|
|
Post by michael on May 11, 2021 20:25:20 GMT
That is true, just looking at some of the economic news, scarce as it is. Kind of a wierd event, it is like unconsciously the zietgeist is anticipating some sort of coming economic collapse, even though if you went by most of the media, everything is great. Buy buy buy. I don't think its that so much. Its more people have had lots of time over the past year to 18 months to review things and make a decision on whether of not they intend to continue be involved with their various hobbies and interests in the same way once the pandemic is over. The pandemic has given many people the opportunity to make a clean break with things, if they so choose to. Many people in my friends group are not happy with the game, company and direction of travel and have just decided that they don't require 2 or 3 armies and so are trimming down or selling out altogether. I will be one of them although i just cant be bothered to try and list/sell a load of MK2 Cryx armies so the boxes will just go into the loft or the bin. Post Pandemic will be a great opportunity for many games companies to gain new players and have a big reset. But I expect this will be another opportunity that PP will squander or mishandle. In all seriousness: if you’re going to throw it away, I’ll take it. I will give the models a good home. (I think I have a Cryx mystery box sitting around somewhere anyway...) I am curious, though: what would your proposed course of action be, to prevent Privateer from “squandering an opportunity?” What specific actions do you think need to be taken? |
|
germanicus
Junior Strategist
No jokes round ear...
Posts: 358 
|
Post by germanicus on May 12, 2021 5:32:58 GMT
Post Pandemic will be a great opportunity for many games companies to gain new players and have a big reset. But I expect this will be another opportunity that PP will squander or mishandle. I wonder at what exactly Privateer Press can do to recover and strengthen their customer base (and even if not to the peak during MkII, then at least pre-MkIII launch days) that is both reasonable to a large majority of their current customer base and enticing to both former players and new players. This is the main conundrum they face as most solutions I've seen proposed on whatever platform have by far too much potential for failure to even contemplate (e.g. MkIV or an End Times-style reset) and because of the size of the company, Privateer have kind of worked themselves into the corner in terms of (and thus must continue until something drastic happens in either direction) operating on an incremental revenue and investment cycle (hence opting for KickStarter for most of their ongoing properties, since it's relatively risk free as far as they're concerned). The fact of the matter is that some of the problems come from the community, that is, in very large part this is a competitor's game, not a story-teller's game. Steamroller came about because of the community, and most activity within WMH focused community platforms (read: Discord/Facebook) concerns competitive (or self-improvement of) list-building and gameplay, with hobbying a bit of a distant runner up, while narrative has barely crossed the start line. What, exactly, can Privateer Press do to make the game welcoming to new players/customers independent of the community, 'cos we can agree that most of us are stand up people, but because players really didn't like it when an attempt at an official shift away from SR standards was made, and despite narrative leagues/campaigns exist, they exist almost purely for lip-service as comparatively few (I cannot say none, because that's not true) local groups even bother looking at them (including my own, in fairness, but that's a language barrier issue more than anything else, the TO doesn't have enough time to translate everything as well as the rules for new releases). While there's hope that the more "casual" elements of the community can be maintained by Brawlmachine, this doesn't necessarily help the company as much as they'd like because of that format's limitations in conjunction with some players' self-professed and overt preference for it over unlimited play (and because Privateer's business is selling product, that's a bit of lost sales there, though I concede this to be a debatable point). So, what would a realistic, acceptable (by the community as a whole), low risk solution look like? |
|
|
|
Post by beardmonk on May 12, 2021 8:58:44 GMT
What PP could have done during lockdown is a good question
Privateer Press have not stopped their production over the Covid period. Yes things have slowed down but they have not been idle. This would have been an ideal opportunity to relook at starter sets, model materials and to begin to try and rebuild relationships with stores, especially in the UK and Europe where PPs name is not in good standing. Rebuilding that with new offerings ahead of store reopening would enable PP to assist the UK and EU communities in bringing in new blood with new boxes that make it easier to start up.
Also they should have been using this time to engage with wargaming media, websites, blogs to get the word out. Counteract the narratives around PP, its games and player. Show the world that the company is not a dead man walking and has lots of great things coming (Neomechanica, RQ, MonPoc etc). Actually communicate. Get your models in the hands of more top painters with youtube channels to further spread the word (they have started this but they could ahve got it to many many more). All that stuff that is easy to do.
