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Have Mantic ever explained why they always turn to Kickstarter with new projects? I understand it's the easiest way to see if there is a market for something, but it seems like at this point they have enough money to not have to crowd source things constantly and I find it off putting as a company practice that they do. For me crowd funding is something that allows indie groups to put something in production at a scale that makes other wise unaffordable projects possible, niche projects that won't bring in a lot of profit, but the developer wants to exist and that niche is willing to support.

The problem with wargaming's middle ground companies (clearly beyond indie but now PP/GW) is that they're all turning to kickstarter with every project now. It gets in the way of creativity (If I promise you a blue ball, but a red ball looks better, I can't switch those colours out for a basic example) and shows that companies don't have faith in the project they're working on because they want to be paid upfront rather than letting the quality of the product sell it when it comes out. Being paid upfront also can lead to people half arsing a job because the incentive is already in their back pocket so they have no reason to go the extra mile to get it.

Yes, they have an entire page devoted to it on their web site.

http://www.manticgames.com/kickstarter/why-kickstarter.html

I'm not a fan of it either.

The problem with Kickstarter is that it allows a company to generate a bunch of money all at once, and bring out a big, initial release. Which is fine, but then you can run into production problems and the like. And then they have to either try to bring out regular releases, or go back to Kickstarter. Which, again, allows for an injection of interest/money, but with diminishing returns. And it only compounds the initial problems.

I'm a fan of Wild West Exodus, but they've had to do two Kickstarters to get 9 of the 10 factions onto the tabletop. The one faction that wasn't Kickstarted is seriously under-developed and has some big balance issues.

I don't agree with anything anyone has posted here, except for

 Maccwar wrote:
Yes, they have an entire page devoted to it on their web site.

http://www.manticgames.com/kickstarter/why-kickstarter.html

The same Kickstarter criticisms are debunked in every big KS project thread

At this point in Kickstarter's lifespan, it's value is for publicity as much, or more, than for money.

Mantic has said that each time they do a new Kickstarter, half the backers are new customers to them, who have never backed a Mantic Kickstarter or bought from their webstore.

That's probably more valuable to an established company like Mantic than the money is.

This applies to all established companies. For example, I just got my stuff from Wamp's Kickstarter. They make paint brushes. I had never heard of them before the Kickstarter. But the brushes I got are very nice, and now they have me as a customer. Wamp didn't need to do a Kickstarter to make new brushes, but they did it to get new customers.

Because restic doesn't sell well when people can actually see it beforehand.

Sadly it does. I often think wargamers masochistic purchasing practices has a lot to do with the state of the industry.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Sadly it does. I often think wargamers masochistic purchasing practices has a lot to do with the state of the industry.

That's sad. I can't imagine anyone would intentionally saddle themselves with the poor miniature quality that I received from the KoW1 and Deadzone1 overlapping kickstarters; the experience moved me completely away from Mantic and anything that they produce.

To the OP, no they do not have enough money not to crowd source things. If they didn't, product releases would be painfully slow.

 mattjgilbert wrote:
To the OP, no they do not have enough money not to crowd source things. If they didn't, product releases would be painfully slow.

Yeah, painfully slow releases would be just so much worse than having the games be dead on arrival like they are, since everyone that was interested in them bought them during the Kickstarter. And before the cries of how great after Kickstarter sales are, they aren't, based on the three stores within driving distance of me. I'm glad they're undoubtedly flourishing at all of your local stores. Deadzone got about 5 seconds of interest around here, before people started treating it like diseased roadkill and went back to playing 40K or Warmahordes.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Sadly it does. I often think wargamers masochistic purchasing practices has a lot to do with the state of the industry.

You mean more companies than ever before producing more viable options for games and figures than ever before across a huge variety of genres along with a crossover with the boardgame renaissance?

 Azazelx wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Sadly it does. I often think wargamers masochistic purchasing practices has a lot to do with the state of the industry.

You mean more companies than ever before producing more viable options for games and figures than ever before across a huge variety of genres along with a crossover with the boardgame renaissance?

Naw, more like unannounced material swaps, models not looking remotely like the concept art, pee-pee dance Ogres, trolls with malnourished legs, restic model issues, poor rules writing, box contents changing unannounced, retail prices cheaper than Kickstarter backers. ....etc... And still backing every Kickstarter they produce. That's masochistic. . It basically tells Mantic that they can continue to produce rubbish and as long as they give people a lot of it, they'll continue to buy.

