Pointless Views: Should Wargame Companies Avoid Established IPs?
December 20, 2019 by crew
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A bouncy licence: Judge Dredd Miniature Games anybody? 😉 That was with how many companies? 4? 5?
Video game IPs that are currently going/are coming: Fallout and Skyrim. I’d really love to see numbers at Modiphius to see if Fallout is paying off and how Skyrim is predicted to sell.
Also Doom, Starcraft and Fallout as boardgames with minis. Fallout and Doom did a game, Fallout got a sequel but since then silence… But you try to get a Starcraft boardgame anywhere and they charge you an arm and a leg.
Oh and Xcom the boardgame and upcoming Fallout Shelter (if that thing sells I’d be really surprised)
I really can’t think of any IP that hasn’t been tried at least once in some shape or form. Especially since Kickstarter pushed them all to do so.
Fallout is a game i’m interested in but put off of specifically because it’s a licence. I’ve never played Fallout, so that means nothing to me, and i’m put off investing because i don’t want to do so only to find that the licence is suddenly pulled.
Prodos/Archon Studios where doing a 10 or 15mm Starcraft game at one point.
I have played a lot of Fallout and the game is a good game, but the big limiting thing for me is that Modiphius is pretty much stuck with what Betheseda allows and what not. It could be so much better if it wasn’t tied to licensing.
Got my kids into tabletop gaming when GW introduced LOTR. That was all timing with their age and that of their friends – easy to run a gaming session birthday party when everyone knows the universe. Gave my kids the wargaming bug, and to some of their friends. Good for GW as the kids moved on to WH40K and tried some WH Fantasy. I am happy as my Christmas list this year still features LOTR with the refreshed support from GW.
However, I think the license needs to be wargame compatible – bigger skirmishes and battles, with a few recognisable heros, that participate in fighting and not just do their thing with a war in the background, and lots of understandable nobodies; orcs, elves, soldiers of Gondon. I am not sure that tight character focussed IPs work as well – there is fondness for the characters but too many folk like to watch the drama and not recreate it on the tabletop.
I tried the same tactic with my wife who loves The Walking Dead. But I think the kids got the wargaming interest from my DNA. My wife looked truly battled – “I like watching it on the TV, but why would I want to play a game with those characters and pretend to kill zombies??!!” My wife sticks to boardgames as long as they are a vehicle for social interaction.
I no real interest in IP’s but I think a lot of films and TV series like Carnival Row etc tend to lend themselves much better to RPG’s than tabletop games
Fi7r GW licensing they had Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Advanced Heroquest and Space Crusade and Dr Who and they had the rights through citadel to produce LOTR figures as well as the rights to produce licenced copies of a plethora of RPG’s
Were Advanced HeroQuest and Space Crusade licences? I thought HeroQuest and Space Crusade were owned or partly owned by Games Workshop.
I think the only IP FFG own is the Android Universe.
And the most widely known game from that IP FFG licensed the Netrunner game and reskinned it using the Android IP, turning it into the LCG. So when it came time to reup the license, it all turned to custard and FFG had to stop production, just after that had produced what was effectively the second edition of the game, which had gotten a lot of people interested in the playing again.
The Android IP has been used in a number of FFG board games, around 10 novels/novellas, an art/setting coffee table book, and a supplement for the Genesys RPG engine.
Oops I forgot about the setting for KeyForge, but I’m unfamiliar with it, although I’m pretty sure they own that.
After FFG stopped producing the Android Netrunner game fans picked it up and started producing ‘Android Netrunner compatible cards’. There’s still enough interest in the game, despite the difficulty there’s been in getting hold of some card, for there to be clubs and national and international competitions.
On Warren’s point regarding the 40K IP, I don’t think GW actually make that much in royalties from it – it is still a fairly small percentage of their turnover – though that may have changed in the last few years. I think because our hobby is so influenced/dominated by GW we think 40k is worth more than it actually is. If the IP was worth more than the rest of the business, someone would have spotted this by now and bought GW just for the IP.
The biggest IP news I have heard this year is Hornby didn’t renew it’s licence with Thomas the Tank Engine (though it may have happened in 2018…) shocked, I tell ya.
I haven’t been following Warlord’s Doctor Who stuff as much recently, but I am pretty sure they are still waiting on Kylie Minogue to approve her mini 🙂
With the increase in streaming services and need for product, I think some studio/streamer coming for GW will happen sooner than later, especially when they see the series GW have lined up.
I realise that there are a lot of books and comics out there that can be licensed, but I would say that those wouldn’t likely come with the inbuilt merch that GW goes with.
