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The Weekender XLBS: The Hobby Market & Year Of The Hybrid?
August 24, 2014 by dignity
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Happy Sunday guys!
@warzan as for that tosser on FB, people like that really need to go swivel. I keep saying as an online magazine, BOW is cheap for the amount of content that you get. Value for money it beats any and all publications to do with our hobby, end of.
my gut is hurting, I am laughing so hard.
Happy Sunday all.
Why did I know that as soon as @warzan started playing with that models fingers it was heading for disaster?
So RPG’s came in at 15 mill. I wonder how much of the miniatures total amount for the year was boosted by role players though.
Great show guys.
My understanding is that rpg branded minis come under the rpg total. My guess would be that wargaming mini sales intended for use in rpgs is a very small percentage of the minis market. Hypothetically speaking if they did comprise a sizable minority, then rpg companies are missing a trick.
I don’t think many. Modern rpgs don’t rely on miniatures and it is really just pen and paper and a rulebook. The biggest game to feature miniatures is still D&D, but even that does not need them.
happy sundays, great show. Look for crossfire, possible 1/35th scale rules set.
I’m one of those video gamers that came over to the dark side with you guys. heh.
My idea for incorporating Apps into miniature games:
I hate hacking in miniature games, or opening doors and things like that. The reason is, rolling dice doesn’t really simulate the action. What we need is a quick mini-game style App that you can play when you hack a terminal or whatever.
All you would need is 30 seconds on it and its exciting for both players because you are going to be wanting the other person to fail it.
Take infinity for example, hacking terminals should be so much more involved in the world Corvus Belli has created.
I’m on to something here…… off to kickstarter with this one! =P
I personally would like to see Infinity augmented with the Google glasses. Firstly it’s set in a futuristic environment and if you could get the software to recognise things like street lighting , holo ads , enhanced horizon terrain and maybe even thins like weather. Secondly , how cool would it be to see flamers belching across the board, shots pinging off walls for near hits , cammo failing and revealing troops and thrusters on jump troops. Thirdly it could be used to bring in things like that scene in movies where the hero has reached the objective and is stood nervously watching the download bar on the screen fill as troops are approaching. Finally it would help with book keeping , replacing tokens on the board by making them visible to both players and aiding with things like move / range distances .
There may even be a way of introducing a gaming AI as in chess for solo wargames . The first major hurdle is affordability though, the hobbies are expensive enough as it is and there is far to much of ” If you’ve got the money you can be a part of the elite ” in gaming nowadays as it is .
I do think that this could be a viable future for the gaming industry, but as an add on choice not as a necessity to play the game in the fist place. Imagination is still the major component of gaming for all of us.
I just wrote a rambling post about this sort of thing but I just saw this and thought I’d offer some more info 🙂
Like I said in my post the Epson headset boasts that it has a much bigger display than the Google Glass. What this means is that it has the equivalent of a 2 inch window overlayed in the centre of your vision when wearing them. That window is the only possible place the augmented reality elements can be displayed so imagine there’s all sorts of crazy effects going on – you can’t see any of it unless that 2 inch window is pointed at the relevant area. You can’t even display HUD elements anywhere else but in that window.
This caught us out at the office – we thought it would be the full field of view experience (that’s how it was being marketed – and still is in the clever wording) but apparently (and it MAY have changed or may be about to change – my information is a few months old) the Google Glass has a smaller window in the top right corner of your field of view. So to see anything on a table you’d have to be tilting your head slightly and turning it to one side to be able to point the camera at the right area. It’s actually probably not THAT bad but it’s still far from ideal by the sound of it.
Now, as I say I’m no Google Glass expert and haven’t used it myself but it was our initial surprise at the limited display area of the Epson BT that made us investigate and compare the Google Glass. We were surprised that neither was “full-screen”.
BUT after saying that I totally agree with you! Infinity or 40K with all those effects going on! It’d be amazing 😀 we can only hope the tech becomes cheaper, better and more widely available, then this kind of thing will be a reality.
I like the idea of the augmented boards using Google glasses, but I have doubts as to it’s affordability next year
I don’t think there can be any doubt that accessibility is the key to the success of X-Wing and Attack Wing. The IP helps, but it’s not as if those two licenses have been a goldmine in the industry before. The pre-paints and the simplicity of the game play only really leave cost, table space, and opponent, as the barriers to entry. Compare that to WFB which presents potential new customers with a virtual marathon of hurdles to overcome before they’re playing that game as intended (2400 points, full painted, on a table with terrain, using a large and complex ruleset).
