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I've always just gotten the impression he's more interested in art and world building than managing a product line. He's "accomplished" the whole minis game creation thing and is looking for more. He's just butting up against an industry that isn't nearly as popular as it needs to be to take him where he wants to go.

I think the wages issue is likely an issue for where they are based, being in an expensive region to operate in lumps increased costs not just on the business but on the employees as well. GW might be in the UK but they are far far away from the mega-cities like London.

From what I gather PP has had a rising problem with it because the area they are in has steadily grown more and more affluent which means prices on a lot of things have likely risen locally as well. So wages that worked 5 or 10 years ago now can't cut it.

Of course relocation of a whole business can be a huge problem. You can't just up sticks and move several counties over to a low cost area and expect everyone to follow you.

Of course, they can't just keep sticks in place and expect everyone to follow them, either It might work out to be low opportunity cost for them. They at least have an advantage in being in an industry that is very appealing for certain people to be in.

It is a bit sad that, as others noted, the issues of PP have been on repeat for years. I stopped paying attention to them about 3 years ago a bit after MK3 came out, and I find I can step right back into the conversation without ever asking "Wait, what happened?" Still losing some key employees, fumbling about community wise, still producing expensive, subpar models from inferior materials, still a pain to buy locally, etc. Some of those problems as fixable, some might not be, I don't know. I hope they get their act together, or some other company takes up the reins, as I do miss the game. As much as I dislike most of the models in the range, the game was good enough to keep me interested in buying them.

PP found it's niche: the small isolated "survivor" communities of WMH players in the US that still play. It's probably enough to keep lights on, just,but they almost certainly lack the capital to break out again...and they're fighting against the Page 5 legacy, which isn't helping.

I bet in 5 years time we'll still be here (hopefully!) and PP will be in the same spot. The question is will it be here with all of it's games...

 Overread wrote:
I think the wages issue is likely an issue for where they are based, being in an expensive region to operate in lumps increased costs not just on the business but on the employees as well. GW might be in the UK but they are far far away from the mega-cities like London.

From what I gather PP has had a rising problem with it because the area they are in has steadily grown more and more affluent which means prices on a lot of things have likely risen locally as well. So wages that worked 5 or 10 years ago now can't cut it.

Of course relocation of a whole business can be a huge problem. You can't just up sticks and move several counties over to a low cost area and expect everyone to follow you.

I think this was why PP relocated out of the Seattle/Bellevue area and are now located in a more rural area on land that they own. Costs of operating in that area were getting too intense, on top of the usual problems with the area like packs of roving homeless teens, and Antifa deciding they need to fight the power by burning businesses to the ground while never actually taking the fight to centers of power.

There some creators on YT who are over on work visa or green card and they do before and after videos of what the place used to look like. It is interesting to see how people from other countries who live in the area see the situation from the ground.

I would be surprised if PP could hold another Lock and Load in that town due to the situation there.


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Cronch wrote:
PP found it's niche: the small isolated "survivor" communities of WMH players in the US that still play. It's probably enough to keep lights on, just,but they almost certainly lack the capital to break out again...and they're fighting against the Page 5 legacy, which isn't helping.

I bet in 5 years time we'll still be here (hopefully!) and PP will be in the same spot. The question is will it be here with all of it's games...

For me the problem happened when they gave up Page 5. Things grew under Page 5, they didn't shrink. That happened with PP gave up its punk, in your face, alternative image to follow GW's foot steps. They haven't gotten to the same level of audience pandering as some other companies like WOTC to get the younger woke audience, but not everyone wants to be woke or have your standard vanilla corporate experience with a product.

As a brand you always double down on audience and experience your product provides. You never vanilla-ify it when there are other vanilla options out there and are market dominate. It wasn't like PP was cratering under Page 5 and when they removed it in MK3 they had a rush of consumers who were just waiting for PP to toe the woke line and left after thinking "what is the problematic legacy of Page 5"?

Page 5 gave PP a huge audience with military, small business owners, civilian rebellious types from the hacker-space and others. When Page 5 was removed in Mk3, I remember alot of people from those backgrounds being iffy about the future of PP.

If PP was just going to vanilla-ify their brand and follow the footsteps of GW instead of being innovative, what was the point? PP was the same company that did a CID process when working on Mk2 when the industry didn't even have a term for it. Open play test was a digital term.

