Weekender XLBS: Tabletop Industry Consolidation & A Look At The New BoW!
April 1, 2018 by warzan
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Happy Sunday
Morning mate! And happy Sunday to you and yours! 🙂
Happy Sunday
Happy Sunday!!!
Happy Sunday arvo from Oz
Good morning! Just leaving now to go be a wizard. Have a good Easter time everyone.
Happy Easter
Just woken up to the promise of mature content in the XLBS. Surely a typo.
Check the date 🙂
Happy Sunday Beasties
Sam, enjoy it, it is hilarious 😀
Happy Almost Sunday, in 29 minutes, from Northern California.
Happy Sunday everyone
Tough topic up for discussion this week with lots of permutations and no one right answer. I think you broke the meat of it down well in the show.
Large companies who are not reliant on small investments are more likely to drop a game system that is not providing them the margin they want. They will do this much sooner than a home grown company who will often make decisions with their heart rather than their head.
Crowdfunding has allowed a lot of ideas to become reality that never would have in the old business molds. Often though the initial crowdfunding for the first project has considerable investment in it and costs not covered by the crowdfunding target. On completion the games may not bring in a large enough yield to self sustain or if they do they are doing only that with not enough funds to grow the brand. The guys no longer have that initial build up of funds that they invested initially before they ran their first Crowdfunding which was essentially their Golden Bullet to get a project started. You have to be willing to lose all those initial funds in case the Crowdfunding doesn’t meet it’s funding target and the project folds leaving you with just the the items you paid for to showcase your Crowdfunding project.
On fulfillment of your first Crowdfunding project a lot of people who were interested in it now have the items that they wanted and are now waiting for new items to be released. Many will never have heard of it or know of your game and it now becomes a PR campaign to cast the net wide enough to get to those who would like your game but know nothing about it.
Consolidated games new into a pre-established brand will definitely benefit here. The nets cast by these companies will be much wider with infrastructure and tried and tested mechanisms to not only get the word out but to also start topics of conversations. Fanboys and haters will take to the internet to defend and bash a brand which will increase its social media footprint and draw more people in. Communities and forums will pop up and word will spread. If nothing else this will hopefully begin to reach those in the dark places of the world who would love that game and take the revenue to place where project growth is easier to achieve and not funded out of the pocket of those trying to take their game to the next level even if they are using Crowdfunding.
I’m really interested in the business talk here at BoW, and several other places.
Is there a particular forum here on BoW where those of us who want to talk about this can discuss it? If not can one be started?
Every now and again it comes up on either Weekender and there may be a bit of chatter, but the ongoing thread is lost.
news & rumors or the greenroom where those sorts of discussions usually reside
Happy Sunday!!
Welcome to a sector (Industry is pushing it) that is reaching a scale where it is starting to attract some big money investment. These investors have little in the way of creativity and innovation, but they can spot the chance to make a buck a mile off. So in this kind of wild-west space the money men buy up a couple of established brands (Asmodee, FFG) and then go seeking out new talent to buy them out.
At the other end, small niche businesses are constantly starting up, trying their luck (especially with KS funded projects) and gaining a foothold or disappearing back into the spare room they were formed in. Some will remain under the radar and plug along while others will soon attract the attention of the big money and be absorbed into a corporate Borg like entity.
Business models of publishers and studios are being borrowed from the video games world and hopefully allow the innovation to flourish while spreading the risk for the money men.
I believe we need new business models in the world of distribution and retail that provides the means for a broad, worldwide customer base to have access to a diverse range of product without the big money model being the only one that can scale.
It’s a big diverse eco system at the moment, and long may that remain. But when FLGS start stocking just the big, safe brands because their supply and distribution as well as customer base is more reliable then a different future awaits.
Peter Molyneux – don’t get me started… Brilliant mind that shouldn’t be left to run or decide anything. Still owes thousands of backers a Godus game!
MB:P teasing on facebook with KS on June 7th. Presuming it’s a reprint and rules plus scenarios upgrade etc
For the new BoW will we be able to add our own favourite games and rate them?
In a nutshell … Yes
There will be a form anyone can submit and it’s then checked and added by the duration team. At which point it’s ready for reviews and ratings and other community content.
Will this cover figure only ranges as well?
