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This morning I got an email from Mantic regarding cash prize money for its forthcoming Kings of War tournaments. I thought it would perhaps better serve in the discussions section of the board, rather than in the specific tournaments section, but mods please feel free to move it if you think it's appropriate!

For those who aren't signed up for their newsletter, here is the text of that email in spoiler tags below:



Now even though I have always played 40k/WFB in the past more for casual, narrative inspired games, I understand for a lot of people that it is different. There is a sizeable blog and forum community built around playing especially 40k competitively. While the game system itself doesn't allow for a lot of tactical manoeuvres, most of the decisions take place at a strategic level - so 'list building'. Regarding the mechanics of the games themselves, GW continues to push the game as something being 'fun' rather than chess-like in terms of tactical decision making, and has even cancelled their 'Ard Boyz tournaments.
But this doesn't just involve 40k - A lot of people play WFB 'competitively' as well. Indeed, my local club has a large contingent of players who attend tournaments and have regular practice sessions with their armies before events, but have expressed their misgivings over the way the latest edition of the game has developed. Perhaps more so than any other, 8th edition has removed the tactical decision making from the game, in favour of more 'narrative-style' on board events and a far larger random element that usurps a lot of the tactical decision making on behalf of the player.

So, to me it looks like there has been another large void left in the market, and perhaps a very astute decision on Mantic's part. If GW is continuing to push towards a younger, more casual player base, and is making games more 'fun', easily accessible and random (with every sign that 6th edition 40k will follow suit) then why not try and appeal to the more veteran player who wants a more tactical game? I haven't played it, but by every account Kings of War is a very tactical experience - it is still being refined, but with their open playtesting and feedback forums Mantic seems to be doing what it can to streamline the system as much as possible. Could it be that this is the game that attendees of 40k/WFB tournaments, fervent publishers of net lists and tacticas, so desperately wanted their own game to become?

Whether Kings of War has achieved this 'balance', or we will see one or two very powerful combinations smashing everything else off the table, remains to be seen. In any case, I think offering this kind of reward is bound to make players of the game try harder than ever to find any 'broken' components of the game - essentially, Mantic are putting their money where their mouth is, in terms of their belief in their own games system.

I think it's an interesting move in any case - offering 'prize support' isn't a new thing, but offering this much cash for an officially sanctioned tournament, for this type of wargame, is. Again, it reminds more of Magic: The Gathering, or computer games which have offered similar prizes in the past at tournaments. But, will this turn things sour, attracting the 'wrong type' of player and encouraging poor types of sportsmanship in players? When does something stop being 'fun', and just a game, and start becoming a serious pursuit?

Are people in favour of this kind of move and direction by a miniature wargame company? Would you rather attend just a gaming event outside of any prize support, or a tournament that just offered miniatures as a prize instead?

Please note this is not supposed to be a discussion about 'Mantic models sux lol' or 'OMG GW minis are too expensive' so please try to reply regarding the topic at hand. Although I realise that the flaw in my plan is that most people making that kind of comment probably won't have got this far into the post!

I understand the move Mantic makes, players come for the money and stay for the mini's/rules, but I have no idea how this'll turn out.
I do think they found a nice balance in the prize money. 1000 pounds for the winner might be enough to sway any players still on the fence about starting KoW, but it's not enough to attract the wrong crowd (hardcore testing for a few weeks with a dedicated team, pick up prize, drop the game)

I strongly think though, that they should not take it any further than that. Tabletop wargames are just not cut out to be pro-games. There's just too much slack inherent in the system. In a videogame (discounting glitches) whatever you do as a player is either legal or you can't do it. In MtG almost all (at high levels all) cheating (either intentional or not) is easily spotted by either your opponent or a judge.
In (most, I can't speak for any games with a tiled board) wargames, a 1/4 inch might make a difference between assaulting and not assaulting + the rules are often too vague and easily abused by pro players.

So yeah, in short: £1000,- prize money good idea, MtG level prize money ($40,000,- if you win a pro tour) bad idea.

It's a great way of building a community of TFGs.

I would rather have store credit then straight cash IMHO

Cash and large store credit prizes has normally promoted cheating, cutthroat social encounters and general rudeness and unpleasant events. I prefer prizes spread around and would rather a trophy over cash.

