Really geeky conversation

Myranda

For those of us who grew up being proper geeks there were likely certain things we remember fondly...

Games of D&D and Warhammer type things for instance.

Today, bored, I browsed some of the websites for D&D and Games Workshop

Wizards of the Coast (what did Magic the Gathering - stealing my pocket money for ages! The bastards!) now own the franchise... the three essential core books (Player, Monster and Dungeon Master guide) are about to be re-released and cost a combined total of $150!

Games Workshop has a new Warhammer 40k rulebook out - it's £50 for just the rules... not £50 for the rules, some scenery and some miniatures like it used to be.

Browsing both their sites it looks like they used a random number generator to set prices - a random number generator that can't do single digit numbers. There's no way kids are getting nearly enough pocket money to play their games anymore... so either pester power to get Mum and Dad to buy or can't get into the games and hobbies...

Is that the business model that's going to work - "we're not as appealing to kids as there's less instant gratification like on computer games... lets aim everything at our aging adult market and just jack up all the prices" ??

Went into a local boardgame shop the other day... there's a LOT of competition for these guys, and much of it is in the form of self contained games costing less than the absolute most basic minimum collection for WotC or GW, or games that work perfectly well in a basic (and cheaper) form but can be expanded (Munchkin stands out as it's by Steve Jackson who shares a name with Steve Jackson who founded Games Workshop and did the Fighting Fantasy novels - each Munchkin game is small, cheap and self contained... but can be added to if you desire).

If my childhood were spent now, no one I knew would have been able to afford the D&D books, no one would have had a Warhammer 40,000 army, even Magic the Gathering ... I might have ended up going outside more... bleh!

monquixote

It seems a bit short sighted. 

If they don't produce stuff to appeal to kids then in a few years they won't have a market.

PolarityMan

I bet they rely heavily on xmas / birthday presents to get the core product into people's hands and are then aiming for the steady trickle of extra miniatures / expansions from pocket money.

I still have about 30 AD&D 2nd edition books sitting on my bookshelf, like you I have browsed the current state of play and am a bit disappointed that they seem to have taken some of the quirks out of the system. It now seems heavily influenced by computer RPGs.

sted

Its dominated by Games workshop who rule distribution with an iron fist, I used to Warhammer as a kid, it was ace, I noticed how popular it had become and took a little trip down memory lane watching battle reports and stuff like that, very good fun but the overwhelming sentiment is one of resentment towards GW and their effective price fixing.

monquixote

Not really looked at RPGs for ages, but you would think they would make a nice inexpensive iPad app that could allow a group of people to play together and manage the dice rolls etc and then make money from flogging the miniatures. They could even be really smart and put some AR features in the apps so they interact with official miniatures. 

digitalscream

I'm really surprised that they don't have a line of Heroquest-type board games to act as a leader into the more advanced stuff - games that you can play casually, while introducing kids to the concepts involved in the full, more complex games.

They really don't seem to care that much, and it seems like they're just trying to see how long they can tread water until they finally drown.

UnclePsychosis

The one advantage GW have over the alternatives is that their Universes and background are just so much more detailed and well written. If it was just about the game none of us would be looking back and reminiscing the way we are. 

Their pricing does seem to have got ridiculous, though. What also really sucks is the way their pricing also reflects the power of the miniature in-game. So two models of equal size and detail will cost differing amounts depending on which one is a bad-ass! 

However, looking at their share price over the last five years it seems they are doing quite well. I suspect that the kind of people who are into wargaming and suchlike will probably always exist. It was pretty niche to start with, I'm not sure that market will ever really disappear. 

@digitalscream They used to have a whole bunch of games like that---Necromunda, Blood Bowl (I still like to play this sometimes, its brilliant), Gorkamorka, Space Hulk. I suspect they use the computer game tie-ins as a leader into the table top gaming these days. Some of the GW PC games are really fun. 

PolarityMan

UnclePsychosis said:

The one advantage GW have over the alternatives is that their Universes and background are just so much more detailed and well written. If it was just about the game none of us would be looking back and reminiscing the way we are. 

That's partly because it's massively plagiarized

Myranda

digitalscream said:

I'm really surprised that they don't have a line of Heroquest-type board games to act as a leader into the more advanced stuff - games that you can play casually, while introducing kids to the concepts involved in the full, more complex games.

They really don't seem to care that much, and it seems like they're just trying to see how long they can tread water until they finally drown.

Some of the best games that GW have done have been the smaller one-hit games like Blood Bowl or Spacehulk and the skirmishy games like Necromunda, Mordheim (like necromunda but Fantasy) and Battlefleet Gothic. They're much cheaper for a new player so are great gateway games - they're also the sort of game that GW doesn't want to release any more.

GW Bought a plastics manufacturer to reduce production cost on plastic models

GW Bought a mold maker to reduce development costs

GW invested in rapid protyping units to further reduce development costs

GW stopped using Lead because it was getting to expensive moving to "white metal"

GW stopped using White metal as tin went up in price  moving to "finecast"

The net result of all these price cuts?

30 man Space marine boxed set when I started gaming £8.99

10 man Space marine boxed set now £25 - better models but no more options (probably fewer now I think of it)

Space Marine captain when I started £4

Space Matine captain now £18 - and that's not a fancy Finecast, just injection molded plastic.

Now... the worst offender.

Vampire Counts as an army came out relatively recently, so weren't as cheap when they first came out as things were before.

