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What does everyone think the wargaming market will be like this time next year in 2024?? When you walk into your local friendly game store what are you seeing?? What do you think are things to come?

Star Wars currently doesn't have any major movies coming and most of the major releases have happened for most AMG releases outside of Shatterpoint. I am happy to see X-Wing and Amanda are getting some love at Adepticon but no whispers of any groundbreaking releases coming up. I feel Marvel will keep clicking along because the size of marvels catalog of heroes is unending, plus they are already doing alternate uniforms and parallel universe heroes.

Locally Warhachine was major contender years back but I see very little of it being played or on any store shelves, once it covered three large sections, now it is part of one shelf if the store still carries it. They still are releasing stuff but not to the fan fair it once had. My view is they led to a more tournament-style game that didn't work well for new or casual players. Maybe the upcoming new edition will turn that around. Maybe fewer hyper-themed miniatures that people could use elsewhere.

40k and AoS still pull game nights as much as magic night has, have decent crowds, and I see that they still have people willing to run intro games, Only thing hurting it is pricing players out of the hobby or players getting tired of the "season" box sets with the same terrain repeated numerous times. With the 10th edition 40k around the corner, a new edition will spike interest in the system.

Infinity is the little train that keeps on going, still releasing great-looking miniatures and pulling players, just not a giant pull as some of the others, just still sticking in there.

I am sure there is a number of wargames I am missing, but as a hobby will we see a new contender that will turn the hobby on its side or keep the same usual suspects?

Going by historical precedent, Star Wars will continue to do ok until it comes time to renew the license.

Marvel feels like the sort of game that will likewise do ok until either the license gets too expensive to maintain, or the novelty wears off and releases get too repetitive. It might be still here next year, it might not.

40K and AoS seem to be still going strong, and there's no reason to assume that will change.

Warmachine is leading the charge for 3D printing, but I feel like they've maybe burnt out too much of their customer base to come back now.

Whatever games do and don't stick around,
I do think we're going to see more small companies make the switch to 3D printing, with some combination of STL sales, 3D printing replacing resin/metal/plastic production and utilising decentralised print-on-demand services to counteract spiraling postage costs.

As more and more players prefer to 3d print their armies, you'll see companies like GW raise prices higher and higher to bring in more income, until finally people quit.

Then all those resin printed space marines will end up on ebay for pennies.

Live chess takes over the gaming tables.

The real key is the state of collectible card gaming, will they continue to keep game stores running for the side gig of miniatures games to continue.

General Hobbs wrote:
As more and more players prefer to 3d print their armies, you'll see companies like GW raise prices higher and higher to bring in more income, until finally people quit.

I think there's a skewed perception of just how widespread 3D printing is, thanks to online discussion making it appear more common than it actually is. In reality, I suspect that those running printers at home are nowhere near a significant enough percentage of the customer base to actually affect GW's sales.

It may well get there eventually, but printers need to evolve more first, because the average punter is not going to mess around with them until they are as easy to use as a paper printer is now. And once they do get to that point, GW will be right there with a digital model subscription service to make up for any decrease in physical product sales.

 insaniak wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:
As more and more players prefer to 3d print their armies, you'll see companies like GW raise prices higher and higher to bring in more income, until finally people quit.

I think there's a skewed perception of just how widespread 3D printing is, thanks to online discussion making it appear more common than it actually is. In reality, I suspect that those running printers at home are nowhere near a significant enough percentage of the customer base to actually affect GW's sales.

It may well get there eventually, but printers need to evolve more first, because the average punter is not going to mess around with them until they are as easy to use as a paper printer is now. And once they do get to that point, GW will be right there with a digital model subscription service to make up for any decrease in physical product sales.

But I wonder what method they'll use to make sure they can fully monatise that business model. Files that destroy themselves maybe?

cody.d. wrote:

But I wonder what method they'll use to make sure they can fully monatise that business model. Files that destroy themselves maybe?

