Jake Thornton has posted the Beta rules for the latest three Dreadball teams on the Quirkworthy blog. Once, long ago, these would have been published in a printed magazine. That they now appear on the games designers blog highlights one more area once occupied by dead tree publications that has been annexed by the web.
With the Internet all but ubiquitous, there is really very little left for gaming magazines. Experimental rules work better on the Internet because the designer can get immediate feedback and make quick updates. News is also better managed by websites and blogs which can update more frequently and post corrections.
Other traditional areas covered by magazines, from painting advice, modelling guides, reviews, battle reports may not be any better online, but they certainly aren't any worse and have the advantage of costing far less to publish. It feels like the only advantage print has is that it can be carried to the gaming table, but in the era of Ipads, Tablets and smart phones even that advantage is falling away.
Looking back ten years or more, most miniature companies looking to make a name for themselves, or just compete with Games Workshop, felt the need for some kind of house journal or periodical, from Cry Havoc (Rackham) to No Quarter (Privateer Press). Mantic Games tried it for a little while, but dropped the idea quite quickly. Wyrd Games produce a digital magazine, before focusing their attention on the website. And Cipher Studios have run their blog as a kind of rolling online magazine.
So it feels like the era of the printed games magazine is ending. Does it really matter? Have we not replaced one way of distributing content with another, better, system? Well there is one respect in which a magazine can be better than the web. The web offers an article, blog or video for everyone on almost any subject imaginable. But it is so vast, that you have to go and look for it. A good magazine can offer a selection of articles on a variety of subjects, some of which you might not have thought to read. I have started more than one army and more than one game simply because of a sideways glance at an article in a magazine I had bought for a completely different reason. Yes it is possible to stumble across interesting and unexpected content on the Internet, but are you as likely to?
So if the printed magazine is becoming a thing of the past, there is at least one area where we may be worse off.
Showing posts with label Wyrd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wyrd. Show all posts
Monday, 15 July 2013
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Does everyone have to have a Kickstarter now?
The news is out that Wyrd games is planning a Malifaux RPG Kickstarter. This following Kickstarters from McVey studios, Soda Pops miniatures, Reaper, Mongoose and Mantic who are now on their second. It's starting to feel like Kickstarter is the thing all the cool miniature companies just have to have.
For anyone not in the know, Kickstarter is a website that allows companies (not necessarily miniature companies) to gather donations to put towards a specified project. In return for these pledges they offer contributors a reward. In most cases this will be a copy of one or more of the funded projects, though all kinds of rewards are on offer.
Given that I contributed a not insubstantial sum to the Mantic Kings of War Kickstarter (enough to get my name in the rulebook) I can't oppose the concept in principal. At it's best its a smart way for a company to crowd source its funding and to gauge whether a project is worth pursuing before committing any money. It can also be good for the customer, though its worth be careful. Its all to easy to get carried away in the momentum and fail to realise that the rewards aren't much more than exactly what the company will be selling in a few months time.
What I do wonder, however, is whether Kickstarter is strictly a good idea for every company. Most of the established companies have declared their Kickstarter goal to grow their gaming system and release models earlier than they would otherwise be able. This sounds great in principle, but I question whether it is always a good idea for the company.
I have written before about the difficulties faced by established miniature companies, like Games Workshop and Privateer Press, before. Essentially the dilemma is whether to keep growing the game in order to maintain the interest of the existing fan base at the risk of losing new players, or move in the other direction and endlessly re-release in order and rely on high player turnover. A more rapid release schedule could simply exacerbate the problem. The more you release the harder it is for a new player to find a way into the system, Warmachine and Hordes are all but impenetrable to new players, and the more you risk losing casual players who can't keep up.
As the game grows only the truly dedicated can keep up, and these are exactly the sort of people likely to contribute to a Kickstarter campaign. This could fuel a kind of positive feedback in which the most dedicated, even fanatical, fans drive the development of the game. This could lead to a distorted picture of the popularity of the project. What happens when the audience for a Kickstarter is the same size as the contributors?
At least Wyrd are focusing their Kickstarter on a new game, the Malifaux RPG. But I do wonder just how much Malifaux do people want? There are already three main rulebooks for the miniature game with a forth on route and a handful of new releases every month. With this rate of growth it becomes harder and harder to find an entry point. Ultimately, will Kickstarter provide a boost for these companies or just allow them to grow faster than is wise?
For anyone not in the know, Kickstarter is a website that allows companies (not necessarily miniature companies) to gather donations to put towards a specified project. In return for these pledges they offer contributors a reward. In most cases this will be a copy of one or more of the funded projects, though all kinds of rewards are on offer.
