What makes a reprint successful?

Branching off of the holiday sale thread...

I mean financially successful here. Why have certain reprints like Cosmic Encounter and Talisman been really successful for many years, whereas something like Nexus Ops is in the bargain bin for the second straight year?

I'm thinking out loud a bit here, but I wonder if age has something to do with it. Specifically the kinds of games that have been successful (off the top of my head I'm thinking of Cosmic Encounter, Talisman, and Wiz-War) were all games that had decades to build a following. They had all been successful in several printings and were basically just waiting for someone else to pick them up.

No doubt it makes a difference that those three games in particular are easy to monetize. Talisman and Cosmic already have tons of expansions, and Wiz-War has gotten two in 2014.

I'm not really discussing games like Fury of Dracula and Arkham Horror, since those have some more wholescale changes. But I wonder if the successes of those games made them bolder to try something like what they did with Dungeonquest.

Well, I'd guess that in the case of Talisman and CE they both had multiple editions previously and were well regarded. They were grail games and always in demand.

The original Nexus Ops had more of a cult following as it ended up in discount bins. How successful can a reprint be if the original wasn't wanted? Think a reprint of BattleBall will sell?

Wiz-War is another title that went through multiple editions and had fans either paying high dollar for older copies or straight up making their own.

I don't think anyone was doing that for Fortress: America. F:A's biggest claim to fame was that it had 'not-saddam hussein' on the cover and one person got to yell 'Wolverines'. Not really a successful title though and second hand copies were readily available. On top of that, another GameMaster remake (Conquest of the Empire) was being clearanced out all over the internet, so I'm not sure what signs FFG saw that F:A had a ready user base willing to pay.

I guess you hit the formula....original game = popular = remake = $$$

Nexus Ops theme is really not the greatest for most folks. The garish tile design doesn't help.

Yes Nexus Ops is ugly... so was the original from a pop mass market perspective though and CE, Talisman, Survive.. none of them are noticeably better. I think it's a bit of a mystery. Part of it might be timing, that intangible super important detail. Part of it might be theme, that's possible. But I think there was never a big enough community around it.

I just don't understand why it never happened. The lack of expansions might be part of it. CE and Talisman are chalk full of expansion crap and that keeps a game in the public eye longer, Survive has a couple but the family nature of it (which is a bit of a lie really) is super appealing. The initial release might get a game some press but if expansions get cranked out on a regular basis suddenly the game is "living" and noticeable.

Nexus Ops is kind of lonely. One base package. Done.

Talisman is easy to relate to with its Fantasy theme. I'd have been excited about it as a kid. Dunno about CE.

Nexus Ops theme is just odd. Really alien planet with only 1 human unit and then alien creatures. Would've fared better with tanks, walkers and jet fighters.

Best Regards,
Aswin

Sevej wrote: Talisman is easy to relate to with its Fantasy theme. I'd have been excited about it as a kid. Dunno about CE.

Nexus Ops theme is just odd. Really alien planet with only 1 human unit and then alien creatures. Would've fared better with tanks, walkers and jet fighters.

Best Regards,
Aswin

Ok that's what happen when you make a forum post in the midst of office email replies...

I think the ccase of nexus ops is one of a definite blunder in graphic design. People may whine and kvetch about the lack of noxious fuming dayglo models, but ultimately it doesn't really matter. FFG even made some good changes to the game, such as adding a few more concealed tiles so you never know what you'll get, as the best example of their intercession.

But the hex tiles are nearly unplayable. Say what you will about how garish the AH edition is, but at least it doesn't look like vomit haphazardly spewed across the table. It drastically affects playability, where updated model choices do not.

Each tile in a vacuum looks nice. On the table together... not so much.

Veterans of games drastically affect at least initial sales, I'd imagine. There seems to be some anecdotal evidence at least to support this. BGG comments and ratings seem to reflect this. Wiz-War is a good example, as many vets have panned it wholesale, and make drastic changes to make it "play better" after playing it twice without giving the actual rules a fair shake. This isn't my opinion. This is well documented, in fact. A lot of expectation goes into reprints, which is understandable. Doctor Who syndrome. The best Doctor is almost always the one you started enjoying the show with. Any changes can and usually are branded as detrimental in declarative comments.

Dungeonquest sort of suffered from Doctor Who syndrome, combined with making a simple game more fiddly than it had any business being, for reasons I cannot fathom from a design perspective.