It's possible that someone will come up with some sort of DRM for STL files (IIRC it's been tried eleswhere, but not successfully), but I think it's more likely that it will just be a subscription service priced at a suitably eye-watering level. I would guess it will be as an adjunct from Warhammer+ so you're paying for content access rather than just for models, as the Patreon business model has rather successfully taught people that STLs should cost next to nothing, to the detriment of the wider industry.


Edit - Although as an alternative to the subscription model, I could also seem someone coming up with an internet-connected printer that prints the file directly from a customer's shopping cart rather than downloading and owning the STL outright, which would enable miniature producers to charge by the model.

So much of it relies on someone coming up with a 3D printer that is actually user-friendly, though, and I don't think anyone is going to be able to definitively say how the industry will develop until we see what that mythical creature actually looks like.

 insaniak wrote:

cody.d. wrote:

But I wonder what method they'll use to make sure they can fully monatise that business model. Files that destroy themselves maybe?

It's possible that someone will come up with some sort of DRM for STL files (IIRC it's been tried eleswhere, but not successfully), but I think it's more likely that it will just be a subscription service priced at a suitably eye-watering level. I would guess it will be as an adjunct from Warhammer+ so you're paying for content access rather than just for models, as the Patreon business model has rather successfully taught people that STLs should cost next to nothing, to the detriment of the wider industry.


Edit - Although as an alternative to the subscription model, I could also seem someone coming up with an internet-connected printer that prints the file directly from a customer's shopping cart rather than downloading and owning the STL outright, which would enable miniature producers to charge by the model.

So much of it relies on someone coming up with a 3D printer that is actually user-friendly, though, and I don't think anyone is going to be able to definitively say how the industry will develop until we see what that mythical creature actually looks like.

I could see a company like GW setting up regional print farms to sell made to order 3d printed figures before they sold files to consumers. But even then how could they prevent employees from "stealing" the files?

Something I wonder if could happen in the future is GW scanning in their old miniatures to create files and then sell either prints of the minis or just the files.

A whacky idea I doubt they'd even consider is doing something Kickstarter-like and saying if we raise X amount of money, we will scan this old miniature and release the SLT files for free. They are sitting on thousands of old miniature designs that are generating ZERO revenue currently. If they hired one person to scan and clean up minis for SLTs and said "If we raise $10,000 we'll release the SLT," then I think they could make a boatload of cash. Let's say 1 person could do 100 minis a year (approximately 1 mini every 2 working days), at $10k that would be $1,000,000. If they just tossed it on Thingiverse they're not even paying for the bandwidth costs of people downloading it. I'm in one 3d printing group for Warhammer with 50,000 members, so getting 10k people to chip in $1 per mini isn't unfeasible.

It seems like some people in the 3D printing hobby really really want to pretend they have Star Trek style replicators already.

The reality is printing is a hobby in and of itself, and while quality has increased a lot it's still got a lot of set up, clean up, bad prints, etc. It takes time and resources.

On the original topic - I can't see a shakeup in the market in the next couple years. GW will continue to dominate, PP will make more bad business decisions, and Infinity will still just exist.

I imagine we'll see things in the Fantasy Sci-fi FLGS pretty much as they are with a few minor changes.

-Warmachine might have a larger presence if they can keep from shooting themselves in the foot.

-You'll see more Shatterpoint and less of the other SW games.

-My hope is that you'll see more of the affordable end of the plastic market like North Star and Wargames Atlantic, but asside from the larger FLGS's, I wouldn't hold my breath.

-Maybe a slightly bigger presence of Mantic with their emphasis on Skirmish packs and the upcoming Dungeon Saga, but I doubt it.

-Reaper and Wiz Kids will continue to dominate the individual figure blister wall.

I'm not expecting major shake-ups.

The new edition of 40K will spurn some interest there. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't still dominant.

Hopefully MtG pulls out of its tailspin, or there will be much less of a FLGS market place to see wargames in.

Asmodee has lots of distribution issues, so I'm not sure Shatterpoint will make a big impact if it's hard for people to actually buy when they want it.

