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Honestly, i blame the somewhat anonimity of the web / distancedness coming with it.

It is a lot easier to call someone on fb etc a [insert term of preference ] Then in real live.

However the new ways of communication allow for better viewability and further reach.
That means bad behaviour gets easier and also more effective.
It's how this works.

And also due to rule number 1, the internet does not forget at the same time irl thinks now that it is more common.
Even though it is just a small group of "loud" Keyboard warriors and also potentially trolls.

Individual stores can definitely have very different environments and kinds of players, that's for sure. Doesn't necessarily reflect or affect the hobby as a whole. Though, remember in the 80's when there was that movie about the kind who played Dungeons and Dragons and went nuts thinking he was exploring dungeons and disappeared? Very loosely based on an actual disappearance, though I believe in reality it had nothing to do with him playing Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't know how much that affected sales of Dungeons and Dragons or any other games, though.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Individual stores can definitely have very different environments and kinds of players, that's for sure. Doesn't necessarily reflect or affect the hobby as a whole. Though, remember in the 80's when there was that movie about the kind who played Dungeons and Dragons and went nuts thinking he was exploring dungeons and disappeared? Very loosely based on an actual disappearance, though I believe in reality it had nothing to do with him playing Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't know how much that affected sales of Dungeons and Dragons or any other games, though.

Wasn't there also the one dude claiming D&D would turn you into satanists?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Individual stores can definitely have very different environments and kinds of players, that's for sure. Doesn't necessarily reflect or affect the hobby as a whole. Though, remember in the 80's when there was that movie about the kind who played Dungeons and Dragons and went nuts thinking he was exploring dungeons and disappeared? Very loosely based on an actual disappearance, though I believe in reality it had nothing to do with him playing Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't know how much that affected sales of Dungeons and Dragons or any other games, though.

Wasn't there also the one dude claiming D&D would turn you into satanists?

There was a whole wave of that which, from what I gather, mostly ran through the USA more than the UK. It was a spin off the era when Rock/metal would also contain messages from the devil and send you to Hell if you listened to it backwards etc...

 Overread wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Individual stores can definitely have very different environments and kinds of players, that's for sure. Doesn't necessarily reflect or affect the hobby as a whole. Though, remember in the 80's when there was that movie about the kind who played Dungeons and Dragons and went nuts thinking he was exploring dungeons and disappeared? Very loosely based on an actual disappearance, though I believe in reality it had nothing to do with him playing Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't know how much that affected sales of Dungeons and Dragons or any other games, though.

Wasn't there also the one dude claiming D&D would turn you into satanists?

There was a whole wave of that which, from what I gather, mostly ran through the USA more than the UK. It was a spin off the era when Rock/metal would also contain messages from the devil and send you to Hell if you listened to it backwards etc...

Ahh yes that time.

Never really hit us, we were more concerned about the communists, and our neighbours, and with invading them, actively, and Burning down forrests and vineyards.

I believe ever since we nearly got starved out since WW1 we have been collectively paranoid.

Good times i tell you.

 Overread wrote:
I think we've all seen when there are people "silently excluded" who can often be totally oblivious as to why because its not communicated to them and changes in their attitude and behaviour are not openly encouraged by the group. And yes there is a difference between trying to force a person to change and encouraging a person to change. One can build negative connections and hostile associations whilst the other can not only encourage and support but even reinforce the behaviour in a positive way.

This is actually something that's a big problem a lot of the time, and leads to what's called the Broken Step or Missing Step Problem. The analogy is that your house has a missing step on the basement stair. Instead of fixing it, you all just go around it, and warn visitors that your stairs are missing a step. Until one day you don't warn a visitor, and someone twists their ankle walking down the stairs. Similarly, a lot of groups will simply deal with problem individuals by simply ignoring and avoiding them, rather than actually fixing the bad behavior. This leads to new members of the group who aren't in the know being abused by the problem individual. It's especially a problem in niche hobbies like ours, as a lot of us have social anxiety and feel very uncomfortable with confrontation. That doesn't change the fact that people get hurt when we choose to not to fix the stairs.

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think we've all seen when there are people "silently excluded" who can often be totally oblivious as to why because its not communicated to them and changes in their attitude and behaviour are not openly encouraged by the group. And yes there is a difference between trying to force a person to change and encouraging a person to change. One can build negative connections and hostile associations whilst the other can not only encourage and support but even reinforce the behaviour in a positive way.

