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Seabass wrote:
Most of the stores in the larger metro areas in my area all have dropped WMH, or they have reduced their inventory and the location to such a degree that it's a negligible presence.

It's pretty sad to see it go.

This is a pretty big shock to me! The reason is in my area, most stores only carried GW and WM/H. Then there was a token section of other stuff which was usually about 4-8 feet max. Maybe FFG took another 4 foot section depending on the store.

With WM/H gone, what are they going to put on the shelf instead? That was taking up 8-16 feet of space in most of the stores I went to.

Granted, I haven't been in an FLGS in a while due to COVID and lack of interest in GW and WM/H so I am left wondering what FLGS even sell for miniature games anymore?

 Monkeysloth wrote:

If distributors fail Chris's thoughts are a lot of FLGS will shut down as stores will loose customers to ordering directly due to the FLGS not able to get anything in as only a small % of game companies are capable of direct sells to stores. That also means you'll have a collapse of the gaming market which is over crowded right now. Both Chris and Matt weren't sure where things will be in 2 years as everything is so volitile.

The problem is that distributors are failing the minis industry, but they're not really failing themselves or FLGS. The main problem is just that FLGS's just can't compete with online sales outside of the first week or two of product release where they have the advantage of convenience. The idea of keeping a miniatures line in stock just isn't practical for most stores so its easier to stay in business fulfilling preorders on new releases and.... honestly there's enough new releases every week these days they don't really need to take on the risk of back stock. There's always a new shiny to sell. MInis are just bad business. That's no small part of why GW has adopted this limited edition box set model. It works well within the current FLGS model.

 Easy E wrote:

Seabass wrote:
Most of the stores in the larger metro areas in my area all have dropped WMH, or they have reduced their inventory and the location to such a degree that it's a negligible presence.

It's pretty sad to see it go.

This is a pretty big shock to me! The reason is in my area, most stores only carried GW and WM/H. Then there was a token section of other stuff which was usually about 4-8 feet max. Maybe FFG took another 4 foot section depending on the store.

With WM/H gone, what are they going to put on the shelf instead? That was taking up 8-16 feet of space in most of the stores I went to.

Granted, I haven't been in an FLGS in a while due to COVID and lack of interest in GW and WM/H so I am left wondering what FLGS even sell for miniature games anymore?

My LGS still has quite a few smaller lines. They've just culled the stuff that's not moving.

Frostgrave is still very popular in these parts.
As is Infinity and Arestia.
Marvel: Crisis Protocol is the next big hit.
Warlord games has a big section still in my LGS.
Song of Ice and Fire Mini game is doing well also with a section just for it.
Battletech is still selling better than WM/H, and still has half a wall.

There is still plenty of selection and variety. I think we'll see things shift, and churn once folks can get back to gaming with each other.

Sunno wrote:The difference between PP and a company like Wyrd is that, in instances where a store had to set up a direct relationship wit the company to get stock, the stores wanted to continue their relationship with Wyrd. Malifaux sells and the company has a stock of goodwill with most stores and a good relationship with retail in general. So when things got a bit tricky, they were able to "spend" some of that goodwill to sort our their supply issues.

True. Out of 2 FLGS and about 6-7 smaller LGS in my metro area (I think, a few have opened up in the last 3 years, including 2 nearby), I think only one has any PP stock. The reason for this is because the owner played Warhammer with some of PP's organizers back in college and still has a line open with the company.

The unfortunate parts are that I moved to the other side of the metro area 3 years ago, and I had a player in that store literally say, "We only play Steamroller here."

Ghool wrote:It’s interesting because my LGS has cleared out a large section of their miniatures games just recently. They got rid of almost all PP product, except for the KS bundles of Warcaster. They also dropped Batman/DC from Knight Models, most of Wyrd, and there’s a few other smaller ones I missed.

I think the pandemic is hitting a lot of game stores and companies really hard, and it appears my LGS is liquidating all their slow moving stock. With the inability to play games with others (and yay for another lockdown here) I think we’re going to find fewer and fewer games and companies around by this time next year.