Mantic must really believe their rules will be balanced to a point that they can actually be played fairly. Having cash prizes when there is no balance delegitimization the whole process, which is why I feel 40k tourneys are best without large cash prizes and made 'ard boyz an abomination.

Also, I am curious how mantic plans to control how tourneys are run everywhere to make it fair and consistent to prevent regional cheating.

Sounds like 'ard boyz on steroids which sounds like garbage to me. I am glad 'ard boyz is dead. Maybe all the TFGs will migrate to mantic and leave the PP and GW players in peace.

Edit: card games and video games have a tightness in the rules and the gameplay which means it can be balanced and legitimately enforced. I have yet to see a wargame with that level. As long as we use tape measures and dice, I don't feel the game can be played to the level of the professional video game sports simply due to inconsistencies of wargaming.

edit2: I am curious if they are going to require mantic figures to participate. They seem to pitch this as away of playing the mantic game and buying mantic figures which you can also use for other gaming systems, but does that mean they will require their minis for their gaming systems? How would it work out if I played Kinds of War with my GW orks and won the whole thing? Do we really think Mantic is going to allow that? I don't expect them to but that is usually what happens when playing in a mini makers official event opposed to an independent event run by indy organizers. Take the kings coin, play with the kings models.

Cash prizes for playing a board games, IMO, def brings out the TFG's and WAAC players.

The sad thing about it in the end is that the guys who want to play just to have a good time will never be on the receiving end of perks to playing.

A nice trophy or cup simply for the bragging rights should be enough to motivate people into joining a tournament or league.

I am against them in general as they bring out the worst in people. IF the system is well balanced and IF the participants are well policed and/or mature then it may work. Its a really good way to see just how broken your game is though

Think of poker. First (I'm assuming), some guys just had fun with a new card game. Then, someone started to play competitively, then, for cash prizes. Before you know it, there's professional poker players, all kinds of elaborate cheating, cutting cheaters's fingers off, mob owned casinos, family fortunes lost at the table, gamblers anonymous, etc. People do nasty things when money involved, better to just stay out of it. Unless you want a lot of people strangled with tape rulers for rolling their dice funny.

Mayne cash for the top prize, and promo credit for place and show?

loaded dice ? ...

Encountered that ... once.

That person don't play around here no more...

Once in a lifetime? That might backfire.

<post redacted; posts consisting of nothing but a bare image/video clip will usually be considered spam --Janthkin>

I, for one, think that it is a great idea, and I am not even a tourney player.

If there are lots of events like this it will almost certainly grow the hobby. This will lead to better releases and lower prices.

There is the WAAC and TFG factor. However, it is really good in this department as well, because all such players will be busy in tourneys rather than playing regular games.

I struggle to see how this may be seen as bad at all, in the Hoby (yes, only one H) there are different ways by which people get enjoyment, for example: painting, playing "beers and pretzels", playing competitively (probably misspelled), I personally enjoy painting the most. But too often on Dakka I see people despise players that like to play competitively and there is way too much use of WAAC, which is a player that does something illegal or unsportsmanlike in order to win, and just doing all you legally and respectfully can is neither of those.

It's obvious this tournament carters more for people that like to play competitively, and as in any other event it's likely there will be some unpleasant players, but such is life. If you are attending to this tournament you should expect people that the kind of people you will play will try hard to beat you and you probably won't be playing in a "beer and pretzels" game.
Fortunately there are a lot of event, tournaments, campaigns, etc... for people that like other aspects of the hobby, so, if competitive isn't your boat you probably won't want to attend this tournament, but let them competitive people have their events too!! It won't hurt anybody.

I view the issue of TFG when money is involved as being a neutral shift rather then an increase. It seems obivious that there will be competative TFGs but on the other hand there will likely be fewer of the various other types of TFG, the fluff TFG, casual TFG, painting TFG, etc. even fewer sportsmanship TFGs.

My primary concern with cash prizes is that the prize value should be reflected in the quality of the rule set and both the quality/quantiy of judges.

While cash might be nice there are more than one way to win cash. Something exclusive just for that tournament would look better on a shelf that a couple $100 bills. Chess can be competitive in a tournament or a relaxed afternoon with a friend. I would prefer a more tactical game because if it is all random, we might as well say 4+ I win, 1-3 you win, and spend our time on something else.

Everything is fun and games until money is involved. I wouldn't play, but best of luck to those that do.

