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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
We could be, but very often the thing in question is trash with great marketing. The entire marketing industry is built on manipulating people into buying stuff they don't really need or want. If we see that a game is popular despite X/Y/Z reasons why its rules are bad it's probably a triumph of marketing, not game design.

While I agree that marketing is a factor, I disagree with the assumption that most popular gaming products are trash. It is true that mass market games often lack the design elements that we consider important, but that doesn't make them defective.

I'm old enough to have seen a lot of very slick designs and marketing campaigns that fell completely flat because the design just wasn't that good. If I'm not mistaken, even fairly established games have wrecked their positions through design missteps.

Shoots and Ladders (Originally Snakes and Ladders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_ladders ) is one of the oldest "games" in print today. It originates in India around the 2nd century. I think it's fair to assume that every single one of us has played this "game". Not only played it, but it was probably in your house at some point. The marketing/brand recognition of this product is pervasive to say the least.

Here's the thing. It's not even a game (hence the quotes). You make no decisions and there fore there is no game play. It's a random number generator where blind luck determines if you make it to the end first or not. This product, sold as a game but isn't, is actual trash. And yet it's made Milton Bradley (and now Hasbo) so much money that they continue to produce it since 1943. If it wasn't selling they would stop producing it.

Most of the games and "games" you grew up with are this. You think battleship, blind guesses with coordinates is an actual good game? There are entire articles about how terrible this kind of decision making in a DnD style game is.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

If you care about money who cares about dedicated gamers. Things like how real-world naval strategy worked, or even the simplified rock/paper/scissors model, are irrelevant to financial success. The most important thing is that destroyers are sold in a package of four, but the overpowered way to use them requires units of five. And then once you've milked that cash cow dry you give a balance buff to battleships that improves their secondary battery, except it's an upgrade sprue that can't be attached to your existing battleship models if you already glued the original guns in place. Oh, and all the stat cards for the ships prominently feature huge-breasted anime characters with one in ten packs containing a special swimsuit version of the character that adds +1d6 damage.

Exactly three questions matter in for-profit design: how can I get new players to start the game and maximize my chances of getting the whales, how can I exploit FOMO to get people to buy too many copies of each new release "just in case", and how can I encourage gambling addicts to hand over their credit cards and spend themselves into homelessness. Look to MTG and 40k for inspiration, not your favorite niche historical game.

This right here is the entire discussion on profit based design. Pin the post. Reference it at your leisure. It's not a complicated topic to discuss.

Owl is right on about Profit based design. Nice post!

However, I think there could be some niche discussion about how do you make profit based design, when you are an Indie rules designer that doesn't make the models or the accessories for your game. The game IS the product? (RPG design might also fall into this category)

Here are some thoughts:

1. Card mechanics and upgrade cards (As Owl mentions)

2. Incomplete rules sold in pieces. I.e. main rules, army lists, QRS, and scenario books all sold separately.

3. Supplements or add-on rules. You don't need them to play the game BUT they do enhance the experience.

4. Off-shoots of the same basic game at different scales/periods/genres etc.

5. Scenario Packs (similar to rules supplements) but focus on a campaign or set of scenarios for the game with new Maps, set-ups, scenario specific rules, scenario specific lists, etc.

I am sure there are other ways, and would love to see this short list expanded.




Now we are way off topic, but this seems to be where we are actually talking. Let's keep it rolling!

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Weren't you just arguing that in discussing the merits of IGOUGO we need to exclude 40k because the dominant market leader is such obvious trash that it biases the comparison and obscures the real merits of IGOUGO?

No, I was arguing that because there are 10 very different editions and I am unfamiliar with anything produced since 2004, it is a very poor frame of reference.

If you care about money who cares about dedicated gamers. Things like how real-world naval strategy worked, or even the simplified rock/paper/scissors model, are irrelevant to financial success. The most important thing is that destroyers are sold in a package of four, but the overpowered way to use them requires units of five. And then once you've milked that cash cow dry you give a balance buff to battleships that improves their secondary battery, except it's an upgrade sprue that can't be attached to your existing battleship models if you already glued the original guns in place. Oh, and all the stat cards for the ships prominently feature huge-breasted anime characters with one in ten packs containing a special swimsuit version of the character that adds +1d6 damage.

Exactly three questions matter in for-profit design: how can I get new players to start the game and maximize my chances of getting the whales, how can I exploit FOMO to get people to buy too many copies of each new release "just in case", and how can I encourage gambling addicts to hand over their credit cards and spend themselves into homelessness. Look to MTG and 40k for inspiration, not your favorite niche historical game.

Again, I dispute the contention that only trash can succeed. I think many game designers find it annoying when they see what they consider a trash design doing well, but again, how do we define that objectively? You mention a collectible naval strategy game with mechanics you consider unrealistic, but earlier in this thread we had a heated discussion - proving that your "overpowered" destroyers are actually historically accurate.

Going all-in for the player is the product model does have downside risk, and several games got greedy and paid the price for it.

The 4th edition of D&D did this, pushing cards and expansion packs and in short order WotC found itself being outsold by Pathfinder, which used the previous incarnation of D20 that had been made open source!

As for looking at successful designs, I think that's prudent move. Familiarity counts. When asked why I was using playing cards to power a planning simulation my answer was: everyone knows how to use them, keeping my training time short. (Our wargaming area in my squadron looked like we were running a casino - cards, poker chips, a baccarat shoe, and lots of maps. Good times.)

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

Again, I dispute the contention that only trash can succeed. I think many game designers find it annoying when they see what they consider a trash design doing well, but again, how do we define that objectively?