Yep we have a separate section called Ranges for that 🙂
I love the direction for the new site, here a few suggestions:
– auto play for when I check event that last a few days. I do not need to go back one webpage to start the next video.
– for the rating of games: you could had a star for how easy or hard is the rules book.
On the rating system, I like the approach that you’ve taken to rate individual aspects of the game, it makes you actually think about it.
I think there is room for a wider spread in each aspect than you’ve allowed. In this system, I can say one of three things about playability. It’s either crap (0), ok (1), or excellent (2). A 1 star rating in your system equates to 5/10 on your chart. What If I think it’s worse than that but better than 0 or somewhere between ok and amazing?
I’d be interested in hearing a bit more about why you decided that 0-2 was the way to go? I assume it’s the ease of calculation 2*5 =10. Why not go 0-10 or 0-8 in each category and aggregate those ratings back to an overall 10 star.
Great to see the new site coming along! It looks great
In a word … simplicity.
The silver and gold star model is a little easier to get across and also calculate (Not only for the system but for those using the system)
It may well evolve later but for now every decision is being weighed against simplicity to find a balance point:)
Have to say I really like the gold silver star selection it is simple and gives you a proper 0-10 rating.
Happy Sunday folks and a very happy easter one and all. Great xlbs today, really interesting chat. Hope you have a wicked time at Wizarding school Sam 😉
hey cool – found the millenium falcon legacy version from hasbro on ebay – only 529 € ………
Warren, no! We need to be paid this month, man cannot live on AT-AT’s alone… again.
I have one in my living room. I bought it new, and even then I think it was $120, though if I recall, the retail was $150. It is one of my favorites, and I won’t be going on Lyons on it. It shall remain pristine. I wouldn’t mind finding something that is more in scale and playable, but I don’t see that being realistically fiscally feasible.
The games you mention is the terms of consolidation is only really one part of the industry. There is another part that carries on selling its products and I presume making money that don’t often go to Kickstarter (and if they do they know they will succeed . For example Warmonger miniatures producing 10mm figures suitable for Warmaster have Kickstarters at around £500 and they always fund).You then have companies like Old Glory and Essex Miniatures and many others they have been around for decades still producing new ranges and I presume still selling or they wouldn’t be in business.Yes some of these companies do go under and ranges change hand but it’s still an important part of the hobby that tends to go under the radar on some of the more populist websites and will never really be a section of the industry that Warren was talking about this morning.
So I can’t really see everything falling under one umbrella anytime soon and the question is. Is it up to us as gamers to make sure these smaller companies who produce rules or figures in garden sheds or small factory units get noticed in the wider gaming community and to help them develop more games/figures/rules to keep the diversity alive
I tend to think for gamers our ‘responsibility’ doesn’t go much further than buying the stuff we like to buy.
And being nice to the people we game with?…
So no April Fools’ jokes ?
Why do cows wear bells? Because their horns don’t work.
On the rating system for the new site.
I like you can rate individual aspects of a game but I feel that a rating of max two might be a bit low with all the games that are available to play. Maybe it should be a bit higher so you can rate in more detail.
The problem and benefit of large companies is that when a game isn’t doing well anymore that they might let it die as it isn’t worth it or that they can do an investment to bring it up again maybe in some other form, where a small company wouldn’t have the funds to do that.
On the kickstarter side.
I don’t think it will disappear as it offers a less risky option to bring out a game. And give the possibility to bring out a game that would be too expensive to do in retail, like Conan, Batman or the new street fighter boardgame that is coming up. It also gives the possibility to small companies to expand a range for the game in one go instead of having to do it over several years, like godslayer is going to do for their wave 2. On the other hand is that sometimes the community is expecting more than they should putting a lot of pressure on the company and if they let them lead by this they might over extend themselves. And if they don’t do something people might just go to another kickstarter that will give them that more.
Research suggests (and we’ll be watching this closely in our own data in the future) that for the majority of users even with more choice the ratings still come down to a bit of a duality at the extremes so it may not actually improve the accuracy of the ratings in any meaningful way.
But like I said well be watching it closely 🙂
You are probably right, most people find something good or bad and mostly only judge on their personal likes/dislikes.
I could see a day when Asmodee /Hasbro or another big company outside of the hobby industry buys out or hostile take over of Kickstarter for a couple of reason.