Talk to any aging punk rocker, counter culture is hard to keep up.
Page 5 blew up in their face, it was used as an excuse to be a jerk to your opponent, to play obviously unfair combos and then laugh in your opponents face.
it doesnt matter what the intent or the true meaning of page 5 was, people used it to be jerks.

They haven't gotten to the same level of audience pandering

That's a very weird way to say they're failing to find an audience. Which is sort of the whole point of running a company in capitalism.

Under page 5 PP grew...and then they captured the whole market of people who care about winning Very Much. And models, unlike burgers, aren't very perishable, so they had to find new people to keep selling to. But by that time WMH had a reputation...and here we are.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Wages causing people to leave is understandable. But it's not like this hobby is aflush in money unless you're a higher up in GW (though I understand they pay better then most companies for in house staff, just not as much as they could). Margins are really low on lots of this stuff because we balk at paying anymore for it.

I do find it funny how much people hate Matt. I think too much gets blamed on him as he's the public face and easy to hate on pretty much to a crazy conspiracy level. It makes it hard to take any other statement included with such casual hate towards him as being of any value because I've never heard anything that's even somewhat believable proof that he's this evil, egotistical human being out to destroy everyone favorite game. People like that aren't good at hiding it and if it were true Matt would make Kevin Siembieda look respectable.

I don't hate Matt, he is a fantastic world builder. The guy is like the Elon Musk of world building. His move to Creative Director from head of the company was a good thing. But I think him and his wife need to loosen the riens a bit more. Great IP but too many misteps in managing it.

1. Lost rights to publish MonPoc in the early 2010's when MonPoc was at the height of its popularity (it was bigger than MK1 WMH) due to a failed movie deal and trusting Hollywood lawyers. You are an indie product, start off by networking with indie film companies.

2. Video game launch was over ambitious and White Moon Dreams or whatever basically conned the player base and PP out of money to launched a failed gaming studio. Should have just done a High Command digital card game or something like Battletech from Harebrain Schemes or an IKRPG video game. With a healthy apology and some scaled back ambitious they could still KS a digital game. I think most people understand that White Moon Dreams oversold and scammed PP and their audience and if PP shows lessons learned. I think a RQ overhead display game or even a IKRPG game under their old system would be great.

3. Gave up on open play test for MK3, the process that actually put PP on the map. Decided to do everything in house. Made the launch a total fail. And they ended up having to go back to it anyway with CID.

4. Killed PG program instead of relaunching. Ya, WOTC lawsuit was a lesson but an okay lawyer could have provided them a modified boiler plate license agreement for PG's to sign in order to participate.

5. Killed online stores. Not every store carries PP products and some people live in places where stores are far away in the U.S. Online stores made the product available to people outside of Seattle, like in rural USA and the rest of the world.


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Kinda of a wierd flex, looking at the new communities out there, I don't hear any complaints about new players looking to get into the game. They have already established new communities. Most players in the community at this point are new players.

I hear alot from old players looking to get into the game and complaining about Page 5 for some reason, when it is more love-hate nostolgia sourced from life happening and regretting it for some reason.

Beause the scene is competitive is a strange flex. Any less competitive than any GW scene, or any other IP worth playing in the market?

As someone with a career, my own family, and property, competitive players never bothered me because we all choose where to put our energy into and what to be good at. I can't remember the last time I won a game.

If anything Page 5 was a working class joe magic circle. It allowed the people who wanted to be competitive and to be their best the encouragement to do so and the rest of us who drink beers and lose every weekend could enjoy the experience, Page 5 also kept away the worst kind of audience.

The one that wants to win with no real effort (which probably speaks alot to behaviours outside of game) and is very fragile. Who wants that as a customer base? Sounds like standing on sand during a hurricane.

The potentially triggering and problematic legacy of Page 5 is not what hurt the company. It was a whole history of IP mismanagement. The good thing is PP can and has been fixing it, but they need to be bolder. Especially with Co-Vid and everyone holding on to their money to see if the entire market is going to collapse.

I didn't know Matt also bought the right to call himself the founder of PP and got his wealth from blood emerald mines, wow.