By doing it. By defining it. Defining this isn't some abstract that is impossible to do. You can, factually, define the criteria for good movie making. You can break it up into sound design, shots, acting, scripts, lighting, etc etc... You can, factually, define a well made film from a poorly made film. Likewise, you can, factually, objectively, define a well made game from a poorly made one. Don't try to shift that into what people "like". Like has nothing to do with it. As spelled out constantly people like everything, including the trash.

I can look at a Rembrandt painting and objectively tell you it's a great painting versus a child's finger painting which is trash a painting. Objectively those statements will be true.

We are not reinventing the wheel in this discussion. Game designers have been discussing what makes a game good for decades. GNS theory is provably wrong. It doesn't hold up under scrutiny. His mark of "quality" being in relation to a focus on a game/player type doesn't work.

You mention a collectible naval strategy game with mechanics you consider unrealistic, but earlier in this thread we had a heated discussion - proving that your "overpowered" destroyers are actually historically accurate.

Historical accuracy seems to have nothing to do with a game being good then, does it?

Going all-in for the player is the product model does have downside risk, and several games got greedy and paid the price for it.

The 4th edition of D&D did this, pushing cards and expansion packs and in short order WotC found itself being outsold by Pathfinder, which used the previous incarnation of D20 that had been made open source!

I don't think that has anything to do with DnD not being successful. All those add ons are still available for 5th.

As for looking at successful designs, I think that's prudent move. Familiarity counts. When asked why I was using playing cards to power a planning simulation my answer was: everyone knows how to use them, keeping my training time short. (Our wargaming area in my squadron looked like we were running a casino - cards, poker chips, a baccarat shoe, and lots of maps. Good times.)

I would like you to note that historically the masters of various crafts died destitute and only gained recognition for their "genius" long after they were dead and their works entered the public domain.

"Success" is not a prudent criteria for determining what is "good". Since bad things can be successful and great things can tank, it's not a metric that correlates.

 Easy E wrote:
Owl is right on about Profit based design. Nice post!

However, I think there could be some niche discussion about how do you make profit based design, when you are an Indie rules designer that doesn't make the models or the accessories for your game. The game IS the product? (RPG design might also fall into this category)

Here are some thoughts:

1. Card mechanics and upgrade cards (As Owl mentions)

2. Incomplete rules sold in pieces. I.e. main rules, army lists, QRS, and scenario books all sold separately.

3. Supplements or add-on rules. You don't need them to play the game BUT they do enhance the experience.

4. Off-shoots of the same basic game at different scales/periods/genres etc.

5. Scenario Packs (similar to rules supplements) but focus on a campaign or set of scenarios for the game with new Maps, set-ups, scenario specific rules, scenario specific lists, etc.

I am sure there are other ways, and would love to see this short list expanded.

Now we are way off topic, but this seems to be where we are actually talking. Let's keep it rolling!

We're very much on the topic of game design fundamentals.

I'll take a stab at a few of these by saying that in the for-profit arena, having expansions is a solid plan, and it doesn't have to be of the "planned obsolescence" GW model. I'm thinking of historical games that use the same core rules and produce scenario packs. Squad Leader is an obvious example.

By the way, authors talk a lot about this - the value of creating a recurring series or multi-volume work rather than individual standalone books. Having done both, I will say that going for the trilogy is where the money is.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
By doing it. By defining it. Defining this isn't some abstract that is impossible to do. You can, factually, define the criteria for good movie making. You can break it up into sound design, shots, acting, scripts, lighting, etc etc... You can, factually, define a well made film from a poorly made film. Likewise, you can, factually, objectively, define a well made game from a poorly made one. Don't try to shift that into what people "like". Like has nothing to do with it. As spelled out constantly people like everything, including the trash.

I can look at a Rembrandt painting and objectively tell you it's a great painting versus a child's finger painting which is trash a painting. Objectively those statements will be true.

No, it's all subjective, which is the point. You can't argue taste. You hate a game that others love. You have reasons. They have reasons.

We are not reinventing the wheel in this discussion. Game designers have been discussing what makes a game good for decades. GNS theory is provably wrong. It doesn't hold up under scrutiny. His mark of "quality" being in relation to a focus on a game/player type doesn't work.

GNS theory being wrong doesn't eliminate argument among designers. We just had a pretty good one over IGO-UGO. People look for different things, which is fine.

Historical accuracy seems to have nothing to do with a game being good then, does it?

It depends on the purpose of the game.

I don't think that has anything to do with DnD not being successful. All those add ons are still available for 5th.

I was referring to the card-centric play style, which as far as I know, is completely dead.

I would like you to note that historically the masters of various crafts died destitute and only gained recognition for their "genius" long after they were dead and their works entered the public domain.

Some did, some didn't. Some artisans had fabulous wealth. There's no single rule.

"Success" is not a prudent criteria for determining what is "good". Since bad things can be successful and great things can tank, it's not a metric that correlates.

There are various levels of success, and that depends on the type of game and the size of the market. If you are interested in detailed, realistic naval warfare rules, then success may mean that within your genre, you're the default game and outside of it, no one has heard of you.

I think it's important to keep that in mind. If you want to design a mass-market party game, you'll approach design very differently than someone who wants an authentic feel for destroyers' role in naval operations.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

No, it's all subjective, which is the point. You can't argue taste. You hate a game that others love. You have reasons. They have reasons.

No. It's not. We are not arguing taste. We are arguing craft. This isn't about love and hate. This is about the quality of the work.

We are not reinventing the wheel in this discussion. Game designers have been discussing what makes a game good for decades. GNS theory is provably wrong. It doesn't hold up under scrutiny. His mark of "quality" being in relation to a focus on a game/player type doesn't work.

GNS theory being wrong doesn't eliminate argument among designers. We just had a pretty good one over IGO-UGO. People look for different things, which is fine.

