly perceive as a huge flaw in the new edition that gives them all the confirmation bias they need to get off the meta track and try something new.

Actually I think its just because we've actually had a spate of bad edition changes. The previous edition of 40K and the early version of AoS were riddled with bad choices that lost people (the latter wasn't even really rules). Warmachine in the same, their MKIII was coupled to other choices that turned the new edition into a hotbed of contention and issues.

Of course GW has just had two outstanding edition releases coupled with very solid rules on a range of specialist games and its reacted with a massive market upswing in favour of them.

 Overread wrote:
Actually I think its just because we've actually had a spate of bad edition changes. The previous edition of 40K and the early version of AoS were riddled with bad choices that lost people (the latter wasn't even really rules). Warmachine in the same, their MKIII was coupled to other choices that turned the new edition into a hotbed of contention and issues.

Of course GW has just had two outstanding edition releases coupled with very solid rules on a range of specialist games and its reacted with a massive market upswing in favour of them.

Maybe? It feels like players are just way less tolerant of mistakes than they used to be. I mean, Shield Guard didn't function in any real capacity for like 3-4 iterations before they found something that worked for Warmachine MK2, but people were pretty patient with it. In MK3 we had "models technically can't charge knocked down models" and people declared the game dead even after the devs said not to play it that way and that a fix was coming (and arrived in like a week). Most of the previously well received edition changes were far from perfect, but players were excited and fought through the growing pains. These days, it feels like ever errata is a personal grievance that can only be amended with a developer's head on a pike.

Let me take you back to 2E D&D. Edition changes have ALWAYs been contentious, there’s just more ways for the gamers to communicate with others than the old “Letters to the Editor” that generally only printed the positive ones anyways.

Two things that people often fail to consider in the death of a game system:

1) The success of a larger game system. We are a limited market and a lot of game system succeeded and then failed with the respective launch of Warhammer 40k 7th and 8th edition. Warmachine was a good example - the popularity of Warhammer 8th edition put them in a precarious place in a lot of metas that could easily been shaken by the lightest excuses.

2) The community. It's hard to judge the greater community when you play with the same 5 guys every week, but many games have lived or died just on the basis of the perception of their respective communities. You might be having a great time with your 5 buddies, but if a new player finds joining you intimidating or unwelcome, than you are really one friend away from the whole meta dissolving. A lot of games became known for massive divisiveness in their player bases before their deaths. The hardcore players simply wouldn't allow other players in with a bunch of ridiculous hoops.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Two things that people often fail to consider in the death of a game system:

1) The success of a larger game system. We are a limited market and a lot of game system succeeded and then failed with the respective launch of Warhammer 40k 7th and 8th edition. Warmachine was a good example - the popularity of Warhammer 8th edition put them in a precarious place in a lot of metas that could easily been shaken by the lightest excuses.

2) The community. It's hard to judge the greater community when you play with the same 5 guys every week, but many games have lived or died just on the basis of the perception of their respective communities. You might be having a great time with your 5 buddies, but if a new player finds joining you intimidating or unwelcome, than you are really one friend away from the whole meta dissolving. A lot of games became known for massive divisiveness in their player bases before their deaths. The hardcore players simply wouldn't allow other players in with a bunch of ridiculous hoops.

This as well, especially the first point, look at Kings of War, R2 coincided perfectly with the launch of AoS, has GW released WHFB 9th and nailed it KoW would have been dead on arrival.

Ditto Gates of Antares, which like KoW is a very nice little game, however 40k's current iteration has essentially killed it (at least locally) - the collapse of Warlords forums didn't help

As for the second point, I never understood but certainly saw a lot of hostility towards LotR from Warhammer players, if you had that in a group that played WHFB LotR was essentially dead.

Cliques can do that to just about any game, they can also help a decent game survive

 LunarSol wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Actually I think its just because we've actually had a spate of bad edition changes. The previous edition of 40K and the early version of AoS were riddled with bad choices that lost people (the latter wasn't even really rules). Warmachine in the same, their MKIII was coupled to other choices that turned the new edition into a hotbed of contention and issues.

Of course GW has just had two outstanding edition releases coupled with very solid rules on a range of specialist games and its reacted with a massive market upswing in favour of them.

Maybe? It feels like players are just way less tolerant of mistakes than they used to be. I mean, Shield Guard didn't function in any real capacity for like 3-4 iterations before they found something that worked for Warmachine MK2, but people were pretty patient with it. In MK3 we had "models technically can't charge knocked down models" and people declared the game dead even after the devs said not to play it that way and that a fix was coming (and arrived in like a week). Most of the previously well received edition changes were far from perfect, but players were excited and fought through the growing pains. These days, it feels like ever errata is a personal grievance that can only be amended with a developer's head on a pike.

Over time, I think the players of any game get sourer - those who stay and should not, at least.
Until it reaches a climax, a bit like all the 40k whiners, I think they've been at the top of their game for years already, and some of them are still at it despite general satisfaction rising.

It's probably that MK3 has a lot more "fans" that have hated the game for a long while and hate it as a new edition.

Like 2nd ed players who hate 40k 3rd and above, and then you get 3rd players who hate 40k 4th and above, etc.
I'm sure these days you can find 7th ed players who hate 8th and will join the hatewagon for 9th.

I don't think there were many players of WMH before MK2 though, am I wrong?
Whenever I heard of WMH, it was kind of obvious in the way it was talked about, that people only recently discovered the thing, that it was all beauty and flowers and nothing bad, and so much better than GW, etc.

And then it kind of settled, then it became obvious that WMH had its own flaws, then some people started ranting about these, others started leaving, and WMH kind of entered the stage where a game is "just a game" instead of "the latest silver arrow", with its downsides, its haters, etc.

I don't think there were many players of WMH before MK2 though, am I wrong?
Whenever I heard of WMH, it was kind of obvious in the way it was talked about, that people only recently discovered the thing, that it was all beauty and flowers and nothing bad, and so much better than GW, etc.

And then it kind of settled, then it became obvious that WMH had its own flaws, then some people started ranting about these, others started leaving, and WMH kind of entered the stage where a game is "just a game" instead of "the latest silver arrow", with its downsides, its haters, etc.

I started playing WM/H in early Mk2 when i returned to tabletop gaming in my mid 20's. What drew us to is was the local community as it seemed to more mature and the game itself had a lot more to it that what GW was offering. More tactical depth if you will. I still feel this. GW makes amazing games and models but i feel like i am fingerprinting compared to the depth of tools and accuracy needed for a WM/H game.

My assessment of the community now is that we are just above the level of players we had in the UK in the middle of Mk2.

IMO, Mk3 was rushed out to take advantage of a apparent opening in the market but in that rush PP put aside their normal attention to detail which resulted in the poor game state at launch. Many new people did dip their toe into the water at the start of Mk3. I ran so many demo games for people who were disgruntled GW customers. But what became clear to me that many to them wanted a beer and pretzels level game, not a game where detailed tactics and individual model interaction,placement, facing and order of activation matters at a critical level.

Im quite positive about WM/H atm. Mk3 is now in a very good state. We have great affordable starter sets etc. But its not a game for everyone or one that tends to attract young players.. And that is fine. people should play the game they enjoy. What we need to do as the WM/H community is work on being more inviting and playing all the other formats and scenarios other than the 2 list Steamroller format to bring in new player.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Edition change does seem to be a major factor. It effects a large number of people at once, as opposed to local factors. Further, the edition change is something that people did not already buy into per say. They may not like to walk away from a game that they invested money and time into, but they never really bought into the new edition. If it is distasteful enough, they will flee.

Edition change can be a factor.
A basic example is MK3 of WMH. Players bought into the game during MK2 and had decent armies to play - as in our gaming group. Then MK3 changed the game play of several armies. Not all of them were affected but some like Cryx and others were. Today, the WHM game play in our group is largely dead. There are just two dudes who show up on Wednesdays and play consistently against each other. But the other gamers around dont really care about their battles.

I think with WM, the effect was aggravated because the game changed direction again with theme forces abruptly becoming the default way to play (as in, the incentives were so heavy you'd be a mug not to), and usually necessitating extra purchases, given that many of them require duplicating units. Even now, many factions are uneven in terms of access to good themes (Cryx has four, Circle and Legion are much more limited). If the edition change had been one short, sharp shock, things would have turned out better, but it's dragged on too long.

 LunarSol wrote:

Maybe? It feels like players are just way less tolerant of mistakes than they used to be. I mean, Shield Guard didn't function in any real capacity for like 3-4 iterations before they found something that worked for Warmachine MK2, but people were pretty patient with it. In MK3 we had "models technically can't charge knocked down models" and people declared the game dead even after the devs said not to play it that way and that a fix was coming (and arrived in like a week). Most of the previously well received edition changes were far from perfect, but players were excited and fought through the growing pains. These days, it feels like ever errata is a personal grievance that can only be amended with a developer's head on a pike.

That's where the company's relationship with their customers comes in.

People were much more tolerant of PP's mistakes in earlier editions, because PP put a lot of effort into cultivating that relationship with their customer base. Mk3 came along at the same time as they were cutting all the fluffy, warm and friendly stuff and started turning into a clone of Kirby-era GW, and so players' attitudes towards the game in return took a distinct dive.

leopard wrote:

As for the second point, I never understood but certainly saw a lot of hostility towards LotR from Warhammer players, if you had that in a group that played WHFB LotR was essentially dead.

When the fundamental principle of the game (combat) is each player rolls a D6 and the player that rolls the highest wins, well, you will struggle with comments like 'its a miniatures version of risk'

 LunarSol wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Actually I think its just because we've actually had a spate of bad edition changes. The previous edition of 40K and the early version of AoS were riddled with bad choices that lost people (the latter wasn't even really rules). Warmachine in the same, their MKIII was coupled to other choices that turned the new edition into a hotbed of contention and issues.

Of course GW has just had two outstanding edition releases coupled with very solid rules on a range of specialist games and its reacted with a massive market upswing in favour of them.

Maybe? It feels like players are just way less tolerant of mistakes than they used to be. I mean, Shield Guard didn't function in any real capacity for like 3-4 iterations before they found something that worked for Warmachine MK2, but people were pretty patient with it. In MK3 we had "models technically can't charge knocked down models" and people declared the game dead even after the devs said not to play it that way and that a fix was coming (and arrived in like a week). Most of the previously well received edition changes were far from perfect, but players were excited and fought through the growing pains. These days, it feels like ever errata is a personal grievance that can only be amended with a developer's head on a pike.

Less tolerant? In case of the new 40k edition, the player base accepted/adopted the edition very quickly. This was different in mkIII where some armies were invalidated like Cryx.

The 8th edition of 40k made some significant improvements in putting all the armies on the same page though. So things like 4+ saves are relevant, vehicles and monstrous creatures are playing mostly the same game as infantry units, and the difference between ATSKNF and regular morale is no longer night and day.

 Nurglitch wrote:
The 8th edition of 40k made some significant improvements in putting all the armies on the same page though. So things like 4+ saves are relevant, vehicles and monstrous creatures are playing mostly the same game as infantry units, and the difference between ATSKNF and regular morale is no longer night and day.

However, the game developed more into a board game, since maneuvering is no longer a big issue. If my tank chain can see your tank chain, I can shoot you. The standard of the game has become smaller. Not a bad move for several reasons.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Less tolerant? In case of the new 40k edition, the player base accepted/adopted the edition very quickly. This was different in mkIII where some armies were invalidated like Cryx.

I'm kind of getting to the opinion that Cryx is so accustomed to being overpowered that anything less is abandoned to the point where it appears non viable regardless. It's been overpowered for so long at this point that it makes up such a large percentage of the competitive community that the playerbase dries up rather quickly if they're not OP.

 LunarSol wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:

Less tolerant? In case of the new 40k edition, the player base accepted/adopted the edition very quickly. This was different in mkIII where some armies were invalidated like Cryx.

I'm kind of getting to the opinion that Cryx is so accustomed to being overpowered that anything less is abandoned to the point where it appears non viable regardless. It's been overpowered for so long at this point that it makes up such a large percentage of the competitive community that the playerbase dries up rather quickly if they're not OP.

Indeed, whole armies became invalidated. PP tried to counteract here, e.g. with Una and their Scarsfell Griffons but this was too much and so this list got FAQed rather quickly. This example showed that PP did not make enough playtests as announced (three years of playtests before releasing mk3).

X wing struggled in all the areas I was in.
FFG releases were so slow and restocking almost none existent.
The price was a big issue for some. When Yanks are paying $12 for a ship and Brits are paying £12+...but then FFG always do this.
The announcing of 2.0 and the 33% price rise hasn't helped.
Failure from start to finish from what I've seen and experienced.

Dust on the other hand was a MASSIVE success until battlefront cocked up.

ValentineGames wrote:
X wing struggled in all the areas I was in.
FFG releases were so slow and restocking almost none existent.
The price was a big issue for some. When Yanks are paying $12 for a ship and Brits are paying £12+...but then FFG always do this.
The announcing of 2.0 and the 33% price rise hasn't helped.
Failure from start to finish from what I've seen and experienced.

Dust on the other hand was a MASSIVE success until battlefront cocked up.

I’m not sure I’d agree on Dust being a “massive” success, no one around here had even heard of it, and for years before battlefront got their hands on it, I’d been buying at a deep discount, both off FFG’s site & MM’s site.

X-Wing has certainly been struggling with the lull between editions and I’m curious to see if it can rebound. It’s costly to convert to 2.0, but I do feel that the improved play so far certainly feels like I’ve already got my money’s worth from it. My main concern is - where do they go from here? I don’t think simply reissuing the old ships is going to sustain them, and other than the Clone Wars, where can they go with ship designs that haven’t been done to death now?

ValentineGames wrote:

The price was a big issue for some. When Yanks are paying $12 for a ship and Brits are paying £12+...but then FFG always do this.

Everyone does this.

 Stormonu wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:
X wing struggled in all the areas I was in.
FFG releases were so slow and restocking almost none existent.
The price was a big issue for some. When Yanks are paying $12 for a ship and Brits are paying £12+...but then FFG always do this.
The announcing of 2.0 and the 33% price rise hasn't helped.
Failure from start to finish from what I've seen and experienced.

Dust on the other hand was a MASSIVE success until battlefront cocked up.

I’m not sure I’d agree on Dust being a “massive” success, no one around here had even heard of it, and for years before battlefront got their hands on it, I’d been buying at a deep discount, both off FFG’s site & MM’s site.