On the community side of things, PP could have used this time to produce more materials and guidance to support a casual narrative and campaign play. Maybe even some articles, insiders and so forth to give the non-competitive player base more standing. That requires no models or CID’s to achieve. Instead the company has just abdicated all responsibility in this area to “some blokes” who are producing Brawlmachine and other things and maybe between them keeping parts of the community alive.
Disclaimer – I LOVE the LoS guys for the work they are doing but PP is taking the piss quite frankly.
I don’t think that GW planned to release their AoS 3.0 at exactly the same time as UK lockdowns are ending. We just didn’t know how things were going and these types of things take time to produce. But you have to admit it puts them in a great position that they can flood stores with new offerings, rules and media just as people are emerging from 18 months of lockdown and are looking for things to do or reengage with their old hobbies.
Other companies like Wyrd, CB, Goblin Games, Atomic Mass etc have all been using the lockdown time wisely and carrying out some or all of the activities above. PP? Sitting there like a dumb lump wondering why their market share has eeked away and nobody new really wants to play. They are an old company who have not worked out how to operate in the current world of gaming. I want them to come round and start wining again. But I have my doubts that they will be able to. So many years after Mk3 we are still talking about the same issues and problems without any remedies and the player base continues to shrink and PPs reputation goes even further down.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gamingdevil on May 12, 2021 10:05:17 GMT
You realize that they've actually been doing that, right? They're actively supporting, even promoting, the communities at Knightsmachine and LoS, with both support for Brawlmachine and the VTC, or at least acknowledgements. Hungerford has been on several podcasts over the past few months. They've been working on striking shipping deals so people don't have to pay an arm and a leg when they order things from the online store. There's actually a few suppliers on mainland Europe that have stuff and from where the stores can order! They've revamped the battlebox casters and just made the new sculpts available. They've been doing Kickstarter as a way to "get the word out". They've continued to make new models that the community can get excited about, and the new Steamroller rules should go into CID so they can be ready when the world starts up again. They've been working on doing the sculpts that were lost in the China debacle in-house, so people can actually get the models they want again.
I mean, these things are of course all with mixed success, but I feel like what you're saying is disingenuous and plain ignoring everything they have worked on/for.
|
|
|
|
Post by marxlives on May 12, 2021 17:15:58 GMT
That is true, just looking at some of the economic news, scarce as it is. Kind of a wierd event, it is like unconsciously the zietgeist is anticipating some sort of coming economic collapse, even though if you went by most of the media, everything is great. Buy buy buy. I don't think its that so much. Its more people have had lots of time over the past year to 18 months to review things and make a decision on whether of not they intend to continue be involved with their various hobbies and interests in the same way once the pandemic is over. The pandemic has given many people the opportunity to make a clean break with things, if they so choose to. Many people in my friends group are not happy with the game, company and direction of travel and have just decided that they don't require 2 or 3 armies and so are trimming down or selling out altogether. I will be one of them although i just cant be bothered to try and list/sell a load of MK2 Cryx armies so the boxes will just go into the loft or the bin. Post Pandemic will be a great opportunity for many games companies to gain new players and have a big reset. But I expect this will be another opportunity that PP will squander or mishandle. I can see that. I switched to more family friendly kitchen table games like MonPoc, Riot Quest, Mice and Mystics, etc. Really love Matt Wilson for his creative output but him and his wife are not good for overall company direction. I ended up scaling back armies but it was more along the lines of buying property while interest rates were at historic roles and being focused on that. Realizing that I will die someday so scaling back my collection so I can get more stuff painted and not be a hoarder. I guess the industry could use a reset, a Great Reset if you will. But I don't think we will see the miniature rennaisance of the early 2000's when you saw Malifaux, Infinity, and WMH take off. Distribution and the nature of retail really seems to work against it. China being on a big IP steal right now in regards to manufacturing also hurts plastics for those companies if they don't have in-house or domestic connections. On a retail and distributor