We really didn't have this discussion. I never participated in a discussion in which I discussed the merits and flaws of IGOUGO as a mechanic. I discussed what it did in 40ks design. As a single component in a larger mesh of mechanics that results in problems. YOU don't want to discuss 40k. So this whole discussion you are claiming occurred never took place on both our parts.

Historical accuracy seems to have nothing to do with a game being good then, does it?

It depends on the purpose of the game.

Disagree. But if you think it does, define it. Make your case.

I don't think that has anything to do with DnD not being successful. All those add ons are still available for 5th.

I was referring to the card-centric play style, which as far as I know, is completely dead.

The cards were only ever a prop to show abilities. Those cards are well and truly alive. I was in a Barnes and Nobel the other day and saw the little class specific cards packs sitting right there on the shelf.

I would like you to note that historically the masters of various crafts died destitute and only gained recognition for their "genius" long after they were dead and their works entered the public domain.

Some did, some didn't. Some artisans had fabulous wealth. There's no single rule.

Right. It's almost like success has nothing to do with quality.

"Success" is not a prudent criteria for determining what is "good". Since bad things can be successful and great things can tank, it's not a metric that correlates.

There are various levels of success, and that depends on the type of game and the size of the market. If you are interested in detailed, realistic naval warfare rules, then success may mean that within your genre, you're the default game and outside of it, no one has heard of you.

I think it's important to keep that in mind. If you want to design a mass-market party game, you'll approach design very differently than someone who wants an authentic feel for destroyers' role in naval operations.

It is important to keep it in mind. In the way Owl pointed out. There is no mystery. If I want to design a game to make money then the ways to do it are well documented.

If I want to make a GOOD game that is a different thing.

 Lance845 wrote:
No. It's not. We are not arguing taste. We are arguing craft. This isn't about love and hate. This is about the quality of the work.

But craft has all sorts of subjective elements to it.

We really didn't have this discussion. I never participated in a discussion in which I discussed the merits and flaws of IGOUGO as a mechanic. I discussed what it did in 40ks design. As a single component in a larger mesh of mechanics that results in problems. YOU don't want to discuss 40k. So this whole discussion you are claiming occurred never took place on both our parts.

I use "we" as in this thread, not you specifically.

The cards were only ever a prop to show abilities. Those cards are well and truly alive. I was in a Barnes and Nobel the other day and saw the little class specific cards packs sitting right there on the shelf.

I stand corrected.

Right. It's almost like success has nothing to do with quality.

No, it has quite a bit to to do with it. There are lots of examples of quality achieving success. Of course, what particularly quality one is looking for is open to debate.

It is important to keep it in mind. In the way Owl pointed out. There is no mystery. If I want to design a game to make money then the ways to do it are well documented.

I disagree. This is like saying anyone can be rich if they just sell out enough. I've met plenty of people who were desperate to sell out and still ended up broke.

Just as quality movies can be wildly successful, so can quality games. Now you may not like them, and you can pick apart their design, but that's how you view it.

I also think we should beware of a false dichotomy that financial success is incompatible with good game design - indeed it is proof that the design is defective. I don't agree. I think there are numerous examples of craftsmen who experienced success on the basis of their quality work.

I also think a lot of great artists died poor because they were terrible at managing their money, not because their work failed to find an audience.

I guess a key consideration - perhaps the key consideration - is the reason for the designing the game.

That is, are you just wanting to design a game, or do you want to design a specific type of game, say about a historic period or genre?

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
No. It's not. We are not arguing taste. We are arguing craft. This isn't about love and hate. This is about the quality of the work.

But craft has all sorts of subjective elements to it.

Without saying this person likes this or hates that, tell me what they are. You are making an assertion that there are subjective factors to the quality of the craftsmanship. Give them to us. Tell me whats subjective.

Right. It's almost like success has nothing to do with quality.

No, it has quite a bit to to do with it. There are lots of examples of quality achieving success. Of course, what particularly quality one is looking for is open to debate.

You are not getting it....

If I give somebody a brand new medicine and 50% of the people get better and 50% of the people didn't get better then the medicine doesn't seem to have any effect on the disease. OTHER factors are at play in determining what made someone get better. You need a consistent rate of correlation to even start to head down the path of saying that this thing is the cause of/representative of the effect.

Some examples of quality finding success is canceled out by the many examples of quality finding failure. OTHER factors are at play. You cannot use that as a reliable metric.

It is important to keep it in mind. In the way Owl pointed out. There is no mystery. If I want to design a game to make money then the ways to do it are well documented.

I disagree. This is like saying anyone can be rich if they just sell out enough. I've met plenty of people who were desperate to sell out and still ended up broke.

Just as quality movies can be wildly successful, so can quality games. Now you may not like them, and you can pick apart their design, but that's how you view it.

This is the last time I am saying this and then I am just going to refuse to respond to it again. This doesn't have to do with like. I am not discussing what I like. I am not commenting on what others like. I am not commenting on what I don't like. Like has nothing to do with it. Like IS subjective. Like doesn't tell any of us anything.

I also think we should beware of a false dichotomy that financial success is incompatible with good game design - indeed it is proof that the design is defective. I don't agree. I think there are numerous examples of craftsmen who experienced success on the basis of their quality work.

I also think a lot of great artists died poor because they were terrible at managing their money, not because their work failed to find an audience.

I guess a key consideration - perhaps the key consideration - is the reason for the designing the game.

That is, are you just wanting to design a game, or do you want to design a specific type of game, say about a historic period or genre?

Which starts to break down your personal game theory into something like GNS where you build a model that only supports the niche you feel like talking about. Not one of those game theories has ever held up under scrutiny. Not one.