DUST is like KoW or Team Yankee. They aren't a huge success, but they can be strong in local metas in which a couple players are willing to put the effort in to maintain the meta (recruit new players, host events, etc). DUST had a decent shot at being maintstream for a while, but that was before the first sexual harassment accusations flew against Pablo (which, in a #metoo light seem pretty tame compared to what we see now in days. The man is mostly a massive misogynist - which doesn't really have anything to do with DUST). It might have returned if the FFG and Battlefront dramas hadn't happened, but I suspect it'll stay a decently selling game that has a small, hardcore audience.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:

The price was a big issue for some. When Yanks are paying $12 for a ship and Brits are paying £12+...but then FFG always do this.

Everyone does this.

Forgeworld says Hi! And GW says G'day!

I don't think its particularly clear how we define success for a game? Is it a run of multiple years? Lots of kits? Kits in stores? Lots of players in stores? What about clubs and basements?

Part of the problem as I see it is we have so many games, and niches within niches, that its becoming harder and harder to keep a group around a certain game, or bought in for a significant period. And with Kickstarter, game hopping becomes a huge issue. Historicals usually skirts this, because my ww2 guys, and my Romans can be used in any of a hundred rules, while my 40k marines have a much more limited selection. So when an edition changes, I'm either selling or shelving my marines, where I can switch to a whole different historical ruleset without batting an eye, particularly if that ruleset (i.e. Warhammer Historicals) goes away - yet, I still play WH with their 3.5 rules with no problem at all.

Given the price and scale (meaning game size) creep of a lot of games and the individual models, it becomes hard to maintain that growth beyond a couple of years. Of course, we all know how loyal gamers are too...

I've been pretty happy since I switched to a 1 faction per game, play every game model.

One of the biggest problems for a game is loosing faith. This happened in our gaming group to WMH. We had a quite active group before mk3 came out. Then after a few months playtesting in mkiii, players moved to other games, besides 40k also infinity and bolt action. Today, the group plays mostly 40k which has always been the main game. Nevertheless there are two guys playing WMH every Wednesday.

 wuestenfux wrote:
One of the biggest problems for a game is loosing faith. This happened in our gaming group to WMH. We had a quite active group before mk3 came out. Then after a few months playtesting in mkiii, players moved to other games, besides 40k also infinity and bolt action. Today, the group plays mostly 40k which has always been the main game. Nevertheless there are two guys playing WMH every Wednesday.

How does one lose faith in a game (in this instance)? Is it uncertainty in the future of the game? Or is it just a dislike of where it is going? Is it the belief that the company can not right the ship?

Because I play (and enjoy) Runewars, but there is definitely some uncertainty as to the future of the game (it is FFG, after all, and they aren't known for keeping underperforming games on their roster for long). But I generally do like the game and where it is going. I don't know if more models are coming out after the current batch, but I feel like I'd be pretty happy with whatever does come out.

Meanwhile, I don't like where The Walking Dead: All Out War is heading. There's a lot of content announced for the near future, but it is largely PvP content for a game that I've almost exclusively enjoyed cooperatively against the AI zombies. Despite the fact that the game will continue to be supported, I'm not super happy with the direction (PvP mostly, but also the Negan game requiring a preorder to get TWD:AOW cards) and I'm holding off purchasing any more until I'm sure the game will go back to what I liked. It probably won't, and in the mean time, I'm more than happy to try every other game out there.

How does one lose faith in a game (in this instance)? Is it uncertainty in the future of the game? Or is it just a dislike of where it is going? Is it the belief that the company can not right the ship?

A bit of everything.
For instance, in the early mk3 days when it was clear that Cryx got nerfed (hard or not depends on perception), PP released Una who worked well with Scarsfell Griffons. Soon one could see Una with lots of such beasts. But this list was a bit OP and so PP axed the list soon. We had a great laugh about this behavior of PP. Actually, we had some players buying into this list. Playtesting by PP? No. Faith? No.

Thankfully bolt action and black powder haven't declined at all

 Sqorgar wrote:
and I'm holding off purchasing any more until I'm sure the game will go back to what I liked. It probably won't, and in the mean time, I'm more than happy to try every other game out there.

or you could just keep playing the game 'as is' and enjoying it. There is no expiration date on a game if you don't buy anything for it for a certain time period


Not responding to Sqorgar just a general comment -

Someone mentioned about having so many game systems out there that it is difficult for many to gain traction. I wonder if this has caused many gamers to become 'gamer butterflies' that flit from game system to game system without actually going deep in a game system and possibly never really enjoying any of them.

I know that many many games have come and gone over the years but surely dabbling in many systems reduces a persons enjoyment in the hobby, they never really understand the rules on a deeper level and they often get despondent spending alot of $$$ on games noone plays after a few weeks. Maybe if players planted their feet firmly in 1-3 systems they would be happier in the hobby (and maybe have more $$$ in their bank account )

Dont get me wrong, its good to have options but at some point it fragments an already small hobby into even smaller groups or in many cases individuals.

 MangoMadness wrote:

Someone mentioned about having so many game systems out there that it is difficult for many to gain traction. I wonder if this has caused many gamers to become 'gamer butterflies' that flit from game system to game system without actually going deep in a game system and possibly never really enjoying any of them.

That's kind of what it is.

A combination of idealism and infinite scrolling.

People start a game, fall in love with it, idealize it, play it, discover its problems, hate it, find a new game, repeat.



Where in the past, the scarcity of options would've driven them to find a way to exit this endless loop, today they have the option of living their endless cycle.... kinda - because in practice, it takes a lot of butterflies butterflying to the same flowers at the same time to create any kind of a game community, otherwise you're stuck playing 80 different games with maybe one opponent or 0 most of the time.

 MangoMadness wrote:

or you could just keep playing the game 'as is' and enjoying it. There is no expiration date on a game if you don't buy anything for it for a certain time period

I am. As far as campaign goes, I'm still at the prison. Still need to do Woodbury. I enjoy the game and will continue to do so. It's just that the game is now focusing on the parts of the game that I don't enjoy, so I'm thinking that we'll end up parting ways sooner than later.

Someone mentioned about having so many game systems out there that it is difficult for many to gain traction. I wonder if this has caused many gamers to become 'gamer butterflies' that flit from game system to game system without actually going deep in a game system and possibly never really enjoying any of them.

I know that many many games have come and gone over the years but surely dabbling in many systems reduces a persons enjoyment in the hobby, they never really understand the rules on a deeper level and they often get despondent spending alot of $$$ on games noone plays after a few weeks. Maybe if players planted their feet firmly in 1-3 systems they would be happier in the hobby (and maybe have more $$$ in their bank account )

I'm a "gamer butterfly", as you put it, and I always have been. I own something like 2,500 video games and I dabble in most major miniature games. And I think I'm being accurate here when I say that, generally speaking, I'm happier with miniature gaming that most people on this board seem to be. Because I am not wholly invested in a single system, my entire existence as a miniature gamer is never threatened by the successes or failure of a single system. If a game isn't 100% exactly what I want, that's fine. It can be a "sometimes food". If a game goes in a direction I don't agree with, that's fine. If a game dies and ceases to exist completely, that's upsetting, but you know what, I'll survive.

Take, for example, Star Wars Legion. I enjoy the game, but I'm not a fan of the current direction of it. I don't begrudge anyone who does enjoy it and I'm not making some sort of statement of dissent or anything. I'm not even demanding that the game change to suit my wishes. It's just not my thing at the moment. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Some people are all about the mastery. They want one game, and only one game, and they want to own it, body and soul. If gaming were a map, they want the most efficient path to their destination. That's my wife. Some people, like myself, are about exploration. They want to see what is around the next corner, or figure out what makes something tick. They look at the map and they head directly towards the place that says "here be dragons".

I think that the idea of playing only a single miniature game is like eating pizza every day. It stops feeling special. Only by having a variety of food do you learn to truly appreciate pizza night.

Dont get me wrong, its good to have options but at some point it fragments an already small hobby into even smaller groups or in many cases individuals.

The hobby is large enough that I think there is enough room - provided that lots of people play lots of games. It's hard to find someone to play Infinity with, for example, because everybody seems to play 40k. But if people played 40k AND Infinity, then there would be options. The fact that people play one game, one army, day after day, night after night - that makes the hobby smaller, not larger. People can always find a game with me, since I'm always up for whatever.

morgoth wrote:

People start a game, fall in love with it, idealize it, play it, discover its problems, hate it, find a new game, repeat.

Well said, that certainly rings true.

 Sqorgar wrote:
And I think I'm being accurate here when I say that, generally speaking, I'm happier with miniature gaming that most people on this board seem to be. Because I am not wholly invested in a single system, my entire existence as a miniature gamer is never threatened by the successes or failure of a single system. If a game isn't 100% exactly what I want, that's fine. It can be a "sometimes food".

Good to hear you are enjoying gaming, I think some (many?) people continue in their hobbies not because they enjoy them but because they remember enjoying them. I was certainly that way in around 2008 playing in a 40k GT, I just came to realize I was playing for the nostalgia of enjoying the game and not actually enjoying the games themselves.

 Sqorgar wrote:
People can always find a game with me, since I'm always up for whatever.

I have known some people who are very similar, the difficulty I always had with them was that they enjoyed games in a 'beer and pretzels' style whereas I enjoyed the competitive nature of the game. I could always call them for a game but I often felt I was going through the motions against a less skilled opponent, not because they didnt have the capacity to learn the game at a deeper level but because they only dabbled in so many games they never delved that deeply in any of them.

I know, everyone enjoys the hobby in their own way and thats perfectly fine but i just wanted to out line that even though you might dabble in many systems doesnt mean that people who are deeper into those systems would want to play you.

 MangoMadness wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
People can always find a game with me, since I'm always up for whatever.

I have known some people who are very similar, the difficulty I always had with them was that they enjoyed games in a 'beer and pretzels' style whereas I enjoyed the competitive nature of the game. I could always call them for a game but I often felt I was going through the motions against a less skilled opponent, not because they didnt have the capacity to learn the game at a deeper level but because they only dabbled in so many games they never delved that deeply in any of them.

I know, everyone enjoys the hobby in their own way and thats perfectly fine but i just wanted to out line that even though you might dabble in many systems doesnt mean that people who are deeper into those systems would want to play you.

Well, if you want to be a dick about it, sure. If I wanted to be a dick, I'd point out that I'm completely capable of playing at the level you are suggesting but purposefully don't - because competitive players are rarely as good as they think they are and tend to be sore losers, so I find that playing them tends to be an exercise in tedium and minutiae, where the payoff is spending half an hour afterwards where they verbally replay the game and try to explain that even though they lost, somehow they are the real winner.

I enjoy a good challenging game, but miniature games are not good challenging games. They literally aren't made for it. Like, if they made a fair, challenging, complex miniature game - everybody would HATE it, because they would all suck at it. I see people who brag about their abilities in these games, and I'm embarrassed for them. The things they think are challenging and difficult, aren't. The abilities they're bragging about, they stole from the internet. And that's what these games are designed around. They are made to present simple but interesting choices, not challenging ones.

People who are actually good at these games don't feel the need to prove it. They are so above your level that they will NEVER find challenge in playing the likes of you. Which is why they don't look for it. But there's still a lot of fun to be had with miniature games, socializing with others in a shared fandom, engaging in a creative and relaxing hobby, and the tactile enjoyment that comes from pushing little figures around a beautifully realized three dimensional space. It gets difficult to enjoy those things when competitive players come around and ruin it.

Please keep in mind that Rule Number One is Be Polite. Thanks!

 Sqorgar wrote:

 MangoMadness wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
People can always find a game with me, since I'm always up for whatever.

I have known some people who are very similar, the difficulty I always had with them was that they enjoyed games in a 'beer and pretzels' style whereas I enjoyed the competitive nature of the game. I could always call them for a game but I often felt I was going through the motions against a less skilled opponent, not because they didnt have the capacity to learn the game at a deeper level but because they only dabbled in so many games they never delved that deeply in any of them.

I know, everyone enjoys the hobby in their own way and thats perfectly fine but i just wanted to out line that even though you might dabble in many systems doesnt mean that people who are deeper into those systems would want to play you.

Well, if you want to be a dick about it, sure. If I wanted to be a dick, I'd point out that I'm completely capable of playing at the level you are suggesting but purposefully don't - because competitive players are rarely as good as they think they are and tend to be sore losers, so I find that playing them tends to be an exercise in tedium and minutiae, where the payoff is spending half an hour afterwards where they verbally replay the game and try to explain that even though they lost, somehow they are the real winner.

I enjoy a good challenging game, but miniature games are not good challenging games. They literally aren't made for it. Like, if they made a fair, challenging, complex miniature game - everybody would HATE it, because they would all suck at it. I see people who brag about their abilities in these games, and I'm embarrassed for them. The things they think are challenging and difficult, aren't. The abilities they're bragging about, they stole from the internet. And that's what these games are designed around. They are made to present simple but interesting choices, not challenging ones.

People who are actually good at these games don't feel the need to prove it. They are so above your level that they will NEVER find challenge in playing the likes of you. Which is why they don't look for it. But there's still a lot of fun to be had with miniature games, socializing with others in a shared fandom, engaging in a creative and relaxing hobby, and the tactile enjoyment that comes from pushing little figures around a beautifully realized three dimensional space. It gets difficult to enjoy those things when competitive players come around and ruin it.

I've been told it's better not to present opinion as fact.

That said, being competitive minded myself - at times - I agree that I see infinitely less competition in a luck-based tiny-competitive-player-base game like 40K than in SC2, LoL or Overwatch, which have almost zero luck involved (lag maybe?) and count so many more competitive players.

On the other hand, I've enjoyed playing 40K as well as I can, and I think what he was referring to is the same reason most Poker players don't want to play games with no money on the table: people who don't game money don't play seriously.

It's not about being "good" or "skilled", it's about being "involved", "focused", actually trying to win, including by writing a list that has a good shot at performing, and then making the right choices.

As he says, there is zero point in playing a game against an opponent who doesn't even try.


And, while it often happens that the dilettantes take it lightheartedly, they also rarely ever play the game stricto sensu, just going through the motions does not equal playing in my opinion.
You need involvement, focus, the illusion that the objective matters for the duration of the game.

On the other hand, people who have low self-esteem and get invested in the game tend to have performance anxiety and generally be no fun to be around.
Not because they actually play the game - unlike the dilettantes -, but because they really need someone to teach them that their self-worth is entirely independent of their inability to win a game of 40K.


The risk with a dilettante is that the game itself will be entirely pointless, more of a background task to discussing and drinking beer.
The risk with a competitive is that the game itself will engulf everything else and that the discussing and beer drinking will turn to gak because of it.

I don't think one is better than the other, I personally would prefer playing competitive games in a relaxed setting.

Back on the first page, it was mentioned that having a game appeal to hobbyists and gamers alike may be important in preventing a dramatic decline. However, some of the discussion here reminds me that gamers and hobbyists can get along like cats and dogs. If a community begins to decline, this contraction may bring the gamer and hobbyist communities into contact with one another. This contact can be destructive and lead to bigger losses.

