Costikyan on the "death" of wargames

[Mark E. Johnson]

Has this already been hashed out on this newsgroup and I missed it?
Yesterday I read an article famed game designer Greg Costikyan has on his
home page (http://www.crossover.com/~costik/). It's called "A Farewell to
Hexes," or "SPI Died For Your Sins."

I won't copy the whole thing here. Take a look yourself, and maybe ask if
Greg wants it hung out to dry in this newsgroup. But here's an excerpt to
spark discussion,

"The time has come to admit defeat, to say a farewell to hexes. One might
as well inscribe the tombstone: The Wargame, Requiescat in Pacem. Born,
1958; died 1996.

Even a few years ago, there was some doubt. As late as 1984, for instance,
some claimed that there hadn't really been a decline in wargame sales,
merely a dramatic increase in those of roleplaying games; but the claim
was fallacious, even then. And by the present date, the precipitous
decline of wargaming is clear, to everyone in the field.

What happened? Why did it decline? And -- who's to blame?"

Well, he goes on to give a history of the industry's rise and fall. In his
interpretation this parallels SPI's history closely, and more particularly
S&T's. He says that by giving S&T subscribers the shaft after its
acquisition of SPI's assets, TSR mortally wounded the hobby.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Trouble is, I've always been a science
fiction & fantasy gamer, not to mention roleplaying and now trading card
games. I'm hardly a grognard, but like to think I have some appreciation
for the entire hobby.

There must be plenty of people in this group that had the rug yanked out
from under them during the SPI/TSR thing. Was that really the death knell?

From my different perspective, it was probably the end of a "golden age"
of wargaming, but most forms of entertainment have done that. The fact
that it hasn't completely fizzled, and in fact supports a few new
companies would lead me to believe that gaming as we now see it is
sustainable.

-MJ

--
Mark Johnson joh...@ccnet.com www.ccnet.com/~johnson

[Barry Eynon]

In article <johnson-2307961659050001@news>, joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E.
Johnson) wrote:

>Well, he goes on to give a history of the industry's rise and fall. In his
>interpretation this parallels SPI's history closely, and more particularly
>S&T's. He says that by giving S&T subscribers the shaft after its
>acquisition of SPI's assets, TSR mortally wounded the hobby.

Well, I was one of those shafted by TSR on my lifetime subs, I think I got
all of 2 issues out of them. I've certainly been pissed at TSR ever since,
and refused to buy their games, but it hasn't diminished my interest in
the hobby as a whole. I may play less hex-based wargames these days as a
percentage of all games I play, but that's simply because there's a wider
variety around (Eurogames, computer games, etc.). In my opinion, the death
of SPI was certainly an epochal event, but not necessarily a fatal one to
the hobby.

Anyway, thanks for the pointer, I'm sure Greg's comments will be
interesting, even if I don't agree with his conclusions.

--
Barry Eynon
ba...@playfair.stanford.edu

[dutchman]

On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Mark E. Johnson wrote:

> Has this already been hashed out on this newsgroup and I missed it?
> Yesterday I read an article famed game designer Greg Costikyan has on his
> home page (http://www.crossover.com/~costik/). It's called "A Farewell to
> Hexes," or "SPI Died For Your Sins."
>

And here I'd thought it was just Greg who had up and died. 8^P

Yes, wargaming is in decline, but to paraphrase the immortal Python,
"It's not dead yet!" I find a thriving wargaming community exists on the
'Net...whereas I knew a dozen wargamers a decade ago in ftf play, I now
have access (through r.g.b. and various mailing lists) to several hundred
players for PBeM. And while I've heard ftf play vs. PBEM compared to
making love vs. picking up a $50 hooker...well, the prostitution business
(I hear) is doing pretty well. 8^P

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <31f633b5...@news.crossover.com>, kmar...@crossover.com wrote:

> Greg and I have been back and forth on this issue a number of times.
> My basic take is that the TSR takeover of S&T was a precipitating
> event rather than an absolute cause--that is, I feel that the wargame
> industry had already peaked and was approaching decline when SPI went
> out of business, and the S&T debacle just hastened the process.

That makes sense to me. The statistic Greg cites about SPI's research into
the percentage of games that are played solitaire due to lack of
opponents, together with the frightening number of games sold on the net
that are unpunched...how in the world could that go on and on?

To me, that says that either there wasn't and isn't sufficient "wargamer
density" to really grow the hobby, or the wargames were missing something
that kept them from taking off.

That last statement is bound to cause some concern, so let me explain a
little. It is clear that the broader hobby of gaming has a large and
robust following. Besides the classics like chess, backgammon, poker, and
go and "family" games such as Monopoly, there are, of course, roleplaying
games and now collectible card games. They've obviously struck a cord with
the gaming public.

Board wargames haven't managed to do that. I'm wondering how much that's
due to some drawback of the format. There appears to be a sufficient
audience, what with the great success of computer games like Panzer
General and Civilization, not to mention whoever (besides me!) is watching
cable's A&E, Discovery, and History channels for their military
documentaries!

Maybe smaller, more portable games with less steep learning curves and
shorter playing times would be more successful. On the other hand, isn't
that what magazine games and minigames have tried to do, without much
success? Alas. (I'm a diehard fan of the little microgames.)

Actually, computer games are now becoming more viable alternatives to
board wargames. The most recent and important improvements are not related
to speed or video presentation, but to the net's ability to have
inexpensive realtime play between two or more players in real time. I
think this will have the effect of greatly shrinking the world, so that
only a dozen of enthusiasts for a particular game will be enough to find
opponents--though not enough to keep the publisher in business! :-)

[Bob Stettler]

Greg brings up Fresno Gaming Association (!) as an example of the
newer small board wargaming companies and makes the comment that
wargames today are 'of remarkably high graphic quality' but 'are, by
and large, thoroughly derivative and quite mediocre'. This makes me
wonder if he has really even examined, let alone played, one of the
more recent offerings of companies such as The Gamers or GMT. I've
been around the hobby since the early 70's and lived through the
heyday of SPI. In terms of the quality of games, not just graphics
but overall design, my satisfaction with the hobby is as high or
higher than its ever been. I tend to agree with Dean Essig of The
Gamers that there is an admittedly small but sustainable market for
board wargaming. I think proclaiming board wargaming dead is
premature and a bit extreme.

Mark E. Johnson wrote:
> Actually, computer games are now becoming more viable alternatives to
> board wargames. The most recent and important improvements are not related
> to speed or video presentation, but to the net's ability to have
> inexpensive realtime play between two or more players in real time. I
> think this will have the effect of greatly shrinking the world, so that
> only a dozen of enthusiasts for a particular game will be enough to find
> opponents--though not enough to keep the publisher in business! :-)

I'm a computer engineer that still prefers board wargaming to computer
wargaming. I can see from some standpoint that the mechanics of
computer wargaming are reaching parity with board wargames (although I
think there's still a ways to go). But as someone who's interested in
the content of the simulation, computer wargames have always left me
wanting more. I purchaced Talon Soft's Gettysburg game recently and
found a rehash of a system that was published as a board wargame 20
years ago (SPI's Terrible Swift Sword) and graphics that were pretty
but difficult to use (it's almost impossible to tell which way the
units are facing!). I'll believe that emphasis is being placed on
actual content when I can pick up a magazine devoted to the computer
wargames and find historical analysis and simulation realism discused
with the same rigor and enthusiasm that is given to the graphic pres-
entation and user interface of the game.

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Bob Stettler bo...@ichips.intel.com |
| Intel Corporation |
| M/S JF1-19, 2111 NE 25th Ave, Hillsboro, OR, 97124-5961 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

[Aforandy]

Recently i was making jokes [strange] about TAHGC as
"the game firm that wouldn't die", they clearly had longstanding
problems, odd things in the General, employees leaving and so on,
despite having world-beating products they seemed to have
no money. Their Nasdaq info
was not very enticing, but anyway a number of bids were being put
together to offer to buy the firm, from pearson, rich US gamers etc.

Now the General has been changed, I think for the better, the last
four or five games have been very well received. Hannibal and
KGP 2 apparently sold out to the extent they were off the shelves
until now.
Air Baron & Londons Burning are above-average and Stonewall's
Last will sell to the owners of the series at least. Suddenly the company
is looking good. ASL products are in the pipeline again and outside
submissions may improve. Avaloncon is a big success as a convention.
Third Reich and WSIM for the PC [ OK the Mac too] are eagerly awaited.
Even people who have lkleft the firm are producing good stuff!!

And lets face it, if i've seen one recent release on the Third Battle
of Kharkov,
I have seen two, and this seems a lot. Wargames follow the same
pattern as other stuff, everything sells to someone and some stuff
will sell to a lot of people. People keep asking me: "whats new"!

Andy Daglish

[David G Haren]

Kevin J. Maroney (kmar...@crossover.com) wrote:

: joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E. Johnson) wrote:

: >Well, he goes on to give a history of the industry's rise and fall. In his
: >interpretation this parallels SPI's history closely, and more particularly
: >S&T's. He says that by giving S&T subscribers the shaft after its
: >acquisition of SPI's assets, TSR mortally wounded the hobby.

<SNIP>

: I never did dig up the "numbers of games published" stats that I have,
: but the drop off in 1983/84 is _astounding_.

That's just about the time that the IBM PC started to look usable
for gaming purposes...every time the designers move on to a new
technology you get a learning curve period with minimal productivity.

Worse if you hook into the "gee whiz" leading edge computer stuff
all your effort winds up being years too soon to get reasonable
sales return.

Pricing hasn't helped, and the dearth of small games that could
be done in an hour, which might attract new gamers, hasn't helped.

Couple that with the retail outlets policies and marketing
strategy and it's positively amazing that the hobby is as robust
as it is, since all these factors should have killed it off.

Dave H.

t...@crl.com Official writer for DIGEST GROUP PUBLICATIONS.
DGP is BACK, and we're looking for talent: writers, artists,
kibitzers, and playtesters.

[Kevin J. Maroney]

joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E. Johnson) wrote:

>Well, he goes on to give a history of the industry's rise and fall. In his
>interpretation this parallels SPI's history closely, and more particularly
>S&T's. He says that by giving S&T subscribers the shaft after its
>acquisition of SPI's assets, TSR mortally wounded the hobby.

Greg and I have been back and forth on this issue a number of times.

My basic take is that the TSR takeover of S&T was a precipitating
event rather than an absolute cause--that is, I feel that the wargame
industry had already peaked and was approaching decline when SPI went
out of business, and the S&T debacle just hastened the process.

I never did dig up the "numbers of games published" stats that I have,

but the drop off in 1983/84 is _astounding_.

--
Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | ke...@crossover.com
Games are my entire waking life.

[Philip M. Hall]

As a "grognard" ( I bought my first AH game, Bismarck, for $4.95), I have
always felt that the death knell of wargaming was first heard when the
first "Mega-game" was published (GDW's Drang Nacht Osten?). Rules became
small books and the time necessary to play grew from the 4 hours of an AH
game to a weekend. Everyone hopped on the bandwagon, and thereby
convinced many of us that bigger was better. Unfortunately they failed to
convince as many people as they needed to. Many just quit the hobby due
to a lack of time to play. My brother was one of them, and there went my
gaming partner.

One of the other considerations is the proximity of WWII to the beginning
of board wargaming. Vietnam hadn't made it into the consciousness of the
public, and the country was still feeling good about licking the Axis.
Soldiers were respected and the TV was full of war related shows such as
The Gallant Men, Combat, Silent Service, West Point, and Annapolis. Just
as wargaming was coming of age, Vietnam became the focal point and riots
broke out on college campuses across the country. It just wasn't cool to
study war, you baby killer, you. Toss this on top of monster games, mix
in an economy that would force mom to go to work to keep up with double
digit inflation, which means dad has less leisure time, and you have the
ingredients of a failure of gaming. As the '80's approach, the kids who
protested in college (an amazing large number of these folks seem to be
LAS students) are now the teachers of the young. When I was in school in
the 50's an 60's, history was a collection of wars, but by the time my
son and daughter went to school in the late 70's and 80's, history was
the study of political systems, and how wrong most wars were.

Less time, larger games, antiwar hysteria, all served to take people out
of the hobby. Most never returned. With electronic games most youngsters
don't want to spend an hour setting up a board game and another hour
reading the rules. Better to turn on the old (comupter, gameboy, etal)
and immediately start playing, even if you don't know the rules. Instant
gratification. And if you lose, which you will at some point, start over.
No ego involved since its just you against a dumb machine, and besides,
everyone loses at the game. What does board gaming have to offer that can
top that?

Phil Hall

[Kevin J. Maroney]

Bob Stettler <bo...@ichips.intel.com> wrote:

>Greg brings up Fresno Gaming Association (!) as an example of the
>newer small board wargaming companies and makes the comment that
>wargames today are 'of remarkably high graphic quality' but 'are, by
>and large, thoroughly derivative and quite mediocre'. This makes me
>wonder if he has really even examined, let alone played, one of the
>more recent offerings of companies such as The Gamers or GMT.

Greg's essay was written several years ago, when Ty Bomba was still
the state of the art.

I will say that I personally have not played any GMT games, but I
found the dreadful proofreading in SPQR to be very off-putting.

[Gary J. Robinson]

Like many wargamers, I take an interest in the topic of the death of wargaming.

I would like to leave CCG's out of my comments because this "death of
wargaming" thing started long before M:TG was invented.

The simple fact is that the wargamer population is aging; wargames are not
attracting college-age people anymore. In the heydey of SPI, there were a
lot of wargamers, but they were college-age. The failure of wargaming is,
in its essence, a failure to keep attracting new college-age people. Of
course people will drop out of such a time-consuming hobby as they get
older and busier. The problem is that no new recruits are stepping up to
take their place.

Since most wargamers today are not college-aged, it is hard for us to say,
from the outside, why today's young people are not playing wargames. We
can look at corporate histories and social trends, but without a year in a
dorm, we are really isolated from the true picture. We all know wargames
appeal to a certain type of person; where are those people now? and what
are they doing with their weekends?

A few days ago a friend of mine and I were playing an old SPI S&T game
called "Armageddon." It had around 4 pages of rules and a scenario could
be set up and played to completion within 3 hours. Greg dismisses the
"overcomplification of wargames" in an offhand aside, but I think this is
the heart of the problem. S&T games were traditionally very easy to learn
and play, were not huge, and did not take very long to play. Wargames
changed from this initial successful format into monstrosities. Ask the
average non-wargaming boardgamer for their impression of wargaming. You
will find their answer to revolve, not around concepts of subject matter,
but around (negative) concepts such as "complicated" "long" "millions of
pieces" "slow" "unplayable" and they are, to a large extent, right.
Make a simple wargame, like Axis & Allies, and even today it will be more
popular than Squad Leader ever was. There is interest in the subject
matter; but there is little interest among young people for complicated,
long, slow-playing multimap games with thousands of NATO-style pieces, and
frankly, I don't blame them.

Wargames evolved into something so extreme that, like the German rail guns
of WWII, were so monstrous that they ultimately became useless for most
purposes. Graphically they lag far behind more recent innovations like
fantasy miniatures; yet many wargamers express a distinct distaste for
iconic counters, the very thing most likely to attract new blood. What
19-year-old is going to be attracted to X's and O's instead of cool little
men and tanks? Mechanically they became nightmares; you can just imagine
the shock the average Axis & Allies player would experience if he bought
"Edelweiss" or "Advanced Third Reich" for his first "real" wargame, even
if he survived the sticker shock. Even Command games are complex compared
to these old S&T's; and let's face it, how many college students will be
tempted to shell out $16+ dollars for a magazine with a map and some
pieces in it?

Wargaming as it exists today will never be popular for the simple reason
that is so specialized, so customized to the tastes of a jaded, veteran
few that its products will never appeal to newcomers, even if they somehow
came across them. Simple wargames, like Axis & Allies and Risk, will
probably continue to be popular for the simple reason that they are fun,
playable, social games - which is what college students are looking for.
Wargaming became too much about detail and too little about social
recreation - thus the solitaire statistics. All social activities are
about compromise. Buying a hard-core game about a specialized subject
that appeals to your specialized tastes is basically a selfish act that
will not be rewarded in the social arena. Wargamers are lonely people
whose buying habits are appropriate for books but not for social
recreation tools. Until wargaming retreats from its obsession with
realism and detail and makes some compromises to the ideal of social
recreation - like 3-hour playing times, rules than can be learned in 20
minutes, and visually attractive pieces - it will never gain anything
approaching the popular acceptance that old, simple games like Midway and
Afrika Korps had.

--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Gary J. Robinson wig...@concentric.net |
| Gary's Wargaming Web Page: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~grobinso/ |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Is it a coincidence that the Israeli Prime Minister's |
| name sounds like "Net'n'Yahoo" ? We think not. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|*Lawyer*Librarian*Programmer*Libertarian*Macintosh*Wargamer*Lizards*|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <grobinso-240...@cnc000187.concentric.net>,

grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J. Robinson) wrote:

> Until wargaming retreats from its obsession with
> realism and detail and makes some compromises to the ideal of social
> recreation - like 3-hour playing times, rules than can be learned in 20
> minutes, and visually attractive pieces - it will never gain anything
> approaching the popular acceptance that old, simple games like Midway and
> Afrika Korps had.

and...

In article <4t67l0$r...@crl11.crl.com>, t...@crl.com (David G Haren) wrote:

> Pricing hasn't helped, and the dearth of small games that could
> be done in an hour, which might attract new gamers, hasn't helped.

That is *exactly* how I feel, coinciding perfectly with my renewed
interest in small format (micro/mini) wargames. What they have to offer is
low price, portability, quick play, and mild learning curves. Apparently
that inexpensive pricing and components put those publishers out of
business (or at least in the hole). But you know what? The price issue
mattered much more to me back in high school, when I had more time than
money. As an adult the opposite is now true. I'll pay more for a quality
game that will be played, *but* it still needs the other qualities of
quick learning and play!

Gary, I checked out your web site and was surprised to find all the
information on Proud Monster and A3R after reading your message!

[Gary J. Robinson]

In article <johnson-2507960922190001@news>, joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E.
Johnson) wrote:

>
> Gary, I checked out your web site and was surprised to find all the
> information on Proud Monster and A3R after reading your message!

Why? I can admit that the games I play are absurdly large and complex.
What I REALLY like to play are small, fast games, but alas, such games
don't appeal to "grognards" much, so I don't get to play them as much as
I'd like. Now if I lived in a dorm, I could find potential players for
small games.... but as it is, the only gamers I can find are those who
have already developed a taste for large games....

In article <4t81e9$h...@news02.comp.pge.com>, rr...@pge.com (RICHARD IRVING)
wrote:

> : Make a simple wargame, like Axis & Allies, and even today it will be more

> : popular than Squad Leader ever was. There is interest in the subject
> : matter; but there is little interest among young people for complicated,
> : long, slow-playing multimap games with thousands of NATO-style pieces, and
> : frankly, I don't blame them.
>

> If that were true, why the failure of most of Gamemaster series (exc.
> A&A)?

"Failure" is a relative term. A&A, the only WWII Gamemaster, is a
smashing success by any standard. Samurai Swords (formerly Shogun) is
back in print. While Conquest of the Empire, Fortress America, and
Broadsides & Boarding Parties are all out of print, their "success" in
normal wargame terms was enormous; despite their huge, Milton
Bradley-sized print runs they all sold out and to this day fetch premium
prices even in used condition. When was the last time you saw a used
Panzerblitz selling for $80? "Failure" to Milton Bradley is a different
concept than "failure" to Avalon Hill, SPI and the "Seven Dwarves" of the
gaming industry. Also, those games are all off the beaten path for
popular wargame subjects. I think any of today's game companies would love
to have a "failure" like Shogun.

> Why don't introductory games sell well (such as A House Divided,
> We the People, AH Smithsonian Series, or even the old classics)? I
> think it is a more fundamental problem: The games are NOT in the stores
> where most games are sold: WalMart, Toys R Us, Dept. stores, etc.
> People aren't attracted to simpler because they probably don't know they
> even exist.

Certainly a problem; however, the reason they aren't in the store is
probably (assuming we believe in market forces) because such items sold
poorly in the past and the stores learned their lesson. Why did they sell
poorly in the past? Probably because many of them were large, slow,
difficult to learn and graphically unappealing. The average consumer
doesn't want to have his intelligence insulted by buying an "Introductory
Level" game. It's a game, for Pete's sake; it shouldn't have "levels," it
should be fun and social. Putting "Intro Level" on a product will
automatically turn a lot of people off: it implies the buyer is unskilled
at something, that there is a long road ahead, and that the product is not
a "real" product of its class. Afrika Korps and Midway didn't have to
have "Introductory Level Wargame!" on the box cover. These things should
stroke your ego, not shrivel it.

>
> 15 years ago, my brother got me Squad Leader that he bought from Toys R
> Us. Go there today you see no AH titles (even non wargame) at all.
> No Acquire, No Rail Baron, No Feudal, No Smithsonian (aka Simple) games,
> etc. Even if someone who bought and enjoyed Acquire from TRU in the old
> days, would get a catalog or price list in Acquire that listed many
> other AH games. He may not want a wargame, but at least he'd know they
> were available. And a percentage that would be interested could find the
> wargames they wanted to try, either in the local store or by mail order.
> Now when someone buys a game from a mass marketer, they don't get any
> exposure to the hobby of gaming, by and large, and wargaming in
> particular.

