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Hey folks,
I've heard alot of folks complain about how long new games tend to last and be supported. However, I wonder what folks actual expectations are of how long a new game will last, not ideally (we all want our favorites to survive), but realistically. It seems to be a fact of life that unless it's one of the longstanding titles, it might not last long. This seems to be even more the case with so many new games coming out via Kickstarter.

I realize it's a broad catagory but 'm mostly thinking of games like Antares, Terminator, Bushido, Judge Dredd, Runewars, Robotech, Kingdom Death etc. that don't have quite the same reputation, following or financial backing as the most popular games

I'm NOT considering longstanding or more widely played games like 40k, AoS/WHFB, Warmachine, Malifaux, Infinity, Kings of War, etc that have significant backing and momentum.

So, here's my question:

How long do you generally expect a newly released game to survive on the market and to be supported by the company that produces it?

I would HOPE that a new game lasts more than 5 years.

I voted 1 because I expect most to fall by the wayside, and in some cases, the quicker the better.

I expect licenced stuff to last less than unlicensed stuff, simply because if they do well the licence holder tends to jack the price at renewal time

but I never buy into a game expecting it to hang around (as I know the odds are it wont) but because I want the cool looking new toys

I expect a game to last as long as it generates interest and continues to make sales, otherwise the manufacturer/publisher has no reason to keep it alive. I would hope that this would be a long time, but my realistic expectations are in the 2-3 years mark, especially for new IPs that may not be fleshed out or interesting enough for potential fans.

 BunkhouseBuster wrote:
I expect a game to last as long as it generates interest and continues to make sales, otherwise the manufacturer/publisher has no reason to keep it alive. I would hope that this would be a long time, but my realistic expectations are in the 2-3 years mark, especially for new IPs that may not be fleshed out or interesting enough for potential fans.

Too bad for GW at least that's not the case :(

Are we speaking of expectations from a "want" standpoint, or a "what we actually think will happen" standpoint?

While I firmly believe we're in the golden age of wargaming, I think that leads to a lot of games being produce without real honest consideration to their longevity. How many second tier quasi-apocalypse/alternate science fiction games are out there right now? It seems like I see a Kickstarter for one almost every week. Some have neat rules, some have great miniatures, but it seems like market saturation. I don't buy into these games unless I'm simply buying some miniatures which look cool and I think can be used in other settings. I would not "buy into" a miniatures wargame unless they had all of their product out for purchase.

While ideally I'd like to see a company support a game beyond five years, I also don't think a game should need to be supported to be any good. This is why I do tend to favour rules sets over fully encompassing games which require certain miniatures. Historical gaming is great in this regard. You release a decent rulebook...and you don't "need" to support it if its written well. It will be just as useful 20 years from now as it is today. Likewise stand alone rulesets also benefit from not being tied to a miniatures line, so you just play with whatever you have or want to use.

You can see with a lot of old titles, if people like the game, the community will pick up and carry it on - 20-30 years sometimes.

TL/DR - A company should produce a comprehensive quality product capable of "surviving" the rigors of the community from the get-go. Additional products/expansions are icing on the cake.

Most games I've played that are dead lasted between 3-5 years. They seem to go through the same steps.

Year 1: Company runs a Kickstarter or shows up at Salute/Gencon, Hype, Leaks and Rumors, First Edition is successful. Company recuperates funds from initial gambles.

Year 2: Company releases expansions, a phase 2, some more models and add ons. Has a large event or tournament and it's a huge success

Year 3-4: This is where it get's murky. In Mage Knight, Firestorm Armada, Dystopian Wars, Dropzone Commander, Mechwarrior (DV), First Edition KoW and so on - the game starts struggling and attempts to re-release it's rules and rebrand itself as a 2.0 version. The last failed expansion generally before this re-release wasnt as successful. Players already mention the "First time they played it was Golden" - but now are burned out on mechanics, powers levels, or too many vanilla options, and so on. Some large tournament events are run, but have low attendance as well.