 Lance845 wrote:
Without saying this person likes this or hates that, tell me what they are. You are making an assertion that there are subjective factors to the quality of the craftsmanship. Give them to us. Tell me whats subjective.

We're talking about game design, not building a rocket ship. So the factors you consider superior may drive other players away.

This isn't hard to understand.

Pick any artistic endeavor and you will find rival schools arguing about which is better. There is no single, agreed-upon, objective standard. You mention Rembrandt as universally acclaimed, but he's not. His work is old, which gives it historic value, but as an aesthetic there are several schools that stand in strident opposition to his aesthetic.

You are not getting it....

If I give somebody a brand new medicine and 50% of the people get better and 50% of the people didn't get better then the medicine doesn't seem to have any effect on the disease. OTHER factors are at play in determining what made someone get better. You need a consistent rate of correlation to even start to head down the path of saying that this thing is the cause of/representative of the effect.

Some examples of quality finding success is canceled out by the many examples of quality finding failure. OTHER factors are at play. You cannot use that as a reliable metric.

Obviously, but your contention that success has zero relationship with quality is equally unfounded. There is a relationship, and the difficulty in evaluating this in an artistic endeavor is the lack of any objective measure of quality.

Medicine? Yep, we can do studies, create huge sample sizes because there is an objective standard: the health of the patient. But in gaming, there is none - one man's trash is another man's treasure.

It is very clear that if we were to draw up factors of quality, they would be very different. Obviously, you think yours would be totally objective.

This is the last time I am saying this and then I am just going to refuse to respond to it again. This doesn't have to do with like. I am not discussing what I like. I am not commenting on what others like. I am not commenting on what I don't like. Like has nothing to do with it. Like IS subjective. Like doesn't tell any of us anything.

Name your objective, scientific standards then! Because I guarantee as soon as you finish typing, people will disagree over whether they have merit, whether they are properly applied, etc.

This happens all the time in design schools. Pick your discipline and I'll show you contending schools. Not only will the schools contend with each other, they will also argue about which features epitomize their own school.

Which starts to break down your personal game theory into something like GNS where you build a model that only supports the niche you feel like talking about. Not one of those game theories has ever held up under scrutiny. Not one.

It's not a theory, it's a practice, a technique. Figure out what you want to make, and focus on just that. Ignore abstract principles or externalities, focus on what is essential to the task at hand.

If you want a mass-market game, your design should include only features supportive of that. If you want an accurate historical naval game, then that is your focus, and don't concern yourself with mass-market success.

It sounds stupidly simple, but lots of game designers lose the plot and clutter up their designs - or omit key elements.

While there probably are game designers who have zero interest in anything other than making a time-waster (though these guys are probably into apps rather than physical items like cards or figures), I think the group that populates Dakka is more inclined to make games based on topic of interest rather than mass market appeal.

Settlers of Catan-style games do quite well, but they bore me. So I won't be designing one of the those. When I get an itch to design, it's a specific topic, and so I have to start asking myself - how should that topic be represented? What is the balance between complexity and accessibility? How long should sessions last?

Basically, I see game design as akin to any other planning - you determine the things you want to achieve and then look at ways to do that, weighing your options based on their applicability to that goal.

Easy E's questions are very useful because of their applicability over a variety of genres and designs. If the point of the design is merely to cover one specific and limited topic, expansions are off the table.

However, even a one-off game can have 'external' effects by establishing a reputation or filling out a catalog. My books cover a slew of genres, and I'm guessing the Venn diagram of someone who is interested in all of them is me. But their quantity and scope do help establish me as someone people might want to read.

Now I could have done market research, looked at which genres sell most, come up with a multi-part (or open-ended) series, and mined the hell out of it. Game designers certainly do that as well.

But that's not what inspires me, so I will take the potential loss of income in exchange for the pleasure of creating something I care about.

Because that's also part of game design - doing something you enjoy.

 Easy E wrote:
However, I think there could be some niche discussion about how do you make profit based design, when you are an Indie rules designer that doesn't make the models or the accessories for your game. The game IS the product? (RPG design might also fall into this category)

TBH in that case you learn to code and start making F2P loot box mobile games. Rules-only games are never going to work well for maximizing profit because they're too easy to pirate. Once a game becomes popular enough to have a chance of bringing in significant income pirated pdfs of it will be easily available and the whales can just download everything for free. If you want to make money you need a physical component (miniatures, cards in a CCG, etc) that can't be pirated easily.

IMO if you are committed to not getting into the miniatures business you should discard the marketing-based profit focus entirely. It won't bring in many sales but it will do an excellent job of driving away the customers who do care about a quality game. Just take the cap on your potential profit and enjoy making games for fans of your niche.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
No, I was arguing that because there are 10 very different editions and I am unfamiliar with anything produced since 2004, it is a very poor frame of reference.

What you said:

Of course not, no one is saying that IGO-UGO is the ne plus ultra of gaming design, I'm merely pointing out that it has its place and purpose. GW's flagrant abuse of it should not condemn the format across the board.

and

I get that 40k comes up a lot because there are so many crappy elements of design in it, one of which is the model count. Simply the tedium of moving all those individual figures, checking for cohesion, etc. is a royal pain. It is a terrible design.

But that's an indictment of GW, not IGO-UGO. They could break any system you give them.

Right there, the most popular game in the entire miniatures hobby is so badly designed that you want to keep it out of the conversation and focus on a theoretical good IGOUGO game.

Again, I dispute the contention that only trash can succeed.

Succeed at all? No, obviously non-trash games can succeed and make a modest profit for the creator.