I can't believe that Squad Leader ever flew off the shelves of any
Toys'R'Us, even 15 years ago. I suspect that wargames had a brief period
of mass distribution, and then the distributors learned their lesson and
didn't reorder. I suspect this had something to do with the growing size
and complexity (and consequent narrowing of the potential consumer base)
of wargames, but I can't prove it.

In article <4t8f7n$r...@bessel.nando.net>, cere...@bessel.nando.net
(cerebral) wrote:

> The rise of monster games may have done something to drive people out of
> the hobby, but there are certainly a wide variety of non-monster games
> around which can be used to bring them back. Some examples;
>
> Almost any railroad game [Empire Builder for starters]
> Almost any German game [Settlers of Catan perhaps?]

These are not wargames, they are multi-player social boardgames. I know a
lot of people who enjoy these who will not play, say, Ring of Fire or
Proud Monster. In fact Tallahassee is the first place I've lived where it
is harder to find Advanced Civilization or Dune players than to find A3R
or WiF players.... :( I have been shocked by the lack of general
boardgamers around here, considering it is a university town, but I think
it is a local phenomenon; it certainly wasn't true in Sarasota, San Diego
or Los Angeles, nor Lancaster, PA.

If boardgaming is declining along with wargaming, then I will really be
depressed, but I don't think it is, as evidence by the popularity of such
games as Robo-Rally, Civ, Die Siedler, and the railroad genre.

>
> and for those of you who insist on a wargame, look at any game in the
> Gamers Standard Series. An entire game with a great campaign scenario
> with the following parameters;
>
> _one_ map
> an _eight_page_ series rulebook
> 280 counters[ including info counters]
> a five hour [or so] campaign scenario

Well, I own one of these games and have seen two of the others, and the
idea of playing a campaign of any of them in 5 hours strikes me as very
humorous. The series rulebook is complemented by a hefty "game" rulebook
in each case, the sequence of play has an OCS-like complexity (in that
*what phase* you move a unit in can be more important than *where* it
moves) and Ardennes has _two_ maps and lots of counters.

Here's the acid test: can you take this game to a club, set it up, explain
the rules, and play it to conclusion with a novice in 5 hours? I think
not. Games by The Gamers typically take 1 1/2 hours just to set up a
scenario (and I have set up a few in my time).

> Face it, folks, the simple intro games are out there. We just need to
> know how to show them to people.

The point is, the very *existence* of "simple intro games" is a symptom of
the problem. There shouldn't be any "simple intro games" there should
just be "games." Nobody wants to be told he is merely playing a "simple
intro game." At the time of its release Midway was not a "simple intro
game" nor was Russian Campaign. Yet today they would be viewed as such by
grognards. Grognards don't want to play such games, which means such
games are of very limited use in expanding the hobby. People who play A&A
don't think of it as a "simple intro game." It's just a game.

Newbie: "Hi! Are you a wargamer? Want to play some A&A?"
Grognard: "Oh, I play real wargames, not that simple intro stuff."
Newbie: "I see. What 2-player games have you played recently?"
Grognard: "Nothing actually, I just play solitaire, can't find any opponents."
Newbie (walking away): "I wonder why."

In article <johnson-2507961346520001@news>, joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E.
Johnson) wrote:

> Here in California, at least, most shopping malls have a Gamekeeper store,
> and you could argue that America in the 90s shops in malls more than
> anywhere else. These Gamekeepers do stock a small amount of boardgames,
> several AH titles and some Battletech to go with a small roleplaying
> inventory. But they're in the rear of the store--the front is devoted to
> puzzles and more unusual family games like Set, Sequence, and so on.

Things vary by area; in the Northeast, where I used to live, I saw all the
Gamekeepers disappear from the malls, and the Complete Strategists become
empty shells of what they had once been. Still, it seems clear that even
where the games are available to the public eye, like in model and hobby
shops, they don't sell well anymore. I think the complexity of games has
a lot to do with it. A teenager could pick up a game like "Midway" and
play it with his dad that evening. Try that with Victory Games' "Vietnam"
or The Gamers' "Tunisia." The idea is absurd. Wargames are no longer one
level above parlor games, they are 30 levels above it, and little grows at
those high altitudes. All it takes is one bad experience with buying an
overly-complex game - or hearing of one from a friend of a friend - and
sales of even the loathsomely labeled "intro" games will suffer.

Complex wargaming is, in its essence, the rarified domain of a group of
older, wealthier, jaded few who have more money than time and buy a lot
more games than they play. Games have evolved to suite the tastes of this
elite, and in doing so have left a bad taste in the mouths of young
people. Potential gamers are everywhere; the Magic craze proved young
people are just as willing as ever to squat around card tables and play
competitive, imaginative conflict simulations. Magic wasn't cheap, but
you could get into the action for cheap, immediately find opponents, and
learn how to play in a few minutes. That's how I learned to boardgame,
with games like Ogre and Melee: for $4 and ten minutes' instruction, you
were up and running, and could finish a game in an hour. Until wargamers
are willing to come down from their Mount Olympus and deign to laugh and
roll dice with the young, they are doomed to watch their numbers decline
and their hobby fade away. Not that coming down is easy; no more easy
than it is for a professor of English literature to partake with the
enthusiastic youth of a science fiction book club as they sing the praises
of the latest DragonLance novel. But sometimes, just being with people
who are having a good time is more enjoyable than sitting by yourself
looking at your solitaire Turn 3 of that perfect simulation of Manstein's
counterattack....

[The One and Only]

Let's not forget that "things" such as Nintendo and Sego are also
to blame. I'm not only criticizing they're gorry fighting games and the
like, but also they're "wargames" and I use that term lightly. They've
transformed a mental game that required thought and perspective into games
that require quick reflexes and cheat codes. Welcome to the business
market. And ass long as the parents are willing to shell out money for
these graphically vivid unintelligent games, then perhaps true wargaming
is dying.

OK, a bit of history, my history. I am a college student who got
into wargaming in HS via Axis and Allies. Sure I was dumbfounded by the
complexity of rules when I bought my first REAL wargame, Onslaught, by
SPI, ahem, that's TSR. But I stuck with it because it beckoned me. I
beckoned me because OF THE COMPLEXITY. Next I got Panzer Leader, a still
further complex game. Now, I have evolved into the 10 scale of AH's
difficulty scale - I purchased ASL a few months ago.

What I am trying to say is that I got into wargames because I
wanted to, not because it was something that every other kid wanted to do,
like video games.

A bit sarcastic but probably true ,can we attribute the lack of
growth, or "replacements" for grognards to our currect education system?
Scary if true.

One last note: Last summer when I was taking summer classes, I
actually landed a room with someone who played wargames. Wow. That's two
people in all of New York University that play wargames that just happened
to land in the same room. Alas, he graduated, so I might be the only one
left.

Carl

No flames - be gentle, I'm still not of legal drinking age!

[Gene Marcil]

joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E. Johnson) wrote:

>
>
>Maybe smaller, more portable games with less steep learning curves and
>shorter playing times would be more successful. On the other hand, isn't

I think you've hit the core problem of wargames: _steep_learning_curves_

As a diehard gamer, I've never been afraid of learning a new game, but
when the game's rulebook is more impressive than my university textbooks,
I start to balk (e.g. I don't touch ASL and I prefer the rules section of
my rulebooks to be 24 pages or less -- say 3 to 7 on Avalon's complexity
ratings). I'm not what you'd call a grognard, but I've spent quite a few
grand in games (war/board, roleplaying, and card).

Now, image Joe Average trying to buy your average wargame. In the 1980s
and 90s, people's attention spans decreased dramatically. Do you think
Joe Average will even stop to consider a game like Panzerblitz or Squad
Leader? Only the most recent AH games have slick packaging and even
then, their 100s to 1000s of counters intimidate Joe Average into
thinking that only "brainiacs" and "geeks" could play these games.
Instead, he'll go out and buy Command and Conquer or Warcraft II for his
PC.

He's not getting a much simpler game. He's just getting a game that is
less intimidating and more visually appealing in appearance. Packaging
that appeals to "serious" wargamers also tends to repel impulse buyers.
It's a very specialized market and a lot of the old introductory level
wargamers are either ugly relics or have just died off. Most wargames
are too complex for Joe to just grab it a start playing.

Joe Average considers A&A to be a big, complicated wargame. However,
once Joe Average has actually tried A&A, then he can look at other games
(say History of the World or Civilization). Eventually he could work his
way up to the considerably more complex and less attractive "zillion
stats on the counter" style wargames. Few people ever climb all the way
up to playing complex wargames anymore. There are easier options that
offer the same ambiance in a better package.

>
>-MJ
>
>--
>Mark Johnson joh...@ccnet.com www.ccnet.com/~johnson

Gene Marcil

[Philip M. Hall]

Danny Holte (et...@gnn.com) wrote:

<snip>

:
: I would guess that Avalon Hill would love to have it's games back in the
: 'public view', but inventory policies of the large chains have changed
: much in the past 20-years. Anyone??
:
:
: -Danny

GDW made an attempt to get their games into the mainstream stores. TET
OFFENSIVE had box art specifically designed to resemble the old Marx
playsets, as did STAND AND DIE. Wargames in mainstream stores began to
disappear with the rise of the specialty hobby shop and the mail order
games business. Antiwar sentiment in the 70's didn't help. I was at a con
at the U of Il. that was picketed by antiwar protestors. Shortly after
that the local department store quit carrying AH games and toy soldiers
and guns and anything that brought war to mind. The mainstream stores
just never got back in the habit of carrying games, and the companies
went to hobby shops and mail order. The demise of the traveling salesman
also helped. These guys would show up and convince you to put new stuff
in the store. They were the first to disappear as the economy got bad and
stores just got a list of what was available. In the 70's I attended the
HIAA shows in Chicago. AH was always there, but no one else attended, and
that was where you got your product to the public. The wargames companies
decided to attend cons and TSR put together GENCON as a place to premier
new games. ORIGINS followed, and now we have game companies preaching to
the converted instead of going into the wilderness and converting the
heathen.

Phil Hall

[msch...@isd.net]

In article <grobinso-240...@cnc000187.concentric.net>,
grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J. Robinson) wrote:

> Like many wargamers, I take an interest in the topic of the death of
wargaming.
>
> I would like to leave CCG's out of my comments because this "death of
> wargaming" thing started long before M:TG was invented.
>
> The simple fact is that the wargamer population is aging; wargames are not
> attracting college-age people anymore. In the heydey of SPI, there were a
> lot of wargamers, but they were college-age. The failure of wargaming is,
> in its essence, a failure to keep attracting new college-age people. Of
> course people will drop out of such a time-consuming hobby as they get
> older and busier. The problem is that no new recruits are stepping up to
> take their place.
>
> Since most wargamers today are not college-aged, it is hard for us to say,
> from the outside, why today's young people are not playing wargames. We
> can look at corporate histories and social trends, but without a year in a
> dorm, we are really isolated from the true picture. We all know wargames
> appeal to a certain type of person; where are those people now? and what
> are they doing with their weekends?

Nail. Head. Pounded.

Some How-to & How-to-not examples from Minnesota, where extremely length
periods of absolutely shitty weather you would think would drive everyone
inside to play games four fifths of the year:

Example of a game club doing everything right SCSU Games Club

St. Cloud State University in Minnesota has the "perfect" games club:
there are no membership dues or requirements (you needn't be a student),
it meets twice a week (Wed. evening, all-day Sat.) in the Student Union
building smack in the center of Campus 5-min walk from most dorms &
housing, free parking everywhere, huge ground floor corner room with lots
of windows and a wall divider so RPGers got their own half, chow hall
across street, with a game room with latest video arcades, a Hardees and
the campus theatre in the same building (we regularly stuffed the movie
ballet box so "Heavy Metal", "Blade Runner" and "Akira" would get run 10
times a year). "Con of the North" convention held every year. Club has
only one officer: Mike Howard is elected Dictator-for-Life (fitting
because he's a college student for life slowly pursuing a mathematics
masters), responsibilities: keeping the room checked out, officer powers:
he can give you a really good piece of his mind.

Ambiance, food availability, location, everything: A+
All this in a town of about 60,000.

This club had the highest concentration of high-IQ people than any other
games club I've ever been to. Very low "loser" ratio. It had a permanent
ad in the student newspaper. Some of the best people in the club were
there because they had just wandered in one day wondering what the heck
was going on. By far the best games club I've attended. Most of the dorms
on campus also had a number of games that could be checked out and played
in the numerous common rooms. (Imagine if one benefactor in every college
town spent a couple c-notes buying copies of Axis & Allies for all the
dorms on campus to get things started.)

-----------------
Example of a game club doing everything so-so. 1st Minn. Historical Wargamers.

Meets once-a-week in Minneapolis on Friday evenings at 7pm in a games &
comix store and plays until 2am. (The fact that it meets Friday nights
guarantees that most permanent members are incouragable "get-a-lifers";
this in turn guarantees that many promising "normal" first-time visiters
avoid 2nd contact). Few under-30 players. Strong contingent of
"chit-mover" civil & world war gamers. Nearby colleges - none. Food
availability in walking distance - none after 11PM. Because of limited
club hours, lengthy games such as A/Civ or even a decent game of Titan
can't often be played to predictable conclusions. Club has a constitution
more detailed that those of some countries; executive meetings (Robert's
Rules of Order'ed) every month cut into play time (although current
president moves 'em fast). Players are voted in and pay inexpensive dues.
Some money is spent on a fine in-club-only newsletter 90% written by the
estimable "Cloak" McCort, without whom it would probably suck monkey
cheese; the rest accumulates in a bank account apparantly there to wait
until the government defaults on the debt and our fiat currency
hyperinflates to worthlessness.

Grade: C-. Despite metro pop. 30x St. Cloud's, club has about same #
members. This is the best in the Twin Cities; I infer it so because our
member regularly win and place in GenCon tournies - if a better club
existed in town, they'd be over there.

------------------
Example of crappy game clubs: Anything at the University of Minnesota

Hard-to-find parking (even worse, parking is legal or illegal in certain
lots depending on whether or not sporting events are in progress - so I
have to give a damn about campus sports teams and their #$*#% schedules if
I don't want to stumble out to find my car's hosting a fat ticket or towed
off.) No nearby fast food. Quarter-to-half mile from Dorms and housing.
Butt-ugliest trash-"art"-tincan-deco Student Union building in the
universe (of course it's won zillions of awards). Politically correct
posters wallpaper every square inch with in-your-face propaganda. Bus
drivers think they're cast in Death Race 2000. Games are played in dingy
rooms off a narrow corridor on some upper floor off the beaten path. Tiny
windows with no views. Oppressive dungeon-like atmosphere of
non-air-conditioned rooms appeals to nihilistic RPGers who bring skulls
and shit to their vampire sessions. Everyone else flees at warp 9. I hear
there's one allegedly decent club that meets once a month at a bigger room
in the same building, but 12 times a year isn't enough for me, especially
not at the abysmally laid-out dump they call U. of M.

Grade: F's across the board. Been to better high school clubs in town. Feh.

-------------------
Example of a fabulous games club which doesn't exist:

C'mon Macalaster College (in St. Paul)! You've got this huge, spacious
campus, free parking everywhere, several other colleges right nearby, good
food availability, nice buildings with air-conditioning, big windows
offering unobstructed views of bikini-clad young things sunbathing on the
quad, etc....

I know there's ONE gamer over there reading this. Email me right now, bub,
and I'll get you started setting up a decent club, SCSU style, on your
campus.

--
"Impending doom takes all the fun out of decadent living!" - Yago

[RICHARD IRVING]

Gary J. Robinson (grob...@mailer.fsu.edu) wrote:

: Like many wargamers, I take an interest in the topic of the death of wargaming.

<Rest of article deleted, as it was merely reinforcement to the main
point>

: A few days ago a friend of mine and I were playing an old SPI S&T game

: called "Armageddon." It had around 4 pages of rules and a scenario could
: be set up and played to completion within 3 hours. Greg dismisses the
: "overcomplification of wargames" in an offhand aside, but I think this is
: the heart of the problem. S&T games were traditionally very easy to learn
: and play, were not huge, and did not take very long to play. Wargames
: changed from this initial successful format into monstrosities. Ask the
: average non-wargaming boardgamer for their impression of wargaming. You
: will find their answer to revolve, not around concepts of subject matter,
: but around (negative) concepts such as "complicated" "long" "millions of
: pieces" "slow" "unplayable" and they are, to a large extent, right.
: Make a simple wargame, like Axis & Allies, and even today it will be more
: popular than Squad Leader ever was. There is interest in the subject
: matter; but there is little interest among young people for complicated,
: long, slow-playing multimap games with thousands of NATO-style pieces, and
: frankly, I don't blame them.

If that were true, why the failure of most of Gamemaster series (exc.
A&A)? Why don't introductory games sell well (such as A House Divided,

We the People, AH Smithsonian Series, or even the old classics)? I
think it is a more fundamental problem: The games are NOT in the stores
where most games are sold: WalMart, Toys R Us, Dept. stores, etc.
People aren't attracted to simpler because they probably don't know they
even exist.

15 years ago, my brother got me Squad Leader that he bought from Toys R

Us. Go there today you see no AH titles (even non wargame) at all.
No Acquire, No Rail Baron, No Feudal, No Smithsonian (aka Simple) games,
etc. Even if someone who bought and enjoyed Acquire from TRU in the old
days, would get a catalog or price list in Acquire that listed many
other AH games. He may not want a wargame, but at least he'd know they
were available. And a percentage that would be interested could find the
wargames they wanted to try, either in the local store or by mail order.
Now when someone buys a game from a mass marketer, they don't get any
exposure to the hobby of gaming, by and large, and wargaming in
particular.

I don't know why the AH's, the GDW's (before they went under), the
Mayfair's, etc. can't get their product into mass marketers. I don't
know if it is because the companies can't afford the risk of large
production runs that a mass marketer would require. I don't know if
they simply don't "move" fast enough for mass marketers requirements.
(After all they make their money on high volume.) Maybe someone in the
business could enlighten me?

--

Richard Irving rr...@pge.com

I don't like disclaimers, but I have to put them in. The opinions here
are my own and not necessarily PG&E's.
(As if it had any opinions about this stuff!)

Made with recycled electrons.

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <mschnei1-250...@pm-1-211.innovsoftd.com>,
msch...@isd.net wrote:

> Example of a game club doing everything right SCSU Games Club

That's it. I'm quitting my job and moving to St. Cloud!

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <4t81e9$h...@news02.comp.pge.com>, rr...@pge.com (RICHARD IRVING)
wrote:

> If that were true, why the failure of most of Gamemaster series (exc.

> A&A)? Why don't introductory games sell well (such as A House Divided,
> We the People, AH Smithsonian Series, or even the old classics)? I
> think it is a more fundamental problem: The games are NOT in the stores
> where most games are sold: WalMart, Toys R Us, Dept. stores, etc.
> People aren't attracted to simpler because they probably don't know they
> even exist.

Very good point. My first wargames were picked up at the local hobby/art
supply store and a couple of chain toy stores that are no more (King
Norman's and ???). But that's just because we had no Toys R Us where I
grew up.

Here in California, at least, most shopping malls have a Gamekeeper store,
and you could argue that America in the 90s shops in malls more than
anywhere else. These Gamekeepers do stock a small amount of boardgames,
several AH titles and some Battletech to go with a small roleplaying
inventory. But they're in the rear of the store--the front is devoted to
puzzles and more unusual family games like Set, Sequence, and so on.

[Danny Holte]

>I don't know why the AH's, the GDW's (before they went under), the
>Mayfair's, etc. can't get their product into mass marketers. I don't
>know if it is because the companies can't afford the risk of large
>production runs that a mass marketer would require. I don't know if
>they simply don't "move" fast enough for mass marketers requirements.
>(After all they make their money on high volume.) Maybe someone in the
>business could enlighten me?
>
>--

Rich,

I know exactly what you mean. In the '70s I could go to the local mall
and find Avalon Hill/3M games in Sears, Toys International, and Karl's
Toys and Hobbies; and that was just in _one_ of the local malls.

For this reason alone I would dispute any claim that SPI was the
cornerstone of gaming, especially in the area of attracting new gamers.
They had much to do with the volume of titles available to avid
gamers, but an FNG would have never heard of 'em.

[cerebral]

The rise of monster games may have done something to drive people out of
the hobby, but there are certainly a wide variety of non-monster games
around which can be used to bring them back. Some examples;

Almost any railroad game [Empire Builder for starters]
Almost any German game [Settlers of Catan perhaps?]

and for those of you who insist on a wargame, look at any game in the

Gamers Standard Series. An entire game with a great campaign scenario
with the following parameters;

_one_ map
an _eight_page_ series rulebook
280 counters[ including info counters]
a five hour [or so] campaign scenario

Face it, folks, the simple intro games are out there. We just need to

know how to show them to people.

