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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Sqorgar wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:
What was the bad movie license.
PP sold the movie rights to MonPoc. Apparently, Tim Burton was attached to direct at some point, but rumor has it the studio lost interest when Pacific Rim came out and didn't do very well. Regardless, MonPoc 1.0 stopped updating - no news, no updates, no new models, not even an acknowledgement that it existed by PP - after the movie rights were sold, leading many (including myself) to believe that the movie deal was what killed the game. They had even previously shown images of a 6th set in progress that never came out.


The game died because the whole prepaint industry collapsed. Heroclix, D&D, Star Wars, you name it all died at the same time. The long and short of it was that a bunch of factors bumped production costs crazy amounts; developers I was working with at the time were telling me 600-700% increase in the quotes they were getting for their games. There were a bunch of attempts to tread water like Ravenloft and PPs own repackaging of existing stock into faction bundles, but it didn't take long to realize that the industry was moving in a different direction and blind purchase prepaints never really rematerialized outside of Clix riding on the coattails of the MCU explosion.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 LunarSol wrote:

The game died because the whole prepaint industry collapsed. Heroclix, D&D, Star Wars, you name it all died at the same time. The long and short of it was that a bunch of factors bumped production costs crazy amounts; developers I was working with at the time were telling me 600-700% increase in the quotes they were getting for their games. There were a bunch of attempts to tread water like Ravenloft and PPs own repackaging of existing stock into faction bundles, but it didn't take long to realize that the industry was moving in a different direction and blind purchase prepaints never really rematerialized outside of Clix riding on the coattails of the MCU explosion.
I think this was definitely part of it (D&D and Star Wars miniatures were still being released, but probably close to their ends). But MonPoc was never officially cancelled. They just announced they got a movie deal and that the future was bright for MonPoc and then... nothing. People would ask about it all the time, and PP never responded. If they had given any hint at all that the game wasn't doing well or that the preprints were getting to expensive, at the time, I think there's a lot of hardcore fans who would've stepped up.

If the prepaints were the only problem, I feel like PP wouldn't have gone to such lengths to not admit it existed, and I think they could've rebooted the game's format ten years ago (when PP was still a large company and the game was still relatively popular) rather than waiting most of a decade to release it once most people had forgotten it ever existed and PP was down to only 30 employees supporting multiple game systems.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Longtime Dakkanaut





It was long suspected PP got into a bad movie deal that required movie studio approval for releases to match the movie if it ever came out and they had to wait for the options to expire, or have to pay back the option money, for them to have full control again.

I've never heard of such a thing before with a movie but at the same time I don't think I've ever seen a wargame get optioned before by a big production company (not sure if GW has ever had one but they're big enough to have some say in their contracts) and it would surprise no one for such a thing to be in the contract.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/07 18:20:34


 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I got the impression that PP ended up in a situation where not only couldn't they do much with Mon Apoc but the contract was so one sided that they didn't dare risk doing or saying anything least they wound up getting sued for breach of contract or ending up investing in a bunch of models that didn't fit the studio's designs and now suddenly they've got to remove them.

Basically I think they got stuck with a veyr one sided and bad contract that they had to wait out before they could do stuff again with Mon Apoc.


This isn't abnormal, often as not I suspect that the reason we don't have a Hollywood 40K film is because GW is a bit wiser and far more strict with retaining control over their IP to the point where Hollywood directors/producers won't work with them, because they want that control instead.
Plus when you look at film adaptations of original content the film industry (Esp hollywood/usa) is notorious for taking the name and character names and then doing whatever else they want.

A Blog in Miniature

3D Printing, hobbying and model fun! 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Sqorgar wrote:
 LunarSol wrote:

The game died because the whole prepaint industry collapsed. Heroclix, D&D, Star Wars, you name it all died at the same time. The long and short of it was that a bunch of factors bumped production costs crazy amounts; developers I was working with at the time were telling me 600-700% increase in the quotes they were getting for their games. There were a bunch of attempts to tread water like Ravenloft and PPs own repackaging of existing stock into faction bundles, but it didn't take long to realize that the industry was moving in a different direction and blind purchase prepaints never really rematerialized outside of Clix riding on the coattails of the MCU explosion.
I think this was definitely part of it (D&D and Star Wars miniatures were still being released, but probably close to their ends). But MonPoc was never officially cancelled. They just announced they got a movie deal and that the future was bright for MonPoc and then... nothing. People would ask about it all the time, and PP never responded. If they had given any hint at all that the game wasn't doing well or that the preprints were getting to expensive, at the time, I think there's a lot of hardcore fans who would've stepped up.