Those are Mantic's individual failings, and you should know that I'm as critical of them as anyone else here.

The industry on the other hand has never been better, IMO.

 Azazelx wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Sadly it does. I often think wargamers masochistic purchasing practices has a lot to do with the state of the industry.

You mean more companies than ever before producing more viable options for games and figures than ever before across a huge variety of genres along with a crossover with the boardgame renaissance?

I mean the crappy sculpts, rules and castings churned out. People bitch at mantic for restic and still buy it, people bitch at GW for crappy rules and still buy them, people bitch at KD for being to expensive but still buy it. No amount of whining about using kickstarter, covering everything in skulls, soft detail, poor materials, dodgy sculpts or poor scale will make the slightest difference if twenty seconds latter you order ten of each from the pledge manager and put your coat on to head to the nearest GW.

You do realise that "people" represents different people, of course. Like, people bitch at GW for crappy rules and other people buy the game. Others bitch about crappy rules but buy products because they like the models. Vice versa as well with the Mantic stuff.

To wit:
I'm not excited by the AoS rules. They might be fun, but they'll be nothing more than a distraction. However, I really like the models, so my AoS purchase is for the rules and not the models.

Similarly, my DeadZone purchase was for the rules and scenery, (and the HIPS) while the Restic that came with it was almost disposable and I managed to not buy any expensive restic or metal add-ons.

Both examples represent "imperfect" purchases, but ones that are nonetheless worthwhile because of the quality of the element that I'm happy with outweighs the stuff that's less than perfect.

But mostly, because people aren't all the one person. It's like the people who complain about "Dakka" - like the people on the forum are a hivemind.

 Azazelx wrote:
You do realise that "people" represents different people, of course. Like, people bitch at GW for crappy rules and other people buy the game. Others bitch about crappy rules but buy products because they like the models. Vice versa as well with the Mantic stuff.

To wit:
I'm not excited by the AoS rules. They might be fun, but they'll be nothing more than a distraction. However, I really like the models, so my AoS purchase is for the rules and not the models.

Similarly, my DeadZone purchase was for the rules and scenery, (and the HIPS) while the Restic that came with it was almost disposable and I managed to not buy any expensive restic or metal add-ons.

Both examples represent "imperfect" purchases, but ones that are nonetheless worthwhile because of the quality of the element that I'm happy with outweighs the stuff that's less than perfect.

But mostly, because people aren't all the one person. It's like the people who complain about "Dakka" - like the people on the forum are a hivemind.

So what you are saying is you didn't like AOS but bought it. You don't like restic but bought it. To mantic and GW it makes no difference. I'm guilty of it myself, I bought GW fantasy models before AOS replaces them with a different aesthetic, to GW it makes no difference than if I bought them because I love AOS and want o play it to the exclusion of all else, whats worse it is probably shows and a bump in sales post release. Do you really believe all the complaining forum warriors are not buying the stuff they complain about, or are you an exception?

agnosto wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Sadly it does. I often think wargamers masochistic purchasing practices has a lot to do with the state of the industry.

That's sad. I can't imagine anyone would intentionally saddle themselves with the poor miniature quality

I see masochistic people. Walking around like regular people. They don't see the poor miniature quality. They only see what they want to see. They don't know it's crap. I see them all the time. They're everywhere.

agnosto wrote:pee-pee dance Ogres, trolls with malnourished legs... That's masochistic.

That.

Gotta be honest, I don't even have a clue what Mantic's restic quality is like. I just see pics of the kind of awful designs like those and get turned off right away, before I get anywhere near the contribute or add-to-cart buttons. I was all for non-flabby-mongol ogres too, when Mantic announced those plans way back when.

It basically tells Mantic that they can continue to produce rubbish and as long as they give people a lot of it, they'll continue to buy.

That. The bit that I'm talking about goes well beyond Mantic, too. Some areas of wargaming are plagued with badly aged sculpting styles and cartoony, unbalanced, 'X-treme' designs, 'cos that's what punters keep snapping up. Fewer sculptors and businesses seem to want to try something in between, either tidied up or toned down.

 Azazelx wrote:
Those are Mantic's individual failings, and you should know that I'm as critical of them as anyone else here.

The industry on the other hand has never been better, IMO.