One would not expect that personal interaction on a local level to produce a large scale exodus from a game, but maybe it can.

One word: Promotion.

Even crappy games can live a long time if properly promoted. Great games that get zero promotion will die off.

Games Workshop got to be the biggest not by being 'first' or 'best', but by self promoting - first by having their own magazine, White Dwarf, secondly by opening their own stores. They hired some of the best painters and photographers to promote their product.

Privateer Press got as big as they did by following this lead. They started with a D&D based RPG to get people familiar with their setting, then made a tabletop game with good promotional materials (painters, art) and their own magazine.

Magic the Gathering and Pokemon understood the need for promotion as well. Heck, even Palladium Books knew enough to buy ad space in Dragon Magazine back in the day.

I suspect there is also a large element of "gun-foot-aim-fire" where a company is run by well gamers and ends up shooting one or both feet, often with a decision that sounds good at first glance but wasn't though through.

Classic case is pre-announcing a new version way too early, which nukes sales of the current version, starving the funds to release the new one, or some stuff like Relics where there was an "internet only" rules release, for a game that previously had a hardbacked rulebook - its a different market.

Dependence on kickstarter killing long term viability etc also hurts.

Its obviously not that hard to create a decent game, look at how many are out there, its a lot harder to turn it into a sustainable business to grow that game and avoid people moving on

To be honest, the natural order of business is for 95% of them to fail and die off. The survivor is the exception that we think is the rule, but Capitalism and business just don;t work that way. All will fail.... eventually. Creative destruction and all that.

 Easy E wrote:
To be honest, the natural order of business is for 95% of them to fail and die off. The survivor is the exception that we think is the rule, but Capitalism and business just don;t work that way. All will fail.... eventually. Creative destruction and all that.

Absolutely, same as with any area of business really.

Its a pity that some good games go under, and some garbage prospers, but this is the way things are likely to always be, you need to get the business model right as well as the game

 Sqorgar wrote:
Well, if you want to be a dick about it, sure. If I wanted to be a dick, I'd point out that I'm completely capable of playing at the level you are suggesting but purposefully don't - because competitive players are rarely as good as they think they are and tend to be sore losers, so I find that playing them tends to be an exercise in tedium and minutiae, where the payoff is spending half an hour afterwards where they verbally replay the game and try to explain that even though they lost, somehow they are the real winner.

You have totally misread my post and the intent in which it was written. The fact you have taken it so personally makes me wonder why but that is a problem you need to sort out yourself methinks.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

morgoth wrote:

It's not about being "good" or "skilled", it's about being "involved", "focused", actually trying to win, including by writing a list that has a good shot at performing, and then making the right choices.

As he says, there is zero point in playing a game against an opponent who doesn't even try.

And, while it often happens that the dilettantes take it lightheartedly, they also rarely ever play the game stricto sensu, just going through the motions does not equal playing in my opinion.
You need involvement, focus, the illusion that the objective matters for the duration of the game.

Well said.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 MangoMadness wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
People can always find a game with me, since I'm always up for whatever.

I have known some people who are very similar, the difficulty I always had with them was that they enjoyed games in a 'beer and pretzels' style whereas I enjoyed the competitive nature of the game. I could always call them for a game but I often felt I was going through the motions against a less skilled opponent, not because they didnt have the capacity to learn the game at a deeper level but because they only dabbled in so many games they never delved that deeply in any of them.

I know, everyone enjoys the hobby in their own way and thats perfectly fine but i just wanted to out line that even though you might dabble in many systems doesnt mean that people who are deeper into those systems would want to play you.

Well, if you want to be a dick about it, sure. If I wanted to be a dick, I'd point out that I'm completely capable of playing at the level you are suggesting but purposefully don't - because competitive players are rarely as good as they think they are and tend to be sore losers, so I find that playing them tends to be an exercise in tedium and minutiae, where the payoff is spending half an hour afterwards where they verbally replay the game and try to explain that even though they lost, somehow they are the real winner.

Wow, that's a pretty spectacular misreading of that post methinks. I understand where MangoMadness is coming from and it's not about being l337 and pro at games. Playing with people who treat the game differently can be annoying for some people. I used to have one opponent, for example, who lost constantly, basically because they just kind of shoved models around without thought and did what "felt" right when playing their army. They'd complain and get annoyed but would never actually try to understand why they lost. It became an exercise in futility playing against them because you knew what would happen - they'd play without any thought, get annoyed, complain then sulk. They actually had fine, fun games against others with similar attitudes. There can definitely be a problematic disconnect when two players want different things from a game.

I find that games tend to have a gradual tapering off, then a heavy dropoff based on a single bad decision.

Generally, that decision is one of the following:

1) ALL NEW EDITION with changed stats (MK) changed scale (Axis n Allies minis) or something similar that requires a hell of a heavy reinvestment.

2) YOUR MODELS DONT WORK NO MO (malifaux, AOS initial release) where existing collections are invalidated

3) NEW HOTNESS MEANING YOUR STUFF AINT NEVER GETTING AN UPDATE (again AOS, monsterpocalypse, etc. And I get it with these - you can only add new stuff to existing factions so long. But in a failing game, it can be the catalyst for a fall.)

the_scotsman wrote:
I find that games tend to have a gradual tapering off, then a heavy dropoff based on a single bad decision.

Generally, that decision is one of the following:

1) ALL NEW EDITION with changed stats (MK) changed scale (Axis n Allies minis) or something similar that requires a hell of a heavy reinvestment.

2) YOUR MODELS DONT WORK NO MO (malifaux, AOS initial release) where existing collections are invalidated

3) NEW HOTNESS MEANING YOUR STUFF AINT NEVER GETTING AN UPDATE (again AOS, monsterpocalypse, etc. And I get it with these - you can only add new stuff to existing factions so long. But in a failing game, it can be the catalyst for a fall.)

You probably don't want to use AOS as your example - sales stats show it outperforming WHFB in it's prime

Slipspace wrote:
Wow, that's a pretty spectacular misreading of that post methinks. I understand where MangoMadness is coming from and it's not about being l337 and pro at games. Playing with people who treat the game differently can be annoying for some people. I used to have one opponent, for example, who lost constantly, basically because they just kind of shoved models around without thought and did what "felt" right when playing their army. They'd complain and get annoyed but would never actually try to understand why they lost. It became an exercise in futility playing against them because you knew what would happen - they'd play without any thought, get annoyed, complain then sulk. They actually had fine, fun games against others with similar attitudes. There can definitely be a problematic disconnect when two players want different things from a game.

Who cares if the person you are playing against isn't any good or isn't trying hard enough? You can't handicap yourself or find some other goal for playing other than winning? When you are playing a pen and paper RPG, the game master isn't trying to "win". He's trying to be just challenging enough that you have a good time, and to present you with a good experience filled with variety and intrigue. When you are particularly competent at gaming, you get the game master role more often than not because your experience is what allows you to know when and where to push and when and where to retreat to make the best gaming experience.

Playing a miniature game is a dialogue between two people, not a competition. You both tailor how you play to the needs and wishes of the other, creating a shared experience. Often, you will have to compromise. Winning is a goal, but it is not THE goal. If people are complaining, sulking, or getting annoyed afterwards, then you didn't make the right compromises. If you consider yourself the better player of the game, it is your responsibility to "play down" to your opponent in order to create the best experience for both of you. He isn't having fun getting his ass beat, and you aren't having any fun failing to be challenged - so change how you play (if he can't compromise, you have to) and you can both "win".

Versus competitive games, I generally aim to not win. Their enjoyment is all about winning, while mine is not. I can create a challenging enough game for them that they feel like their victory was hard fought, while still making a tactically unsound (but usually interesting) moves. There are gamers who I haven't won a game against in decades - I'm not sure whether I could legitimately beat them if I tried, but I know that beating them wouldn't be an enjoyable experience for me. To paraphrase Star Wars, I don't rip people's arms out of their sockets when I lose. We still have fun playing together though.

I understand the joy one gets from playing to the best of their abilities in a high stress, high stakes match. I appreciate that very much, but I rarely find it in the types of board and miniature games that I choose to play. I have other outlets for that sort of challenge.

This is getting way off topic and we all ready had a Mod stop by, so let's talk more about why a game declines.

I think gamers are particularly enamored by two opposing impulses, the new shiny and the fear of change. Too much change and they flee, only to be induced back by new shiny. If a game does not get enough new shiny, people fade away.

 Easy E wrote:
This is getting way off topic and we all ready had a Mod stop by, so let's talk more about why a game declines.

I think gamers are particularly enamored by two opposing impulses, the new shiny and the fear of change. Too much change and they flee, only to be induced back by new shiny. If a game does not get enough new shiny, people fade away.

An interesting theory. Seems like it would be correct for Battletech - too much new shiny caused a player backlash where the vets refused to play the new content, leading to playerbase fracturing. On the other hand, some games like Flames of War rarely get new shiny and still truck along.

I think there was a substantial part of the Battletech fanbase that decided basically everything post 4th Succession War was garbage, rules and fluff wise. But that was what kept getting supported, 'moving the story forwards' at all costs. I think there is a lesson about being careful what you wish for in there for 40K in the way Battletech handled things.

Battletech was one of the games that started me in this hobby. I quickly found other games that weren't accountancy in disguise.

In many cases, the company implodes, sometimes due to personal issues, sometimes due to financial shenanigans. {waves solemnly at FASA}

Sometimes the company just completely misreads their audience [Rackham, among many other issues]. That happened to GW several times, but they were able to take the blow and try again.

I think we're currently seeing it with Privateer Press (and in a related industry, Paizo). Unknown if they'll survive.

BattleTech was a shambles by the minis, IP infringement, and splitting of the company. IMO. EDIT: BT was my first (when FASA owned it) and I still love it.

Another tragedy was Hawks DropZone Commander. Such a tight game. Single designer. Sad. It needed some mechanics tweaks but that's it.

Voss wrote:
In many cases, the company implodes, sometimes due to personal issues, sometimes due to financial shenanigans. {waves solemnly at FASA}

Sometimes the company just completely misreads their audience [Rackham, among many other issues]. That happened to GW several times, but they were able to take the blow and try again.

I think we're currently seeing it with Privateer Press (and in a related industry, Paizo). Unknown if they'll survive.

I am in awe at how, in five short sentences, you managed to use [brackets], {curly brackets}, AND (parentheses). If you would've used <angle brackets>, you could've had Bingo.

 ChargerIIC wrote:


You probably don't want to use AOS as your example - sales stats show it outperforming WHFB in it's prime

Yup.

Seems like the exact opposite. AoS would be the first and best example on how to turn a failing, stale, beyond its prime carcass circled only by some super-nostalgic hobby-flies into a blockbuster success, despite (or, arguably, because) breaking some eggs to make that particular omelette.

Not to mention that "lessons learned from AoS" arguably ALSO saved 40K (and thus ultimately the company) from the 2014 to 2016 or so slump and new-player-unfriendly bloat. There's rightly been lots of praise for GW Nu-CEO turning a corner on company policy, etc.. , but it would've been a mute effort without both main games themselves turning a corner on the AoS watershed under GW old-CEO and thereby opening the path to the new GW golden age.

 doktor_g wrote:
BattleTech was a shambles by the minis, IP infringement, and splitting of the company. IMO. EDIT: BT was my first (when FASA owned it) and I still love it.

Another tragedy was Hawks DropZone Commander. Such a tight game. Single designer. Sad. It needed some mechanics tweaks but that's it.

What happened to Dropzone?

 ChargerIIC wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I find that games tend to have a gradual tapering off, then a heavy dropoff based on a single bad decision.

Generally, that decision is one of the following:

1) ALL NEW EDITION with changed stats (MK) changed scale (Axis n Allies minis) or something similar that requires a hell of a heavy reinvestment.

2) YOUR MODELS DONT WORK NO MO (malifaux, AOS initial release) where existing collections are invalidated

3) NEW HOTNESS MEANING YOUR STUFF AINT NEVER GETTING AN UPDATE (again AOS, monsterpocalypse, etc. And I get it with these - you can only add new stuff to existing factions so long. But in a failing game, it can be the catalyst for a fall.)

You probably don't want to use AOS as your example - sales stats show it outperforming WHFB in it's prime

Um, no. Instead of blindly defending AoS read the specific examples. He's correct. AoS on release was a lame duck and it wasn't until the GHB that it picked up steam. This is a fine example for #2. You cannot seriously think the absolute shakeup it caused and the Balkanisation of communities was GW's plan for the release of this.

Point 3- AoS is walking a fine line with this right now. Sure, it's doing (relatively) well, but barely a week goes by when people ask about the gakky state some existing factions are in due to GW focusing on new stuff (maybe they're on the path to remedying this with BoC, but time will tell) to the detriment of updating other things.

That doesn't seem to be harming it, though.

Point 2 is absolutely false for AoS, though - there were no models that couldn't be used in AoS when it was released. Some of them are no longer useable in matched play now, though (at least, as the same character they were released as; the miniatures are absolutely still useable)

So all the people that left in droves to start the Ninth Age, stick with 8th or play KoW never happened?

Right.

What's your point? Age of Sigmar is doing pretty well by all accounts, so the lack of updates for Highborn, Free Peoples, whatever, isn't doing it much harm. The people who went to play other games mostly did so when all the rules for all the models available in 8th edition were freely available. It wasn't lack of updates or their existing armies being made redundant that drove them away.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
What's your point? Age of Sigmar is doing pretty well by all accounts, so the lack of updates for Highborn, Free Peoples, whatever, isn't doing it much harm. The people who went to play other games mostly did so when all the rules for all the models available in 8th edition were freely available. It wasn't lack of updates or their existing armies being made redundant that drove them away.

And we're back to the usual "Someone said something bad about AoS. Defend the keep!" instead of reading what I posted...

I'm not denying it's doing good now (though locally you wouldn't think it, but the same can be said for most games round here so that's not a great barometer.), but on release it cause such a gakstorm amongst the community (and don't deny it. AoS's release was not a bed of roses and revisionist history won't change that) that communities were split into 4+ factions that I mentioned above and the ones that sided with AoS were actively atangonising the others over the death of the Old World.

Enough people decided to pack up their gak and move on on release that GW had to change tract on AoS with completely different styles of army books and the GHB being a thing. It was only through pure dumb luck, sheer determination on the part of GW or a combination of the two that AoS weathered the storm and didn't fall into category 2.

As for what I'm going on about on category 3- Have you read the forums lately? It's like almost a weekly occurrence with GW's practically impossible to navigate site for anything that's not established as an army book (some sub factions only have one or two models to their name right now) and ex-players wanting to dip their toes in only to discover their faction's been chopped up into little pieces and wondering how the feth to put it back together into something resembling what it once was for the time being.