X-Wing and Attack Wing work because they use ships, and ships are easy to pull off with pre-paints. The holy grail for wargaming going (more) mainstream will be convincing organic pre-paints.
I was looking at some of the Pathfinder prepainted minis in my LGS yesterday. Some of them are what you would expect, but a few were actually pretty impressive. I think we’re getting close to a point where those better prepaints will be a reality. In the end it will all boil down to cost, and right now gamers seem happy to spend. The average time in the US between recessions is six years though, and we’re at the six-year mark from 2008 so…
We’ve been developing apps with augmented reality for a few years now and have recently been working with the Epson BT headset which is similar to the Google Glass.
In my experience working with AR and headsets I think it is definitely possible to make a tabletop game with these kinds of features.
The problems that exist at the moment are mainly to do with tracking. Screen size at the moment is pretty limited too, I haven’t worked with the Glass yet but I hear it has a smaller display than the Epson one (Which is about 2 inches across in the centre of your vision, not full screen – or fully immersive – like people often think. It’s like seeing the real world as normal but with a 2 inch window that shows the AR overlay.
As for the tracking – there are two ways to do it – with or without markers.
With a board game at the moment you’d be relying on markers a LOT to keep track of units, structures etc, and losing the tracking can cause lots of problems.
I’ll probably do some experimenting as we’ve already discussed this kind of idea and we’re on the ball with the tech but even so at this point the experience would probably be cumbersome.
As I type I’ve already thought of solutions to some of these problems but I still think we (the gaming community) will be waiting until we get full field of vision displays before we can have any sort of intuitive digital interaction with a physical game.
We have an Oculus dev kit 2 on the way so when that arrives I’ll be doing more tests with other game ideas but sadly the problem with that (as far as us physical-world games are concerned) is also it’s strength – the total immersion. You obviously can’t see the real world so there’s no crossover.
What we need is a combination of the Google Glass and the Oculus Rift 🙂
It’s SUNDAY!!!
Although as I’m on holiday everyday feels like Sunday,except for the lack of an XLBS
Google Glass Gaming Gizmo FTW!
just a thought, are kickstarter funds included in the “sales” figures, as $100,000 for a game before retail release is going to move it up the chain, i guess if its in the top 10 next year then its a good game rather than the KS adding to its sales?!?
Can I lower the shoe fund by winning?????
X-Wing being second in sales really doesn’t surprise me. It’s a popular IP and Fantasy Flight has really gone out of their way to make a great game out of it. Star Trek Attack Wing as the number 3 in terms of sales does. I mean it’s a fun game but I don’t think it has anywhere near the player base does that X-Wing does. The fact that card games are the best selling doesn’t really surprise me because they are generally cheaper to get into than miniatures games. However, I am surprised that Cardfight Vanguard did not break the top 5 in sales.
Back in the 70’s, 1/35 or 1/32 skirmish games were mainstream due to the amount of products available, even buildings and terrain from Airfix. Guess it died out with the coming of 28mm miniatures.
Happy sunday, chaps!
The google glass digital battle field mash up got me thinking. I love the ideas about blasts and stats and health etc. But in my view, the google glass mash up would come into its own in more of an almost rpg type wargame. A smaller skirmish game with individuals that can do multiple things.
Imagine, if you will, choosing your squad on your computer. But not only choosing your squad. You can choose the weapons, skills, perks, etc. In, say, a 5v5 game, you go to activate your mini, and it comes up with a pop up window that allows you to pick from any of the actions that your mini has. So say the Gglass has it so you are not in range, you can activate your perk that gives you an extra 6 inches on your range, which it then indicates to you, putting you in range. Or an aura buff that applies within 6″ of the model, the glass takes it and auto sets it to centre on the character and figure the numbers into the surrounding characters or heroes.
To my mind, you could make a more in depth Infinity type game, it would even be perfect for Malifaux, as the amount of skills you have to choose from would suit the system down to the ground.
Then lets look at solo play. You mentioned full spectrum warrior. Now how awesome would it be, rather than having an AI deck or autoresponse flowchart ALA rogue trader imperial robots, if the google glass looked at your moves and pieces, then using similar AI to how things like Xcom work, plans the enemies response, telling you where to place its pieces in return, who the AI is attacking etc. That would let you have variable tactical AI levels of the computer, form Walkover for learning, to battlefield genius, where the computer could rival the great generals of our time! This can work for any system, from squad based full spectrum type games to starship battles. How amazing would a starship battle be if you looked down on to your star filled backdrop, and super imposed were targeting reticles, damage information, relative speeds, torpedo trajectories, etc. If that is the sort of thing that can be achieved, I cannot wait for the next 5-10 years, as this tech is no doubt going to snowball as soon as cost reduces, the same way laptops did, then smartphones, then tablets. Tech breeds tech, and as you said in the weekender, it only takes on person to get it right, then companies will be on it in a shot!