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
I recently tried to rejoin Warmahordes with my Trollbloods, because god damn it the MOUNTAIN KING (caps needed) is one of my fave models of all time.

I got up to date with the rules, played at 50 pts aaaand... wow I forgot how much I hated Caster Kill insta losses and how themes basically made my collection from mk2 split up and unable to fit neatly in any with the annoying "free models" which I've hated in any game system ever.

I'd love to play more of it, but the game needs a retool from the ground up, and Im nearly convinced PP doesn't have it in them. They've pretty much been cut off from most local hobby stores who refuse to even try and order in PP products

As a hobbiest I like the themes. Keeps the aethetic cohesive like we see with 40k factions and mini-factions. And Warmachine without caster kill as one of the win conditions. Why even play? Sounds like every other game on the market.

marxlives wrote:

1. Lost rights to publish MonPoc in the early 2010's when MonPoc was at the height of its popularity (it was bigger than MK1 WMH) due to a failed movie deal and trusting Hollywood lawyers. You are an indie product, start off by networking with indie film companies.

There's really no proof of this. The game died when literally every other prepaint line died. Costs to produce them became completely unreasonable and the whole industry went under over a few years. There's no reason to believe PP could keep producing the game when the biggest companies in the industry stopped producing theirs a the same time.

As far as Page 5 is concerned, I get what you're saying. The attitude was what was important and losing that hurts. The language itself was toned down in the MK2 version, and honestly, I never heard a complaint about that version. Every time Page 5 comes up, it seems to come from someone who had a bad experience in MK1 and never let it go. Half of the time, it comes from someone who heard about someone who had a bad experience in MK1 and never let it go. It may simply be that Page 5 gives something to attach an unpleasant experience to. It's certainly not an experience created by Page 5 itself. I've found it just about everywhere.

deleted

hotsauceman1 wrote:Talk to any aging punk rocker, counter culture is hard to keep up.
Page 5 blew up in their face, it was used as an excuse to be a jerk to your opponent, to play obviously unfair combos and then laugh in your opponents face.
it doesnt matter what the intent or the true meaning of page 5 was, people used it to be jerks.

Page 5 did not blow up in their face. If it did, the game wouldn't have reached Mk 2. Mk 2's Page 5 wasn't quite the same and even elucidated on each point, and that one was 6 years old when Mk 3 started and people started dropping WMH.

To quote Mk 2 Page 5: Page 5 is not an excuse.

They dropped Page 5 in Mk 3, but people still dropped WMH. If anything, history points to Page 5 being needed more than a hinderance.

How many people playing today or who played in the early days of Mk 3, ever read Prime Mk 1 and its Page 5? More than likely, more read Mk 2's Page 5, if they read any of them at all. Heck, it took me a while just to find a copy of the Mk 1 to actually be able to read it.

Page 5 was not an excuse during Mk 1. It was explicitly stated to not be an excuse in Mk 2. it is too old for it to be an excuse today when it doesn't even exist as such in the current edition and those who did play under the original are now 11 years older, at least. If anyone wants to keep pushing Page 5 as an excuse, I'll point them back to Mk 2's and it will explain it perfectly.

And yet ironically anyone doing that was doing everything against the spirit of page 5.

page 5 also stated that it was never an excuse. It was never a license to diminish another player, it was not permission to be a jackass in the name of competition, or a shield to hide behind.

It ended by saying respect each other because we are all here out of love for a great game.

Mk2 page 5 was empowering in a lot of ways. I really missed it when they took.it out.

I did read the Prime mk1 page 5. And it was an excuse. And in mk2 they toned it down, but by that point you managed to foster a whole community focused on WAAC and everyone and their mother knew what Page5 meant in practice. You might've soiled your pants once, 5 years ago, but you better believe the whole workplace will forever know you as Stinkypants.

Cronch wrote:
I did read the Prime mk1 page 5. And it was an excuse. And in mk2 they toned it down, but by that point you managed to foster a whole community focused on WAAC and everyone and their mother knew what Page5 meant in practice.

This. It was "cool" and "edgy" when it came out. Now, even with the disclaimers, it's a relic of a bygone era, and good riddance. People who legitimately and un-ironically miss Page 5 make me wary and disinclined to play them or the game in general.