This is actually something that's a big problem a lot of the time, and leads to what's called the Broken Step or Missing Step Problem. The analogy is that your house has a missing step on the basement stair. Instead of fixing it, you all just go around it, and warn visitors that your stairs are missing a step. Until one day you don't warn a visitor, and someone twists their ankle walking down the stairs. Similarly, a lot of groups will simply deal with problem individuals by simply ignoring and avoiding them, rather than actually fixing the bad behavior. This leads to new members of the group who aren't in the know being abused by the problem individual. It's especially a problem in niche hobbies like ours, as a lot of us have social anxiety and feel very uncomfortable with confrontation. That doesn't change the fact that people get hurt when we choose to not to fix the stairs.

I kinda agree, however, common sense and self reliance still apply.
F.e.instead of going full reeeee like the vox article "thing" which is not helping the issue at all, maybee Inform the local flg, group, community instead. This will be percived by most in the hobby as an attack instead and further entrench positions that don't need one.

Or alternatively confront the person. You can't really expect ( and I state that as someone that had issues with anxiety) that everything is and will be made cushy for you.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think we've all seen when there are people "silently excluded" who can often be totally oblivious as to why because its not communicated to them and changes in their attitude and behaviour are not openly encouraged by the group. And yes there is a difference between trying to force a person to change and encouraging a person to change. One can build negative connections and hostile associations whilst the other can not only encourage and support but even reinforce the behaviour in a positive way.

This is actually something that's a big problem a lot of the time, and leads to what's called the Broken Step or Missing Step Problem. The analogy is that your house has a missing step on the basement stair. Instead of fixing it, you all just go around it, and warn visitors that your stairs are missing a step. Until one day you don't warn a visitor, and someone twists their ankle walking down the stairs. Similarly, a lot of groups will simply deal with problem individuals by simply ignoring and avoiding them, rather than actually fixing the bad behavior. This leads to new members of the group who aren't in the know being abused by the problem individual. It's especially a problem in niche hobbies like ours, as a lot of us have social anxiety and feel very uncomfortable with confrontation. That doesn't change the fact that people get hurt when we choose to not to fix the stairs.

I kinda agree, however, common sense and self reliance still apply.
F.e.instead of going full reeeee like the vox article "thing" which is not helping the issue at all, maybee Inform the local flg, group, community instead. This will be percived by most in the hobby as an attack instead and further entrench positions that don't need one.

Or alternatively confront the person. You can't really expect ( and I state that as someone that had issues with anxiety) that everything is and will be made cushy for you.

Absolutely confront the person in question, and ideally make sure they're not allowed back to the event/venue/club/whatever. Merely informing folks that they're a problem, and then collectively not doing anything else, is what makes a person a Broken Stair in the first place: They're not a danger to the folks you've told, they're a danger to folks who miss the message and are still exposed to a known abuser.

As for the article (or the blog post that blew up into an article), I see it as a result of a woman's complaints not being taken seriously until she felt she had to take more drastic action: The blog post, the news articles, and the sexual harassment lawsuit.

 Laughing Man wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Laughing Man wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think we've all seen when there are people "silently excluded" who can often be totally oblivious as to why because its not communicated to them and changes in their attitude and behaviour are not openly encouraged by the group. And yes there is a difference between trying to force a person to change and encouraging a person to change. One can build negative connections and hostile associations whilst the other can not only encourage and support but even reinforce the behaviour in a positive way.

This is actually something that's a big problem a lot of the time, and leads to what's called the Broken Step or Missing Step Problem. The analogy is that your house has a missing step on the basement stair. Instead of fixing it, you all just go around it, and warn visitors that your stairs are missing a step. Until one day you don't warn a visitor, and someone twists their ankle walking down the stairs. Similarly, a lot of groups will simply deal with problem individuals by simply ignoring and avoiding them, rather than actually fixing the bad behavior. This leads to new members of the group who aren't in the know being abused by the problem individual. It's especially a problem in niche hobbies like ours, as a lot of us have social anxiety and feel very uncomfortable with confrontation. That doesn't change the fact that people get hurt when we choose to not to fix the stairs.

I kinda agree, however, common sense and self reliance still apply.
F.e.instead of going full reeeee like the vox article "thing" which is not helping the issue at all, maybee Inform the local flg, group, community instead. This will be percived by most in the hobby as an attack instead and further entrench positions that don't need one.

Or alternatively confront the person. You can't really expect ( and I state that as someone that had issues with anxiety) that everything is and will be made cushy for you.