Because let’s face it, nothing is going back to normal until at least the summer, maybe even later. We’ll see who survives.

The pandemic isn't hurting these game stores as much as the lockdowns and panic-mongering. When the government doesn't let you operate because you aren't as "essential" as a liquor store, it's hard to survive. I know plenty of people around here who are quite willing to take proper precautions for their game time, but many of the stores have a lot of restrictions.

Easy E wrote:

Seabass wrote:
Most of the stores in the larger metro areas in my area all have dropped WMH, or they have reduced their inventory and the location to such a degree that it's a negligible presence.

It's pretty sad to see it go.

This is a pretty big shock to me! The reason is in my area, most stores only carried GW and WM/H. Then there was a token section of other stuff which was usually about 4-8 feet max. Maybe FFG took another 4 foot section depending on the store.

With WM/H gone, what are they going to put on the shelf instead? That was taking up 8-16 feet of space in most of the stores I went to.

Granted, I haven't been in an FLGS in a while due to COVID and lack of interest in GW and WM/H so I am left wondering what FLGS even sell for miniature games anymore?

Two of FFG's Star Wars games are pretty hot here, and have been for a while, so that has been taking up a lot of space. Secondaries would be Infinity and Bolt Action. This is aside from GW's Warhammer monsters, of course.

For my FLGS the biggest sections for miniatures & miniature games are

.GW/40K AOS (of course)
.reaper
.warmachine(being literally an hour or so away from the company HQ and the fact some of the staff come in to play at our store sometimes might have something to do with that).
.star wars attack wing
.star wars armada
.star wars legion
.flames of war
.DnD

battletech used to have a huge section but restock issues with the distributors had made it hard to get anything but new releases and the stock has dwindled.

Infinity was never really carried in large amounts

we also have some small sections for
.DUST
.malifaux/the other side
.micro scale armor and naval
.DBA (micro scale historicals)
.drop zone commander
.deadzone
.hero clix
.axis and allies
.monpoc
.star trek attack wing
.the other star wars infantry min game before legion (rebel assault i think)

Just to name a few off the top of my head.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:

If distributors fail Chris's thoughts are a lot of FLGS will shut down as stores will loose customers to ordering directly due to the FLGS not able to get anything in as only a small % of game companies are capable of direct sells to stores. That also means you'll have a collapse of the gaming market which is over crowded right now. Both Chris and Matt weren't sure where things will be in 2 years as everything is so volitile.

The problem is that distributors are failing the minis industry, but they're not really failing themselves or FLGS. The main problem is just that FLGS's just can't compete with online sales outside of the first week or two of product release where they have the advantage of convenience. The idea of keeping a miniatures line in stock just isn't practical for most stores so its easier to stay in business fulfilling preorders on new releases and.... honestly there's enough new releases every week these days they don't really need to take on the risk of back stock. There's always a new shiny to sell. MInis are just bad business. That's no small part of why GW has adopted this limited edition box set model. It works well within the current FLGS model.

I don't know how much I'd agree with "they're not really failing themselves or FLGS" as I guess it's what are they supposed to be? Right now they really only just act as pre-order coordinators to get the newest stuff to the stores. But I think that's fine with MTG and Boargames maybe? Matt and Chris's companies both are more Wargame/RPG which that model doesn't solve. And they complain about it a lot in their interviews.

But you are correct that they fail wargaming, and RPGs are in a similar boat but at a smaller scale, but it's also one of the biggest flaws with a wargame that gets popular and has a lot of growth. Who expects anyone to carry everything and how do you deal with slow selling items. With most boardgames you have the corebox and 1-3 expansions. So if someone wants game X, it's easy. One choice. If someone wants to get into Warhammer what of the 20 different starting points do you take? As a store owner you really never know what will sell when.

I don't think either business model serves each other very well. I think Wargames, and to a lesser extent RPGS, would be better suited by the club model where you get together to play (with a monthly membership to cover cost) and then you just do direct orders to the manufacturer yourself or via a club discount service.

I would much honestly prefer the club model.
I legit hate feeling guilted into buying every single thing from my LGS.

