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Miniatures games at retailers were abundant here in the U.S., and so were players, back in the early 1990’s, so what happened?

Historical especially;
Sword and Flame, Fire and Fury, DBM, DBR, DBA, Micro Armor, Command Decision, and Etc.

Many other miniature games have come and gone as well, and some still thrive, but not as many as there used to be.

These games are not all dead, per say, but Indy retailers have no reason to carry or promote them since Magic the Gathering dropped in the early 90’s and became a main bloodline for Indy retailer’s survival. (I am avoiding the full impact MTG has had on miniatures, that is an entire separate post)

Now we see only a handful of “promoted” miniatures games in stores, let’s call them the big three;

Warhammer 40,000
Warmachine and Hordes
Flames of War
(I may be off here, so please fix)

So what is the other problem besides non-promotion? Price.

Price and non-promotion of alternatives is killing miniatures as a whole. (Calculating assembly and painting supplies costs is an entire separate post)

Price; initial investment, continuing investment.
Non-promotion; only a few choices being played at a store/group.

A player then needs to make a decision based on many variables, but the primary two are still price and what is being played (this could be interpreted as most “popular”).

So, what to do?

Thoughts

you can add to the list mate.

Infinity.
Malifaux.
Dystopian Wars.
Firestorm Armada
Dropzone Commander.
Anima Tactics
Bushido Wars.

and thats just off the top of my head. there are plenty games out there. the scenery has changed from 10 years ago, but there is a huge amount of viable, and visible games out there.

Part of it is the price of promoting a game. For a store to promote a game, they need to keep a good amount of stock on hand to make that game visible to encourage purchases.

Many of those games are still actively being played - though in most cases, they are played outside of public places like game stores.

I know that I still go back to DBx or HotT to introduce new people to miniature gaming. You can get a complete army and the rules for less than a night out to the movies. The rules can be read during one trip to the bathroom - and you can have a solid understanding of everything involved in a single evening.

One of the big issues though ends up being the lack of "shiney" relating to most the other game systems. Consumers (and as a result retailers) have come to want shiney stuff. Things with really splashy cover art, boxes that are fully illustrated and all the rest. They are easier for retailers to sell - and they don't require much imagination by the consumer.

When you compare a black and white copy of one of the various DBx rule sets and a baggie filled with a variety of 15mm figures hanging on the shelf with a glossy color rule book and a big box with pictures of professionally painted miniatures on the front, sides and back - the shiny generally gets more interest. The retailer has to work to sell the other stuff. The consumer has to know what they are looking for.

Combine that with the issues relating to CCG games and how they ended up becoming dominant in game stores for many years. From the late 1990s into the early 2000s CCG games held the top 10 selling game products for independent retailers almost exclusively. Various miniature games would creep into the top 10 from time to time - though they were generally not traditional miniature games...rather things like Mage Knight and eventually Clix and Heroscape. Even now, although most the lists have been split out to collectible versus non-collectible gaming - collectible gaming still generally wins out. Primarily CCG games like Magic and Pokemon.

The issue then for the long term goes back to issues relating to a market which is motivated with shiney stuff. Primarily - when it is no longer new, the shiney aspect disappears even if it still has a high production value. CMG games like clix are able to keep pushing new stuff which is either generic or based on various short term licenses (movies and what not). Traditional miniature games end up having a hard time dealing with that issue. New editions of rules are required to change up the game play, and miniature designs (especially for historical games) don't get updated very often if ever.

Case in point is that a lot of people feel that Flames of War is an inferior WWII game system. However, it is about the only historical system which is even carried in many stores. The reason is it is shiney. As opposed to creating a comprehensive system and then lists for the arsenals of the different companies and letting the gamers figure things out - they release things on a trickle. You have different books for Africa, the Eastern Front, Normandy... Under other systems you might have a book or two for the Allies and a book or two for the Axis - though just as often, everything was in one book. If you wanted to game a specific battle - you might have some scenarios in the main book...or you would crack open a history book and see what forces were present.