Given that I contributed a not insubstantial sum to the Mantic Kings of War Kickstarter (enough to get my name in the rulebook) I can't oppose the concept in principal. At it's best its a smart way for a company to crowd source its funding and to gauge whether a project is worth pursuing before committing any money. It can also be good for the customer, though its worth be careful. Its all to easy to get carried away in the momentum and fail to realise that the rewards aren't much more than exactly what the company will be selling in a few months time.
What I do wonder, however, is whether Kickstarter is strictly a good idea for every company. Most of the established companies have declared their Kickstarter goal to grow their gaming system and release models earlier than they would otherwise be able. This sounds great in principle, but I question whether it is always a good idea for the company.
I have written before about the difficulties faced by established miniature companies, like Games Workshop and Privateer Press, before. Essentially the dilemma is whether to keep growing the game in order to maintain the interest of the existing fan base at the risk of losing new players, or move in the other direction and endlessly re-release in order and rely on high player turnover. A more rapid release schedule could simply exacerbate the problem. The more you release the harder it is for a new player to find a way into the system, Warmachine and Hordes are all but impenetrable to new players, and the more you risk losing casual players who can't keep up.
As the game grows only the truly dedicated can keep up, and these are exactly the sort of people likely to contribute to a Kickstarter campaign. This could fuel a kind of positive feedback in which the most dedicated, even fanatical, fans drive the development of the game. This could lead to a distorted picture of the popularity of the project. What happens when the audience for a Kickstarter is the same size as the contributors?
At least Wyrd are focusing their Kickstarter on a new game, the Malifaux RPG. But I do wonder just how much Malifaux do people want? There are already three main rulebooks for the miniature game with a forth on route and a handful of new releases every month. With this rate of growth it becomes harder and harder to find an entry point. Ultimately, will Kickstarter provide a boost for these companies or just allow them to grow faster than is wise?
Saturday, 22 January 2011
The dangers of too much enthusiasm
It's interesting that when someone criticises a product, be it a car, a DVD player, a games console or a washing machine there will almost always be someone else ready to loudly defend it. This is not really surprising, our purchases say a great deal about our taste and judgement and when an item we have purchased, and enjoyed, is criticised it feels like a criticism of ourselves.
In the gaming community this phenomenon is even more acute. People put an enormous amount of themselves into their hobby, selecting and painting miniatures, devising scenarios and playing games. It's for that reason that I and so many others publicise our hobby on a blog. We want to share our interests with others.
Games companies rely on this passion. Extracting value from a roleplaying game or a miniature requires a lot of time an effort. There is little immediate gratification and the collection of plastic, metal and cardboard that spills out of a box, at first glance, never lives up to the promise of the examples on the box. Until the miniatures are painted, the rules read, the players assembled there is little value in the product. Value requires effort and effort requires enthusiasm and passion.
It is for this reason that so many games companies encourage a community or like minded hobbyists to develop. The game requires other players, but more than that it requires enthusiasm and encouragement. In recent years the principle tactic has been to set up message boards and forums, but it has been going on for years by encouraging gamers to support their Local Games shop, attending conventions and, in the case of Games Workshop, through it's own chain of stores.
The draw back of encouraging this kind of enthusiasm is what can happen when it's turned against the company.
Part of the problem for Games companies is that image projected of them are small, very personal operations created by a single hobbyist or a small group with a dream of making their job their hobby. No-one with sense gets into the gaming industry hoping to make a fortune, most hope to make enough money that they don't have to do another job to supplement their income. The rise of the Internet has only increased this perception as more and more garage companies appear selling direct to the consumer. The direct engagement of so many companies with the customers through conventions and forums increases this view.
This works well as a marketing technique. Customers like to feel they are dealing with real people and not faceless corporations. Gamers are more likely to spend more money if they can see it going to a real person and a fellow hobbyist and can accept higher costs more readily when they trust that they are the result of increased costs and not greed.
The problem is that what may seem like a sensible business decision or transaction to a company can be perceived as betrayal by the fans. One of the early examples was when Citadel miniatures bought out Games Workshop and shifted it from a distributor and seller of a wide variety of games to specifically producing and promoting miniature games. The Roleplaying craze was on the wane and the decision might have made good business sense, but this was small consolation for the players of the abandoned games.
There have been numerous examples since. Rackham's abandonment of metal models in favour of pre-painted plastic, Wizards of the Coast shifting its focus to collectible card games and every new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Every controversial decision angers a new group of fans and one 'betrayal' can leave someone bitter and suspicious of all games companies.