Absolutely confront the person in question, and ideally make sure they're not allowed back to the event/venue/club/whatever. Merely informing folks that they're a problem, and then collectively not doing anything else, is what makes a person a Broken Stair in the first place: They're not a danger to the folks you've told, they're a danger to folks who miss the message and are still exposed to a known abuser.

As for the article (or the blog post that blew up into an article), I see it as a result of a woman's complaints not being taken seriously until she felt she had to take more drastic action: The blog post, the news articles, and the sexual harassment lawsuit.

And it is still vastly overblown, isn't it.
And also generalizing and insulting.
And rethorically a Tool that gets used to condemn whole groups of something, and I don't like that out of habit, infact i find it so disingenious that i regard her as equally questionable as the asshat she had to deal with.

Funny thing about that article and lawsuit. I did a bunch of research on her when it was happening...being a Canadian and all.
It turns out that she tried to pull the same shenanigans on the owner of Wyrd on their own forums.
She had a massive blog post about how she was harassed and treated likeess than human on their forums and so-on.
I can't remember the exact details, but as it turns out, it wasn't the first time she had made such claims.

I'd take that article and her testimony with a big grain of salt.

And I'm certainly not saying stuff like that doesn't happen. The character of the person making the accusations is unknown, as is the accused. It's best to remain open to all possibilities than believe a single article about a single case from a person of questionable character.

 Ghool wrote:
Funny thing about that article and lawsuit. I did a bunch of research on her when it was happening...being a Canadian and all.
It turns out that she tried to pull the same shenanigans on the owner of Wyrd on their own forums.
She had a massive blog post about how she was harassed and treated likeess than human on their forums and so-on.
I can't remember the exact details, but as it turns out, it wasn't the first time she had made such claims.

I'd take that article and her testimony with a big grain of salt.

And I'm certainly not saying stuff like that doesn't happen. The character of the person making the accusations is unknown, as is the accused. It's best to remain open to all possibilities than believe a single article about a single case from a person of questionable character.

So beyond questionable rethorical behaviour to capitalize from the outrage we might have a blackmailer infront of us?

Based on what I read myself, she made claims against at least 2 other individuals, and one of them was the guy who runs or owns Wyrd. The other was at a video game convention from what I recall.
Their old forums were still accessible and I managed to find the posts where she had claimed she was harassed and mistreated by Wyrd'S owner. Every reply he had was civil and not at all hostile or insulting towards her. I can't even remember what the altercation was about. On her blog however, was a very different story, and I found her claims to either be exaggerated beyond belief or outright lies.

Now granted I'm just another random dude on the Internet as well. But I did extensive research into this particular case and found her evidence and testimonial to be lacking anything concrete.
I found her to be of extremely questionable character.

Make of that what you will.

That case had an extensive hashing out here before;

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/686094.page

I dont think we need to do it again do we?

 ingtaer wrote:
That case had an extensive hashing out here before;

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/686094.page

I dont think we need to do it again do we?

Thank you. I'd rather talk about the state of gaming instead. Which currently, is in a good place.

I don't think we'll see another drop off so much as a settling. Right now the double whammy of Kickstarter and GW hitting rock bottom then coming back to Jesus has created a lot of chaos in the tabletop market and uncertainty for gamers.

We've seen a lot of small shooting stars flame out in recent years, but most of them have ended up bought out by other companies, their games living on after their deaths. On the other side, some companies have found success filling in a bunch of very small niches rather than co letting for the self-contained boardgame/wargame dollars. I feel that in the next five years, we might see the middle tier looking like Warlord, Mantic, CMON and Wayland, with a bunch of little Gangfights and Ganesha Games supplying fun little extras. GW will probably still be dominant, but I suspect they'll have to make a lot of their money from licensing and limited boardgame or 40k side game churn.

I also think the miniature show sales, mail order and club model popular in the UK I actually think there are two separate parallel industries and one could go through a down turn while the other thrives.

I think it's very possible that the hobby of purchasing hobby products could go through a down turn and larger KS projects don't fund as well, retail miniatures sales slow and the massive number of miniature focused board games rapidly contracts while the small makers, club play and home gaming holds or even increases. It's possible that with the internet the cottage industry and small manufacturer level will be less vulnerable any down turn as they are not subject to the thin margins being sliced thinner as both distribution and retail takes its cut.