Thank you Guys for the great review of the Mortis, so happy you are enjoying the build Justin! No doubt a lot of effort was taken to engineer the Leviathans to make them as builder friendly as I could while retaining the pose options.
The build looks great, one hint I can give you for the next one is to slide the cap over the hip ball joint and then inert it into the leg, it will allow the legs to fit tightly against the pelvis without having to muscle the connection into place.
Cheers!
Mark
No worries bud i’ll give it a go i have the crusader to finish up and one more of each thanks for the advice and cant wait to see what you guys come up with in the future!!! 🙂
BoW Justin
By my calculations 1/35 scale is approximately 50mm (to eyes for a 6ft man). won’t Bolt Action scale up (approx 3x) especially the Tank War supplement…
@BOW There’s a challenge… take some of these 1/35 tanks out onto some dunes – mark out an area and play a game scaled up! I’m sure John has some 1/35 stock to play with.
Cracking show… very very funny at the beginning.
Would love to see hybrid gaming. Augmented reality would be good for contained games as well as table top, like Deadzone. But I don’t see it happening in 2015. I think we’ll see loads more management apps for games… the Zombicide helper app works really well and is not intrusive and if everyone has it on their phone it speeds the game up.
BEST! XLBS! BEGINNING! EVER! I laughed so hard, totally made my day 😀 Thank you for that.
I always thought that CCGs made up a hugh part of this industry, but the sheer numbers did suprise me. Any info of where FoW landed? It’s probably diluted by the amount of 15mm WW2 companies out there.
Acutally I don’t think that 2015 will be the year of the cross over. And I don’t think that there will be THE year of the video game / wargaming cross over. Of course there will be some kind of products in the future, maybe even with augmented reality. But I think this will hype for some time and then people will go back to “normal” wargaming. Because a hugh incentive of wargaming for me ist that IT ISN’T digital. You have to get down to the table to see whats happening. You have to use your imagination to see a Space Marine wrestling down an Orc in close combat or to have a King Tiger break through a brick wall. Imagination is a key point here. In our hobby a lot depends on it. Every army projects start with imagination. What troops do I want? What pose they will be in? What color scheme do I use? What is there story? Digitization will take away a lot of this.
I started using digital tools to create army lists a while ago. And just a few days ago, my tool of choice didn’t support a list I wanted to built. How much fun and enjoyment I had sitting down with the army book, a pencil and a peace of paper and creating the list was mind blowing. Suddenly all my troops had names. I even drew the head of my commander next to my HQ section. This it what makes our hobby great. And even if I can see, that a lot of cross overs or tools could be useful and make the hobby more accessible, anything digital also diminishes the hobby a bit.
It’s like a book and the corresponding film. It just cannot be the same!
Just my two cents on that, excuse my english.
Agreed! Best first 35 minutes of an XLBS..ever!
As for the news on the US sales figures, there is certainly some really interesting data in there although I didn’t appreciate how much larger the CCG market was than.. well.. anything else in the hobby. Crikey! I guess blind-buys don’t turn people off as much as I thought! Great to hear the Pathfinder card game is doing well and man, FFG are really knocking it out of the park with X-Wing, aren’t they? I’ve been reading a lot of gamers complain about how nobody plays game X or Y at their local club anymore because the players have moved on to X-Wing instead.. so maybe there’s some truth in that,
I’ve got to say, though, that the relatively poor representation of RPGs is rather sad. It makes me want to grab Chris Birch by the shoulders and yell “What are you doing man? You’re not going to make any money doing this! Get to work on a CCG instead!” lol
I think part of the problem with RPGs is that you can buy a few books and be done with your purchasing effectively for years. Most of the roleplayers I know buy in cycles, picking up lots of stuff for a month or so and then nothing for a year or more. Most of them also play in homebrew campaign settings. The great thing about RPGs is that the best thing to bring to the table with you is your imagination. It’s hard to create a steady cash flow around a product like that.
It’s entirely possible that lots of people are roleplaying, maybe more than mini wargaming. It’s just not a product that encourages you to buy something every month like mini games or CCGs.