Steve Nicewarner
--
******************************************************************************
Steve Nicewarner ----- Cerebral Hobbies

Take a look at our Web page -- http://www.io.com/~cerebral

[James Bailey]

Philip M. Hall (sun...@prairienet.org) wrote:

[stuff cut]

: Less time, larger games, antiwar hysteria, all served to take people out

: of the hobby. Most never returned. With electronic games most youngsters
: don't want to spend an hour setting up a board game and another hour
: reading the rules. Better to turn on the old (comupter, gameboy, etal)
: and immediately start playing, even if you don't know the rules. Instant
: gratification. And if you lose, which you will at some point, start over.
: No ego involved since its just you against a dumb machine, and besides,
: everyone loses at the game. What does board gaming have to offer that can
: top that?

: Phil Hall

The deterrent factors of relatively long set-up and rule assimilation
are *very* good points that speak to human nature. I'd like to add one
other observation that arches over just about every point made so far in
this thread.
I got into wargames when I was in college and had time, space and
available opponents. After college (and marriage) time and opponents
became much harder to find. And while I had the space, the only way to
play solitaire was to set up in a room away from my wife (image of wife
in the doorway asking sweetly "whatcha doin'?") since setting up on the
dining room table did not allow for extended play. Add kids and it's
"goodbye to wargaming for several years" (unless you nail down the map
one curious hand reaching up to table level will shift all forces
hundreds of miles).
It seems to me that *all* of the forces that fed the growth of
wargaming in the 70's and 80's have been eroded. The core group has left
college and the later college kids who have the personality traits for
wargames (basically the tolerance for isolation and long periods of
decidedly non-physical activity) have headed for computers which give an
easier, more rapid gratification. People will typically go for the
smaller, quick reward than the larger, delayed one. I *love* wargmes, but
as soon as I think about playing one, the immediate thought is "well, it
will take about an hour to set it up, another 20-30 minutes to brush up
on the rules... I might be able to squeeze in the first two turns before
(a) we eat, (b) the kids wake up, (c) the family gets back, (d) it's time
for bed (since I can't stay up all night anymore due to necessary
activity the next morning whether its work or family stuff)." When those
thoughts come up, I very often (but not always) figure the reward just
isn't worth it and I find something else to do. My guess is that this is
a fairly common scenario with wargamers.

Jim Bailey

[Neal Sofge]

The death of wargaming seems to have brought with it a death of SF/F
strategy games, which goes to show that it's not the subject matter but
the wargame format itself. Admittedly, SF/F wargames only hit it big
between 1975 and 1989 or so, but the S&T Hypothesis doesn't explain why
they died along with the other wargames.

One observation is that there's been an overall reduction in complexity
and playing time for adventure games as a whole. Fueled in part by CCGs,
which have seemingly simple rules by necessity, this has caused the SF/F
wargame industry to prefer fast-playing games with high level components
(especially miniatures) and expandability. This trend causes the overall
number of SF/F games released to drop, as each company concentrates on one
or two core product lines.

> The fact
> that it hasn't completely fizzled, and in fact supports a few new
> companies would lead me to believe that gaming as we now see it is
> sustainable.

Don't let the fact that companies are still in business lead you to
believe that the market is alive and well. Game companies can last for
years on good intentions alone.

--
Neal Sofge (home: ne...@aol.com) I speak for myself, not RAND.
Fat Messiah Games Web: http://www.io.com/~wasson/fmg.html

[Greg Costikyan]

Richard Irving said:

> Why don't introductory games sell well (such as A House Divided,
> We the People, AH Smithsonian Series, or even the old classics)? I
> think it is a more fundamental problem: The games are NOT in the stores
> where most games are sold: WalMart, Toys R Us, Dept. stores, etc.
> People aren't attracted to simpler because they probably don't know they
> even exist.
>

........

>
> I don't know why the AH's, the GDW's (before they went under), the
> Mayfair's, etc. can't get their product into mass marketers. I don't
> know if it is because the companies can't afford the risk of large
> production runs that a mass marketer would require. I don't know if
> they simply don't "move" fast enough for mass marketers requirements.
> (After all they make their money on high volume.) Maybe someone in the
> business could enlighten me?

Games are a marginal business for toy and discount stores. Except for kids games
and a =very few= adult game titles, they basically aren't interested in stocking
them. Some years ago, Toys R Us's rule of thumb was that they wanted to see a
game sell 25,000 copies =through some other SINGLE outlet= before they would
stock it. Other than D&D and Magic, nothing in the field has ever done this.

Toy and discount stores view hobby gaming as a tiny, inbred, specialty market --
which in fact it is -- not as the mass market to which they sell. Moreover, with
few exceptions, most hobby game manufacturers make no attempt to cater to this
market; TSR, Avalon Hill, and Mayfair do, to some degree, but they are the
exceptions rather than the rule.

It =is= possible to break hobby product into department stores, which like to
think they cater to a more upscale, intelligent customer; and RPGs, in
particular, do reasonably well through book distribution channels. However,
there's a big difference between making a sale to Macy's, say, with a couple of
dozen outlets, and Toys R Us, with thousands.

However, the basic problem is that to sell toy and discount stores, you first
have to demonstrate the ability to sell like hotcakes in other outlets -- or
else promise seven figures in advertising and promotion, as the major boardgame
manufacturers do when launching a new product.

Greg C.

[Greg Costikyan]

Neil Sofge said:

> The death of wargaming seems to have brought with it a death of SF/F
> strategy games, which goes to show that it's not the subject matter but
> the wargame format itself. Admittedly, SF/F wargames only hit it big
> between 1975 and 1989 or so, but the S&T Hypothesis doesn't explain why
> they died along with the other wargames.
>

Well, Neil, yes it does. SPI was also the single largest publisher of
sf&f boardgames, through ARES magazine and independent publication.
Metagaming, the main competitor, was a tiddler by comparison.

Greg C.

[Gene Marcil]

wig...@concentric.net (Gary J. Robinson) wrote:
>In article <johnson-2507960922190001@news>, joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E.
>Johnson) wrote:
>

>> Why don't introductory games sell well (such as A House Divided,
>> We the People, AH Smithsonian Series, or even the old classics)? I
>> think it is a more fundamental problem: The games are NOT in the stores
>> where most games are sold: WalMart, Toys R Us, Dept. stores, etc.
>> People aren't attracted to simpler because they probably don't know they
>> even exist.

I don't know about saying that Introductory Games don't sell well and
aren't popular. My regular gaming group contains no grognards and yet
many of us are avid wargamers. Only one of the group enjoys the
so-called "true" wargames like A3R, and even he won't touch ASL (too
complex to be fun... you spend your time worrying about details instead
of enjoying the game).

I've noticed that we are part of a small but growing trend: older
role-players who now have lives and lack the time to run campaigns but
still enjoy a good game. Many turned to CCGs and (often) then turned
away in disgust and considerably poorer. Many, like my gang, have taken
up wargaming.

Of course, as non-grognards, we're the kind of people who *prefer*
so-called introductory games. In fact, we use the 8+ range of complexity
as a *warning label* (i.e. this game will take you ages to learn and you
will be sick of it before you ever have any fun with it).

We're the kind of folks who will buy A&A, History of the World, Civ, We
the People/Hannibal, Britannia, etc... Abstracted, faster-moving
strategic level games are much more appealing than rule-heavy, complex,
tactical simulations.

Production quality and appearance are very important to us. Ugly little
counters crammed with numbers and NATO symbols are a major turn off.
We're playing the game to have fun. Attactive counter sets and maps
(mounting is a *definate* plus) enhance the experience by giving you
something that is pleasing to look at. I much prefer looking at a map
like Maharaja's (simple, attractive with full colour counters (w/a name
and a picture)).

I think Avalon Hill and the other gaming companies *need* those
introductory games, not to appeal to the grognards, but to attract those
other gamers who have flirted with wargaming in the past and are rapidly
growing sick of the utter lack of creative material in their own gaming
hobbies (CCGs and RPGs have been lame of late, turning off many
older gamers).

>
>Newbie: "Hi! Are you a wargamer? Want to play some A&A?"
>Grognard: "Oh, I play real wargames, not that simple intro stuff."
>Newbie: "I see. What 2-player games have you played recently?"
>Grognard: "Nothing actually, I just play solitaire, can't find any opponents."
>Newbie (walking away): "I wonder why."

Been there, done that. I left the grognard in his corner and found some
other newbies. We had fun and socialized. He sat at home alone. Any
questions?

>In article <johnson-2507961346520001@news>, joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E.
>Johnson) wrote:
>
>> Here in California, at least, most shopping malls have a Gamekeeper store,
>> and you could argue that America in the 90s shops in malls more than
>> anywhere else. These Gamekeepers do stock a small amount of boardgames,
>> several AH titles and some Battletech to go with a small roleplaying
>> inventory. But they're in the rear of the store--the front is devoted to
>> puzzles and more unusual family games like Set, Sequence, and so on.

Don't knock BattleTech. It serves as a wonderful bridge between
roleplaying games and boardgames/wargames. Much as D&D is often the
first RPG a person will play, Btech is often the first wargame a person
will play. It's a beer and pretzels game, but it does introduce people
to the concept of a board-based wargame.

>or The Gamers' "Tunisia." The idea is absurd. Wargames are no longer one
>level above parlor games, they are 30 levels above it, and little grows at
>those high altitudes. All it takes is one bad experience with buying an
>overly-complex game - or hearing of one from a friend of a friend - and
>sales of even the loathsomely labeled "intro" games will suffer.

Funny. We had a bad experience or two with overly complex wargames so we
started shunning the *advanced* wargames. Any game which requires more
studying and understanding than a college science course qualifies as a
"get a life" game, not an advanced game. It isn't fun anymore, unless
your definition of fun is pouring over minute details. Who cares if it
recreates a battle perfectly. If it takes you longer to play the game
than it took the actual armies to fight the battle, I think there's a
problem. 8)

>Complex wargaming is, in its essence, the rarified domain of a group of
>older, wealthier, jaded few who have more money than time and buy a lot
>more games than they play. Games have evolved to suite the tastes of this
>elite, and in doing so have left a bad taste in the mouths of young

This crowd still exists but it is getting older and smaller. AH and
other game companies keep producing intro level games because they do
help attract new wargamers to the hobby. Without new blood, their
clientel will slowly shrink away.

>people. Potential gamers are everywhere; the Magic craze proved young

Yup!

Until wargamers
>are willing to come down from their Mount Olympus and deign to laugh and
>roll dice with the young, they are doomed to watch their numbers decline
>and their hobby fade away. Not that coming down is easy; no more easy
>than it is for a professor of English literature to partake with the
>enthusiastic youth of a science fiction book club as they sing the praises
>of the latest DragonLance novel. But sometimes, just being with people
>who are having a good time is more enjoyable than sitting by yourself
>looking at your solitaire Turn 3 of that perfect simulation of Manstein's
>counterattack....

I couldn't agree with you more. Grognards take their hobby so seriously
that they have transformed it into an arcane subject that no one else can
understand or give a damn about. For wargaming to survive, either
grognards have to learn to have fun (I wouldn't bet on it) or a new
generation of gamers has to slowly take over the hobby. The new crowd is
unlikely to buy as many games as the grognards because they actually play
all their games.

However, the could easily outnumber the grongards and they are much more
likely to introduce new players to the hobby (e.g via college/univ. games
clubs) since they haven't totally isolated themselves in cryptic game
lore. They just want to play fun games with other folks.

Gene Marcil

[Kevin J. Maroney]

rr...@pge.com (RICHARD IRVING) wrote:

>I don't know why the AH's, the GDW's (before they went under), the
>Mayfair's, etc. can't get their product into mass marketers.

The simplest answer is provided in the latest issue of GAMES, in the
article on Phil Orbanes's new company, WINNING WAYS:

Most of the games sold in the US are sold through one of five
accounts: Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, and Kay Bee Toys. These
chains are, for the most part, not interested in games which are not
advertised on television.

Burt Hochberg says, "one independent game inventor told me recently
that a mass-market buyer asked her to guarantee a seven-figure TV ad
budget before they'd put her game on the shelf." Hochberg goes on to
mention that not only does this completely shut out the small game
company (and by those standards, Avalon Hill, GDW, and Mayfair are
*very* small), it favors games which look good on TV--childrens'
gimmick games like HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS or adult party games like
TABOO or OUTBURST.

[Philip M. Hall]

Organization: Prairienet
Distribution:

When I started in the hobby 33 years ago, there wasn't much to compete
with it. Kids had limited options as to what to do. TV was for watching,
not playing, summer recreation was Little League and nothing else. Most
teenagers didn't have summer jobs (lawn mowing was a biggie. Once mowed
a baseball diamond for $20.00 with a hand mower). Wargaming was a big
summer activity for me and my brother. AH was the only producer, and you
could count on the rules being the same as all the others with a few
variations, a big plus.

We weren't concerned with learning anything from the game, just trying to
be better than Napoleon or Lee or whoever. I was more interested in
whether or not I could win at Waterloo than in how many ranks the
infantry stood and just how far a cannon would shoot. I trusted the
designer to take care of that and let me get on with being a General.

With the advent of the "simulation" things changed. I started to believe
that I was learning something important about war. I wasn't, but fell for
it anyway. I remember when I first realized that I was being hoodwinked
when I compared FOXBAT AND PHANTOM to AIR WAR and found that AW was FAB
dirtied up. If you boiled AW down, you got FAB. And just as importantly,
if you played the same scenario in both games, you got pretty much the
same result, just faster in FAB. I had been took. It made me view other
complex games with a more critical eye, and I began to find that the
General in me was being turned into a multi personality player, making
descions that weren't appropriate to a general officer. More importantly,
I was able to finish games in the alloted leisure time hours.

Introductory games are still out there. Descion Games has Ancients and
the Blue/Gray Quad system. They also have Four Battles of the Ancient
World. All of these tend to satisfy me when I play them. For slightly
more complex, but still reachable is Across Five Aprils.

The real problem is the competition for leisure time. And I'm afraid that
a 5 hour long board game between two people is close to the bottom of the
list for most folks looking for a new hobby, particularly in a day and
age of instant gratification.

Phil Hall

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <neal_sofge-26...@sofge.rand.org>,
neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

> Because of this, I've become convinced that microgames can't fill the
> introductory game niche, since no one who grew up with Risk as their idea
> of a wargame can even recognize a micro in the first place.

Stop it, Neal, you're depressing me! :-/ You too, I'm sure.

Yes, I beginning to see that the minigame format can perhaps survive, but
not thrive, due to the nature of the marketplace. They are hard to find
even in *game* stores, for crying out loud. No, I think these sorts of
games do about as well as they can as magazine games, sold at
conventions, via mail order, or as some of the download-and-print-your-own
versions popping up on the net (e.g. BoneGames web page). None of those
will work as introductions--you have to go looking for them.

It's a shame. I might have become interested in the hobby by buying an AH
bookcase game at the toy store, but I rather doubt it. I didn't have that
much money to blow on a game as a kid, and I wouldn't evan have asked for
one as a gift for about the same reason (kid logic: one big game, or three
smaller presents). Instead, a friend in junior high school showed me Ogre,
and later I bought GEV. I've heard some others on the net tell a similar
story, though I rather suspect I'm in the minority here.

Here's a different twist: microgame as demo/teaser of the larger game.
Have you seen the minigame version of Heavy Gear? It sells for $2, I
think, and could almost be called a *nano*game, it's so small. But I
picked it up just to check it out. SJ Games tried that with a $1 intro
version of Car Wars several years ago (which I bet I'd have more fun with
than the gorilla of a game it's become). It's similar to the demo software
phenomenon that's very common these days, a natural extension of the
shareware concept.

Suppose you had a ~$2 "demo" version of shapeshifters printed on a single
glossy sheet like Heavy Gear's demo, that gave some basic rules and
allowed shifting between a few animal forms. Then the "deluxe" $20 boxed
version would have the rest of the game and some higher quality
components. Not a mounted map, but perhaps color counters of all the
animal forms, etc. Just a thought.

I tell you I'd buy probably every $2 demo version of every game I could
find unless/until I felt repeatedly burned.

In fact, I'm a little surprised GW doesn't do that. I guess they've got
enough momentum to keep people buying their games, even at $50 "intro"
price tags. Still, I overheard my local retailer explaining to his
assistant that they didn't want to order many Necromunda (sp?) sets, even
though the game was currently red-hot with the locals, as they'd been left
holding multiple expensive GW sets before (Blood Bowl, I think).

> However, it's not just low prices for you, it's also low prices for the
> manufacturer. Big games mean big capital outlays and big losses if the
> game sinks. Micros can be on more esoteric subjects, and frequently
> were. Who would have spent $30 on a boxed version of Sticks & Stones?

Hmm, I see. But even a $3 Sticks & Stones probably lost money for
Metagaming, don't you think? I don't have any data on this, but always
suspected that the microgame "business plan" worked (or didn't) on the
assumption that a few home runs like Ogre would subsidize the less
successful games, which means that you had to have a moderate number of
games covering a variety of subjects.

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <4t8kme$4...@crc-news.doc.ca>, Gene Marcil
<marci...@ic.gc.ca> wrote:

> Few people ever climb all the way
> up to playing complex wargames anymore. There are easier options that
> offer the same ambiance in a better package.

I sort of agree. Computer games don't quite yet offer the realtime
interaction with another person that a complex wargame does...

...but we've already seen that complex wargames aren't usually played with
another person at all, due to a lack of opponents!

[Neal Sofge]

> renewed
> interest in small format (micro/mini) wargames. What they have to offer is
> low price, portability, quick play, and mild learning curves.

This is true, but one of the main problems we've had at conventions is
that people walk up to the FMG table and don't recognize our products as
actual games. They don't know what to make of them, since boardgames come
in a box, and RPGs have bigger rule books. I get questions like "What do
you do with this?" or "What else do I need to play this?" all the time.

Because of this, I've become convinced that microgames can't fill the
introductory game niche, since no one who grew up with Risk as their idea

of a wargame can even recognize a micro in the first place. What we need
are micro style designs in big boxes, which is what Games Workshop does.
And they do attract new gamers, but Games Workshop players rarely
transition to wargaming.

> But you know what? The price issue
> mattered much more to me back in high school, when I had more time than
> money. As an adult the opposite is now true.

However, it's not just low prices for you, it's also low prices for the

manufacturer. Big games mean big capital outlays and big losses if the
game sinks. Micros can be on more esoteric subjects, and frequently
were. Who would have spent $30 on a boxed version of Sticks & Stones?

--

[Harry Flashman]

Neal Sofge (neal_...@rand.org) wrote:
: This is true, but one of the main problems we've had at conventions is

: that people walk up to the FMG table and don't recognize our products as
: actual games. They don't know what to make of them, since boardgames come
: in a box, and RPGs have bigger rule books. I get questions like "What do
: you do with this?" or "What else do I need to play this?" all the time.

I never really thought of this before, but I think you are ont o
something. Most players of RPG's out there are looking for thick Bascis
books and then thinner follow-up expansion books. I would imagine that the
look of a microgame would really be confusing to someone like this.

: Because of this, I've become convinced that microgames can't fill the

: introductory game niche, since no one who grew up with Risk as their idea
: of a wargame can even recognize a micro in the first place.

Yes, but I would think you're also dealing pretty heavily with subject
matter here too. Think of it, you have to have an appreciation of history
to enjoy an historical wargame. There are far fewer historical RPG's then
there are fantasy, sci/fi ones. Then the fictional wargames, are far fewer
then the historical ones. I think this says something for the interests of
the two separate gamers.

If your talking about introducing RPGers to wargames I think you'll have
to intice the RPGer with more RPG-like wargames. For instance a fictional
fantasy or sci/fi world, where the players take the part of leaders of
units, perhaps multiplayers to a side, each in charge of an "arm" of the
force.

I have lots of RPG friends, but I am the only wargamer amoung them. When I
do get a few of them to play wargames they are more interested in the
ship to ship or plane to plane type of games, where they can imagine
themselves in the cockpits. Either that or they want to be the leader of a
force, and run the risk of having their leader counters killed or
captured. Then the other common thing I see amoung RPGer's introduced
to wargmes, is bending the rules. Once an RPGer asked me that if he was
the "general" of his armies, why can't he tell his men to cut down the
nearby woods and built a bridge across the stream hex? I actually couldn't
think of a good response except "there are NO rules for building bridges
in this game".

The wargames my RPGer's like the best are the following: Star Fleet
Battles, SPI's Sniper, AH's Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Knights of the
Air, SPI's The Crusades, Kingmaker (results mixed) and of course SPI's
Lord of the Rings.

Games I've asked them to try and been politely turned down after
explaining the premise: Republic of Rome, History of the World,
and Diplomacy.

Others which are neither wargames or RPG's but hit it off well with the
RPGers: Car Wars, and INSECTA.

