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I'd like to discuss the state of affairs with miniature war gaming and my question is: are their too many. With the dawn of crowdfunding we have seen a massive influx of New games and new companies. I gave concerns that this will water down the drink so to speak. I'm all for competition in this market, Lord knows we need it. But at what point do we draw the line tossing upstarts with some liquid plastic in a mold, a box of dice, and a book of rules before our market falls apart. When there is too much competition in a niche market like mwg's what you get is a community that is broken up and fragmented into a bunch of different Subgroups. And with fewer people to go around to attract to your game your going to see an already niche community become even more niche and more isolated. I'm worried that this will cause serious damage to the industry.

Now does this mean we should avoid the upstarts and stick to big box names. No not at all but I feel that we as a community need to be careful with who give our money too if we want to be able to have everyone enjoy the games that are available. Otherwise one day your going to day adepticon (as an example) and see literally a dozen or so guys playing one games and a dozen or so playing another and so on. And people getting all sorts of confused and lost in the pile of games the community has tried to bury them in.

More choice can only be a good thing. It keeps competition going, so the Big Names (other than GW) have to price things rationally; the less competition there is, the higher the cost can be set.

The fact there's a game for pretty much every genre now is also awesome, as whatever you want to do, you can. The fact new companies have the courage to go into previously untouched genres nowadays keeps things fresh and changing.

The other thing to remember is that people can easily play several games, and now most (especially skirmish) games have a startup cost of around £80 or less, people can get into a whole new game every few months, or even just once or twice a year. The result; people don't get bored, more games are played, and the market keeps expanding.

So no, there's not too many games out there, and to be honest, I'd go so far as to say this really is the Golden Age of wargaming, despite GW going down the pan.

I would like to reply to this thread, but Paradigm has already said what I wanted to say and far more eloquently so I'll just give a hearty "hear hear!" to his post.

There will only be too many games if people don't buy them, as kickstarter wargames tend to make well over their funding level I suspect that we are quite far away from market saturation.

Community fragmentation will occur to some level but gaming groups tend to play a range of games and most wargames are fairly cheap to buy into.

Choice > Conformity.

How is it possible to have too much choice? It is far better to play a game because you have chosen it as the one you are most likely to enjoy out of a range available, than because it is the only option available.

 ionusx wrote:
are their too many.

Yes, precisely two too many. We should ditch 40K and Fantasy. If we're still feeling a bit overloaded the Hobbit can be tossed out as well.

Also, most of the big KS campaigns are careful in that the 'sweet spot' gets you enough to introduce one or more friends to the game.

When it comes to miniature wargaming, no, not enough: Using the video game industry as an example, it crashed thanks to an endless release of mediocre games until it culminated with the infamous E.T. The keyword here is mediocre.

Unlike that particular dark moment, the wargaming games or boardgames with minis (like SDE, Zombiecide, etc.) are getting released with quality, with cool rules, with beautiful miniatures or cards or whatever it may bring.

Everything seems pretty ok right now, I hope it only improves over time.

P.S: Please, no badmouthing GW or 40k or Fantasy here... seriously, let's not turn this into another one of those threads.

I would say there aren't too many wargames. Gonna get a bit rambly here, so I'll bold underline my main points

The explosion of KS wargames, PDF-only rules (as seen on Wargames vault and others), and the multitude of indie games may make it seem like there are alot more wargames. However, the community is also alot bigger. I've got no stats to back it up, but I would venture to suggest that there aren't too many more wargames relative to the size of the community than there were in the past decade.

There have always been lots of wargames that hit the market with the best of intentions, flared brightly for a bit (or bombed completely) and then disappeared. It's just that in the 90's for example, they weren't quite so well cataloged online.

The other factor, that is often ignored is that while we say we want to play the game we buy, many wargames are purchased essentially for collections or bought by people who just don't game that often. Not to say they have any collectors value, but there's an unstated understanding among wargamers that a large chunk of games will be bought and sent strait to the cupboard, probably forever.

I game every other week and I've still got hundreds of figures that have never hit the workbench)much less the table) many rulesets that will never be played, and over the years I've purchased thousands of figures that have been admired and then resold without being played with.