How many folks not currently involved in 40k would become so with a major TV or film release? My bet is zero. I think GW have found pretty much all their fans on planet earth. Licensing the IP would therefore fall completely flat.
I would probably watch but wouldnt have any interest in the game
GW have been starting to work their IP over the past couple of years. I think they have a lot more to come from this, especially if the Eisenhorn TV series gets made. So growing your own IP is worth it in the longer run.
Warning: Boring financial stuff below:
I looked up their last financial statement. They made annual revenues of £256M which converted into an operating profit of £70M. They then added a further £11.3M in royalties, so I make royalties making up about 14% of pretax profit for them.
Their previous results had IP royalties at £9.6M, so a decent % increase.
As for a buy out, GW’s current market valuation is £1.95Bn, so probably not a great investment just for the IP rights! 🙂
But then it wouldn’t just be for the IP… A purchaser also gets the profit and the retail chain.
Absolutely. Although with the current market price being 26 times their annual post tax profit, it’ll take some time to recover the cost of your purchase if everything stayed the same 🙂
Personally I love a good IP. The biggest area you missed out has been the Kickstarter miniatures boardgames like Conan and Batman: GCC which we will see a revisit for early in the new year, although whether existing owners will again buy into lines they already have in large volume is an interesting question.
Personally I’ve waited 30 years for the David Lynch Dune miniatures to arrive with that H.R.Geiger based aesthetic. Still interested in this if the new movie is cool and someone hits with a broad range in God’s own scale.
The IP that might have the biggest traction that we haven’t seen is Call of Duty. Surely that hits the middle of the Venn diagram between mass market video game, suitable combat theme and hobby potential. Can we just imagine for a moment a modern warfare version of Bolt Action with the recognisable characters from the game leading your squads. Yes please. Even a COD reskin Bolt Action for WWII might have some significant impact.
agree on dune and call of duty
Imagine Spectre doing official Call Of Duty models to use with their rule system. That would work well.
Yeah I like the idea about COD, we have seen a similar endeavor with World of Tanks and model kits:
https://www.wargamingstore.eu/collections/world-of-tanks-italeri-model-kits
BUT I’m not sure if that gained much traction though.
HERESY!!!!! @lloyd you haven’t watched The Boys!!!!!!! talk to Justin immediately
Carnival Row is excellent, good crime drama story but it has a world that has great potential
maybe next year or in 2021 🙂
lol 😉
@avernos is 100% right about the Wheel of Time and any Wargaming Companies out there that see this should scramble to get the licences for those minis even the minis from the books.
Wheel of Time is one of the best Fantasy series of all time and if made properly the TV Series will be epic.
I think one of the Major problems with a lot of IP is that they almost always focus on a few characters. LOTR was an exception to this since you had a good mix of small Hero v Villain skirmishers all the way up to Giant Battles like Pellanor. So you end up with games that are basically just Hero-Hammer with generic filler units to add flavour to the setting while the Hero’s duel.
No Spoilers but Wheel of Time starts out nice and Skirmish-y but very quickly jumps right up into Mass Battle Levels.
If someone was even more smart they’d buy the Rights to WoT and the rights to sell Perry Miniatures War of the Roses era minis since they’re basically Wheel of Time minis anyway. All you would have to do is sculpt some Hero Minis and write amazing rules, you could also make the game properly Huge (or at least with the potential to be Huge) since Perry Minis are so cheap and wouldn’t need to be specially designed.
I tend to steer away from licenced IPs because i take my time collecting and, the impression i have from my not entirely meagre experience, is that it is almost inevitable that the licenced IP product will be pulled or discarded, either because the game wasn’t successful enough, or not successful enough to warrant the licence fee, or because it was successful and the consequence of that is that the licence fee is increased or the conditions renegotiated, or i suspect simply because of the threat of the renegotiation process and the time and the expense that will go into that.
That’s not to say i don’t buy into licenced IP games. I bought Cubicle 7’s rulebook for their fourth edition of WFRP and i’ve bought other WFRP fourth edition products from Cubicle 7. My main interest is in the ‘Director’s Cut’ of the first edition ‘The Enemy Within’ campaign. In this case i’m happy to risk the possibility that the licence will be pulled or discarded and ‘The Enemy Within’ campaign left incomplete (again) because essentially what i’m doing is buying fourthified first edition material and because i want the individual parts of the ‘The Enemy Within’ campaign even if the full campaign doesn’t end up getting published.
GW had the 2000ad licence back in the 1980s as well as the Elric of Melnibone license. When they lost the Elric license they rebranded the Melniboneans as high elves. I have a shelf full of GW games licensed from other IPs.