Nothing will be different at the FLGS by this time 2024.

Well, nothing except that the FLGS you go to now will have closed, and new suckers will have opened new ones, and the FLGS will continue to be a revolving door of new owners and locations.

What's the last new game to really grab a foothold? It's it MCP? I think Shatterpoint is the safe pick to be the new game to take off.

For the 3D print side the biggest Patreon right now is One Page Rules with I think 12K customers last I checked? Which is grossly extreme when many others run the gauntlet from 100 to perhaps around the 4K/5K mark at the successful end.

Compared to GW those are utterly tiny numbers. The significance is more how fast those numbers grew, but even that has slowed a lot since the Pandemic ended and costs of living have gone up.




I think What we might see a shift on is One Page Rules as a rules set becoming the dominant second level to Warhammer games in the market (excluding Starwars as that's a bit of a powerhouse of its own).
OPR has the bonus of being simple and working with almost any line of models. It works native with GW models and a few 3D print firms are teaming up and working with it. I think its got a strong chance of becoming the second level game in its own right if just by providing an alternate system of playing with existing GW models.

I think Warmachine has a hard time to get back to 2nd place and likely won't make it unless they do some serious changes and push marketing a lot more. I also feel like their current push for more big boxed sets might backfire on them; or at least stall growth. My impression is they went for 3D printing manufacture because they really are strapped for investment and cash and also are using 3D printing to resolve some of their long standing logistics issues by moving production to local hubs/regions.


I think games like Infinity, Malifaux and Dystopian Wars will continue to grow and I think the next year or two are going to be big for the rebirth of Dystopian Wars as many fleets are getting quite diverse now and the fancy/fun units are coming out more and more. We might even see a new game from them hit the streets (I'd seriously love to see Firestorm but I think that's a 2024 at the very best right now).


I think we might see fewer totally new firms starting up as the costs of doing business and living keep increasing so we might see a period where the market remains roughly where it is now with those who already threw their lot into the market sticking it out; with a few lost and a few gained; but no massive gains or market expansion. We could see growth even stall or take a step backward in wargaming, if purely as a result of numbers being artificially inflated during the Pandemic. But I think recruitment overall will remain decent.

What might pull the numbers up for 40K is if they can land some of their better and live action Warhammer+ material onto a major streaming service (we know there's one lined up for Amazon Prime). That kind of show coming out could result in a big market uptake for GW and the market in general as a trickle down effect.



The worst part has already been highlighted - that we might see more local stores close down and a reduction in store based hobby locations as a result of the continued squeeze on highstreet retail. This might well mean we end up with fewer competing stores; a handful of giants that trade online that are hard to beat. We might see an uptake in local gaming venues and I think if GW saw the market of playing spaces contracting enough, at least in the UK for certain, they might also push some initiatives out to boost awareness/marketing/access to gaming spaces even if they aren't tied to retail.

Sadly, my local shop just closed down and we're all scrambling to find a place to play again. Definitely a shock to my plans for the year, but it has given us a chance to take stock and reset in a way the unending end of the pandemic didn't really allow.

GW has been doing well locally. 40k has had a rebounding playerbase and while AoS hasn't seen the same success, its playerbase is interested in restarting. There's people that go through Kill Team phases and Blood Bowl has one of our biggest reoccuring leagues.

Our historical community is also pretty well represented. The Flames of War adjacent stuff especially. I don't expect its popularity to really change much at all.

The old FFG Star Wars stuff has largely waned. Legion launched big but has always felt like one of those games people want to own armies for but don't want to prioritize games. X-Wing hasn't had much buzz for a while and Armada has always been a hardcore experience. I don't expect any of these to really see a huge community again unless something major changes for them.

MCP continues to be the dominant game outside of the GW/historical sphere and my personal favorite. Shatterpoint has a good amount of hype and I can see it being just as popular, particularly if it can scratch the itch that Legion has failed to. These are the games I most expect to be playing this year.

