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Pretty surprised about D&D Onslaught, considering how expensive it is. Also, D&D 5e was supposed to require miniatures less than 4e, so it's interesting that D&D miniatures are still popular.

What is the D&D Onslaught scene like? Is it popular at LGS's?

 kodos wrote:
instead of the need to buy a random ship several times to get the necessary cards

But you didn't need to do that very often. You bought 1-2 copies of each new release because the new ships were cool and releases were far enough apart that it wasn't a huge cost per year to keep up, and most of the time that got you enough copies of everything. Maybe once in a while you'd buy a single extra ship for the cards but most people shrugged and accepted it as a minor inconvenience. Only the huge ships, where FFG put mandatory update cards bundled in with a ship for a stupid and non-functional game mode nobody ever played, were a significant extra purchase and pretty much everyone hated those.

The conversion kits, on the other hand, were a blatant cash grab and nothing more than a tax to continue playing. Even if you already owned hundreds of dollars worth of 1st edition ships you had to hand over more money for the conversion kits, with insult to injury being FFG splitting factions and making you buy twice as many conversion kits. Even people who were happy with playing the existing game quit over FFG demanding $200 for an errata update if you wanted to keep playing.


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 ced1106 wrote:
Also, D&D 5e was supposed to require miniatures less than 4e, so it's interesting that D&D miniatures are still popular.

It's not too surprising IMO. 5E definitely makes miniatures less mandatory but they're still cool to have and the price point is far better than most miniatures. It's really easy to impulse buy a $5 miniature here and there, and that adds up with you think about how many D&D groups there are. And most of them are pretty setting-agnostic so you can also buy them for your games with other systems.

a blatant cash grab was bundling the necessary Y-Wing Upgrades with the U-Wing and making people buy ships they never wanted to get those cards
having another Tie you never use because there are already 6 is similar although not that expensive

the upgrade sets compared to that were reasonable and cheaper than the ongoing new ship for cards and the usual Edition change for 40k.
and you never needed more than one, as you were never going to play with all the ships from your collection (need 2 upgrade sets because I have 10 X-Wing models and want it for all of them but always only just playing 1 is not a problem of the sets)

People that were defending the upgrade policy with cards bundled with ships for different factions or those never used at all, complaining about the Upgrades Sets does not make much sense for me, as the stuff before was worse and not better

Problem were not the upgrade sets with X-Wing, problem was that people were burned out by the previous release policy and just needed a reason to quit
Similar happened with the 2nd Edition of SAGA, non of the rules changes or book releases of 2nd Edition were bad or unreasonable but people took the change to quit because they were not happy with what happened to the game before that

 kodos wrote:
bundling the necessary Y-Wing Upgrades with the U-Wing

What upgrades were those? The 1.0 u-wing did not contain any upgrades that were relevant for the y-wing.

and making people buy ships they never wanted to get those cards

Except, again, most people were already buying 1-2 of each new ship because new ships are cool. Having to buy an additional ship you weren't going to use was a pretty rare thing, annoying but not a dealbreaker for most people. That's not at all the same as suddenly having to spend hundreds of dollars on replacing all of your cards and cardboard because the rules changed or not being able to continue playing.

cheaper than the ongoing new ship for cards and the usual Edition change for 40k.

40k only gets away with edition changes because most people pirate the rules and edition changes are free for them. If everyone had to pay MSRP for all the rules they use even 40k's market dominance might not be enough to keep the game alive.

And even if you buy the 40k rules getting enough conversion kits for a decent collection cost more than a typical 40k edition change. Five conversion kits is more than a new 40k core book and (eventual) codex, and five conversion kits might not even be enough.

and you never needed more than one

You very well might need more than one because of how FFG arranged the front and back pairs on the ship tokens. You might have enough tokens to run three x-wings in a list, but only if you use a specific combination of pilots. If you wanted to cover every set of pilot choices for your three x-wings you had to buy multiple conversion kits. And this was not an accident, FFG wanted you to buy multiple copies of each conversion kit.

