New Warhammer Disk Wars Expansions Announced!

Josh Look wrote:

SuperflyTNT wrote: Oh, and I'll be posting it in a new thread titled "What GAMES are Michael Barnes Telling Pete Ruth 'I TOLD SO' about?

Yeah? It doesn't matter who told who what: eg. both dumped Star Trek: Attack Wing onto the trade pile quickly enough.

many of these games, for some reason, don't seem to last. I see people dumping full collections of the LotR cardgame, Pathfinder, other LCGs.. why don't they last?

Honest question: Is it because they ask you or INVITE you to overcommit at the start because it's *cheap* and then you get in deep only to learn there is less substance there than you originally thought? Or is it because they have been rigorously played until there is nothing left to experience?

Well 4 armies in the starter box seems like a complete game for me. It provides enough variations. Sure, limited customization, but I feel freedom is overrated. Working out problems within their limitations is much more interesting.

If you feel you have to add more, that's on you.

Now, X-Wing. Yeah. That's incomplete. But that comes with the format.

SuperflyTNT wrote: "Inevitable glowing review"? Really? I've reviewed a total of 118 games. I've got 42 'horrible to mediocre' review scores, 76 'good to great' review scores; 36% of games I've reviewed have been negative or middling reviews.

I don't think Josh meant that you always give glowing reviews to everything you touch, but rather that this is the type of game that you would like, i.e. it's just like a miniature game and we all know you love those, plus it seems that everyone who tries this out really likes it. It's like Warhammer at a fraction of the price, the storage needed for whole armies of minis and terrain, and the commitment needed to paint those.

with this kind of game, i am in the expansions / product line camp. It gives the customer more choice. Its debatable in my mind on value. It depends on whether the expansions are spread thin or over priced. It definelty seems to generate more hype, and refresh the game for people, and it requires a lower upfront risk from both the buyer and the seller.

I appreciate the problem of needing to buy each expansion / have the complete game, but you don't 'need' to do this. With disk wars this is actually imo less of a problem, because its a pseudo miniatures game rather than card game. In miniatures most people collect one or two armies. IN diskwars i don't think you need to have every army pack. In card games its harder because you might want all the varieties in deck building. The ethos is different. However unless your buying into the competitive hobby you and the people you play with can just choose to stop and play with what you have. Its the collector, hoarder mentality of us gamers that is the real issue.

If this thing takes off, they have a TON of content to mine without too much effort. They can recycle artwork from Warhammer Invasion, as well as some of the stats and abilities to a certain degree.

I think it's pretty cynical to dismiss a great game as a "money pit" because of its marketing model. That may be the case that you're going to be on the mill- wilfully, mind you- but at the end of the day these companies are not doing it all "for the love of the game". They do not care about your happiness as long as you continue to purchase theri products. And marketing hobby games successfully is more of a challenge now than it has ever been (even though suddenly people are willing to virtually throw their entire paychecks at Kickstarter).

Sadly, "I want everything to be in one box" is old timey thinking. I thought that too when MSRP for a game with the component density and quality of War of the Ring was _$59.95_. But now, if a game like X-Wing came with a "complete set" (whatever that means since it's a squad-building game), it'd be like $150-$200.

Low upfront risk, perpetual interest beyond the initial launch period. There's nothing "bad" about this unless you're a psycho that has to have everything obsessively and doesn't like low cost ways to enhance and refresh the games you already own and enjoy.

Michael Barnes wrote: but at the end of the day these companies are not doing it all "for the love of the game". They do not care about your happiness as long as you continue to purchase theri products. And marketing hobby games successfully is more of a challenge now than it has ever been (even though suddenly people are willing to virtually throw their entire paychecks at Kickstarter).

It always cracks me up when people flame game companies ( the usual MO over on TOS ) for trying make money. They aren't charities for fucks sake.

The LCG/expandable franchise model is a growing in popularity for a reason. It works for the company and obviously customers are buying it. I do find it ironic that not long ago the FFG coffin box died, yet there are KS projects people are throwing way more money at that are far less polished than what FFG delivered.

And while there have been a few minor hiccups, ( like having single cards of certain types in the base set for LOTR and Warhammer Invasion ) most base games I have tried have offered pretty damn good value out of the base set box.

That's exactly right. Folks have complained for YEARS about the price of board games. They've constantly stated that they would "wait for a review" or at least wait until rules were posted. Publishers and retailers lost tons of money trying to figure out how to keep the hobby games business sustainable. But now, all you've got to do is to post some bullshit Kickstarter thing and make all of these promises, play into the psychology of gamers, and you've got people literally throwing money at you. Wasn't even three years ago that people were balking at spending $100 for a very finely produced, highly developed game like Runewars. Now, people are spending three times that on barely tested, barely developed and cheaply made games on Kickstarter without batting an eye.

