An industy in decline?!!?!?!?
Giftzwerg
Currently on my WinXP desktop are a well-selected set of icons. In our
context here, my gaming icons are:
BIRTH OF AMERICA
CONQUEST OF THE AEGEAN
THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR 3
PANZER COMMAND: OPERATION WINTER STORM
Does anyone want to argue, "things have never been worse, wargaming is
doomed?"
Cuz I think I can compellingly argue, "Things have never been better."
--
Giftzwerg
***
"For every Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi we can show a Bill
O'Reilly, an Ann Coulter, a Rush Limbaugh, a Glenn Beck and a Sean
Hannity. Idiocy parades unashamed in the streets on both sides of the
war on terror."
- Michael Browning
"Uh, Mikey? Bill, Ann, Rush, Glenn, and Sean *haven't fucking KILLED
anyone, you fucking imbecile."
- Giftzwerg
Epi Watkins
giftzw...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com says...
>
> Currently on my WinXP desktop are a well-selected set of icons. In our
> context here, my gaming icons are:
>
> BIRTH OF AMERICA
> CONQUEST OF THE AEGEAN
> THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR 3
> PANZER COMMAND: OPERATION WINTER STORM
>
> Does anyone want to argue, "things have never been worse, wargaming is
> doomed?"
>
> Cuz I think I can compellingly argue, "Things have never been better."
I have so many games I like right now. Most of them newer (or in the
case of The Operational Art of War III, redone) wargames. I don't have
the time to play them all.
--
Epi
I promise I'm going to change this sig. Someday.
----\
I'm playing Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday as The United Kingdom.
It is now 1941 (was).
Because of coups, there is no longer an Axis, or Comintern.
I never ("never" is too strong) play this game right.
Japan can do good as a member of the Allies.
----
http://www.curlesneck.com
Garth
"Giftzwerg" <giftzw...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1f137ba82...@news-east.giganews.com...
>
> Currently on my WinXP desktop are a well-selected set of icons. In our
> context here, my gaming icons are:
>
> BIRTH OF AMERICA
> CONQUEST OF THE AEGEAN
> THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR 3
> PANZER COMMAND: OPERATION WINTER STORM
>
things are going well, and technology is catching up to wargames, they are
looking better and better and so is the AI
James D Burns
news:MPG.1f137ba82...@news-east.giganews.com...
>
> context here, my gaming icons are:
>
> BIRTH OF AMERICA
> CONQUEST OF THE AEGEAN
> THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR 3
> PANZER COMMAND: OPERATION WINTER STORM
>
> Does anyone want to argue, "things have never been worse, wargaming is
> doomed?"
>
The number and quality of the games available isn't what is going to
eventually doom wargames. It is the ever-declining number of actual
wargamers out there who want to purchase and play the games that will doom
the industry. More and more, mainstream games are getting dumbed down to try
and appeal to the largest gaming audience out there. Look at the Total War
series, the first few incarnations were very good games with a lot of
historical depth that appealed to thoughtful gamers. But slowly the series
has been whittled away at by the marketing assholes and has gotten a lot
dumber over time.
The current build (Medieval 2) will look a lot more like a pure RTS game
than a wargame. Hell they even got rid of the historical date this go
around, it'll just be 200 or so turns with no historical date to reference
at all in the newest game. This is what will doom wargames in the long run,
not the actual number of games available. I'm sure there will always be a
small niche of players out there kind of like what board wargames have
today, but I bet in 10 or 20 years forums like this will only have a few
threads a month posted as us old geezers start to disappear from the hobby.
Talonsoft was the last wargaming company to put games on massive numbers of
retailers shelves worldwide which helped draw a lot of new blood to the
hobby. Matrix and other current companies have adapted to the high costs of
PC retail by streamlining their products (no more printed manuals and very
few boxed games anymore period) and making them available to their current
audience via direct downloads. But I seriously doubt these companies are
attracting many new gamers since they are not very visible to the mass PC
and console crowd that only cares about graphics.
I predict most games will sell based on their looks rather than their
content over the next 10 - 20 years or so. Eventually most gamers will start
to view games as similar to movies to be played for a week or two and then
discarded. Replay value and intelligent gaming will slowly get squeezed out
by the marketing sleazebags and the new crop of up and coming gamers will
view wargames as something old bearded men play.
My brother put it pretty succinctly when I tried to get him interested in
WitP. He said, "I don't want to have to work when I play games I want to
just get lost in them for a few hours". He's a very smart man, but graphics
is all he really cares about and he is probably typical of most affluent
older gamers today.