1. Kickstarter is a platform which shows a huge amount of financial date on people their spending habits, what’s the most popular fab/game/product at that moment etc. etc.
2. It’s a gold mind for new Idea’s and as you guys have just talked about the bigger a company/organisation becomes the less original/new idea’s it has which is why most countries get there new ideas form university/think tanks and or recruiting grad students for their organisation.
3. It would be the best and cheapest RND department they could have as everyone using Kickstarter would be doing the RND for them and a game or idea went big on Kickstarter like kingdom Death Monster did then they could offer to buy that game out early on in the games Excitement phases to maximise distribution/ or profits of game/Ideas
4. Any Idea’s outside of their portfolio’s ie movies, household ideas etc. etc. would be sold to any interested third parties
“Beasts of War 2 – Everyone’s a Critic!”
You can have that one for free.
Smell a little like a upcoming Coleraine Analytics.
That’s a very good point that I hadn’t thought of…… Well done.
An Amazon Analytica would be worth heaps….
What novels sell the best, to whom, with what subject, setting, plot, etc….
Analyse all that and one would have the spec for a best seller.
Lol took me all day to get the reference lol.
Yes there is always that risk, we need to keep an eye on that.
But we are more interested in getting the data on games than on folks.
We have some extra privacy features in the new platform too though 🙂
If you haven’t already seen the Channel 4 programme “The Last Leg”‘s episode on the size of Facebook’s terms and conditions, it’s very funny and an eye opener.
Highly recommended.
To me, one of the things about reviews is forming a trust relationship with the reviewer… How mush does their taste fit with mine over time will give me a better idea of how much weight I give their review.
In board games I currently follow The Dice Tower and Shut Up and Sit Down.
It also helps that both crews are great at comedy.
Yes reviews has a qualative and quantative aspect.
If you grow to trust a reviewer they will carry a lot of sway with your decision. Equally if a game has a lot of reviewers saying the same thing, then for many that gives a bit of confidence to a buying decision.
I hope the platform can facilitate a bit of both to help us find great games.
The gaming equivalent of Rotten Tomatoes….?
I have a tricky test for the new review system.
The game “Fury of Dracula” will soon be on it’s 4th edition, from it’s 3rd publisher (GW, FFG and I forget the new one).
Is each edition treated as a new game?
Are they linked some how?
We are most likely going to tread each new edition as a new game with a method to browse through the previous editions. We haven’t exactly worked this out yet though.
And expansions with the same name of each addition eg 40K Codices would complicate matters.
BTW I’m an IT person with a 30 year background in systems and database design that currently has a lot of time on their hands (read not employed) so I’m already laying out some data structures in my head.
Those will probably have the edition appended on.
Please feel free to get involved as there are a ton of things we have yet to solve going forward, so all input is welcome 🙂
I will warn you in advance though some of our data structure choices will seem odd. Because we have learned that data normalisation is a killer for web platforms lol (the performance hit is enormous so we have to make quite a lot of sacrifices to keep performance up)
I’ve PMed you.
You bast**ds, I was watching the screen so intently to see what you are going to do with the new web page I drank some of my paint cleaning water instead of a sip of my coffee. This show needs a warning label!
Lol sorry mate. Hobby tip, wash your brushes in beer 😉
Will this be strictly games, where components are a part of the box. Or, is there thought of rating games which are strictly rule, e.g. Sharp Practice where the gamer collects models but not necessarily from the author(s). RPGs?
Or the converse, can we review a kit just by itself, which could be linked to the unboxing video.
The ranges section would likely cover induvidual model kits – but we are still mulling that over so it might be added during a phase after launch.
It would apply to sharp practice for sure. In that case the component part is the rulebook.
Just a question really. I know it’s kind of different for board games, which are slightly more self contained – it’s all in a box, and you can theoretically break it out and play it with anyone, including your gran at Christmas.
But tabletop games still require a community to thrive. In any area, there need to be at least a small group of people collecting that range and playing that game, or the game will die in that area. It needs to be getting space at tables in stores and clubs.
So there surely is a point at which there will be saturation? The community is growing yes, but at any point in that growth, it can only support a certain number of miniatures games and systems.
So I think that the diversity of miniatures ranges, and miniatures games which Kickstarter has brought is kind of self limiting.
Isn’t that also likely to drive more consolidation in future?