[Mark Langsdorf]

Gary J. Robinson (wig...@pop3.concentric.net) wrote:
> In article <4t8pfg$i...@news.nyu.edu>, cyf...@is.nyu.edu (The One and
> Only) wrote:

>
> > One observation is that there's been an overall reduction in complexity
> > and playing time for adventure games as a whole. Fueled in part by CCGs,
> > which have seemingly simple rules by necessity, this has caused the SF/F
> > wargame industry to prefer fast-playing games with high level components
> > (especially miniatures) and expandability. This trend causes the overall
> > number of SF/F games released to drop, as each company concentrates on one
> > or two core product lines.
>

> Well, I am not sure what "SF/F wargame industry" you are referring to -
> since 1993 (?) when M:TG came out, there hasn't been any SF/F wargame
> industry that I am aware of....
>
> Since I like SF/F wargames, I really want to know!
>
Car Wars (currently being revamped by SJG)
Starfire
Starfleet Battles
Battletech
Legions of Steel/Planetstorm
Dirtside II
Stargrunt II
Starguard 5th edition
Full Thurst 2nd edition
Warhammer 40K (ick)
Warzone
Leviathan
Slag!
Federation and Empire

Okay, several of these are miniature games, but just about all of
them are currently in print, and if you don't like miniature games, JUST
USE COUNTERS! (And if you have some sort fof weird prejudice against
miniature games- for not being "realistic" enough or whatever- take a good
lookat Global Games Legions of Steel, which is tactically realistic).
Actually, come to think of it, only SFB, and F&E (and to a lesser
extent, BT, WH40K, SF, and CW) could really be considered "monster" games.
All the others deliberately simple rules systems for quick play.

Mark Langsdorf
http://www.engr.trinity.edu/~mlangsdo

[Dave Kohr]

In article <4t6j8v$e...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
Philip M. Hall <sun...@prairienet.org> wrote:
>Just as wargaming was coming of age, Vietnam became the focal point and riots
>broke out on college campuses across the country. It just wasn't cool to
>study war, you baby killer, you.

This just doesn't make any sense. The "Golden Age" of wargaming was during
SPI's heyday, the 1970's, at the tail end of the Vietnam War (when protests
peaked) and shortly thereafter (when memory of the war was freshest). IMHO
the only discernable impact of the anti-war sentiment on wargaming was that
(maybe) this has resulted in no Vietnam War games being popular. (OTOH
this can also be explained in part by the fact that it was largely a
guerilla war and as much a political as military conflict, with few
well-defined battles and campaigns.)

Dave Kohr Hacker/Researcher Argonne National Laboratory, MCS Division
Building 203, Room C-246 Phone: (708) 252-4243 E-mail: ko...@mcs.anl.gov
See also my WWW Home Page: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/home/kohr/index.html
"Surfing the Silicon Prairie."

[David desJardins]

Jeff Christensen <jeff_chr...@nortel-nsm.com> writes:
> You are not
> going to be able to produce a military simulation game which John would
> be interested in because John is not interested in military history.

I doubt this very, very much. I know plenty of players who enjoy a wide
range of wargames (i.e., "military simulation games") who aren't
interested in military history, and who don't care about relating their
exploits to anything historical. I'm not sure if I would agree that
even the majority of wargamers have an interest in military history.

The fact that SF and fantasy "wargames" (i.e., games with similar
mechanics to your "military simulation games", but not tied to
historical events) have been quite popular and successful in some cases,
is an indication that this type of game can appeal to players not
interested in military history, simply because they enjoy the mechanics
of such games.

I think the correct conclusion to draw is that John simply didn't enjoy
that particular game, not that he necessarily wouldn't enjoy other
military simulation games.

> I like these games because I am in the hobby because I am interested
> in military history and the simulation of such history.

This comes through in your assumption that the only other people who
would be interested in such games are people who are also interested in
them for this reasons. I find that many, if not most, military history
enthusiasts make this incorrect assumption.

> So to sum up I don't see what the problem is.

> My only concern is that there are fewer oponents for some of the
> monster games I wish to play. This is unavoidable though because there
> just isn't that many people interest in these games and to make them
> more appealing to others would make them less appealing to me.

This part I agree with.

David desJardins

[Kevin J. Maroney]

neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

>The death of wargaming seems to have brought with it a death of SF/F
>strategy games, which goes to show that it's not the subject matter but
>the wargame format itself. Admittedly, SF/F wargames only hit it big
>between 1975 and 1989 or so, but the S&T Hypothesis doesn't explain why
>they died along with the other wargames.

Actually, I don't think that F&SF wargames lasted much longer than
historical wargames. WEB & STARSHIP did very poorly, despite critical
acclaim (and, for a wargame, relative simplicity), and I can't think
of a (non-licensed*) F&SF wargame that did particularly well after
1980.

*The obvious exception is Star Fleet Battles, which did start out with
the Star Trek license, although it's moved far beyond that in the
years since.

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <31f8dd37...@news.crossover.com>, kmar...@crossover.com wrote:

> Actually, I don't think that F&SF wargames lasted much longer than
> historical wargames. WEB & STARSHIP did very poorly, despite critical
> acclaim (and, for a wargame, relative simplicity), and I can't think
> of a (non-licensed*) F&SF wargame that did particularly well after
> 1980.
>
> *The obvious exception is Star Fleet Battles, which did start out with
> the Star Trek license, although it's moved far beyond that in the
> years since.

Car Wars really took off in the early-mid 80s, and Ogre has managed to
keep plodding along. Plus the previously mentioned Battletech.

[Kevin J. Maroney]

cere...@bessel.nando.net (cerebral) wrote:

>The rise of monster games may have done something to drive people out of
>the hobby, but there are certainly a wide variety of non-monster games
>around which can be used to bring them back. Some examples;
>
>Almost any railroad game [Empire Builder for starters]
>Almost any German game [Settlers of Catan perhaps?]

Remember that the 18xx series is at the upper end of complexity for
the German market but is a relatively "simple" game for Avalon Hill.
(Actually, it's right at the cusp between the really-simple-
family-games and the wargames.)

[Philip M. Hall]

Dave Kohr (ko...@donner.mcs.anl.gov) wrote:
: In article <4t6j8v$e...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,

The Vietnam War changed the perception of war as glorious to war as terrible.
There was a large "bubble" of baby boomers whose fathers had fought in
WWII who didn't consider war evil. Many of the boomers who were in
college at the time percieved war as evil, and these folks are now
producing offspring of college age who percieve war as evil. It is, of
course, but the study of it isn't. I got interested in war through my
history classes in high school(pre-VietNam)since they were all geared
towards memorizing dates of wars. My kids(80's)had history classes that
barely mentioned wars except in passing and looked at the social and
political aspects of war. As a result it is difficult to find college age
students who are interested in wargaming, since they view history
differently than we older folks do.

SPI and AH did well in the 70's because they were innovative in what they
offered, and they offered a lot of it. There was a bigger is better
movement that many of us bought into, which resulted in buying games we
didn't play. Take a look at the marketplace and see how many unpunched
SPI games from the 70's are still available. In a manner of speaking,
SPI, and many other companies, were responsible for their own downfall.
They looked at sales, not at what was actually being played. Eventually
the monster game buyers quit buying games they couldn't find opponents for.
Not all, but enough.

There seems to be a belief that social changes don't affect hobbies, but
they do. There has been an ongoing debate on rec.models.scale about
whether or not it is proper to model Nazi equipment. This wasn't a
question in the 60's when I was still modeling. The Gulf War gave us a
good feeling about our ability to wage a modern war and win it with few
casualties, but it to produced war protests albeit of a more intelligent
type, with people blaming the government and not the soldier for the war.
There seems to be a growing feeling that it isn't necessary to study war,
since no one in their right mind is going to want to face the U.S. in a
standup confrontation, and with that belief, the hobby may easily meet
its end.

Phil Hall

[Bradford Holden]

In article <4tb2kl$m...@uwm.edu> br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu writes:
>In similar result can occur with both Chess and Volleyball. I certainly
>don't like to play volleyball with people who don't know what they are doing
>because it wrecks the game for the whole team. There are several levels
>of "don't know what they are doing". Really serious play requires committing
>to play with the same team on a regular basis. I am not much of a chess
>player, but I can't see that it is much fun to play between people with
>widely different skill levels. High level chess also requires a large amount
>of time studying various aspects of the game.
>
>In these cases while the rules may not change, the way players approach the
>game does at different levels of play. The affect is similar to that
>of moving to more complex board games.

I would like to second this. A good friend of mine often looks for
chess players but no one is sastisfying to him to play against. He is
not great by any international standards but most of us just are not at
his level. I have found the same phenomenon in the local intramural
volleyball tournaments. I don't play as I am not good enough. Thats
right, not good enough for intramural. Why? The grad student league
here is populated by ex-NCAA players. Losing 15-2 from a
6'2" woman serving at 80 mph gets a bit discouraging (the score, unlike
the speed, was not made up.)

In a similar vein, do you know how hard it is to find bridge partners?
Bridge is not a hard game to learn, especially if you introduce
bidding gradually (only bring up special bids when needed), allow lots
of table talk, and not bother with scoring at first. I view bridge as
a social game, something to play late saturday night wiht a beer and a
couple of friends. Good luck trying to find anyone interested in my
age group.

Its sad to say, but the majority of my socializing now consists of
going out to dinner or watching movies, both sedentary activities and
both activities that discourage conversation and thinking. I wonder
how much TV has to blame in all of this?

--
Bradford Holden
"No one likes a smarmy graduate student." - R. C. Nichol

[Kevin J. Maroney]

kmar...@crossover.com (Kevin J. Maroney) wrote:

>Actually, I don't think that F&SF wargames lasted much longer than
>historical wargames. WEB & STARSHIP did very poorly, despite critical
>acclaim (and, for a wargame, relative simplicity), and I can't think
>of a (non-licensed*) F&SF wargame that did particularly well after
>1980.

I have had people point out CAR WARS and BATTLETECH, both of which
flourished in the 1980's and into the 90's, and the Games Workshop
line, which had its greatest success in Britain.

[Neal Sofge]

> Just to air the statement once again: They will transition if
> 1) There are other people to play other games with, 2) They don't feel
> wargamers are rude, hostile, smelly get-a-lifers and 3) they are interested
> in board gaming, as compared to miniature painting.

And are willing to play a game with little bits of cardboard and a paper
map. What I'm wondering is if we can recruit new wargamers without
needing mounted maps and plastic parts. Because if we can't, then we're
in trouble, because no wargame company has the wherewithal to produce Axis
& Allies level componentry.

A secondary question is whether the hobby audience is willing to accept
the loss of design diversity that a transition to more expensive but cool
looking games will mean. The answer, as far as the market goes, seems to
be yes.

[Julian Barker]

In article <wiggler-2607...@cnc000136.concentric.net>, "Gary J.
Robinson" <wig...@pop3.concentric.net> writes
>
>
>You don't hear of chess players or volleyball players moving up to a more
>complex version of their hobby, to the point that no one but them plays at
>that level.

In chess it is important to compete with opponents of the right level to
maintain the level of challenge. As you progress it will inevitably
become more difficult to find suitable opponents who live nearby. I know
of several people who have used PBEM to keep their chess development
alive in the absence of opponents. I find PBEM a similar solution to the
same problems.

Some games are too difficult to play face to face but work 10 times
better (if 100 times slower) by E-mail. The classic example is something
like Republic of Rome. An excellent game of politics and diplomacy but
it is impossible to find 6 people interested enough in the game to put
up with the uphill struggle of winning for the 6 or 7 hours necessary to
complete a game even in a city the size of London. It might take a year
butt PBEM works better and is much more fun.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Julian Barker +
+ jul...@rodent.demon.co.uk +
+ Keep your lies consistent - Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #60 +
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <4tb3s9$j...@clarknet.clark.net>, sir...@clark.net (Harry
Flashman) wrote:

> I have lots of RPG friends, but I am the only wargamer amoung them.

Ditto, brother!

> When I
> do get a few of them to play wargames they are more interested in the
> ship to ship or plane to plane type of games, where they can imagine
> themselves in the cockpits.

Yes, very interesting. Most recently I convinced my regular RPG group to
try a lighthearted game of Heroquest one night, certainly a game that
blurs the line between roleplaying and wargaming. The results were
satisfying. I had a great time, they had a pretty good time. But
afterwards I realized both players had instantly dropped into roleplaying
mode, where they both did things that were less than the tactical ideal
for personal reasons! Nothing wrong with that, of course, as long as we're
all having fun.

But then I (the enemy) had to go on and kill my friend's dwarf in the
final battle. At the time I didn't think twice about it--the opportunity
presented itself, and I took it. But as any RPG player knows, the death of
a character is something serious! Not nearly as true in a wargame.

> The wargames my RPGer's like the best are the following: Star Fleet
> Battles, SPI's Sniper, AH's Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Knights of the
> Air, SPI's The Crusades, Kingmaker (results mixed) and of course SPI's
> Lord of the Rings.
>
> Games I've asked them to try and been politely turned down after
> explaining the premise: Republic of Rome, History of the World,
> and Diplomacy.
>
> Others which are neither wargames or RPG's but hit it off well with the
> RPGers: Car Wars, and INSECTA.

Hmm, I would've guessed most roleplayers would run screaming from the slow
pace and amount of bookkeeping in SFB. And others on the net have
suggested some of the games in your second paragraph to me to try with my
group! I am hopeful that we'll try Car Wars again, once I devise a more
streamlined, faster playing variant. I'm thinking about something as
simple as collapsing the number of phases greatly, giving the game more
motion, less shooting (there will still be plenty left over!).

[Harry Flashman]

Distribution:

Gene Marcil (marci...@ic.gc.ca) wrote:
:
: I've noticed that we are part of a small but growing trend: older

: role-players who now have lives and lack the time to run campaigns but
: still enjoy a good game. Many turned to CCGs and (often) then turned
: away in disgust and considerably poorer. Many, like my gang, have taken
: up wargaming.

And growing and growing.

I'm 32 and I have found that it is more convienent for me to play games
that do not take up a lot pf my time. For instance I find myself drawn
back to the basics like OGRE and Car Wars and even the new INSECTA. That,
or more abtract games like History of the World or Republic of Rome. And
this from a guy who had a subscription to S&T through most of the late
70's.

Scott

[David desJardins]

Wargaming is less popular than it was twenty years ago. So are all
other sorts of strategy games. So is contract bridge (you can read an
eerily similar thread to this in the bridge newsgroups, including debate
about whether the ACBL is responsible for killing contract bridge much
as we debate whether TSR is responsible for killing off wargaming).
Every form of mental competition that I can think of is in decline.

There are two reasons for this trend, both of which dwarf in magnitude
anything that TSR ever did to offend wargamers. The first is the growth
of other sorts of recreational activities. Television, movies, other
kinds of passive entertainment. These are simply the things that people
tend to do in place of gaming.

Second is the rise of new gaming forms (role playing, computer games,
collectible card games) which solve one of the biggest problems that
most people have with wargames and strategy games: that they reward
skill too strongly. It's no fun to play Russian Campaign against a much
better player. Whereas players of D&D or Magic can have plenty of fun
without having to be evenly matched with the other players, and players
of computer games don't even need opponents.

D&D accomplishes this by de-emphasizing competition in favor of
cooperation. Magic accomplishes it by introducing other substitutes for
skill, such as the availability of cards, and by allowing players to
take enjoyment in other things than winning (e.g., players who play "fun
decks" or "theme decks", almost a kind of role playing where players
know they are not playing optimally, but can still enjoy the process).
"Strategic" computer games show a definite trend over the past 10 years
or so; whereas once some were made to be challenging tests of skill, now
they are constructed so that nearly anyone can win them.

These are irreversible trends. There are still people who enjoy
competitive games of skill, but they have become more marginal. The
fact that wargames haven't become marginalized any more or less quickly
than other kinds of strategy games, suggests to me that there is no real
difference between what is happening in these different milieus; that
the decline is due to the essential features that they share.

David desJardins

[Neal Sofge]

> Certainly a problem; however, the reason they aren't in the store is
> probably (assuming we believe in market forces) because such items sold
> poorly in the past and the stores learned their lesson.

Bear in mind that just as Milton Bradley has a different idea of "failure"
than AH, Toys-R-Us has a different idea of "sold poorly" than your local
comic shop. This phenomenon is not limited to wargaming; you can't find
ASL in B. Daltons, but you also can't find Akiko Yano in Tower Records.

> Magic wasn't cheap, but
> you could get into the action for cheap, immediately find opponents, and
> learn how to play in a few minutes. That's how I learned to boardgame,
> with games like Ogre and Melee: for $4 and ten minutes' instruction, you
> were up and running, and could finish a game in an hour.

This is the central problem I'm talking about. It's impossible to make a
decent looking game for $10 or less, unless you have astonishing volume.
And the current market won't support that volume unless you come up with a
smash hit, or make something like CCGs that people need to buy over and
over again.

So either manufacturers risk their asses on a revolutionary game concept
that might bring people into the hobby, or they keep doing low-risk games
to sell to their traditional but shrinking audience.

[Neal Sofge]

> Well, Neil, yes it does. SPI was also the single largest publisher of
> sf&f boardgames, through ARES magazine and independent publication.
> Metagaming, the main competitor, was a tiddler by comparison.

Then why didn't the other manufacturers pick up the slack and hit the
vacated market niche? GDW, Mayfair, Task Force, AH, West End etc. were
still functioning in 1983.

On the other hand, if there was no market for SF/F games anymore, and SPI
was propping up the industry by sheer force of will, then it's no wonder
the collapses coincide. But in that case it's not SPI's demise that
caused the disintegration of the hobby, it's something else that had been
at work already.

[Gene Marcil]

joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E. Johnson) wrote:

>In article <4tb3s9$j...@clarknet.clark.net>, sir...@clark.net (Harry
>Flashman) wrote:
>
>> I have lots of RPG friends, but I am the only wargamer amoung them.
>
>Ditto, brother!
>

Kind of ditto. My group are all RPGers but a significant fraction like
wargames too.

>Hmm, I would've guessed most roleplayers would run screaming from the slow
>pace and amount of bookkeeping in SFB. And others on the net have
>suggested some of the games in your second paragraph to me to try with

Nahh.... the Trekkie to RPGer ratio is too high. They'll ignore the
complexity and bookkeeper just cause its Trek. 8/

>
>-MJ
>
>--
>Mark Johnson joh...@ccnet.com www.ccnet.com/~johnson

Gene Marcil

[Gary J. Robinson]

In article <4taurt$d...@news02.comp.pge.com>, rr...@pge.com (RICHARD IRVING)
wrote:

> Gary J. Robinson (wig...@concentric.net) wrote:
> : > If that were true, why the failure of most of Gamemaster series (exc.
> : > A&A)?
>
> : "Failure" is a relative term. A&A, the only WWII Gamemaster, is a
> : smashing success by any standard. Samurai Swords (formerly Shogun) is
> : back in print.
>
> True, but Shogun's (and other Gamemaster series) were undoubtably a
> failure to MB and the mass market stores that sell them. Even though I
> admit that they may have sold as many (or more) units than a successful
> AH (or other company's) game today. But today's game sales are limited
> to relatively few specialty outlets and mail order only. If they WERE
> in mass market stores and still sold at their current levels, that'd be
> a failure.

I disagree, I think. (I am not sure because I am not sure exactly what
you mean by "their current levels" - do you mean A&A's level or the level
of a game like A3R?) This thread started out comparing the "golden age"
of wargaming to today's shrunken level. If wargames in general sold as
well as A&A does today, we would be back in the "golden age." I don't see
where the concept of mass-market "failure" comes into the picture. I
think everyone would be happy to get wargaming back to where it was;
nobody expects it to be as popular as, say, Pictionary. Wargames are not
a mass-market product and never have been.

> : Certainly a problem; however, the reason they aren't in the store is

> : probably (assuming we believe in market forces) because such items sold
> : poorly in the past and the stores learned their lesson.
>

> But my point remains. Classic Midway or Afrika Corps AREN'T on the
> shelves of mass market stores at all--even if the box doesn't call them
> "Introductory level".

I guess I don't see your point. My point is that the plethora of complex
(and limited appeal) wargames has soiled the image of wargaming to the
point where stores won't stock them and consumers won't buy them. The
fact that there are some playable wargames out there doesn't change that -
such games, like ethical Bosnian Serbs, suffer from the bad image acquired
by their brethren.

> : I can't believe that Squad Leader ever flew off the shelves of any
> : Toys'R'Us, even 15 years ago. I suspect that wargames had a brief period
> : of mass distribution, and then the distributors learned their lesson and
> : didn't reorder. I suspect this had something to do with the growing size
> : and complexity (and consequent narrowing of the potential consumer base)
> : of wargames, but I can't prove it.
>
> Squad Leader sold over 200,000 copies, so it flew off the shelves
> somewhere.

These statistics are dangerous to use as linchpins of arguments. First of
all, where did you get that number? Second, over what period of time did
these sales take place? 20 years? Is this truly the number sold, or just
printed? Avalon Hill tends to print games in enormous print runs and then
slowly sell them over decades. Frankly I am skeptical of that number, as
it exceeds every estimate I've heard for the total number of wargamers in
the country at the height of wargaming's popularity, and I can't believe
every wargamer would own a copy of the same game.

> But why can't you find simple games, even those that aren't
> wargames: Acquire, Rail Baron, etc. Even if a purchaser of these games
> wasn't particularly interested in wargames per se, he'd at least see
> that they exist from the price list or catalog inside. Now they don't
> even have Acquire or Twixt available at TRU or WalMart, so therefore
> there are no buyers from that group who might see a wargame that they
> might want to try.

This question is interesting; I grew up with "Twixt" "Feudal" "Facts in
Five" etc. in the house and I don't know why today's families don't have
such games - they tend to play "Pictionary" "Trivial Pursuit" and so on
if they play anything at all. It probably has something to do with
decreased leisure time, more working (and exhausted) wives, more varied
and available television, more single-parent homes where the parents rely
on Nintendo to entertain the kids, and who knows what else. Most adults
don't seem to have *time* for gaming any more; I imagine the Bridge,
Bowling and Poker communities feel this pinch even more than wargaming
does. But this is an aside to a great extent, as even with a lot of time,
I doubt most adults would be playing Squad Leader on Tuesday nights.