I agree with you, but I know several of my friends wouldn’t. I’m 36 years old I want to keep my hobby a tactile one. However, several of my younger friends, most around 25 years old or so, like it when everything is pre-made for them. They don’t like assembling or painting. They don’t care much about creating a story/setting for their army, they just want to play. I understand that not everyone likes every part of the hobby equally (I myself LOVE the fluff, like to play and slightly dislike painting), but this outlook horrifies me. If these instant gratification kind of persons are the future of the hobby then the hobby will be transformed into something totally alien for me fairly soon.
I hope that isn’t true, but I fear you have a point. Hopefully there will always be enough gamers like you and me who can enjoy a completely physical and analog game. Being an IT guy I have enough computers around me all day. I really enjoy working (assembling, painting, writing) and playing with physically real things and people who acutally stand before me. It is a great decceleration in a time, where everything gets more digital and faster from day to day.
I think the problem with RPGs is exactly what @mpopke said. My friends and I do a lot of RPG stuff to. But when I compare what we spent as a group over the years on wargaming and on RPGs its a hugh difference. We play Star Wars Saga Edition (yeah I know) for what I think will be 7 years now. We own every book, some of them several times. And the accumulated sum is less than what a single one of us spends on wargaming in a single year.
Nowt wrong with playing Saga Edition. I still prefer it (or perhaps more accurately, I found it more suitable for my gaming group) than EotE. I’m still trying to track down a copy of Unknown Regions that isn’t £50+ 😀
Excellent show indeed. I must say I’m very happy with my decision to get backstage some two months ago or so. You guys are very entertaining and informative. Keep up the good work and I hope you get many new backstagers =)
Concerning bridging TTGs and digital media I’m…hesitant. I don’t play Infinity/DW or any other miniatures games because I want to involve digital media. I AM using digital army builders but I don’t want to computerize mini wargames, that’s what we have real computer games for. Having some fancy google glasses to show a sort of HUD also seems totally superfluous. Digital media as book keeping is helpful but there’s no way I’m going to have some fricking app play the game for me, not when I play a physical miniatures game! The only thing which would change my mind is a fully holographic high definition table top game where you could lead the troops on the holo-table and see them duke it out in real time. So…perhaps my kids will see that.
Happy Sunday!
Have sat here watching this whilst assembling the leg/foot pistons on my Reaver Titan….. and then Justin says he built that entire Leviathan kit in 2hrs! It took me that long to build the legs on this thing!
Ref 40k, it’s future and overall sales – @warzan touched in this yesterday regarding the whole gameplay/turn sequence slowed the pace of the game when compared to games like Bolt Action. 40k has become too cumbersome and probably does need stripping down a bit. The tactical objectives have added to the gameplay in 7th Ed, and changed the dynamic. But it’s still you go/I go.
I also still have to carry around multiple rulebooks/army books/expansion books to play the game, as well as the armies. OK the e-books have reduced that but not all of us want to join the fruit-based cult 😉
Now you compare that to X-Wing/Star Trek – It’s a no brainer. The reason 40k is still sat at the top of the pile is it’s such a behemoth of a game, you need to spend a fair wedge of cash for your books, armies, scenery. X-Wing you just need a mat with a starfield printed on it, and some asteroids as shown how to build by your good selves. It’s quick and easy to pick up, set up and play.
As for the future – as mentioned above, I prefer my digital world and my tabletop world to stay seperate, otherwise I might as well sell off my minis and play Dawn Of War / Starcraft over and over…. but that’s just my view… I may be proved wrong
Hay @warzan this is for Loyd Golem Arcana is already working on the agmented reality side of the game and has a work in progress – http://youtu.be/saDHrC_0QxM
If I could pick any setting for a wargame it would Stephen Baxters XeeLee setting.
It’s hard SF with lots of crazy tech and ideas that will blow your tiny human mind (like it did my own haha), NONE of the aliens are humanoid shaped, infact two of them are more spherical based, the main antagonists are Dark-matter based life called Photino birds which gradually drain the energy from the core of stars, ending fusion and causing premature ageing into red giants, the habitats they prefer (And they seek to do this to the entire universe) so it is basicly a war fought between Baryonic matter and non-bayronic matter (Dark matter/dark energy).