I personally try to play a lot of the smaller stuff, and we've got a group that plays a lot of different skirmish games. Of them Malifaux and Infinity tend to be well loved, but a little too meaty for consistent play. I don't see that changing. Conquest has recently had a huge surge but of all the games its the one I think is going to have the hardest time finding a new home without the shop simply due to its size.

My two pet projects at the moment include Judgement, which is finally available at an affordable price as the Kickstarter hit my doorstep this week. I adore the game, but the huge models just weren't something I could sell people on. The new version is fantastic and I'm really hoping it at least ends up as popular as Malifaux and Infinity.

That leaves the giant wildcare that is Warmachine and its battle to overcome a player base absolutely determined to impale itself on any uneven surface it can find. Personally, I'm actually rather excited about the new edition. It plays faster with smaller armies on tables that can support significantly more dynamic terrain. I just picked up the Khador starter and its kind of incredible how good these models come with zero cleanup or assembly. I really want this edition to succeed, but I get the impression that what remains of the playerbase is determined to make all the same mistakes that that got us to this point in the first place.

To be 100% honest, wargame is a cannibalistic business. Therefore, for anything new to come about and grow, something else must die.

The big question is what will end up replacing something else?

 Easy E wrote:
To be 100% honest, wargame is a cannibalistic business. Therefore, for anything new to come about and grow, something else must die.

The big question is what will end up replacing something else?

I've been thinking about it, and the wargaming middle class is probably as robust as it's ever been. compared to say, 8 years ago, when GW was ailing but still the big dog, with X-wing and Warmahordes one teir down, and then the infinity/malifaux/FOW tier.

Now, you have GW as the absolute gorilla. Hell, you can argue that the most successful new minis game of the last few years is Killteam 2021. LOTR might have sold a lot, but I haven't seen a GW game actually catch on like Killteam before.

Below that though, there's a huge range of games: Malifaux, infinity, ASOIF, Legion/Armada, MCP, with pockets of players for the lower middle class of FOW, Mantic games, Conquest, SAGA, bolt action, etc.

If the question is who will fall, I always guess licensed games running out of steam, which here could be Legion or Armada (or even ASOIF). Legion still has some room, and since it's not prepainted people collect it simply to have star wars stuff. Armada is probably more complete, it's prepaints, it's a little spendy, and just feels like it's on it's last legs. That said, even big lots of it are selling for half price on ebay, which is a decent hold rate for non-GW product. so I could be wrong!

For all we might curse GW, they do a lot to outreach into new customers. GW doing well does mean that they remain dominant, but when GW is gaining outreach that means more people are entering the market and thus more room for those to entertain second games and other model lines and such.

Also we've had a big rise in things like youtube and other online media being a massive driver of advertising and where people come to find new products and information.


I would also like to think that some of the smaller firms are getting to a size where they might start similar outreach programs to get people in from other areas of geek hobbies and also just those fresh to wargames and tabletop hobbying.

Yeah, I don't buy that minis games are cannibalistic. They can be, particularly if you let groups get tribal about it or if you only see success in the form of tournament size. I've shifted to playing 5-6 games in regular rotation with armies for another dozen or two ready to break out upon request. I've been a lot happier that way in terms of playing, collecting and painting.

I think there have very much been periods of time both in the market in general and locally where GW has dominated the market HARD and made it very difficult for other brands to grow.

Or at least grow fast.

But I think that we are long past that kind of total dominance of the market for fantasy and sci-fi.

Yes GW is still the king and when GW do REALLY well other brands can feel the pinch; similarly when GW has a wobble other brands can pick up.
There are also some predictable patterns - eg I would not be launching a brand new game this summer when GW has a 40K new edition going live.



That said I think the other thing is that outside of GW (who arguably were head in the sand during this phase in terms of outreach and marketing and customer interaction); we've had a general increase in the acceptance of geeky stuff in society in general. Heck these days you're a bit of an outcast if you don't play a video game.
The biggest threat is honestly digital entertainment rather than the jock VS geek social divide or other barriers.