Jim
--
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
sideways - Brewski in one hand - cigar in the other - body thoroughly used
up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride"
ERutins
> audience via direct downloads. But I seriously doubt these companies are
> attracting many new gamers since they are not very visible to the mass PC
> and console crowd that only cares about graphics.
Just FYI, we've put at least one game into retail per year and plan to
continue to do so. As far as I know, Battlefront has also put a few CM
versions into retail. I don't think HPS or Shrapnel have sent anything
to retail, but I could be wrong about that. Also, we are at the major
gaming conventions and I remain surprised how many new gamers we find
there each year who haven't seen our games before.
> discarded. Replay value and intelligent gaming will slowly get squeezed out
> by the marketing sleazebags and the new crop of up and coming gamers will
> view wargames as something old bearded men play.
Nah, we'll just become the "foreign films" of the gaming scene. ;-)
Seriously though, I think our niche is doing fine right now and is
fairly resistant at the moment to quite a few of the general trends,
which are going in the direction you describe.
> My brother put it pretty succinctly when I tried to get him interested in
> WitP. He said, "I don't want to have to work when I play games I want to
> just get lost in them for a few hours". He's a very smart man, but graphics
> is all he really cares about and he is probably typical of most affluent
> older gamers today.
We have games for that too. :-)
Regards,
- Erik
Vincenzo Beretta
I totally agree. Actually, I feel that just now the wargaming industry is
the most satisfying one, for the quality and the variety of the offer.
Nobody else even come close.
However, it is worth mentioning that it benefits from a statistically rare
concentration of good working professionals and exceptional talent just now.
Maybe it is because this is a field where creativity is still required, or
maybe wargamers are just lucky, but you do not see the same "industry
teamwork" happening elsewhere - surely not in FPS, sports games and RTS and
MMORPGS, but neither in other niche genres like adventure games.
I think that we should enjoy the ride. This is why it is not a pity that so
many good games are published: some of them can be cached away for the next
(hopefully far to come) period of draught.
Vincenzo Beretta
> to retail, but I could be wrong about that.
HPS games are sold in retail here in Italy, by the "Pergioco" store chain. I
do not know the terms of the agreement.
Vincenzo Beretta
> to the largest gaming audience out there. Look at the Total War series,
> the first few incarnations were very good games with a lot of historical
> depth that appealed to thoughtful gamers. But slowly the series has been
> whittled away at by the marketing assholes and has gotten a lot dumber
> over time.
This is true for movies, too - and "big, dumbed down movies" are now
struggling. Sure, one can be impressed by the 200 millions that "Pearl
Harbor" made at the American BO - until you start to put in the picture
increased production and marketing costs, adjust the gross for inflation,
and then you discover that "Pearl Harbor" was not a success by any means.
"Brokeback Mountain" and "Memento" were. Actually, for big movies to succeed
today they need to make part of their profit on the home-market of DVD and
rentals - where they compete with the crowd that is not interested in going
to the theatre to see the latest Big One.
(When "The Passion" by Mel Gibson swept the B.O. everybody was amazed, but I
read a very interesting analysis about the movie: actually it was not such
"stunning success" but "a very normal good success" that, for a change,
brought to the multiplexes people normally not interested in going to the
current movies).
Returning to games, the basic problem lies with the fact that the production
costs for modern games, the AAA level ones like the industry likes to call
them (don't ask, I don't know) is so high that when you go to a producer
with words like "innovation" and "creativity" you exit from the window. At
one of the latest Game Developers Conferences the running joke was "15 years
ago the question was: why this game should be different from that one? Today
it is: why this game will sell to those who bought that one?" The risk is
simply too much.
Companies like Electronic Arts explicitly admit that they do sell strong
brands ("Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings...) with games built around
them. At least Ubisoft is strong enough to *create* her own franchises
(Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six...) - and the simple fact that their major rival
isn't unable to do the same and has to spend big money to get someone else's
IPs speaks volumes about how difficult becomes to be creative when you have
forgotten how it is done. Sure, when you risk and all goes well it pays
dividends (the new "Resident Evil 4" by Capcom being a good example), but
then be sure that the lemmings will follow.
So, I believe that it is true: regarding wargames we are still in "Sundance
Festival" land, where creativity and intelligence are *requirements* or you
do not sell. Which is, I might add, why I still write for comics and I'm not
interested in doing it for the movies.
Hmmm.... from where the recent B.O. successes of Spiderman, Batman, The
X-Men and Superman took their ideas from? :o)
Giftzwerg
> > Does anyone want to argue, "things have never been worse, wargaming is
> > doomed?"
