The Game and the Business

[FoeRender]

I agree melv and even the tourny wyrd crowd is in it for fun . the most relaxed and enjoyable events I have ever attended in my close to 20 years of gaming !

[codeman123]

Wargames have to be more than about money and winning.

/essay

Well im hearin yeah man. I have been playing miniature games for 15 years and of course started with 40k. Played a whole slew of other games but always went back to 40k. Lately though im really disconcerted with 40k players in that they seem to have no fun at ALL! They are purely there to win plain and simple. Not to hang out at the game store on a Saturday or friends garage or whatever throw back some beers talk about games and play games and have alot of fun. This recently is what has really been turning off of the GW line the mentality of the player more so then the increases in prices..

[Manicmac]

I have been a wargamer and a miniatures gamer for many, many years. (GW wasn't around when I started with mini's.)

Codeman has a bit of the same idea I have, this is a hobby, a way to spend an enjoyable afternoon or evening with like minded people that enjoy the game itself not victory at all cost. That is more a reflection on the player than the company, but it is why I do not play either my WHF or 40K armies anymore, not the price of the product. ( I still am painting my Dark Elves and have been for longer than I care to confess.)

Their is no bad guy in this. GW is out to make money, as are PP and Wyrd. We still can choose which gets our money.

[LoboStele]

Well, I figure I might be a slightly different perspective, since I’ve only been playing table-top games for about 5-6 years, and I never played, nor was really interested in ever playing any GW stuff. Heck, my first exposure to GW was until I was about 21 or 22, during Senior Design class for my Mechanical Engineering degree where one of the other guys in my group suggested we build a robotic Skaven for our design project (which we did!). I had no idea what GW or 40K was up until that point. The price of 40K, and the huge obstacle of painting large amounts of models turned me away at first though. I enjoyed spending my free time on other things, and I didn’t really know anybody that played the game.

Fast forward to a couple years later, I ended up getting sucked into the Star Wars Miniatures line by WOTC, as I picked up a couple things on clearance (I’m a HUGE SW fan), and then had a local friend point me toward some other folks that played. So I played that VERY heavily up until the last year or so, competing in high-end events at GenCon and the like. Looking back though, I see that this was only PART of the table-top gaming hobby. The great thing about it though, is that since they were pre-painted models, I was able to play right away, which was the main thing I wanted to do. It captured my interest because I had always enjoyed strategy board games (Risk, Stratego, Axis & Allies, Chess, etc.), and then this combined Star Wars as well. Awesome! So it was a simple hook to get me into the table-top realm to start with. From there, I was then drug into the idea of customizing figures. WOTC only produced so many Stormtrooper or Jedi sculpts, and it was fun to do simple slice and re-glue modifications to get other poses. But that shortly led to thoughts of “Oooh, I wonder how cool it will look if I put this guy’s torso with this other guy’s legs?” But then I had mis-matching colors and had to buy paints as well!

Anyways, long story short, I became a pretty heavy customizer of those pieces, and I still very much enjoy crafting wholly individual ‘kit-bashes’ for RPG characters and such. I even took 2nd place at the GenCon customizing contest one year. But then WOTC did the unthinkable, and cancelled the line. So, as of last summer, I was left with money burning a hole in pocket, which usually would have gone to buying boosters of SWMs. I was determined to keep playing the game, to maintain the friendships with people across the world and such. But many of the local players began to jump ship, looking for other things to play. Many of them were not as connected to the online community as I was, so they had less interest it sticking with a ‘dead’ game. So, several of them turned to Malifaux. Nobody was wanting to play my game as much anymore, but I still wanted to hang out with these friends that I’d be seeing every Thursday night for the past 4 years. A few guys picked up a Malifaux crew or two, and some of the early adopters began raving about how fun the game was. I figured “Ah, what the heck”. I would have spent $150+ buying cases of SWM Boosters whenever a new expansion released, so $70 for Book 1 and a Viktoria’s box set was an easy sell for me, and even though I expected to not play much at first (still wanted to play more SWM), I was intrigued by the very nice models. I had not painted any metal miniatures before, and I saw it as a good chance to expand my horizons a bit. I had no idea what it would turn into!

Now, almost a year later, I own over 70 Malifaux models, with Masters from 4 factions. I have played exactly 3 games of SWMs since GenCon of last year. I’ve become a Henchman, and help run local events at the LGS and such. In fact, I have plans to meet a guy on this Thursday who wants to start playing Malifaux and wants pointers on what to buy first.