Bloodknights were all metal miniatures and a box of 5 cost £18 

Now... *drum roll* £61.50 ... for a minimum sized unit. They're also only available as the boxed set... so to upgrade that regiment at all it's another boxed set at that price or nothing.

Even the army books - once £10 now near £30.

I'd have needed to save pocket money up for weeks to get an army book just to know what I needed to save up for weeks for... ... by the time I'd gotten enough to have a game with no one would have stuck around to get their own army...

PolarityMan

That's true but on the plus side i remember that unit costs for troop types that didn't have a plastic box were pretty ridiculous as a blister of 3/4 would typically be around £5. That would have been back in the early 90s i guess.

holnrew

How are noobs (like me) supposed to get into Magic these days?

Adam_MD

PolarityMan;249516" said:

I bet they rely heavily on xmas / birthday presents to get the core product into people's hands and are then aiming for the steady trickle of extra miniatures / expansions from pocket money.

I still have about 30 AD&D 2nd edition books sitting on my bookshelf, like you I have browsed the current state of play and am a bit disappointed that they seem to have taken some of the quirks out of the system. It now seems heavily influenced by computer RPGs.

I've still got a load of old AD&D books as well. Don't know where my scarily large dice collection is though.

Thinking about it my first outbreak of GAS was DAS dice acquisition syndrome.

UnclePsychosis

holnrew said:

How are noobs (like me) supposed to get into Magic these days?

I think you can just buy a box set of a "starter deck" or "intro pack" or something. 

If you really want to get started, a good way is probably to find a local gaming group and ask them

Myranda

UnclePsychosis said:

holnrew said:

How are noobs (like me) supposed to get into Magic these days?

I think you can just buy a box set of a "starter deck" or "intro pack" or something. 

If you really want to get started, a good way is probably to find a local gaming group and ask them

Just steer clear of tournaments - it's really annoying that every year or so your deck suddenly becomes "illegal" and needs to be entirely replaced

dafuzz

I used to be quite big into GW, not so much AD&D. Still have Blood Bowl and Space Hulk somewhere, along with a box of badly painted miniatures. Heaven only knows where the books have gone but I'd like to thumb through them again.

I wandered into a local pub last year on a Wednesday (usually I go on a Tuesday, long story) and found that Wednesdays was board game night. They all seemed to be playing Game Of Thrones though. I got chatting to them and they encouraged me to join their group and I felt really enthused after a few pints but you know how it goes...

While I still get nostalgic about table top games I'm wise enough to remember the ages it took to get even a single game done when you factor in set up and tear down, plus it's a big financial investment and I haven't had those sort of friends since school anyway.

Still, fond memories

Myranda

dafuzz said:

I used to be quite big into GW, not so much AD&D. Still have Blood Bowl and Space Hulk somewhere, along with a box of badly painted miniatures. Heaven only knows where the books have gone but I'd like to thumb through them again.

I wandered into a local pub last year on a Wednesday (usually I go on a Tuesday, long story) and found that Wednesdays was board game night. They all seemed to be playing Game Of Thrones though. I got chatting to them and they encouraged me to join their group and I felt really enthused after a few pints but you know how it goes...

While I still get nostalgic about table top games I'm wise enough to remember the ages it took to get even a single game done when you factor in set up and tear down, plus it's a big financial investment and I haven't had those sort of friends since school anyway.

Still, fond memories

This is why even though my Memory Lane trip took me down GW and D&D Alley I ended up in Casual Gaming Square. In the time it takes to play one game of Warhammer, we can get through a couple of games of Munchkin, a game of Carcassone and Cthulhu dice... we can drink more and not have to worry about remembering all the rules (as they're casual games they're all easier to play). And we wont have spent as much money (or time painting things)

dafuzz

Having some time to think about it, the overriding factor is none of my mates are into it. God knows we've spent dozens of hours on Battlefield 4 the last few weeks.

Same reason I've never realised my dream of playing in a proper grunge band.

Iamnobody

Good. That shit is for weird kids anyway.

What's wrong with a bike ride and a game of football.

I've probably offended loads of people now....

wibble

Iamnobody said:

Good. That shits for weird kids anyway.

What's wrong with a bike ride and a game of football.

I've probably offended loads of people now....

I have a million hit points and maximum charisma!

PolarityMan

Myranda said:

dafuzz said:

I used to be quite big into GW, not so much AD&D. Still have Blood Bowl and Space Hulk somewhere, along with a box of badly painted miniatures. Heaven only knows where the books have gone but I'd like to thumb through them again.

I wandered into a local pub last year on a Wednesday (usually I go on a Tuesday, long story) and found that Wednesdays was board game night. They all seemed to be playing Game Of Thrones though. I got chatting to them and they encouraged me to join their group and I felt really enthused after a few pints but you know how it goes...

While I still get nostalgic about table top games I'm wise enough to remember the ages it took to get even a single game done when you factor in set up and tear down, plus it's a big financial investment and I haven't had those sort of friends since school anyway.

Still, fond memories

This is why even though my Memory Lane trip took me down GW and D&D Alley I ended up in Casual Gaming Square. In the time it takes to play one game of Warhammer, we can get through a couple of games of Munchkin, a game of Carcassone and Cthulhu dice... we can drink more and not have to worry about remembering all the rules (as they're casual games they're all easier to play). And we wont have spent as much money (or time painting things)

Carcasonne is ace! You can teach someone the game in about 5 minutes which makes it great for palying with people who aren't massive gamers.