Wargaming companies shouldn’t look to licensing, because that is predictable to fade out without them having any influence. I would say especially TV/movie licenses are absolutely volatile and they should leave them be unless it’s meant to be a one-off from the get go.
If at all, they should look to buy an IP outright, preferably a well received book universe that they then can expand on all on their own.
Best thing to do, though, in my mind, is hire some writers, create your own universe from the ground up. Infinity is doing well on that front, GW obviously did it and was massively successful. Warlord should do it with KoW the same.
Wheel of Time? Blimey. That started when I was a lad and finished long after I stopped reading much genre fiction. Gawds that’s some IP. I’d not buy it 🙂
Creating your own IP. 40k took YEARS to create its own momentum. Some of the newer ones will just struggle to get a foothold. Para Bellum appear to have a tom of lore, but I’ve not really identified with any of the factions, that game coming from Knights of Dice seems similar.
One IP that might stick is Kings of War – perhaps ironically given how sketchy it was to begin with (though bear in mind 40k was too and that’s the most detailed fantasy/sci-fi setting in existence). It’s high fantasy, so veteran gamers know which armies they prefer, there’s enough overlap with LOTR so newer gamers have a way to understand what most factions are about.
Although I haven’t looked in any detail at 40k in years I would say Traveller is just as developed with its background
It’s true Traveller was old when I started gaming but there are hundreds of novels for wh40k. Literally hundreds.
A friend down under was telling that Amzzon have sent out casting calls for extras for the new LOTR series
Dark Souls…
IP based games, like any dealings between small companies and massive corporations, will always be risky for the game companies. I don’t think most game companies go to these because of the financial potential, but more because of them wanting to bring the IP to the table top. And as gamers, aren’t we all thinking that when we read cool books or comics or watch a movie — can I play this is a game.
All companies want the golden ip an very few are a big money maker.
Seen the first episode of the mandalorian and loved it, like the fallguy crossed with firefly I a good way.
Warren an Lloyd the Harry Enfields new Old Gits?
I wish to see miniatures games and figures for:
– Chronicles of Narnia
– Elric of Melnibone
– Chronicles of Amber
So in regards to IP’s there are a few rules for games that really come into play;
1) Factions – 4+ to succeed. As both a player and a retailer I have noticed that nothing kills a game quicker than having less then 4 factions. I watched legion begin to die off just as they introduced the new starter. The factions need to look and play differently. The same stuff in a different colour isn’t enough.
2) Multi-scale conflict. This is the only way to have an in depth campaign system. Have a look at 40K. You can roleplay as an individual in a squad, battle squad on squad, company vs company, army vs army, fleet vs fleet, empire vs empire. The ability to play at every level of warfare satisfies every type of gamer that enjoys the 40K IP. Have a look at persistant IP’s that have long gaming lives; Warhammer, LotR, Vikings!, 40K and Star Wars. Can you do that for Star Trek, Judge Dredd, Halo, Dr Who? You never see all those levels of warfare in most IPs. It makes it difficult to delve deep into the IP. What to armies look like in Star Trek? Do they have tanks? Does Mega City One have a space fleet? They have off world judges but what do they do when they encounter hostile aliens? I suspect when A Song of Ice and Fire introduces sieges (planned) and sea battles (inevitable given who many fleet scenes there are in the show) that game will go to the next level.
3) The ability to “game in the gaps”. I watched players retro-fit Batman, Judge Dredd, Aliens, Predators and Terminators in a 5 way skirmish game for several months. It was clunky but interesting to watch. Watching Batman and cops trying to deal with Terminators was a personal favourite. Could a manufacturer do this? Hell no, and the licencing would be a nightmare, but it certainly looked fun.
4) A good rules system. Probably 50% of the battle in making an IP work in gaming. Clearly decent miniatures too but so many IPs seem to have minis with some hap-hazard rules system strapped to it. If the rules are crap they may as well have just made miniatures and left players to find a suitable ruleset.
Possibly the IP tah gets routinely wasted is Conan. The Monolith ,miniatures board game was OK but all the momentum they had was lost by not following it up with an RPG, warband and small army rules using the same figures and additional sculpts (War machines, war beasts, scenery, etc). Conan became a king and fought in numerous wars, but you can’t fight any of them with Monolith or their rules. An opportunity lost.
Theres a few IPs I’m surprised have never been used. Stargate and Babylon 5 first and foremost. Great IPs that could easily meet all of my rules that sadly go wanting.
B5 had a rpg, 28mm miniatures and a space fleet battle game
Didnt it have a Full thrust reskin as well
yes that would be the space fleet battle game
I thought it had it’s own original ruleset as well
Were any of these rulesets any good?
yes all the ones I own are excellent.