Two recent examples bear this out. I previously mentioned Wyrd Games program to replace the cards for Malifaux with the new revised versions. This program sparked some discussion on their message board. Most contributors saw it as a generous gesture by a company trying not to rip-off its fans. But there were a few who questioned every aspect of the program, in particular the decision to run it only between January and March 2011. One person in particular seemed excessively concerned that someone might accidentally acquire an earlier card after the deadline and demanded all manner of expensive plans including stickers on boxes and lists mailed to games shops in order to rectify what he saw as a terrible injustice. When it was pointed out that the cost of his solution would be prohibitive he accused the company of not caring about gamers.
A second incident occurred just recently when Wargames Factory announced a change of ownership. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of the situation at this point (though there is certainly a blog post in it), but there has been much bitterness and acrimony from the old owners and from customers, with many announcing a boycott of Wargames Factory's products unless the old owners are restored.
I'm in no position to say if the old owners were treated unfairly or not, but the willingness of customers to stand by the old owners says something about the loyalty of gamers to a company or an individual and their willingness to make purchasing decisions based on that loyalty.
Passion, enthusiasm and customer loyalty is the backbone of the gaming hobby. But as long as companies rely on players seeing them as more than just a business supplying a product, the more danger that former fans will become mortal enemies.
Games companies need to consider carefully the danger of alienating fans. But more than that, gamers need to distance their enthusiasm for a game or a range of miniatures from the company producing it or risk being hurt by their hobby.
In the gaming community this phenomenon is even more acute. People put an enormous amount of themselves into their hobby, selecting and painting miniatures, devising scenarios and playing games. It's for that reason that I and so many others publicise our hobby on a blog. We want to share our interests with others.
Games companies rely on this passion. Extracting value from a roleplaying game or a miniature requires a lot of time an effort. There is little immediate gratification and the collection of plastic, metal and cardboard that spills out of a box, at first glance, never lives up to the promise of the examples on the box. Until the miniatures are painted, the rules read, the players assembled there is little value in the product. Value requires effort and effort requires enthusiasm and passion.
It is for this reason that so many games companies encourage a community or like minded hobbyists to develop. The game requires other players, but more than that it requires enthusiasm and encouragement. In recent years the principle tactic has been to set up message boards and forums, but it has been going on for years by encouraging gamers to support their Local Games shop, attending conventions and, in the case of Games Workshop, through it's own chain of stores.
The draw back of encouraging this kind of enthusiasm is what can happen when it's turned against the company.
Part of the problem for Games companies is that image projected of them are small, very personal operations created by a single hobbyist or a small group with a dream of making their job their hobby. No-one with sense gets into the gaming industry hoping to make a fortune, most hope to make enough money that they don't have to do another job to supplement their income. The rise of the Internet has only increased this perception as more and more garage companies appear selling direct to the consumer. The direct engagement of so many companies with the customers through conventions and forums increases this view.
This works well as a marketing technique. Customers like to feel they are dealing with real people and not faceless corporations. Gamers are more likely to spend more money if they can see it going to a real person and a fellow hobbyist and can accept higher costs more readily when they trust that they are the result of increased costs and not greed.
The problem is that what may seem like a sensible business decision or transaction to a company can be perceived as betrayal by the fans. One of the early examples was when Citadel miniatures bought out Games Workshop and shifted it from a distributor and seller of a wide variety of games to specifically producing and promoting miniature games. The Roleplaying craze was on the wane and the decision might have made good business sense, but this was small consolation for the players of the abandoned games.
There have been numerous examples since. Rackham's abandonment of metal models in favour of pre-painted plastic, Wizards of the Coast shifting its focus to collectible card games and every new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Every controversial decision angers a new group of fans and one 'betrayal' can leave someone bitter and suspicious of all games companies.
Two recent examples bear this out. I previously mentioned Wyrd Games program to replace the cards for Malifaux with the new revised versions. This program sparked some discussion on their message board. Most contributors saw it as a generous gesture by a company trying not to rip-off its fans. But there were a few who questioned every aspect of the program, in particular the decision to run it only between January and March 2011. One person in particular seemed excessively concerned that someone might accidentally acquire an earlier card after the deadline and demanded all manner of expensive plans including stickers on boxes and lists mailed to games shops in order to rectify what he saw as a terrible injustice. When it was pointed out that the cost of his solution would be prohibitive he accused the company of not caring about gamers.
A second incident occurred just recently when Wargames Factory announced a change of ownership. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of the situation at this point (though there is certainly a blog post in it), but there has been much bitterness and acrimony from the old owners and from customers, with many announcing a boycott of Wargames Factory's products unless the old owners are restored.