level working straight WOTC, Asmodee, or GW is just too attractive. Every other group outside of that sphere usually have to do group orders in my area through the retailer to make it worth their wile. If PP, Wyrd, and Corvis Belle actually went back to 100% online retailer sales and PP brought back its Press Ganger program it would help out in that they could work around BnM retailers. More places could adopt more of the "game club" scene for non WOTC, Asmodee, or GW games that you see in Europe and it would allow their product to be affordable outside of America in regards to PP and Wyrd. While PP has done some huge misteps mostly around losing their MonPoc license to Hollywood for a decade when the product was at its height in popularity and have a shell company called White Moon Dreams scam their PP and their players out of KS money, and abandoning their indie business strategies to adopt public trading corp business strategies (bold but dumb) the decline of popularity anything not WOTC, Asmodee, or GW seems universal. It is just the market right now. The big exception seems to be Battletech but I think this is because that IP had to walk through the fire in regards to hostile distributors/retailers, IP misteps, Hollywood scam artists that they have 40 years of navigating their product and have alot of lessons learned PP, Wyrd, Corvis belle do not yet have. Also www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page is pretty boss. Catalyst's 3rd party production relationships are VERY tight. |
|
|
|
Post by MacGuffin on May 12, 2021 17:42:39 GMT
I love this game, its aesthetic (outside of archons), and the people I've met in its community. But I'm fascinated by the confusion surrounding PP's relationship with Brawlmachine, and smaller point scales in general. Some people say that PP can't support Brawlmachine and/or smaller point scales, because the community drives the emphasis towards 75-point two-list steamrollers. In fact, when I commented during the Ret CID that Falcir's week one rules might not be a good fit for Brawlmachine, I was shouted down by people commenting that third-party formats should not be considered during CID. Other people applaud PP's informal support for Brawlmachine. Which version is accurate?
As a relatively newish player, I can tell you that nothing discourages new players more than the emphasis on 75-point two-list steamrollers. It's too many models, too much money, too much time/activiations per game, and it tends to reward skewing the strongest, most recently-released models (archons, currently). I practically abandoned my minions army when I learned that I had to buy a bunch of units to compete in steamroller scenarios with an overemphasis on circle zones. The MK3 motto was "play your way." My way is a warlock/warcaster and a shitton of warbeasts/warjacks. But that's apparently not allowed. So Infantrymachine prevails, despite the game ostensibly being about warmachines.
The future of the game must entail recruiting new players. The way to do that is with Brawlmachine, or smaller point scale games, where FA:1 prevents skews, where infantry does not crowd out battlegroup models, and where a new player could purchase and paint an army quickly and cheaply. PP should shit or get off the pot, so to speak, and officially support Brawlmachine, or some other smaller point scale for competitive format.
The Steamroller CID would be a great place to start.
|
|
|
|
Post by marxlives on May 12, 2021 18:23:46 GMT
You realize that they've actually been doing that, right? They're actively supporting, even promoting, the communities at Knightsmachine and LoS, with both support for Brawlmachine and the VTC, or at least acknowledgements. Hungerford has been on several podcasts over the past few months. They've been working on striking shipping deals so people don't have to pay an arm and a leg when they order things from the online store. There's actually a few suppliers on mainland Europe that have stuff and from where the stores can order! They've revamped the battlebox casters and just made the new sculpts available. They've been doing Kickstarter as a way to "get the word out". They've continued to make new models that the community can get excited about, and the new Steamroller rules should go into CID so they can be ready when the world starts up again. They've been working on doing the sculpts that were lost in the China debacle in-house, so people can actually get the models they want again. I mean, these things are of course all with mixed success, but I feel like what you're saying is disingenuous and plain ignoring everything they have worked on/for. I think that there is some VERY big underestimation going on the success of "Wyrd, CB, Goblin Games, Atomic Mass" during Co-Vid. Most people in the HeroClix community wouldn't know what the heck we were talking about if we mentioned Atomic Mass. Outside of Pacific Northwest we are talking about 0 presence. It has about as much movement as the DC varant. CB went from present to completely dead. Wyrd died off a long time ago before Co-Vid. I half a year of demos a couple of years back with no