>
> Gary, your theory of monster games destroying wargaming as business,
> doesn't explain why there aren;t a lot of simple wargames available in
> the mass market (or other adult board games: Acquire, Twixt, Rail
> Baron, 18XX, Empire Builder, etc.) as there used to be not to long ago.

I don't really follow non-conflict games, so I can't really speak to that.
But as for why there aren't simple wargames in the mass market: I think
complicated games gave wargames a bad reputation and killed sales appeal
to store and customer alike. Many boardgamers *are* aware of wargames,
but choose *not* to play them because of the reputation wargames have for
being long, complicated, and ugly.

In article <4tb2kl$m...@uwm.edu>, br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu wrote:

> From article <wiggler-2607...@cnc000136.concentric.net>, by
wig...@pop3.concentric.net (Gary J. Robinson):

> >
> > You don't hear of chess players or volleyball players moving up to a more
> > complex version of their hobby, to the point that no one but them plays at

> > that level. This warped game of poker - you have to keep upping the ante
> > in terms of time, space, concentration, and effort - by its very nature
> > forces most people with normal lives to drop out and do something else.

>
> In similar result can occur with both Chess and Volleyball. I certainly
> don't like to play volleyball with people who don't know what they are doing
> because it wrecks the game for the whole team. There are several levels
> of "don't know what they are doing". Really serious play requires committing
> to play with the same team on a regular basis.

When I hear the words "really serious" I immediately lose the connotation
of "recreation and fun" which hobbies are supposed to have. "Really
serious" is a kind of warning label to well-rounded people to stay away.
I don't do "really serious" things on a Saturday.

>I am not much of a chess
> player, but I can't see that it is much fun to play between people with
> widely different skill levels. High level chess also requires a large amount
> of time studying various aspects of the game.
>
> In these cases while the rules may not change, the way players approach the
> game does at different levels of play. The affect is similar to that
> of moving to more complex board games.

I disagree. Skilled chess players tend to play with clocks and thus play
even fatser than average players. And the board takes up the same amount
of room no matter how skilled the players. Playing skilled chess thus has
nothing like the demands of playing Edelweiss or World in Flames in terms
of time commitment, space commitment, and willingness to put up with new
and arcane rules systems. It may be true that superb chess players are a
lonely bunch because of lack of opposition; but they can "slow down" and
play normally if they choose, they don't *have* to play daily and study
thick books to enjoy the game.

In article <31F905...@nortel-nsm.com>, Jeff Christensen
<jeff_chr...@nortel-nsm.com> wrote:

> I disagree with an implied premise of several of the posts of this
> thread.
>[snip]
> There seems to be an assumption that there are a lot of people who
> are interested in military simulation games who are not playing, or
> more importantly not buying, the games currently being produced because
> these games have the wrong set of features. This begs the obvious
> question
> about how many people are interested in military simulation games in
> the first place.

Well, depends on how narrowly you define "military simulation games." If
you include computer wargames/flight simulators, and popular games like
Axis & Allies and Risk, I would say the potential field is quite large.

>It doesn't surprise me that the number of people who
> are interested in games, military history, have the formal thinking
> ability
> to deal with complex simulations (I think that all of the games in this
> industry should be considered complex), and have the time, space, and
> energy to setup and play the games, is very small. Given that these are
> the defining characteristics of our hobby there doesn't seem to be much
> else we can do to extend the appeal of the hobby.

I disagree. This thread is about the *change over time* in the number of
wargamers. Wargaming was *not* always about huge, long, complicated
games; its popularity grew from Avalon Hill classics and simple S&T
magazine games. My argument is that this change in emphasis narrowed the
appeal and thus the sales of wargames. Change the focus back to social
recreation, and the appeal broadens as does the number of wargamers. Axis
& Allies is living proof of this.

>
> As an example, I tried to show my friend John wargaming. In this case
> John likes games but has no interest in military history. This seemed to
> be the crux of why after the first session John never seemed to persue
> it. The first game I tried to start him on was 'The Russian Campaign'.
> John had no problems with the rules. We finished in a reasonable amount
> of time. The problem seemed to be that there was spark of interest. John
> did not relate the exploits of his Panzers with some historical event.
> John could not smugly think "hah, better than Gudarian." You are not

> going to be able to produce a military simulation game which John would
> be interested in because John is not interested in military history.

> (On the other hand John has been bugging me to let him in on our 18xx
> sessions. John does have an interest in making money and shady stock
> dealings.)

I did not used to be interested in wargames either, especially East Front
wargames. I found alternative history games and science fiction wargames
to be a natural bridge between wargaming and non-war boardgaming. To this
day I prefer to play wargames about subjects I know little about; I enjoy
learning the history from playing. A wargame should be educational and
informative and therefore interesting to the inquisitive mind. Wargames
got me interested in military history, not vice-versa.

> I consider myself a 'hard-core wargamer'. I like complex monster games.

> I like these games because I am in the hobby because I am interested

> in military history and the simulation of such history. The more
> extensive
> games give one a level of understanding of the historical situation that
> can not be achieved with a 'simple game'. I don't see this as a problem.
> I don't even see as a problem that there aren't many people like myself
> in this respect. I am willing to pay a high price for the high complexity
> games both because of the fact that they will have a small volumn and
> because
> they have a lot of value in them. I am disappointed, but not surprised,
> that
> several of my high complexity games have gone unplayed. I have usually
> gotton a lot out of them just by solitare fondling of the system (no
> comments).

This is a classic profile from "Gotterdamerung of the Wargamers." Does
this sound like a mentality and an attitude that is conducive to social
interaction? Is anyone surprised that this outlook has killed wargaming?
I am reminded of a Jack Vance-ian aesthete whose tastes are so refined
that he would rather starve than eat a dish not prepared according to the
17 Orthodox Associative Principles. We are talking about gaming here, not
an academic discipline. Today's wargamers have the outlook of scholars
and rare book collectors, not social, recreational game-players.
Gentlemen (and let's not fool ourselves, there aren't any ladies in this
audience) I would put it to you that this attitude, this temperament, this
philosophy is a radical change from the attitude of 1978, when a "gamer"
was a "gamer" and would just as soon play Dungeons & Dragons or War of the
Ring as Panzerblitz or Panzergruppe Guderian.

>
> I think this faulty assumption is based on the observance of the Risk,
> Axis and Allies, Command and Conquer crowds. The grognards see all the
> people playing these games and they think, "man if they only knew about
> these cool games I play or if these games were just a little more
> appealing to them then I would have so many more friends to play with."

A bunch of kids playing kickball in the schoolyard may harbor among them
some great potential soccer players. Trouble is, you don't want to find a
soccer player, you want to find a student of aerodynamics as it applies to
spherical objects which have been suddenly accelerated with great force by
application of a lower limb.

> I don't think
> we should mistake the lack of complexity in Risk with what it really
> represents which is a lack of contraints. The wargamer mentality likes
> the constraints (umm...) and the gamer doesn't.

As someone who played Risk many times before he played A3R, let me tell
you that constraints are an acquired taste...very gradually acquired.

> So to sum up I don't see what the problem is.

The problem is that the number of wargame consumers, and players, has
drastically declined over the past 14 years, due almost soley to the total
failure of the hobby to attract any more young people, in marked contrast
to the pattern of the 70's and early 80's. Wargamers have become so
refined and picky in their tastes for complex wargames that the games
themselves hold virtually no appeal to the novice, and thus no sales
potential, and thus no chance of getting wide distribution. GDW is dead;
The Gamers are mail-order only, with GMT supposedly following that path;
AH almost got sold and is certainly not doing as well as in the past;
magazine games like Command and S&T are now selling for $20+ an issue,
totally removing any chance of impulse sales to young novices.

The end, as they say, is near.

--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Gary J. Robinson wig...@concentric.net |
| Gary's Wargaming Web Page: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~grobinso/ |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Is it a coincidence that the Israeli Prime Minister's |
| name sounds like "Net'n'Yahoo" ? We think not. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
|*Lawyer*Librarian*Programmer*Libertarian*Macintosh*Wargamer*Lizards*|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <4ta85v$m...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, sun...@prairienet.org (Philip
M. Hall) wrote:

> If you boiled [Air War] down, you got [Foxbat & Phantom]. And just as

> importantly,
> if you played the same scenario in both games, you got pretty much the
> same result, just faster in FAB.

Bingo! This is a realization most gamers fail to make, I'm afraid.

> The real problem is the competition for leisure time. And I'm afraid that
> a 5 hour long board game between two people is close to the bottom of the
> list for most folks looking for a new hobby, particularly in a day and
> age of instant gratification.

Yes, too true. Richard Garfield (of Magic fame) writes a column the The
Duellist magazine where he muses about the broad notion of gaming as
recreation. In one instance he mentioned that people will get together to
spend 3 hours going to a movie, but wouldn't think of spending that same
time interacting together over a game. That's true.

I think it's also true that there is a real difference between 3 hours and
5 hours. (Don't say 2 hours. :-) ) The former can be squeezed in on a
weeknight, or after the kids have gone to sleep, etc. A 5 hour session
can't, not really. And besides, I think many wargames aren't realistic
about their time requirements, neglecting the setup, which can often take
very long (and is very boring).

[Gary J. Robinson]

In article <4t8pfg$i...@news.nyu.edu>, cyf...@is.nyu.edu (The One and
Only) wrote:

> But I stuck with it because it beckoned me. I
> beckoned me because OF THE COMPLEXITY. Next I got Panzer Leader, a still
> further complex game. Now, I have evolved into the 10 scale of AH's
> difficulty scale - I purchased ASL a few months ago.

Congratulations! Now that you have moved from A&A to ASL, you will find
that opponents are _much harder to find_! Isn't that great? You have
made the classic trade - social interaction for detail and complexity -
and ended up with the classic result, a solitaire hobby.

You don't hear of chess players or volleyball players moving up to a more
complex version of their hobby, to the point that no one but them plays at
that level. This warped game of poker - you have to keep upping the ante
in terms of time, space, concentration, and effort - by its very nature
forces most people with normal lives to drop out and do something else.

In article <neal_sofge-25...@sofge.rand.org>,
neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

> The death of wargaming seems to have brought with it a death of SF/F
> strategy games, which goes to show that it's not the subject matter but
> the wargame format itself. Admittedly, SF/F wargames only hit it big
> between 1975 and 1989 or so, but the S&T Hypothesis doesn't explain why
> they died along with the other wargames.

I think the roleplaying hypothesis explains the collapse of SF/F strategy
games. Most people interested in that subject find that role-playing is -
guess what - a more social activity.

I'm trying to think of popular SF/F games: Talisman, BattleTech, SFB...I
guess you're right, late 80's or so. Maybe Games Workshop's miniatures
stuff stole the show too?

> One observation is that there's been an overall reduction in complexity
> and playing time for adventure games as a whole. Fueled in part by CCGs,
> which have seemingly simple rules by necessity, this has caused the SF/F
> wargame industry to prefer fast-playing games with high level components
> (especially miniatures) and expandability. This trend causes the overall
> number of SF/F games released to drop, as each company concentrates on one
> or two core product lines.

Well, I am not sure what "SF/F wargame industry" you are referring to -
since 1993 (?) when M:TG came out, there hasn't been any SF/F wargame
industry that I am aware of....

Since I like SF/F wargames, I really want to know!

--

[Bob Stettler]

Kevin J. Maroney wrote:
>
> Bob Stettler <bo...@ichips.intel.com> wrote:
>
> >Greg brings up Fresno Gaming Association (!) as an example of the
> >newer small board wargaming companies and makes the comment that
> >wargames today are 'of remarkably high graphic quality' but 'are, by
> >and large, thoroughly derivative and quite mediocre'. This makes me
> >wonder if he has really even examined, let alone played, one of the
> >more recent offerings of companies such as The Gamers or GMT.
>
> Greg's essay was written several years ago, when Ty Bomba was still
> the state of the art.

There's certainly no way to tell this from the essay itself which has
1996 written on it in several places.

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Bob Stettler bo...@ichips.intel.com |
| Intel Corporation |
| M/S JF1-19, 2111 NE 25th Ave, Hillsboro, OR, 97124-5961 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+

[Bruno Wolff III]

From article <wiggler-2607...@cnc000136.concentric.net>, by wig...@pop3.concentric.net (Gary J. Robinson):
>

> You don't hear of chess players or volleyball players moving up to a more
> complex version of their hobby, to the point that no one but them plays at
> that level. This warped game of poker - you have to keep upping the ante
> in terms of time, space, concentration, and effort - by its very nature
> forces most people with normal lives to drop out and do something else.

In similar result can occur with both Chess and Volleyball. I certainly

don't like to play volleyball with people who don't know what they are doing
because it wrecks the game for the whole team. There are several levels
of "don't know what they are doing". Really serious play requires committing

to play with the same team on a regular basis. I am not much of a chess

[Neal Sofge]

> If your talking about introducing RPGers to wargames I think you'll have
> to intice the RPGer with more RPG-like wargames. For instance a fictional
> fantasy or sci/fi world, where the players take the part of leaders of
> units, perhaps multiplayers to a side, each in charge of an "arm" of the
> force.

This is a fairly good description of Battletech, which is the most
successful SF/F boardgame I know of.

Your list of games your RPG friends like are mostly individual level,
scale-wise. I guess that makes sense too - the first RPGs evolved from
tactical miniatures.

[RICHARD IRVING]

Gary J. Robinson (wig...@concentric.net) wrote:
: > If that were true, why the failure of most of Gamemaster series (exc.
: > A&A)?

: "Failure" is a relative term. A&A, the only WWII Gamemaster, is a
: smashing success by any standard. Samurai Swords (formerly Shogun) is

: back in print. While Conquest of the Empire, Fortress America, and
: Broadsides & Boarding Parties are all out of print, their "success" in
: normal wargame terms was enormous; despite their huge, Milton
: Bradley-sized print runs they all sold out and to this day fetch premium
: prices even in used condition. When was the last time you saw a used
: Panzerblitz selling for $80? "Failure" to Milton Bradley is a different
: concept than "failure" to Avalon Hill, SPI and the "Seven Dwarves" of the
: gaming industry. Also, those games are all off the beaten path for
: popular wargame subjects. I think any of today's game companies would love
: to have a "failure" like Shogun.

True, but Shogun's (and other Gamemaster series) were undoubtably a
failure to MB and the mass market stores that sell them. Even though I
admit that they may have sold as many (or more) units than a successful
AH (or other company's) game today. But today's game sales are limited
to relatively few specialty outlets and mail order only. If they WERE
in mass market stores and still sold at their current levels, that'd be
a failure.

: > Why don't introductory games sell well (such as A House Divided,
: > We the People, AH Smithsonian Series, or even the old classics)? I
: > think it is a more fundamental problem: The games are NOT in the stores
: > where most games are sold: WalMart, Toys R Us, Dept. stores, etc.
: > People aren't attracted to simpler because they probably don't know they
: > even exist.

: Certainly a problem; however, the reason they aren't in the store is
: probably (assuming we believe in market forces) because such items sold

: poorly in the past and the stores learned their lesson. Why did they sell
: poorly in the past? Probably because many of them were large, slow,
: difficult to learn and graphically unappealing. The average consumer
: doesn't want to have his intelligence insulted by buying an "Introductory
: Level" game. It's a game, for Pete's sake; it shouldn't have "levels," it
: should be fun and social. Putting "Intro Level" on a product will
: automatically turn a lot of people off: it implies the buyer is unskilled
: at something, that there is a long road ahead, and that the product is not
: a "real" product of its class. Afrika Korps and Midway didn't have to
: have "Introductory Level Wargame!" on the box cover. These things should
: stroke your ego, not shrivel it.

But my point remains. Classic Midway or Afrika Corps AREN'T on the
shelves of mass market stores at all--even if the box doesn't call them
"Introductory level".

: >
: > 15 years ago, my brother got me Squad Leader that he bought from Toys R
: > Us. Go there today you see no AH titles (even non wargame) at all.
: > No Acquire, No Rail Baron, No Feudal, No Smithsonian (aka Simple) games,
: > etc. Even if someone who bought and enjoyed Acquire from TRU in the old
: > days, would get a catalog or price list in Acquire that listed many
: > other AH games. He may not want a wargame, but at least he'd know they
: > were available. And a percentage that would be interested could find the
: > wargames they wanted to try, either in the local store or by mail order.
: > Now when someone buys a game from a mass marketer, they don't get any
: > exposure to the hobby of gaming, by and large, and wargaming in
: > particular.

: I can't believe that Squad Leader ever flew off the shelves of any
: Toys'R'Us, even 15 years ago. I suspect that wargames had a brief period
: of mass distribution, and then the distributors learned their lesson and
: didn't reorder. I suspect this had something to do with the growing size
: and complexity (and consequent narrowing of the potential consumer base)
: of wargames, but I can't prove it.

Squad Leader sold over 200,000 copies, so it flew off the shelves

somewhere. But why can't you find simple games, even those that aren't

wargames: Acquire, Rail Baron, etc. Even if a purchaser of these games
wasn't particularly interested in wargames per se, he'd at least see
that they exist from the price list or catalog inside. Now they don't
even have Acquire or Twixt available at TRU or WalMart, so therefore
there are no buyers from that group who might see a wargame that they
might want to try.

Gary, your theory of monster games destroying wargaming as business,

doesn't explain why there aren;t a lot of simple wargames available in
the mass market (or other adult board games: Acquire, Twixt, Rail
Baron, 18XX, Empire Builder, etc.) as there used to be not to long ago.

--

Richard Irving rr...@pge.com

I don't like disclaimers, but I have to put them in. The opinions here
are my own and not necessarily PG&E's.
(As if it had any opinions about this stuff!)

Made with recycled electrons.

[Neal Sofge]

> Well, I am not sure what "SF/F wargame industry" you are referring to -
> since 1993 (?) when M:TG came out, there hasn't been any SF/F wargame
> industry that I am aware of....

Off the top of my head:

Star Fleet Battles
Starfire
Battletech
Silent Death
Robo Rally
Car Wars
Battle Rider
Necromunda
Blood Bowl
The Hobbit
Mystic War
Time Agent
Monster Derby
Robotanks
Insecta

(The last 5 are from smaller companies, but they count too.)

These are all played on a board, with rules more complicated than the
average family or parlor game, and so I group them with the wargames.
It's not much of an industry compared to RPGs or CCGs, but it exists.

[Mark E. Johnson]

Attempting to summarize...

First of all, I'd like to thank all of the enthusiastic participants in
this discussion. Best time I've had on usenet in a while!

Second of all, special thanks to Greg for writing and posting that essay
in the first place. Clearly it's been met with some disagreement, but was
needed to spark this exchange.

Now, where does all of this leave us? I'm going to take a shot at
identifying several key thoughts that are springing out of this, then
perhaps they'll be taken up separately (and with their own threaded
subject lines, hint, hint...) :-) I'm lifting all sorts of comments from
various posts, so pardon the lack of credits.

What is the purpose of all of this? To document the historical decline of
the hobby, dispute that it *is* in decline, or to find out how to change
things for the better? I suppose they're all valid points, but I've been
thinking more about the latter.

Before my summary, let me appeal to any game publishers out there--large
and small--to chip in with your comments. That would really be helpful.

TYPES OF WARGAMES
* Generally, we're talking about military combat on a hexmap. Sure, there
are variations, but I mean to distinguish wargames from other strategic
boardgames (e.g., railroad/economic games, History of the World, Twixt,
etc.) Roleplaying games and--gasp!--collectible card games are completely
distinct and not of concern here, except where there is crossover
audience.

* Most of these games are historical, but there is a smaller group of
fantasy & science fiction wargames that have been in similar decline.

* A common concern is the shrinking number of true wargames that are
suitable for play in one evening, or introducing newcomers to the hobby.
Contrast yesteryear's introductory wargames such as Midway or Ogre versus
today's such as SCS series by The Gamers.

(I think my favorite topic of the minigame is really a different
discussion, and in fact has already spun off into a different thread.)

GAMING AUDIENCE
* The diehard grognard will keep buying complex simulations almost
regardless of price or the lack of opponents. They have the greatest
respect for the most realistic games. You'd think that kind of
overwhelming dedication to the hobby could sustain the industry until you
realize how few of these guys are left. Costikyan maintains that a
critical mass of these left in disgust after TSR's (mis)handling of SPI's
assets, chiefly S&T. Others maintain that their increasingly specialized
and solitary interests are causing them to die out like scattered
populations of endangered animals.

* The would-be introductory gamer is typically in high school or college,
but these days there is little to attract him to the hobby. At least, not
many modern wargames--a better hope is finding someone with some of the
out of print classics. If they are drawn to games at all, it is more
likely collectible card games, roleplaying, or Games Workshop miniatures
games. All of those tend to have less-steep learning curves, as well as
more face-to-face opponents, even as the dollar cost of entry can be
substantial.