Year 5: The community supports the game, runs the events, and creates their own updated. The company has branched off to a new game system thats more successful.



In the games I listed above, Kings of War had a revamp and re-release to some good effect - but not the ideal resurgence they hoped for even with the lack of WHFB as their core golden products from 5 years back saturated the market (Undead KoW). Dropzone Commander is from 2013 - and barely staying afloat except in Sweden/UK. The kickstarter for Dropfleet (released late 2016) didn't cause that much of a resurgence for DZC either. The "Year 3-4" was the release of dropfleet which then turned into the new game mentioned in Year 5 above.

Just food for thought.

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:I expect licenced stuff to last less than unlicensed stuff, simply because if they do well the licence holder tends to jack the price at renewal time

but I never buy into a game expecting it to hang around (as I know the odds are it wont) but because I want the cool looking new toys

I hadn't thought of this, but it does seem pretty accurate. Whether the holder jacks the price or just yanks the IP, some licensed stuff seems to die quick. Terminator and Dredd come to mind.

Elbows wrote:Are we speaking of expectations from a "want" standpoint, or a "what we actually think will happen" standpoint?...

...While ideally I'd like to see a company support a game beyond five years, I also don't think a game should need to be supported to be any good. This is why I do tend to favour rules sets over fully encompassing games which require certain miniatures. Historical gaming is great in this regard. You release a decent rulebook...and you don't "need" to support it if its written well. It will be just as useful 20 years from now as it is today. Likewise stand alone rulesets also benefit from not being tied to a miniatures line, so you just play with whatever you have or want to use.

Definitely the actual/realisic standpoint. We'd all love our favs to last, but that's not reality.

I think you know I agree about favoring rule sets, and buying games for minis knowing that the game might die.

Stevefamine wrote:Most games I've played that are dead lasted between 3-5 years. They seem to go through the same steps.

Year 1: Company runs a Kickstarter or shows up at Salute/Gencon, Hype, Leaks and Rumors, First Edition is successful. Company recuperates funds from initial gambles.

Year 2: Company releases expansions, a phase 2, some more models and add ons. Has a large event or tournament and it's a huge success

Year 3-4: This is where it get's murky. In Mage Knight, Firestorm Armada, Dystopian Wars, Dropzone Commander, Mechwarrior (DV), First Edition KoW and so on - the game starts struggling and attempts to re-release it's rules and rebrand itself as a 2.0 version. The last failed expansion generally before this re-release wasnt as successful. Players already mention the "First time they played it was Golden" - but now are burned out on mechanics, powers levels, or too many vanilla options, and so on. Some large tournament events are run, but have low attendance as well.

Year 5: The community supports the game, runs the events, and creates their own updated. The company has branched off to a new game system thats more successful.



In the games I listed above, Kings of War had a revamp and re-release to some good effect - but not the ideal resurgence they hoped for even with the lack of WHFB as their core golden products from 5 years back saturated the market (Undead KoW). Dropzone Commander is from 2013 - and barely staying afloat except in Sweden/UK. The kickstarter for Dropfleet (released late 2016) didn't cause that much of a resurgence for DZC either. The "Year 3-4" was the release of dropfleet which then turned into the new game mentioned in Year 5 above.

Just food for thought.

That seems like a very common tale. As you say, Kings of War is an exception, but the rules have been through 3 versions now and are supported by a minis line that seems to continue to sell.

Most games probably a couple of years, sometimes less, sometimes more.

Anything involving Spartan Games: 6 minutes.

Depends what you mean by "lasts" and "supported", I suppose. If you mean new models and new rules and stuff to fuel the short attention span of modern gamers, then two or three years seems to be the time between editions.

This is only an issue for the "full service" games companies (or if you're less well-intentioned, the "walled garden" approach). I don't need "support" for Full Thrust, Song of Blades and Heroes, almost any historical game, etc. other than rules errata.