Yes I agree mate
Really curious what you where gonna say on Megacon games when you got cut of and went an entirely other direction. They say they have found a buyer and things seem to be starting moving again, but any information on my favorite game would be apreciated.
Anyway, looking forward to Dildo’s and wizards on Kickstarter. I’ll be a day one backer.
@draw a You could LARP as Collin Creevy- then a camera would be a natural fit. 🙂
I can’t WAIT for the rating system and review section for games. I don’t get much time to engage with the hobby anymore and there are only so many times I can comment on a news post that “that looks cool” or “what’s the point of this?”
The ratings and reviews will give me another way to engage with this site and the community.
Also, if any body out there takes any rating system as gospel, they need to rethink. Rating systems will always be opinion based and abstract in terms of the data you receive from them. I think it’s important to remember that.
That is our hope too mate 🙂
@warzan for playing inside the falcon you could get the blown up to the correct scale and use it as gamemat
Cool idea!
On the rating system, The approach that you are taken to rate the games does make you actually think about it and it will make it easier to find a game that someone else will like. With this system search function, I could look for games that would meet my partners and gaming group likes 🙂
Like anything the proof will be in the eating later as data starts to accumulate.
But our hope is we can find all sorts of ways to make discovering games (and indeed other content and stuff) interesting and fun.
And of course relevant!
This new system looks really good glads, love, to see these kinds of things which help others get games out there which helps others, like mam and dads looking for games other kids are playing so not getting something which looks like a good box but nobody plays.
I agree with you on the rating system and it seems to be a bit more like the systems used for beverages like wine, scotch and bourbon by expert tasters. This is why it is hard to get perfect scores and why explanations of those scores go a long way to helping informed customers make good decisions.
One thing I would like to know about the industry is how well it does in a down economy. Amazon really grew in the post 9/11 depression that lead into the Great Recession (not my names) because in a down economy the book industry sees its best growth. This is anti-intuitive but has been a long running business model. I don’t know if toy / game / hobby industries have the same growth potential and there are many new influences in how the industry operates.
I think the industry is doing what all industries do when there is a vacuum left by a large provider. Let me explain, GW used to do games and minis for lots of different styles of play and on top of that would sell “competitors” products in their stores once this changed the industry grew on the back of their growth and expansions. GW then shortened their lines to only a handful and consolidated to taking care of their brands, this brand management was a double edged sword as it allowed them to control a huge sector of the industry but also turned off many consumers with their practices (this of course culminated in the Space Marine lawsuits). All of this opened up the remaining areas of the hobby and saw many former GW employees heading off to start / help other companies that have been using the early GW system to grow their companies.
So this then leads to the current times and are they that much different than in the past? Personally I don’t think so, take a look at Warlord they took over some old and defunct IP and freshened them up and this lead to a growth that to look at it honestly I don’t think they were really expecting.
As to the conglomerates buying up the IP and companies, I see this as mostly a good thing. Hasbro for instance have a very diversified portfolio within the entertainment industry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hasbro_subsidiaries
If one of these large new groups takes up a large portion of the industry there could very well be a time where they move a lot of the smaller companies and producers out. I think this will lead to the same corrections we have seen in the past as these are bigger than any one company or industry and have more to do with human nature.
“I, for one, welcome our new industry overlords.”
” Amazon really grew in the post 9/11 depression that lead into the Great Recession (not my names) because in a down economy the book industry sees its best growth. This is anti-intuitive but has been a long running business model.”
It is anti-intuitive as one might expect people to really horde their money during down times.
From hearsay evidence, spending on entertainment increases during down times – more escapism required to take peoples minds off the tough times.
Can’t find the report I was thinking of but it a well researched issue. Not all entertainment grows and even in an industry that has growth the mentality of people makes them feel they aren’t growing. Read up on this as a young sales rep for an advertising agency, made a pay check in the early 2000’s reminding people that there was still a chance to make a buck or two. All that stuff is on a floppy in the office somewhere. Lol 🙂
So we don’t have any Aussies commenting yet. I’m agog waiting for news of the Trees of End-or!
Guys remember Wizards of the Coast is owned by Hasbro so they are a non player anymore.
I love hearing more about BOW 2.0 very excited. Are there any plans so you can rate expansion for a game? E.g. a model for a game.
This data could drill down within a range to help me decide what to get next for an army and find something fun, something over powered, must have or looks cool.