That's right too that the model _works_. It's why FFG has shifted from those $100 "all in one" boxes (that still had expansions, mind you) to the serial model. It is way fucking easier- at the publisher, distributor, and retailer level- to sell ten $10 packs of cards or miniatures than it is to sell a single $100 board game.

The most successful games in the hobby- those that continue to sell year in, year out- are all product lines. Catan, Carcassonne, Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Arkham Horror...the logical thing to do is to break it down further and do something like LCGs where your buy-in ask is only $20-$30 and the extension is $10 a month or so. There are outliers, like Robinson Crusoe, but there you've got extremely strong word-of-mouth, overwhelmingly positive reviews, publisher/designer reputation, and other factors making tht a saleable product.

Video games are way far down this path as well.

I'd like to see MORE fragmentation. I'd like to see more a la carte products. Two player starters with a multiplayer add-on if you want it. Games that come with three scenarios but an add-on pack sold seperately that adds ten more.

There is nothing bad about this at all, as long as the publisher supports the model fairly and without trickery like what went on with LOTR LCG.

That's all well and good; I expect companies to choose money over making me feel good, but I'm going to choose the latter instead.

The problem with fragmenting products they way they do is that sets the barrier to entry very low on the frontend, but very high if you aren't there on day one. Ever find out you were late to the party on a game that you turn out to really like? Ever try to scrap together a complete copy or set? I'm talking fragmented things like Eon or FFG's Cosmic Encounter, FFG's Talisman, any LCG, etc. For things that are in print you can play catch-up but if you really intend to dive in then the low low price of the base game or core set means jack shit.

Once a game goes OOP then the issue really gets out of hand. People are still looking high and low for more Heroscape or Runebound material. I've got a few "big" OOP games and expansions that took ages to track down, and if they had been split over a half-dozen installments I wouldn't have even tried. The only reason I have a complete Talisman 2nd Edition set is because I chanced across someone who had meticulously scanned in all the components and I like to do crafty stuff like PnP games from time to time. Nine individual entities, base game + 8 expansions, and nearly impossible to assemble original copies of everything in any reasonable amount of time for a reasonable amount of money. Talisman 3rd Edition with the 3 big expansions took me less than a week to negotiate, and while I got a very fair price it still sells for way too much if you're looking for a complete set.

If FFG would ever shut off the expansion conveyor for a product and claim "Done!", thereafter releasing a "big box" then it would be less of an issue. I don't need four full-size BSG boxes with no reasonable storage solution in my house, but I've got 'em. I wouldn't even recommend a new player getting into the game if they're interested in the expansions because $140 (Amazon prices) is completely ridiculous. It's got less stuff than a lot of their classic coffin boxes by far and the whole damn set could retail for two-thirds what buying all four boxes costs. I don't blame them for not doing it my way because their way is more profitable, but it still irritates me and it's hell for anyone looking to acquire the complete set some day when it's OOP.

I think that's a good point, Wade...I've been kind of in the market for Race for the Galaxy (want to give it another shot) but I want the whole thing. So that means putting together a major purchase or trying to do multiple trades because I haven't kept up with it. And I actually just sold Attack Wing in part because I felt like I was behind on the releases and wouldn't be able to catch up. The only thing keeping me from getting REALLY frustrated about not having Netrunner current is that I rarely get to play the damn thing.

But you know what? That's not the publisher's business. It's not their business if you don't get in on the ground floor or keep up. And for everybody like me and you that want to get it all, there's plenty of folks who will buy Talisman today and not fret over not having all nine of the expansions right away. They may buy them later, maybe not. It's not their business to worry about whether or not you have a complete set. That's your business as a consumer.

Thing is, when someone looks and sees that there's a lot of expansions available for a game, that is a lot of times a _selling point_ even if they're coming in way late.

That said, I like the idea of releasing collections. The Carcassonne big boxes were really the first things I recall doing that. There's that Alhambra one, there's a Kingdom Builder one that I actually really want on Kickstarter now. But there is a reason we don't see something like an all-in-one Arkham Horror package. Because it's a HUGE financial risk to assume that someone is going to spend $200-$300 on a major purchase like that. I'd like to see FFG do something like that but in limited quantity and as an exclusive convention/online/events center product. That would never do well in retail.