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

It's not entirely binary, though. For example, Proxie minis makes some generic sci fi infantry that are decent, but nowhere near comparable to most plastic miniatures. However, they are also a lot cheaper...

 agnosto wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Those are Mantic's individual failings, and you should know that I'm as critical of them as anyone else here.

The industry on the other hand has never been better, IMO.

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

People hold different standards to you and have different objectives when buying these products. If they're looking for playing pieces the quality of craftsmanship isn't relevant to them. You're applying your value of restick onto their value of playing pieces and acting superior for it.

 BrokenColony wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Those are Mantic's individual failings, and you should know that I'm as critical of them as anyone else here.

The industry on the other hand has never been better, IMO.

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

People hold different standards to you and have different objectives when buying these products. If they're looking for playing pieces the quality of craftsmanship isn't relevant to them. You're applying your value of restick onto their value of playing pieces and acting superior for it.

I hardly feel superior but thank you for the personal attack.

If you are able to actually read what I wrote rather than contrive some personal insult from it; I'm expressing confusion over how companies are able to continue to produce objectively inferior products (at least when compared to other manufacturers in the same industry). I'm self-admittedly a horrible modeller and painter and so look at the miniatures that I own as playing pieces for the games that I play, playing pieces that requires some preparation, assembly and painting which adds to the enjoyment. The problem that I have is in the amount of work involved in remediating sub-standard models (i.e. Mantic restic) before I'm actually able to use them on a table to play a game.

Here's an example for a Dakka user (I had the same issue):


Then there are issues with no communication before swapping materials

And it's not just issues with their restic but some of the plastic is horrible as well:


These are objective problems with sculpts, material. Sure, beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I would think that any objective observer can look at these and say that there are issues.

Nothing's ever perfect but I'd expect to be able to actually assemble models without extensive modification when I buy them, but I suppose that I'm just acting "superior" when I expect that.

Sure is a good thing that the recent efforts have all been pretty ace.

Interesting use of the goblins they released before their first ever Kickstarter though. Proves a point that they were in a bad place, and have now gotten on a pretty good track thanks to Kickstarter.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
You do realise that "people" represents different people, of course. Like, people bitch at GW for crappy rules and other people buy the game. Others bitch about crappy rules but buy products because they like the models. Vice versa as well with the Mantic stuff.

To wit:
I'm not excited by the AoS rules. They might be fun, but they'll be nothing more than a distraction. However, I really like the models, so my AoS purchase is for the rules and not the models.
Similarly, my DeadZone purchase was for the rules and scenery, (and the HIPS) while the Restic that came with it was almost disposable and I managed to not buy any expensive restic or metal add-ons.
Both examples represent "imperfect" purchases, but ones that are nonetheless worthwhile because of the quality of the element that I'm happy with outweighs the stuff that's less than perfect.
But mostly, because people aren't all the one person. It's like the people who complain about "Dakka" - like the people on the forum are a hivemind.

So what you are saying is you didn't like AOS but bought it. You don't like restic but bought it. To mantic and GW it makes no difference.

Nice try at being aggressively obtuse. Seriously, don't be a dick.

The AoS rules might be simple and flawed, and I don't especially expect to use them much, but I consider them free (because they are) and I bought a big box of lovely figures that had the free rules packed in. Similarly with Mantic's restic. I don't give two gaks.

I'm guilty of it myself, I bought GW fantasy models before AOS replaces them with a different aesthetic, to GW it makes no difference than if I bought them because I love AOS and want o play it to the exclusion of all else, whats worse it is probably shows and a bump in sales post release.

Again, who gives a gak? I don't particularly like GW as a company, but I'll buy whichever products I like. Just like I don't especially like Disney as a company, but I'll watch the Avengers and Star Wars. Or (insert product/company combo here). You see, I'm not on an ideological crusade as you seem to think that I an everyone else is. Or should be.

Do you really believe all the complaining forum warriors are not buying the stuff they complain about, or are you an exception?

I'm a "complaining forum warrior" now? FFS. I'm sure that some people complaining about AoS are buying it, and some are not. I wrote up my thoughts about the whole thing the other day. As I said, I'm pretty nonplussed by the whole thing. I've seen plenty of /ragequit armies recently, though.
https://azazelx.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/the-one-about-the-age-of-sigmar-2/




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Those are Mantic's individual failings, and you should know that I'm as critical of them as anyone else here.