I never said GW are falling into this. I said they're "walking a fine line". They're teetering between the two right now. The new factions vastly outweigh the updates and unification of existing ones. Beasts of Chaos could be the first step to remedying this. Time will tell.

Are they walking a fine line? It appears that Age of Sigmar is doing very well, so it looks like their path of just leaving the old factions to slowly wither away is working for them.

I'm not denying anything about the release. However, the point made that you're arguing with is specifically that "YOUR MODELS DONT WORK NO MO (malifaux, AOS initial release) where existing collections are invalidated " which was not the case with AoS. The reason people didn't buy in to it was nothing to do with old models being made redundant. They did it because they didn't like the core rules of Age of Sigmar, which is not one of the_scotsman's three points.

The can argue the minutiae of this forever, but enough people believe that their models have been "invalidated" (whether this is *technically* true or not is different story) for them to not even give the game a look in.

Same goes for 40k. How many times have we seen people say their units are "invalidated" and "unusable" (Centurions, anyone?) and go off in a huff despite this not strictly being factually correct?

the-Scotsman's point was that there are three decisions made by a game publisher that can cause a new edition to fail. So now we've moved from saying that AoS was an example of two of those decisions, to saying that a proportion of the player base are ignorant and stupid. Not quite the same argument, really.

I think AOS is a prime example of a game that had a dramatic decline in player base over a short period of time. Whether or not the game is doing well now is not the point. I personally saw tons of people leave when GW axed fantasy. The other online comments also suggest such an exodus. The new edition was certainly the cause. The rules were nothing like the old ones, and people did not like it, and thus left.

Again, all of this is not to say that AOS is doing poorly now. By some accounts it is selling well, and has many players.

The point is, WFB was dead and not making money (and there's a different discussion on why, certainly a lot of it was self-inflicted by GW).

AoS was an admittedly extreme and for many old time fans painful measure to turn the death spiral around, but it succeeded at that.

Lots of actually dead games like Ex Illis or Dust or whatever would wish they could've pull an AoS-style recovery out of their hat.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
Seems like the exact opposite. AoS would be the first and best example on how to turn a failing, stale, beyond its prime carcass circled only by some super-nostalgic hobby-flies into a blockbuster success, despite (or, arguably, because) breaking some eggs to make that particular omelette.

Not to mention that "lessons learned from AoS" arguably ALSO saved 40K (and thus ultimately the company) from the 2014 to 2016 or so slump and new-player-unfriendly bloat. There's rightly been lots of praise for GW Nu-CEO turning a corner on company policy, etc.. , but it would've been a mute effort without both main games themselves turning a corner on the AoS watershed under GW old-CEO and thereby opening the path to the new GW golden age.

AoS is a fundamentally different game than WHFB (on just about every level). For that matter, 40k 8th edition is a fundamentally different game from 40k 7th edition - it shares models and fluff, but for the most part, it is a 40k 7th edition-like game rather than the same game. For that matter, X-Wing 2nd edition is an X-Wing-like game, Malifaux 3rd edition is a Malifaux-like game, and Necromunda: Underhive is a Necromunda-like game. How many editions of 40k have there been, and how much, really, have they had in common?

And that's the real lesson to take from this. All of these games eventually die. People get tired of them, angry at them, or confused by them, and they move on. The companies that keep them going don't keep the GAMES going, but instead keep the IDEA going. Since the models are really the most expensive part, and the fluff is the most involved part, keeping those two things can convince you that a new edition is actually not a new game, but a new version of an old game.

I'd argue that it is possible to keep the same game going for decades, but it needs to be something that is relatively light on rules - preferring universal generic rules of specific ones - where the ongoing expansions add more to the fluff than the technicalities. Competitive gaming can't keep a game going for very long because the imbalances become exaggerated and part of the game strategy - it's why a stale meta kills a competitive game and people are constantly searching for a "perfectly balanced" game. When a game becomes "solved", the number of valid strategies is reduce to a handful and the game drops all pretenses of personalization, choice, or variety.

But something like Dungeons and Dragons can have editions that span decades. Imbalances are less threatening because there is a game master in each group that can compensate for them. They can release a dozen character class tomes without the game being bogged down by it because things only affect the current game you are playing. The game is never solved. There is no meta (or at least, the individual group choices are more important).

That's why something like Necromunda can be still played after 20 years. It's more like D&D than Chess. The game mechanics aren't there to give you a semblance of fairness, but to create narrative moments that are funny, weird, or tragic. It a game where you personalize the units and adventure. People don't generally remember the dice they rolled. The remember the stories they experienced, and Necromunda is a story generating game.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
The point is, WFB was dead and not making money (and there's a different discussion on why, certainly a lot of it was self-inflicted by GW).

AoS was an admittedly extreme and for many old time fans painful measure to turn the death spiral around, but it succeeded at that.

Lots of actually dead games like Ex Illis or Dust or whatever would wish they could've pull an AoS-style recovery out of their hat.

^This. I was amazed when AOS managed to succeed. Kings of War had all but finished eating WHFB's lunch and looked poised to draw all the hardcore players away by allowing them to play an improved WHFB instead of a scary new rules system no one trusted and made some pretty big mistakes out the starting gate. By the nromal black and white gamer's logic it should have died within 6 months. Instead GW picked themselves off, brushed themselves off from their internet trampling and seemed to make exactly the right decisions to resuce the product. Allt his while the grognards continued a grassroots campaign to keep it off the tables. Mantic didn't even do anything wrong to lose the momentum - KoW is still the great WHFB ruleset is was at first and you can still wield your entire WHFB collection in that game. Instead Age of Sigmar made sacrifices to its original 'casual pla'y vision and incorporated what the player's wanted. Then it went from from the bottom to back in the top 10 and outselling KoW. As a Mantic fan it was pretty shocking.

I guess there is a lesson in that. We've listed a lot of reasons why successful games decline, but if someone is still willing to put their dollars into something it can always come back. In the end, people are willing to put dollars into Age of Sigmar and not into Star Fleet Battles, Battletech, Robotech Tactics, etc.

I also find Battletech an interesting example - the board game is pretty dead except for a couple small metas that won't play with each other but the fiction community is now it's own thing; with a subscription service, purchasable (new) fiction, novel reprints, etc. It's even had successful video game launches (MWO, Battletech the video game) but the baord game isn't the center of the universe anymore.

People play what other people are playing. Thats really the bottom line.

AOS and GW have a cycle that feeds itself simply off of the headcount.

The worst game in the world will do fine if players continue to play it because other people are playing it. Its a self feeding cycle.

auticus wrote:
People play what other people are playing. Thats really the bottom line.

AOS and GW have a cycle that feeds itself simply off of the headcount.

The worst game in the world will do fine if players continue to play it because other people are playing it. Its a self feeding cycle.

If that were true, WFB wouldn't have ever been in trouble and GW's LoTR would still be the world's most popular wargame by a significant margin.

WHFB didn't fail because no one was playing it.

WHFB failed because no one was buying new GW models for it and they werne't making any money off of it.

We had a VERY active WHFB community with leagues that had 30-50 people in it every season, and yet for the past decade very very few people in that very active community bought ANYTHING new from GW.

They bought their armies on Ebay or second hand locally or subbed in proxies from cheaper companies.

You say "had". If no-one was buying in to GW's new products, why did you stop?

auticus wrote:
WHFB didn't fail because no one was playing it.

WHFB failed because no one was buying new GW models for it and they werne't making any money off of it.

We had a VERY active WHFB community with leagues that had 30-50 people in it every season, and yet for the past decade very very few people in that very active community bought ANYTHING new from GW.

They bought their armies on Ebay or second hand locally or subbed in proxies from cheaper companies.

That's still failing from the company side of the equation, though I can say your experience is not matched on my side of the pond.

WFB was very dead and the tight-nit groups of WFB old timers (and now 9th Age players) was (is) both approaching retirement age, shrinking and basically impenetrable to new players.

And, to be honest, those kind of pockets exist for any game. The gaming club I went to when studying had some 50 active players for SAGA, usually outnumbering all GW, Mantic, FFG and more games played there combined. Doesn't mean that's representative. Just that there's a local hot spot of fans around some active community leaders.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
You say "had". If no-one was buying in to GW's new products, why did you stop?

Once the game was no longer officially supported, people walked away from it. A lot moved to AOS. AOS was not as dead as people like to claim, though its release was in fact a dumpster fire of epic proportions until they put points into the game.

though I can say your experience is not matched on my side of the pond.

Thats not surprising. There are places where I'm told 9th age is mammoth sized professional sports over there, but you couldn't find a game of 9th age going on within 500 miles of me unless you dug really hard to look for it in someone's garage or basement.

We had regional tournaments for whfb still happening all the way up until the end and they had decent turnout and attendance. And the stories of no one buying new gw models for whfb but buying plenty of second hand was a common story regionally as well, so I know it wasn't just my area that was big into that to make it an isolated pocket incidence.

auticus wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
You say "had". If no-one was buying in to GW's new products, why did you stop?

Once the game was no longer officially supported, people walked away from it. A lot moved to AOS. AOS was not as dead as people like to claim, though its release was in fact a dumpster fire of epic proportions until they put points into the game.

though I can say your experience is not matched on my side of the pond.

Thats not surprising. There are places where I'm told 9th age is mammoth sized professional sports over there, but you couldn't find a game of 9th age going on within 500 miles of me unless you dug really hard to look for it in someone's garage or basement.

We had regional tournaments for whfb still happening all the way up until the end and they had decent turnout and attendance. And the stories of no one buying new gw models for whfb but buying plenty of second hand was a common story regionally as well, so I know it wasn't just my area that was big into that to make it an isolated pocket incidence.

Nah. 9th Age isn't more mammoth sized than most other niche game rule-sets without actual miniature production behind it. In the category of post-release-hype Gaslands maybe. Certainly not even remotely 1% of AoS, which is now easily 40% or so the size of the (new and massively 8th-edition-attendance-boosted) 40K.

Really. I am personally no fan of Stormcasts or Eel-riders or whatever, but not to acknowledge that AoS is a massive success, both compared to late WFB and even more so compared to the "average" new and/or re-imagined wargame out there outside of the top 3 or so is just stupid.

auticus wrote:
WHFB didn't fail because no one was playing it.

WHFB failed because no one was buying new GW models for it and they werne't making any money off of it.

We had a VERY active WHFB community with leagues that had 30-50 people in it every season, and yet for the past decade very very few people in that very active community bought ANYTHING new from GW.

They bought their armies on Ebay or second hand locally or subbed in proxies from cheaper companies.

AOS is successful because it introduced new factions with new minis. So, it really was a shame then that WHFB never introduced Araby or Cathay or any of the other factions they teased in the fluff. I sure hope all the fans who shouted down adding new factions in favor of "getting the current ones right" feel like Lenny with a squished rabbit between their hands now. Thanks, WHFB players for killing the Old World.

AoS also scales better, and has better co-ordination with board games and skirmish games to act as funnels for people onboarding into the Hobby.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Thanks, WHFB players for killing the Old World.

Sure, blame the victims.

 Stormonu wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Thanks, WHFB players for killing the Old World.

Sure, blame the victims.

I'm not blaming all. Just the ones who were so vehement against adding new factions or doing anything new or exciting with the Old World that they choked the possibilities out of the setting. They were very vocal any time there was even a hint of fresh air coming into the model range.

I think the biggest problem there was simply that the GW balance skew was just as bad in 8th and people wanted to see them make a balanced game first before adding in new stuff which would also be unbalanced.

But thats been one of GW's biggest flaws as game developers since before there was an internet.

auticus wrote:
I think the biggest problem there was simply that the GW balance skew was just as bad in 8th and people wanted to see them make a balanced game first before adding in new stuff which would also be unbalanced.

But thats been one of GW's biggest flaws as game developers since before there was an internet.

Yes, that is what players demanded for edition after edition, even though it was never going to happen. What WHFB needed were sales, and exciting new product clearly works for that (as it does for AOS). Now there will never be perfectly balanced rules because the entire game and setting are gone for good.

auticus wrote:
I think the biggest problem there was simply that the GW balance skew was just as bad in 8th and people wanted to see them make a balanced game first before adding in new stuff which would also be unbalanced.

It is literally impossible to balance a game like 40k. The only balanced miniature games are the new ones, because there haven't been enough games played yet to identify where they are imbalanced.

 Sqorgar wrote:

auticus wrote:
I think the biggest problem there was simply that the GW balance skew was just as bad in 8th and people wanted to see them make a balanced game first before adding in new stuff which would also be unbalanced.

It is literally impossible to balance a game like 40k. The only balanced miniature games are the new ones, because there haven't been enough games played yet to identify where they are imbalanced.

It’s not impossible, but would take resources that GW simply isn’t interested in putting towards the game.

Its most definitely not impossible. Unless we want to get pedantic and start talking about perfect balance. For clarity I am not talking about perfect balance.

However the game, both 40k and whfb and now AOS all have the small handfuls of models and armies that you wn't get rolled if you play and the rest you will get squashed if you play them. You have about a 10% of the game that can give you a good game and 90% of the game that you collect because you like how they look. Thats awful.

The balance in GW games has always been dumpster-fire bad.

auticus wrote:
People play what other people are playing. Thats really the bottom line.

AOS and GW have a cycle that feeds itself simply off of the headcount.

The worst game in the world will do fine if players continue to play it because other people are playing it. Its a self feeding cycle.

There is much truth in this. Non-digital games require at least one opponent. If you can't find anyone to play your favorite game with, you don't get to play it. People are also reluctant to try something different because they like to be part of the herd, making it difficult for new, unfamiliar games to gain traction.

GW stores, for example, were designed to isolate their customers from other games. I know from experience that once you start hanging out at one it makes it difficult to pick up other games you are interested in, as "your place" only carries GW. So you find yourself putting up with their crap (for far too long).

Then you have the problem at any LGS of wanting to play game A, but only games B, C, and D have a player base there, and your LGS doesn't even stock game A to begin with.

auticus wrote:
Its most definitely not impossible. Unless we want to get pedantic and start talking about perfect balance. For clarity I am not talking about perfect balance.

I'm not even talking perfect balance. I'm talking about, at the least, every faction being able to go against every other faction and have a balanced chance of winning (that is, optimal army list vs optimal army list should have a roughly 50% win ratio over a large number of games and players). You can do that with 4 factions. You can't do it with 30.

 Sqorgar wrote:

auticus wrote:
Its most definitely not impossible. Unless we want to get pedantic and start talking about perfect balance. For clarity I am not talking about perfect balance.