For example, during the industry contraction period of 2006 to 2012 for RPGs, small press and indie publishing exploded while retail sales of big names struggled.

 frozenwastes wrote:
I also think the miniature show sales, mail order and club model popular in the UK I actually think there are two separate parallel industries and one could go through a down turn while the other thrives.

I think it's very possible that the hobby of purchasing hobby products could go through a down turn and larger KS projects don't fund as well, retail miniatures sales slow and the massive number of miniature focused board games rapidly contracts while the small makers, club play and home gaming holds or even increases. It's possible that with the internet the cottage industry and small manufacturer level will be less vulnerable any down turn as they are not subject to the thin margins being sliced thinner as both distribution and retail takes its cut.

For example, during the industry contraction period of 2006 to 2012 for RPGs, small press and indie publishing exploded while retail sales of big names struggled.

This is a very insightful post.

I have to admit, when Spartan collapsed about the same time as a couple of other decent size names, I thought the Golden Time was over. I expected it to pressage the great fall of mini-wargamers like the collapse of Lehman Brothers did for the stock market.

I am glad to admit I was wrong. However, once culture begins to turn away from all things nerdy, when nerd-culture has been sucked dry by market forces; then the dark times will come again.

Really? I was expecting Spartan to collapse when they couldn't stop making new games without being able to support the ones they already had. And then they chased the Halo license right into failure.

 infinite_array wrote:
Really? I was expecting Spartan to collapse when they couldn't stop making new games without being able to support the ones they already had. And then they chased the Halo license right into failure.

Agreed. If anything I was surprised it took Spartan that long to collapse. (No, I didn't want them to, I enjoyed their Firestorm stuff.) But they really did seem to be constantly chasing the next game as their "silver bullet winner" or something, and just didn't support their existing lines.

I think that's a risk we have right now in a few places; there are a lot of licensed products out there right now, with DC/Batman, the new Marvel minis game, A Song of Ice and Fire, Walking Dead, etc. I think these things are particularly at risk for a sudden drop off when the property isn't so hot anymore (some probably a little more resilient than others, such as Star Wars), and some of these smaller companies have put all their eggs in that basket. If those sales drop off, they probably won't be able to afford to keep the license, then they're toast. Some of the "semi-big" companies are doing this, it's not just new, small companies.

Also I think that comparison to the RPG industry is pretty accurate. "Boutique" shops for minis is a lot more possible now due to 3d printer technology, and cottage-industry sized game companies that pick a niche and serve it well probably will withstand whatever mass-market drop might happen better than some of the medium-bigger players (such as Mantic, Knight Models, and even Privateer Press at this point) would be able to take if it happens.

I highly doubt it.If anything Kickstarters spread awareness for miniature games.

D&D is being "promoted" with shows like Stranger Things and Riverdale, so the "satan worshiper" stigma is not like it was.

We have Eisenhorn show in the works which is likely to spur interest in the hobby. I expect a huge influx of players coming in once the show airs.

The thing 40k/AoS has that other games like Star Wars, ASoIaF, Batman, etc... is that 40k started as miniatures and worked into other markets like comics, books, games, etc... Minitatures is GW primary market. These other brands are just making miniature games to support their brands primary market. Ex: (star wars = movies, Batman = comics, ASoIaF = books/show).

Plus profitability is crazy high. The only thing that could possibly have a negative impact is the Brexit issue, but lets not get into that. GW will still be making Primaris Lieutenant for many more years, so no need to worry. Primaris Lieutenant Codex is slated for 2023 i think.

I wouldn't really call any of the licensed game manufacturers small. CMON has the GoT license, and Asmodee is doing Marvel and Star Wars. Mantic isn't huge, but has a solid enough base that losing Walking Dead shouldn't kill them. Knight is the only one that's all-in on their licensed games, with the Harry Potter and DC licenses.

It's not so much that the companies are at risk of falling; but more that the licence holder might revoke the licence at any point; esp since most are big brand names so they will have signed short term contracts that are designed to be renewed regularly. Thus letting them back out and not renew if they want.

You see this a lot in computer games; look at all those Transformer and Lego franchise games that vanished overnight when the contracts came to their end and the studios didn't want to continue them. Sports games are the same, though many of them are locked into the idea of repeat products so a "new" game comes out the next year.

Even if everything is good politics within companies can end deals - it's always a big risk for any franchise based game system; because if you kick the franchise out the game will end.

The good news is the tabletop industry isn't really profitable enough for anyone to go out of their way to try and get more out of it. Most companies want to make sure they're getting something out of it, but since no game is making money that has any real affect on their bottom line, the license isn't likely to get pulled as long as they get their cut.