The industry on the other hand has never been better, IMO.

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

Really? You must expect nothing short of your own personal version of perfection. Rubicon's WW2 armour are pretty fething good. It takes literal experts like Big P and Tailgunner to critique them properly. Warlord Games' Bolt Action and Hail Caesar stuff? Sub-Par? PSC's 15mm WW2 armour? Raging Heroes? They're too endomorphic for you? Vic Minis' not-guardsmen? Mad Robot's not-guardsmen? Following the general aesthetic of GW too closely while improving on it too much? Reaper? Avatars of War? Wargames Foundry? Prodos?

Which companies are producing products that meet your exacting standards? Or is your point that not everything produced by all of these companies is perfect, because in that case I've got some news for you about gaming and indeed - everything in life that's going to be pretty disappointing for you...

 judgedoug wrote:
Sure is a good thing that the recent efforts have all been pretty ace.

Interesting use of the goblins they released before their first ever Kickstarter though. Proves a point that they were in a bad place, and have now gotten on a pretty good track thanks to Kickstarter.

Hey, I love their undead and that's what pulled me in to begin with. I wasn't necessarily talking specifically about KS at the point I pulled the goblin up. But it is interesting that they started strongly with the undead and dwarfs and some good elf models (I like willowy elves myself) and then lost themselves, even in plastic. I'm more speaking to quality rather than specifically material, though I have issues with restic as you know, because you can make good restic models and poor plastic models.

I guess companies like GW and Mantic should consider themselves lucky that they have strong enough supporters that continue to buy their products after they've made some misses. Mantic burned me with some bad figures (my opinion) and I won't do business with them again on the same token, GW's rules are generally terrible (again, my opinion). Obviously people like them, even if I don't understand it myself, and buy their models and rules; ultimately, that's great because they can't improve if they no longer exist as a company. I'm hoping that one day I'll find a company that checks all of my boxes and that I can find enough people interested in playing their games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

Really? You must expect nothing short of your own personal version of perfection. Rubicon's WW2 armour are pretty fething good. It takes literal experts like Big P and Tailgunner to critique them properly. Warlord Games' Bolt Action and Hail Caesar stuff? Sub-Par? PSC's 15mm WW2 armour? Raging Heroes? They're too endomorphic for you? Vic Minis' not-guardsmen? Mad Robot's not-guardsmen? Following the general aesthetic of GW too closely while improving on it too much? Reaper? Avatars of War? Wargames Foundry? Prodos?

Which companies are producing products that meet your exacting standards? Or is your point that not everything produced by all of these companies is perfect, because in that case I've got some news for you about gaming and indeed - everything in life that's going to be pretty disappointing for you...

Why are you so angry; did I step on your dog without noticing? I expressed an opinion, feel free to disagree but there's no need for the vitriol. Historic hasn't been my thing for a while but I've seen some of Rubicon's stuff and they're great, the same with Warlord's stuff (even though I'm not a fan of their sci-fi). One of my favorite models is the Avatars of War Ogre Chief...man, that's a great model but, as I said, I'm a terrible modeller and too much metal isn't ideal for me.

I guess that my hobby tendencies have finally reached the point where many people already are and have been long before me. The realization that you can mix and match the good and great from a variety of sources to get what you're looking for in a model. I see some truly fantastic stuff on this board, made by other people, and it makes me a bit jealous that I don't have the ability to make my models look like that but I'm trying to improve and learn more. In the mean time, I'll still run into things that I don't like and I'll still have an opinion about them.

 agnosto wrote:

Why are you so angry; did I step on your dog without noticing? I expressed an opinion, feel free to disagree but there's no need for the vitriol. Historic hasn't been my thing for a while but I've seen some of Rubicon's stuff and they're great, the same with Warlord's stuff (even though I'm not a fan of their sci-fi). One of my favorite models is the Avatars of War Ogre Chief...man, that's a great model but, as I said, I'm a terrible modeller and too much metal isn't ideal for me.

I guess that my hobby tendencies have finally reached the point where many people already are and have been long before me. The realization that you can mix and match the good and great from a variety of sources to get what you're looking for in a model. I see some truly fantastic stuff on this board, made by other people, and it makes me a bit jealous that I don't have the ability to make my models look like that but I'm trying to improve and learn more. In the mean time, I'll still run into things that I don't like and I'll still have an opinion about them.