I'm not even talking perfect balance. I'm talking about, at the least, every faction being able to go against every other faction and have a balanced chance of winning (that is, optimal army list vs optimal army list should have a roughly 50% win ratio over a large number of games and players). You can do that with 4 factions. You can't do it with 30.

It is generally very difficult to get 30 factions to place in the top 8 of a major tournament.

TBH the last page or so of this thread is why I think once AR glasses/goggles become a thing that's more affordable you'll see a sharp death of tabletop wargaming.

No need to find local players, you can play online but still have the visible and verbal interaction.

No need for companies to constantly put out new models to get people to buy stuff -- just charge a monthly fee to play.

I think a lot of other table top games will still be around after that tech boom (like RPGS and boardgames) but I have a hard time thinking miniature games will stay physical.

You think the tactile experience of building, painting and holding miniatures is negligible?

Or the AR/VR is a fad that ebbs and flows on the key premise of 'this time it wont suck; and 'oh thats 'new'', and mini-wargaming simply doesn't have the reach of face shoots like FortNight or GreyBrown Military dust up 84

VR has a very long way to go before it can deliver a game experience comparable to an afternoon wargaming session. UI/UX would be an immense challenge and the ergonomics/pixel density of modern headsets simply aren't good enough for extended wear. The truth is a digital tactics game will pretty much always be preferable as a PC game on a traditional 2D screen due to UX concerns, barring some radical innovations in player input/VR display technology.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
You think the tactile experience of building, painting and holding miniatures is negligible?

I think the hobby aspect will stay around as that's art but for actually playing most games, Ya, physical won't survive in the long run. Probably won't be for a very long time (10-15 years at the minimum) but it will happen. With how much money Microsoft, Apple and Google are all dumping into AR right now we're bound to see a more consumer friendly version of the hololense sooner then later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

barboggo wrote:
VR has a very long way to go before it can deliver a game experience comparable to an afternoon wargaming session. UI/UX would be an immense challenge and the ergonomics/pixel density of modern headsets simply aren't good enough for extended wear. The truth is a digital tactics game will pretty much always be preferable as a PC game on a traditional 2D screen due to UX concerns, barring some radical innovations in player input/VR display technology.

I don't think the UI/UX would be as big of a challenge as you state and extended wear that depends on the person. I can currently play PSVR skyrim for hours with no motion sickness (with all the protections against it turned off) but I know others can't. With AR it's less of an issue though weight is as everything is becoming self contained and the batteries are going to be heavy.

 LunarSol wrote:
It is generally very difficult to get 30 factions to place in the top 8 of a major tournament.

Who said anything about tournaments? I'm saying that regardless of what faction you pick and what faction you play against, if both players play optimally, neither side will have a distinct advantage. If there is a game where your faction is always at a disadvantage to another faction, the game can not be said to be balanced (at the very least). Tournaments are a terrible way to determine the true balance of a game system.

For instance, in Rock-Paper-Scissors, over a large number of games, you should come out winning 33% of the time, losing 33% of the time, and getting a tie 33% of the time. But if your opponents know you can't throw Paper, then you will lose 50% of the time and tie 50% of the time (and win 0% of the time). If your opponent knows you will always throw Rock, you will lose 100% of the time.

A lot of 40k seems to be factions that can't throw Paper or only throws Rock, with tournaments largely obscuring this imbalance by not knowing which one you will face next. People won't create lists that use Scissors at all (won't win without paper, always lose to rocks), and often, the winning move is to have a Paper-only army and hope the match up gives you only Rock-only opponents (since one side can't throw paper, rocks will dominate against them and thus that imbalance will be more common and you are more likely to encounter it). So, despite the game being extremely unbalanced, in general, the tournament scene has a completely different balancing mechanism that yields different results, often factoring in imbalances or exploiting them.


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 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Or the AR/VR is a fad that ebbs and flows on the key premise of 'this time it wont suck; and 'oh thats 'new'', and mini-wargaming simply doesn't have the reach of face shoots like FortNight or GreyBrown Military dust up 84

I don't think VR is a fad - and I say that as the biggest VR doubter there was until I got my hands on a PSVR. I, however, do not think it will replace actual miniature gaming. I do miniatures because it is hard and time consuming to make and paint, and because I have something to show for it when the TV is turned off.

It's worth pointing out that VR has been around since the 80s. I remember playing Dactyl Nightmare at a mall demo when I was a kid. They've been refining it for decades and it is almost there as a consumer product. Believe me, if VR was a fad, it would've died as a concept back when you were walking around flat shaded 8 polygon rooms at 4 fps.

I myself am a games designer and I know that you can get a lot better balance than what GW does. The idea that you can't have balance is not a true one to me.

Kings of War currently has 21 factions and has pretty solid balance. Not perfect balance, but a good player can take a faction and do well with it.

That same good player would get crushed if they played in the GW gameverse with a non optimal army.

For balance to be achieved you have to dial back on the listbuilding importance.

auticus wrote:
I myself am a games designer and I know that you can get a lot better balance than what GW does. The idea that you can't have balance is not a true one to me.

Kings of War currently has 21 factions and has pretty solid balance. Not perfect balance, but a good player can take a faction and do well with it.

That same good player would get crushed if they played in the GW gameverse with a non optimal army.

For balance to be achieved you have to dial back on the listbuilding importance.

My impression over the years is that GW did too less play testing.
Play testing should give a better understanding of the game and so may lead to a more balanced game.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
TBH the last page or so of this thread is why I think once AR glasses/goggles become a thing that's more affordable you'll see a sharp death of tabletop wargaming.

No need to find local players, you can play online but still have the visible and verbal interaction.

No need for companies to constantly put out new models to get people to buy stuff -- just charge a monthly fee to play.

I think a lot of other table top games will still be around after that tech boom (like RPGS and boardgames) but I have a hard time thinking miniature games will stay physical.

Right.
Because video games made board games obsolete.....and ebooks made books obsolete....and how radio was killed long ago.....

Fact is, half the appeal of a miniatures game is the physicality and the hobby aspect.
If you take that away, how is it any different than just playing a video game of the same game?
Last I checked, video games haven't replaced TT gaming and I don't see that happening for the foreseeable future.

The whole point of a physical game is to interact with others in the flesh. If I wanted to play video game version instead, there are plenty of options.

Physical gaming isn't going anywhere soon.

auticus wrote:
I myself am a games designer and I know that you can get a lot better balance than what GW does. The idea that you can't have balance is not a true one to me.

BETTER balance, sure, but given that actual balance is a practical impossibility with such expansive games, at some point, you have to draw a line and say "good enough balance". While that line is different for everybody, given the popularity of 40k, it's probably safe to say that 40k's balance is not negatively impacting the game (or at least, not enough of a flaw to drive away a significant number of players). Despite 40k being so unbalanced, a lot more balanced games have come and gone with nary a shrug.

Most players don't care about balance, and it is almost never the reason a successful game declines.

Kings of War currently has 21 factions and has pretty solid balance. Not perfect balance, but a good player can take a faction and do well with it.

That same good player would get crushed if they played in the GW gameverse with a non optimal army.

I haven't played Kings of War, but my experience with Mantic products is that Mantic generally has very little variation to its game elements. Deadzone, for example, only has a handful of stats that have a small variation window (most models are +/- 1 for the stats). Walking Dead too. It's easier to balance something when similar units are roughly equal in power.

I also assume that the games you play with KoW are a lot more limited in scope and nature. With 40k, you can have a battle with 300 infantry troops going against a handful of giant robots and psychic Primarchs on a barren field filled with acid pools and craters while being bombarded by airships flying across the field. How do you balance a scenario like that? You can't. So, is a successful game the one that allows such grandiose scenarios or one that limits them in the name of balance?

For balance to be achieved you have to dial back on the listbuilding importance.

I have a sneaky suspicion that, at least to 40k players, list building is more important to them than actual balance. In fact, I think they actively enjoy the fact that list building intentionally unbalances the game.


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 wuestenfux wrote:
My impression over the years is that GW did too less play testing.
Play testing should give a better understanding of the game and so may lead to a more balanced game.

40k is such an expansive game with so many units, scenarios, and ways to play that they could playtest for 30 years using a small number of playtesters and still not find everything that one DAY of general release will expose. And I'm guessing that their focus was not solely on Matched Play, and that play testing was less about finding the perfect balance for that particular subset of games and more generally trying to figure out if they have a set of game rules that work in most cases, that gives them the design space to support an extensive line of growing products, and whether or not "game bugs" can lead to unfun, unplayable, or unwinnable situations unintentionally.


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 Ghool wrote:
The whole point of a physical game is to interact with others in the flesh.

Bow chicka wow wow.

Most players don't care about balance, and it is almost never the reason a successful game declines.

I think one of the biggest mass exoduses from whfb 7th edition came precisely from the horrible imbalance. At least that was the case in my region.

Though in general I agree. Dumpster fires of balance are largely ignored by a good number of players. So long as everyone around them is still playing the game.

I have a sneaky suspicion that, at least to 40k players, list building is more important to them than actual balance. In fact, I think they actively enjoy the fact that list building intentionally unbalances the game.

I also fully agree. The intended audience for both AOS and 40k are towards people that enjoy busting the game and having one sided games and winning in the listbuilding phase.

auticus wrote:
I think one of the biggest mass exoduses from whfb 7th edition came precisely from the horrible imbalance. At least that was the case in my region.

Wasn't into miniatures then, so didn't see it happen, but I suspect that wasn't the main reason they left, just the one that became the most obvious.

For instance, I don't think WMH mk3 went down due to balance issues, though that's probably the main thing I hear from the players that left. In my opinion, what happened is that change was the worst possible thing that could happen to a game which had a huge learning curve and rewarded players with mastery of its idiosyncrasies. When the game changes like that, mastery of the previous edition actually becomes an obstacle to winning and having fun - and since the majority of mk3 players were master mk2 players (mk2 didn't suffer casuals), they were constantly and totally frustrated by playing the game. They went from top of the game to basically a new player, and maybe wanted to skip a new learning curve that could take months and go back to having the fun they did in mk2.

But you can't put that sort of thing into words, so nebulous and poorly defined things like "balance" are blamed, or they blame things which were obviously bad and offensive decisions (killing the forums and press ganger program), despite the fact that those decisions didn't directly affect them (the forums were avoided by most players anyway and expert players with a reliable group don't need a press ganger). Privateer Press then goes, okay, we'll fix the balance - hey, why isn't anyone coming back? Turns out, fixing the balance issues actually does the exact same thing that creating a new edition does - it sets everybody's masteries back, pushing them even further from their goals for playing the game. Now I see people saying the CID program is why they left WMH.

Point is, emotions are fickle and we don't always know where they come from. What seems like the reason for our anger may actually just be a flimsy justification for it.

Well the extent of the exodus in 7th was that demons were pretty much the only viable army and that that was garbage, so people left for other games like warmachine.

That was the most common phrase posted and uttered.

At any rate, balance definitely matters to players- at least to a point. People naturally want to feel like they have a chance to win, even in more "casual" games. Getting stomped just because your favorite army that you lovingly and painstakingly converted and painted has lackluster rules is not a good feeling, it's a major turn-off. That was the problem with 7th 40k, right? We all hated that whoever placed the most broken toys on the table won.

Sure, some of the fun of any game is breaking it. I do that with Magic from time-to-time, creating crazy synergies- deck/list building is part of the fun. But I think Magic gets away with it a bit more because the game is much more intrinsically interactive than WH. Lots of hidden information- not knowing exactly what is in your opponent's hand, most of your "army" is buried in your deck and the precise order of cards is unknown, some spells and abilities can be used on your opponent's turn, and some card's abilities care about your opponent's actions/cards. WH games just don't have that kind of element. 40k 8th is particularly bad on that front because there was an intention that players do not care what abilities their opponent's units have, and doing that will naturally make the game less interactive as a result.

Blastaar wrote:
At any rate, balance definitely matters to players- at least to a point. People naturally want to feel like they have a chance to win, even in more "casual" games. Getting stomped just because your favorite army that you lovingly and painstakingly converted and painted has lackluster rules is not a good feeling, it's a major turn-off. That was the problem with 7th 40k, right? We all hated that whoever placed the most broken toys on the table won.

Sure, some of the fun of any game is breaking it. I do that with Magic from time-to-time, creating crazy synergies- deck/list building is part of the fun. But I think Magic gets away with it a bit more because the game is much more intrinsically interactive than WH. Lots of hidden information- not knowing exactly what is in your opponent's hand, most of your "army" is buried in your deck and the precise order of cards is unknown, some spells and abilities can be used on your opponent's turn, and some card's abilities care about your opponent's actions/cards. WH games just don't have that kind of element. 40k 8th is particularly bad on that front because there was an intention that players do not care what abilities their opponent's units have, and doing that will naturally make the game less interactive as a result.

One of the complaints about 8th is that it is very CCG like in the whole lack of interaction or even caring what the other player is doing, all the strongest CCG decks aimi to limit interaction to an absolute minimum and just carry out 'the plan'

One of the complaints about 8th is that it is very CCG like in the whole lack of interaction or even caring what the other player is doing, all the strongest CCG decks aimi to limit interaction to an absolute minimum and just carry out 'the plan'

I fully agree with this assessment. I feel both AOS and 40k are this to a "T". I think with minor editing you could make both 40k and AOS rulesets work with just cards instead of models.

The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons. You can't IP elf, but you can Eldoneth (or whatever).

I have a feeling the same was planned for 40K for their less than IP-able brands like Space Marines. However, they saw what a nightmare happened with AoS/WHFB and they decided to just make Primaris to slowly phase out the un-IPable Space Marine.

That is my crazy, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theory. WHFB had to die due to IP and 40K was on the same fast track until AoS did not launch smoothly.



Now, why do popular games decline, I am guessing for the same reason as empires. For a lot of little reasons that all add up to big drops in players.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

Blastaar wrote:
At any rate, balance definitely matters to players- at least to a point. People naturally want to feel like they have a chance to win, even in more "casual" games. Getting stomped just because your favorite army that you lovingly and painstakingly converted and painted has lackluster rules is not a good feeling, it's a major turn-off. That was the problem with 7th 40k, right? We all hated that whoever placed the most broken toys on the table won.

Sure, some of the fun of any game is breaking it. I do that with Magic from time-to-time, creating crazy synergies- deck/list building is part of the fun. But I think Magic gets away with it a bit more because the game is much more intrinsically interactive than WH. Lots of hidden information- not knowing exactly what is in your opponent's hand, most of your "army" is buried in your deck and the precise order of cards is unknown, some spells and abilities can be used on your opponent's turn, and some card's abilities care about your opponent's actions/cards. WH games just don't have that kind of element. 40k 8th is particularly bad on that front because there was an intention that players do not care what abilities their opponent's units have, and doing that will naturally make the game less interactive as a result.