I think many of the KS games that come out are destined to just such a fate. They will be bought admired, read, pondered, planned, and then put away. Some will stick around however, and this is what makes the multitude of recent games so exciting: The more games that exist, the more likely it is that those that survive will be of higher quality than what came before.

Welcome to the free market. If there's too many games, you'll see some of them die off soon.

Personally I think there's too many niche games and figures, but I'm not complaining. The reality though is that you tend to have two camps:

1) GW's games suck but I like their figures (except the cost)
2) I like GW's games but the figures are too expensive

It seems to me like the real sweet spot for games is to do one or both of making a game like WHFB/40k but with more balanced rules (e.g. Mantic) or make figures that are basically Not-GW ripoffs to appeal to the crowd that wants for example quasi sci-fi military but don't want to pay the absurd amounts that GW charges.

Everything else just seems superfluous to me and too niche; do we really need half a dozen historical skirmish games that are never going to catch on? I'd rather see more miniatures and less "here's a new X wargame", for example I'd rather see a company come out with high quality Roman miniatures of all periods (or even like paired matchups e.g. come out with Polybian Roman and Carthage armies together), than yet another Historical wargame, or quality WW2 figures instead of another set of rules for that time period.

Too much glut makes it harder to separate the wheat from the chaff, it reminds me a lot of how Open Source software works - do you really need five different word processors that each do the same thing but different? No, but everyone thinks that Product X should have Y feature and goes to make their own version.

That's just me though. I'll say that more choice is good, but it has to be the right kind of choice.

This plurality of rules and scales we are seeing return to the science fiction and fantasy wargaming market used to be the norm. And has always been the norm among historical miniature wargaming. Usually with a given set of rules and scale forming the largest single block with a huge variety of others splitting up the rest of the mind share. It works.

Only if you belive their wasn't a crap load of options before, then you would of been mislead. Wonder what kind of company would push that belief.

That's like saying there are too many RPGs. There are SO many RPGs, and it hasn't killed the RPG market or community.

One thing I have noticed in the past couple of years is that Wargames are becoming smaller and more accessible, and the lines between board games and Wargames are blurring more every day. I think part of the reason for this is the way the market is expanding.

Wargames companies are targeting a wider demographic, and the amount of competition has I think encouraged new companies to keep their products trim and cost efficient, thereby making it easier for potential customers to try the product.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this. The increased competition has meant that companies have to up their game.

It's why the smaller scale games are doing well.

With free rules and starter sets that cost less than GW's rulebooks, it's easier to play have multiple games.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Personally I think there's too many niche games and figures, but I'm not complaining. The reality though is that you tend to have two camps:

1) GW's games suck but I like their figures (except the cost)
2) I like GW's games but the figures are too expensive

It seems to me like the real sweet spot for games is to do one or both of making a game like WHFB/40k but with more balanced rules (e.g. Mantic) or make figures that are basically Not-GW ripoffs to appeal to the crowd that wants for example quasi sci-fi military but don't want to pay the absurd amounts that GW charges.

Don't forget about those who think that GW games and miniatures suck and are both too expensive. There's alot of those folks too.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Everything else just seems superfluous to me and too niche; do we really need half a dozen historical skirmish games that are never going to catch on? I'd rather see more miniatures and less "here's a new X wargame", for example I'd rather see a company come out with high quality Roman miniatures of all periods (or even like paired matchups e.g. come out with Polybian Roman and Carthage armies together), than yet another Historical wargame, or quality WW2 figures instead of another set of rules for that time period.

I think historical miniatures gamers would disagree with you. Historical gamers have always mixed miniatures and rules, and rarely tie themsleves to one system or manufacturer and thus have always enjoyed having a multitude of choices for period/scope/war/etc. Not being tied to one ruleset means that they tend to look at the variety as a good thing even if it's in the minutiae that makes sci-fi and fantasy gamers say "why bother".