The whole distributor problem is why Infinity did Code One, with stripped-back rules and about a third of the models in four factions rather than nine and a bit factions with as many as five sub-factions each.

So, could it be said that, the industry actively growing and being strong, is weakening the industry in some sense?

From my experience at my FLGS there are a significant number of people willing or even happy to pay a little bit more to buy product in-person. Wanting to support the store as a place to play is a common reason. But I also think there is an appeal to physically browsing items, being able to buy them right then and take them home to work on right then. Even 1-day shipping can't compete with that experience. And we are of course assuming free shipping, otherwise that discount largely evaporates.

But I see all of that as very secondary on PP's list of problems; my flgs can't sell its remaining PP stock at 70% off.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So, could it be said that, the industry actively growing and being strong, is weakening the industry in some sense?

Yes as the industry infrastructure hasn't matured to handle the influx of growth.

Another issue is there are so many things available but that the player base is spread thin so it's much harder for companies not named WoTC or GW to really pick up steam and make an impact. Outside of those two companies no one else really has the income and budget to bring in new players via traditional means (advertising) so GW and WoTC can continue to grow and not see their market share hurt as they are the main source of new players for tabletop games. Other games are left with everything else and that there's such amazing number of games fighting for that dollar that you rarely see things grow past a certain size. And when they do, Infinity for example, Distribution can't handle their SKU size causing issues getting products to stores. A store could order lots of a sku but this is dangerous with wargames as people really don't know what will be popular after the initial release and you could be left with a lot of unsellable stock.

Another thing that drives this point is Matt Wilson in the same interview, I believe, talked about how the first Warcaster KSer brought in better sales to more people then doing a traditional GENCON and then store release would have (but they made a little less per model sold). That was only 2,330 backers.

That being said there are lots of small games making enough to keep the lights on, and even several that have gotten to a pretty decent size, as the prevalence of options and the internet really allows someone to find that game just for them and become pretty dedicated. That's despite game stores and distributors in a lot of cases as you don't need to go to a store to find a community that likes what you like. But for the most part a new game is announced, makes a bit of a splash, gets their initial fans and then kind of just hovers there. Not grown much, but not shrinking much (just from casual observation).

Another issue is there are so many things available but that the player base is spread thin so it's much harder for companies not named WoTC or GW to really pick up steam and make an impact.

Funny you should mention that
the outer circle channel just did a video on this very problem

it's pretty in depth since he has a background on the manufacturing side of the hobby.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I would much honestly prefer the club model.
I legit hate feeling guilted into buying every single thing from my LGS.

Thing is your club will likely need to take money from you to pay for facilities. So either way you'll end up dipping into your pocket to support it.

Shops also tend to have the benefit that if the manger and staff are good; then they want customers. So they will be a very active 5-7 day a week recruitment system. That can't be underestimated, many clubs struggle with even the concept of advertising themselves; let alone drawing in people totally new to wargaming/models/geekstuff in general. Having a store with staff; shiny products on the shelf and at least half decent footfall to get noticed - that can bring in more people than a club that meets once a week on an evening. Which is another element - if the store has enough room they can offer demos and games all day they are open - its one thing to buy a box of models; its another to get a short game; a short intro and more all in one experience in the moment. No going away, forgetting and letting it drift. Heck have you ever seen a GW store that didn't at least have one table setup and ready for demo games - its clearly a huge element in drawing in customers.

Clubs, of course, have other benefits, they aren't tied to specific stock and can be more experimental in what they play. A store has to work with profits in mind as well and might well want people buying Magic or Yugio cards instead of wargames; whilst the hobby club might well just go with whatever is popular and has more potential scope to branch out.

It's definitely hard to draw in people in without a public presence. For the better part of 6 years I played WMH at the only little store we had in town, ran regular 20ish player tournaments, etc etc with essentially no competition outside Magic.

Later on I learned there were 2 maybe 3 GW clubs in town that mostly met by setting up games in basements not even really aware of one another. 8th and a new larger store really helped bring them out of the shadows but the main form of new players is still someone seeing product on the shelves of the new store and asking if anyone plays due to not having a strong public presence.