"Fortunately" (?), in my area there's no scene anyway, so it doesn't matter. The "scene" for me is me and a friend who play once every six months or so. So take my input with a grain of salt.

Cronch wrote:
I did read the Prime mk1 page 5. And it was an excuse. And in mk2 they toned it down, but by that point you managed to foster a whole community focused on WAAC and everyone and their mother knew what Page5 meant in practice. You might've soiled your pants once, 5 years ago, but you better believe the whole workplace will forever know you as Stinkypants.

With respect, That's not true. You shouldn't be so quick to judge and tar a whole community.

Sone of the most wonderful and kindest people I knew (they have since passed sadly - if anyone has played in Scotland and knew pressganger Alan you'll know who I'm talking about... years after, he's still very fondly remembered and sadly missed) , and know were people I got to know through warmachine and hordes.

Of all the people I knew here, and played against, precisely one was focused on waac, and believe me, folks did not appreciate him.

Page 5 was not an excuse. Anyone being a plank was completely missing the point of it. People doing this then were doing it in spite of page 5, it's right there in the words.

And at the end of the day, the one thing I could do in wmh that I couldn't do in 3rd and 4th ed 40k was fight back and give as good as I got. 'Axe to face' worked.

I think there is a bit of a cultural divide. Here in the US page 5, even when it explicitly said it is not an excuse, was used as an excuse. It directly taps into an extremely strong culture of competitiveness which is actually brilliant for driving initial appeal in this country. The problem is that mindset often (read: not always) turns to toxicity when given time to ferment. It wasn't about some huge donkey cave obviously using page 5 as an excuse, it was that up front there was a subtext of 'this is a competitive game for competitive people' which with our culture is just poison waiting to brew.

They should have cut it entirely for Mk2 IMO. Mk1 they needed the 'clickbait' attention-grabber to start a community. But when it came to expanding and managing an existing one the same thing that helped them get going became a burden.

Culture divide I think has to be part of it because page 5 is something I never really heard of as a "problem" or anything in the UK at all. In fact it still surprises me that a single page in the whole thing that basically says "play nice, play well" creates such contention

I think the problem I was always noticed was just how serious the game was.
I went to a few tournaments and it was just, not fun, you couldnt tell people where playing a game they love because they where all dour with frowns on their face. No jokes, no fun remarks, if you went up to them, they would glare.
Contrast to other tournaments, where you could tell people where having fun

 Overread wrote:
Culture divide I think has to be part of it because page 5 is something I never really heard of as a "problem" or anything in the UK at all. In fact it still surprises me that a single page in the whole thing that basically says "play nice, play well" creates such contention

It really only takes a third or so of people reading it as 'this is a competitive game for competitive people and non competitive people should be crushed' to catalyze the descent of an entire community. They go on to recruit others of like mind, push people on the fence into arms races, and drive off more casual players. Not in dramatic reality TV fashion but rather as slow trends that build up over time. It happens a lot in this country, even to games that don't have a page 5 equivalent. The difference is that page 5 made that mentality far more contagious across the game than it otherwise would have been.

It helps to understand that in the US anything that could by any stretch become competitive, will be taken to that level. There's competitive fething Catan.

deleted

My thoughts on page 5 it's a rather silly argument as honestly the number of people that cared about it being there or not or bothered to actually read it is probably single percentile of the player base who are overly represented in these discussions. Page 5 is just used as placeholder for casuals vs hardcore players and the game would be in the same place regardless if it ever existed or was still in the rulebook. One line does not make a player base toxic. Nor does it keep thousands of people playing.

marxlives wrote:
4. Killed PG program instead of relaunching. Ya, WOTC lawsuit was a lesson but an okay lawyer could have provided them a modified boiler plate license agreement for PG's to sign in order to participate.

As I mentioned previously it didn't have anything to do with the WOTC lawsuit. It was talked about on some podcast a few years ago but basically the program was to big and the couldn't afford to pay someone to run it full time the way it needed to be run so they killed it.
You can argue if that was the right move but in PP's mind they could either just let it languish and provide no support to press gangers or end the program.

LunarSol wrote:

marxlives wrote:

1. Lost rights to publish MonPoc in the early 2010's when MonPoc was at the height of its popularity (it was bigger than MK1 WMH) due to a failed movie deal and trusting Hollywood lawyers. You are an indie product, start off by networking with indie film companies.