One of the complaints about 8th is that it is very CCG like in the whole lack of interaction or even caring what the other player is doing, all the strongest CCG decks aimi to limit interaction to an absolute minimum and just carry out 'the plan'

They often do, but I would argue that due to the nature of some of these rulesets, there is always a chance or a way to turn things around, even if it relies on niche cards or a tailored deck. Even the most broken deck needs some level of good play to be effective; I wouldn't say even storm is identical to scatter bikes and wraith knights in 7th. (It helps in CCGs that switching "armies" is so much easier/desirable) I do not find a comparable situation to 40k in terms of in-game action.

I think the complaint about being CCG-like is perhaps a tad overstated, but highlights an issue of expectations- CCGs are heavily abstracted, and crushing the other player can be quite satisfying. But in a war-game or battle game, as GW games have been marketed as at various times, it's fair that players would expect some level of simulation and battlefield tactics, maneuver in particular.

Limiting interaction as a strategy is, to an extent fine and perfectly legitimate. Designing the ruleset from the ground up based on the principle of nearly playing solitaire with minis, is not. If I as a player could execute moves, abilities and so forth to limit my opponent's interaction, that is one matter- the problem is there are few to no moves to make to begin with.

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons. You can't IP elf, but you can Eldoneth (or whatever).

I have a feeling the same was planned for 40K for their less than IP-able brands like Space Marines. However, they saw what a nightmare happened with AoS/WHFB and they decided to just make Primaris to slowly phase out the un-IPable Space Marine.

That is my crazy, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theory. WHFB had to die due to IP and 40K was on the same fast track until AoS did not launch smoothly.

That's... absurd. It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of the trademark issues GW faced. The name "space marine" is too generic and too broad to be used as a trademark covering all the forms of entertainment that 40k operates in (the term also predates 40k by some time). That's why they changed the name to Adeptus Astartes. There's never ever been a problem with the models themselves, which is why they were simply renamed but are otherwise still available. If they still wanted to keep WHFB, they could've done the exact same thing and simply renamed the factions and models.

The Primaris marines were introduced because GW models have gotten larger and more detailed, making the 10 ft tall Space Marines look like Squats when standing next to newer models. It's weird for a race of giant superhumans to only come up to the nipples on a Harlequin.

They replaced WHFB with a more 40k-like miniatures game because mass battle games fell out of style and games like 40k were several orders of magnitude more popular and successful. I don't know why they replaced the WHFB universe with the AoS universe, but if I had to guess, it had less to do with generic elves being untrademarkable and more to do with generic elves being boring as gak. It's hard to stand out in an ever crowded marketplace with a boring as gak universe. I mean, if you are going to be a pale imitation of Lord of the Rings, it probably isn't a great idea to also sell a Lord of the Rings game right next to it...

Most likely, the Old World was replaced because it was generally IP unfriendly, as it was based on a fantasized copy of Europe/Earth. The new realms are far easier to claim copyright on the names and identity, as well as GW can make them much more fantastic than mundane.

Which is kind of sad, as Warhammer was originally a dark reflection of our (medieval) world, before Chaos and Magic had disappeared to the mists of time. It started as a low magic, gritty sort of world that you’d find in the likes of Conan or something written by Lovecraft. Conversely, AoS is high magic and high energy adventure - something you’re more likely to find in the works of Harry Potter or other in vogue Young Teen fantasy works.

High fantasy is also vastly more commercialized and marketable today to the masses.

 Stormonu wrote:

Which is kind of sad, as Warhammer was originally a dark reflection of our (medieval) world, before Chaos and Magic had disappeared to the mists of time. It started as a low magic, gritty sort of world that you’d find in the likes of Conan or something written by Lovecraft.

And how do you communicate such a setting through 3" tall models? Low magic, gritty worlds are great for fluff, but make exceptionally boring models. "ooh, this model is a vampire that is posing as high society, secretly using his immortality to accrue wealth over multiple generations in order to subtly manipulate the strings of government towards his own nefarious ends, but his dark and secretive motivations are known only to him" - uh, okay. Is that, like, a +3 to hit?

Meanwhile, "ooh, this model is an immortal warrior who wields a sacred hammer, forged in the fires of a dying sun towards the purpose of defeating the dark enemies of chaos or despair. It glows with an ethereal light, as if blessed by the gods themselves, its very existence crackling with preternatural might." - Is that a +3 to hit? - "Your god damned right it's a +3 to hit".

The answer for me was iconography. All the old WHFB armies had very specific icons or symbols associated with them that gave them identity beyond their historical antecedents. Usually these devices dovetailed nicely with the supernatural powerhouses in the army (such as gryphons, dragons, etc.) but I feel in the older plastics they were used too sparingly, making the models seem too historical.

The stories written in the Old World did most of the heavy lifting, making that setting live and breathe for customers like me. I was emotionally invested in the setting in a way I have been unwilling to invest in many setting since then, from AoS to Mantica to Confrontation AoR. So, while the AOS minis are more exciting and unique, they don't yet mean anything to me in the same way that Karl Franz or Gotrek or Finubar do.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

Which is kind of sad, as Warhammer was originally a dark reflection of our (medieval) world, before Chaos and Magic had disappeared to the mists of time. It started as a low magic, gritty sort of world that you’d find in the likes of Conan or something written by Lovecraft.

And how do you communicate such a setting through 3" tall models? Low magic, gritty worlds are great for fluff, but make exceptionally boring models. "ooh, this model is a vampire that is posing as high society, secretly using his immortality to accrue wealth over multiple generations in order to subtly manipulate the strings of government towards his own nefarious ends, but his dark and secretive motivations are known only to him" - uh, okay. Is that, like, a +3 to hit?

Meanwhile, "ooh, this model is an immortal warrior who wields a sacred hammer, forged in the fires of a dying sun towards the purpose of defeating the dark enemies of chaos or despair. It glows with an ethereal light, as if blessed by the gods themselves, its very existence crackling with preternatural might." - Is that a +3 to hit? - "Your god damned right it's a +3 to hit".

Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for that (partly because I only followed WHFB tangently via the RPG). But it was in the game more along the lines of the Perils of casting spells and the fact that you had "mundane" forces on the good guys side and terrifying, grotesque monstrosities on the other. But that doesn't translate well to sales, because everyone wants the fantastic stuff, not the humdrum forces that get beaten up - or is held down with drawbacks for their magical prowress. Back in the eighties, this sort of thing worked (somehow) in an age of movies like Krull, Conan the Barbarian and Excalibur. Now, you couldn't get away with it due to (great) movies/books like Harry Potter, Eragon and host of other high fantasy works, thus the AoS style.

 wuestenfux wrote:

auticus wrote:
I myself am a games designer and I know that you can get a lot better balance than what GW does. The idea that you can't have balance is not a true one to me.

Kings of War currently has 21 factions and has pretty solid balance. Not perfect balance, but a good player can take a faction and do well with it.

That same good player would get crushed if they played in the GW gameverse with a non optimal army.

For balance to be achieved you have to dial back on the listbuilding importance.

My impression over the years is that GW did too less play testing.
Play testing should give a better understanding of the game and so may lead to a more balanced game.

You are assuming GW wants balance...Rather than swinging meta up and around periodically so that players are constantly rushing over to buy new models to replace the ones that got invalidated.

GW cares not one bit about balance. It does not care what's even top currently. What it cares is that what's top now is different to what was top 6 months before.


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 Sqorgar wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

Which is kind of sad, as Warhammer was originally a dark reflection of our (medieval) world, before Chaos and Magic had disappeared to the mists of time. It started as a low magic, gritty sort of world that you’d find in the likes of Conan or something written by Lovecraft.

And how do you communicate such a setting through 3" tall models? Low magic, gritty worlds are great for fluff, but make exceptionally boring models. "ooh, this model is a vampire that is posing as high society, secretly using his immortality to accrue wealth over multiple generations in order to subtly manipulate the strings of government towards his own nefarious ends, but his dark and secretive motivations are known only to him" - uh, okay. Is that, like, a +3 to hit?

Meanwhile, "ooh, this model is an immortal warrior who wields a sacred hammer, forged in the fires of a dying sun towards the purpose of defeating the dark enemies of chaos or despair. It glows with an ethereal light, as if blessed by the gods themselves, its very existence crackling with preternatural might." - Is that a +3 to hit? - "Your god damned right it's a +3 to hit".

It's posts like this that makes me very depressed about current generation

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons. You can't IP elf, but you can Eldoneth (or whatever).

I have a feeling the same was planned for 40K for their less than IP-able brands like Space Marines. However, they saw what a nightmare happened with AoS/WHFB and they decided to just make Primaris to slowly phase out the un-IPable Space Marine.

That is my crazy, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theory. WHFB had to die due to IP and 40K was on the same fast track until AoS did not launch smoothly.

That's... absurd.

....is it? I mean, after all I am just asking questions.

After losing a case about the IP nature of the term Space Marine and the trademark-ability of GW's IP then suddenly the Old World is thrown out and replaced by AoS, and new names are rolled out as Adeptus Astartes and Primaris? Sure, absurd is a word you could apply.

Good thing we live in an absurd world.

<Puts tinfoil hat on>

Edit: As far as why games decline, all "successful" games live in a very thin margin or error that balances the popularity of the game via the profitability of a game. GW has the resources, base, and wherewithal to bludgeon past missteps or issues, while smaller companies do not. A relatively small mistake could kill a company like Aline Dungeon and therefore kill Al Quiet on the Martian Front, while the same mistake would barely cause a blip on GWs bottom line.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:


You probably don't want to use AOS as your example - sales stats show it outperforming WHFB in it's prime

Yup.

Seems like the exact opposite. AoS would be the first and best example on how to turn a failing, stale, beyond its prime carcass circled only by some super-nostalgic hobby-flies into a blockbuster success, despite (or, arguably, because) breaking some eggs to make that particular omelette.

Not to mention that "lessons learned from AoS" arguably ALSO saved 40K (and thus ultimately the company) from the 2014 to 2016 or so slump and new-player-unfriendly bloat. There's rightly been lots of praise for GW Nu-CEO turning a corner on company policy, etc.. , but it would've been a mute effort without both main games themselves turning a corner on the AoS watershed under GW old-CEO and thereby opening the path to the new GW golden age.

I think you're misunderstanding my examples with AOS - I was treating it as the death, after the slow decline, of WHFB.

I've found that in most games, there's generally a golden age after the first couple expansions where it feels like there's tons of content, lots of players, lots of strategy, and the game has meat on its bones, then the content gets slowly more and more bloated and players lose interest for other games, then there's one catalystic failure point that spells the pure death of the game.

Example would be monsterpocalypse. Its golden age was the first two expansions, where each faction had 4-6 monsters and full unit rosters. Then interest declined with the third expansion which totally broke the game balance of the "build the city phase" by introducing faction-aligned buildings and introduced the splitter monster concept which was generally disliked. Then the game finally went the way of the dodo with the fourth expansion which was the release of 6 entirely new factions who had the double problem of only having 1/3 of the roster of the existing factions (meaning not too many people wanted to actually play them) and there was the prospect to existing players of none of their new stuff ever getting anything new again. Thus the game died at that point.

AOS was that catalyst for the death of fantasy. AOS in itself is a successful game in nearly all respects EXCEPT for being a success at re-integrating the small existing WHFB fanbase, who I've found by and large despise AOS still.


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 Easy E wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons. You can't IP elf, but you can Eldoneth (or whatever).

I have a feeling the same was planned for 40K for their less than IP-able brands like Space Marines. However, they saw what a nightmare happened with AoS/WHFB and they decided to just make Primaris to slowly phase out the un-IPable Space Marine.

That is my crazy, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theory. WHFB had to die due to IP and 40K was on the same fast track until AoS did not launch smoothly.

That's... absurd.

....is it? I mean, after all I am just asking questions.

After losing a case about the IP nature of the term Space Marine and the trademark-ability of GW's IP then suddenly the Old World is thrown out and replaced by AoS, and new names are rolled out as Adeptus Astartes and Primaris? Sure, absurd is a word you could apply.

Good thing we live in an absurd world.

<Puts tinfoil hat on>

Edit: As far as why games decline, all "successful" games live in a very thin margin or error that balances the popularity of the game via the profitability of a game. GW has the resources, base, and wherewithal to bludgeon past missteps or issues, while smaller companies do not. A relatively small mistake could kill a company like Aline Dungeon and therefore kill Al Quiet on the Martian Front, while the same mistake would barely cause a blip on GWs bottom line.

There is almost no doubt that GW is using new space marine products to consolidate the image of what a Space Marine looks like for IP purposes.

The biggest thing to look for is the proportions and the appearance of the helmet - the two biggest deviances, Space Marine Scouts and Space Marine Terminators are being replaced by the MUCH more IP friendly designs from Primaris that all include much more normal Marine proportions and the helmet, which they can claim to be an iconic feature of the SM product.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

auticus wrote:
WHFB didn't fail because no one was playing it.

WHFB failed because no one was buying new GW models for it and they werne't making any money off of it.

We had a VERY active WHFB community with leagues that had 30-50 people in it every season, and yet for the past decade very very few people in that very active community bought ANYTHING new from GW.

They bought their armies on Ebay or second hand locally or subbed in proxies from cheaper companies.

AOS is successful because it introduced new factions with new minis. So, it really was a shame then that WHFB never introduced Araby or Cathay or any of the other factions they teased in the fluff. I sure hope all the fans who shouted down adding new factions in favor of "getting the current ones right" feel like Lenny with a squished rabbit between their hands now. Thanks, WHFB players for killing the Old World.

How can you blame WHFB players when GW proudly hadn't done market research long before AoS was a thing? End Times showed that WHFB players were willing to invest in new stuff if they actually produced it. The problem was they followed the formula of only releasing new models when a new codex came out, and then acted shocked when End Times models and books sold out because, gasp, it's almost like you need to produce stuff for people to buy to get you money. By then it was too late of course, but they obviously learnt their lesson with End Times, it's just that it came at the cost of the Old World.

AoS is successful because you don't need to spend £120 on your Core - minimum - before you can even think about other units.

Core tax killed WHFB more than anything. There was plenty of new blood willing to dip into it - 40k was always more popular, but it's not like they had to run much of a marketing campaign for WHFB - but being told you need to buy four boxes of 20-ish similar ranked models was not a recipe for success when you can buy a few squads in 40k, a HQ and you're golden. 500pt 40k is also pretty workable for newbies, whilst WHFB just didn't work at anything below 1000pts.

tneva82 wrote:
It's posts like this that makes me very depressed about current generation

Why? I'm several generations removed from the current one, though I do share your concern. Their toys suck, their tv sucks, and they just watch donkey-caves on YouTube all day.