Exactly, private clubs can be fine but so many form around a school based friendship group and rarely manage to grow much beyond it.

Active recruitment, advertising and marketing isn't easy nor simple and it takes time and money to achieve. A store does most of that as standard (at least a good store); meanwhile a club might well just not have people with the skill sets or time to devote to such activities. As a result a club can really find it hard to grow itself.


I'm also led to understand that in the USA particularly, its much harder for clubs to gain viable access to things like community centres or church halls and such to rent for a game night. So if its happening in Dave's basement/garage that already hinders expansion of the club beyond a small group because you've just not the space for more people and more tables.

There's also a financial challenge period where a new growing club has to make the choice between a free garage or renting space that might let them expand, but which might mean one person (or several) dipping their pockets hard for the first year or so whilst they grow to enough numbers that a modest fee can support the groups upkeep.

I am glad we have a well established FLGS to play it as it does bring in new blood on a regular basis. i have resisted suggestions of playing at private homes for much of the same reasons mentioned above....and i also volunteer there so i get to keep much of my personal terrain in my own area for use on game nights. it is a serious benefit considering how much stuff i transport just in the form of minis, books, and game aids for the 6 games(DUST, 40K epic 40K, warmachine, infinity, B5 wars) i regularly bring armies for.

I don't know. Board games are strictly "play at home-maybe in a club" and they thrive in a way wargames can only dream of. With zero need for "increasing visibility/awareness" or "community building".

But tbh I believe that public groups playing wargames are only a tiny fraction of the entire playerbase with the HUGE majority playing at home, never even thinking of looking for new opponents.

Overread wrote:
Shops also tend to have the benefit that if the manger and staff are good; then they want customers. So they will be a very active 5-7 day a week recruitment system. That can't be underestimated, many clubs struggle with even the concept of advertising themselves; let alone drawing in people totally new to wargaming/models/geekstuff in general. Having a store with staff; shiny products on the shelf and at least half decent footfall to get noticed - that can bring in more people than a club that meets once a week on an evening. Which is another element - if the store has enough room they can offer demos and games all day they are open - its one thing to buy a box of models; its another to get a short game; a short intro and more all in one experience in the moment. No going away, forgetting and letting it drift. Heck have you ever seen a GW store that didn't at least have one table setup and ready for demo games - its clearly a huge element in drawing in customers.

Maybe it's different in the UK but all the stores I've ever seen here in the US the staff rarely runs game demos while on the clock unless there's no other work to do (never been to a GW shop in the US so cannot comment there but it makes since as it's focused on one game) and I travel a lot (my wife's hobby is much more expensive then mine) so I use to like to visit local stores until I realized they're all pretty much the same. It's all volunteers, who get pretty much nothing in return for working for the store for free that run demos. The owners expect the community to come and do all the marketing and organization themselves. If the stores did actually run games/demos/organize events then things like the Press Gangers would have never existed. And no one would complain that PP got rid of them helping cause a drop off of popularity of the game as the stores would have been doing all of that. But they don't. So game creators have to find ways to encourage fans to do that work.

I'm sure this is the exception but the largest chain in my state use to be pretty abusive on this and would treat volunteers like employees. Good friend of mine use to run organized D&D probably back in late 3.5 early 4th (so quite a long time ago) and after about 6 months of running things they just stared scheduling him to come in and "work". He'd get calls asking where he was and why wasn't he in the shop -- there were customers that wanted to play D&D. It took them about a month of him constantly telling them he doesn't work for them, he does this for free, for fun, and the schedule they originally agreed upon was when he'd be there for him to just cancel the whole thing as they refused to accept that the store couldn't just schedule new games for him to run (especially as they never called and asked if he could). Think he was banned there for several years because of it.

One of the reasons I stopped going to game stores for the most part is whenever I did and was looking for something and talking about what I played it always turned into "why don't you come run games for us (with my own stuff) and if you get enough people interested we'll start carrying stock." Every single time at pretty much any store. If I do ever have to go in one I refuse to talk about anything outside of what's needed for my purchase.