The war spans litterally the entire time-line of the universe itself, so it is far more epic than something like 40k – hell the books span litterally several billion years, describing the future of humanity and the wars fought against the XeeLee, Photino birds and others. Infact, the Xeelee themselves are so hardcore they make Time Lords look like toddlers – They can construct Closed Timelike Curves and live in the event horizons of black holes which they use as computing devices ect
It even has crazy stuff like the “Ring” which is an escape hatch out of the universe itself made from a cosmic-string made into a loop that creates the phenomenon called the Great Attractor (the Great Attractor is actually a real anomoly too, look it up!). Imagine the Ring as the setting for a space based game. Theres plenty of material for ground based warfare as well. I consider it the ultimate SF setting and with the insane level of tech and weapons available would make an awesome wargame I feel.
@warzan : full spectrum warriors on the table top is called force on force by ambush alley games 🙂 You can play it 15 to 28mm and it’s actually a brilliant system ! There is no I go you go, it’s very dynamic and takes in account a lot of modern warfare’s stuffs such as snipers, IED, drones … I have both 15 and 28mm models, and in both cases it’s a blast to play it.
and as for 1/35 scale, they are too fragile to play with. The rifles are so thin you’d break them all the time, hense the “epic” scale 28mm with big guns …
That said, you can always pick up these guys if you really want some modern – and customisable – loadouts for 1/35 US infantry. I was also a big fan of Full Spectrum Warrior and my 28mm Stryker Rifle Platoon is coming along nicely 😀
Dur.. forgot the link!
http://www.modeldisplayproducts.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=123_124
@siygess – these look awesome, are they durable enough to be handled for game play (ie the gun barrels)?
I can’t say as I’ve only seen them on that site while ordering other things. I’m trying to stick to one scale, so all my ultra modern stuff in 28mm comes courtesy of Empress Miniatures 😉
One of the many things I love about war gaming is the fact I am away from a screen. I like that its a different experience.
Although with genres such as Sci-fi there could be a plethora of exciting ways to make the games we love that little bit extra special. I would hate It to become a one trick pony, or that I have to use It to play the game…there would be nothing worst than realizing the batteries about to go on my device and I cant find the extension cord, that would be a bummer mid game. Specially when I could just turn over a card or use the simple tools we already have that work fine.
But I certainly would not argue with progression or change…Its just something new…and new things tend to make me sceptical.
In the end though if something spectacular is made that marries the two…well only time will tell.
Great show! You guys are so much better than TV! Super happy to be a backstage member. Looking for the DemiGods Rising contest link with no luck… must have navigation deficit disorder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG018mwu70E….google glass video…hillarious!
Oh man I hope we don’t all end up like that in the future lol
There are some amazing 1/35th scale miniatures around but I don’t think the scale lends itself to wargaming. I think the issue is terrain. Creating the density of terrain needed for a good skirmish game in 1/35th scale would be quite a task.
GW’s Inquisitor game used 54mm miniatures but just never took off, in part due to the terrain issue. The only reason there is a thriving Inquisitor community today is because people have converted the game to 28mm.
Its a bloody good game at 28mm!
@warzan when you sad lived was the lock on the inside or the outside of the door. LOL
sad I ment said
Blizzard Diablo’s might be good as dungeon crawler or skirmish game. Given epic background it may fit even as a war-game.
Great show guys as for the cross over between main stream entertainment and table top hobbies I’d like to see some of the tabletop games original ip crossover into the main stream how cool if done well would a dropzone commander movie be.
I think a Google glass type head sets may be the death nail for games why spend time painting figures for a game. When you could be in the game as whatever you want like 40K spacemarine the graphics where brilliant if you stopped and looked about you though it was a real city being attacked. With the glasses you could be the marine killing Ork’s especially added to the wii motion sensor with a controller that looks like a bolter. Played a 3D game on holiday years ago fighting as a battlemek graphics were a bit tron’y but loved the game. Evan had the highest score for about twenty minutes until my nephew scudded it. Ho hum LOL
“What?! My Little Pony have a card game?” Made my day 😀
I paid to listen to poo stories.
Worth it. Still laughing.
I agree with quite a few of the others here. I don’t see much scope for crossover beyond book keeping apps such as Justin was talking about, because the hobby today is basically a rejection of computers.
Which isn’t to say computers aren’t cool, or that wargammers shouldn’t like computer games. But if you want a computer to do something for you, the chances are you’re best off playing a computer game.
Mind you, I suppose using a computer to add special effects or do other stuff for you wouldn’t be too different from people using unpainted armies (or prepainted minis).
Still, I think the point of playing a tabletop wargame is to use your imagination and your creative skills. I think for the most part that if a game is significantly improved by the use of a computer then there’s a problem with a game. Most wargames these days have stopped using the huge volumes of tables and charts that existed back in the day, as designers and players realised that fun was to be had not in realism-replicating detail, but in broad brush rules that give you a feel for the setting and allow you to use your models playing a game with your friends. If the rules do that well, as many rules sets do these days, there’s not a lot apps and ‘convergent’ technology can offer you.