As you have been thinking about this for a year i am sure you already though this out and dismissed this as the amount of pages would be crazy 🙂
The new rating system seems great for board games, I think for war games it may not work as well as it does for board games. In rating bolt action because the components vary wildly and the experience completely depends on what models you have. Someone with a bolt action starter set would have a completely different experience from someone with 3 fully fleshed out regiments to select his army from. Depending on the amount of votes this could even itself out.
I like the method and system. I don’t know where the argument was going to come from seems thought out. I also like the look of that Project link on the game so I can tailor my viewing to only the game. Cant wait for more and to get my hands on it!
To comment on the new BoW-site I think that a lot of the ideas (projects etc.) I have heard about sounds really good and I am looking forward to the implementation. The rating system specifically I think will work well for miniature games because BoW is, as a site and community, strong on miniature games. It will contain lot of relevant information regarding these games and will tie in well to the coverage that you do on new products and trends for miniature games.
When it comes to boardgames the BoW coverage and community, in my personal opinion, might not have the same expertise as for miniature games. For example in the Annual awards miniature heavy games generally score comparably well and other games which are generally considered good boardgames might not be so recognised. The, for me at least, leading sites for boardgames are the Dice Tower for reviews and Boardgamegeek for ratings and upcoming games. BoW is not playing in the same league and will not, because the prerequisites are not there.
So what is the point with that mini-rant… say that you are not good enough to talk about boardgames? No, not really, I think that as with all things the more the merrier and if you feel for it by all means dive in. However, the reason I do backstage and check BoW each day is not to hear what you have to say on boardgames, but to find out all the latest and coolest on miniature games. At least in my profession resources (manpower, capital, time) is something that is not infinite and needs to be harshly prioritised and I think you could perhaps do even more and even better miniature games coverage instead of talking about boardgames (where there are other sites catering to that). For me, examples of things I would like to see resources put on is;
1) Historical gaming before WW2. Saga? Saga2 has just come out and there has been almost no coverage. No playtesting, nothing…. Why? Hail Ceasar, no coverage.
2) Hobby evenings. I liked these a lot, and I understand that due to a busy schedule they are difficult to cram in (and the superb streams with John and the others during the week are great!!!) but if I can choose between boardagame coverage and a live-hobby session I go with miniature hobby evenings at all times.
Please, take the feedback for what it is, I really think you all are doing a great job and I enjoy the site a lot. I provide the reflection because I care, not because I want to bash ideas.
Great XLBS again. Well done.
Firstly BOW 2.0 – totally excited about this. I would love to be able to rate and review games and see how our community feels about the products we cover like no other site – miniatures games.
I love a good industry chat and have missed the semi-regular reviews that Red Ben used to produce. As a Business Studies lecturer I have an inherent interest in these things but I find the way our industry tends to defy some of the norms of standard business practice quite fascinating. Some of us were having a bit of a discussion in the Green Room about the Batman Kickstarter and the pros and cons of what seems to be a totally new model of delivery – Kickstarter exclusive big box games. I think this all in one model offers the gamer who can afford the buy-in what is perhaps a more honest interaction with a game, particulalry one based on a big external IP. They say to customers “Come and get it now – this is all we are going to make and this is the only time and place to get it”. Where there have been problems they have often been related to companies trying to double-down on their investment and get their unweildly IP and a big FLGS distribution system up and running at the same time as delivering a Kickstarter. Quite a few have come totally unstuck doing this (e.g. Prodos AVP). We are used to the gradual release model of delivery such as FFG are using for Star Wars Legion. We are totally used to buying a base game and then seeing expansions roll out over months and years, sometimes for stuff we aren’t interested in and sometimes with gaps unfilled for years. We spend huge sums over a long time with no idea when or if we might complete the collection/game. This is normal to us.
But why is this the best way? Looking from the perspective of the new Monolith Kickstarter backer for a moment, particularly someone new to miniatures games, what might they think about this? Their new Batman game is all included. They will most likely never get another miniature or release beyond what they bought today. Their game is complete.
Food for thought.
Happy Sundy!
I’ve got that electronic Millenium Falcon myself and an AT-AT with a similar amount of buttons and sounds. I was waiting for you to push the chessboard button “I suggest a new strategy R2, let the wookie win” :).