There are advantages to stores for sure. But that's diminishing as online buying and quick delivery are becoming more the norm.

Overread wrote:Exactly, private clubs can be fine but so many form around a school based friendship group and rarely manage to grow much beyond it.

Active recruitment, advertising and marketing isn't easy nor simple and it takes time and money to achieve. A store does most of that as standard (at least a good store); meanwhile a club might well just not have people with the skill sets or time to devote to such activities. As a result a club can really find it hard to grow itself.

Maybe it's just the places I've lived, and again I mentioned above there are a ton of stores in my county. Way more then the population density would suggest sustainable so they're quite popular. I've never, ever, ever seen a local game store advertise before. They all survive off of word of mouth and google searches for "Local places to buy magic". I doubt a single one pays a cent for adds. None of them sell online either (that I'm aware of).

Cyel wrote:I don't know. Board games are strictly "play at home-maybe in a club" and they thrive in a way wargames can only dream of. With zero need for "increasing visibility/awareness" or "community building".

But tbh I believe that public groups playing wargames are only a tiny fraction of the entire playerbase with the HUGE majority playing at home, never even thinking of looking for new opponents.

Pretty much this. Stores are necessary for a game's growth and survival is often claimed while ignoring all the larger, more popular tabletop game types that manage to do just fine without one being the focal point. I think it's more how the games are sold to the consumers buy the manufactures. Look at promo images of people playing board games or RPGS. Always at the kitchen table or some place similar. Look at ones for wargames, almost always something that looks like a game store. I think we're conditioned to expect wargames to be a "game store thing".

Wow. This thread really took a tangent just because of my Game Clubs comment. Interesting discussion though.

Gaming clubs aren't really a thing in the US like they are in the UK. It isn't a concept people buy into, it isn't part of the culture. In the US a flgs is the lifeblood of a wargaming community. No flgs generally means no wargames community, beyond maybe a small circle of friends meeting in someone's garage.

And what about gaming cafes ? I think they are perfect, as cafes are already places designed specifically for social interaction. For example, my favourite in Warsaw looks like this : https://www.facebook.com/pg/ParadoxCafe/photos/?ref=page_internal , they have board games, wargaming tables, people play RPGs, they hold a LARP once in a while.

Out of the different places where people tend to play (home, clubs, cafes, stores) stores have always been the least attractive for me, the least comfortable and convenient.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Gaming clubs aren't really a thing in the US like they are in the UK. It isn't a concept people buy into, it isn't part of the culture. In the US a flgs is the lifeblood of a wargaming community. No flgs generally means no wargames community, beyond maybe a small circle of friends meeting in someone's garage.

I think the largest I ever got going for about a year playing infinity was 8 at my house. It's a lot of work, and we really only played maybe every 6-8 weeks depending on the time of year. But do you really need a large local community for the game to be successful? I don't think so. But I've never been a competitive player so I guess it matters what you want out of a wargame. I think clubs could be more of the culture but it would require a shift in how companies themselves present their game. Meaning, actually admit people play at home and other places then game stores.

Cyel wrote:And what about gaming cafes ? I think they are perfect, as cafes are already places designed specifically for social interaction. For example, my favourite in Warsaw looks like this : https://www.facebook.com/pg/ParadoxCafe/photos/?ref=page_internal , they have board games, wargaming tables, people play RPGs, they hold a LARP once in a while.

Out of the different places where people tend to play (home, clubs, cafes, stores) stores have always been the least attractive for me, the least comfortable and convenient.

There's at least one gamer café closer to the larger of the two collages near me always wondered how often they had to replace their games due to the menu . $5 per person to play, less if you order food and/or have a large group. A guy in my gaming group has gone there a few times pre-covid (as it wasn't far from his office) and said it was surprisingly decent. It's kind of a club as you can even buy a monthly unlimited play membership and being not to far from a university probably helps quite a lot.

I think there's a lot of promise with the model just because if you can provide good food you have a main source of income that has a wider appeal. But who knows now with COIVD. The restaurant industry will surly change as people really seam to like delivery and curb side pickup.

https://goodmovecafe.com/

 Monkeysloth wrote:

https://goodmovecafe.com/

Wow, that look so cool! The food they have !!!

