Reply To: If you were in charge of GW now

[limburger 21711xp 1]

If I were GW I wouldn’t change a bloody thing.

Massed miniature battle systems are not profitable enough and they can’t compare to the kind of profit a skirmish system can offer.

Let’s do basic math for a moment with a few random numbers for effect.

Assume the average WFB-clone needs about 100 miniatures to make a decent army.

Any skirmish level system can be pretty competitive with 10.

What does this mean ?

As a manufacturer I get 10 times as many customers, which also gives me more chances to try and get them to buy more of my products. We also get the opportunity to sell them a second (or 3rd or 4th) army, because getting such a small team tabletop ready isn’t much of an effort. They’re also more likely to introduce friends as the entry level isn’t so daunting.

That big mass combat army otoh … you’d be lucky if they start a second one.

On top of this I’ve successfully licensed my mass combat system to computer games.  Minimal effort, maximum profit.

Looking at the market I see more companies stepping into the skirmish level fantasy game and only a few die hards trying to relive past glories. This tells me that AoS was a good choice and it’s time to ensure we stay in the lead. More teams, more books, more products, more profit.

Let’s not forget that 9th age is a fan based product.
The average gamer isn’t a geek who is willing to suffer an inferior product. They’re used to high end products with lots of flash that are feature complete and userfriendly.The ‘missing’ bits are marketed as ‘extras’ to buy once we’ve got them hooked on our core products.

Kings of war hasn’t been a blip on our radar.
We might have to worry about ‘Song of Ice and Fire’, and yet … they’re targetting a different audience (fans of the series/books). We know how difficult that is with our LotR product.

So … that RPG. It doesn’t put a dent in profits that D&D is doing and there are dozens of other products within that same space. We do miniatures and board games. The games also lack long term opportunity as the core rules are enough to keep that consumer entertained. Outsourcing it to a company that has at least some experience in running such product lines is another one of those maximum profit /minimal effort type of things. No fear of it interfering with AoS either. At best an opportunity to get them into AoS

Cardgames are like skirmish games. Minimal effort to produce, lots of opportunity for customers to buy multiple sets and introduce their friends as a result of that low-cost entry level.