Succeed like MTG? Absolutely only trash can succeed. The mechanics that drive sales most effectively are inherently destructive to the quality of the game. Essentially you light your game on fire, sell as many loot boxes as possible to gambling addicts before it burns down entirely, and replace it with the next disposable loot box game.

You mention a collectible naval strategy game with mechanics you consider unrealistic, but earlier in this thread we had a heated discussion - proving that your "overpowered" destroyers are actually historically accurate.

The difference is that "my" overpowered destroyers are overpowered to sell boxes of destroyers, not because of historical accuracy or any game balance reasons. All of their rules (such as a squadron buff requiring units of 5 to activate when they are sold in boxes of 4) are based on sales metrics. And once I've hit diminishing returns on manipulating players into buying boxes of destroyers they will be nerfed and replaced by the next overpowered thing I want to sell.

As for looking at successful designs, I think that's prudent move. Familiarity counts. When asked why I was using playing cards to power a planning simulation my answer was: everyone knows how to use them, keeping my training time short. (Our wargaming area in my squadron looked like we were running a casino - cards, poker chips, a baccarat shoe, and lots of maps. Good times.)

But that's quality-focused design not profit-focused design. Profit-focused design would have you use something like playing cards but sold in blind buy packs with rarity levels, special promo versions at extreme rarity, etc, to get the gambling addicts to keep chasing the thrill of opening a rare card.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
TBH in that case you learn to code and start making F2P loot box mobile games. Rules-only games are never going to work well for maximizing profit because they're too easy to pirate. Once a game becomes popular enough to have a chance of bringing in significant income pirated pdfs of it will be easily available and the whales can just download everything for free. If you want to make money you need a physical component (miniatures, cards in a CCG, etc) that can't be pirated easily.

Yes, some sort of physical components are a must if sales is in any way a consideration.

What you said:

Right there, the most popular game in the entire miniatures hobby is so badly designed that you want to keep it out of the conversation and focus on a theoretical good IGOUGO game.

Context is everything. You'll notice I'm trying to turn the subject away from 40k because that's not what I am wanting to discuss. I want to discuss IGO-UGO outside of GW. To that end, I'm agreeing with the person who hates its use in 40k. I'm accepting their premise and trying to move the discussion to more fruitful areas because:

1. I don't think GW is the best example of IGO-UGO. I hated how it was used in 3rd and 4th.
2. I can't defend its use in the last 6 editions because I never played them.
3. The example I can give of it working in 40k is an edition (2nd) very few people have played.

If that wasn't clear before, it should be clear now.

Succeed at all? No, obviously non-trash games can succeed and make a modest profit for the creator.

Succeed like MTG? Absolutely only trash can succeed. The mechanics that drive sales most effectively are inherently destructive to the quality of the game. Essentially you light your game on fire, sell as many loot boxes as possible to gambling addicts before it burns down entirely, and replace it with the next disposable loot box game.

And yet people love that game, and would fiercely dispute the notion that it is trash. As a design, it has a lot going for it. I remember admiring it when it came out and wishing I'd thought of it.

I think you would do well to look at mechanics other than financial ones to see why designs endure because there are tons of cash-grab games that vanish without a trace. It's also true that the success of the design leads to reworking to continue the cashflow, just like movie sequels and prequels start appearing after a box office success.

That doesn't make the original trash.

The difference is that "my" overpowered destroyers are overpowered to sell boxes of destroyers, not because of historical accuracy or any game balance reasons. All of their rules (such as a squadron buff requiring units of 5 to activate when they are sold in boxes of 4) are based on sales metrics. And once I've hit diminishing returns on manipulating players into buying boxes of destroyers they will be nerfed and replaced by the next overpowered thing I want to sell.

There was a discussion elsewhere on the site about how X-wing lost the plot and tried to over-monetize itself and crashed as a result. They did exactly what you suggest can't fail - raised prices, produced pirate-proof cards and tried to force a new edition.

I will also point out that GW could only turn to this approach after it had achieved market dominance and been in operation for 30 years. It was not their opening gambit.

Knowing a few naval miniatures fans, I think doing that would ensure zero sales.

But that's quality-focused design not profit-focused design. Profit-focused design would have you use something like playing cards but sold in blind buy packs with rarity levels, special promo versions at extreme rarity, etc, to get the gambling addicts to keep chasing the thrill of opening a rare card.

It depends on the market segment. Columbia Games tried that and failed. Turns out that military history buffs want to pay for an order of battle, not engage in a scavenger hunt.

Which goes back to my point about knowing the type of game you want to make and who is likely to play it.

I mean the counterpoint to all the "profit = trash" is that many otherwise successful designs failed because the designers had no idea of how to properly monetize them. TSR and SPI are obvious examples of this.

So including financial considerations is very much an element of design if only to ensure that robust sales don't end in personal bankruptcy.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
And yet people love that game, and would fiercely dispute the notion that it is trash.

Lots of addicts think their drug of choice is the greatest thing ever.

I do agree that MTG had some good ideas but by far the best one was the blind buy mechanic. Take that away and would it have done anywhere near this well? Or would it have been one of many forgotten card games that had some interest but never really went anywhere?

I think you would do well to look at mechanics other than financial ones to see why designs endure because there are tons of cash-grab games that vanish without a trace.

Of course they fail. But failure is already accounted for in the business model. All of your games are disposable and if 90% of them fail the 10% that succeed make enough profit to pay for the failures. And even the 10% that succeed aren't meant to be long-term projects. Maximizing profit inherently destroys a game and gives it a very limited lifespan. You know that your game will be dead 2-3 years after launch and you don't care because you made $$$$$$ from its destruction and you have ten more games lined up behind it to repeat the process.

There was a discussion elsewhere on the site about how X-wing lost the plot and tried to over-monetize itself and crashed as a result. They did exactly what you suggest can't fail - raised prices, produced pirate-proof cards and tried to force a new edition.