I think Warren could be onto something when he says that 40K needs to ditch the rules and start from scratch. I think actually than many people in GW feel the same way, but are wary of doing what White Wolf did with their world of darkness, and piss off (and drive away) a large amount of their customers with a system reset. The alternative however is a steady leaking of players away to other, better games (it’s not all about the prices!).
Thankyou guys for making my sunday start with a great laugh.Very interesting about the gameing figures
The amazing thing with X-Wing is that for a very long period of time, you had:
“How much of X-Wing has been sold?”
With the answer being: “All of it.”
Attack Wing is very much going the same way, my local games shop hasn’t had a ship in stock for more than a week for it.
As for the future of gaming. I’m really hoping that Purple Guerilla are able to do what they’re advertised for the mantic games. – Although, they’re seeming to be LONG overdue now.
Each player having a live, fully integrated campaign and gaming system on their tablet would be great. – I’d even be ok with not having to roll any dice, myself, you telling it the modifiers need and it gives you the result.
Click a button, you’ve got your stats for your models in Deadzone up, including any special abilities or upgrades you’ve gained over the course of the campaign. Click another button, and you can look at your card hand, your mission cards, it tracking your mission objectives.
The game levels people up, after you tell them the model got a kill and it will work out all the exp itself, quite happily.
Just something there in front of you that can handle all the game management ‘stuff’ that can slow you down from actually getting on and playing.
One of the issues Fantasy Flight has always had, I’ve found is what I call ‘Token Overload’ – Wizkids tried to top this in Attack Wing as well. The same sort of thing would be marvellously useful there. – Tell your computer you’ve discarded this card, that ship took hull damage, that other one took a critical hit.
Just minimising the clutter from the actual games, letting you have the full spectacle of awesome models arrayed against each other in their full glory. – That’d be quite a thing to have, I’d say.
Honestly I think it will be 2016. This year was the year all of those games like XCOM Board Game and Golem Arcana were introduced. While next year we may see some more leaning towards more digital leaning tabletop games, I think it will take two years of coding, graphics creating, production, and setting up and managing the full supply chain. Think about a game like Skylanders. How long does it take to make a game like that, make all the little figures and program all of the the chips to put into the figures? Do I think tabletop games in 2015/16 will be that advanced? No (although who knows?), but I think that with the added aspect of programming development teams will be larger and it will take longer to create the game to the digital standard that y’all were talking about.
Great discussion!
Another fantastic show! Lloyd – thank you for mentioning Halo! My husband has just gone on a 5 min talk about how we should have an interactive Halo game….and shouted SEE!! I told you…when you mentioned it lol If he ever got to sit at the table with you and Warren the show would last for days……He is from Belfast as well! I imported him to the states lol
Ah a Belfast man, he probably could talk for days then 😉
Some interesting stuff, another great video guys.
You can give an approximation of GW market share from the numbers, GW’s own figures show them at $57 million from the US region, whilst miniatures is £125 million from those numbers.Now, it is my understanding that GWs in house sales do not get added to those icv2 numbers as its from independents, bit given there are very few GW shops in the US, and even their HQ store is a one man affair these days, the majority of their sales will be through gaming stores not their own retail line. Even allowing for some deviation because of that, it is clear that 40K is down to around 50% of the market, and with fantasy nowhere in the top sellers, what was once 90% market share is clearly nowhere near that now.
50% of the market is still, of course, hugely impressive, they still dominate wargaming, but what seems to be going on to me is that the rapid growth in wargaming in general is happening around them, not too them. In fact, whilst other companies and sales overall are growing fast, GW sales are actually falling.
GW should be very worried about that, not only is there a problem with their core audience, GW are not keeping up with market changes.
X wing, Attack Wing, the growth shown by Corvus Belli and the success of Mantics Deadzone, Dreadball and Mars attacks all show where the market is going and it is shifting to quick to play games, because working practices and society as a whole mean people just have less time. That GW, right in the middle of this trend, release a new version of its game with the major addition being rules to make games take even longer speaks volumes,
When Kirby stated they don’t do market research, he wasn’t lying. The evidence is in those numbers.
Ah, prepaints, the elusive business Holy Grail of the miniatures industry.
Mage Knight tried it. That tanked as practically all the other clicky games. I think HeroClix is the only one that survives, probably mostly on the strength of the license rather than the game.