@warzan I believe the question of innovation in board games will be, or rather is, handled like in the video games industry. The big players do not need to buy every small developer, but offer to be the distributer. That way, they can limit the risks and the investments, let the smaller studios do what they want and only if they see the end product as worthwhile, they pick it up for distribution.
The small Belgian games company that I worked for in Essen and at UKGE the last two years published a game that did well and was picked up by Asmodee for distribution, so the small publisher was able to get their game into a lot of game stores all of France and Belgium. Similarly they have a network of companies, who publish the game in several other languages.
And because of this, it is better for a game to have the big company behind them (as distributers) and the small dedicated folks at the device studio. And yes, @warzan, you are right, the big colonies might let IPs die rather than selling them, but if the IP dies with a big player, then it is probably because the game was simply not up to the competition. We saw smaller companies struggle due to a lack of funds or due to having too big funds (i.e. underestimating the KS success and subsequent problems in communication, logistics, scale of production etc.). Both these issues are not there, if a big company takes on an IP, so it will really be the game itself that decides about the success of the IP.
Happy Sunday!
Quite liking the look of the new website. Hope the system is ready for the onslaught it’ll get when it goes live.
And . . . @warzan is that Jason’s Guild Ball mug you’ve stolen for your tea?
On the new BOW- you should have some way to opt out of some of the Criteria for example:
When I go to my friends house to learn a new game I usually don’t pick up the rule book at all, it’s usually explained to me by my friend. Therefore I really can’t rate that particular aspect. So I cant really speak to the writing.
On Kickstarter- I think it’s just the way games are made now, the profit margin is there and you already have your audience from the get go. Example- I backed BlackWater Gulch 2nd edition…then when that finished he came out with another beast and henchman on… which I also backed. You don’t need retail in that instance.
a great show guys may be a different falcon but back in the day I do remember am advert with the interior being shown I like the new BOW the spider web scores for the games & such is a good quick way of seeing what people think of the products.
OH MY GODDESS!!! I want the new BoW NOW!!!
The new ideas you showed us today are amazing and I will be spending a lot more time on the site and participating more with this kind of a system then the currant forms. While I consume your content my interaction is more talking to the screen then typing. The ratings, the ability to follow a game or game type and build a community around it as well as be part of the greater community.
As you said there is no perfect system and in my mind that means no rating can ever be the top of the scale. On a 1-10 my mind says the best possible score is 9, nothing is perfect so nothing can receive a 10. The system you suggest breaks down my scoring and creates an aggregate score. For me this makes scoring something easier and the score itself more relevant. That reviews can be tied into scoring segments makes the system that much stronger.
Love what you are showing us. Keep it up. I look forward to playing with the new site.
@warzan, do you have any insight on Megacon Games status? I know they’ve been shopping around but have yet to see anything official for some months now.
top quality show today, hit all the right buttons for me. two massive subjects though and as much as i’d like to talk about the industry the new BoW site has to take presidents.
i love love love the rating system. now these things are never perfect but the bones of what you have sounds pretty good.
you need to very clearly define the scale. 0: industry standard or below. silver star : above industry standard. gold star : the best the industry has to offer. i suggest getting some folks in to review a dozen games or so to set the scale and give people a general idea of what we are looking for at each point in the scale. gold and silver stars should be tough to get if the system is to have integrity. because the scale is small you will ether have good and exceptional games merging together or average and bad. one more point in the scale would solve this but would make the score out of ten be awkward.
i’m out of time but i really wanted to address the fact the categories may need adjusting for the type of game. if the categories better suit say boardgames over RPGs or wargames you could end up with certain types of games dominating.
Having 5 criteria isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference. you will still get the haters to give 5 zero’s and people who like the game 5 gold stars to compensate. You need someway of filtering these out to give a rating any semblance of meaning.
Indeed, we are just finishing of a psychic module to do just that. It will capture asshat pheromones via the users monitor and consign their ratings to the universal dustbin 😉
Joking aside it’s an issue we are well used to via the warconsole platform and we can devise ways to deal with it later if or when it needs to be 🙂
The new site looks interesting. I like the split voting system, although I think that the writing category could be split into background writing and rules writing. Those are just two very different things. Some games might have great stories, but only average rules, or the other way around.
I’m a bit wary of the consolidation phase we are moving into. Although a strong financial base can be great for the longevity of some games it might ruin quite a lot of others.