If the prepaints were the only problem, I feel like PP wouldn't have gone to such lengths to not admit it existed, and I think they could've rebooted the game's format ten years ago (when PP was still a large company and the game was still relatively popular) rather than waiting most of a decade to release it once most people had forgotten it ever existed and PP was down to only 30 employees supporting multiple game systems.


None of the games were really officially cancelled. They all just stopped releasing new product. A lot of that was under the hope that things would improve and new stuff could be produced after a little hiatus. There was really nothing to be gained by announcing the games were cancelled; all of these companies had sculpts ready to produce; it just wasn't affordable to do so.

There's really no reason to think that PP somehow lost the ability to make the game that the movie studio. If they had, there's basically zero reason to believe they could have afforded to get it back. Movie studios really aren't fond of releasing toy rights after that whole Star Wars thing. I get the coincidence and silence, but there was just nothing special enough about the game to survive where the rest failed. Relaunching it as a hobby game would be a pretty major endeavor and they were in the middle of Warmachine really hitting its stride and getting a ton of support.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Longtime Dakkanaut





Heroclix is still going and selling quite well.

WoTC Star Wars minis were dropped due to them just not selling enough to justify the license (had a friend there at the time and she said the contract they signed with Lucas increased the percentage they had to pay Lucasarts increased each year to I believe a max of 20% of each item sold went to them and Wizards had to drop it) and was canceled officially as they chose not to renew with Lucasarts.

D&D minis I believe were officially canceled as well as it was actually a wargame that no one used for a wargame and when 3.5 imploded it kind of took that down too.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/07 20:59:54


 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Monkeysloth wrote:
Heroclix is still going and selling quite well.

WoTC Star Wars minis were dropped due to them just not selling enough to justify the license (had a friend there at the time and she said the contract they signed with Lucas increased the percentage they had to pay Lucasarts increased each year to I believe a max of 20% of each item sold went to them and Wizards had to drop it) and was canceled officially as they chose not to renew with Lucasarts.

D&D minis I believe were officially canceled as well as it was actually a wargame that no one used for a wargame and when 3.5 imploded it kind of took that down too.


They still all died at that time; even Heroclix which probably would have stayed dead if Iron Man hadn't made it clear superheroes were about to be a thing causing NECA to buy it up from WizKids. There's a ton of others to add to the pile; Heroscape, World of Warcraft, Mage Knight you name it, it almost certainly died between 2008-2011. Anything that survived did so in a very different form or under a new company. The more successful ones flailed about for a bit, usually trying to cut costs by reusing existing molds with cheaper paint jobs or in the case of MonPoc, repacking already produced minis in new box sets, but once it was clear there wouldn't be any real, new content, they all just kind of dried up and went away.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Longtime Dakkanaut





I played heroclix heavily during that time. It never died, it never stopped having releases. NECA didn't buy it from Wizkids they bought Wizkids. It's true that Topps wanted to kill it but NECA swopped in pretty quickly and there was no real interruption in releases as evedent they released a con exclusive just a few weeks after the purchase and a Marvel set just a few months after the purchase.

I think there are various reasons that things had issues but at the time the wargaming market was much smaller then it was right now and there was probably just a contraction as wasn't GW doing bad 10 years ago as well?

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2020/07/07 22:33:11


 
   
Made in us
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 Monkeysloth wrote:
I played heroclix heavily during that time. It never died, it never stopped having releases. NECA didn't buy it from Wizkids they bought Wizkids. It's true that Topps wanted to kill it but NECA swopped in pretty quickly and there was no real interruption in releases as evedent they released a con exclusive just a few weeks after the purchase and a Marvel set just a few months after the purchase.

I think there are various reasons that things had issues but at the time the wargaming market was much smaller then it was right now and there was probably just a contraction as wasn't GW doing bad 10 years ago as well?


Heroclix is the closest thing to an exception, but like I said, I don't think it would be if not for Iron Man.

This all happened in the midst of the 2008 housing crash. The price of oil spiked and China had its big revolution where its people got something resembling a reasonable wage for their work. It all came together to create a huge cost increase on prepaints that took them down.