There's really no proof of this. The game died when literally every other prepaint line died. Costs to produce them became completely unreasonable and the whole industry went under over a few years. There's no reason to believe PP could keep producing the game when the biggest companies in the industry stopped producing theirs a the same time.

I agree with LunarSol. They never lost the rights to their own game as that's not how Hollywood options work. I looked up who represented Matt and they also currently represent "Quentin Tarantino, Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, Anthony Hopkins, and producer Jason Blum". There's no reason they'd try and scam out some dinky boardgame that made less in a year earnings wise then the company made off of the bigger names. Really wouldn't be worth the effort for them.

The other big rumor around the game was more plausible that they decided to cancel a release and design new stuff around the movie that then never happened. Since the designs are owned/co-owned by the production company PP really couldn't release those without paying money and, as was mentioned previously, and since deigning and manufacturing plastic like that takes 12+ months and it hadn't seen any releases in a year they probably thought it best to walk away.

That's, again, just a rumor but usually with these things the simplest explanation is the correct one. That blind buy Pre-paints just died, surprisingly quick, and at the time it was too expensive to do non-blind figures.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
One line does not make a player base toxic. Nor does it keep thousands of people playing.

I am sorry to say; you've got a real rude awakening on the horizon

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
One line does not make a player base toxic. Nor does it keep thousands of people playing.

I am sorry to say; you've got a real rude awakening on the horizon

Are you suggesting that the way to restore Warmachine is simply to release the MK3 rules with the original Page 5 from MK1 restored?


Wargaming, esp fantasy/scifi has always had a huge problem with teaching and communicating actual playing tactics. You can find hundreds of videos and articles on how to sculpt, build, convert and paint models and terrain. We can build freaking awesome stuff and teach others to build the same. We can argue and debate points to a knifeedge of mathematical balances

But when it comes to actual playing of the game its a wasteland of nothing. To the point where the double turn in AoS actually forced some to learn about things like unit screens, to the point where they consider them "double turn tactics" not just regular tactics for a wargame. Warmachine attracted a lot of higher level players who were very into the tactical end of the game. The rules were tight, but also invited certain interpretations and conclusions (eg the old "declare failed charges to move further than running in the early part of the game) which gave advantages, but which weren't overtly obvious to start with. Very much the same kind of things you get in top level magic the gathering play.

It was all logical, but wargamers don't do game teaching well so you end up with a two tier society - those at the top who really know their stuff and those who generally point and shoot/charge with their armies. The skill divide is real and often as not the higher skilled find it hard (or are oblivious) to "scaling down" their game for newer players.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:
One line does not make a player base toxic. Nor does it keep thousands of people playing.

I am sorry to say; you've got a real rude awakening on the horizon

Why? What Monkeysloth said is very true IMO.

In Poland the playerbase is anything but toxic - those players are helpful, taking care of every new member of the community. We have stories of WTC players helping new ones to perform an assassination on them, step by step (when newbie didn't see the possibilities) during master-class tournaments. Giving up their tournament win to teach a new player.

And yet, WM&H is still almost entirely dead here.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think the problem I was always noticed was just how serious the game was.
I went to a few tournaments and it was just, not fun, you couldnt tell people where playing a game they love because they where all dour with frowns on their face. No jokes, no fun remarks, if you went up to them, they would glare.
Contrast to other tournaments, where you could tell people where having fun

I remember having the realization after I moved away from my MK2 group, and hadn't played in a while... that I didn't miss it, because it wasn't fun.

I liked painting and even theoryhammering armies, but actually playing the game was always work.

 Monkeysloth wrote:

That's, again, just a rumor but usually with these things the simplest explanation is the correct one. That blind buy Pre-paints just died, surprisingly quick, and at the time it was too expensive to do non-blind figures.

Just a bit of inside ball. I was friends with some people working on a pretty successful prepaint line (not MonPoc) at the time and basically what happened was the quotes for new models started coming back at 600%+ of what they'd been, making them completely unmarketable. No new orders, but because plenty of stuff had already been paid for, it took a year or two for releases in the pipeline to bleed out. A lot of games tried to keep things going by repurposing existing stock and hoping they could ride it out until prices became reasonable (99% sure this is why PP put out the faction box sets). Even Clix died at the time and at the dawn of the MCU no less. I'm sure it would have stayed dead if a sudden massive demand for superhero stuff hadn't revived it.