> >
>
> The number and quality of the games available isn't what is going to
> eventually doom wargames. It is the ever-declining number of actual
> wargamers out there who want to purchase and play the games that will doom
> the industry.
This seems illogical, though. "Number of games" and "number of gamers"
are the two sides of the one coin. How can one be going up while the
other goes down?
> More and more, mainstream games are getting dumbed down to try
> and appeal to the largest gaming audience out there.
People keep *telling* me this is going to happen, but what I actually
*observe* is more and better decent wargames.
> Look at the Total War
> series, the first few incarnations were very good games with a lot of
> historical depth that appealed to thoughtful gamers. But slowly the series
> has been whittled away at by the marketing assholes and has gotten a lot
> dumber over time.
I would argue that this title was RTS garbage from the get-go.
> Talonsoft was the last wargaming company to put games on massive numbers of
> retailers shelves worldwide which helped draw a lot of new blood to the
> hobby. Matrix and other current companies have adapted to the high costs of
> PC retail by streamlining their products (no more printed manuals and very
> few boxed games anymore period) and making them available to their current
> audience via direct downloads. But I seriously doubt these companies are
> attracting many new gamers since they are not very visible to the mass PC
> and console crowd that only cares about graphics.
Again, though, this is what I'm *told*, but the actual evidence seems at
odds with the, "we must have wargames in stores or we're doooooomed"
theory.
> My brother put it pretty succinctly when I tried to get him interested in
> WitP. He said, "I don't want to have to work when I play games I want to
> just get lost in them for a few hours". He's a very smart man, but graphics
> is all he really cares about and he is probably typical of most affluent
> older gamers today.
But was he *ever* a wargamer, with his, "don't make me, like, *think*,
dude" approach?
--
Giftzwerg
***
"When is The New York Times going to get around to uncovering an al
Qaida secret program?"
- Ann Coulter
Ivan Bajlo
news:wnkqg.2865$rp3....@fe05.lga...
> and appeal to the largest gaming audience out there. Look at the Total War
> series, the first few incarnations were very good games with a lot of
> historical depth that appealed to thoughtful gamers. But slowly the series
> has been whittled away at by the marketing assholes and has gotten a lot
> dumber over time.
So why is there army of modders out there trying to make Total War games
more realistic??? Rome Total Realism rings a bell?
Wargames are just RTS with mods. ;-))
Gandalf Parker
news:MPG.1f137ba82...@news-east.giganews.com:
>
> Currently on my WinXP desktop are a well-selected set of icons. In our
> context here, my gaming icons are:
>
> BIRTH OF AMERICA
> CONQUEST OF THE AEGEAN
> THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR 3
> PANZER COMMAND: OPERATION WINTER STORM
>
> Does anyone want to argue, "things have never been worse, wargaming is
> doomed?"
>
> Cuz I think I can compellingly argue, "Things have never been better."
Maybe we need better wars?
Gandalf Parker
Michael A. Oberly
<giftzw...@NOSPAMZ.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Currently on my WinXP desktop are a well-selected set of icons. In our
>context here, my gaming icons are:
>
>BIRTH OF AMERICA
>CONQUEST OF THE AEGEAN
>THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR 3
>PANZER COMMAND: OPERATION WINTER STORM
>
>Does anyone want to argue, "things have never been worse, wargaming is
>doomed?"
>
>Cuz I think I can compellingly argue, "Things have never been better."
I remember someone posting something similar to this on Consimworld
some time back, commenting on how board wargames seemed to be making a
comeback, etc. Game designer and occasional blowhard Ty Bomba replied
that rather than wargames making a resurgence, he saw it as more like
the remaining gamers collecting for a last stand at places such as
Consimworld.
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle -- we're getting wargames
(both the computer and paper types) at a clip that is probably as
great as it ever was, and many of the games are streets ahead of the
clunkers we used to settle for. But how many kids are growing up
nowadays playing wargames? I'd wager that at least 80% of the people
who post to this group cut their teeth on AH or SPI wargames when they
were kids (it was an obsession with me); I think most kids now are
playing console type games. A game like CM was terrific, not only
because it was a great game in its own right, but also because it got
a lot of casual gamers, and younger gamers, interested in the subject.
I agree with you -- for the moment, things are great. But I also think
it's not very healthy for the future to have wargames mainly played by
a few scattered people in the dark corners of the gaming world.
eddys...@hotmail.com
> I remember someone posting something similar to this on Consimworld
> some time back, commenting on how board wargames seemed to be making a
> comeback, etc.