Problem were not the upgrade sets with X-Wing, problem was that people were burned out by the previous release policy and just needed a reason to quit

So you're going to fall back on "everyone was lying" as your defense here? Maybe you were fine with the conversion kits but a lot of people cited them as a reason for quitting and I see no reason to accuse them all of lying.

X-Wing was a great game was always doomed long term as a continuing living experience game. First edition is a good game and pretty much all the ships you'd want from the setting were available. It doesn't need more.

The problem is they're working in an established setting that doesn't have a huge variety of ships to start with. And it's space, so there's not many ways to add variety with terrain or different sorts of missions either.

So once you've released everything, what do you do? You can't stop, because you're reliant on game stores to host casual and organised play events, and they won't do that if they don't have product to sell to people.

The idea of there being a "tax" to carry on playing well... yeah. There is. If you want organised events, if you want store-based communities, if you want somewhere to play, you have to keep paying for that on an ongoing basis. If you don't, the whole thing falls apart. And yes you can say "but I've been playing X system at my local store for 10 years and haven't bought a new product in 5" - well great, but if everyone did that there's no way that store would be hosting games for that system anymore.

And if you don't want organised play, if you have your own kitchen table community then you don't need the second edition at all. Just keep playing what you have. Admittedly in those cases it's a shame that few actual new ships that come our are 2nd edition only but you still have a solid, fun game.

I mean it doesn't have a huge variety of ships if you stick to purely film ships, but the extended lore of the setting is massive.

As for terrain there's asteroids, space stations, space station asteroids, nebulas, space monsters, the internals of a moon, atmosphere battles with clouds, city spires, vast sprawling urban landscapes with huge towerblocks.

There's masses of terrain potential.

Toofast wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Makes me so sad that X-Wing isn't even on the radar anymore (or Star Trek Attack Wing).

X-Wing is such a great game, it deserved a far better fate than what it has become.

This is why I stay with 40k. Despite the ups and downs with the rules, it's the only game I can go to a completely new city almost anywhere in the world and be sure I can find opponents. I remember when Warmachine was in the top 3 and took over my local scene. I remember Star Wars being #2 for several years in a row and people speculating about it overtaking GW for the top spot. Of course just a few years later and those games have not only dropped out of the top 10 of this list but aren't being played at all in a 50 mile radius of me. You'll probably be able to say the same thing about Battletech in a few years. 40k and AoS are the constants, everything else rotates every few years as people get bored or greedy companies ruin the game with a new edition that sucks.

Sorry, I'm not sticking with the greediest company of them all that makes you rebuy the rules every 2 years (or 6 months for the tournament scene).

 Overread wrote:
I mean it doesn't have a huge variety of ships if you stick to purely film ships, but the extended lore of the setting is massive.

As for terrain there's asteroids, space stations, space station asteroids, nebulas, space monsters, the internals of a moon, atmosphere battles with clouds, city spires, vast sprawling urban landscapes with huge towerblocks.

There's masses of terrain potential.

Massive is relative. Having a quick look they had maybe 50 different ships by the end of the first edition. I don't know the extended lore well enough to know if massive is "about 50" or "about 200" different ships.

It's not like where it's your own IP and you can just invent stuff to enable new and different mechanics either. Yes, there may have been other ships they hadn't used, but mechanically would they be any different from the existing ones. You might want to have a mechanic where a ship can split into two different ships and recombine as that's interesting for the game, but if the lore doesn't support it you can't do it.

And yeah - they could have gone the terrain direction, but never did. The game always seemed designed for minimal/no terrain. (And selling terrain is always a challenge anyway)

Oh, how War Machine and X-wing have fallen.

I am surprised to see Legion still doing so well considering it is the red-headed stepchild of Star Wars games, but we will see when the new quarter results come out with Shatterpoints release.

I wonder where Warlord games falls? Since they are Historical they probably do not hit the radar for this ranking?

 Easy E wrote:
considering it is the red-headed stepchild of Star Wars games, but we will see when the new quarter results come out with Shatterpoints release.

You mean Armada?

deano2099 wrote:
If you want organised events, if you want store-based communities, if you want somewhere to play, you have to keep paying for that on an ongoing basis.