As an example I’m a bit nervous about the way Hawk Wargames went to TT Combat. Although I have enough confidence in the company itself there are these questions in the back of my head. Will the original creator be able to continue his vision? Will new rule sets reset the game and change them into something completely different? Will future releases be bases on passion/originality or financial concerns?
Ok so playability covers how the rules play
Writing covers how the rules are communicated
So…
If the game plays well but has a bad description of the rules but equally has some great background writing then playability could get a gold star and writing could get a silver star.
If you want to be more granular about a specific issue with the game then that’s what the reviews are for 🙂
I would argue that while you can see some game makers going only Kickstarter for supporting each print run of their games they should still support selling extra copies through a webstore. This works best for board games or card games. This avoids most of the warehousing and distribution costs for the company but the downside is it could deny potential sales.
For instance I play the Batman game with a friend and want to go buy it but I can’t then Monolith then has to maintain my enthusiasm for the X number of months between re-prints on Kickstarter.
In the end it has potential for larger or niche games but the game makers are betting that they get the majority of their sales upfront.
I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact Justin was not there in person. That was a cracking weekender this Sunday. First class job. Well done really got me thinking.
Lol
Aw man, I hate using the word “punk” to describe a genre. There’s nothing punky about any of them.
I also hate Norwegian LARP (or Scandinavian LARP). For some ideas of what they can be like, check out the-smoke.org at some of tom foolery going on there and tell me it sounds like fun in any capacity other perhaps trolling them (last year they had some kind of “suffragettes LARP” and I considered going and playing a copper who just arrests them all and locks them up).
God I am feeling ranty today.
You are right, beyond the definition of Cyberpunk, the “punk” in other literary genres is rather meaningless, other than to denote that it is in someway different and more garish and over the top than previous examples of that sort of fiction. For example “Dreadpunk” is really just gothic horror.
Splatterpunk is this case is a reference to the works of Clive Barker and Nancy A Collins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splatterpunk
As for Nordic Larp can you elaborate on why you dislike it? I know the techniques defined under Nordic Larp are not unique to it, but the reason it is typically classified under that term is because Nordic Larp styles are often used for educational purposes, and also such larps gains government funding.
Also not entirely sure that “punk” refers to a more garish and over the top version of previous examples of any given genre because it doesn’t necessarily inform of the genre of which it is a garish and over the top version of. For example what is steampunk a garish and over the top version of? Generally speaking it’s Victoriana or Victorian Sci-Fi or Victorian Fantasy. Why are these not adequate names for the steam punk genre? Steam is neither punk nor (in most cases) steam. Using “punk” kind of implies a slight lack of imagination.
I love the fact that BoW 2.0 has a knob joke section
Happy Sunday Everyone! Another great show, fascinating and thought-provoking as ever, and I am loving all the Star Wars content.
New version of BoW:
Some questions that popped up in my head, I think it’s been covered in some other comments possibly…
How do you cope with new versions of the game/old versions? (e.g. Warhammer Quest classic?)
How do you cope with add-ons (e.g. an add-on that makes it a max 4 player, when it was a max 2 player?)
Are war games in the same kind of system on the site? (in which case, what qualifies as “owning 40k” or how do we score say a good starter set vs a bad starter set).
On the scoring system in general, yeah I’ve looked at this sort of thing before, and it’s bloody hard to get right. I have to say I think what you have shown here is a really good shot at a problem that is impossible to get perfectly right. It certainly looks good.
I can see some flaws, but I think I’d say live with them. One that sticks out for me is thinking about one of the older WoD editions, which had brilliant lore, that was its main strength, but the mechanics were very poorly written, poorly indexed and taught. So I’d score it a silver star, when really it’s a gold for lore and a 0 for mechanics! I think that is a compromise you just have to accept though, as there will be dozens of other imperfect examples or complexities if you try and solve it another way.
The Industry:
Regarding consolidation, I feel like it’s a natural cycle you see in every industry, and certainly in creative industries. As long as you have a healthy legal framework that has the right balance of regulatory burden and free market, that cycle will happen. I think you will always see consolidation growing and growing, then when the disadvantages of so much consolidation start to hurt (high prices, lack of creative freedom, lack of innovation and risk-taking etc…) you’ll see people break off and independents start to grow and the cycle will go back the other way. Right now we are in a consolidation phase, and I think that will continue for some years yet. But I think it’s likely it will turn back towards splitting up again at some future point.