Why didn’t they get traction do you think?
because as I often say people the worst, B5 was off the air in 99 when the internet was still in it’s relative infancy and the full thrust rules are superb but require people to think and they’d rather role a bucket of dice. Pick one.
And it has written orders which is fantastic The original full thrust rules plus supplements are now free to download at http://www.gzg.com along with the excellent dirtside 2 and Stargrunt 2
Did the 28mm minis were for the rpg I gather rather than a minis game?
I remember when Agents of Gaming effectively went out of business and the product line was bought up by Mongoose then when the licence ran out Mongoose enquired about a renewal. The reply from the studio was basically the expected revenue from the IP deal wouldn’t cover the legal fees for setting up the licence. So when you get into the films/TV field for an IP you netter be talking big bucks or go home. However many Wargames companies are just either a one man operation or have under half a dozen involved, so reaching upwards to play in this field is a big gamble (which is why we’ve seen so many previously successful companies go under as they reached upwards to try and expand).
George Romero died a couple of years ago so maybe that’s why the license is available. Still waiting for the evil dead game. We all got terminator to recreate the future war we saw in the first film. The HKs never turned up in genesis so we didn’t get the models we wanted. Warlords strontium dog is the mandolorian.
From the point of the consumer a known IP is nice because they can get things in the images of things they like to play/ display with.
From the point of a company, it is really not worth it for the long term survival, it is worth way too much when it is hot and worth it and when it is affordable (from the perspective of our hobby industry) it is either ruined or so much in the background that it will not generate the expected money.
A company can and should spend the same energy and money as an external IP licence would require to develop their own internal IP it will be worth more on the long term and is both malleable to market demands fast responding to company needs and expandable as needed and more importantly of all not dependent on the competence (or lack of it) of another unrelated company.
@warzan while I agree that a company can downsize when the IP stops (and can plan to do so, even though each time this happens they never expected this to happen) been worth it, there is an ethical question of firing all the people you hired because the IP artificially bloated the company’s needs and now it needs to be downsized because the IP is not worth it anymore.
TLDR, while external IP is nice in the eyes of the consumers and has a good potential for a fast cash grab, a company that cares about their future should avoid it and work on their own IP, costs less in money and time and is better at handling market pressures.
The problem I have with IP based games is that there are too many restrictions, for either the developer or the player. Like with SAGA: Age of Magic, I can make my own army, with my own narrative and make them the way I want, I could not do that in Star Wars Legion, at least not without altering the narrative of Star Wars.
I played a lot of Fallout: Wasteland Warfare and feel that Modiphius is very restricted in what they can do with it because of the licensing rights they have to Bethesda. The game is good and captures the universe from the games well. But with tabletop games I would like the explore the universe from a different point of view and not what is already done in the game or film, because I can just watch the film or play the game for that.
Then there is also companies that over time have developed their own tabletop IPs, like Games Workshop and Warhammer 40k. Once you start developing a narrative for the universe you create, you do have to stick with it and it becomes more restrictive. But you have control over how restrictive you make it when you’re developing it so that you don’t have to go change all the lore people have invested quite some time in and than lose a lot of regular players to that. I think they did that better with Warhammer Fantasy, yes they did kill Warhammer Fantasy, but the lore and IP is all still the same and when you’re talking Warhammer Fantasy it’s different than Warhammer Age of Sigmar. With Warhammer Fantasy it feels more like they closed that book and started a sequel which is Warhammer Age of Sigmar. So there is that as well when you do create your own IPs for games and they become popular. And yes I had to get a rant about Games Workshop out, I’m sorry.
IP, UP, we all P…… ?
Marvel is in a tentative place. Endgame is I think the “end” for a lot of casual fans who may decide to check out of actively following the franchise. So the next couple of movies need to hit the right notes to keep people interested.
The big one we have yet to see as a minis game is Pokemon. Going strong for twenty something years with tones of content and nostalgia for a huge following.
Star Trek is a big universe.
Yet they never really did anything other than clone the original series (Next Gen, Enterprise, Voyager, Discovery … )
The only exception was DS 9
With Star Wars we’ve pretty much seen the same thing : there’s always a JEDI …
I’d be intrigued by a “Necromunda” style game that was essentially a Star Wars bounty hunters guild skirmish game. When/if they release a Scum & Villainy faction in Legion, they could cross-over the figures between the two games.
That could help keep SKUs down and simplify supply chain issues.
A campaign system that allowed you to develop your merc team’s skills would be a fun way to enjoy the SW game universe.
Licensed games for fans are a joy. I love my song of Ice and Fire and my avp mini collection but it is definitely true they are bad business for game companies in general.