> Game designer and occasional blowhard Ty Bomba replied
> that rather than wargames making a resurgence, he saw it as more like
> the remaining gamers collecting for a last stand at places such as
> Consimworld.
Well, the sky has been falling for the past 20 years - the mental image
of the old grognards dying and no young blood entering the hobby is so
engrained in the minds that it's sometimes hard to look at it a bit
objectively.
> I think the truth is somewhere in the middle -- we're getting wargames
> (both the computer and paper types) at a clip that is probably as
> great as it ever was, and many of the games are streets ahead of the
> clunkers we used to settle for.
Same feeling here
> But how many kids are growing up
> nowadays playing wargames? I'd wager that at least 80% of the people
> who post to this group cut their teeth on AH or SPI wargames when they
> were kids (it was an obsession with me);
Of course there are no youngsters cutting their teeth on Tactics II or
Gettysburg, but there are plenty of them getting introduced to the
hobby through Memoire '44 and the Axis & Allies boardgame. Same
difference.
> I think most kids now are
> playing console type games.
Yup, and guess what some of them will be playing when they get a little
older and a little wiser ? Wargames are basically RTS games for people
who like to think tactics through a little bit and are interested in
history in general. There will always be a demand for games like that.
The trick will be to capture the attention of those gamers, to show
them that there exists a whole range of games that aren't found on the
retail shelves, but are only available online. With kids today
practically growing up with the 'Net the concept of buying games online
only won't pose a problem.
The problem is visibility. Wargaming needs to be a bit more visible to
the average gamer. And pc wargaming needs to be a little bit more
visible with the boardgame / tabletop crowd as well. On game
conventions I still meet avid wargamers who've got no idea what's
available today in pc wargaming.
> I agree with you -- for the moment, things are great. But I also think
> it's not very healthy for the future to have wargames mainly played by
> a few scattered people in the dark corners of the gaming world.
Well, it all depends. Wargamers are a bit afraid because wargames have
become a niche market whereas in the early eighties every other game
made was a wargame. But a developer getting $5 per game sold retail
needs to sell a lot more games to break even than a developer who gets
$25 through a digital web-sale. So for wargame development to be a
profitable niche market a lot less sales are needed today than 10 years
ago.
Also, the 'Net has made it possible for new developers to gain an
easier entrance into this niche market. A lot of new developers have
come to the forefront in recent years - and the old guard has remained
as well, resulting in more good games getting published today than 10
years ago.
Will this trend continue ? Who knows ? But I see a big, largely
untapped market (boardgamers / tabletop gamers), I see kids entering
the hobby through the modern day equivalents of the easy wargames we
grew up with and I see a society where old geezers have a lot of buying
power, spare time and a long average life expectancy, so I'm not too
concerned :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Vincenzo Beretta
> of the old grognards dying and no young blood entering the hobby is so
> engrained in the minds that it's sometimes hard to look at it a bit
> objectively.
It is so engrained that it is often forgotten how the average videogamer's
age was, in 2005, 31 years old. Not even the mass-market is for the
youngsters.
eddys...@hotmail.com
20 years ago all wargame convention were packed with elderly 40-year
old geezers, today they're packed with fairly young 40-year old geezers
:)
Advertising teaches us that you always have to target the young crowd
(or those who want to feel young) because they're the ones who will
more easily exchange their currently preferred brand for a new brand or
to try something new. This is true for consumer products like soft
drinks and new technological gadgets, but do the same rules apply for
software ?
A lot of FPS and RTS developers going for the kiddie buck went bust the
last couple of years, no wargame company going for the 30-something
buck went bust since the late, unlamented Talonsoft.
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
BasKa
>
> Of course there are no youngsters cutting their teeth on Tactics II or
> Gettysburg, but there are plenty of them getting introduced to the
> hobby through Memoire '44 and the Axis & Allies boardgame. Same
> difference.
>
games (turn and a form of hexes ;-) and RTS games like Cossacs and MTW,
but he is always looking over my shoulder and asks "can I play with
these littel blocks sometimes?" and asks me what it is and what I like
about them.
Give him and me some more years and we'll make a fairly decent wargamer
out of him.
I don't have (but in this line of thinking should buy) Combat Mission,
as that will appeal to him for the 3D tanks and soldiers and will get
him used to thinking his games through instead of clicking them
through.