Whether X-Wing failed depends on how you define "failure". Did the reboot do significant damage to the long-term health of the game? Yes. Did it make a very nice quarterly financial report? Absolutely, and that's what matters. FFG cashed in and killed the game for short-term profit but short-term profit is the entire goal of profit-focused design.

From a profit-focused point of view X-Wing's biggest failure wasn't the cash grab of the conversion kits, it was two things: FFG's parent company handing the game over to the clowns at AMG and letting them further trash the game without extracting any additional profit, and milking the cash cow to death without any replacement ready to go.

I will also point out that GW could only turn to this approach after it had achieved market dominance and been in operation for 30 years. It was not their opening gambit.

But GW in its early days was also a much smaller company. They didn't start making hundreds of millions in profit every year until the ruthless profit-focused management came in and started doing things like driving independent stores out of business with questionably legal tactics and replacing them with GW-only stores where customers would never even know that non-GW products exist.

Knowing a few naval miniatures fans, I think doing that would ensure zero sales.

But you aren't selling to naval miniaures fans. Who cares about that niche. You're selling to MTG addicts who see a cool flying battleship game with huge-breasted anime characters as the captains and buy 100 packs because the ultra-rare foil version (one in every ~1000 packs) has full nudity.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Lots of addicts think their drug of choice is the greatest thing ever.

So is every long-term player just an addict, devoid of taste, sensitivity or any kind of intelligence? What a dark view of the gaming market.

I do agree that MTG had some good ideas but by far the best one was the blind buy mechanic. Take that away and would it have done anywhere near this well? Or would it have been one of many forgotten card games that had some interest but never really went anywhere?

Lots of games had a buy blind mechanic. Are you kidding? What kept MTG afloat was that people enjoyed the game play.

Of course they fail. But failure is already accounted for in the business model. All of your games are disposable and if 90% of them fail the 10% that succeed make enough profit to pay for the failures. And even the 10% that succeed aren't meant to be long-term projects. Maximizing profit inherently destroys a game and gives it a very limited lifespan. You know that your game will be dead 2-3 years after launch and you don't care because you made $$$$$$ from its destruction and you have ten more games lined up behind it to repeat the process.

Who are you talking about, and how it is relevant to this discussion?

Whether X-Wing failed depends on how you define "failure". Did the reboot do significant damage to the long-term health of the game? Yes. Did it make a very nice quarterly financial report? Absolutely, and that's what matters. FFG cashed in and killed the game for short-term profit but short-term profit is the entire goal of profit-focused design.

No, it's long-term sustainable profit. You know, like 40k or MTG.

From a profit-focused point of view X-Wing's biggest failure wasn't the cash grab of the conversion kits, it was two things: FFG's parent company handing the game over to the clowns at AMG and letting them further trash the game without extracting any additional profit, and milking the cash cow to death without any replacement ready to go.

Maybe they figured the license was going to go away, and had to cash out while they could. This is an inherent risk in licensed games.

But GW in its early days was also a much smaller company. They didn't start making hundreds of millions in profit every year until the ruthless profit-focused management came in and started doing things like driving independent stores out of business with questionably legal tactics and replacing them with GW-only stores where customers would never even know that non-GW products exist.

Right, so what works for the GW of today is terrible advice for the aspiring independent game designer, no?

But you aren't selling to naval miniaures fans. Who cares about that niche. You're selling to MTG addicts who see a cool flying battleship game with huge-breasted anime characters as the captains and buy 100 packs because the ultra-rare foil version (one in every ~1000 packs) has full nudity.

No, I'm not. That wasn't the game under discussion. We were arguing about a rock/paper/scissors game of naval combat and there was heated debate about whether that was historically accurate. Then you said it didn't matter, and sell figures in packs designed to make collecting difficult to maximize short-term profit.

Now you've introduced soft core porn into the equation and I'm not sure where the hell that came from.

I suppose if you did want to do a "Hot Sailor Destroyer Moon" CCG, it might sell. Maybe you should run with that, just give me a developer credit for the title.

Getting back to game design, I was reminded today how designers can crank out expansions but also branch out. Steve Jackson comes to mind. GURPS obviously had built-in expansion capability, but that wasn't the only thing in play. I've got a few GURPS books, but lots of Munchkin sets. Are they crass expansions? Maybe, but they are much enjoyed because of the different genres.

I think that's the essence of good game design - it fulfills player expectations and also is financially viable.

Another approach is expansions in terms of historical work, like Squad Leader, the Brigade Series, etc. Once a player buys the core rules, expansions allow them to cover new battles or scenarios without additional effort.

That's the model that interests me and one I experimented with in the military. In that case, we had lots of different things to cover, and limited time to do it. So why not use the same set of rules? Not only did this help the players, but the design staff could turn product in as little as 24 hours, which is highly useful in a time-sensitive situation.

That's where I'm at right now. I need to explore building out the core rules and also finding vendors who can make the all-important unique physical media necessary to play the game. Artwork will be done in-house by my, daughters both of whom did artwork for my history books.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
So is every long-term player just an addict, devoid of taste, sensitivity or any kind of intelligence? What a dark view of the gaming market.

With modern MTG going more and more into shovelware territory with every new release? Yeah, I'd say the majority of people who stick with that dumpster fire of a game are either in a place where MTG is the only game anyone plays or gambling addicts.

Who are you talking about, and how it is relevant to this discussion?

I'm talking about the standard business model for making profit in the industry: games are disposable short-term products where maximizing addictive behavior from whales via loot boxes, FOMO, and the new content treadmill is the goal. It's relevant because the question of profit-focused design came up and if you want profit that's what you do.