I'm in no position to say if the old owners were treated unfairly or not, but the willingness of customers to stand by the old owners says something about the loyalty of gamers to a company or an individual and their willingness to make purchasing decisions based on that loyalty.
Passion, enthusiasm and customer loyalty is the backbone of the gaming hobby. But as long as companies rely on players seeing them as more than just a business supplying a product, the more danger that former fans will become mortal enemies.
Games companies need to consider carefully the danger of alienating fans. But more than that, gamers need to distance their enthusiasm for a game or a range of miniatures from the company producing it or risk being hurt by their hobby.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
The Devil's in the Details
With Rick Priestly's recent departure from Games Workshop discussion of him has been all over the Wargaming community's message boards and blogs. As a consequence of this I've found myself reading a number of interviews with him both recent and old. Interestingly a prevailing theme has emerged. Take this comment from an unabridged version of an interview from Battlegames 21 February 2010 (sadly I've lost the link).
The theme emerges again in an interview in Miniature Wargames 333.
The contrast Priestly identifies is between, what he sees as, the prevailing taste among wargamers for very tightly written rules designed to cover all situations and his approach, which concentrates on fun but open-ended rules that players are encouraged to develop themselves.
I'm not sure how accurate his perception of the hobby is, nor am I sure whether it is intended to be read as a criticism, but his comments did strike a chord with me. In my more sanguine moments I can find myself nodding along with Priestly's comments and I certainly have no competitive streak or interest in the tournament scene. But in the middle of a game I often find myself flicking through rulebooks desperately searching for the elusive paragraph that explains an apparent contradiction.
Priestly's comments came back to me again recently when I read an announcement from Wyrd Games, producers of the rather unusual and wonderful skirmish game Malifaux. Since the release of the Malifaux rulebook, Wyrd have released a number of eratta, rules clarifications and rules tweaks intended to ensure balance in the game. They are now applying these updates to the summary cards packaged with their models and the new cards will be included with future production runs. At the same time, they are offering to exchange existing player's old cards for the new ones if they are posted to Wyrd along with a self-adressed envelope.
This announcement and the reaction to it has prompted illustrates a number of things about the Wargaming community that I intend to return to again, but the reason I thought of it in this case is because it chimes with what Rick Priestly had been saying.
Let me emphasise that this plan has not been prompted by a new edition of Malifaux and that the old cards are still compatable with the rules. The new cards only clarify a few words or make a few minor tweaks. This has been done in the interest of maintaining game balance.
At the same time, Malifaux is one of the most narrative based games I have seen. A good half of the page count of it's two rulebooks is taken up with story explaining the background of the game world and it's characters. The world of Malifaux is a bizarre hybrid of fantasy, victoriana, steam punk and the wild west, in which a western gunslinger can take on a victorian undertaker or an arachnid cyborg face a demonic baby with a doll and a knife. And yet, the creators of this stranged story-based game still feel the need to optimise the rules for tournament play. Treating the game as a strict competition.
It's worth noting that several of the changes have been incorporated to eliminate rules loop holes that, if exploited, can lead to a huge advantage to one side and a boring game for all concerned. There is certainly merit in the argument that if the rules are that lopsided something needs to be done to correct it.
Yet I find myself thinking, if I found a loop hole that allowed me to win, but wrecked the game and rendered it no fun for myself or my opponent, wouldn't I just ignore it? In a sober moment, yes, but I suspect that I, and many other gamers, when faced with that situation in a game would exploit the loophole. Not due to any excessive competitive streak, but simply because when faced with the rules we feel obliged to play them as written and deliberately ignoring an advantage feels like a kind of cheating.
I have often thought there is a touch of the autistic in the wargaming community. Possibly I'm projecting because of my own diagnosis, but I think the obsession with lists and rules has an obvious appeal to the autistic mind. How much time to wargamers spend obsessing over the details of historical uniforms or the precise composition of an army? How much space is taken up on Forums on rules questions? Not that everyone does this, but plenty do. A literalist reading of the rules certainly fits into this characterisation. Not that I would see this as a criticism, getting the details right can be hugely important and a hopelessly unbalanced game is no fun for anybody, otherwise why employ playtesters?
So what conclusions can we draw from this? I'm not sure. Possibly a happy medium can exist between tightly written rules and the flexibility to be creative with them. At the same time, the next time I find myself uncertain of the rules I'll try to take a deep breath and thinking logically before reaching frantically for the rulebook.