The main issue with cafe's are just the rules around starting an eatery can complicate things significantly; doubly so if they want to serve alcohol. With tabletop spanning a pretty large age range it can get tricky depending on local state laws. I do think there's a lot of potential but the risk is very high and depends on a different kind of business expertise than most people who want to start a game store have.

I think the board game comparisons miss a few major aspects. Primarily, board games have a much lower barrier to entry. There's no hobby elements, the purchase price per player is dramatically lower, only one person generally makes that purchase and its still probably lower for them. Games have a variety of playable player counts and are generally easy to invite an "outsider" into.

Hobby games demand an invested community of people willing to stay invested. A lot of their variety also depends on the varied collections of a number of players. That said, I think basement groups are woefully ignored by a lot of the industry; I just also know they do little to help someone looking to get in a game that isn't already a part of one.

 LunarSol wrote:
The main issue with cafe's are just the rules around starting an eatery can complicate things significantly; doubly so if they want to serve alcohol. With tabletop spanning a pretty large age range it can get tricky depending on local state laws. I do think there's a lot of potential but the risk is very high and depends on a different kind of business expertise than most people who want to start a game store have.

I think the board game comparisons miss a few major aspects. Primarily, board games have a much lower barrier to entry. There's no hobby elements, the purchase price per player is dramatically lower, only one person generally makes that purchase and its still probably lower for them. Games have a variety of playable player counts and are generally easy to invite an "outsider" into.

Hobby games demand an in're vested community of people willing to stay invested. A lot of their variety also depends on the varied collections of a number of players. That said, I think basement groups are woefully ignored by a lot of the industry; I just also know they do little to help someone looking to get in a game that isn't already a part of one.

I will 100% disagree on the bolded and underlined point.
The hobby aspect can be as much or as little as one wants.
Just go take a look at BGG at how many mini painters there are (the Miniature Painters Guild has almost 2600 members), and how many others build and craft tokens, boards, terrain and more.
To say that there is NO hobby aspect to board games is downright false.
The reason we see them on the upswing is likely why I prefer board games myself - a complete set for 2-4 in one purchase with no more required.
At this point in time, board game minis are just shy of 'proper' wargame minis. When I can get a game that has some hobby elements, allows my son, wife, and daughter to play as well for around $100, then I'm very reluctant to invest in any strictly speaking, 'Mini Games'.
If I cost out a small force for just myself and my son for WM (not buying second hand, call me a snob or whatever), it's double or triple that for us to have say 25 points in WM/Hordes.

I think this is the reason we're seeing more complete boxed games (expandable of course) from GW, and why Hasbro has been reinvesting into Avalon Hill - board games are better value, provide as much or as little hobby projects as you want, and require no further investment to 'play the full game'.

The hobby is aspect is why I have mainly switched to board games. When PP started using PVC plastic and charging the same price as metal is when I figured it was probably just as good, and cheaper to switch over to board games. And I fill my week with 40 hours or more of hobby projects based on board games alone.

True. There are definitely models to paint. I mostly meant that those models generally don't require assembly or painting to play the game and such, the hobby elements that exist don't create a barrier to participation. Even then, a lot of the most popular games out there don't have any minis at all, particularly among the top of the BGG pile.

 LunarSol wrote:


I think the board game comparisons miss a few major aspects. Primarily, board games have a much lower barrier to entry. There's no hobby elements, the purchase price per player is dramatically lower, only one person generally makes that purchase and its still probably lower for them. Games have a variety of playable player counts and are generally easy to invite an "outsider" into.

So maybe the way to go is not to try to make the effort to compensate for these barriers existing, but rather to remove them ?

That's basically what Guild Ball tried. They repackaged the game into a very board game style. Godtear is sold in a very similar manner. Clearly that wasn't a huge success for the former but the latter feels more built to support it so I suppose we'll see.