* In between are the experienced wargamers who actually want to *play*
some games, preferably in a reasonable timeframe. Most are beyond college
age, and have other commitments in life that practically keep them from
playing the most time consuming games, even if they could find an opponent
(usually can't). Faced with a small number of current games that fit this
bill, many are happily turning to those other strategic boardgames...but
still hold a place in their heart for playable wargames. They'd do their
best to support the industry if it would meet them halfway.

* Science fiction and fantasy wargames, especially, lost players to the
development of roleplaying games, which seem to offer more of what most
SF&F wargamers are after--but not all of them.

EFFECTS OF THE REAL WORLD
* The days of finding wargames (such as from Avalon Hill) in toy stores or
other mass market outlets are probably behind us. Hopefully the growth of
the hobby isn't dependent on that because it probably won't happen again.
Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, and so on require sales volumes that true
wargames--no matter how introductory--will never achieve. That's a real
disadvantage in attracting new wargamers, but it looks like we've got
little choice on this one. Even AH's non-wargames like Acquire used to
serve to distribute their catalog of other games to the mainstream public,
but even that opportunity appears to be gone.

* Even at game stores and conventions, the few small publishers of "old
fashioned" low cost, low complexity wargames (a la Ogre) that used to
bring in new wargamers are having a tougher time competing for shelfspace
and eye-catching graphics with the more flashy Games Workshop minis games
and, of course, Magic, neither of which really bring newcomers to
wargames.

* The public interest in military conflict is hard to gage. Clearly it was
higher in the post-WW2 era, when wargaming first started as a hobby. The
experiences associated with the Vietnam War did not shine favorably on the
hobby. More recent events in the world may have changed that again.
Military documentaries are now a staple on cable television (not on the
Big 3 networks, though).

* The current generation of popular entertainment is faster and shorter
than in years past. Call it the MTV generation or whatever, 2 hours now
makes for a long movie, or a long game. That works against wargames
appealing to this newcomer audience (and may explain some of Magic's
appeal) unless the wargame format can adapt. Or be compelling enough to
overcome this.

* On a similar note to previous paragraph, today's audience demands more
aesthetically appealing games and components. Games Workshop has done a
better job than most keeping up with this, and they're successful because
of it.

COMPUTER GAMING
* This separate hobby has been growing & growing, like everything
associated with computing. Computer wargames have come a long way in
recent years, from the recognizable hexmap games such as the V for Victory
series and Panzer/Allied General to the hybrid action/strategy realtime
conflicts of Warcraft and Command & Conquer. Although the technology is
*just* starting to embrace multiplayer gameplay, these have primarily been
solitaire games or to a much lesser extent, play by email. In other words,
any "robbing" of the traditional wargame market would have likely been
from the grognards, who probably kept on buying wargames anyway, and the
more mainstream (?) gamers who grew tired of waiting for real face to face
wargames & willing opponents.

WARGAME COMPLEXITY/REALISM/PLAYABILITY/"INTRODUCIBILITY"
* Instead of a more "natural" pyramid distrubtion of many introductory
games, a moderate number of more playable wargames, and fewer hardcore
simulations, the current crop of wargames feels polarized into complex
and/or monstrous ones for the grognards, together with the nonwargames
like History of the World. While there are offerings in between those
extremes, they're few and far between. Perhaps this accurately reflects
the current market, but it sure isn't a formula for growth.

* There may actually be more interest in low-to-medium complexity wargames
now than in the last decade or more, due to the fallout of gamers from
more complex games as they move into lifestyles with greater demands on
their time (and basement space!).

* The old game design maxim of realism versus playability doesn't hold up
anymore, or at least is the victim of greatly diminishing returns. In
other words, wargamers have discovered that greatly increasing the
complexity certainly reduces playability, but doesn't necessarily have a
corresponding increase in realism. Simpler games can have a similar
strategic outcome in less time, with less frustration, and with probably
more willing opponents than a complex game.

* Gaming is considerably more popular with the general public in Germany.
They also tend toward less complex, but well designed boardgames, not
wargames.

* A typical "growth path" for a wargamer to more and more complex games
with fewer and fewer opportunities to play is self-destructive from a
business sense, the grognards notwithstanding.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT?
* Well, maybe nothing. It appears to me that this situation could go on
for a long time, never growing, but never quite dying, either. I disagree
with Greg that wargames are dead, but I'd have to agree that they're in a
coma. :-(

* That leaves a lot of frustrated non-grognard wargamers in the middle,
though. They'd be willing to pay for the right games if they--and
opponents--were available. The industry could try to steer a course toward
increasing the population of wargamers by stepping back to a time when
more introductory and moderate wargames were available, but with the
reduced retail opportunities, this would not be easy. Sorry I don't have a
better answer. Believe me, I wish I did.

[Neal Sofge]

> Here's a different twist: microgame as demo/teaser of the larger game.
> Have you seen the minigame version of Heavy Gear? It sells for $2

I think this would work, but note that the $2 intro leads to a substantial
number of books and supplements. Same goes for Mini Car Wars - SJG was
trying to get you to buy a hoard of rulebooks, arenas, vehicle lists,
etc. Both are instances of the involved, complex, expandable game.
However, it doesn't solve the central problem, in that the people who
don't recognize a microgame will have no idea at all what to do with a
demo. And will be somewhat unwilling to pay $2 for a single piece of
paper.

> In fact, I'm a little surprised GW doesn't do that.

White Dwarf is their version of this, effectively.

> But even a $3 Sticks & Stones probably lost money for
> Metagaming, don't you think?

Not necessarily. Shapeshifters didn't lose money for us, and its price is
scaled to be the same as the old Task Force micros after adjusting for
inflation. The Metagaming micros were even cheaper to produce, with
one-color maps and counters. You only have to sell about 3000 or so
copies of a wargame in order to make a profit, though the usual run is
more like 5000.

[Brian Bankler]

Neal Sofge wrote:
> of a wargame can even recognize a micro in the first place. What we need
> are micro style designs in big boxes, which is what Games Workshop does.
> And they do attract new gamers, but Games Workshop players rarely
> transition to wargaming.

>
Just to air the statement once again: They will transition if
1) There are other people to play other games with, 2) They don't feel
wargamers are rude, hostile, smelly get-a-lifers and 3) they are interested
in board gaming, as compared to miniature painting.

Some people don't enjoy board gaming. Our goal is to make sure that
those who do enjoy it actually take it up. And as previous posts have mentioned,
a nice social atmosphere is an important step. Die hard gamers can do without
it, but (as we can see) die hard gamers aren't a big part of the public. If
we want to attract more people to play games we like, we have to make those
games more attractive.

In that sense, Neal has a very good point re: microgames. I'd never
dream of pulling that out as a game to teach new people. It's not complexity,
it's 1) it doesn't look good and 2) the topic isn't that inspiring for your
average person. Siedler's, Modern Art, and the german games fit nicely, as
do many GW games, some AH games (Air Baron is a good game, but it takes a
touch long to explain, and drawing chits from a cup is probably not as appealing
as a deck of cards or something could have been. But, if it's good enough for
Bingo...), etc.
For people who are already gamers, there are introductory wargames out
there.

> However, it's not just low prices for you, it's also low prices for the
> manufacturer. Big games mean big capital outlays and big losses if the
> game sinks. Micros can be on more esoteric subjects, and frequently
> were. Who would have spent $30 on a boxed version of Sticks & Stones?

Nobody. But if I ever hit the lottery I'll start a game company...
Brian,
who doesn't buy lottery tickets.

--
Brian Bankler (ban...@rtp.ericsson.se)
*SELLERS BEWARE: I will never buy anything from companies associated
*with inappropriate online advertising (unsolicited commercial email,
*excessive multiposting etc), and discourage others from doing so too!

[Mike McGillivray]

What a silly thread. Wargames will never die, as long as they have people
interested in them. If you are afraid your favorite company might go
broke, go buy a couple of thousand copies of your favorite game. That
will help them out lots. As far as gaining a wide acceptance, not
everyone has the time, or desire to play wargames. Too bad for them.

==============================================================================
Mike McGillivray Mike.McG...@USASK.CA
Consulting and Development Phone--- (306) 966-5269
University of Saskatchewan Fax--- (306) 966-4938
==============================================================================

"Besides that Mrs. Kennedy, how did you like the parade?"

[Neal Sofge]

> afterwards I realized both players had instantly dropped into roleplaying
> mode, where they both did things that were less than the tactical ideal
> for personal reasons!

Actually, I find my group doing that too. It's interesting to mix blood &
guts wargamers with a bunch of RPGers - the last time I was in a group
like that was a convention game of Lords of the Sierra Madre. Alliances
shifted according to personal vendettas a lot among the RPGers, while the
wargamers went for the gusto. Which gave the whole thing a peculiarly
historical feel.

> Hmm, I would've guessed most roleplayers would run screaming from the slow
> pace and amount of bookkeeping in SFB.

It's no worse than something like MERP or Fringeworthy. Some RPGers like
highly detailed combat.

[Neal Sofge]

[Why you can't find wargames at Toys-R-Us]

> I don't know if
> they simply don't "move" fast enough for mass marketers requirements.

This is my understanding.

[Jeff Christensen]

I disagree with an implied premise of several of the posts of this

thread. There seems to be an assumption that "if only the developers
could find the big hook the game buying public has been looking for or
if we could only remove that thing which is driving people away from
the games then the hobby would expand like crazy." If only we could
make these complex games simpler. If only we could take these military
simulations and not make them simulate conflicts so accurately (sic).

There seems to be an assumption that there are a lot of people who
are interested in military simulation games who are not playing, or
more importantly not buying, the games currently being produced because
these games have the wrong set of features. This begs the obvious
question
about how many people are interested in military simulation games in

the first place. It doesn't surprise me that the number of people who

are interested in games, military history, have the formal thinking
ability
to deal with complex simulations (I think that all of the games in this
industry should be considered complex), and have the time, space, and
energy to setup and play the games, is very small. Given that these are
the defining characteristics of our hobby there doesn't seem to be much
else we can do to extend the appeal of the hobby.

As an example, I tried to show my friend John wargaming. In this case

John likes games but has no interest in military history. This seemed to
be the crux of why after the first session John never seemed to persue
it. The first game I tried to start him on was 'The Russian Campaign'.
John had no problems with the rules. We finished in a reasonable amount
of time. The problem seemed to be that there was spark of interest. John
did not relate the exploits of his Panzers with some historical event.
John could not smugly think "hah, better than Gudarian." You are not
going to be able to produce a military simulation game which John would
be interested in because John is not interested in military history.
(On the other hand John has been bugging me to let him in on our 18xx
sessions. John does have an interest in making money and shady stock
dealings.)

I consider myself a 'hard-core wargamer'. I like complex monster games.

I like these games because I am in the hobby because I am interested
in military history and the simulation of such history. The more
extensive
games give one a level of understanding of the historical situation that
can not be achieved with a 'simple game'. I don't see this as a problem.
I don't even see as a problem that there aren't many people like myself
in this respect. I am willing to pay a high price for the high complexity
games both because of the fact that they will have a small volumn and
because
they have a lot of value in them. I am disappointed, but not surprised,
that
several of my high complexity games have gone unplayed. I have usually
gotton a lot out of them just by solitare fondling of the system (no
comments).

I think this faulty assumption is based on the observance of the Risk,

Axis and Allies, Command and Conquer crowds. The grognards see all the
people playing these games and they think, "man if they only knew about
these cool games I play or if these games were just a little more
appealing

to them then I would have so many more friends to play with." This is
only
a hunch but I think that the Risk,et al., crowd represents the person
who 'just wants to shoot things'. I think your standard wargamer is also
interested in that but would also like to know why they are shooting and
maybe have some constraints on the number of bullets they get. I don't

think
we should mistake the lack of complexity in Risk with what it really
represents which is a lack of contraints. The wargamer mentality likes
the
constraints (umm...) and the gamer doesn't.

So to sum up I don't see what the problem is. There are lots of published
games which I like to play. In fact there is more than I possibly could
play. Are people finding that they have lots of time but are looking for
a new game to play? My only concern is that there are fewer oponents for
some of the monster games I wish to play. This is unavoidable though
because
there just isn't that many people interest in these games and to make
them
more appealing to others would make them less appealing to me.

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Christensen tel: (604)244-4528
internal: jchris
external: jeff_chr...@nortel-nsm.com

[Steve Patterson]

In article <johnson-2607961043060001@news>, joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E. Johnson) says:
>
>Here's a different twist: microgame as demo/teaser of the larger game.

>Have you seen the minigame version of Heavy Gear? It sells for $2, I
>think, and could almost be called a *nano*game, it's so small. But I
>picked it up just to check it out. SJ Games tried that with a $1 intro
>version of Car Wars several years ago (which I bet I'd have more fun with
>than the gorilla of a game it's become). It's similar to the demo software
>phenomenon that's very common these days, a natural extension of the
>shareware concept.

Well, (pardon me if I blow my own horn here) Global Games has been doing
the "shareware" routine with its releases since 199(3? 4?) with its
"Tabletop Preview". A demonstration copy of the rules, provided at or
near cost, with the express purpose of getting the game out and seen and
tested by as many people as possible.

For a while, Global was selling a demonstration version of its LEGIONS OF
STEEL game to dealers; a fold-up paper map and a half-dozen miniatures and
a rules booklet. Same thing. (Actually, right now there are people trying
to track down copies now that the set is OOP.)

Another variant is putting the rules up on a web page (Of course,
I just happen to maintain Global's web page...) for people to try it out.
I don't know if the experience is generally applicable, but "shareware"
versions of Global's games seem to attract more attention for the final
product.

What the heck... Give it a try!

---
"Animals have contempt for animal rights; cats don't treasure diversity,
except in a gustatory sense." -- Frederica Mathewes-Green
<BRAG>Creator and maintainer of the Legions of Steel Web Page!</BRAG>
http://www.hookup.net/~losglobl

[David desJardins]

Neal Sofge <neal_...@rand.org> writes:
> These are all played on a board, with rules more complicated than the
> average family or parlor game, and so I group them with the wargames.

I think a lot of these (most?) are pretty strange choices of "wargames".
Mystic War (which in fact is *not* played on a board)? Monster Derby?
You might as well call Die Siedler a fantasy wargame. Or Tyranno Ex.
Or El Grande (ok, I guess that would be a "historical" wargame).

While I can't give a single universal definition of a wargame that
everyone would accept, I think you are unique in using complexity of
rules as the defining characteristic.

David desJardins

[Philip M. Hall]

Mark,

Congrats on the summary. You did a good job.

Wargaming is dying for a large number of reasons, obviously. One of the
main ones, for me, is the inability of the game companies to keep their
finger on the pulse of the general gaming public. As a result they make
errors in judgement that can easily put them under.

One of the major errors seems to me to be the move to mail-order only.
This is going to produce a very inbred group of people, and will depend
on that group to gain new members. Most of us don't recruit people into
gaming, particularly the really complex games. Eventually the mail-order
companies will die.

Another error is in not knowing their customer. I believe that more games
are sold to people who don't play them than to people who do. I find
myself buying games on subjects I'm interested in solely to have them
"just in case". I'm an impulse buyer, as I suspect a lot are. With
mail-order that impulse just won't be there.

Cost is another factor, particularly for us impulse buyers. I was a
faithful reader of Command Magazine, but haven't bought the last 3 issues
simply because the $24-36.00 price tag is to high for me. I was willing
to pay $15-18.00 for a game I wouldn't play, just to keep my collection
going, but I had to draw the line somewhere, and XTR crossed it. Likewise
S&T is going to $20.00 and I will, after buying every issue since #32, no
longer buy it. I think that the increasing costs may spell the demise of
many of these companies, or they will be forced to do cheaper, that is
smaller intro level, games.
I suppose that I am one who is getting out of the board wargame hobby.
I'm not rich enough for it, and I no longer have the space.

Phil Hall

[Psychohist]

James Bailey makes some very good points about it being more difficult to
play wargames once one is out of school, gets married, has kids, etc. In
particular, he complains about setup time.

On the other hand, more mature gamers also have more money. Seems like
they might be willing to pay some of it for games that include
conveniences that speed setup - game specific counter trays, for example.
Yet the physical quality of games has also gone downhill since the 70's -
no more slipcases to hold the games together, no more nice circular
counters, &c.

It also seems like there's room for good computer copies of wargames - if
you leave it set up on your hard drive, it won't get in the way of dinner,
and there are a lot more opponents on the net than in any one
neighborhood. Yet it doesn't seem like the game companies are pursuing
this market very hard.

Warren Dew

[Gary J. Robinson]

In article <4tbar5$3...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>, de...@ccr-p.ida.org (David
desJardins) wrote:

> > I like these games because I am in the hobby because I am interested
> > in military history and the simulation of such history.
>

> This comes through in your assumption that the only other people who
> would be interested in such games are people who are also interested in
> them for this reasons. I find that many, if not most, military history
> enthusiasts make this incorrect assumption.

I have to agree with this; the military history enthusiast/wargamers I
know find it almost unbelievable that non-military history enthusiasts
enjoy these games. In my experience I have played with two types of
wargamers: those who care about unit designations (14th Panzer, etc.) and
those who don't. I personally have played with a lot more of "those who
don't" but YMMV.

> Wargaming is less popular than it was twenty years ago. So are all
> other sorts of strategy games. So is contract bridge (you can read an
> eerily similar thread to this in the bridge newsgroups, including debate
> about whether the ACBL is responsible for killing contract bridge much
> as we debate whether TSR is responsible for killing off wargaming).
> Every form of mental competition that I can think of is in decline.

I suspected that this was the case, but didn't know for sure since I am
not involved in the bridge community. A truly sinister development.

In article <4tbfns$2...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, sun...@prairienet.org (Philip
M. Hall) wrote:

> I got interested in war through my
> history classes in high school(pre-VietNam)since they were all geared
> towards memorizing dates of wars. My kids(80's)had history classes that
> barely mentioned wars except in passing and looked at the social and
> political aspects of war. As a result it is difficult to find college age
> students who are interested in wargaming, since they view history
> differently than we older folks do.

An interesting theory. However, I graduated from college in 1986. I
majored in Ancient and Medieval History, and took classes such as The
Crusades, The Peloponnesian War, and The Civil War. I still remember that
winter evening in the library when I read about Hannibal's tactics at
Cannae. So I can't agree that wars aren't being studied.

> There seems to be a growing feeling that it isn't necessary to study war,
> since no one in their right mind is going to want to face the U.S. in a
> standup confrontation, and with that belief, the hobby may easily meet
> its end.

Again, as David desJardins points out, there are more wargamers than just
military history enthusiasts. I think what has happened is that wargames
have become too specialized to appeal to regular "gamers" any more. In
the past when games were simpler people could enjoy all sorts of games.

I stand corrected, by the way, with regard to the chess community;
apparently there are some chess players who are just as compulsive as
monster wargamers, and as a result find themselves either with no
opponents or insufficient time for their hobby. Mea culpa.

People in this thread keep mentioning family commitments, etc. as reasons
for dropping out of the wargaming scene. This is natural, and is not the
problem. The problem is that college-age people who do *not* have these
time commitments are not taking up wargaming.

In article <neal_sofge-26...@sofge.rand.org>,
neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

> > Well, I am not sure what "SF/F wargame industry" you are referring to -
> > since 1993 (?) when M:TG came out, there hasn't been any SF/F wargame
> > industry that I am aware of....
>
> Off the top of my head:
>
> Star Fleet Battles
> Starfire
> Battletech
> Silent Death

Are these really considered 1993-era games? These seem rather old to me.

> Robo Rally

Not a wargame.

> Car Wars

Another old game.

> Battle Rider

Don't know this one.

> Necromunda

Isn't this a miniatures game?

> Blood Bowl

Another old game, and not really a wargame.

> The Hobbit
> Mystic War
> Time Agent
> Monster Derby
> Robotanks
> Insecta

All I know is Insecta (picked it up 1992 Origins) from this list. And
what about ShapeShifters? :)

When I think of "SF/F wargames" I think of SFB, Albion, War of the Ring,
Sorceror King, GEV, Kings'n'Things, etc. Can't think of any new games of
this class made after 1990, unless you count permutations of Games
Workshop "sell miniatures" products.

[Dave Kohr]

In article <wiggler-2707...@cnc80443.concentric.net>,

Gary J. Robinson <wig...@concentric.net> wrote:
>In article <4tbfns$2...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, sun...@prairienet.org (Philip
>M. Hall) wrote:
>> I got interested in war through my
>> history classes in high school(pre-VietNam)since they were all geared
>> towards memorizing dates of wars. My kids(80's)had history classes that
>> barely mentioned wars except in passing and looked at the social and
>> political aspects of war. As a result it is difficult to find college age
>> students who are interested in wargaming, since they view history
>> differently than we older folks do.
>
>An interesting theory. However, I graduated from college in 1986. I
>majored in Ancient and Medieval History, and took classes such as The
>Crusades, The Peloponnesian War, and The Civil War. I still remember that
>winter evening in the library when I read about Hannibal's tactics at
>Cannae. So I can't agree that wars aren't being studied.

I had a similar experience to Gary's: one of my undergrad majors was
Classics, so I took courses on Greek and Roman history (both emphasizing
military history pretty intensely), and another course devoted just to the
Peloponnesian War period. All these classes had no shortage of students
interested in studying military as well as political/social/economic
aspects of history, and most of the students weren't history or Classics
majors (because these classes satisfied distribution requirements). The
Vietnam War experience seemed to have zero influence in this regard.