Mongoose pretty much killed off their entire miniatures line with the failed venture into prepaints of Battlefield:Evolution.
Plus the mess with Rackham.
You could probably find other examples if you bothered to look.
The idea does kinda have business sense. What is the number one excuse you get when trying to introduce new people to the hobby? “I can’t/don’t have time to paint.” Right?
It does make business sense to seek growth by appealing to these new groups. The problem is that by doing so, you are changing your product so fundamentally you will alienate at least part of the existing customer base.
That still might make business sense, but it won’t make sense for those diehards.
Movie industry is bigger than book industry. More people see movies than read books, so it makes business sense to cater to the moviegoers.
But regardless of which is “better”, seeing a movie is just not the same thing as reading a book.
Dining out, cooking and gardening can all be hobbies about food but that doesn’t make them interchangeable. People who do gardening do it because they love gardening, not because there are no carrots at the supermarket. People who cook don’t do it because frozen pizzas haven’t been invented.
I haven’t gotten into X-Wing. I just don’t see the hobby in it.
More importantly perhaps, I don’t even know anyone who plays X-Wing.
I spent the entire last weekend painting stuff. There was not a single second I thought: “Gee I wish this was done so I could get on with the game already…”
The fear I have is that we are such a niche hobby that if all the “I’d rather be playing” -types leave for the prepaints, there won’t be a hobby left for the rest of us.
When I started, this hobby used to be about stuff like this:
http://www.smallcuts.net/photo/?id=2142
That’s already been outlawed. For business reasons.
The day prepaints are all there is to have is the day I leave this hobby.
How dare you NOT charge us for Backstage. Worth every penny!
Re 1/35. I reckon the big advantage it has over more popular wargaming scales is the choice of tanks – which would need a huge table. If we’re then reduced to skirmish games (and the small US teams vs AI insurgents idea sounds ace), there’s little advantage to using 1/35 over [whatever scale your terrain collection is].
OTOH the massive table thing could be overcome by tank battles in the garden (weather permitting and it’s just gone all to hell in my part of the world).
Good show…got to love bank holidays to catch up…lol
Talking about computer augmented war gaming.. probably not as advanced as your thinking but i know of at least two systems used in Naval War gaming to aid this. The reason being that the complexities of some of the naval rules make for a very slow game, but using a computer to take the grind out of the system speeds things up and also can keep track of damage which affects the ability of you ships to fight.
The first was developed by these guys for Napoleonic Age of Sail games .
http://www.inshore-squadron.co.uk/index.html
The other which I have not got a link to was my mate took an old set of WW1 and WW2 rules (Micro fleets) and using only an access database created a computer assisted wargame which can play through in a few hours rather than days.
Both of these systems have been around for 10 years or more and have been developed.
For augmented reality games check out this Kickstarter.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system
I know the Kicksterter is over and the initial orders should be filled soon. This is the technology I see for gaming as you can see the table through the glasses. In addition since the technology uses singly reflecting fabric, two people looking through the glasses at different angles will see different images. The intro video on the Kickstarter shows how it could be used for D&D (3:12 if you don’t want to watch the whole video). I think in a year or two you will see this type of technology used in gaming.
Be it the CastAR, Google Glass, or some other product. It will take a few years for these emergent techs to be in gaming as the development tools have to be in place to make it easy. Until there is solid development tools for these technologies, it will be too expensive to develop for it.
Nope.
A great show guys.
Someone touch on this before but what I would love to see is actually a campaignsystem for say 40K. You enter what armies are there etc etc and then the app or computer program had a map and you chose from that where to go and what to do. It could even be from your own home with secret bidding etc and then the system would check who to play and if there where any special scenarios. It could keep track of your warlord and XP if you wanted.
then you played the game (proper with minis and rule books at hand) with the scenario instructions and reported it back to the system who then would generate a nice show of the round. A complex and nice looking Planetary empires but with proper rules and a specific story.
That’s actually a really good idea, and uses the technology to it’s strengths and keeps it out of interfering with the gaming. It would make it much easier to run simple campaigns and would also be an easy way to record them so you could play them back later and have a record.
Cracking show as always guys, laughed so hard at the start.
On the FB guy, I just picture a guy repeatedly hitting himself on the hand whilst verbally abusing himself for doing it. There’s a frigging free subscription, it’s not like @warzan is going to come round to your house with a truck battery and some jump leads to attach to your nads should you decide not to sign up.