success as a revamp attempt. Hell, even GW stuff isn't nearly as large as it used to be pre-Covid. A good way to test the popularity is look up an IP for a lore chan, battle report, whatever and see the views and subs for those chans. Battle report views over last month 40k - 110k - 123k AoS - 2k - 33k SWL - 4k-5k Marvel Crisis Protocol -1k - 2k (big splash on views when 1st drop, recent numbers are low, probably wont support license cost unlike SWL) Infinity - 1k - 2k Battletech 100's - 2k Malifaux - 100's - 2k Kings of War - 100's - 1k (other Mantic properties did 0 interactions for the month) Warmachine and Hordes 100s - 1k (other PP properties did 0 interactions for the month) Lore video views over last month 40k - 100k - 333k Marvel Crisis Protocol - 100's - 256k (Same as with SWL, IP views is not translating into miniature game interactions) SWL - 40k - 247k (the gap between people who engage with the lore vs the licensed game is pretty big, makes me wonder if Asmodee can keep releases going) AoS - 4k - 15k (for non video game content) Battletech 100's - 9k (shows a healthy relationship between lore and gameplay interactions) Kings of War - 100's Malifaux - 100's (lore is picking up albeit, like Warmachine still pretty low but matching with the number of gameplay interactions) Warmachine and Hordes 10s Infinity - none for this month, seems like a year ago lore was really taking off with 6k - 7k views. No interactions today over a month is not a good sign. The writting on the wall is pretty clear. I would be surprised if SWL and MCP remain a thing due to the disparity between IP lore engagement is not translating to hobby miniature sales. Especially with Marvel licensing out to HeroClix and their Deep Cuts line making, well deep cuts. Battletech seems like the King of the Bottom Tier when it comes to owned IP vs licensed and they got their other properities like video games to lean on. When it comes to Mantic, Wyrd, PP, and Corvis Bell; their footprint is incredibly small. Like they could probably make more money doing 40k lore videos small. So it is actually surprising they can put out product and have anything resembling a scene. I hope this puts things into perspectve and does a Great Reset on expectations. And before people say "well back in the day PP", Miranda's Wargamer Girl top vid is like 61k, 7 years old, top notch production quality, while your BB Stan 40k battle report easily doubles that in a month. And she has top count. Best thing these companies can do is take from BT's book and KS some HareBrain Schemes scale of their Shadowrun and Battletech in IKRPG, Through the Breach, Vanguard, and Paradiso. |
|
|
|
Post by michael on May 12, 2021 20:55:04 GMT
... While PP has done some huge misteps mostly around losing their MonPoc license to Hollywood for a decade when the product was at its height in popularity and have a shell company called White Moon Dreams scam their PP and their players out of KS money, and abandoning their indie business strategies to adopt public trading corp business strategies (bold but dumb) ... I do not think you have a solid grasp on what you're talking about. I doubt "getting paid a bunch of money to license MonPoc's IP, conveniently at roughly the same time the bottom fell out of the collectible pre-painted minis market" could rightly be categorized as "losing the license to Hollywood when the product was at its height in popularity." The blind buy fatigue in the community was very, very real, and I saw people burning out fast near the end. I think your analysis here is flawed. Regarding "... have a shell company called White Moon Dreams scam their PP and their players out of KS money ...": Umm...they delivered a playable video game. You know that, right? We can absolutely discuss permutations on "I think the project could have been handled better", but, like...they did what they promised, in the main. The Tactics community was not exactly full of cool people, sadly, and the game had a painful learning curve that felt even more punishing than tabletop WM/H. The absolutely endless stream of Female Doging and moaning about the game on both the PP forums, and the WhiteMoon Dreams forums, and in lots of other places, helped make those complaints a nicely self-fulfilling prophecy. The expected revenue from ongoing game sales dried up, and they ran out of money to keep supporting the game. It happens. I can give you some email addresses and you can email various WMD people and call them a "shell company ... that scammed PP out of their money" and see how they react. You literally don't know what you're talking about. Have you ever spoken directly with any of the developers there? Or Matt Wilson or anyone else at PP about the game? Or is this just standard Internet knowledge-free BS-ing passed off as knowledge and truth? |
|
bacon
Junior Strategist
Posts: 134
|
Post by bacon on May 13, 2021 16:50:40 GMT
I guess I'll throw my hat into the ring. I am going to start by saying everything I'm about to say is in the context of Warmachine/Hordes, I do not know how Monpoc, Riot Quest, or Warcaster are faring on the larger stage with similar games.