Why? Chess doesn't need a new edition reboot and mandatory purchases every three years to keep having countless players and organized events. Companies use the content treadmill business model because it's good for easy short term profits, not because it's the only option.

 Easy E wrote:
I wonder where Warlord games falls? Since they are Historical they probably do not hit the radar for this ranking?

They would have to poll shops that sell historicals.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
If you want organised events, if you want store-based communities, if you want somewhere to play, you have to keep paying for that on an ongoing basis.

Why? Chess doesn't need a new edition reboot and mandatory purchases every three years to keep having countless players and organized events. Companies use the content treadmill business model because it's good for easy short term profits, not because it's the only option.

At the same time most firms making chess sets will also make a lot of other game sets, including one-off boardgames. Whilst the same game isn't being re-released they are releasing new ones all the time. Heck they might even do themed tie-ins - a great example being Monoploy where there's a set for almost everything (isn't there even a 40K one!)

Re-releasing the same product in different wrappers; releasing new boardgames in other divisions to keep the money rolling in.

GW approaches it from a different avenue and that brings its own pros and cons.





IT is interesting that games like chess remain viable and yet many wargames often require constant new product (new entirely or updated sculpts) to remain viable, but I suspect that has a lot to do with what we consider viable. I think it also has a lot to do with market size. Chess is insanely vast so there's a constant influx of new people with multiple social groups and institutions introducing people and drawing them in all the time. GW has some of that but nothing near the same scale. So GW has to do a lot of the legwork themselves and their games are in no way considered cultural like chess often is.

So yeah chess works, but I don't think you could market 40K like chess and have it work the same way - certainly not if you want to remain the sole copyright holder and make high profits off 40K alone.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
If you want organised events, if you want store-based communities, if you want somewhere to play, you have to keep paying for that on an ongoing basis.

Why? Chess doesn't need a new edition reboot and mandatory purchases every three years to keep having countless players and organized events. Companies use the content treadmill business model because it's good for easy short term profits, not because it's the only option.

Sure. Stores could charge to use gaming venue instead. 5 bucks per game per player. Better?

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:



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 ced1106 wrote:
Also, D&D 5e was supposed to require miniatures less than 4e, so it's interesting that D&D miniatures are still popular.

It's not too surprising IMO. 5E definitely makes miniatures less mandatory but they're still cool to have and the price point is far better than most miniatures. It's really easy to impulse buy a $5 miniature here and there, and that adds up with you think about how many D&D groups there are. And most of them are pretty setting-agnostic so you can also buy them for your games with other systems.

Don't forget also that D&D 4th was a big dip in the franchise compared to 3.5 and now 5th which has exploded in popularity. Even if a smaller percentage of players use minis, it is from a far larger sample size than in 4th.

tneva82 wrote:
Sure. Stores could charge to use gaming venue instead. 5 bucks per game per player. Better?

Yes, absolutely better. I would rather pay to use a quality gaming venue than have the new content treadmill where games are used up and discarded in pursuit of short-term profits.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Sure. Stores could charge to use gaming venue instead. 5 bucks per game per player. Better?

Yes, absolutely better. I would rather pay to use a quality gaming venue than have the new content treadmill where games are used up and discarded in pursuit of short-term profits.

Thing is right now there's only one major chain company in wargames - GW.

Everyone else is either running 1 store or perhaps half a dozen here and there. It's not impossible that others could slowly build up to national coverage at which point charging for tables could become a market for them if they then sell their own game models to use in store and shift the focus; but it will be a long time if never coming. It would alos likely require highstreets to become far less hostile to stores; ergo far more affordable.

Tastyfish wrote:Sounds like they're including the Battletech Kickstarter as part of this? Which does seem a little odd to put alongside sales of existing items from stores

that's not the impression i got? though the kickstarters certainly have been a factor. the clan invasion KS saw the fixing of the logistical issues that plagued the release of the new starter sets, and added a third starter box to the mix (introductory box, A game of armored combat, and clan invasion) as well as a slew of lance and star unit packs that let you build your collection beyond the starters in an affordable way.

the clan invasion kickstarter also made for good publicity and helped get word out that the game existed, both to new players and to older players that had moved on after FASA closed down or grew weary of FanPro's general lack of activity. the KS also had some very good merchant level deals as well, allowing for FLGS and online sellers to pick up plenty of starters and unit packs in bulk at a good discount without having to go through normal distribution. something that certainly helped get sets on shelves for sale during the interim period where the sets weren't going to distribution yet, only going out to backers.
the current mercenaries kickstarter is likely to boost it further, with another starter set (the mercenaries starter), and a slew of new unit sets, adding vehicles to the options. something that was a much requested thing last KS, and which plays into well with the release of the Alpha Strike starter box last year, a game mode that more readily handles vehicles.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Anyone know the underlying figures and metrics?