Don’t let the guy stress you out mate, there’s people out there who have no idea how much it costs to run an operation like this and somehow think ‘the internet’ should pay you for giving them content for free. I wonder if he emailed netflix when his free trial ended? lol
the Hybrid game makes sense, but it needs to be a digital roll out map that can be customised for different games and scenarios. With screens being made more flexible and affordable now, you would just need to interface your Iphone or Android smart phone to it with your army list on it. The mat or board could then do all your measuring and hit/kill scores for you. This way you could also keep a record of the games you have played so you can analyze and improve your game.
Hey, I just signed up to Backstage. I came for the in depth discussion on the finance of the US hobby sales. But I may stay for the stories of chasing excrement down streets.
Would love to see a 1/35 scale wargame. IMO it would need to be a city or urban skirmish game otherwise tanks and large scale weapons would dominate, battles such as Stalingrad or Berlin would be perfect settings. I think you will find 1/35 models are quite robust as many now have brass etched parts and barrels for the guns, as it allows finer detail to be achieved and keeps the integrity of the part. Many 1/35 kits now come with these parts in the box, or aftermarket parts are available to upgrade other kits.
I agree with the comment earlier that many miniature sales for RPG’s are hidden in the sales of wargames, I know many here on the forums like to partition off the different gaming systems, but people don’t tend to do that. Most of the RPG players I know buy miniatures they find appealing, not because someone in a marketing office says they are for RPG’s. Some of the miniatures for RPG’s are not in the wargaming world, but these days I am finding that to be much less the case. I use mostly wargaming mini’s for my RPG’s, so the only money that would register on the radar for me would be the game books, but this is not an accurate representation of my spending. I know this is the case for most of my friends. It is an interesting point about collectors contributing to the market ( in games such as X-Wing). I would be fascinated to see how much of the LOTR sales from GW went to collectors rather than just Wargamers, and what the conversion rate to wargames was. From the ongoing sales it seems to have been small. I see on forums the Hobbit range has been a flop for the collectors.
@warzan
To add to the business discussion a bit, this Washington Post article cites that Magic the Gathering (on it’s own) is a $200 million per year industry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/growing-fantasy-game-universe-collides-with-entrenched-boys-club-mentality/
That puts one arm of WotC’s business right in line with GW as a whole company. Kind of puts trading card games into perspective.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/growing-fantasy-game-universe-collides-with-entrenched-boys-club-mentality/2014/08/26/3745c1fa-2971-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html
WaPo’s site is kind of annoying.
Don’t worry about wandering off on this show. I’d love to hear more stories of Haunted Sanitarium. That was the most entertaining bit of this show.
The other parts were very informative. Personally I don’t think the hybrid digital games will work in a big way anytime soon. Many attempts have been made using different technologies. Does anyone still remember the video adventures like Atmosfear? Of course there will be various attempts using iPads and augmented reality. They will add little bits and pieces to games. But in general I think the technology is still a bit too clunky to be practical. It draws attention away from the game, instead of focusing on it or freeing up your mind.
It looks like we’re just seeing the boardgame/wargame hybrids work out at the moment, with games like Demigods Rising, Myth, Descent etc. That could continue for some time to come with more companies trying their hand at it.
Interesting news hot off the press following this XLBS’s reveal on the games market, particularly the top board games…
Asmodee have just acquired Days of Wonder (Ticket to Ride, Small World etc.). Seems to make a lot of sense given the relative sizes and capabilities – DoW use Asmodee a lot for distribution etc. and will remain a ‘studio’ within Asmodee.
Google Glass i not useful at all, you need to check Meta from SpaceGlasses, those guys nailed it! And yes, i will get into 40k if the made a digital system using HUD Augmented Reality. The game as it is just too cumbersome to learn and play, Warmahordes is far easy because the standard rules don’t change and anything extra is in the cards. Being able to play with AR will be amazing because we could feed our results and battlereports directly onto livestreams like twitch, making it at the same level as videogames are right now. We just don’t that level of content generation that games like League of Legend has ( 1rst in Twitch! ), you can’t make serious money as professional wargamer, while pro-gamers can live almost as professional athletes. Is not like “Hey we need ProWargamers!” but is good to have all that in a environment in order to being taken more seriously, for example card games where i live are HUGE, even a local card game like Inferno is getting a lot of popularity and people take the tournaments very seriously, to the point of buying/training for those dates.
I can’t see the convergence happening this year or next as any new tech that would allow the augmented reality thing to happen is going to be to expensive, I can see the tech being created in the next year or so but I think it could take another two years for developing hardware and software too become available and cheap enough for our limited hobby budgets