WayneTheGame wrote:

Too much glut makes it harder to separate the wheat from the chaff, it reminds me a lot of how Open Source software works - do you really need five different word processors that each do the same thing but different? No, but everyone thinks that Product X should have Y feature and goes to make their own version.

That's just me though. I'll say that more choice is good, but it has to be the right kind of choice.

There may be alot of chaff out there, but one person's chaff might well be another's wheat. I've enjoyed investigating many different rulesets to find the ones that most fit my (and my club's) gaming style. Even the ones I discarded were often an interesting read and provided gaming ideas that I could use later. Finding the best set of rules isn't necessarily a destination, it can simply be a journey filled with lots of games.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Personally I think there's too many niche games and figures, but I'm not complaining. The reality though is that you tend to have two camps:

1) GW's games suck but I like their figures (except the cost)
2) I like GW's games but the figures are too expensive

Sorry but there is a third. While very few will admit it there are those of us that do think you get a decent value for what you pay for. I know I've had the same Orks going almost 20 years now. And GWs game systems aren't that bad if you stay away from the YMTC forum here and not pollute your mind with every little rules dispute you see here on this site. Taken at face value 40K is actually a decent game system.

Boss GreenNutz wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:
Personally I think there's too many niche games and figures, but I'm not complaining. The reality though is that you tend to have two camps:

1) GW's games suck but I like their figures (except the cost)
2) I like GW's games but the figures are too expensive

Sorry but there is a third.

And a fourth. GW games suck and I don't particularly like their figures.

Noir wrote:
Only if you belive their wasn't a crap load of options before, then you would of been mislead. Wonder what kind of company would push that belief.

The size of the other options was negligible during the mid to late 90s and early 00s, at GW's height. The size of the non-GW scifi and fantasy market today is much, much larger than 10 years ago.

I kind of feel this way, but I've stopped playing games virtually completely, maybe an odd game of 40k once a year. There are certainly too many games for me and my friends to get into, just too much money to spend. Now I just collect, so I guess it is a good thing as there are lots of nice lines out there now with quality miniatures.

But I've also started hoarding this crap, and have far more minis than I can possibly paint, especially when I buy the next shiney new thing out there.

It's just part of the internet revolution as a whole.

I mean, the movie industry, book publishing industry and music industry have all had to deal with this change. No reason wargamming should be immune.

In the end, though, it's a good thing. Gatekeepers are only at their height of usefulness in situations of scarce distribution. As that's not the case anymore, their utility is diminished.

I mean, think about it. What is more likely to generate the next great work of fiction, a thousand writers working through a few publishing companies, or millions or writers working through thousands of publishing companies? Yes, you'll have a lot more chaff, but you're drastically increasing your chance of something great.

The only people this move hurts is people who both have a lot of talent, and also have middling connections who now need to fight harder to be seen, but people with great connections will still be seen (if George RR martin released the next book on kindle publishing alone, I'm sure he'd still get some people buying his book), and people without connections wont' get constantly shot down by gatekeepers.

Really, it's best for nearly everybody, including the customer. Wargamming included.

 frozenwastes wrote:

Noir wrote:
Only if you belive their wasn't a crap load of options before, then you would of been mislead. Wonder what kind of company would push that belief.

The size of the other options was negligible during the mid to late 90s and early 00s, at GW's height. The size of the non-GW scifi and fantasy market today is much, much larger than 10 years ago.

I think that's a bit misleading.
There were other options and lots of them. Many made big attempts at beating GW and failed, but many of them had large miniature lines and multi-year runs before their demise.
Remember Battlesystem, Warzone, Chronopia, Void, Battletech, Kryomek, Fantasy Warriors, Shockforce, Ronin, Clan War, etc, etc...
Sure the options were was fewer and some were smaller than the big alternate players of today, but as a proportion of the wargaming market (which is much larger today) they were definitely significant and probably made up a similar slice of the economic pie.

Go and do historical wargaming.

One of my armies has figures from 13 different companies in it.

Wouldn't change that level of choice for anything.

Big P wrote:
Go and do historical wargaming.

One of my armies has figures from 13 different companies in it.

Wouldn't change that level of choice for anything.

