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 Overread wrote:

IT is very true that a very high skill highly competitive COMMUNITY can be unfriendly or difficult for new people to get into. However that's a community element not a rules element. You can have the worst rules in the world with no competitive edge at all and still have a totally hostile and rubbish community.

You do need to be careful when writing rules that you don't get so strict as to create something easily weaponized by hostile players. I mentioned the difference in precision measuring above, but you can run into similar problems with overly precise sequences of events. Clear and strict wording is always good, but a lot of games benefit from less strict execution structures. Rules that feel good to play correctly can sometimes be more important than being clearly worded, though obvious both is best.

As for PP.... there's a lot more going on with them than rule quality. The market has really been reshaped in a way that makes their traditional releases not really viable anymore both in terms of production and distribution. I fear we're seeing the end of the era of small independent game studios really competing with the likes of GW and Asmodee. There's still a place for small games with a niche audience through direct sales and Kickstarter, but nothing of the scope Warmachine had reached and I fear what we're seeing from PP is just the limit of where an independent studio can go through those channels.

I don't know Infinity seems to be going from strength to strength right now.

Granted I think the biggest barrier isn't actually players nor stores nor GW's dominance. I think the huge barrier are the part we don't see - the distributor firms that operate between manufacturers and the independent stores. That seems to be a huge sticking point for many in the wargame market.


In theory mega-stores like Wayland and Firestorm and such providing online sales and most independents being online as well as well as a market that is more and more used to online buying (heck the Pandemic has likely done a MASSIVE favour for online trading in getting more people shopping online); mean that there are other avenues to market. But local stores always hold a powerful sway over local influence and they, right now, are more interested in card games as they provide FAR more profit.

Infinity is still at heart a small game. One of my absolute favorite, but it is definitely well suited and has adapted well to a "limited release value box" model. In a lot of ways as a system its better suited to it than traditional blister packs.

The problem with mega stores is that while they are great for customers to get niche products, they don't distribute risk the way traditional distribution does, leading to smaller orders from the manufacturer. Distributors make a big up front purchase beyond actual demand to cover stock and that gives the developers a lot of what they need to ensure the product is viable.

 LunarSol wrote:


The problem with mega stores is that while they are great for customers to get niche products, they don't distribute risk the way traditional distribution does, leading to smaller orders from the manufacturer. Distributors make a big up front purchase beyond actual demand to cover stock and that gives the developers a lot of what they need to ensure the product is viable.

That is true to an extent, but it's also extremely hard for smaller companies to get things into distributors in the first place. If Alliance, for example, doesn't think they can sell X number of copies, then they won't order at all. Worse, getting restock in is even harder, since a lot of the distribution model is kind of built on a "one and done" for the most part, except for extremely popular items (of which very, very few miniature wargames hit that threshold--this is part of what killed even Privateer Press). Not to mention the cost differential as far as the publishers themselves see, compared to MSRP or even regular wholesale.

Yep wargames rely on long term products. Even GW have models decades old that they still sell and some of which are essential (or nearly so) for armies to function. Those are FAR beyond their "new hotness" period, but they need to be in stock for those armies to be collected and played.

That really messes when distributors only want the new-hotness. So even if you can get on their books they are only really interested in your latest models, anything older isn't what they want to buy and sell. Which is ok until the stock of original stuff is run out or gets spotty and suddenly customers can't get into the game; new customers can't get stock and it very much turns them away. It can also turn retailers away if they can never get hold of stock to sell and if locals have to go online to get it. Suddenly the store has less interest in pushing that game because early sales aren't coming to them