The data is self-reported by retailers, distributors, and publishers, as well as (more recently) Kickstarter sales. The placement correlates to dollar sales, North American market only. Not everyone self-reports (GW does not, so this is based only on self-reporting of retailers sales of GW product and whatever few wholesalers/third party distributors for their products which still remain). In other words, its not really useful or accurate reporting. In this case Battletechs placement is skewed against otherwise incomplete data from other product ranges by the massive kickstarter they just ran. I know Wizkids does self report, and I believe Catalyst does as well, from what I understand AMG/Asmodee only partially reports data (like GW they are protective of their data) and provides an at-best incomplete picture of things. icv2 attempts to guess and estimate their data gap, but it doesn't seem to be very accurate.

In general, I don't put a lot of stock into icv2's reporting data. There was a point where they reported X-Wing was outselling 40k - I can assure you that *never* actually happened and that at its peak X-Wings *worldwide* sales didn't even equal GWs reported sales revenues attributable to the North American market.

 Gallahad wrote:
I would rather play a good game for five years than an expensive rotating pile of crap for twenty.

But different strokes for different folks!

Warmachine was big for 2 years. Same with X-Wing. Then almost everyone got bored of it and sold their stuff on ebay. I would rather play a game that I can find opponents for. I can be in Florida, Ohio, or Bogota and find opponents for 40k. Any other game is a crapshoot. Even if you can find opponents, there's no guarantee they'll still be playing that game by the time you even buy/build/paint the models for it and learn all the rules.


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 ced1106 wrote:
Pretty surprised about D&D Onslaught, considering how expensive it is. Also, D&D 5e was supposed to require miniatures less than 4e, so it's interesting that D&D miniatures are still popular.

What is the D&D Onslaught scene like? Is it popular at LGS's?

I've never seen anyone actually playing it but all the FLGS by me carry a TON of that stuff in comparison to their other model ranges so it must sell.

 kurhanik wrote:
Don't forget also that D&D 4th was a big dip in the franchise compared to 3.5 and now 5th which has exploded in popularity. Even if a smaller percentage of players use minis, it is from a far larger sample size than in 4th.

4th turned it into a card game with set attacks and moves. It was terrible.

5th is actually very close to the old D&D Basic Set rules, which are excellent. I mean, they made the game famous. More races, more classes, but they recaptured the core simplicity of the system - which is really the only good thing about it.

As for X-Wing, West End Games had a fun board game back in the day (Star Warriors: Tactical Ship to Ship Combat in the Star Wars Universe) and it was but one of many offerings by them. They also did board games of Hoth and Endor, and a crap ton of RPG materials.

And then they lost the license. Oops.

Alpha Strike is an excellent modernization of the BattleTech franchise. I won't be playing Classic again, it is a slog.

The option of playing within a 36" square table, with all movement and range halved, then have the amount of damage determined via the "Pilot" dice method is an opportunity to "approximate" the granularity of classic Battle Tech within the fast pace of Alpha Strike.

(A "Pilot Dice" is a single unique colored/patterned/sized die, added individually to a die representing one other point of Damage given at that range. Success is calculated by adding the Pilot dice individually to each other die representing a point of damage. Total all successes to determine the final amount of Damage inflicted by that attack.)

Scott wrote:
Alpha Strike is an excellent modernization of the BattleTech franchise.

Agree to disagree.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Sure. Stores could charge to use gaming venue instead. 5 bucks per game per player. Better?

Yes, absolutely better. I would rather pay to use a quality gaming venue than have the new content treadmill where games are used up and discarded in pursuit of short-term profits.