Cash prizes sound very unsafe.

I think it needs bearing in mind that (as far as I understand) this is very much a 'one-off'. I don't think Mantic has any plans to regularly run tournaments for cash prizes - and certainly not with these kind of sums involved.

It is a way of drumming up interest and getting people talking about Mantic (and more importantly from an advertising perspective getting people to think about the differences between Mantic and other companies who may not support a tournament scene with this level of dedication...

...

...

...

*COUGHgwCOUGH*)

On this basis it's fair to say that so far the scheme has worked

I'd like to point out that the Nova Open last year gave away 1k to each the Ren. Man (Best Overall) and Tournament Champion (Best General) for the Nova Invitational and there was a noticable lack of douchery. Cash doesn't always bring out the worst in people and isn't an automatic recipe for doucery.

Cash prizes are also very good for when there is no readily available product and when you don't want to lose any money with Store Credit or Trophies.

What Hulk said.

The invitational was actually quite sportsmanlike.

Truth of the matter is, there's a lot that an event can do to enhance the inherent sportsmanship of it, and a lot they can do to encourage douchiness.

I would say that higher stakes tend to encourage people to play harder ... which means cheat harder if you're a cheater, bully harder if you're a bully, etc.

That said, it's not even remotely all about the prizes, and there's an enormous quantity of things that are involved ... how many judges will there be, will top table games be refereed, how are the pairings done (i.e. do they use a pairing approach that actually encourages good sportsmanship), how consistent and clear are the rules, etc. etc. etc.

*shrug* ... I think the kneejerk that money = jerkery is incorrect, or at best incomplete.

Hulksmash wrote:I'd like to point out that the Nova Open last year gave away 1k to each the Ren. Man (Best Overall) and Tournament Champion (Best General) for the Nova Invitational and there was a noticable lack of douchery. Cash doesn't always bring out the worst in people and isn't an automatic recipe for doucery.

I agree

If they have a tight rule-set that supports competitive play then things like this will only serve to grow interest

Hulksmash wrote:I'd like to point out that the Nova Open last year gave away 1k to each the Ren. Man (Best Overall) and Tournament Champion (Best General) for the Nova Invitational and there was a noticable lack of douchery. Cash doesn't always bring out the worst in people and isn't an automatic recipe for doucery.

I think being an invitational based upon dozens of excellently run events helps. Limited number of truly excellent participants.

The thing is when this similar system was done in 'ard boyz with qualifiers and inconsistently run preliminaries, the system became a douchefest. The less like 'ard boyz and the more like NOVA they are, the better off they will be IMHO. They will need to embrace the GRAND TOURNEY model which is going to require painted models which shouldn't be a problem I would think.

I am not sure a 256 person grand tourney with cashprizes is going to produce the same results as the Nova invitationals. If Mantic could run a quality distributed tourney circuit for a legitimate invitational, I think you would see a better response. This requires the Indy TO people to really get behind the gaming system.

Good luck to them... I would only participate if I can use non-mantic models because I only collect greenskins and their ork line is terrible. My time painting models is best spent on models I like and enjoy painting. At least the current Indy GTs allow people to use models from any manufacturer line which I think is good overall.

nkelsch, yes I know you don't like the Mantic Orcs! I agree they are quite a different style, although IIRC you were pretty kind to me in complementing my painting on another forum when I posted some pics of some of them so thanks for that.

At the other Mantic events I think they have always allowed non-Mantic models. Not 100% on this, but I believe the winner of one of the last tournaments using an army that Mantic hadn't actually made yet (I think humans).

I guess a lot of it will probably come down to how well balanced the options in the army lists are. How much of a game of 40k or WFB is coloured by the army that your opponent puts down before the game starts? I'm thinking back here to Long Fang/Razorback spam, or a mass of Leman Russes, and this is compounded with a crudely assembled and/or unpainted army. Faced with that I think it's very difficult not to make a 'snap judgement' on your opponent, and for it to immediately make a wall between you and a bad atmosphere, even though the guy could be a perfectly fine player and amicable character. And of course, the opposite can also be true - you are lulled into a false sense of security by someone with a lovingly converted and painted army. Then, by the end of turn one you are down on your knees, sobbing, while he repeatedly thrusts his groin into your face while laughing at you.