Yet they realized their mistake and fixed it. I'm not sure why they haven't done the same with Nexus Ops, unless they are sitting on a huge first run. But all they have to do is add new tiles, and its a legit game again. No reason to flood the market with subpar product that makes you look silly, when you can open them up, replace that component and seal it back up then sell for full retail again. It must cost a lot to do this for FFG to ignore this possibile repackaging.

Sometimes reviews can make or break a game, is devastating ways. Claustrophobia is a good example, as it took quite a while for it to recover from Tom Vasels poor thoughts on the game due to his religious bias seeping through. I'm not berating him for his opinion, as he has every right to have one. But it definitely had its effect on the initial sales of the game because a lot of people swing on his every word. *shrug* Claustrophobia isn't a reprint, but I think you get the point.

There was still a huge number of copies of Nexus ops floating arround from AH / Hasbro. Nexus Ops was from 2005 so component were great and the price was reasonable. 2012 was too soon for Nexus Ops even in 2011 you can get a copy of Nexus Ops for $35 - $40.

It isn't rocket science.

Rule #1- if an older game is WORTH reprinting, it probably doesn't need to be "modernized" or "redeveloped" by another designer.

Rule #2- if you don't "get" the particular charm of things like a specific art style or setting, you probably shouldn't bother with reprinting it.

Rule #3- if you are going to be sold bold as to make changes or updates, then by jingo they better be respectful of the original design, in the spirit of the original design and the overriding guidance for all of the above should be- you guessed it- the original design.

Cosmic Encounter is the high water mark for reprints. Completely respectful of the original design, its intent, and even its art style- even though it's been modernized. Even the new expansion material looks, feels and acts like Cosmic. Talisman changes the art (some would say for the better), but it is 100% Talisman to the bone- and some of the new stuff like The Reaper actually IMPROVES on the original design. Wiz-War is well on track to join these two as the top reprints.

Tales of the Arabian Nights actually expanded on the original with new tales, even though it did away with a version of the game (Merchants) that nobody ever played anyway. That worked out OK.

Merchant of Venus- new game AND original in the same box. Outstanding. Great production, classic gameplay.

Fury of Dracula is a mixed bag. It's actually better in some ways than the original, worse in others. It's a net gain,because it's a nice, modern version of the game. But I keep both on the shelf and that says something.

Nexus Ops ditched the charming, dayglo art and wound up looking like a pink and purple vomit stain with no charm whatsoever- failed.

Dungeonquest set the game in Terrinoth, thus losing the Death Warrior. Completely fucked up the simple combat system. Complete disaster.

Gearworld/Borderlands was shoehorned into a fad nerd trend with zero basis in anything substantial, forgotten before it even hit the market.

Rex, a total debacle. It really doesn't resemble Dune.

Titan, lost the Trampier art and gained a jewel tone map that was almost unreadable- fumble.

Acquire went cheap on the components, total downgrade from the previous edition. Vanished.

Oh god, Blackbeard. Probably never should have been reprinted anyway. Just awful, and not really much like the original game anyway.

Fortress: America was a product of the 1980s, and was at its best in the 1980s. Times have changed. The game is outdated and wholly obsolete. Ditto Shogun/Samurai Swords/Ikusa. Conquest of the Empire did that weird shit where they basically made it into Struggle of Empires but you could also play the old game on a giant, sun-eclipsing board. Can't give that damn thing away these days.

Wow, listing them, it seems that most reprints aren't all that great!

I Think they could market Nexus Ops as more of a euro abstract (Think Dominant Species/Terra Mystica style). Make the tiles solid colour (and thus not a pain in the ass to see), and make the theme something like viruses, or insects, or some shit. But it probably does boil down to not having been extended as a system. Cosmic and WizWar have expansionitis (and seem to be enhanced by them), Nexus seems like a ripe system for rafts of new unit and army types, extra cards and all sorts, but it didnt happen. Then again, games like El Grande are still sought after, a new print is coming, they keep going out of print and thats not really known for its expansions (many people never bother with them). Nexus was probably never popular enough first time round. I bet if they kickstarted "Virus Wars" which was a flat coloured abstract version of it, it would do quite well (there'd still be moaning about the Dice because theyre not arranged in in the pattern of a ruptured spleen or some other weird new feldian mechanic that uses Dice but not really Rolling Dice style.