Part of the oddity of the whole thing was that they were completely dependent on mass market success. The start up cost on each new mini was and still is, pretty prohibitive, but if you can get Walmart and Target to carry your line, their day one purchase is enough to be profitable. The problem with that, is big box isn't going to buy more than 1 SKU from you until they sell out of the last. That's the real purpose behind the blind purchase model. It ensures every single figure made is sold under the same SKU and sells at the same rate as the rest. The real purpose is to prevent a dud figure from tanking the whole line because what used to "kill" these games is a pack not selling well and Walmart deciding not to order the next.

At the same time in 2008, budgets were tight and the board game market was really starting to bloom. Consumers weren't in the mood to gamble for their game pieces. Fantasy Flight was winning people over with "Living Card Games" that dropped the "Collectable" marketing. Blind packs just weren't for the most part viable anymore and without them, they couldn't sell to Walmart and without Walmart, they couldn't hit the volume needed to handle the startup cost for new minis. It just wasn't a business model with a large enough audience to succeed.... except the one that suddenly had attained a truly massive audience.
   
Made in us
Serious Squig Herder






Warcaster has a lot of what I'd like to see in a WM MKIV - but I'm worried it's not going to do that well because:
1) Mini design is not that great/distinctive
2) Very metal-heavy line
3) Being sold via - KS - but without any real discounts on it.
4) Launched during a pandemic when people can't get together to really play it even.

And then PP is going to take the wrong lessons away from that.

But an MKIV (basically WM-H relaunch) my dream would be:
Small unit sizes/small games sizes
Big pruning of existing line - basically start over - jump the timeline 20 years and a lot of the existing Warcasters are dead/retired. Reduce redundant units, reduce Warjacks (and let them swap equipment instead of being unique entities)
Reduce synergies - remove the "this feat plus this ability plus this ability plus this unit means half your army is dead this turn."

But nothing means a thing until PP gives up metal (and worse resin/metal mix) and moves onto proper mediums for modern games. Anything they do is gonna stay niche until they get with the program.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




The PP Keynote presentation actually gave me a fair bit of hype and lit the fire under me painting my WM/H again (I had been working on some busts etc). Im actually fairly confident that the company has a roadmap for the next year and an idea of how they want to continue to expand their product lines while keeping WM/H on the boil with some new models and CID’s. Riotquest seems to be doing well pre orders wise and Warcaster has delivered slightly ahead of time.

That said what I didn’t hear was any indication of the work that PP is doing in trying to get their product onto shelves outside the US and/or growing the community. There are a number of community driven initiatives in tis area, but the company needs to be taking a hand. Otherwise they will put out all this product and it will not get the expose it deserves as the only ones who know about outside of the US will be existing PP customer base.

I want Warcaster to kick butt and do well. PP has show they can deliver. What they need to do is promote to build interest outside of the PP fanbase and build bridges to get it onto the shelf of FLGS and webstores
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut





Sunno wrote:


That said what I didn’t hear was any indication of the work that PP is doing in trying to get their product onto shelves outside the US and/or growing the community. There are a number of community driven initiatives in tis area, but the company needs to be taking a hand. Otherwise they will put out all this product and it will not get the expose it deserves as the only ones who know about outside of the US will be existing PP customer base.

I want Warcaster to kick butt and do well. PP has show they can deliver. What they need to do is promote to build interest outside of the PP fanbase and build bridges to get it onto the shelf of FLGS and webstores


Matt did an interview post keynote and this was brought up.


Matt said they're trying to improve European Distribution. Bob Watts has been working with Distributers but the traditional system isn't working any more as there's so many companies competing for Distributer and store space it's near impossible to get old stock to be carried. While more games are being sold there are less people dedicated to a single line anymore. Distributors will mostly only buy what they have orders for instead of stocking large amounts at the same time publishers are producing less as Distributors wont store stock anymore unless it's really popular making it hard for stores to get products (some of the wording he used makes me think he's talking about CMoN and ASFOI for part of this as an example). He talks about this for quite some time as an issue everyone having trying to adjust to the game boom that's going on and pretty interesting. Circling back to the European question he said they're building all new infrastructure for making it easier to deal with this new scenario outside of the US (wording makes it seam like producing things over seas) but COVID has thrown a real wrench into everything. They were at 10% work force for months and watched as international shipping orders wait for months before leaving the US after the courier/freight company received the item.


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/120/789318.page#10866720 for the link to the podcast and a summary of what he said.