Well you can. Gaming cafes are increasingly a thing. Or you can hire out a local town hall/scout hut/community centre and run your own gaming sessions and tournament there every weekend if you want. There absolutely *are* other models but they require other people doing the work. If you expect the game publisher to incentivise and push organised play, then the game publisher is going to have to be able to make money off that. It makes no business sense for them to spend money on people who aren't even going to spend any more money on product.

Chess is great, but most chess tournaments charge you an entry fee, or you pay for membership of a federation. And the tables are a sixth of the size of what you need for most wargaming and you're paying for play space essentially, so have to assume that scales accordingly.

But yeah, ultimately what it boils down to is if you want the publisher to support organised play, then you're going to have to buy product, because that's the only way they have of you paying them. So they have to make more product. Same goes for retail stores really, although some are moving to a pay-for-table model, they have a bit more flexibility.

If the community is willing to run organised play itself, then yeah, none of that is needed. But given how fast 90% of the community is to declare a game "dead" and stop playing it the minute the publisher stops releasing stuff, I don't know how viable that model is. (And even when it's been done well, like post-FFG Netrunner, it's rarely acknowledged)

deano2099 wrote:
But given how fast 90% of the community is to declare a game "dead" and stop playing it the minute the publisher stops releasing stuff, I don't know how viable that model is.

Sadly this is right, and why the model I want will never happen. Too many people are too obsessed with the new content treadmill and have the attention span of a goldfish. Who cares if shoveling out new content as fast as possible inevitably kills the game in a year or two, if it's been more than a week since the last major release the game is dead and the company making it doesn't care about the players. It doesn't even matter if all the current stuff is still available to buy and everyone is having fun with the game as it is, if there aren't new releases coming ASAP it isn't acceptable.

(See, for example, how it was confirmation that Epic was pulled from the release schedule unexpectedly because there is now an entire week where GW isn't releasing a major new product.)

The internet can be full of hyperbole all the time and its important not to read too much into it at times.

Also lets not forget one reason people DO legitimately abandon armies that the company abandons is because often times when an army gets no more releases and no more marketing nor attention; its often a sign that the company is no longer choosing to invest in that army.

That means it ends up with old models in a material/sculpting quality that quickly falls behind; it means the company spends less resources drawing people into that army which means fewer sales; that can translate to less and less stock and thus less attention, less improvement in balance metrics and more.


Heck the supply system even works against you because many major distributors only want to stock the new stuff. So at a local level it can mean local shops have qa harder and harder time getting those models on shelf because they are 2-4-5-10 years old and the distributor firm would rather stock the new-hotness in bulk.


There's not just players; there's a whole system of elements that comes into play when an army is "ignored" which makes them less attractive to play.
There's a whole system behind it that's supported by multiple game manufacturers.



So its a learned behaviour.





Another thing is that people like buying, building and painting and playing. Once you leave the net most people have few armies that they work on and some might even have only one or two. So if that army gets no new models for many years that means the player can easily reach a point where they are just repeating what they've already bought. Some people are happy with that; some are happy to pick up conversions; some just want some new toys to use on the table that are new, fresh and provide a different building and painting experience.
Heck some might want to see their all metal army turn into plastic because they prefer working with it.

And if their army doesn't see anything new for 10 years - yeah they might well "abandon" them and start playing a different army that is getting focus. They don't instantly dislike the first, but financial/space requirements might mean they have to sell off the first to start the second.


etc....

In a market where sculpting quality; materials; styles and such all evolve and change over time; yes there is a good reason players want the army they play to get attention.


Heck in the past firms have removed old armies. GW has done it; Infinity has done it*. Heck we've seen whole games withdrawn from sale.


*yes they remain in the rules but are no longer sold and, out of production means higher and higher costs overtime and harder and harder sourcing of models

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

deano2099 wrote:
But given how fast 90% of the community is to declare a game "dead" and stop playing it the minute the publisher stops releasing stuff, I don't know how viable that model is.