My theory is that multi player war games basically don't sell that well. And if they are reprints rather than a new hotness they sell even less well. Rex, Nexus Ops, FA, and Gearworld are all conflict games. I think, whilst these designs are a staple of the boardgaming genre, are falling out of popularity. Most folks just own one or two such games and play them on occasions. Someone might buy every game where they are a hero on a map or a worker placement that comes out. What was the last really successful multiplayer war game? Alright the coin series but thats largely due to the serious wargamer market. The only other game i can think of is Risk Legacy and that brought a rather unique experience. A Game of Thrones 2nd ed i guess, but it is riding the tv show. I suspect plaid hat will have a hard time selling off City of Remnants, I don't think conquest of Nerrath did that well. I could probably think of other examples.

There have been some flops that were not wargames like Dungeonquest. But they are giving Dungeonquest a revamp so it can't have failed to sell that bad.

I agree that the graphic design of the Nexus Ops tiles is not good. Too dark, not different enough, etc.

The game itself is fantastic and it quickly became one of my favorite games.

The thought of expansions for it is nice, but the game is so perfectly pure that I don't think muddying the waters would help.

Another reprint (or consolidation set) up for discussion is Blue Moon Legends. I'm not sure that I understand its reprint philosophy. Sure, it consolidated all of the factions and the game was OOP. The game has a cult following, but, I'm not sure whether it really has enough of an intended market to make it commercial. Who was the supposed target audience for the reprint? There are so many other card games in this genre. Those who originally played it, and didn't end up owning it, might want it for nostalgic purposes. But, they'd also want the larger original cards with the full artwork instead of the reprint's newer compressed artwork on smaller cards. I thought that the artwork in original Blue Moon was one of the bonus features of the game? With that in mind, why does FFG squander and gild the lilly on other games with components, but didn't do that with Blue Moon Legends? It makes no sense. I was fully expecting this game to be in the Holiday Sale--perhaps, it will be next year?

One thing that Cosmic, Talisman, and Wiz-War share is that those were games that already kind of transcended the hobby. That was certainly the case for the first two anyway. They are games like Settlers and Acquire that sell copies outside of the context of BGG users, with fans that might have just been into those games. Granted, that's more what I feel is the case than anything hard. But that's a far cry from something like Nexus Ops, which only ever really became beloved as an out-of-print gem.

That makes the bungling of Dungeonquest all the more of a shame, because I think that one might have had a better shot if they'd just left off the Terrinoth branding and not tinkered with it so much. I'm glad the updated version is on the way, because they've mostly brought it back in line with the original.

I'm still not sure how successful Merchant of Venus actually was, because the online dialog on BGG seems to be one mostly set by fans of the original game, like Colorcrayons said. But then it's never shown up in the annual Christmas sale, so it must have done alright.

Another success I thought of is Stronghold's Survive, which might be the last traditionally published game to really put a publisher on the map. It had a terrible looking box originally, but the original game had a substantial following outside of the hobby, which makes it a good candidate.

I think that last point is the crux of it. CE did well because it's basically the foundation of modern board game design prior to the German emergence. Wiz-War has a cult following from a series of reprints through the 80s and 90s. Talisman 2nd Ed has a similar following because it was the closest that some people were ever going to come to an RPG (I actually convinced an RPG-exclusive friend of mine to play because of the stories I was telling about what happened in our games.) Plus all three have sound design for one reason or another and/or hit on a particular geek niche (Wiz-War being the foundation for MTG is the most obvious aspect of that; people want to be wizards blasting each other.)

I think many of the rest didn't do well because, despite having fans, a lot of them just aren't sound designs. Dungeonquest is the most obvious example. Unlike Talisman, there's no game there. It's basically Push Your Luck but with an almost complete lack of quantifiable variables that make PYL-style games worthwhile. You can push your luck in a game that involves dice because you can assess the odds of rolling specific combinations. DQ requires you to take an enoormous risk before you ever roll the dice/deal cards and there's no way to avoid it. It's basically the poster child for the BGGers who profess to despise "randomness" because something actually involves dice. It's not a good design. I own it and I like pulling it out once in a while, but usually after other games or when there's alcohol involved. There's just not a lot of strategic thought and, thus, game involved in the game.

I think Nexus Ops may have better design than some of the other failures, but it lacks the decades-old audience that the real successes have and there was nothing particularly transformative about it in the manner of CE or Wiz-War and it didn't have any familiar tropes attached like Talisman or Fury of Dracula.