Sorry to completely change the topic, but Phil has finished up the last of the Brawlmachine primer articles with Retribution!


https://www.loswarmachine.com/brawlmachine/2021/5/7/brawlmachine-list-building-retribution-of-scyrah

Cronch wrote:I did read the Prime mk1 page 5. And it was an excuse. And in mk2 they toned it down, but by that point you managed to foster a whole community focused on WAAC and everyone and their mother knew what Page5 meant in practice. You might've soiled your pants once, 5 years ago, but you better believe the whole workplace will forever know you as Stinkypants.

Okay, point out which part of Mk1 Page says to be an a-hole.

Simply put it doesn't. It is being used as an excuse, but it isn't an excuse. There is no excuse for being an a-hole, It says to bring your A-game and not whine if you get beat. If you can't handle being beat, then don't show up. It is the spirit behind "Play like you brought a pair". This is talking to the people who AREN'T a-holes who need to buck up and get more aggressive than in games where they can be more defensive, like some armies in Warhammer.

Overread wrote:Culture divide I think has to be part of it because page 5 is something I never really heard of as a "problem" or anything in the UK at all. In fact it still surprises me that a single page in the whole thing that basically says "play nice, play well" creates such contention

I never heard about it being a problem until people started blaming it on why the game died. This was after Mk3's launch and when the population started dying down to being a majority of "Steamroller-only" in many areas. That Page 5 hadn't even been a live thing for 6-7 years at that point, and had been replaced by Mk 2's version for most of that time.

NinthMusketeer wrote:It really only takes a third or so of people reading it as 'this is a competitive game for competitive people and non competitive people should be crushed' to catalyze the descent of an entire community. They go on to recruit others of like mind, push people on the fence into arms races, and drive off more casual players. Not in dramatic reality TV fashion but rather as slow trends that build up over time. It happens a lot in this country, even to games that don't have a page 5 equivalent. The difference is that page 5 made that mentality far more contagious across the game than it otherwise would have been.

It helps to understand that in the US anything that could by any stretch become competitive, will be taken to that level. There's competitive fething Catan.

I think it takes more than that, actually. I've seen 40K communities which didn't devolve like that while having a much higher ratio of hyper-competitive people. The problem isn't the ratio, but the absolute numbers. If you're the only person in your WMH community who won't play Steamroller, and there are 5 other people there, you're stuck with either dropping the game, diving in to Steamroller, or waiting until someone who is willing to play something beside Steamroller shows up.

But yeah, there are Americans who make anything a competition. Just ask Jeff Foxworthy about a competition his extended family had in Hawaii that his Aunt Rose won.

Mr. Grey wrote:The Page 5 in Mk1 Warmachine was very much not "play nice, play well". It was more "This is a ruleset for non sissies, be a man, stomp your opponent into the ground in whatever way you can, rawr, macho!!!". ...to paraphrase slightly. I'm about 85% sure it was also meant to be completely tongue-in-cheek, but a lot of people didn't read it that way.

Mk2's Page 5 was far more along the lines of what you're describing.

People will often read what they want out of text, especially if they think it gives license to unleash their baser instincts. Page 5 was never an excuse to be an a-hole. It was a direction to play hard and as best you could, but those aren't the same things.

Monkeysloth wrote:That's, again, just a rumor but usually with these things the simplest explanation is the correct one. That blind buy Pre-paints just died, surprisingly quick, and at the time it was too expensive to do non-blind figures.

I don't know if they died, but rather never got the community support that the producers thought they would get. AT-43 came out at about the same time and while it was interesting with some very well done models, also fell flat. Part of the reasoning at the time is that they were being released in hobby game stores, but there was no hobby needed for them.

Of course, fast forward a few years and start with one of the most popular IPs and make a clean game out of it, and it will take off. While MonPoc and AT-43 couldn't quite break that hold on the market, Fantasy Flight's X-Wing could and did. Oddly enough, it didn't extend to their Legion line that is more recent.