> The trick will be to capture the attention of those gamers, to show
> them that there exists a whole range of games that aren't found on the
> retail shelves, but are only available online. With kids today
> practically growing up with the 'Net the concept of buying games online
> only won't pose a problem.
That's correct. My son (and his sister) are often surfing the 'net for
new games as their pocket money doesn't sustain their thirst for new
games and there are a lot of good (and free) games or demo's to be
found on the 'net.
No, I'm not so afraid of the hobby dying too.
Bas
And BTW, he really loves Memoir '44!!!
eddys...@hotmail.com
> And BTW, he really loves Memoir '44!!!
Me too :) - looking forward to playing the East Front expansion with my
IRL gaming group next week, unless they opt for a replay of the
Courtrai battle given the date (July 11th)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
James D Burns
news:1151984007.2...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> Just FYI, we've put at least one game into retail per year and plan to
> continue to do so.
This is good news, I don't hit the retail chains anymore, so I was unaware
you had been doing this. Talonsoft sold in excess of 100,000 copies of each
iteration of TOAW worldwide, I hope you can reach enough retailers to get
these kinds of numbers moving as well someday. In my view this is the only
thing that will bring in enough new blood to keep the hobby strong as the
years roll by.
> gaming conventions and I remain surprised how many new gamers we find
> there each year who haven't seen our games before.
>
As I said before online only is a great way for a wargame company to make a
profit, but your visibility is simply too low right now. If wargamers at a
wargaming convention don't know you after all your great games over the past
few years, it seems pretty obvious to me that PC wargaming is going to
shrink over time as attrition takes its effect on us old geezers.
>
> Nah, we'll just become the "foreign films" of the gaming scene. ;-)
> Seriously though, I think our niche is doing fine right now and is
> fairly resistant at the moment to quite a few of the general trends,
> which are going in the direction you describe.
>
I agree right now is great, but what will it be like in another 10-20 years.
I remember having these same kinds of discussions about the board wargaming
hobby with my wargame group in the mid 1980's. Man how things have changed
since then for board games. I suspect things will go the same for PC
wargames as well unless companies like yours can find a way to penetrate the
retail scene again while still being able to make a profit.
Vincenzo Beretta
> old geezers, today they're packed with fairly young 40-year old geezers
> :)
Don't tell: maybe it was a coincidence, but today I got an haircut and I saw
my very first grey hairs.
38 years old here - however I started playing around 10 or so =)
eddys...@hotmail.com
> I agree right now is great, but what will it be like in another 10-20 years.
> I remember having these same kinds of discussions about the board wargaming
> hobby with my wargame group in the mid 1980's. Man how things have changed
> since then for board games.
Yup, they got better - smaller print runs, but better games. And
rule-updates can be picked from the website instead of in the errata of
the company magazine 3 months down the road. Oh, and opponents can be
found more easily on the 'Net, and it's even perfectly possible to play
games (VASSAL, CyberBoard) without having to snail-mail your moves to
an opponent.
I like the boardgame scene as it exists today - you can design a game
and share it with the world or do a little DTP with very low risk. And
wargaming has become much more a community where developers and gamers
can freely exchange ideas resulting in much more innovative designs. In
the old days AH published a game and if you were lucky you got to read
1 review in an independent magazine and that's all the interaction
there was between developer and public apart from the feedback card
that came with the game (which everyone who didn't like the game never
bothered with anyway)
> I suspect things will go the same for PC
> wargames as well unless companies like yours can find a way to penetrate the
> retail scene again while still being able to make a profit.
It's not going to happen - PC gaming (let alone wargaming) is becoming
an online only business. That's not so bad, kids are used to buying
stuff online, it's just us old geezers having trouble with the concept
:)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
James D Burns
> are the two sides of the one coin. How can one be going up while the
> other goes down?
>
I disagree completely. Matrix and others have simply found a way to maximise
profits while still selling to a small niche crowd. This allows them to
produce more games than other companies that came and went before, since
thay are almost guaranteed to make a profit with their new business models.
Before a company would go broke een if it released nothing but mediocre
titles due to the high costs of trying to do business in retail. But now a
mediocre title is probably still profitable which allows the company to
continue on.
But more titles does not mean more new gamers. As Erik pointed out in his
post, he is suprised to see how many wargamers at a wargaming convention
hadn't heard of his games. If they are not reaching most wargamers with all
their new titles, why would you think they are reaching a lot of new gamers
as apposed to past retail methods? I think the attrition to our hoibby is
just now beginnig, give it 10 - 20 years and things will become clear to
everyone.
>
> People keep *telling* me this is going to happen, but what I actually
> *observe* is more and better decent wargames.