Heck even Larping has become pretty big.


And all these things are continuing to support each other (indirectly) and are generally growing. The only thing slowing them is outside influences (pandemics, wars, cost of living issues etc...)

Apparently Andy Chambers, Gavin Thorpe, and Dan Morison are making an announcement about something at Adepticon

 LunarSol wrote:


That leaves the giant wildcare that is Warmachine and its battle to overcome a player base absolutely determined to impale itself on any uneven surface it can find. Personally, I'm actually rather excited about the new edition. It plays faster with smaller armies on tables that can support significantly more dynamic terrain. I just picked up the Khador starter and its kind of incredible how good these models come with zero cleanup or assembly. I really want this edition to succeed, but I get the impression that what remains of the playerbase is determined to make all the same mistakes that that got us to this point in the first place.

Yup, unfortunately WTC seems to aim for a 100pts format instead of 75pts they were originally considering. And this of course will result in many local groups concentrating on this inaccessible format at the expense of ones more catering to new players' needs. The same story all over again. Pity :(

- At its peak, Warmachine/Hordes comprised a whole lot of what was being played at my local game stores.

Alas, Warmachine/Hordes has fallen far from grace. Whether this is by alienating distribution channels, over focusing on tournament play and open beta-testing new units or both, the game is no longer the behemoth it once was.

Its new 4th edition sees a lot of changes. They have moved to 3D printed miniatures, a complete wipe of old factions for new ones that are only available in huge army purchases. It seriously looks like a risky move motivated by desperation to get their game back into the spotlight it once held.

Privateer Press currently are also supporting their 5e version of Iron Kingdoms, and have a few other miniatures games like Warcaster (which isn't breaking into the big time) and Monsterpocalypse (which I think will feel stalled until/unless Mythic deliver their Kickstarter).


- Blood Bowl has been a staple at my LGS, and with continued releases from GW, I expect it to remain that way for a good while yet. I wonder if the tabletop game will benefit from the release of the newest digital version of the game.


- CMON's Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) game seems to be doing well in places. The game can continue to grow so long as they can keep the store shelves stocked.


- Atomic Mass' Marvel Crisis Protocol continues to grow. They continue to be expensive per mini, but requiring few minis to play helps quite a lot. They've started releasing quite a few lower tier characters and revisiting some of the A-list characters they started out with.


- I haven't kept up on Wyrd's ranges. I've definitely noticed a shrink of Malifaux players, I didn't see The Other Side catch on and Wyrd seems to have started doing better in the board game market (Vagrantsong was a big hit).



- Speaking of board games, the number of massive box board games with tabletop hobbyists in mind has grown. Later this year we should see the delivery of the Kingdom Death Gambler's Chest (a massive box with a massive campaign and some terrific looking miniatures). The second printing of Oathsworn is likely to happen within this next year as well, and a follow up to Aeon Trespass Odyssey is also in the works.

Cyel wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:


That leaves the giant wildcare that is Warmachine and its battle to overcome a player base absolutely determined to impale itself on any uneven surface it can find. Personally, I'm actually rather excited about the new edition. It plays faster with smaller armies on tables that can support significantly more dynamic terrain. I just picked up the Khador starter and its kind of incredible how good these models come with zero cleanup or assembly. I really want this edition to succeed, but I get the impression that what remains of the playerbase is determined to make all the same mistakes that that got us to this point in the first place.

Yup, unfortunately WTC seems to aim for a 100pts format instead of 75pts they were originally considering. And this of course will result in many local groups concentrating on this inaccessible format at the expense of ones more catering to new players' needs. The same story all over again. Pity :(

Yeah, I'm so frustrated with this. There isn't even product to support 100 for the new armies and people are already going into try hard mode, buying 2-3 starters just to have enough to run a format that the new rules honestly aren't even that well suited for. PP really didn't help by republishing the 2022 SR. Would have been better to just go with some variations of what's in the rulebook. As is the community is going to choke itself out before there's anything to play.