I do all of this to say that I definitely think it is vitally important to have a solid group of local players who will tout the game and peer pressure others into buying some models. Malifaux is definitely like a drug of sorts, LOL. You might only start with one box set, but it’s nearly impossible to stop there. The great thing about it too, is that it seems to be appealing to ALL the different types of people in our LGS. I really love doing incredibly wild and crazy things with my pieces, converting stuff and adding extra flare to my models (check out my Rasputina crew for an example). So I’m a slow modeler/painter. But I’m also a highly competitive player, and so I like the tournament scene. We have another guy in our store who doesn’t have a lot of time to paint, and that isn’t really his favorite part of the hobby. So, he’s been paying one of the other guys who DOES like to paint, to do his models for him. And then that first guy just recently bought like 3-4 fully painted crews off of somebody on the forums here I think. And then we have the really relaxed casual players too (who still want to win), but are really there just having a good time. So, for our local group, Malifaux has REALLY seemed to hit almost every niche just about right. But again, I don’t think this would have been possible if not for the fact that several of the first players in our area were really excited about the game, and the rest of us now continue to push it to other potential players.

Anyways, I would agree that in some ways, Wyrd could do better with their marketing. But as a small, relatively new company, I think they’re doing pretty well. I don’t know about GW, but I would bet that they didn’t do much more during their first 3-4 years of existence either. I would say, based on the incredibly packed booth at GenCon last year, plus the fact that our LGS has trouble just keeping blisters in stock half of the time, that Wyrd must be doing something right. Sure, there are things that I hope they will incorporate later (Organized Play, more advertising, sponsored prizes for smaller conventions, etc.), but I realize that it will take time.

And see….other people like writing walls of text too.

[Manicmac]

Had to laugh Lobo! I too was into Star Wars mini's. Originally made by FASA and the mini's were 25mm metal unpainted. . . R2D2 was a pain to paint. A set of mini's cost almost $12.00! (Han, Leia, Luke, C3PO, R2D2, Chewie, and two Rebel soldiers.) Still have them some where around here.

Now then, you do bring in WOTC. . .which is deemed evil by many a gamer especially D&D players. . .

Wyrd is fine, As long as they do not dump on their core as GW did with it's Outrider program. . . .

[Fenrir]

My last couple of Games Days I ran games at, I got a chance to wander round, I was getting bored after 30mins.. In the old days they used to show lots of interesting new stuff. I went looking for new Skaven and they had 2 or 3 models that had sneaked through as they were converted and painted by John Blanche. this was a couple of months before the release.

I stopped going to Games Day for much the same reason. We used to make it a yearly trip/beano without about 10-12 people going, but the recycling of the same old displays put paid to that.

The club ran a table in 2001 (I think, memory is not good there and might have been 2000) and didn't bother going after that.

[Carcosannoble]

I feel like I should be taking notes, some of this is damn fine advice. I played GW Fantasy and Mordheim for over ten years, and my interest in them has been waining every since seventh edition. They just kept poking whole in my little Warhammer dirigible until it crashed to the ground in a broken heap. Then a friend bothered me to take another look (a good long one) at Malifaux, and now I'm turning my skills at building the grandest clock tower/workshop in the city (I used to get paid for this sort of stuff). Anyway, GW never impressed me enough to make a miniature city block pro bono while I was playing their hobby. I have a plastic box under my bed filled to the brink with Beastmen and Undead, and I doubt they'll ever see the light of day again.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Carcosannoble
Hahaha! Mispost extraordinaire!

[TheRiddler]

This is a really interesting thread - let me give you my own background into minature-dom (is that a word? can it be?)

I stumbled onto Space Hulk board game which was sold in a local toy shop. In it there was a little leaflet about all the GW range.

That led me to WHFB, then onto Bloodbowl, Necromunda and GorkaMorka (should have been obvious to me by then that I was a fan of skirmish games...although I loved the 'growing' nature of those games).

And that was it for me - I was never aware of any other companies, or gaming systems out there, so I loyally bought my White Dwarf, pretty much every single army book ever released, some models, but never actually played a game - guess I'm more of a collector then gamer.

Anyway that brief background leads me onto a few points:

1) Market leaders can and are 'overthrown' without necessarily collapsing. In the UK, look at the supermarkets - Sainsbury used to be the market leader by miles, now it can only just make out the dust thrown up by the behemoth that is Tesco as it races off into the distance. Is this likely to happen to GW? Not in the near future, but I bet they thought the Roman empire (or British, Persian etc) would fall either.

2) Wyrd books. This is where I have an issue with Wyrd. I have the little rules manual - fantastic value and all the rules in one place - however, where's the fluff? I shouldn't have to buy the preceding two books just to work out what is going on and who these models are. Imagine if GW said "right, here's version 8 of WHFB, but you really need to buy all previous 7 versions too".

Personally, they should release the fluff seperately (even for free?) as it doesn't change, it gets continued. So unlike GW where the fluff does sometimes get re-written, if I understand Malifaux correctly, the story is continued through the books.

3) Website - no offence guys but the website is awful (the forum however is great). Why no brief look at the armies and masters here? Why no 'stores locator'? If people have somehow stumbled onto this website, reward them by actually giving them some info. Maybe some videos so you can see Malifaux in action - some of the Youtube ones are fine, but some professionally shot and thought out vids would be great

[ThePandaDirector]

I don't envy anyone who wants to read this thread, but I'm proud of what I started. There is a lot here that Wyrd should take note of. That's not to say they're doing badly, far far from it, only that they are open and honest enough so that when we have information to help them, we are free to share it - knowing they will listen.