>When I think of "SF/F wargames" I think of SFB, Albion, War of the Ring,
>Sorceror King, GEV, Kings'n'Things, etc. Can't think of any new games of
>this class made after 1990, unless you count permutations of Games
>Workshop "sell miniatures" products.

Hmmm, _Cybernaut_ (a Competitive Edge magazine game) probably falls into
this category. But just barely (and it's an obscure title, already), so I
guess it's the exception which proves the rule.

Dave Kohr Hacker/Researcher Argonne National Laboratory, MCS Division
Building 203, Room C-246 Phone: (708) 252-4243 E-mail: ko...@mcs.anl.gov
See also my WWW Home Page: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/home/kohr/index.html
"Surfing the Silicon Prairie."

[David desJardins]

Gary J. Robinson <wig...@concentric.net> writes:
> I stand corrected, by the way, with regard to the chess community;
> apparently there are some chess players who are just as compulsive as
> monster wargamers, and as a result find themselves either with no
> opponents or insufficient time for their hobby.

I think this is more than a bit harsh. The main issue is the existence
of an extremely accurate rating system which chess players take
seriously. Thus, if one spends a certain amount of time studying chess,
one's rating will gradually rise. Eventually, for virtually everyone,
one's rating will stabilize. At this point one *knows* that one isn't
getting any better, that one needs to maintain one's present level of
commitment to the game just to remain at one's present rating, and that
the only way to increase one's rating further is to increase the amount
of time one spends studying and working on one's game. One may decide
on such an increase, and then one's rating rises some more and
stabilizes again. Eventually one is putting as much time into the game
as one is willing to, and not improving. I think at this point very
many chess players decide it isn't worth the large commitment of time
just to stay at the same level, without improving. And they don't have
enough time to get better. So at that point they abandon the attempt to
improve further, and end up reducing their commitment and gradually
falling in skill.

Perhaps some of the serious chess players reading this (which I am not)
will correct me if this is off the mark, but I think it's pretty
accurate as far as the several serious chess players that I have known.
The fact that players almost inevitably find themselves with
insufficient time to improve further does not make them "compulsive" in
my opinion, and the fact that players often have little motivation to
keep working on their game just to stay at a constant level seems to me
just human nature.

Of course, there are major differences between chess and wargaming. The
first being that no one takes wargaming as seriously as top players take
chess. The second being that if one plateaus at one wargame, one can
always learn to play some new wargame, without having to increase one's
time commitment. Whereas if one plateaus at chess there's no
similar-but-different game that one can take up instead.

David desJardins

[Chris Camfield]

I hate to needle but...

In article <4taurt$d...@news02.comp.pge.com>,

RICHARD IRVING <rr...@pge.com> wrote:
>Gary J. Robinson (wig...@concentric.net) wrote:
>: > If that were true, why the failure of most of Gamemaster series (exc.
>: > A&A)?
>
>: "Failure" is a relative term. A&A, the only WWII Gamemaster, is a
>: smashing success by any standard. Samurai Swords (formerly Shogun) is
>: back in print.

[chop]

>True, but Shogun's (and other Gamemaster series) were undoubtably a
>failure to MB and the mass market stores that sell them.

If the game was a failure, why would MB reissue it?

Chris
--
Christopher Camfield - ccam...@uwaterloo.ca - BMath Joint CS/C&O
"And the Crow and the Jackal and the Jackfish
Are suited up to go another round / I'll be up to my ticker in dead-beats
When the cold steel hammer swings down" (BRJ)

[Kevin J. Maroney]

sir...@clark.net (Harry Flashman) wrote:

>Games I've asked them to try and been politely turned down after
>explaining the premise: Republic of Rome, History of the World,
>and Diplomacy.

I'm surprised that RPGers wouldn't be interested in Republic of Rome.

--
Kevin J. Maroney | Crossover Technologies | ke...@crossover.com
Games are my entire waking life.

[Kevin J. Maroney]

neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

>Then why didn't the other manufacturers pick up the slack and hit the
>vacated market niche? GDW, Mayfair, Task Force, AH, West End etc. were
>still functioning in 1983.

Part of Greg's thesis is that when SPI pulled the rug on the S&T
subscribers, many/most of them, the core of the wargame industry,
simply left wargaming completely, as much out of disgust and a sense
of betrayal (and loss of community) as because of the sudden drop in
the number of available games.

GDW, AH, Victory, West End, TSR, and others _did_ continue to push
wargames, both historical and f&sf, for years following the S&T
debacle, but the collapse had occurred.

[Chris Camfield]

In article <4tc8t8$h...@cnn.princeton.edu>,

David desJardins <de...@ccr-p.ida.org> wrote:
>Neal Sofge <neal_...@rand.org> writes:
>> These are all played on a board, with rules more complicated than the
>> average family or parlor game, and so I group them with the wargames.
>
>I think a lot of these (most?) are pretty strange choices of "wargames".
>Mystic War (which in fact is *not* played on a board)? Monster Derby?
>You might as well call Die Siedler a fantasy wargame. Or Tyranno Ex.
>Or El Grande (ok, I guess that would be a "historical" wargame).

Needling aside, and removing some games that I would question as
wargames (note, one could still call them strategy games), there
is still the following list:

Star Fleet Battles
Starfire
Battletech
Silent Death

Car Wars
Battle Rider
Robotanks
Insecta

Federation and Empire also springs to mind.

[Stephen Graham]

In article <neal_sofge-26...@sofge.rand.org>,

Neal Sofge <neal_...@rand.org> wrote:
>[Why you can't find wargames at Toys-R-Us]
>

>> I don't know if

>> they simply don't "move" fast enough for mass marketers requirements.
>
>This is my understanding.

Right. Don't underestimate the effects of Thor Power Tools (court case
that made inventory taxable) and changes in the economy. In the 70s, it
appears Toys R Us could afford to have a copy of Acquire on the shelf
for a couple of months. Now they can't. Or don't want to.
--
Stephen Graham
gra...@ee.washington.edu
gra...@cs.washington.edu uw-beaver!june!graham

[dutchman]

On 25 Jul 1996, Gary J. Robinson wrote:

> Until wargamers
> are willing to come down from their Mount Olympus and deign to laugh and
> roll dice with the young, they are doomed to watch their numbers decline
> and their hobby fade away. Not that coming down is easy; no more easy
> than it is for a professor of English literature to partake with the
> enthusiastic youth of a science fiction book club as they sing the praises
> of the latest DragonLance novel. But sometimes, just being with people
> who are having a good time is more enjoyable than sitting by yourself
> looking at your solitaire Turn 3 of that perfect simulation of Manstein's
> counterattack....

The compromise isn't always that drastic. A friend of mine enjoys
Diplomacy and Risk, and was willing to try a "harder" game. Having
remarked that he had once been cajoled into a game of Squad Leader, and
found it "too much chaff and not enough wheat", I picked up the cue and
pulled out Napoleon, by AH. Historically based enough for my enjoyment,
and simple enough (wooden blocks with fog of war, and simple battle
maneuvers/resolution) to suit him, we've had a lot of fun with it in the
past few months. We moved to another block game, Columbia's Quebec 1759
(appeals to the Canadian within us), and recently played a game of AH's
War at Sea. This seems to be as far as he will go (with perhaps a move to
WAS' sister, Victory in the Pacific, being the exception) because any
more complexity turns him off. I desperately want to play an umpired game
of AH's Submarine, but even after explaining that he doesn't need to know
the full rules, just the gist of the mechanics, he is highly sceptical. I
grudgingly accept this, and mope for the days when I had a dozen
opponents to choose from.

But, as I've said in a previous post, the INet has greatly supplemented
my search for grognard opponents. I have 4 PBeM games of ASL on the go,
and find a thriving community on the mailing list which although remote,
suits me just fine. I regret not having many ftf opponents, but accept it
as part of the punishment for not following a hobby which has millions of
fans.

[Mark E. Johnson]

Be sure to check out my attempt at summarizing this thread, possibly
refocussing the discussion under the message titled, Long summary of: "death"
of wargames thread

Thanks.

-MJ

[Donovan Loucks]

With regards to Greg Costikyan's "SPI Died for Your Sins/A Farewell to
Hexes" (http://www.crossover.com/~costik/spisins.html), I believe Greg's
rationale for the decline in wargaming is backwards. It's not a matter of
interest in wargaming declining because so few companies make wargames.
It's a matter of so few companies producing wargames because people are
becoming disinterested in them. The wargaming market, like any other, is
driven by an interest in the product. Wargaming isn't dying because SPI
died--wargaming is dying (and SPI died) due to lack of interest. The
question is, what's the cause of the public's growing disinterest?

To tell you the truth, I don't think it's a lack of interest, but a lack
of _time_, which also accounts for the general decline in the entire
gaming field as well as the increased interest in computer "games" (I
don't consider them games because they don't involve competition against a
human opponent). Computers are always willing opponents, even though they
tend to be very unsatisfying. Greg _almost_ realizes this point himself
when he points out the following:

Another theory is 'computer games killed wargames.' And again, there is
an argument here. SPI's feedback showed that 90+% of all wargames were
played solitaire. Board games are not particularly well suited to
solitaire play; computer games are solitaire by their very nature.

The fact that "90+% of all wargames were played solitaire" points out the
long-standing problem of wargamers finding opponents; a problem that
obviously existed before the demise of SPI since the statistics were
provided _by_ SPI. As Philip M. Hall <sun...@prairienet.org> said, "Many
just quit the hobby due to a lack of time to play":

Toss this on top of monster games, mix in an economy that would force
mom to go to work to keep up with double digit inflation, which means
dad has less leisure time, and you have the ingredients of a failure of
gaming.

This decline in available time hasn't just hurt wargaming, but the entire
gaming industry. I've even noticed that the gaming section in bookstores
is getting smaller each day, and is being eclipsed by books on electronic
"games". Many other people also commented on the notion of diminished
leisure time, and Gary J. Robinson <wig...@pop3.concentric.net> wrote,

It probably has something to do with decreased leisure time, more
working (and exhausted) wives, more varied and available television,
more single-parent homes where the parents rely on Nintendo to
entertain the kids, and who knows what else. Most adults don't seem to
have *time* for gaming any more...

In the 1950s, a father could go to work and earn enough money to support
himself, his wife, and two children. In the 1990s, due to significantly
higher taxation and rampant consumerism, a childless husband and wife both
have full-time jobs to make ends meet. It's no wonder most people don't
play games of _any_ sort any more. Computer "games" and television are
imminently convenient and provide the kind of instant gratification that
is hard for face-to-face games to compete with. I think the only solution
to the gaming hobby's predicament is a radical change in American
government and a lowering of taxation--but that's probably not an appropos
topic for this newsgroup...

Greg also describes TSR's shafting lifetime subscribers to S&T as an event
which "shot wargaming in the head". I don't believe that this would cause
a decline in wargame sales for anyone except TSR. Died-in-the-wool
wargamers would continue to purchase wargames from other producers,
regardless of what TSR did. How many people out there who were lifetime
subscribers to S&T dropped out of the hobby because of this?

Lastly, Richard Irving <rr...@pge.com> was wondering why we don't see more
wargames at large stores like Toys 'R Us. Wargames don't sell at the
major chains because they don't move fast enough. Shelf space costs, and
the games that occupy that space must provide enough income to justify
their being there. This is the same reason that you can't find H. P.
Lovecraft's works in many book stores, despite the fact that the
Encyclopedia Britannica lists him as the "20th Century master of the
Gothic horror tale". It's not that this stuff doesn't sell--it just
doesn't sell _quickly_ enough.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Donovan K. Loucks Phoenix, Arizona dlo...@primenet.com |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Lovecraft Web Page: http://www.primenet.com/~dloucks/hplpage.html |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.horror.cthulhu FAQ: |
| ftp://ftp.primenet.com/users/d/dloucks/alt.horror.cthulhu |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Scot Peterson]

On Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:25:33 -0700,
joh...@ccnet.com (Mark E. Johnson) wrote:

>Maybe smaller, more portable games with less steep learning curves and
>shorter playing times would be more successful. On the other hand, isn't
>that what magazine games and minigames have tried to do, without much
>success? Alas. (I'm a diehard fan of the little microgames.)

Toy industry statistics tend to support this statement. The Toy Manufacturers
Association report published in February of this year shows a dramatic rise of
27% for the category of family board games, the largest percentile increase for
the entire toy industry.

Perhaps the Baby Boomers don't have quite as much time on their hands, and
now favor simpler fare. It's not a matter of better or worse, just a matter of what's
more practical.

Scott Peterson

[Philip M. Hall]

Kevin J. Maroney (kmar...@crossover.com) wrote:
: neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:
:
: Part of Greg's thesis is that when SPI pulled the rug on the S&T

: subscribers, many/most of them, the core of the wargame industry,
: simply left wargaming completely, as much out of disgust and a sense
: of betrayal (and loss of community) as because of the sudden drop in
: the number of available games.
:
: GDW, AH, Victory, West End, TSR, and others _did_ continue to push
: wargames, both historical and f&sf, for years following the S&T
: debacle, but the collapse had occurred.

I find it interesting that SPI considered itself the core of wargaming.
That strikes me as a bit arrogant. The hobby can't survive without us".
C'mon. AH continues, and GDW lasted until TSR kept raiding its designers.
I wasn't hurt by the collapse of SPI and I didn't quit buying games when
they went away. New companies crop up, such as The Gamers. There are many
forces at work that will bring an end to wargaming as we know it now,
economic and sociological, but the demise of one company isn't likely to
do it, or even be the cause of it.

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought that TSR simply forclosed on a
loan that SPI should never have taken from them in the first place. Like
a slimey banker attempting to get the widows home, TSR took the company to:

1) get rid of SPI

2) get into the expanding market of historical wargames.

I have heard both of these theories, and #2 seems the most likely. After
all, TSR did publish several games that were in the SPI pipeline, and
they did continue to publish S&T. What they didn't have were people who
could continue to produce historical games and a corporate outlook
grounded firmly in RPG.

Which brings to mind the fact that we have ignored RPG's role in this.
I started playing in high school in '63. My son started playing games in
junior high, but he started with D&D. He had no interest in historical
gaming since "all that is ancient history, dad". I did convince him to
sit down and play A5A with me a few times, and he does like 3W's Ancients
but if he plays, he plays RPG's

I think todays kids find RPG's a better form of escapism for many
reasons.

1). No setup time. Like a computer game you can start right away.

2). No rules. (huh!!) Only one person has to know them, and the companies
that produce RPG's have managed to make folks think they have to use
their rules system to play. This is the BIG LIE. ANYONE who is
willing to sit down and guide a collective story can create an RPG
without access to ANY rules.

3). RPG's allow you to take on any persona you like. In a world of
pressures that didn't exist when I was a kid, this is attractive.
You get to be a hero without any real danger.

4). Pretty darn easy to save the game.

5). A newbie can play as well as a grognard.

6). The competition is a group against the system.

Is it my imagination, or are the bulk of the people attracted to RPG's
the loners?

My time is up.

Phil Hall

[Philip M. Hall]

Gary J. Robinson (wig...@concentric.net) wrote:

<snip>

: > I suppose that I am one who is getting out of the board wargame hobby.

: > I'm not rich enough for it, and I no longer have the space.
: >
: >
: > Phil Hall

:
: Think about the irony of this statement. You admit you own tons of
: Command and S&T games - easily well over a hundred wargames, almost all of
: which are finishable in an evening and only have one map - yet you are
: "getting out of the hobby" because you can't afford to keep buying more
: games.
:
: Why do you have to buy more games? Why don't you play the ones you have?
: You don't see chess players buying more chess pieces every month.
:
: Somewhere along the way this hobby changed from one of "playing" to one of
: "collecting."
:
: And how much space can a one-map, one-evening Command game take up?
:
: Don't give up, I say.
:
: --

Gary,

Perhaps I better qualify the statement. When I say I'm getting out of the
hobby, I mean I have no intention of buying more games, at least not on
impulse. If I buy, it will be more discriminating than in the past. When
I got into the hobby it was relatively cheap compared with other hobbies.
I suppose that the point is that I am no longer supporting the hobby to
the extent that I was. If there are enough like me, it spells more
trouble for the hobby.

One thing I have noticed. It is difficult to get people to play
"old" games. The Classics tend to survive, but many good games languish
simply because there is a perception that they aren't state of the art.
These seem to be magazine games and 3rd world games.
You are correct about collecting as opposed to playing. I don't actually
buy to increase my collection, except for the magazine games, but to
hopefully find someone to play something I'm interested in. My current
circle are miniaturists and have little interest in board wargaming,
although it is easy enough to get them into multi-player games such as
AIR BARON or DETROIT CLEVELAND GRAND PRIX. As an aside to the attitude of
miniature players vs. boardgamers, in a thread on rec.games.miniatures a
fellow was asking about board to miniatures possiblilities and expressed
the opinion that he prefered miniatures to "cheap paper and counter games"
Same topic, different method. Go figure(no pun intended).

Phil

[Stuart L. Dollar]

sun...@prairienet.org (Philip M. Hall) wrote:

>Kevin J. Maroney (kmar...@crossover.com) wrote:
>: neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:
>:
>: Part of Greg's thesis is that when SPI pulled the rug on the S&T
>: subscribers, many/most of them, the core of the wargame industry,
>: simply left wargaming completely, as much out of disgust and a sense
>: of betrayal (and loss of community) as because of the sudden drop in
>: the number of available games.
>:
>: GDW, AH, Victory, West End, TSR, and others _did_ continue to push
>: wargames, both historical and f&sf, for years following the S&T
>: debacle, but the collapse had occurred.

>I find it interesting that SPI considered itself the core of wargaming.
>That strikes me as a bit arrogant. The hobby can't survive without us".

Very, very arrogant...actually...

I think that SPI's demise had very little correlation with the
"Decline & Fall" of the hobby. Frankly, most of what SPI put out the
last 2 years before being absorbed by TSR was UNPLAYABLE CRAP...

Yes they put out a few interesting Monster games, but not too many
people ever played or owned too many of the monster's, and the stuff
they put out in the more sellable medium complexity games just weren't
very interesting, and were not up to SPI's earlier standards...in
either completeness, playability, subject matter, or just plain
attractiveness. Most of SPI's later games were put it with a box with
a fancy front cover and the rest of the box was blank. A few words on
the front cover, and a blank back cover... No picture of mapboard, or
counters, or blurbs about innovations of the game.

I've alway attributed a lot of AH's success to the fact that they took
care in marketing their products. You flip over the back of the box,
you get to see a portion of the map in full color, some of the
counters in full color, professional quality writing about what the
game entails, a neat little intro to hook you about the historical
period being covered.

You take a look at Empires of The Middle Ages, or Sword and the Stars,
or Next War and what do you see? Either nothing on the back... or a
black and white photocopy of a few counters and a portion of the
map...usually copied slightly off center, and usually not even a good
quality photocopy...very amateurish for a company that had the
reputation of SPI...

The facts are that SPI's death was euthanasia. There was a glut of
game companies around in the early 80's, producing more and more BIG
games for a market that was experiencing near zero growth, if not a
decline in the number of gamers... Somebody was bound to get shaken
out. Those who didn't have the cash, or the products, or the
marketing expertise got shaken out... SPI was definitely 1 of those
companies... If you look at the companies from the 70's who made it
out of that era, they succeeded because whatever screwups they might
have made, they had at least 1 cash cow that paid the bills...

Don't forget that the RPG influence on the wargaming industry at that
time. It's not a coincidence that SPI was about the only major
company that didn't have a fully developed RPG system in their line.
(Even AH bought Runequest and added an RPGish campaign game to Squad
Leader).

Avalon Hill: Squad Leader & its many variations... Some say that SL
saved AH. I see nothing to dispute that fact...

GDW: Traveller...

TSR: AD&D...

All of these companies released products that failed badly in the
80's, a lot of them in fact... But if nothing else they could always
publish something for the above and still make some cash, at least for
a while...

SPI had, uh, well you get my point...

I don't think I was unusual as a gamer. I played the games when I was
in High School, when I went to college, I just didn't have time. I
stopped buying, and then I got married and have kids... Kids, cats,
are not conducive to board wargaming, and wives get upset if you spend
all weekend playing games with a buddy... I did get out of the hobby
for a few years. In addition, there was a trend to complexity to the
point of being ridiculous in the Early 80's and that probably scared
me off, since my time was limited...

For a long time, game companies didn't try to attract newcomers...
They are actually doing a better job of it now than they did 10 years
ago... Companies that make their living selling monster games are not
likely to attract new customers, and that is basically the kind of
company that SPI was when TSR loaned them money, and later pulled the
plug...

Don't get me wrong... I was very unhappy when SPI died, they had many
great designs, and had an innovative design philosophy that seriously
pushed the boundaries of game design in the 70's...but SPI died of a
combination of bad marketing decisions, and bad business decisions...

It had very little to do with the Decline & Fall of Board Wargaming...

Other companies have stolen their thunder... 3W, The Gamers, Decision
Games, etc...

>they went away. New companies crop up, such as The Gamers. There are many
>forces at work that will bring an end to wargaming as we know it now,
>economic and sociological, but the demise of one company isn't likely to
>do it, or even be the cause of it.