Well, I've noticed some changes, at least with generic fantasy gaming.

* Miniature skirmish games becoming more popular. Less required costly investment, shorter games. eg. Frostgrave.
* More overlap between boardgames and miniature skirmish games. eg. Battle System's Core Space and Maladum.
* More solo emphasis.

- Interestingly, while KS frequently sells miniatures in bulk, boardgame and expansions, or miniatures only, rather than wargames, seem to be more popular. CMON's much more successful with its boardgames on KS than wargames. War of Kings is gone (?), while CMON's Song of Ice and Fire continues with retail support. Mantic's KS are not for just wargames, but terrain sets and boardgames.

 ced1106 wrote:

- Interestingly, while KS frequently sells miniatures in bulk, boardgame and expansions, or miniatures only, rather than wargames, seem to be more popular. CMON's much more successful with its boardgames on KS than wargames. War of Kings is gone (?), while CMON's Song of Ice and Fire continues with retail support. Mantic's KS are not for just wargames, but terrain sets and boardgames.

Miniatures have largely struggled to transition from successful kickstarters into ongoing products. You end up in a situation where the KS is exciting, but stores don't see a lot of demand as most of the people buying in to a new minis game probably did so in the KS. Meanwhile, the slower product rollout often means that new people can't get what they want right away and the KS backers often have to wait as much as a year for the KS products to release so they can start seeing new stuff.

Another issue is that models take time to build and paint and the KS gives such a huge glut that some people get defeated by the mountain before they get started.

I think this can all feed into it being great to get a start, but also backfiring. It doesn't help that wargames really need communities to play in and the last 2 years had lockdowns so a good few games that started or were just growing got hit with a massive stall.

 Eilif wrote:

-You'll see more Shatterpoint and less of the other SW games.

Based on the buzz and lines for demos at Adepticon I'm doubling down on this prediction and amending it to:
Less of several other games.
Not exactly sure which, but I bet there are several recently launched or launching games that are feeling the heat.

 LunarSol wrote:

 ced1106 wrote:

- Interestingly, while KS frequently sells miniatures in bulk, boardgame and expansions, or miniatures only, rather than wargames, seem to be more popular. CMON's much more successful with its boardgames on KS than wargames. War of Kings is gone (?), while CMON's Song of Ice and Fire continues with retail support. Mantic's KS are not for just wargames, but terrain sets and boardgames.

Miniatures have largely struggled to transition from successful kickstarters into ongoing products. You end up in a situation where the KS is exciting, but stores don't see a lot of demand as most of the people buying in to a new minis game probably did so in the KS. Meanwhile, the slower product rollout often means that new people can't get what they want right away and the KS backers often have to wait as much as a year for the KS products to release so they can start seeing new stuff.

Exactly.

On top if that, Wargames are very dependent on community (we are essentially collecting half a game and hoping to find someone with the other half). So if you get in on a Kickstarter but the game doesn't take off locally, you are out of luck. I think that is one of the reasons self contained board games do better.


But Kickstarter skirmish games CAN end up in a stable, supported place- they just usually don't.

I think another thing is a lot of firms either don't invest in or know how to setup, is a working local rep system. One of the things that helped Warmachine grow, and when it was lost helped it decline all the faster; was its PG system.

Having local players with an invested interest in promoting the game locally and a basic training, approval and support system for them in place is almost essential.

That way you have people who have interest, motivation and support to promote a game at a local scene since it can take weeks to months for new players to get involved. It also means once you've got play-groups they are more likely to keep running when at least one person in the group is part of the promotional system,


Without such a system you're 100% reliant on local interest and motivation and that can burn out really fast.

- When are we due for a new edition of 40k?

And do we expect GW to do a good job of it or screw it up?


I think a lot if the fantasy wargamers community depends on how well or poorly received the current 40k is. If GW offends a small part of their audience, it can drive away enough gamers to completely support another game.


The heyday of Warmachine coincided with an era when GW was batching things pretty regularly.