Personally, I find the static sculpts of pre-built PVC pretty limiting in this regard. I don't hate it all that much, but Guild Ball's move to boy band poses definitely dulled my interest compared to the original sculpts that conveyed a lot of motion. Godtear is a little hit or miss but the larger figures work better outside of swords and other thin pieces.

deleted

 LunarSol wrote:
The main issue with cafe's are just the rules around starting an eatery can complicate things significantly; doubly so if they want to serve alcohol. With tabletop spanning a pretty large age range it can get tricky depending on local state laws. I do think there's a lot of potential but the risk is very high and depends on a different kind of business expertise than most people who want to start a game store have.

Oh for sure. I wasn't implying that it would become the defacto game meet up place replacing clubs, game stores or people's houses but I think you'll see more of this business model in the years to come is what I meant by 'a lot of potential'. Running a restaurant is much harder then a lot of other businesses but I think if you can manage running one well it could be a good way to prop up the game store/club side of things where maybe running a standalone game store wouldn't normally make business sense.

 LunarSol wrote:
That's basically what Guild Ball tried. They repackaged the game into a very board game style. Godtear is sold in a very similar manner. Clearly that wasn't a huge success for the former but the latter feels more built to support it so I suppose we'll see.

Personally, I find the static sculpts of pre-built PVC pretty limiting in this regard. I don't hate it all that much, but Guild Ball's move to boy band poses definitely dulled my interest compared to the original sculpts that conveyed a lot of motion. Godtear is a little hit or miss but the larger figures work better outside of swords and other thin pieces.

Just quoting this part but replying to the whole thread of yours.

Again I think it's what you want out of it. How many people who play wargames actually bother to ever do anything more the assemble the miniatures and prime them a base color? I don't know if we've ever really seen a good polling but it's at least half. How many people care if the parts are a bit bendy? I doubt many as well as back when I did frequent stores more often there sure where a lot of people with minis missing parts, having broken detail (as one drop and it can be done for). I know there's people that clearly care about painted armies and good looking casts but I do believe they're just the vocal minority in the community but they're more what the game manufacturers target as that group is the most likely to switch and start a new game and start word of mouth but it limits growth in the long term as there's a limit of who you can reach catering to that crowed.

I don't think what killed guildball was it's move to more static poses (though I can understand why you didn't like them) and I personally don't think easy to assemble pvc that's more dynamic would be that much of a barrier to a lot of people especially if it was just "glue this leg on" or, you know, they could just be assembled at the factory like Reaper Bones are for smaller things. It's all stuff that can be worked around, but SFG clearly just went the cheaper route (though I really like their PVC line and have it all). But I'm also not unaware of the huge upfront cost to release anything in PVC.

Maybe because of the cost of plastics and how metal and resin are so much more affordable to produce (and lower risk financially) and those inherently cater to a smaller group of people we really can't see a broader breakout of wargames until there's a 3dprinter that cheap enough, fast enough to replace the other means of production which could break that barrier to entry but still appease the hardcore wargamers that love the more hobby aspect. That might not be for say 20-30 years when maybe you can just buy all your minis pre-painted and pre-posed (how you want) and custom printed for not much more then we pay now. I do think the eventually future of the games (if they don't move 100% to AR) is a heroforged like system where you choose the character model/unit. Pose and choose equipment from what they're allowed to use and then order and you get them a few days later. Where a game store will fit into that I don't know.

 LunarSol wrote:
True. There are definitely models to paint. I mostly meant that those models generally don't require assembly or painting to play the game and such, the hobby elements that exist don't create a barrier to participation. Even then, a lot of the most popular games out there don't have any minis at all, particularly among the top of the BGG pile.

I have been way more motivated to build my minis that i need for a game than my general display models that never leave the house.

I am finally getting around to finishing all of my gundam mastergrade and SD (less than 10) kits i have had for nearly 20 years. in that same time i have built and finished/painted a SOB army, nid army, tau army, deathwing army, ravenwing army, salamanders army, 2 BFG fleets, a heavy gear army, dozens of battletech minis, 5 epic 40K armies, a large infinity army, 3 dust armies, and a gaggle of terrain.


i think you can see where my priorities were driven.