Mind you, 3rd edition Warhammer and to a lesser extent 1st edition 40k seem to have pretty healthy communities (as do Blood Bowl, Epic and Necromunda), so "support" from the original manufacturer isn't really necessary at all! Really they're only there to do the hard work of the concept and the basic rules (and making the models); once that's done, you can happily ignore them.

Games last as long as they have people playing them.

I've got friends who still play BFG. They didn't stop playing it just because GW dropped it like a red-headed stepchild.

They're akin to gods and their believers. Sure, they get diminished when their followers go away, but as long as someone remembers them, there remains a spark waiting to reignite (the new GW armageddon skirmish thing only reignited my club's desire to play necromunda all over again).

No game truly dies until the last player stops playing it. It doesn't matter if the company still makes it, promotes it, sells it or allows it to be played in their monolithic sales engines.

AndrewGPaul wrote:Depends what you mean by "lasts" and "supported", I suppose. If you mean new models and new rules and stuff to fuel the short attention span of modern gamers, then two or three years seems to be the time between editions.

This is only an issue for the "full service" games companies (or if you're less well-intentioned, the "walled garden" approach). I don't need "support" for Full Thrust, Song of Blades and Heroes, almost any historical game, etc. other than rules errata.

Mind you, 3rd edition Warhammer and to a lesser extent 1st edition 40k seem to have pretty healthy communities (as do Blood Bowl, Epic and Necromunda), so "support" from the original manufacturer isn't really necessary at all! Really they're only there to do the hard work of the concept and the basic rules (and making the models); once that's done, you can happily ignore them.

By "Supported" I mean by the company. I probably should have clarified something about the company continuing to produce it. I agree that indie companies not requiring a walled garden don't have the same kind of pressures. However, Full Thrust and SBH are still supported by their respective companies FT ships are still being produced and occasionally new products are introduced and the same can be said for SBH/ASBH.

As for OOP GW games, they are an interesting case in that they supported by a small but dedicated group of fans but not by GW. They can't be purchased at regular retail outlets and for some games (like Necromunda and BFG) the miniatures are prohibitavely expensive on the used market. Newbies can get in, but there are real barriers

chromedog wrote:Games last as long as they have people playing them.

I've got friends who still play BFG. They didn't stop playing it just because GW dropped it like a red-headed stepchild.

They're akin to gods and their believers. Sure, they get diminished when their followers go away, but as long as someone remembers them, there remains a spark waiting to reignite (the new GW armageddon skirmish thing only reignited my club's desire to play necromunda all over again).

No game truly dies until the last player stops playing it. It doesn't matter if the company still makes it, promotes it, sells it or allows it to be played in their monolithic sales engines.

I completely agree, though the focus of this thread is more about when a company drops it than when the last fan dies. Heck, I once played in a game of Tractics 30 years after it had fallen OOP.

Small Business Statistics would tell you most die in a single year. I do not think game companies are any different.

 Eilif wrote:

I realize it's a broad catagory but 'm mostly thinking of games like Antares, Terminator, Bushido, Judge Dredd, Runewars, Robotech, Kingdom Death etc. that don't have quite the same reputation, following or financial backing as the most popular games

I'm NOT considering longstanding or more widely played games like 40k, AoS/WHFB, Warmachine, Malifaux, Infinity, Kings of War, etc that have significant backing and momentum.

The thing is, all of the games in your second list would have once upon a time been in the first...

The problem that new games face is that a lot of people won't bother to pick them up unless they think that the game has the legs to stick around forever. So an awful lot of new games will pop up in the market, hang around for a few years trying to entice people in, and then eventually give up when it becomes no longer viable to keep pushing them. Or in Mongoose's case, when they see another shiny licence that distracts them from whatever they're currently doing... It's a self-perpetuating cycle. People won't buy into the game unless it's going to last... but the game won't last unless people buy into it.

So to answer the original question, I would expect most new games to last (as in being supported, obviously the games are still playable after the company that made them has been and gone, but most gamers don't bother with discontinued games) from 3-4 years, although whether or not anyone is actually playing them for that entire duration is somewhat more variable.