If someone becomes a gamer (as opposed to just buying a game) they will be more likely to pick up the history books and look into the various suppliers of other miniatures and other scales - though by that time the LGS is out of the loop...and of course they will bemoan how the internet is killing their business and when they are gone gaming will die.

Heavy Gear is another great game especially if you like combined arms game with mechs. Very tactical game great minis

Sean has hit the main points, but I would also add another thing to the list. The Internet. In so many ways this has caused radical changes in the way games are played (at least where I live). Let's use me as an example.

I started gaming in about 1983 when I was 10. I started with D&D using miniatures made by Grenadier. I bought these at the local hobby shop which focused mostly on model trains and plastic models.

Fast forward to 12 years old. I heard from the lady running another local hobby shop (when buying a plastic Sherman tank to build) that there were people around who used the models they built to play games. I was interested, but no more came of it.

Later that year I met a guy at a local Airshow (EAA in Oshkosh, WI) who played Napoleonics. He got my dad and I started in historicals. This led to the discovery of Napoleon's in Milwaukee, and later Emperor's Headquarters in Chicago.

These were both game stores in the traditional historical sense. Walls of stock for many many periods. It was a couple times a year pilgrimage for all of us to go down there to shop.

Then we get to 1987. I started High School, and we got a game store in my home town called Star Base Alpha. I met more gamers there and we got a group together that gamed (with a few changing faces) from then until about 2 years ago. As everyone got older and changed jobs, circumstances (married vs single, kids vs no kids) we gamed less. I still get together with these guys whenever I can, but there is nothing regular.

Now, in that time between 1987 and the present, all three of the primary shops I went to in my youth closed. The walls and walls of stock were too much to maintain, or the passion of a parent was not the desire of his sons to carry the shop forward. The local game store was replaced by a new store (Chimera hobbies) that focused mainly on CCGs comics and Warhammer. It's a nice store, but lately I haven't found as much as I want to buy there.

Enter the internet. A year ago I was without a regular game group, and felt like my gaming life was wanting. I spent more times on forums. Eventually I made contact with a few other local gamers jsut by chance. We've been gaming together for a year now almost every weekend. We just ran a series of three Flames of War tournaments in Green Bay, and have plans to do so again in the spring. We are up to 12 people who show up on a semiregular basis.

We all do most of our shopping online. We have nothing against the local stores (we have 3-4 now), but they just can't carry all the lines we need. It takes up shelf space and doesn't move fast enough. We cover periods from Ancients to ultramoderns to sci fi and fantasy. You'd need a store owner who was independently wealthy without relying on the income from the store to stock all that.

That's the internet factor. We game at home (we have one member with a 5x9 table, and I have a 6x16' table) and order and recruit online. We go into the local game stores to buy what we can (I still play 40k, and have two other guys interested) and run occasional games there for exposure, but in reality the WWW has become the WWGS. The world wide game store.

To continue with the WWW to WWGS analogy, it also represents the levels of demand and interest in games. The big games have more interest, so they become easier to find on the internet, thus generating even more interest. Take Dakka's forums for example: Let's say someone comes to these forums looking to learn more about wargaming and to pick a game to play. What do they see? Two massive sections for Warhammer 40K and Fantasy, one large section for WarmaHordes, and then assorted genre forums. Which games do you think that new wargamer will then gravitate towards?

You go where the most players are, to guarantee yourself more information and more gaming potential. It's hard to justify getting into a game system that may only have a couple of other people playing it, instead of a game that has dozens of local players involved.

How ever you can get people into other systems as there are very good ones out tere to me warmahordes Minis are great but I hate the game system

Heavy Gear
Infinity
Anima tactics and such great games lots of fun got some heavy gear and battletech in yesterday

Drahazar1 wrote:
How ever you can get people into other systems as there are very good ones out tere to me warmahordes Minis are great but I hate the game system

I've had a solid gaming group for years - and we generally try out a half dozen or more different systems each year. Some end up sticking in the cycle for years...others get put on the shelves.