And yes, I know a lot of companies don't use that model. That's why a single shovelware mobile game will make more money in the three months it exists than you will make in your entire career as a game designer making high quality wargames.

No, it's long-term sustainable profit. You know, like 40k or MTG.

40k and MTG are outliers, the incomprehensible exceptions to the rule where GW/WOTC can do every destructive profit-focused gimmick in the book and somehow still have a game. As someone other than GW/WOTC you can't count on that and a series of short-term cash grabs will make more money than a long-term sustainable game.

No, I'm not. That wasn't the game under discussion. We were arguing about a rock/paper/scissors game of naval combat and there was heated debate about whether that was historically accurate. Then you said it didn't matter, and sell figures in packs designed to make collecting difficult to maximize short-term profit.

Now you've introduced soft core porn into the equation and I'm not sure where the hell that came from.

It came from the fact that profit-focused design came up. The reality is that we can have two possible conversations:

We can talk about quality game design where the goal of the designer is to make the best possible game. This involves things like the triangle model for what players want to get out of a game, the merits of rock/paper/scissors balancing and whether it's compatible with historical accuracy, etc.

Or we can talk about profit-focused design where the goal of the designer is to make money. In that case none of that stuff matters. You make a battleship-themed porn game with loot boxes, heavy FOMO, and a relentless new content treadmill. And then once you've milked that cash cow to death you re-use the miniatures to make world conquest themed porn game that uses the battleship miniatures as tokens, with all of the same marketing gimmicks. And once you've built the IP you make an airplane-themed porn game in the setting, getting a new round of addictive behavior from the whales. Etc.

If you want to have the first conversation that's fine, and a far more interesting conversation IMO. But once you start bringing in profit motives all of that design discussion ends and the only thing that matters is marketing. The game is nothing more than a means to an end: convincing whales to spend themselves into homelessness buying your product.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
With modern MTG going more and more into shovelware territory with every new release? Yeah, I'd say the majority of people who stick with that dumpster fire of a game are either in a place where MTG is the only game anyone plays or gambling addicts.

I should clarify that I'm talking about all long-term system, not just MTG, which I should note, I never did get around to playing.

I'm talking about the standard business model for making profit in the industry: games are disposable short-term products where maximizing addictive behavior from whales via loot boxes, FOMO, and the new content treadmill is the goal. It's relevant because the question of profit-focused design came up and if you want profit that's what you do.

And yes, I know a lot of companies don't use that model. That's why a single shovelware mobile game will make more money in the three months it exists than you will make in your entire career as a game designer making high quality wargames.

Right, but mobile apps aren't under discussion. I get that you feel strongly about the current environment, but it difficult to follow you at times.

40k and MTG are outliers, the incomprehensible exceptions to the rule where GW/WOTC can do every destructive profit-focused gimmick in the book and somehow still have a game. As someone other than GW/WOTC you can't count on that and a series of short-term cash grabs will make more money than a long-term sustainable game.

So should we use them as examples or focus on Steve Jackson or the Battle Tech franchise?

I think it's interesting that the original (and successful) GW model was diversity of games rather than planned obsolescence and loot boxes. I think that model only became viable once they got too big to fail (but still almost failed anyway).

It came from the fact that profit-focused design came up. The reality is that we can have two possible conversations:

We can talk about quality game design where the goal of the designer is to make the best possible game. This involves things like the triangle model for what players want to get out of a game, the merits of rock/paper/scissors balancing and whether it's compatible with historical accuracy, etc.

Or we can talk about profit-focused design where the goal of the designer is to make money. In that case none of that stuff matters. You make a battleship-themed porn game with loot boxes, heavy FOMO, and a relentless new content treadmill. And then once you've milked that cash cow to death you re-use the miniatures to make world conquest themed porn game that uses the battleship miniatures as tokens, with all of the same marketing gimmicks. And once you've built the IP you make an airplane-themed porn game in the setting, getting a new round of addictive behavior from the whales. Etc.

If you want to have the first conversation that's fine, and a far more interesting conversation IMO. But once you start bringing in profit motives all of that design discussion ends and the only thing that matters is marketing. The game is nothing more than a means to an end: convincing whales to spend themselves into homelessness buying your product.

Yeah, I don't seen the conflict. You can design a game with future expansions in mind without making it crass or trashy. Again, Munchkin expansions are alternate settings. We started on the Fantasy set, and then did Lovecraft because it was also funny.

Similarly, the GURPS expansions seem like natural outgrowths of a truly "universal" system that can be used in any setting. I think the big weakness of GURPS was that it was so expansive that there didn't seem (to me at least) to be dedicated support for the various settings. By that I mean the players, not the designers, supplied the background.

D&D expanded in part because of player demand for more stuff. Indeed, the expansion was ultimately self-defeating and wrecked TSR, but there was a creative (that is to say, not purely profit) motive involved.

So as we talk about quality game design, we can also talk about making them financially viable.

A branch of that discussion (or a separate thread) might include how not to kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I should clarify that I'm talking about all long-term system, not just MTG, which I should note, I never did get around to playing.

It's good! Recent Wizards of the Coast actions have been kinda crappy, but the game itself is fun.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I should clarify that I'm talking about all long-term system, not just MTG, which I should note, I never did get around to playing.

Not all long-term systems are profit-focused systems. You can be a fan of a historical game that has been around for 30 years without being a whale or lacking in taste but it's highly unlikely that the game has made all that much money and its design priority is almost certainly not profit.

Right, but mobile apps aren't under discussion.

They should be, because mobile apps have demonstrated the best way to make money with a game. If you goal is to make money you absolutely should be studying how mobile shovelware has mastered the art of using the existence of a game as a structure to drive gambling addicts to hand over their wallets.