You said something that was patently stupid (See below), and I have low tolerance for stupid. Sweeping comments like that (every company is gak) are neither big nor clever and make me wonder why you're even interested in this hobby if you're not happy about many potential sources for your toys . What you've just said about taking what you like and ignoring what you don't is a lot more sensible and in line with my own attitude.

 agnosto wrote:

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

 Azazelx wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
You do realise that "people" represents different people, of course. Like, people bitch at GW for crappy rules and other people buy the game. Others bitch about crappy rules but buy products because they like the models. Vice versa as well with the Mantic stuff.

To wit:
I'm not excited by the AoS rules. They might be fun, but they'll be nothing more than a distraction. However, I really like the models, so my AoS purchase is for the rules and not the models.
Similarly, my DeadZone purchase was for the rules and scenery, (and the HIPS) while the Restic that came with it was almost disposable and I managed to not buy any expensive restic or metal add-ons.
Both examples represent "imperfect" purchases, but ones that are nonetheless worthwhile because of the quality of the element that I'm happy with outweighs the stuff that's less than perfect.
But mostly, because people aren't all the one person. It's like the people who complain about "Dakka" - like the people on the forum are a hivemind.

So what you are saying is you didn't like AOS but bought it. You don't like restic but bought it. To mantic and GW it makes no difference.

Nice try at being aggressively obtuse. Seriously, don't be a dick.

The AoS rules might be simple and flawed, and I don't especially expect to use them much, but I consider them free (because they are) and I bought a big box of lovely figures that had the free rules packed in. Similarly with Mantic's restic. I don't give two gaks.

I'm guilty of it myself, I bought GW fantasy models before AOS replaces them with a different aesthetic, to GW it makes no difference than if I bought them because I love AOS and want o play it to the exclusion of all else, whats worse it is probably shows and a bump in sales post release.

Again, who gives a gak? I don't particularly like GW as a company, but I'll buy whichever products I like. Just like I don't especially like Disney as a company, but I'll watch the Avengers and Star Wars. Or (insert product/company combo here). You see, I'm not on an ideological crusade as you seem to think that I an everyone else is. Or should be.

Do you really believe all the complaining forum warriors are not buying the stuff they complain about, or are you an exception?

I'm a "complaining forum warrior" now? FFS. I'm sure that some people complaining about AoS are buying it, and some are not. I wrote up my thoughts about the whole thing the other day. As I said, I'm pretty nonplussed by the whole thing. I've seen plenty of /ragequit armies recently, though.
https://azazelx.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/the-one-about-the-age-of-sigmar-2/




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 agnosto wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Those are Mantic's individual failings, and you should know that I'm as critical of them as anyone else here.

The industry on the other hand has never been better, IMO.

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

Really? You must expect nothing short of your own personal version of perfection. Rubicon's WW2 armour are pretty fething good. It takes literal experts like Big P and Tailgunner to critique them properly. Warlord Games' Bolt Action and Hail Caesar stuff? Sub-Par? PSC's 15mm WW2 armour? Raging Heroes? They're too endomorphic for you? Vic Minis' not-guardsmen? Mad Robot's not-guardsmen? Following the general aesthetic of GW too closely while improving on it too much? Reaper? Avatars of War? Wargames Foundry? Prodos?

Which companies are producing products that meet your exacting standards? Or is your point that not everything produced by all of these companies is perfect, because in that case I've got some news for you about gaming and indeed - everything in life that's going to be pretty disappointing for you...

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

You appear to give a gak or you would not have got so aggressive. I never said you had to engage in an ideological crusade but if you give you hard earned dollars to a company for doing something its unreasonable not to expect them not to keep doing it.

I think in all fairness both you and I can be considered complaining forum warriors.

Nice rebuttal. Skip over the points, quote the whole thing and make an entirely different reply.

As I've said, the AoS rules are disappointing, but ultimately I don't give much of a feth about them because I bought the boxes for the models. You seem to think there's some huge flaw there, but simply put - other people do things for reasons other than why you might. If I buy a bundle of something that happens to have some crap I'm not interested in included, I'll just throw it to the side. Because I'm not on an ideological crusade. Won't stop me from making snide remarks though.

I get aggressive when people attempt to put words in my mouth. Which you did/attempted to do. I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from doing that in future. We could have a much more friendly chat then.