I find people are open to try new game systems if they are presented with new game systems. Most the time - we give the rules a spin without bothering to get the "proper" miniatures. I have dozens of armies all painted up and ready to go - enough to cover pretty much any historical period as well as most common fantasy, science fiction and alternative history settings. Since we get together a few times a month - the idea of playing a new set of rules is very palatable when you can just have a go with miniatures that you already have. One or two copies of the rules (or a free copy of quickstart rules that many systems now produce) and a case of beer are all you need.

For those who don't have a large collection of miniatures already - go ahead and start picking up starter sets. If you have a pair of small forces and the rules - you generally won't have a problem finding people to try them out with. If you both like the game - then you can look into investing into larger forces. For those who have limited funds, don't forget that you can get the same effect playing with other scale figures...or even dried beans.

Nearly all the games mentioned are still going strong.

The fact is that tabletop wargame shops cannot survive on sales of historical miniatures. There are so may rulesets and manufacturers of figures that it is impossible to carry more than a tiny selection of the possible stock.

I worked in a games shop in the mid 1980s and it was hard enough then, let alone before the internet took over a lot of sales of "genre" product.

Sean and Kryolon; you guys are both great. Yes, stores could carry more CCG stock easier than miniatures.

@killkrazy
There are many miniatures game systems out there now, many of you have posted some, but the big three are still more popular, like comparing Ford, GM, and Dodge; to Mazda, Kia, and Mini.

That being said, miniatures games did not kill miniatures games as a whole, as they come and go, and then come back (Battletech), some are more popular than others, etc.;

CCG killed/is killing miniatures games as a whole.

The Hobby aspect of miniatures games is daunting as well for some, plus the added costs, maybe that is why GW changed its in sotre "painted only" rules from the late 90's???

So, This has left us with a very small miniatures games following as a whole. (just because numbers are up does not always mean numbers are up, with population growth numbers should naturally go up, but did the percentage go up?)

rexscarlet wrote:
So, This has left us with a very small miniatures games following as a whole. (just because numbers are up does not always mean numbers are up, with population growth numbers should naturally go up, but did the percentage go up?)

Not sure if the percentage of the whole would ever go up - even with significant marketing...at least not for the non-painted gaming.

Hero-clix and Heroscape are/were both fairly successful at getting people to play with toy soldiers. Though, the easy access through chain stores and the lack of having to paint the figures was a large part of that.

Traditional miniatures though - what with the issues relating to assembly and painting - puts them in a smaller group. You know that whole Venn diagram thing...people who like to build stuff...people who like to paint stuff....people who like to play analog games... The more aspects of the hobby, the smaller the market gets.

As a result of that hard sell - I have reverted to strong arm tactics and from time to time will sell off older armies which I have been planning on redoing. The upside is that it clears off a spot on my shelves for my new army (because I like to build and paint a bunch) and it allows someone who isn't a fan of building and painting but likes to game, to get a painted army at a good deal.

I don't think CCGs have killed miniature gaming. In order to say this (at least anecdotally) I'd have to see people leaving miniature games and going to CCGs. More often that not though in terms of the couple local stores I pop into from time to time, I find the kids come in for Pokemon, stay for magic, then start into miniatures. Once they get into miniatures they occasionally get to see us old guys pulling out the historicals, and they are interested.

Now the question remaining is this:

Would these kids have been exposed to miniature games if they never came into the store for their CCGs? I don't know. The gaming industry isn't known for in depth studies that they then publish involving demographics.

If you visit The Miniatures Page you will find several threads (with a search) wondering whether we are in a Golden Age for miniatures gaming. If you know any old Grognards (as they like to call themselves) ask them what the miniatures hobby was like in the '70s. We are spoiled for choice today, even if it doesn't seem like it from the number of people leaving the "GW hobby".

My advice to those who feel that miniatures gamers are a dying breed is to poke your nose out of the FLGS a little more. If they allow you, post flyers looking for new gamers. In your profile on forums like this put your real location in your profile at the left, even if you (probably) don't use your real name. With time and effort you will find others. They are out there, and more numerous than you think. Just don't be afraid to talk about your hobby. You'd be surprised who games.