>
As I said, its simply due to the new and more profitable business model od
direct downloads, not because of some great new influx of new wargamers.
>
> I would argue that this title was RTS garbage from the get-go.
>
The early games had a much better historical feel to them than what is being
offered now. If you've played them all as I have, you can see the quality
degrade with each new title. No they were never hard core wargames, but they
did attract gamers like my brother. Total War started as a great cross-over
title that could have gotten a lot of players interested in historical
games. Heck just exposing them to the games forums and the wealth of
historical conversation there was worth its weight in gold to our hobby. But
as I said what is being offered now is garbage compared to the first couple
of titles and I bet it will get a lot worse as time goes on.
>
> Again, though, this is what I'm *told*, but the actual evidence seems at
> odds with the, "we must have wargames in stores or we're doooooomed"
> theory.
>
You're looking at it from a selfish point of view (not intended as an insult
in any way). If things are great for you, then things must be great for the
hobby. You have to look at it from a strategic point of view. If the churn
(how many old timers leave the hobby) exceeds new blood each year, the hobby
will shrink over time. Right now many/most of us are in our 40's-50's. In
10-20 years a lot of us will start to keel over and I bet the churn will
accelerate to the point that even a strong business model like direct
download will find it hard to make a profit.
>
> But was he *ever* a wargamer, with his, "don't make me, like, *think*,
> dude" approach?
>
Yes he was, in fact we grew up playing board together. But over the years he
has been exposed to these damn flashy graphics games that require little or
no effort and he has become accustomed to them. He used to play PC wargames
as well in the early days, but he no longer wants to spend the time on them.
As I said gamers are going to become more and more accustomed to these
flashy dumbed down titles they way my brother has. They are inundated by
them and on the rare occasions they run into a more complex wargame, they
get frustrated by the effort required to learn them and simply move on.
It's a natural tendency. Even we hardcore PC wargamers are guilty of this
behavior. How many of us have stated either here or elsewhere that we would
never again spend the time necessary to set up a board game? I bet if PC
wargames get simplified over time we will find ourselves in 10 years or so
saying we would never again try to learn and play a complex game like WitP.
eddys...@hotmail.com
Vincenzo Beretta wrote:
> > 20 years ago all wargame convention were packed with elderly 40-year
> > old geezers, today they're packed with fairly young 40-year old geezers
> > :)
>
> Don't tell: maybe it was a coincidence, but today I got an haircut and I saw
> my very first grey hairs.
I think I didn't make myself entirely clear there - what I meant was
that the hobby has *always* been filled with relatively "old" people.
The bell curve has remained the same for the past 20 years, only we've
moved along it's horizontal axis so our perspective has changed. 20
years ago I was the youngest kid in this club I used to frequent, now I
see a lot of older and younger guys at conventions indicating that in
20 years time I'll probably start complaining about all these
youngsters taking over the hobby :)
> 38 years old here - however I started playing around 10 or so =)
Knowing Italians, that's a couple of years *after* they've started
chasing women :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
James D Burns
news:1152032602....@b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>- smaller print runs,
You're not kidding. In the late 1980's Harry Rowland's World in Flames:
Final Edition sold out its initial print run of 30,000 copies in about a
month. These days (only 15 years or so later) most new board games print
what maybe 2000 copies and it takes years to sell those if they ever even do
sell out.
While it may feel a lot more like a town hall meeting for the few gamers
left, from a business standpoint the industry is dead. And things are just
going to get worse for board wargames as the years roll by.
Vincenzo Beretta
> an online only business. That's not so bad, kids are used to buying
> stuff online, it's just us old geezers having trouble with the concept
> :)
Online - buying, meeting and playing - is simply the way of the future, or
at least one of the highways. As much as I love to play around a table
together with friends, this year I gamed in real life FOUR TIMES: two times
with "The Lord of the Rings" boardgame and two times with "Tales of Arabian
Nights" (I was however able to run my usual RPG campaign, but it has another
kind of player).
Meanwhile, I was also able to connect to my fellow "Red Storm Rising-nut"
gaming pal and to play Harpoon ANW online for a week straight. I thing that
we played more games online this week that live in the last ten years. The
next one will be, of course, CotA - and, since he is interested in modern
warfare only, I'll look for someone else to challenge on the forum.
I think that, as of 2006, for a wargamer internet has become "the never
ending convention". You connect, you meet pals, you discuss, you buy, you
comment, you play.