Making a really well balanced system is a very tall order, and requires a massive amount of planning and playtesting - I think how well Mantic can accomplish that could make a big difference to the level of perceived asshattery they get at events like this.

No cash. Trophys only. Make them unique and fun trophies. I'm glad the NOVA gave out cash. I hope the winners claimed that money on their taxes as income. If not that's a felony and its on the Internet.

Whats the difference between $200 product first prize and $100 in cash in non-store events?

If your at a FLGS, the product supports the store so that's a no brainier.
If your at a hotel for a major convention, whats the real difference? For the tourney outcome there is none.

However, the amount of $$$ given would not cover your hotel costs or airfare if your going to a major event. On the other hand product would be something that person can have forever as a reminder of the event.

If your thinking about how people would be pro 40k players, you would need sponsors like "Coke" or "Kellogs". 40k simply is not big enough to attract those sponsors, so its not going to happen. If 40k were as big as nascar or golf, then it would be a different story.

labmouse wrote:If your thinking about how people would be pro 40k players, you would need sponsors like "Coke" or "Kellogs". 40k simply is not big enough to attract those sponsors, so its not going to happen. If 40k were as big as nascar or golf, then it would be a different story.

It could easily be done. If GW for some reason would want high profile pro players touring the world to attend tournaments then $100,- for the winner won't cut it no, but how about $40.000 for the winner, $20.000 for the runner up etc.?

Because that's the prizepool WotC has for their MtG pro tours. +- $100.000 in prize money per event, and about 1 event per month (and that's just pro tours, there's also grand prix, qualifiers, nationals, regionals etc.) and I think for them it was a smart move.
With all the coverage WotC gives these events the pro players who consistently place high become sports heros. Other people want to be like them or follow in their footsteps and buy more product.

Now I do not think it would be a very smart move for GW to do this. The ruleset is not up to being abused by pros nor is that the intent of the game, but it could easily be done.

I no longer participate in the local FLGS tournaments for two reasons, One, painted armies not required, leading to more younger and new players (which is good), and the competition level has dropped. The other is I have a ton (over $1200) of store credit. For a cash prize, I might play a local tournament.

TiB wrote:It could easily be done. If GW for some reason would want high profile pro players touring the world to attend tournaments then $100,- for the winner won't cut it no, but how about $40.000 for the winner, $20.000 for the runner up etc.?

As WotC is a part of Hasbro, I can't find their direct earnings report for that part. Overall, Hasbro generated $368 million in cash from operations in 2010. From the two news articles below, I think you can conservately say WotC revenues were at least $130 million.

The team at Wizards of the Coast has done a tremendous job of taking this brand, which totaled less than $100 million in revenues in 2008, and was on the decline to where it is today, the largest brand in our Games & Puzzle category, the largest game brand in the U.S. and more than double the size it was just 3 years ago. It proves that with new leadership, strong consumer insights, innovative game play and the integration of face-to-face and digital play, gaming brands can thrive. We need to do more of this. In 2012, the team at Wizards of the Coast will unveil a completely new brand initiative, which you will learn more about at Toy Fair
http://seekingalpha.com/article/344581-hasbro-s-ceo-discusses-q4-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript

Our team at Wizards of the Coast is already successfully bringing the digital and analog worlds together, enabling consumers to enjoy MAGIC: THE GATHERING across multiple platforms. The combination of the traditional MAGIC: THE GATHERING trading card game with MAGIC: THE GATHERING ONLINE and DUELS OF THE PLANESWALKER on XBOX Live Arcade, Playstation 3 and on the PC produced strong growth in MAGIC: THE GATHERING players and a more than 30% increase in the brand’s revenues in 2010.
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/HAS/1667076887x0x472896/545cd824-78dc-41d3-bb59-7337ba30f4c0/Request-Hasbro_Q4_2010_Earnings_Management_Remarks.pdf

Games Workshop Group plc had revenues for the full year 2011 of 123.1M GBp. This was -2.7% below the prior year's results. Again, I don't know if this is gross or net.
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/earnings/earnings.asp?ticker=GAW:LN

So 'could' GW give away $500,000 USD per year in prizes? Yes, they make more than enough money to afford that. Will they? No.
Can Hasbro? Easily. They have deeper pockets and more overall profit.
They offer cash like that to generate buzz about their game, and you know it works. If GW were to offer 100,000 dollar rewards 5 times a year, more people would be interested in the hobby.