"Your sense of overview is very poor as a teenager, but your sense for detail is fantastically precise. That’s something that people sometimes forget, and even today, when I’m writing rules, some of the criticism I get, particularly from older gamers, whilst occasionally I’m accused of dumbing down, it’s usually, “Oh, this is far too complicated,” and my answer is, “Yes it is too complicated for you, but it’s not too complicated for kids! Anyone who is 14 can pick this up, and they’ll have grasped it like that!”This struck a chord with me because it perfectly describes how I used to be when I first started out in Wargaming in the 1990s, obsessed with detail and rules and able to absorb and process them at great speed. I remember being actively dissapointed that when Warhammer moved from 3rd to 4th edition it shifted it's focus from d100 tables to cards. The tables seemed, somehow to be more detailed and 'rulesy', the cards were too straightforward.
The theme emerges again in an interview in Miniature Wargames 333.
"Asked what gap in the Ancients rules market has had identified, Rick replies that "Existing ones like DBM and FOG are based on tournament and competitive play and geared to 15mm. Black Powder is a really fun, enjoyable and refreshing games system that's not comercially orientated."Later in the same interview he talks about the development of his Black Powder rules. They resulted from informal evenings with friends in which they had a curry and decided to push some miniatures around a board.
The contrast Priestly identifies is between, what he sees as, the prevailing taste among wargamers for very tightly written rules designed to cover all situations and his approach, which concentrates on fun but open-ended rules that players are encouraged to develop themselves.
I'm not sure how accurate his perception of the hobby is, nor am I sure whether it is intended to be read as a criticism, but his comments did strike a chord with me. In my more sanguine moments I can find myself nodding along with Priestly's comments and I certainly have no competitive streak or interest in the tournament scene. But in the middle of a game I often find myself flicking through rulebooks desperately searching for the elusive paragraph that explains an apparent contradiction.
Priestly's comments came back to me again recently when I read an announcement from Wyrd Games, producers of the rather unusual and wonderful skirmish game Malifaux. Since the release of the Malifaux rulebook, Wyrd have released a number of eratta, rules clarifications and rules tweaks intended to ensure balance in the game. They are now applying these updates to the summary cards packaged with their models and the new cards will be included with future production runs. At the same time, they are offering to exchange existing player's old cards for the new ones if they are posted to Wyrd along with a self-adressed envelope.
This announcement and the reaction to it has prompted illustrates a number of things about the Wargaming community that I intend to return to again, but the reason I thought of it in this case is because it chimes with what Rick Priestly had been saying.
Let me emphasise that this plan has not been prompted by a new edition of Malifaux and that the old cards are still compatable with the rules. The new cards only clarify a few words or make a few minor tweaks. This has been done in the interest of maintaining game balance.
At the same time, Malifaux is one of the most narrative based games I have seen. A good half of the page count of it's two rulebooks is taken up with story explaining the background of the game world and it's characters. The world of Malifaux is a bizarre hybrid of fantasy, victoriana, steam punk and the wild west, in which a western gunslinger can take on a victorian undertaker or an arachnid cyborg face a demonic baby with a doll and a knife. And yet, the creators of this stranged story-based game still feel the need to optimise the rules for tournament play. Treating the game as a strict competition.
It's worth noting that several of the changes have been incorporated to eliminate rules loop holes that, if exploited, can lead to a huge advantage to one side and a boring game for all concerned. There is certainly merit in the argument that if the rules are that lopsided something needs to be done to correct it.
Yet I find myself thinking, if I found a loop hole that allowed me to win, but wrecked the game and rendered it no fun for myself or my opponent, wouldn't I just ignore it? In a sober moment, yes, but I suspect that I, and many other gamers, when faced with that situation in a game would exploit the loophole. Not due to any excessive competitive streak, but simply because when faced with the rules we feel obliged to play them as written and deliberately ignoring an advantage feels like a kind of cheating.
I have often thought there is a touch of the autistic in the wargaming community. Possibly I'm projecting because of my own diagnosis, but I think the obsession with lists and rules has an obvious appeal to the autistic mind. How much time to wargamers spend obsessing over the details of historical uniforms or the precise composition of an army? How much space is taken up on Forums on rules questions? Not that everyone does this, but plenty do. A literalist reading of the rules certainly fits into this characterisation. Not that I would see this as a criticism, getting the details right can be hugely important and a hopelessly unbalanced game is no fun for anybody, otherwise why employ playtesters?
So what conclusions can we draw from this? I'm not sure. Possibly a happy medium can exist between tightly written rules and the flexibility to be creative with them. At the same time, the next time I find myself uncertain of the rules I'll try to take a deep breath and thinking logically before reaching frantically for the rulebook.
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