Actually, I'm of the opinion that wargaming will exist in 1 form or
another forever. However, I suspect that the computer variety will
ultimately be triumphant...they are more conducive to Play by
Mail/E-Mail, modem play can be done, and there is always an opponent
(albeit, not a great one), as close as the nearest PC... Heck the
military doesn't use the board variety as much as they used to, and
that was where the hobby got its start...

>Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought that TSR simply forclosed on a
>loan that SPI should never have taken from them in the first place. Like
>a slimey banker attempting to get the widows home, TSR took the company to:

>1) get rid of SPI

Doubtful... They would have probably preferred that SPI payoff the
loan...besides which, SPI really wasn't much of a competitor against
TSR's main business, RPG's.

>2) get into the expanding market of historical wargames.

Exactly... TSR loaned them money figured they could either make money
off the loan, or worst case scenario, foreclose on a company that
could give them a wider entree into the wargame market...

>I have heard both of these theories, and #2 seems the most likely. After
>all, TSR did publish several games that were in the SPI pipeline, and
>they did continue to publish S&T. What they didn't have were people who
>could continue to produce historical games and a corporate outlook
>grounded firmly in RPG.

Very, very true...

>Which brings to mind the fact that we have ignored RPG's role in this.
>I started playing in high school in '63. My son started playing games in
>junior high, but he started with D&D. He had no interest in historical
>gaming since "all that is ancient history, dad". I did convince him to
>sit down and play A5A with me a few times, and he does like 3W's Ancients
>but if he plays, he plays RPG's

Frankly, I run RPG's on Saturday nights. Its cheap entertainment, you
don't have a whole lot of setup time, and it's a lot more likely you
can get the spouse involved...which lessens any resentment she might
have. Besides which there are a lot of people who play RPG's who
wouldn't get within 20 feet of a wargame, board or computer...

Just as there are people who play CCG's who don't want to RPG...

>I think todays kids find RPG's a better form of escapism for many
>reasons.

Actually, from what I've seen, RPG'ers are graying almost as much as
wargamers...

>2). No rules. (huh!!) Only one person has to know them, and the companies
> that produce RPG's have managed to make folks think they have to use
> their rules system to play. This is the BIG LIE. ANYONE who is
> willing to sit down and guide a collective story can create an RPG
> without access to ANY rules.

If you actually have the time to develop your own, or adapt from other
systems... An RPG without rules usually isn't consistent enough to be
believable for very long... Most people don't have the time or
inclination to do this...

>Is it my imagination, or are the bulk of the people attracted to RPG's
>the loners?

Actually, Wargamers, CCGer's, & RPGer's are all pretty geeky, and
outside of the norms... They are all by definition just a little
different... Most people don't spend this much time intellectually
outside of work pursuing a hobby...

My $.02 worth...
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" -Isaac Asimov, from "Foundation"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This tagline brought to you by Big Ed's Taco Emporium, conveniently located next to
Bob's Pet Shop.
Stuart L. Dollar sdo...@goodnet.com

[Kevin J. Maroney]

neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

>You only have to sell about 3000 or so
>copies of a wargame in order to make a profit, though the usual run is
>more like 5000.

I know of a major (as in, if I mentioned its name, everyone would know
it) wargame published recently with a print run around 2500 which
turned a quite decent profit.

[Kevin J. Maroney]

sdo...@goodnet.com (Stuart L. Dollar) wrote:

>I think that SPI's demise had very little correlation with the
>"Decline & Fall" of the hobby. Frankly, most of what SPI put out the
>last 2 years before being absorbed by TSR was UNPLAYABLE CRAP...

There are many people who would disagree with you. During its last
years, SPI published what many people consider to be one of its finest
titles, EMPIRES OF THE MIDDLE AGES, and also had tremendous
(numerical) success with their minigames and low-priced smaller games.

[Kevin J. Maroney]

Scot Peterson <spet...@mcn.org> wrote:

>Toy industry statistics tend to support this statement. The Toy Manufacturers
>Association report published in February of this year shows a dramatic rise of
>27% for the category of family board games, the largest percentile increase for
>the entire toy industry.

I hadn't heard that, and I find it surprising--I don't doubt you, or
the TMA statistic; I'm just completely out of the loop on adult party
games and family board games (in the US).

Do you have any specifics on titles which are doing well, or how the
TMA defines "family board games"? (E.g., are we talking Monopoly,
Candyland, or Outburst?)

>Perhaps the Baby Boomers don't have quite as much time on their hands, and
>now favor simpler fare. It's not a matter of better or worse, just a matter of what's
>more practical.

Well, I agree with that, although I think it's clear that the old core
of the gaming industry--college students, who presumably have as much
leisure time as ever--have turned away from board games as well.

(As an aside: see how much better thing are when you don't pick
fights? This was a _great_ post, very helpful and informative.)

[Philip M. Hall]

Dave Kohr (ko...@donner.mcs.anl.gov) wrote:
: In article <wiggler-2707...@cnc80443.concentric.net>,

: Gary J. Robinson <wig...@concentric.net> wrote:

: >In article <4tbfns$2...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, sun...@prairienet.org (Philip

: >M. Hall) wrote:
: >> I got interested in war through my
: >> history classes in high school(pre-VietNam)since they were all geared
: >> towards memorizing dates of wars. My kids(80's)had history classes that
: >> barely mentioned wars except in passing and looked at the social and
: >> political aspects of war. As a result it is difficult to find college age
: >> students who are interested in wargaming, since they view history
: >> differently than we older folks do.
: >
: >An interesting theory. However, I graduated from college in 1986. I
: >majored in Ancient and Medieval History, and took classes such as The
: >Crusades, The Peloponnesian War, and The Civil War. I still remember that
: >winter evening in the library when I read about Hannibal's tactics at
: >Cannae. So I can't agree that wars aren't being studied.

:
: I had a similar experience to Gary's: one of my undergrad majors was

: Classics, so I took courses on Greek and Roman history (both emphasizing
: military history pretty intensely), and another course devoted just to the
: Peloponnesian War period. All these classes had no shortage of students
: interested in studying military as well as political/social/economic
: aspects of history, and most of the students weren't history or Classics
: majors (because these classes satisfied distribution requirements). The
: Vietnam War experience seemed to have zero influence in this regard.

I was refering to high school history classes, since that was where I got
a large part of my interest. I was 15 in '63 and reading about war and
watching it on TV, (Gallant Men, Combat). My son's history book barely
looked at war. It preferred the social impact of war and didn't much
discuss the strategy. When I was in school, it wasn't hard to get others
to play. In my circle of friends, half tried wargaming at one time or
another, but none kept it up. One played unti

[Gary J. Robinson]

> Cost is another factor, particularly for us impulse buyers. I was a
> faithful reader of Command Magazine, but haven't bought the last 3 issues
> simply because the $24-36.00 price tag is to high for me. I was willing
> to pay $15-18.00 for a game I wouldn't play, just to keep my collection
> going, but I had to draw the line somewhere, and XTR crossed it. Likewise
> S&T is going to $20.00 and I will, after buying every issue since #32, no
> longer buy it.

[snip]

> I suppose that I am one who is getting out of the board wargame hobby.
> I'm not rich enough for it, and I no longer have the space.
>
>
> Phil Hall

Think about the irony of this statement. You admit you own tons of
Command and S&T games - easily well over a hundred wargames, almost all of
which are finishable in an evening and only have one map - yet you are
"getting out of the hobby" because you can't afford to keep buying more
games.

Why do you have to buy more games? Why don't you play the ones you have?
You don't see chess players buying more chess pieces every month.

Somewhere along the way this hobby changed from one of "playing" to one of
"collecting."

And how much space can a one-map, one-evening Command game take up?

Don't give up, I say.

--

[David L. Pulver]

On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Mark E. Johnson wrote:

> Well, he goes on to give a history of the industry's rise and fall. In his
> interpretation this parallels SPI's history closely, and more particularly
> S&T's. He says that by giving S&T subscribers the shaft after its
> acquisition of SPI's assets, TSR mortally wounded the hobby.
>

Well, the lost of SPI was certainly a serious blow. However, I suspect
that what caused decline in wargames is simply the computer game.

By and large most wargamers I knew never really played (not more than
once) 80% of the games they bought with opponents. They played 'em solo,
they admired the history, etc. A few games, good games, did get a lot of
replay (Avalon Hill classics, for example).

Then along came computer games. The first were inferior to board games.
But by the time gamers were starting to notice the void left by SPI's
disappearance, computer games had begun to mature. Today, some rival in
research and quality the best of the SPI series. And their big advantage
is that you don't need an opponent to play them: almost all come with
integral solitaire computer opponents. Combine this with superior graphics
and in some cases documentation, and its not surprising that board games
are a dying breed. Sure, some people will prefer board games -- they are
numerous esthetic reasons for it, not to mention that fact that you need
to upgrade your computer at vast expense every year or so to keep up with
the lastest computer game -- but by and large I suspect that even if SPI
hadn't fallen afoul of TSR, the board war game hobby would have imploded
anyway circa 1990.

[Matthew R Blackwell]

In <neal_sofge-26...@sofge.rand.org> neal_...@rand.org
(Neal Sofge) writes:

>
>However, it's not just low prices for you, it's also low prices for
the
>manufacturer. Big games mean big capital outlays and big losses if
the
>game sinks. Micros can be on more esoteric subjects, and frequently
>were. Who would have spent $30 on a boxed version of Sticks & Stones?
>

Gee, the plastic mammoths would be kind of cool..

[Bas V. de Bakker]

tblessing <bles...@erim.org> writes:

> Complexity also got completely out of hand in my opinion. I used to
> play SL, but I won't even touch ASL (though I do torture myself with
> a3r and RS!)

You should of course play whatever you like best, but I find it
strange that an A3R/RS player thinks ASL too complex. I play both and
find ASL to be easier. It may have more rules if you count all the
words, but most of them aren't needed for any particular scenario,
while you need to know all the rules of A3R to play it.

JMHO,

Bas.

[tblessing]

Dave Kohr wrote:
>
> In article <4t6j8v$e...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> Philip M. Hall <sun...@prairienet.org> wrote:
> >Just as wargaming was coming of age, Vietnam became the focal point and riots
> >broke out on college campuses across the country. It just wasn't cool to
> >study war, you baby killer, you.
>
> This just doesn't make any sense. The "Golden Age" of wargaming was during
> SPI's heyday, the 1970's, at the tail end of the Vietnam War (when protests
> peaked) and shortly thereafter (when memory of the war was freshest). IMHO
> the only discernable impact of the anti-war sentiment on wargaming was that
> (maybe) this has resulted in no Vietnam War games being popular. (OTOH
> this can also be explained in part by the fact that it was largely a
> guerilla war and as much a political as military conflict, with few
> well-defined battles and campaigns.)

You bring up two very good points. I really think Vietnam didn't hurt
wargaming. What hurt wargaming the most I think is that very few people
my age (32) and younger know much at all about WWII. I am amazed at the
lack of knowledge that I have found in most young people. If you don't
know anything about it, why would you be interested in playing a game
about it. WWII was the "killer ap" for wargaming, I suspect sales
figures show that at least half of historical wargame sales were of
WWII. What we need to save wargaming is a good world war! (just
kidding!!).

Complexity also got completely out of hand in my opinion. I used to
play SL, but I won't even touch ASL (though I do torture myself with a3r
and RS!)

Tom B.

[Mark Langsdorf]

Kevin J. Maroney (kmar...@crossover.com) wrote:

> sir...@clark.net (Harry Flashman) wrote:
>
> >Games I've asked them to try and been politely turned down after
> >explaining the premise: Republic of Rome, History of the World,
> >and Diplomacy.
>
> I'm surprised that RPGers wouldn't be interested in Republic of Rome.
>

I am, also. My ex-girlfriend _hates_ most wragames, thinks they're silly
and boring. She likes role-playing, though. The one time a friend of ours
introduced us to Republic of Rome, and we played 8 or 9 times. She was
really into it and enjoyed it.

-Mark Langsdorf
htt://www.engr.trinity.edu/~mlangsdo

[Bruno Wolff III]

From article <4tbfns$2...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, by sun...@prairienet.org (Philip M. Hall):
]
] The Vietnam War changed the perception of war as glorious to war as terrible.
] There was a large "bubble" of baby boomers whose fathers had fought in
] WWII who didn't consider war evil. Many of the boomers who were in
] college at the time percieved war as evil, and these folks are now
] producing offspring of college age who percieve war as evil. It is, of
] course, but the study of it isn't. I got interested in war through my

I don't agree that war is necessarily evil. Certainly religious groups
in the past have supported wars.

While large scale wars are no longer economicly profitable for countries
(unless you take a very long view of things) they can have significant
affects on the world. They can still be an affective way to enforce a
viewpoint on people who disagree.

] There seems to be a growing feeling that it isn't necessary to study war,

] since no one in their right mind is going to want to face the U.S. in a
] standup confrontation, and with that belief, the hobby may easily meet
] its end.

]

That isn't the lesson I have learned from recent history. My view is that
the US has little will to fight a war with anything but dollars. When
people start dying we pull out. Take a look at our involvement (or lack
of it) in Vietnam, Somalia, lebanon and Yugosolvia.

People seem to have the feeling that just because it isn't "nice" to fight
wars, people shouldn't and won't fight them. This is not a realistic view.

[Jeff Christensen]

David desJardins wrote:
>
> Jeff Christensen <jeff_chr...@nortel-nsm.com> writes:
> > You are not
> > going to be able to produce a military simulation game which John would
> > be interested in because John is not interested in military history.
>
> I doubt this very, very much. I know plenty of players who enjoy a wide
> range of wargames (i.e., "military simulation games") who aren't
> interested in military history, and who don't care about relating their
> exploits to anything historical. I'm not sure if I would agree that
> even the majority of wargamers have an interest in military history.

I think you are correct. I am doing a little intrespective analysis here,
trying to figure out why I spend so much time and money on such a bizarre
hobby. The only explanation for why I would spend 1 1/2 years playing the
same game of Scorched Earth is because I was interested in the history.
Now
that I think about it this is not universal.

>
> The fact that SF and fantasy "wargames" (i.e., games with similar
> mechanics to your "military simulation games", but not tied to
> historical events) have been quite popular and successful in some cases,
> is an indication that this type of game can appeal to players not
> interested in military history, simply because they enjoy the mechanics
> of such games.

Ok, this leads me to the question, "What is the appeal of such a game?"
This whole thread keeps possing the negative question, "What makes war
games unappealing to new players?" Why don't we think about it from the
other side.

Actually, I still don't see what good this would do as I don't see that
there is a missing game. The conclusion of this thread seems to be that
we need more simple wargames to attratch new people to the hobby. Haven't
such games already been produce? Alan, et.al., have been putting Battle
for Moscow up on Web-Grognards as a free introduction to the hobby. If
such micro-games are going to be appealing to newbies why haven't the
ones already
produced sold better? Why didn't GDW have great sales of the original
production of BfM? Was this just bad marketing? I look at the available
games
and when you look at everything from Axis and Allies to Scorched Earth
I don't see these holes in the game types which needs to be filled to
bridge
the gap.

--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Christensen tel: (604)244-4528
internal: jchris
external: jeff_chr...@nortel-nsm.com

[Neal Sofge]

> Wargaming is dying for a large number of reasons, obviously. One of the
> main ones, for me, is the inability of the game companies to keep their
> finger on the pulse of the general gaming public. As a result they make
> errors in judgement that can easily put them under.

This is a major problem. But we manufacturers don't have a lot of
resources at our disposal. A few reply cards, some magazine surveys, and
the top ten lists some distributors make available are all we have to work
with. What we desparately need is more feedback from customers. I
thought the increasing number of email-connected gamers would help with
this, but that hasn't happened.

> I believe that more games
> are sold to people who don't play them than to people who do.

This certainly seems so with the RPG crowd I know. This may be due to the
large amount of time an RPG requires, as opposed to the relatively short
time investment of merely reading the rules.

--
Neal Sofge (home: ne...@aol.com) I speak for myself, not RAND.
Fat Messiah Games Web: http://www.io.com/~wasson/fmg.html

[Bruno Wolff III]

From article <31fbebc7...@news.crossover.com>, by kmar...@crossover.com (Kevin J. Maroney):

> sdo...@goodnet.com (Stuart L. Dollar) wrote:
>
>>I think that SPI's demise had very little correlation with the
>>"Decline & Fall" of the hobby. Frankly, most of what SPI put out the
>>last 2 years before being absorbed by TSR was UNPLAYABLE CRAP...
>
> There are many people who would disagree with you. During its last
> years, SPI published what many people consider to be one of its finest
> titles, EMPIRES OF THE MIDDLE AGES, and also had tremendous
> (numerical) success with their minigames and low-priced smaller games.

I know some people who really like the game. Myself I feel it is unplayable,
multiplayer, without house rules because of the combat system. Multiple
attackers can devastate a defender. Also the end game effects really distort
play near the end of the game. In games I have played I have seen people
give away provinces temorarily to provide access to allies for a combined
assault on a player.

(In the particular case a campaign game was ruined that we had been playing
over several sessions. Some people in western Europe felt the player in
far east was doing too well so they wanted to gang up on him but didn't
have a good enough access route to get at him. They insisted that I (Poland)
let them borrow a province (Hungary?) to get at him. I was in the process of
converting or colonizing. Since this was going to screw me up and I didn't
have a problem with the other player I turned down their offer. They then
first blew me up and then blew up the other player.)

The magnate rules also result in screwy (ahistorical) tactics. I have seen
people argue over which areas near the Mongol should be pillaged as people
would try to influence the route of the Mongol away from them by devastating
the areas around them.

[Mark E. Johnson]

In article <neal_sofge-26...@sofge.rand.org>,
neal_...@rand.org (Neal Sofge) wrote:

> I think this would work, but note that the $2 intro leads to a substantial
> number of books and supplements. Same goes for Mini Car Wars - SJG was
> trying to get you to buy a hoard of rulebooks, arenas, vehicle lists,

Yes, there's the problem. Actually, it goes beyond the concept of demo
games. It has to do with how a small game is supposed to make money.
Miniatures games, roleplaying games, and collectible card games are well
suited, perhaps even designed to offer a product that gives the consumer
something to buy over and over again (figures, modules, or boosters).
There's nothing sinister about that--how many times before Magic did I
glumly walk out of a game store with nothing compelling to spend less than
$10 on?

But board and wargames have a problem. They're primary product is the game
system itself, and selling more of that often means adding more rules.
Everyone knows about the legendary example of Star Fleet Battles, which
started as a minigame years ago, and now has mushroomed into...well, you
know. A game doesn't get a *syndrome* named after it for nothing!

Car Wars has had a similar lifecycle, even as some players were aware of
this "danger" from the beginning. At least Car Wars could offer special
arena map supplements, though I suppose SFB could offer more ship types
and SSDs. But they both succumbed to overloading the rulebooks, too. Of
course, many of the players asked for that. Now they're sorry! :-)

[For what it's worth, I remember hearing that SJ Games' income from the
entire GURPS product line didn't surpass that from Car Wars until about
1989, 3 years after the RPG's introduction and a decade after the
minigame's.]

> > In fact, I'm a little surprised GW doesn't do that.
>
> White Dwarf is their version of this, effectively.

Sort of. It's a house rag, to be sure, with lots of inspiring pictures,
but you can't give a game a try just from buying a magazine and some lead,
can you?

> > But even a $3 Sticks & Stones probably lost money for
> > Metagaming, don't you think?
>
> Not necessarily. Shapeshifters didn't lose money for us, and its price is
> scaled to be the same as the old Task Force micros after adjusting for
> inflation. The Metagaming micros were even cheaper to produce, with
> one-color maps and counters. You only have to sell about 3000 or so

> copies of a wargame in order to make a profit, though the usual run is
> more like 5000.

Okay, but do you think Sticks & Stones sold nearly as many copies as
Shapeshifters has? I would've assumed not, but perhaps I'm wrong.

-MJ

--
Mark Johnson joh...@ccnet.com www.ccnet.com/~johnson

[Milton Soong]

> The problem is that the number of wargame consumers, and players, has
> drastically declined over the past 14 years, due almost soley to the total
> failure of the hobby to attract any more young people, in marked contrast
> to the pattern of the 70's and early 80's.

I disagree with the notion that what killed wargaming is the fault of the
game company (not making games that's attracting newcomers). I content
that the main cause for the death of wargames is the changing demographics
and cultural milieu.
Wargames reached its golden age in the late 70's when most of the
baby-boomers are in high school and college, a time period when most of us
had more time than money. When you think about it, a game that cost $10 -
$20 (then), and can take up 100+ hours of your free time is a bargain
indeed.
Furthermore, culturally speaking, these baby-boomers grew up among a
culture that provided a context to these wargames. Most of these BBers
grew up watching cowboys and Indians, watched every episode of "Combat" (I
know I did), etc. Is it a wonder that we took to wargames with a passion?

Alas, teenagers nowadays definitely do not watch cowboys and Indians (Too
un-PC), and most of them grew up with Star Wars and Nintendos. Isn't it a
surprise that a game based on "history" that takes even as short as 3
hours will not hold their interest?

Unless historical conflict become "hip" again in popular culture. Wargame
as we know it is DEAD. What's happening to Model railroaders will happen
to us in the next 20 years. It's a matter of time.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Milton Soong
so...@apple.com