But still, you must understand that there is a difference in how you sell a story to a new reader and how you sell a miniature? Branding is important. There's a reason why the most successful miniature games are the ones with unique, thematic miniatures with a lot of characters and not the ones with the most interesting back story.

For instance, Wrath of Kings has a great backstory. The miniatures are thematically related to its factions, but the factions are thematically dissonant to each other. The characters have no character and it's very difficult to communicate to a new player why the werewolves are fighting jellyfish men and Chinese dragons.

Warmachine... used to have a lot of character. I think they really lost their way, visually. Grimkin and Convergence feel like they are from a different game, while the other factions have unique identities (some of the Hordes factions are weaker in this regard), the models within the factions no longer seem to have any individuality. Back when I was looking at returning to the game, I'd constantly find myself looking at a model and not being able to tell it from a different one. Is this an officer? An attachment? A solo? A named character? Heck, is it a warcaster? Back in mk2, in my opinion, even when models shared the same kit, their different variations had a lot of individual character.

WHFB 8th appeared to have been created with pretty much a single aim, to make sure that those who already played it needed to buy a stack more models - think of how the unit sizes ballooned.

It as a side effect made getting started with it essentially impossible.

AoS launching alongside WHFB, in the same general setting, as a skirmish game in the same background would have worked nicely for me, would also have been a lot harder to be critical of.

the nuke & pave approach to the background was just to find a lazy way to shoehorn the sigmarines in

That doesn't work from a copyright/design perspective though - one of the reasons that WHFB didn't sell some ranges well was that they were so generic that you could get armies from other companies for a fraction of the price (like using Perry's figures for Empire/Bretonnia @ £18 for 40).

WHFB had to go away entirely so that AoS could come along with it's Urruks and Fyrekins and no actual human faction.

Herzlos wrote:
That doesn't work from a copyright/design perspective though - one of the reasons that WHFB didn't sell some ranges well was that they were so generic that you could get armies from other companies for a fraction of the price (like using Perry's figures for Empire/Bretonnia @ £18 for 40).

WHFB had to go away entirely so that AoS could come along with it's Urruks and Fyrekins and no actual human faction.

problem is, take away the humans and you take away the connection to us, they are nice models, GW could quite easily have basically admitted to themselves some of the more historical stuff was going to be from the Perry's etc, and ramped up the fantasy bits of such armies, the heros etc.

Or of course they could have used the scale of production they have to undercut the likes of Vitrix (thats a different debate though).

but the background needs a basic human connection, if only to provide the scale for the fantasy

Successful games fail because they do not find new ways to engage their current players. They also do not seek to expand their player base. They definitely don't do market research. They also fail to strengthen their fluff in a meaningful way. This creates what feels like a disconnect with their fans. Newer products will often not be as creative as the original products. The setting has to stand out from everyone else in the marketplace.

It wasn't just humans. It was the whole generic line. Why would you spend GW prices when you could just get vastly cheaper historicals or vastly cheaper competitors like mantic.

Its been postulated that a main reason for boosting LOTR figure costs back in the day was because when they were cheap, people were using them to fill their WHFB armies out.

I would bet the farm all of this comes down to coming up with a model line that you can't replicate through cheap historicals, cheap generic tropes like elves and dwarves, and have a certain look that is IP protected.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
The point is, WFB was dead and not making money (and there's a different discussion on why, certainly a lot of it was self-inflicted by GW).

AoS was an admittedly extreme and for many old time fans painful measure to turn the death spiral around, but it succeeded at that.

Except it didn't. WHFB is still dead. AoS is a completely different game.

So they didn't 'turn the death spiral around'... they canned a game that was no longer profitable, and replaced it with a completely different game that just happened (for a while at least) to use the same miniatures.

auticus wrote:
I would bet the farm all of this comes down to coming up with a model line that you can't replicate through cheap historicals, cheap generic tropes like elves and dwarves, and have a certain look that is IP protected.

You make it sound like it was purely defensive, when it is a good idea to go this direction for a number of reasons. I really think the more flamboyant setting is a perfect match for GW's model designers, as they've created some really awesome armies from scratch (Kharadron, Idoneth), while simultaneously taking generic one off units from WHFB and really expanding them into unique and awesome armies (Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine).

I'm sure part of it was creating a less derivative setting, but I think it may have also involved the model designers pleading, "please don't make us design anymore models that pack together like sardines! They have to hold their swords straight up, touching their nipples! Nipples don't belong in swordplay!".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
So they didn't 'turn the death spiral around'... they canned a game that was no longer profitable, and replaced it with a completely different game that just happened (for a while at least) to use the same miniatures.

You can say that (and I did) about any edition change. 8th edition is a completely different game than 7th edition that just happens to use the same miniatures (by the way, all your marines are being replaced)

While thats all true I firmy believe that in the era that AOS was birthed amidst all of the litigation and the chapter house nonsense that indeed it was a defensive move that has turned profitable to them.

 Sqorgar wrote:
You can say that (and I did) about any edition change. 8th edition is a completely different game than 7th edition that just happens to use the same miniatures (by the way, all your marines are being replaced)

Not really. The core of the game in 8th edition 40K is still the same as it has been since 2nd edition. That's not the case with AoS.

And, of course, there's the fact that 8th edition 40K was actually marketed as a new edition of 40K. That also wasn't the case with AoS... it wasn't marketed as a 9th edition of WHFB, it was marketed as an off-shoot. It's a new game under the 'Warhammer' label.

 insaniak wrote:
Not really. The core of the game in 8th edition 40K is still the same as it has been since 2nd edition.

That's kind of like saying Othello is a new edition of Go.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
Not really. The core of the game in 8th edition 40K is still the same as it has been since 2nd edition.

That's kind of like saying Othello is a new edition of Go.

Hardly. There's clearly a difference between an edition change and a whole new game. One of them is how useful your current set of models will be in the new game. Sure, you could use your old WHFB models in AoS, but the bases would be "wrong" and army construction would be very different and due to the complete change in rules you might find things work very differently, requiring you to update your collection. An edition change generally shifts balance and power level around a bit, but in a much less impactful way.

leopard wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
That doesn't work from a copyright/design perspective though - one of the reasons that WHFB didn't sell some ranges well was that they were so generic that you could get armies from other companies for a fraction of the price (like using Perry's figures for Empire/Bretonnia @ £18 for 40).

WHFB had to go away entirely so that AoS could come along with it's Urruks and Fyrekins and no actual human faction.

problem is, take away the humans and you take away the connection to us, they are nice models, GW could quite easily have basically admitted to themselves some of the more historical stuff was going to be from the Perry's etc, and ramped up the fantasy bits of such armies, the heros etc.

Or of course they could have used the scale of production they have to undercut the likes of Vitrix (thats a different debate though).

but the background needs a basic human connection, if only to provide the scale for the fantasy

I agree entirely; you need the familiarity to bring people in - Warhammer had all the tropes any 14 year old boy would already be familiar with (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins, Barbarians etc) so you can get in running without doing any real research. That just doesn't happen with, for instance, AoS, where there are no humans and nothing has a name they are familiar with (sure the tropes are sort of still there but you need a translation table to figure out wtf anything is).

Going by the relative sizes, GW could have easily either just dropped their human range for the Perrys, or potentially just bought the Perrys out. But I don't think they'd ever do something like that and risk making their customers aware that there's ample gardens outside the wall.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sqorgar wrote:
You make it sound like it was purely defensive, when it is a good idea to go this direction for a number of reasons. I really think the more flamboyant setting is a perfect match for GW's model designers,

But they controlled the entire WHFB world and could have made it as flamboyant as they wanted. You don't need to burn down the world to bring in some new units or a new age.

as they've created some really awesome armies from scratch (Kharadron, Idoneth), while simultaneously taking generic one off units from WHFB and really expanding them into unique and awesome armies (Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine).

None of which directly mean anything to someone who isn't familiar with the world, or couldn't have existed in the old world. I've been paying some attention so I'm fairly sure the Kharadron are Dwarves/Dawi, I've no idea who Daughters of Khaine are, and I'm pretty sure that Idoneth and Sylvaneth are elves. Though I have to admit that Sylvaneth makes me think of these adorable guys rather than Elven warriors.

You just know that the intro for any of those armies in a GW store start with the GW staffer saying "So you've got the Kharadron, these are like Dwarves, right, but..." and then likely have the intro customer refer to them as dwarves for the rest of the conversation.

Subscibed -there's some great insights here.

What others have said about balance between growing the game and avoiding bloat is paramount. It's a fine line to walk. And arguably adhering to it does limit the lifespan of a game: One can introduce new units and new factions, new game modes, more balanced rules, plus expanding the rules to allow for the increased diversity, but there will come a point where all the exciting options for this are exhausted -new units that are only marginally different to the existing ones, re-hashes of existing abilities that add little scope. Eventually the bulk of your players will get bored.

The alternative is keeping those new releases attractive, by provide some form of in game advantage / power creep, which is a much more sustainable approach, but will drive away players that value the game for its balance and/or resent the devaluation of their existing collection. I personally find this kind of marketing very off-putting...yet I'm not sure there is an alternative approach to sustaining a game in the long term.

The direction Magic went to a variety of formats was a neat idea.

Herzlos wrote:
Though I have to admit that Sylvaneth makes me think of these adorable guys rather than Elven warriors.

Man, that's looks great! Good miniatures, good terrain, unique setting, not unreasonable prices... I'd totally like to play that. I don't see a rulebook listed anywhere on their website - are the rules included in the starter set?

 Grimtuff wrote:
So all the people that left in droves to start the Ninth Age, stick with 8th or play KoW never happened?

Right.

What droves.... those were like maybe 4% of the old WHFB fan base, there are way more people who bought KoW cheap filler to play 8th than the reverse, and all these are completely dwarfed by the AoS playerbase, which is more than 50% new players.

What part of this doesn't scream: absolute success, please copy paste.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

auticus wrote:
And the stories of no one buying new gw models for whfb but buying plenty of second hand was a common story regionally as well, so I know it wasn't just my area that was big into that to make it an isolated pocket incidence.

Not just second hand, I think a lot of people turned to cheap knock-offs, like King of War which really just sold WHFB-compatible miniatures under the pretense of a 3-page ruleset game - at first at least.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, it really was a shame then that WHFB never introduced Araby or Cathay or any of the other factions they teased in the fluff.

Yeah no... IP like that, which isn't even IP and doesn't even fit in a Fantasy setting, is better left outside the game.

Araby or Cathay ? Why not Germani ?

It's like those horrible horsemen from the Astra Militarum... dude we're in the future, we don't need no horses thx. you're breaking the setting.


I think those are typically horrible mistakes they made in the early days of fluff writing, when they had no content and little imagination but still needed to try and describe a vast universe.

This makes for pretty interesting reading for someone who left playing fantasy probably somewhere around its peak. I was shocked when I came back to find the whole game replaced by AOS.

auticus wrote:

Most players don't care about balance, and it is almost never the reason a successful game declines.

I think one of the biggest mass exoduses from whfb 7th edition came precisely from the horrible imbalance. At least that was the case in my region.

Though in general I agree. Dumpster fires of balance are largely ignored by a good number of players. So long as everyone around them is still playing the game.

Yup, And I think the vast majority of the WHFB versions were utterly and completely imbalanced, this did not prevent the game from being insanely successful.

I think people who care about balance are a very tiny minority.
Competitive gamers relish the opportunity to break the balance.
Fluff gamers don't really care.

And then there's those who keep on whining about balance being dumpster-fire grade.

Well... yea. dumpster-fire is definitely a certified term to qualify a very specific level of balance, so they must be right.

It's certainly seeming like AoS has, after some initial teething problems, been a great success. But the success is a commercial success of a new game, not a successful save of a dying one.

It's unfortunately impossible to say if they could have seen a similar level of success if they had put the same amount of effort into reinvigorating WHFB instead of replacing it, since they didn't do that...

 Sqorgar wrote:

auticus wrote:
I would bet the farm all of this comes down to coming up with a model line that you can't replicate through cheap historicals, cheap generic tropes like elves and dwarves, and have a certain look that is IP protected.

You make it sound like it was purely defensive, when it is a good idea to go this direction for a number of reasons

Honestly, to me, as an entrepreneur, I feel that defense would be more than enough.

It's really horrible when you do all the work to get people in the hobby, motivated, interested, and then they buy from some competitor who doesn't do gak to get people in but simply sells cheap knock-offs of your products.
Too many people made too much money off of GW's effort to bring WHFB to the masses, and they still do.
So many games played by ex-WHFB players who might've never gotten started on miniatures without GW. And GW paid to get them in the door, and so many other companies made the money off of their investment.

And by nature, as any unreasonable parasite, those companies were actually killing GW.
GW has found a way to not fall into that trap anymore and it's going to enable them to flourish and this in turn will be a boon for those who like their products.
I'm 10x more likely to get plastic aspect warriors in the next 3 years now that GW has gotten its gak together, and GW is 10x less likely to go bankrupt too. To me that's a win.
To those companies who lived off of their investment ... tough luck.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:
It's certainly seeming like AoS has, after some initial teething problems, been a great success. But the success is a commercial success of a new game, not a successful save of a dying one.

It's unfortunately impossible to say if they could have seen a similar level of success if they had put the same amount of effort into reinvigorating WHFB instead of replacing it, since they didn't do that...

I honestly think that many times, it's way too much effort to steer that supertanker off the collision course.
I think they might've tried with the end times and that the measurable results were so far off the goal that they hit the red button.

morgoth wrote:


Yeah no... IP like that, which isn't even IP and doesn't even fit in a Fantasy setting, is better left outside the game.

Araby or Cathay ? Why not Germani ?.

You mean the (Holy Roman) Empire? or Bretonnia, Estalia or Tilea? Praag is a particularly obvious one too. Every location in the setting is a thinly-veiled take on somewhere in the real world (and what does it say about the writer's opinion of North America, I wonder, that it became Naggaroth? Has anyone tried to map Malekith's revolt onto the American Revolution or Civil War?). Araby already had an army list and miniatures range, albeit for Warmaster, and there were enough background hints about Ind, Nippon and Cathay to be tantalising - they could have added them as new factions easily enough. Maybe they'll be added to in WFRP 4th edition.

Part of the reason for the new game was to make it easier to add the big, wacky plastic centrepiece models that no-one else really did and to let them break away from the last of the tolkienesque/traditional elements if they wanted to. There's no "elves" now, with all the cultural associations that brings - there's forest spirits, soul-stealing sea-dwellers and blood-soaked snake-women instead.