I do think KS is a really healthy part of what drives innovation and allows higher risk games to find a market. I would also say though that for most people, the cost of running a Kickstarter has really gotten high. I saw a webcomic the other day where a guy lists all the things you have to do to have a successful Kickstarter, to which his friend replies “I’d best start a Kickstarter to raise funds to promote my actual Kickstarter:”
As a side note @warzan you are dead-on about a lot of what happens in the video games industry. I worked doing games for about 10 years, and a lot of what you’ve said rings true with my experiences of it.
I like the look of the new BoW so far. The rating system looks great, however I would recommend putting something like a tooltip or some info on what is meant or how to judge a part like for instance “components”. One word can at times be interpreted in many different ways. This way the overall data could become more of a complete image of a game.
I kind of hate it that games would only be available on Kickstarter. I understand that it’s hard to ship and store games like for instance “Kingdom Death: Monster” regularly in a gaming store. However with “Kingdom Death: Monster” they still sell the full game from their own website. I’m not sure if these are leftovers that they overproduced from their Kickstarter or that they still produce these. Yes, “Kingdom Death: Monster” is more expensive to buy from their store than it was during their Kickstarter, but this way the game will still be available to everyone. I hope that that is the way forward for large and heavy games.
KDM is stocked on their store, not as leftovers, but as actual stock. That is the aim of Poots, so that people do not have to hunt for it on ebay and get stuff that is overpriced.
In terms of consolidation it’s definitely a double edged sword. On the one hand you risk making an EA that essentially just turn out shite, push for releases to be made when products aren’t mature enough and then disband studios when games don’t do as well as expected (look at how they have dealt with Westwood and Bioware studios). But on the flip side look at how many games wouldn’t exist without consolidation. The retailers that have been snapping up the likes of Dystopian wars, Carnevale and Dropzone commander et al also have an advantage in that those games are now being handled by companies that really understand distribution and also have a retail operation propping them up. That means the pressure to be highly profitable isn’t as high – something else is keeping the lights on.
But I can tell you how the FLGSs survive. Consolidation. As larger companies consolidate, companies like GW and Asmodee will still want somewhere to sell products as they do now. The more products those companies have the more they consolidate the more products they will want to sell. I can’t see Asmodee wanting to sell exclusively via their own webstore
Great episode as per normal. Just on the rating system, The Dice Tower episode 510 they discuss rating games and it was a very interesting discussion of the various methods. I’d greatly recommend listening to it. Tom Vassal and his crew are probably the best known games reviewers in the board gaming world.
That is a brilliant Millenium Falcon!! It has all the things!
Give it to @johnlyons along with a dremel and he’ll have it sorted in no time at all.
@warzan For BoW v2.0: is it too late to ask for a “Back to Top” button?
So that after reading the entirety of a page of comments I don’t have to scroll and scroll (and scroll…) back to the top in order to click on the next thing I want to check out.
I absolutelly agree I am to lazy to hit home button on PC not to mention watching you on my phone.
Well huh, I hadn’t ever thought of using the Home key.
Now that I’ve learned that I guess I’m done for the day. 😉 No more homework for me today, it’s time for some hobby. 😉 😛
I’m coming at the new BoW site, as someone who’s been studying information and library science for near 5 years and is now working as a software test engineer. And I can well attest, that there is no perfect system, just systems that work better in some instances than others.
I really like your thoughts about the ranking system. and I don’t have much to add to that. There are off course ways to make different rating systems for different kind of games (like the Exit games, which are a prime example of something rather different). But that would complicate the back end programming to a degree that isn’t worth it. And would not be all that helpful for people when they want to compare games.
I am ‘head over heels’ with the projects button. That is just pure gold for someone like me. Its gonna be a treasure trove of inspiration.
If it isn’t there already, a ‘clear all filters’ button would probably be nice.
Thanks for a great XLBS.
There is more games breaking in to high streets @warzan so I think kickstarter is not as bad seed as you see it mate,. just week ago I have seen exploding kittens on Tesco shelf . it made me smile a lot that day.
It seems to me, that the link for podcast download is not working… it only shows the image, when I click on it. Or am I doing something wrong?