I think it's interesting that the original (and successful) GW model was diversity of games rather than planned obsolescence and loot boxes. I think that model only became viable once they got too big to fail (but still almost failed anyway).

I think GW's early success had more to do with first to market advantages and questionably legal business practices than diversity of quality games. GW established themselves as the only non-historical wargame and then leveraged it to create a walled garden where only GW products existed. They'd use sales data from third-party stores to identify markets, open a GW store nearby, and then the third-party store would mysteriously start having stock issues that drove customers to the GW store. It's not exactly the same whale-focused business model (which hadn't been discovered yet) but it's very much about marketing

And TBH GW games have never been very good games. They've always been wildly unbalanced, full of broken and ambiguous rules, and lacking in depth relative to their complexity. What they've had though is the critical mass effect of being the only option for many players and an extremely strong lore and aesthetic component that drives sales even when the rules are inexcusable .

Yeah, I don't seen the conflict.

The conflict is that the things that maximize profit are inherently destructive to a game. The more you use loot boxes, FOMO, and the new content treadmill the faster you burn through your available design space and frustrate your customers. Essentially you trade customer base for massive sales to your whale minority, making a ton of money until you run out of normal customers to sacrifice and even the whales stop buying. So you have a choice: if your goal is to make money you do all these things and game design is secondary at best compared to marketing, if your goal is to make a good game you reject the profit motive and all of its destructive effects.

You can design a game with future expansions in mind without making it crass or trashy.

"Sex sells" is a rule for a reason. If you want to make money with a game getting your share of the desperate losers who spend their entire paycheck on onlyfans subscriptions is going to make you way more money than obsessing over the details of historical accuracy vs. game balance in torpedo boat mechanics.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
Not all long-term systems are profit-focused systems. You can be a fan of a historical game that has been around for 30 years without being a whale or lacking in taste but it's highly unlikely that the game has made all that much money and its design priority is almost certainly not profit.

Cumulatively, it might. Obviously if a company remains in business for 30 years, it is probably doing something right.

They should be, because mobile apps have demonstrated the best way to make money with a game. If you goal is to make money you absolutely should be studying how mobile shovelware has mastered the art of using the existence of a game as a structure to drive gambling addicts to hand over their wallets.

Then start a thread on it!

I think GW's early success had more to do with first to market advantages and questionably legal business practices than diversity of quality games.

Early GW is nothing like it is today. White Dwarf was a general hobby magazine and GW was TSR's UK licensee. It's interesting that they are still, even now, strip-mining stuff they came up with 30 years ago because there is so little talent left on staff.

But that also is a tribute to how much creativity they had going back then. Miniatures were a mainstay of the business, but they also supported RPGs and board games, and of course partnerships with the likes of Milton Bradley. Very different environment that today, which makes them a poor model for startup enterprises.

The conflict is that the things that maximize profit are inherently destructive to a game. The more you use loot boxes, FOMO, and the new content treadmill the faster you burn through your available design space and frustrate your customers. Essentially you trade customer base for massive sales to your whale minority, making a ton of money until you run out of normal customers to sacrifice and even the whales stop buying. So you have a choice: if your goal is to make money you do all these things and game design is secondary at best compared to marketing, if your goal is to make a good game you reject the profit motive and all of its destructive effects.

Again, I think this is a false choice. You can do expansions without letting them get out of hand. Obviously, this is the great temptation and before it lost the license, it was clear Decipher had cluttered up the Star Wars CCG to the point where it was no longer a unified design. This wasn't unsolvable - there were signs that they understood that the game might have to be broken into themes so that decks could interact with one another. In the event, the roof fell in and that was that.

"Sex sells" is a rule for a reason. If you want to make money with a game getting your share of the desperate losers who spend their entire paycheck on onlyfans subscriptions is going to make you way more money than obsessing over the details of historical accuracy vs. game balance in torpedo boat mechanics.

LOL, it may sell, but it's getting cheaper all the time. If that's you're model, success is far from certain. I actually know people who went that route for the exact reasons you've outlined and they failed utterly. How awful to have "failed pornographer" in ones CV?

Anyhow, I think the discussion can move forward on the following assumptions:

Dakka designers are motivated more by quality and profit. Topic, for example, is a huge source of motivation.

Profit is however a consideration, if for no other reason than to keep the enterprise viable.

So what are people looking at?

Regarding learning to Code and making Mobile games....

I have always contended that if I wanted to make money as an Indie game designer, I would be better off recycling cans from the side of the road.

 Easy E wrote:
Regarding learning to Code and making Mobile games....

I have always contended that if I wanted to make money as an Indie game designer, I would be better off recycling cans from the side of the road.

There are a few career paths that are pretty much guaranteed high income, but they often have steep entry costs, both in education and effort. Or you could just be born into the right family. Life's funny that way.

The real issue is what brings one joy. I know people who have given up higher-paying jobs because they want work that doesn't feel like work. Can't argue with that.

Another model is having a day job that pays for hobbies and eventually making the hobbies pay for themselves in some way.

Authorship and game design are close cousins, and the tradeoffs mentioned about grinding out a design that is poor but produces income is similar to people who grind out a book in an endless series every two or three months to pay the rent.

Both can be competently done, but are unlikely to achieve any lasting reputation.

Where game design differs from writing books is that the designer may be building something for personal use as well. Thus, Conqueror, which has made some money, but mostly it scratches my personal fantasy/historical gaming itch.

With better marketing, improved graphics, it may do better, and when I get the time, I'll pursue both.

Finally, I want to say that creation is in many ways a leap of faith. You can't have a runaway surprise success unless you put something out there, and if you are going to bother, why not put out your best?