Sadly this is right, and why the model I want will never happen. Too many people are too obsessed with the new content treadmill and have the attention span of a goldfish. Who cares if shoveling out new content as fast as possible inevitably kills the game in a year or two, if it's been more than a week since the last major release the game is dead and the company making it doesn't care about the players. It doesn't even matter if all the current stuff is still available to buy and everyone is having fun with the game as it is, if there aren't new releases coming ASAP it isn't acceptable.

(See, for example, how it was confirmation that Epic was pulled from the release schedule unexpectedly because there is now an entire week where GW isn't releasing a major new product.)

I'd recommend the world of board games if it's the play element that appeals, more than the modelling, painting and list-building. No-one looks at you funny for playing a game that's out-of-print.

Ah yes game dies in few years if company releases new stuff all the time. Meanwhile 40k rakes in record profits with many years of that.

Sergeantbob just trolling as usual

 Tamereth wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Makes me so sad that X-Wing isn't even on the radar anymore (or Star Trek Attack Wing).

X-Wing is such a great game, it deserved a far better fate than what it has become.

Both of these died locally when they did their edition changes, and tried to force people to spend money to keep playing with the models they already had. Its a real issue for any game that requires accessories unique to each model to play, then you change the rules so you need different ones.
I know personally when x-wing 2.0 came out I price up how much the conversion packs would cost and hitting £400 just for cards and tokens, and knowing it didn't 100% match all of my collection I stopped playing, as did many others.

For star trek attack wing I actually liked the rules changes, but suddenly all new releases had the ships / upgrades massively cheaper than the old sets and there was no update to re-cost the old stuff. So you couldn't play competitively unless you replaced your collection. I went from playing in a tournament a month (and ranking top 10 in the UK) to boxing my stuff up in the loft.

What did you have to buy that amounted to over 400 GBP? I stopped buying with the new edition due to the cost of "rebuying" back into the game that I already was only occasionally playing but for me it only amounted to about $120 USD (starter plus a couple of conversion/update packs). As for STAW, I stopped paying attention to it when I saw they stopped investing in new ship models and were just releasing repaints for the third or fourth time. They had a ton of great ships but there were others that I wanted but admittedly I never actually played the game (unlike Xwing which I played regularly for a couple of years in 1e).


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 Overread wrote:
The big risk with Starwars games, as with any licenced game, is that the licence owner can kill the whole thing by raising the licence fee or just deciding "naw its done we don't want it any more" or even sending the licence to a new firm.
Plenty of licenced tie-in material goes that way.

I'm just happy that I have the models to be honest at this point. For decades, I had to make due with convention games using homebrew rules and 80's/early 90's micromachine models to get my Star Wars tabletop gaming fix. Some of my fondest memories were playing "mega scale" floor games (as in taking up a room's floor with no tables) Star Wars games at Gencon in the mid 90s with big scale starships on microphone stands with micromachine squadrons.


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 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

Was a great game. After the questionable 2.0 reboot and then AMG's complete destruction of the game "MCP with spaceships" can die on the trash pile of forgotten games. I'm not at all surprised it has dropped off the top-10 list, the handful of people still playing seem to be mostly victims of the sunk cost fallacy who have too much invested in the game to move on. And those people aren't really buying new stuff anymore.

Can you elaborate on that? I stopped paying keeping up with new ships/rules not long after the switch to 2e with FFG.


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deano2099 wrote:
X-Wing was a great game was always doomed long term as a continuing living experience game. First edition is a good game and pretty much all the ships you'd want from the setting were available. It doesn't need more.

The problem is they're working in an established setting that doesn't have a huge variety of ships to start with. And it's space, so there's not many ways to add variety with terrain or different sorts of missions either.

That's something that I noted fairly early on that they'd eventually (at the pace they were releasing ships) run out of the popular ones from the original trilogy and then eventually even the prequels. Now I desperately wanted a TIE Predator from the Legacy era comics but I fully admit that even most Star Wars fans if they saw that on the shop peg would be like "WTF is that?".

 MajorWesJanson wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
considering it is the red-headed stepchild of Star Wars games, but we will see when the new quarter results come out with Shatterpoints release.

You mean Armada?

They keep Armada locked in the Attic like some sort of V.C. Andrews book. Creepy really.