I wonder how much of the End Times was Rick Priestley's idea? He was showing off the early draft of the Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos book at Games Day 2010, and it was pitched as the first in a series of four books in which Rick would tear down everything he'd built up over the last 20 years, in a "what if" way; Nurgle from the east, Tzeentch from the south, Khorne from the west and Slaanesh from the north, IIRC. The Tamurkhan book annihilated the Empire - killing off first the Emperor then all the Elector Counts, leaving the Halfling lord of the Moot to be crowned as the last Emperor. The series never progressed beyond book 1, and Rick left Games Workshop not long after, but I wonder if Jervis, Phil and the other writers looked at his notes, remembered his conversations and thought "hey, guys, there might be something we can use here ..."

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

 Coldhatred wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

You maniac!

https://youtu.be/Gb4eZ7Z5yk8?t=20

Props for calling it in the way that it went down!

nareik wrote:

 Coldhatred wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

You maniac!

https://youtu.be/Gb4eZ7Z5yk8?t=20

Props for calling it in the way that it went down!

Granted, I'm not really happy with the way it ended up going down, so I feel much regret in regards to my prophetic powers.

morgoth wrote:

I honestly think that many times, it's way too much effort to steer that supertanker off the collision course.
I think they might've tried with the end times and that the measurable results were so far off the goal that they hit the red button.

The way End Times was plotted out, I think it was a planned ending from the start. The frustrating part is that given how much rekindled interest the End Times generated in WHFB, it would have been the perfect opportunity to release a 'fixed', 9th Ed WHFB set during the End Times, and AoS as an off-shoot skirmish game. That would have let them 'tweak' WHFB to add their extra layers of trademarkable IP to it and kept the game alive for those of us who actually prefer the blocks-of-troops, high fantasy style of that game, while also having AoS for the really bonkers model ideas and the new setting for those bored with WHFB.

 Coldhatred wrote:

nareik wrote:

 Coldhatred wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The only reason WHFB died was because of IP reasons.

Nope. . .it was me. . .

I killed WHFB.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?377872-Bringing-Warhammer-Fantasy-Back

You maniac!

https://youtu.be/Gb4eZ7Z5yk8?t=20

Props for calling it in the way that it went down!

Granted, I'm not really happy with the way it ended up going down, so I feel much regret in regards to my prophetic powers.

One day, a small part of your soul will be used in forging that of Konrad Curze!

 insaniak wrote:

morgoth wrote:

I honestly think that many times, it's way too much effort to steer that supertanker off the collision course.
I think they might've tried with the end times and that the measurable results were so far off the goal that they hit the red button.

The way End Times was plotted out, I think it was a planned ending from the start. The frustrating part is that given how much rekindled interest the End Times generated in WHFB, it would have been the perfect opportunity to release a 'fixed', 9th Ed WHFB set during the End Times, and AoS as an off-shoot skirmish game. That would have let them 'tweak' WHFB to add their extra layers of trademarkable IP to it and kept the game alive for those of us who actually prefer the blocks-of-troops, high fantasy style of that game, while also having AoS for the really bonkers model ideas and the new setting for those bored with WHFB.

Yeah it was planned allright. AOS designwork started around 2012...That's weeeee bit earlier than End Times so the End Times were hardly deciding to start up AOS. Indeed lead times make it impossible as the time between ET and AOS was too short for new edition to be done. Even with rules that took like ~day to come up with.

And off the goal...End times actually boosted up sales quite a bit. Which is not surprising seeing it's the new releases that drive up sales. No releases, no sales. Releases, sales.

WHFB ultimately outgrew it's niche.

As a game sticks around longer and longer, people's collections grow. And it's natural for those players to want to at least have the choice to put everything on the board - either regularly, or occasionally.

Throughout it's iterations, WHFB tried to cater to this, but never quite broke out of it's mold.

Me, I really enjoyed 8th Ed. Monstrous Infantry came into their own. Basic infantry had more of a say beyond being simple tarpits.

The one thing they didn't fix in my opinion was Cavalry. With Steadfast (I think that's what it was called), they just had a hell of a time making an impact - and I'd always found previously they struggled to win combats anyway, just thanks to 3 rank, outnumber and Banner, when the most you could get into BTB was maybe 7 against regular infantry.

Now it wasn't inevitable, but it is how it all played out in the end. And raising the scale ceiling is something most games will do at some point.

I'd point to War of the Ring as being a decent way to tackle that. Same models, familiar enough combat system, and sat alongside it's skirmish parent game.

X-Wing? Well, I'm sure they could do a squadron based game at some point. After all, when you promote it as only needing a handful of ships, but most collections rapidly develop into a few dozen, that's a fair investment inherently gathering dust because the game just doesn't work beyond a certain level (flying into each other is a real hazard!) But I feel that should take the War of the Ring route, and be in addition to the parent game, rather than a replacement.

And we're seeing GW at least trying such things these days, just in reverse. Kill Team, Boxed Games, AoS Skirmish/Path to Glory are all examples of a smaller scaled experience sitting alongside far larger parent games. And all use interchangeable models, so you don't end up having to double buy just to play the scaled down versions.

The Quest games are particularly interesting examples. I just wish they'd release a bestiary/selection of bestiaries and a dungeon design kit. That'd be really, really cool!

Here, FFG decided to change the scale somewhat for Legions, so existing collections from Imperial Assault can't really be used. That's a bit of an error in my book, as you've already caused a double-buy-in price bafflement on a normally price sensitive audience - when there really wasn't much need to (unless its tied to the License. Which it might very well be, for all we know).




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Games also decline because customer's tastes change.

For a long time, WHFB was the Fantasy Battle game. The one by which all others were judged. Yet 'rank and flank' seems to have fallen out of favour. Regular complaints is having to buy and paint models that don't do anything in the game. Never bothered me personally, but it's absolutely a valid point to raise. So when skirmish scaled games came out, where every model very much counts? That was attractive. Cheaper to get into, no sense of wasted investment.

40k is much the same. It's not just a benchmark game, but a high benchmark. You need to do most things as well as 40k does, and at least some things better, or you're never going to tempt enough people to make your new game sustainable.

Consider Armada. I've not got into that, despite being initially keen. Why? The cost. Man, that game isn't cheap. And I was utterly underwhelmed at the demo set I saw at an expo in terms of the quality of the models (however, that may have just been a duff batch).

Armarda is actually a pretty good game, agree totally on the cost for what you actually get though.

what it would be much better as is the exact same set of rules, but with a WW2 naval setting, perhaps with squadrons a bit faster - could go with long out of copyright IP stuff to keep the licence costs out etc.

the starter set for Armada though is horrible, expensive, and highly frustrating to actually try to play - partly through the way its balanced (one side is way harder to play than the other at first), but mostly the way the rules are laid out - there being no 'rulebook' to speak of in a product costing that much

The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen. As soon as I saw the starter set I knew it wasn't the game I wanted, but I bought into it anyway because of Star Wars. Played a couple of games, decided the rules were too clunky - Full Thrust can do 90% of what Armada does in half the time - and I've not played it since.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen. As soon as I saw the starter set I knew it wasn't the game I wanted, but I bought into it anyway because of Star Wars. Played a couple of games, decided the rules were too clunky - Full Thrust can do 90% of what Armada does in half the time - and I've not played it since.

And a couple dozen guys with a vehicle or two doesn't invoke a "Legion" at all.

For me it is the option to play and that is it. There is so many worlds that I would love to play in but if I cant interest my my mates it is non existent

Man if Legion was small scale and you fielded a legit legion... I'd be all in.

If only you lived in Australia Auticus

 infinite_array wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen. As soon as I saw the starter set I knew it wasn't the game I wanted, but I bought into it anyway because of Star Wars. Played a couple of games, decided the rules were too clunky - Full Thrust can do 90% of what Armada does in half the time - and I've not played it since.

And a couple dozen guys with a vehicle or two doesn't invoke a "Legion" at all.

“ Armada” is about a squadron. “Legion” is about a platoon. And “X-Wing” didn’t have any X-Wings in it. They need someone else in charge of names.

 Necro wrote:
If only you lived in Australia Auticus

Do they have small scale legion in Australia?

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

“ Armada” is about a squadron. “Legion” is about a platoon. And “X-Wing” didn’t have any X-Wings in it. They need someone else in charge of names.

I blame the marketing department. They probably told their higher ups that "Star Wars: Platoon" and "Star Wars: Squadron" wouldn't sell as well.

There might have been worries about customers being confused by similarity of those names to existing products. I have fantastic in-laws, but I frequently find myself the recipient of all sorts of weird stuff because my MIL thought "Hey, that looks like whatever it is Nurglitch plays."

 AndrewGPaul wrote:


“ Armada” is about a squadron. “Legion” is about a platoon. And “X-Wing” didn’t have any X-Wings in it. They need someone else in charge of names.

'Warmachine' mk1 was about infantry.
'Warmachine' mk2 was funnily enough rather aptly named - for the most part, all you ever saw in a list was 'a' jack.
As for 'hordes', a few big beasties, some supporting grunts and a leader. Not very 'hordey'. :p

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen.

Quite so. I guess Fantasy Flight Games decided that "Star Wars Flotilla" didn't quite have the same ring to it

Deadnight wrote:

'Warmachine' mk1 was about infantry.

Although to be fair, it didn't start out that way...

When I started, all there was was warjacks (well, and Warcasters; two of them - Stryker and Kreoss. Still got that "mk 0" booklet somewhere). The game started to go downhill for me when the Temple Flameguard were released; well, that was when I started falling behind in painting.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The disappointing thing for me was the level of the game. Call a game "Armada" and I expect to be able to field a lot of ships - like Battlefleet Gothic or more - not half a dozen.

Quite so. I guess Fantasy Flight Games decided that "Star Wars Flotilla" didn't quite have the same ring to it

the alternative of Star Wars: A lot less than you saw on screen apparently didn't do well in the focus groups

I was reminded after looking at the Dark Age thread on the new releases section that distribution and advertising are so important.

With so many companies doing business in China now, distribution can be a real issue. Unlike some toy series, which if they are hot and sellout, it is not an issue, in wargaming a disruption in product can really hurt a wargaming community. You can't get new blood, and sometimes cannot keep players if there is not stock to buy. The community just withers.

I am also reminded of comments relating to the starts of games. Star Wars legion did not begin with very many types of units, and releases have been churning along, although not fast enough for the real fans. Monsterpocalypse 2.0 is also beginning with very few models. Some members have commented that they will not even promote it until more stuff is out. However, will that be too late for the game, as by that time it may be seen as a shelf sitter.

It's really expensive to get those molds cut and models produced, and really hard design-wise to get an MVP (minimum viable product) that's fun to play and that scales as you add stuff to it. Not impossible, just a bit of a needle to thread.

certain games will always have at least some player base. Historicals and World War Two in particular has a sort of lasting popularity where people will buy and collect the miniatures and recreate battles as long as there is mini war gaming. The community may not burn with the same vibrancy as 40K, but the interest has always been very consistent.

That is why games like Bolt Action can churn along so reliably with minimal marketing. Because there will always be a market for 28mm World War 2 Wargaming. Indeed, I would argue that this is the reason WW2 mini pricing tends to be so much cheaper than sci fi stuff. You can't slap a copy right on Wehrmacht or a US Airborne model... so your models have to compete with every other manufacturer of WW2 minis, either through quality or quantity.

Of course that doesn't mean Bolt Action can't die, just that World War 2 wargaming won't die. Bolt Action may die, but you could still use your Bolt Action models in a different rule set made by someone else.

I think successful games decline because they all tend to become "same old, same old" in the end, where the company gets a big head over their success, and thus refuses to shakeup what's worked so far, and watches their game become stale and stagnate.

It's exactly why GW had trouble in the last decade or so. They refused to believe that anything of their "perfect" game recipe could be better, so games like WHFB stagnated and died. The Warhammer could have been changed rather than killed, but back then GW was at the ass-end of years and years of game design apathy.

Honestly, I'm more and more of the opinion that it's better for things to "die off" than be changed beyond all recognition - Mordheim "died" years ago but is still going strong all around the world; Blood Bowl "died" years ago but still apparently has enough of a pulse that GW went snuffling around for a second go. The people who like those games and settings still like them and still play them, less frequently sadly but still, and the people who demand "support" have moved on to the Next Big Wotsit as they are wont to do. Better the NBW is actually a new, distinct thing so you're not depriving people of something they enjoy to cater to folk who'll never be satisfied anyway.

Indeed, I'd argue games like Mordheim, Blood Bowl, Necromunda etc are perfect exemplars of why the End Times was a moronic move. GW garnered themselves two short-term boosts in sales(at the beginning when people believed this was GW finally getting off their arse to fix WHFB - which was in the state it was in entirely by their own incompetence - and at the end when non-cynical people finally grasped that those awful "Bubblehammer" rumours were true and panic-bought a bunch of stuff to finish existing armies), but in exchange they've torched any real chance they can bring WHF back later when AoS inevitably has a slump of its own.

If they had just set WHF aside and done AoS as another reality or a pocket dimension in the Realm of Chaos or whatever, they'd have given up the short term profit they got from blowing everything up, but AoS wouldn't have had such a mountain to climb when it first started and the WHF community that remained would be less fragmented into different systems and would be there waiting for a revival in the future if GW ever needed that.

Mind you, I suppose that's all pie in the sky, since to get a version of GW that could even consider thinking longer term than the next half-year financial report they really needed the system shock they got from dumping the system that started their company and having the replacement almost die on its arse.

Do you mean they should have introduced Warhammer Age of Sigmar as a third core game next to Warhammer Fantasy battles? Or just shelved WFB and introduced AoS without the End Times story? The former wouldn't have done anything to solve the problem AoS was introduced to resolve, and I don't see how the latter would have made any difference to those opposed to AoS.

Yes, AoS should have been an additional game rather than a replacement. Because it's not a good replacement, on account of being a completely different game.

AOS seems like they went out to the general community and started seeing what was popular.

Block rank and file games are my preference but they are also vastly in the minority in terms of what people want to play.

People seem to want big heroes, big monsters, big magic, not a ton of models to paint as a requirement, board-game style gameplay and heavy emphasis on list building.

AOS lets you move wherever you want, you can build very small model-count forces, and its about as epic fantasy as you can get.

What I'm hoping for is a specialist game of blocks and ranks brought back. Like warmaster.

auticus wrote:
AOS seems like they went out to the general community and started seeing what was popular.

Block rank and file games are my preference but they are also vastly in the minority in terms of what people want to play.

People seem to want big heroes, big monsters, big magic, not a ton of models to paint as a requirement, board-game style gameplay and heavy emphasis on list building.

AOS lets you move wherever you want, you can build very small model-count forces, and its about as epic fantasy as you can get.

What I'm hoping for is a specialist game of blocks and ranks brought back. Like warmaster.

I got some good news for you:

http://www.manticgames.com/games/kings-of-war.html

Big blocks of infantry, that winds-of-magic like magic system, nearly infinite factions