If you add to what Matt said with what Chris Birch of Modiphius also said about distribution where he thinks COVID will cause some of the traditional channels to collapse, up to 20% of stores and some distributors, and most are currently running at a very low capacity or completely shut down that game makers have to find new ways to deal with the current environment (COVID) and that no one really knows what the games market will look like in a year. You can see why they're going the KSer route. Matt said that Riot Quest Season 2 wasn't supposed to be on KSer but a big gencon release but with all the cons closed down as well as many stores and all Distributers in limited operations they have no other means to get the product, as it's still new and doesn't have a large user base, in front of people.

link to Chris interview https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/150/775687.page#10867909

KSer also isn't more profitable for them, it costs more to sell via it then traditional distribution, but they sell way more product (in reference to Warcaster) then they would with a traditional new game release so it balances out cost wise.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/07/22 17:25:07


 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Also them not steep discounting works in thier favour if they also want regular stores to eventualllypick the game up, whilst at the same time still using ks to generate bulk orders to help pay for expansion of the game.

This way the stores arn't competing with insane ks deal prices. For PP it also means the custom they get is more reflective of thegames actual market not an inflated one because of insanly good deals.

Plus if they abandon ks in the future it means they dont getbacklash from those who would only buy at "ks prices". At itscore ks is about funding projects not steep discounts

A Blog in Miniature

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Made in ca
Perturbed Blood Angel Tactical Marine




Vancouver, British Columbia

 Valander wrote:
Regardless of all that, I still feel the focus on tournament play and uber-competitiveness is what drove down the adoption of the game overall. So for a Mk 4, I would like to see it be a lot less "this is professional sports/masters level chess" and more of a, you know, fun game. In the final days I was playing, "fun" was only had when I was playing with close friends, which would've had fun regardless of what we were playing. Pick up games with random (or even semi-random) players at the LGS were distinctly non-fun for me, as games inevitably boiled down to micro-management of movement, and nit-picking of rules to try to eek out the way to do the wombo combo one shot to win. That is what would need to change in Mk 4 to re-interest me, and I think a lot of other people might feel the same. Of course, there are also many quite happy with how it is, and that's cool; people are free to like different things. It's also ok to not like a thing.


I played Warmachine since it first arrived in my city, and I also quit playing before MkIII due to the high-octane competitiveness of the game. Something I'd love to see toned down should a MkIV ever surface.

   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




I had high hopes when they were advertising mk3 as streamlined, yet very soon we started getting every single model with so many rules that they barely fit on the back of the card, entire faction with almost everyone having multiple attack options etc.

Base game rules are fine and interesting already, there's nothing wrong with models being differentiated by stats and ICON-abilities with backs of their cards completely blank. The dance of ranges and front arcs and terrain is really cool on its own without the absurd load of memorisation.

To be honest the only way to save Warmachine IMO is with PP stopping taking care of the grumpy vets who want things to stay as they are. Some of them will leave when the revolution happens, but for every vet (who doesn't buy new models anyway) who leaves there are multiple newbies to be gained with streamlined rules, improved visuals, smaller game size and other barriers of entry removed. And many of those annoyed vets will come back to the new version of the game anyway after some time if it's cool/popular enough.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I think the problem is what any such game faces as a product: While the basic game is, as Cyel points out, pretty interesting on its own, the product needs to sell. And there's a degree to which you stop expanding horizontally, selling the game to more people, and you need to sell more game.
   
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Assault Kommando





 RiTides wrote:
Hey guys,

So this occurred to me, after mulling over what wasn't gelling with me about joining in with the local group to start up playing Hordes again. And it's that I think they really just do need to re-boot. Mk3 clearly lost a ton of fans, but there's a chance to win those same fans back with a new edition, and maybe also make an easier way for folks to start.

The reason this hit me, too, was thinking about Warcaster. Obviously, starting a new game gets it out from some of the problems of the old (namely, no design space left for new releases!). But in the end, it would end up in the very same place, imo. And to be completely honest, I've got a really awesome Hordes minions army converted and painted, and would like to use at least part of it!

What do you think, is there any chance of a Mk4 on the horizon? What would it take to get folks to try out Warmachine and Hordes?

Cheers for any thoughts / ideas



Mk IV on the horizon but it will probably play similiar to RQ/Warcaster/Monsterpocalypse with some key differences. Which is good news. Those games play easier since the math is behind the dice.

 
   
 
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