Giftzwerg
> But more titles does not mean more new gamers. As Erik pointed out in his
> post, he is suprised to see how many wargamers at a wargaming convention
> hadn't heard of his games. If they are not reaching most wargamers with all
> their new titles, why would you think they are reaching a lot of new gamers
> as apposed to past retail methods? I think the attrition to our hoibby is
> just now beginnig, give it 10 - 20 years and things will become clear to
> everyone.
Sure, but I first heard this argument - that wargames are going the way
of the dodo Real Soon Now because "the kids" don't enjoy them - way back
in 1979 or so, when the first big wave of DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS was
really taking off.
As I said, people keep telling me wargaming is doomed, but I've been
hearing this sorry refrain over the last four decades; it kinda loses
impact over the years.
> > People keep *telling* me this is going to happen, but what I actually
> > *observe* is more and better decent wargames.
> As I said, its simply due to the new and more profitable business model od
> direct downloads, not because of some great new influx of new wargamers.
I'm not saying there's a "great new influx" of new wargamers, just that
there is a great new influx of new wargames. If this is because of a
better business model, that's great. If this is because of some huge
influx of gamers, that's great. If it's some combination of the two,
that's also great.
My point is that markets are rational actors. Publishers didn't produce
the current wave of excellent wargames because they were hoping there
weren't enough gamers left to buy them.
> > Again, though, this is what I'm *told*, but the actual evidence seems at
> > odds with the, "we must have wargames in stores or we're doooooomed"
> > theory.
> >
>
> You're looking at it from a selfish point of view (not intended as an insult
> in any way). If things are great for you, then things must be great for the
> hobby. You have to look at it from a strategic point of view. If the churn
> (how many old timers leave the hobby) exceeds new blood each year, the hobby
> will shrink over time. Right now many/most of us are in our 40's-50's. In
> 10-20 years a lot of us will start to keel over and I bet the churn will
> accelerate to the point that even a strong business model like direct
> download will find it hard to make a profit.
That's a nice theory, but you're really a long way from proving to me
that old wargamers are dying off faster than new wargamers are joining
the hobby. In other words, I don't believe that the "churn"
demonstrates a downward trend. But I'm open to evidence.
> > But was he *ever* a wargamer, with his, "don't make me, like, *think*,
> > dude" approach?
> Yes he was, in fact we grew up playing board together. But over the years he
> has been exposed to these damn flashy graphics games that require little or
> no effort and he has become accustomed to them. He used to play PC wargames
> as well in the early days, but he no longer wants to spend the time on them.
>
> As I said gamers are going to become more and more accustomed to these
> flashy dumbed down titles they way my brother has. They are inundated by
> them and on the rare occasions they run into a more complex wargame, they
> get frustrated by the effort required to learn them and simply move on.
>
> It's a natural tendency. Even we hardcore PC wargamers are guilty of this
> behavior. How many of us have stated either here or elsewhere that we would
> never again spend the time necessary to set up a board game? I bet if PC
> wargames get simplified over time we will find ourselves in 10 years or so
> saying we would never again try to learn and play a complex game like WitP.
Just a moment, though. I don't set up my boardgames for precisely the
same reason I never take up a pen and produce a handwritten letter, and
that has nothing to do with a disliking of *writing*, only a liking for
using the finest writing instruments available - the PC and Microsoft
Word.
And I think you're flirting with a badly-reasoned position if you're
assuming that "simpler == bad, more complex == good." I would argue
that a simpler interface masking a more complex internal mechanism is
truly the recipe for a better wargame.
Ralph Trickey
people who have something other than English as their native
language are on the Operational Art of War Forums.
Someone else said that all PC games are headed for internet
distribution, and I agree. If it was wargames only that were
moving towards that model, I'd be owrried, but as it is, I think
that it should be a vital industry for quite a few years.
Dang kids<g>
Ralph
<eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1152033072.7...@v61g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
Ralph Trickey
> "ERutins" <er...@matrixgames.com> wrote in message
> news:1151984007.2...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
>>
>> Just FYI, we've put at least one game into retail per year and plan to
>> continue to do so.
>
> This is good news, I don't hit the retail chains anymore, so I was unaware
> you had been doing this. Talonsoft sold in excess of 100,000 copies of
> each iteration of TOAW worldwide, I hope you can reach enough retailers to
> get these kinds of numbers moving as well someday. In my view this is the
> only thing that will bring in enough new blood to keep the hobby strong as
> the years roll by.