I'm not at all interested in historical, but I like your miniature choice philosophy. I've got a few warbands for Song of Blades and Heroes where there are 8 brands of miniatures in a 14 miniature warband, and my Kings of War army is almost as diverse. The choices are out there, it's just whether or not someone steps out and takes advantage of it.

IDK why GW should be held up as an example of variety in wargames. They are the biggest single company and publish essentially one game that hasn't varied in any significant aspect of its mechanisms for 30 years.

Over the same period, Ancients alone has seen the appearance of WRG 6th and 7th editions, WHAB, WRG DBA, WRG DBM, Impetus, Warrior, Warmaster Ancients, Hail Caesar, Field of Glory, WRG DBMM, and for all I know some other rulesets too.

 Eilif wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:

Noir wrote:
Only if you belive their wasn't a crap load of options before, then you would of been mislead. Wonder what kind of company would push that belief.

The size of the other options was negligible during the mid to late 90s and early 00s, at GW's height. The size of the non-GW scifi and fantasy market today is much, much larger than 10 years ago.

I think that's a bit misleading.

It's more than a bit. History is filled with counterexamples. It's not that there weren't competitors, it's that the competitors failed, so we don't remember them as easily anymore.

The list goes on and on of games that were "better" than 40k, but failed because being of being more balanced, and therefore shallow and really predictable, and once everyone figured out the one strongest way to play the game they just did it that one way until they found out who was better and then moved on. Other games may be better in the short run, but they also get boring. And ennui is much more fatal to games than imbalance or crazy shifting meta or new stuff constantly happening (which, in fact, is what makes games like 40k stronger, not weaker). Games either die, or the follow the slow, unbalanced bloating that games like MTG and 40k have followed.

Kilkrazy wrote:Over the same period, Ancients alone has seen the appearance of WRG 6th and 7th editions, WHAB, WRG DBA, WRG DBM, Impetus, Warrior, Warmaster Ancients, Hail Caesar, Field of Glory, WRG DBMM, and for all I know some other rulesets too.

Yeah, and that's not the only one. There are a few games that have stuck around for more than a few permutations. Even if they're just reskins, then at least they're still reskins.

never thought I'd hear someone complain of saturation. See it as antimonopoly-ism.

If it was so diverse it was impossible to find a game in your area with someone using the same system it could be a problem. On the other hand if you collect two forces for the same game you can always let someone use one. Showing someone how to play and then getting some games in is better than not playing at all.

Col. Tartleton wrote:If it was so diverse it was impossible to find a game in your area with someone using the same system it could be a problem. On the other hand if you collect two forces for the same game you can always let someone use one. Showing someone how to play and then getting some games in is better than not playing at all.

Yeah, there is the fear that you will lose the "culture", whether it be for music or wargames, etc.

I don't know how much I buy this argument though. If it were true, then you wouldn't have things like videos going viral on the internet, or memes, or massive kickstarter projects. Just because you have a lot more options doesn't necessarily mean that people won't flock to the more successful things.

I seem to have two issues with all the new stuff.

1) Skirmish games. There's a ton... and I don't like skirmish games. There are two 'army' games - WFB and Kings of War. That's it that I'm aware of.

2) Community. I can go to the local FLGS and pick up a game of WFB with ease. 40K and Warmahordes is also well represented. Beyond that... you have to hunt up another player for a different system and make an appointment to play them. It's a lot of extra hassle, and I don't have THAT much extra free time.

Just my two cents worth. May not even be worth that much.

The answer of course is to build your own "culture". It takes time and intentionality, but building one's own gaming group of like-minded gamers can be the long-term answer to having folks who like to play the kind of games you play. It's not as easy as finding your opponents at the FLGS, but it's a great way to build lasting friendships and it's likely more stable also..

I've been gaming with the same group of guys every other week for almost 4 years now. We play the kinds of games we like and are in no way subject to the whims of game designers, FLGS's, local "communities", etc. We have our favorites, but have tried dozens of rulesets. We of course don't try everything, but I don't think anyone in the club would say that the massive number of available rulesets is anything other than a good thing.