So to Wyrd, you've got my money, but take note of some key points made here - I'd like to highlight the issue with the books and website - and you'll find new gamers will be remain just as loyal for just as long.

GO WYRD!! woo.... :clap:

[Shae-Konnit]

And PP HAVE released far too many gubbins. Warmachine is far more fun playing just the basic box sets but good luck getting that from anyone.

Well, you can get it from me anyway...

I left GW behind because basically I got fed up. I still intend to play some of their games, namely Necromunda, 2nd Ed 40k and Rogue Trader, BFG and Adeptus Titanicus.

I don't like the way things have gone now because to play the game, they're basically asking for too much money from me.

I still love the background, read the novels, play the PC games, but on the tabletop side they've lost me.

The system is getting just a bit too simple, with more emphasis on quantity rather than quality. And Apocalypse rules have left me very jaded indeed!

I just saw that as, "Apocalypse! A new rules set to grant you the privelage of spending even more money!".

I, personally, like a bit more detail in my games, and I also like painting a lot. I'm not happy unless i'm fielding a fully painted army with some decent detail.

Now, with the likes of Apocalypse rules, I'm not too happy with spending a lot of time painting a unit just for it to be on the table for barely a few minutes before it gets whacked... I like how that with Malifaux, Warmahordes and Infinity, everything does something useful; i won't be buying any units just to make up the numbers and provide the enemy with something to shoot at. And for just a few quid more than the price of a single squad of Tactical Marines, i'm already playing the game.

The other thing that puts me off is the general attitude i experience within GW. Now, maybe it is just my (semi)local store, but the staff can be exceptionally rude and generally insulting when they find that I'm actually a veteran player of the game, and as such treat me with a general disdain.

Stuff like turning their back on me when I'm answering a question that they asked, lying to me about incarnations of their own game that I played to try and justify their stance on current editions, and a general dismissal of anything I say since i'm more a fan of the older systems.

For example, when I was recounting the merits and enjoyable times I spent with 2nd Edition, such as with incidents involving the Overwatch rule, this was all dismissed rather loudly with "Ah, overwatch was too complicated! No-one would ever do anything and whole armies would just stand there!". Well, I, personally, have never experienced that, and last I heard they went and introduced a rule to Cityfight which says something along the lines of, "a unit may forego its shooting to shoot in the opponent's turn" ie. Overwatch, yeah? That rule that, apparently, ruined a whole system incarnation?

As ambassadors of the company and the hobby, they suck ass.

So yeah, I will read the books, play the computer games, and play earlier incarnations of their game that I really enjoyed, but these days they have nothing to offer me.

[Millertime]

Hopefully not swaying too far off topic here

2) Wyrd books. This is where I have an issue with Wyrd. I have the little rules manual - fantastic value and all the rules in one place - however, where's the fluff? I shouldn't have to buy the preceding two books just to work out what is going on and who these models are. Imagine if GW said "right, here's version 8 of WHFB, but you really need to buy all previous 7 versions too".

Personally, they should release the fluff seperately (even for free?) as it doesn't change, it gets continued. So unlike GW where the fluff does sometimes get re-written, if I understand Malifaux correctly, the story is continued through the books.

To be fair, GW does do something like this. The box sets come with a small rule book that is only rules - no fluff, no force lists. Then they sell the massive rulebook (for a ridiculous price..) that includes the rules and fluff, painting tips, etc. THEN they also sell the force lists as separate books each

But I do agree on your advice/suggestion for the future of Malifaux books. I think the current setup that basically requires all three books plus some online FAQ/compendium lookups is more of a result of this being their first written and published ruleset. I think the decision to sell the small rulebook at a very reasonable price reflects that Wyrd just wants to make their customers happy.

3) Website - no offence guys but the website is awful (the forum however is great). Why no brief look at the armies and masters here? Why no 'stores locator'? If people have somehow stumbled onto this website, reward them by actually giving them some info. Maybe some videos so you can see Malifaux in action - some of the Youtube ones are fine, but some professionally shot and thought out vids would be great

Great point here. Malifaux is an amazing world with some great stories and artwork scattered around, but the website is NOT pulling it's weight. I first heard about the game from a local gaming group that mentioned a few of the more popular current systems in play. I looked at several games and was not at all interested in Malifaux from my visit to the website at first. I loved the minis but I wasn't even really sure that the game rules were a serious product from first glance. Wyrd really could do themselves a huge favor by overhauling the webpage with some better content and layout.

How about some game reports from the team with multiple action shots of the game in play. Put up some small excerpts of the story line from the books. Give a brief bio of the world, it's factions, and the players of each. Have the art team put together some desktop background worthy hi-res art of the game world and it's characters.

Great discussion in this thread btw