>
few copies. 100K would be nice<g> I'm actually very surprised that it's
sold as many copies as it has. It's had almost no advertising, and only
one review out so far. The only indication I have is the link to buy
it now on the forum. It should relate in some manner to the number actually
sold<g>.People keep clicking on it, so I've got some hope that it's selling
fairly well.
I don't think it's going to be the typical release where you sell a bunch
the
first month, and it falls off from there pretty steeply. That's part of why
I plan to keep updating it regularly.
The key thing for me is that I believe that the market has changed. 5 years
ago, you attracted someone by advertising in the magazines. Now the best
way to market something like TOAW is viral marketing. That's part of why
I spend an hour a day or so reading and posting on various newsgroups
(I'm also getting addicted again.) Word of mouth advertising works better
now than it used to. One thing that I do when I'm looking at a game is to
google it. If people are saying good things, and it has an active, happy
community, I'm a lot more inclined to buy it. If the community (more than
just one sorehead) is posting happily, and there are more than an
occasional post, I'm more inclined to buy it.
Andy Brown
> the average gamer. And pc wargaming needs to be a little bit more
> visible with the boardgame / tabletop crowd as well. On game
> conventions I still meet avid wargamers who've got no idea what's
> available today in pc wargaming.
Interestingly, at my local tabletop wargaming club, the old 'n' bold have
been anguishing for years about how "serious" miniature wargaming is dying.
It's not, of course. It's just that youngsters are playing different games,
the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k franchises of Games Workshop being the
obvious example.
Games Workshop products sit too far towards the "playability" end of the
spectrum for those who cut their teeth on more "realistic" but more
cumbersome rules sets, hence the predictions of decline. It is further
interesting to note, however, how the "Flames of War" miniatures system
(which basically copies Games Workshop's presentation and marketing style)
has attracted young players back to WWII wargaming, despite claims that WWII
wargaming was headed for extinction.
It's a generational thing. PC wargaming may not endure in a form some older
gamers will recognise as "PC wargaming" but it will endure.
Andy
Epi Watkins
> people who have something other than English as their native
> language are on the Operational Art of War Forums.
I think this would be because of all the user-made scenarios. If a game
doesn't have that, the battle it focuses on will be one that sells.
This means one that is of interest to Americans. All the user-made
scenarios allow for scenarios that interest everyone.
----
Epi
----
The word "day" has two meanings in the English language.
People can get confused by this.
Day = A 24 hour period.
Day = The opposite of night.
----
http://www.curlesneck.com
Epi Watkins
> gamers will recognise as "PC wargaming" but it will endure.
>
> Andy
Everything changes. Everything changes again. At least on the surface.
eddys...@hotmail.com
James D Burns wrote:
> <eddys...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1152032602....@b68g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> >- smaller print runs,
>
> You're not kidding. In the late 1980's Harry Rowland's World in Flames:
> Final Edition sold out its initial print run of 30,000 copies in about a
> month. These days (only 15 years or so later) most new board games print
> what maybe 2000 copies and it takes years to sell those if they ever even do
> sell out.
Well, I'm not going to dispute your numbers but argue that they're
irrelevant :)
Ok - here goes : If I would have bought WiF back then I would have been
the only kid in town with that game and with an almost zero chance of
ever being able to play it ftf with somebody else. Whether that game
sold a thousand copies or a million was/is irrelevant to me. I'm not
disputing that fewer boardgames are sold, just that as long as high
quality boardgames are profitably produced it doesn't matter to me how
many of them the publisher manages to sell. I would only start worrying
if the quality started to drop but it hasn't as I'm looking at the
boardgame market : Russia Besieged looks like it could de-throne The
Russian Campaign as the ultimate WWII strategic East Front game,
Memoire '44 is a blast, the Axis & Allies game is a very well done
"Squad Leader for Kids", Lock 'n Load is a winner in every aspect (just
received word it won the Origins Award for best historical wargame)
Then there's wargame magazines. In the late eighties you basically had
the choice between S&T and The Wargamer. Now somehow the hobby is "big
enough" to somehow support specialty wargame magazines in French,
Italian, Spanish and Polish, let alone numerous websites.
> While it may feel a lot more like a town hall meeting for the few gamers
> left, from a business standpoint the industry is dead. And things are just
> going to get worse for board wargames as the years roll by.
Wait and see :)
Greetz,
Eddy Sterckx
Graham Thurlwell
<snip>
> Sure, when you risk and all goes well it pays dividends (the new
> "Resident Evil 4" by Capcom being a good example), but then be sure
> that the lemmings will follow.
Even the Resident Evil series wasn't all that original, being
pre-dated by several years by the Alone in the Dark series.
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