Here's a useful article: https://pandasaurusgames.com/blogs/news/business-of-board-games-tariffs

Thanks for getting the thread back on track guys, just a general reminder of the rules. Please be polite, please stick to the topic and please don't drag Pols into it.

 LunarSol wrote:
The good news is the tabletop industry isn't really profitable enough for anyone to go out of their way to try and get more out of it. Most companies want to make sure they're getting something out of it, but since no game is making money that has any real affect on their bottom line, the license isn't likely to get pulled as long as they get their cut.

True, but at the same time a company having an internal product "refocus" could axe certain product lines. Eg Disney could sink a fortune into a new space film franchise and want that to dominate and not have SW around as strong, so they'd start retiring some older licences (or just not renewing them) but offering ones on the new product to encourage the market to shift. Ok so that is a bit of a stretch considering how powerful and long lasting Starwars is; but its always a big risk when your product relies upon a 3rd party.



As for the game market in general, for board and tabletop games I think the big issue is that its a market no one is really pushing in a big way. In fact I'd argue that GW is probably one of the few companies actually trying to reach out and grow the market size. Certainly in wargames and tabletop games most of the other firms are not trying as hard and mostly seem to rely upon existing market uptake. PP Was the only other one that tried and they've since retired their PG program and not replaced it. I'd say once you branch out more you've got Magic the Gathering who seem to be doing a good job maintaining and securing new gamers for their game and stealing a big chunk of the overall gamer pie. It's helped greatly that their whole business design is well made to funnel money into itself both at the company level and at the local retailer level; which gets local retailers very eager to promote it.

Though interestingly even Wizards I don't see pushing books, films, board games, etc.... Even their computer game uptake was much slower and they've not tried licencing out the lore and setting to other non-competing market games (though I'd argue their lore is far more fragmented and bitty than GW's).

Board games seem to be fairly if not totally dead in terms of advertising push; save for the odd monopoly special edition for a film or such every so often.


This is the big risk with the gamer market, whilst its got a generally younger audience than, say, mechanno, Hornby or such; its still got the issue of outreach and recruitment. Especially since its target market is being hit by a huge surge of additional distractions. From film-scale games like CoD and online games like League of Legends; through to social media being its own form of heavily pushed entertainment in its own right. There's many a person today who doesn't really have a hobby but they "facebook" a lot.



The problem can also be more local, a lot of local clubs don't advertise themselves all that well; they don't update a social media site; they don't advertise on local boards stores and such; they dont' reach out by running big introduction days etc...

 Laughing Man wrote:
I wouldn't really call any of the licensed game manufacturers small. CMON has the GoT license, and Asmodee is doing Marvel and Star Wars. Mantic isn't huge, but has a solid enough base that losing Walking Dead shouldn't kill them. Knight is the only one that's all-in on their licensed games, with the Harry Potter and DC licenses.

Depends how smart the company is I guess? I mean, if they've prepped for the license, it makes sense to also prep to lose the license - helps avoid them becoming overly reliant on it.

This seems to have went off the rails in terms of the main topic - now it's back where it's supposed to be.

It only goes up from here. Nerd culture and Miniatures popularity is on the rise and has been for the past ten or so years. I dislike GOT - but I enjoy that someone took the gamble to make a minis game out of it

 Stevefamine wrote:
This seems to have went off the rails in terms of the main topic - now it's back where it's supposed to be.

It only goes up from here. Nerd culture and Miniatures popularity is on the rise and has been for the past ten or so years. I dislike GOT - but I enjoy that someone took the gamble to make a minis game out of it

Aye but I suspect it might be like the Lord of the Rings bubble - that in once the series is gone the miniature firms will see a sharp drop off in casual customers. Though I don't think it will be as sharp a decline and problem as GW had with the Lord of the Rings line; its still a big risk for many franchises that once the media is gone the merchandise doesn't retain its high sales rate. Provided the companies are ready for that they can soak it and push through; if not then it can sink them.

Starwars and a very few others are robust enough to last even without new films, but in general that is the extreme exception

@overread

So I quit played Gamesworkshop games from around 2013-2019 and went full into Dungeons and Dragons and other mini games.

I think its more saturation and more companies that can make a name for themselves instead of only GW/Only the big companies. Who knows honestly - but I have a good feeling about it. I know for a fact that D&D exploded in players