 Azazelx wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

Why are you so angry; did I step on your dog without noticing? I expressed an opinion, feel free to disagree but there's no need for the vitriol. Historic hasn't been my thing for a while but I've seen some of Rubicon's stuff and they're great, the same with Warlord's stuff (even though I'm not a fan of their sci-fi). One of my favorite models is the Avatars of War Ogre Chief...man, that's a great model but, as I said, I'm a terrible modeller and too much metal isn't ideal for me.

I guess that my hobby tendencies have finally reached the point where many people already are and have been long before me. The realization that you can mix and match the good and great from a variety of sources to get what you're looking for in a model. I see some truly fantastic stuff on this board, made by other people, and it makes me a bit jealous that I don't have the ability to make my models look like that but I'm trying to improve and learn more. In the mean time, I'll still run into things that I don't like and I'll still have an opinion about them.

You said something that was patently stupid (See below), and I have low tolerance for stupid. Sweeping comments like that (every company is gak) are neither big nor clever and make me wonder why you're even interested in this hobby if you're not happy about many potential sources for your toys . What you've just said about taking what you like and ignoring what you don't is a lot more sensible and in line with my own attitude.

 agnosto wrote:

Kind of my point really. All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along. That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

What a pleasant person you are. Sweeping generalizations are not necessarily "stupid", as you say, but are used to express a general sentiment. I suppose that you could make a mature rebuttal to my statement but instead chose to be asinine, congratulations. And I suppose you'll refute my statement with some proof that there is a company out there that has never, nor will ever make a sub-par product, but that's apparently asking too much of you.

I used to read your comments and think that you were a bit irascible but I think that I'll revise that and just consider you to be a rude person who is not interested in having a conversation but would rather just fight with people on the internet.

Nah. You derided the entire industry as producing sub-par products and decided that it's only because consumers are only interested in gaming and presumably not quality to not just buy gak that any of these incompetent companies are able to survive.

If that's true, or if your feelings are so negative, than why bother with this hobby at all?

The opposite is true. We've never had a better situation and more choice of products and rule systems at a higher quality. Just because Mantic's MAA are crappy doesn't mean their Zombies are. And there's nothing forcing people to do anything but ignore them.

 Azazelx wrote:
Nah. You derided the entire industry as producing sub-par products and decided that it's only because consumers are only interested in gaming and presumably not quality to not just buy gak that any of these incompetent companies are able to survive.

If that's true, or if your feelings are so negative, than why bother with this hobby at all?

The opposite is true. We've never had a better situation and more choice of products and rule systems at a higher quality. Just because Mantic's MAA are crappy doesn't mean their Zombies are. And there's nothing forcing people to do anything but ignore them.

For someone who professes a great distaste for having words put in your mouth, you certainly appear to enjoy doing so for others.

I said:

All of these companies are producing sub-par products of one stripe or another, in my opinion, but still chug along.

I'll assume that your command of English is sufficient to understand the term "of one stripe or another" so I really don't get where you state that I'm demeaning the entirety of the industry. Ah well, mysteries do persist I suppose.

I said:

That tells me that people are so interested in the idea of gaming that they'll throw money at whatever comes along, either that or there are so many people that enough find each crappy product good enough that all together it's enough to keep these companies going.

So, the use of "either" usually means something in a sentence; indicating two options. 1. People enjoy gaming so much that they'll buy whatever comes along or 2. Enough people find what I consider to be a "crappy" product of their taste to sufficiently support the company.

I will admit that I could have written this better but I wasn't expecting my pithy statements to be parsed and then argued over. I explained myself further to JudgeDoug; you could have simply asked me to defend my statement and I would have done the same without all the growling, unless that's your thing.

To quote your own words:

Seriously, don't be a dick.

Edit:
In response to your statement about the opposite being true of the industry as a whole. My opinion is that KickStarter is producing a negative impact on quality, to some extent. I've backed a number of projects, aside from Mantic, and seen the whole gambit of awesome to crap coming out of them. Since any person with an idea can potentially find people to back their dream, not considering if they have the know-how or ability to actually competently produce their dream, the market is seeing an uptick in crap products. Sure, we can ignore those but that doesn't make it any less true in my eyes. For every DreamForge, there's a project like the (name escapes me) one that made miniatures that looked like they were sculpted out of playdoh.

Aside from that. Generally, in most industries, competition breeds innovation and improvement, not AoS.