I'll start with a question: Are Corvus Belli, Wyrd, and Mantic really doing that much better than PP right now? I ask this because I keep on hearing about how its impossible to find stores that host PP games but Malfaux, Infinity, and Kings of War are all over the place, but for me personally I can find 2 stores in my area that host PP Products (20 minutes away and 40 minutes away, respectively), and the 40 minutes one also plays malifaux, but outside that the closest games stores I could find that host even one of the aforementioned non-PP games are between an hour and an hour and a half away. For reference I live near Chicago, which is one of the largest cities in the US. Further, when I went to Gencon between 2016 and 2019 it always seemed like PP was consistently more busy than the other stalls, though this is just my perception. It looks like to me PP, along with a bunch of other companies that aren't industry Goliaths like GW or WotC are struggling at the moment due to the large influx of new competition and distributers only wanting to carry stuff that will move fast. It also hurts that the general consensus is that GW has gotten their heads out of their ass so people are flocking back to them.
PP has made missteps, to be sure. The loss of the Press Ganger Program, the loss of the Faction Specific Forums, and the cancelation of No Quarter I think have hurt the brand. Some people have picked up the mantle of Press Ganger at their local stores but it can be hard to instill the same fanaticism for the game in newer players so that they can pick up the mantle when the current holder cannot do it any longer because of life. I know the Faction forums were canned because they were generally being toxic, but I feel like that problem could have been solved by the moderators holding a tighter leash than by canning them completely. I think that PP was benefitting from having a large number of people congregating in a single website, their website, to talk, as now if you want to talk to people about specific Warmachine factions the best places to go are split between dozens of websites and social media groups. I know No Quarter was costing money, rather than earning it, but I also think that it was responsible for motivating the active players who did read to engage in the game and its lore more fully and it brought some visibility to PP by having magazines out there with their art and logo plastered on it. For me, at least, it was the idea of the Loss leader, where you sell something at a loss to get customers to buy other things. The effects motivation has on customers can be hard to quantify, and I cannot say for sure, but I wonder how much its cancelation has effected PP financially in the long run.
My single biggest complaint was MK3's Launch. Specifically they made some large changes to the game that made Factions feel completely different than their MK2 counterparts. When I bought into Circle in MK2 I got a faction that heavily utilized stones for teleporting, and Druids who could control enemy models or pull them into threat range of my armies, and some terrain generation that I could use to control the flow of battle. MK3 nerfed teleporting, terrain generation, and druids were nerfed into the ground. For a faction called "The Circle of Orboros" the only models consistently taken that are druids are the Warlocks, wayfarers, and Stoneshapers. The faction now feels really different than than the one I fell in love with when I first started warmachine, and if it wasn't for the fact that Minions (specifically gators), which I also owned, felt a lot like what I missed from MK2 Circle, I probably would have quit a few years ago.
Overall I still like Warmachine. I think, balance-wise, it is actually in a really good spot even with archons and Riot Quest Solos. As to what PP can do going forward I think PP desperately needs advertise itself. Get its name out there to people who do not know what Warmachine is, or have heard of it but don't know too much about it. Getting a decent video game might help. It doesn't need to be strategy, it could be an RPG or even some other type of game, but PP needs to invigorate interest in both its game and its setting. Tactics wasn't a success and was flawed but it should not be the end of PP's forays into the medium. The wargame market is too flooded with both industry power houses and new heavily experimental games for traditional advertising to work for them anymore.
|
|
|
|
Post by beardmonk on May 14, 2021 7:57:44 GMT
<snip out some really good stuff> When it comes to Mantic, Wyrd, PP, and Corvis Bell; their footprint is incredibly small. <snip out some more really good stuff> For me its less about size and more about competence. Your probably right, Wyrd is probably a smaller company that PP (maybe?? do we even know at this point??). However here in the UK I have no issues getting their stuff. They were hit with distro issues same as everyone else however they were able to overcome that and all the stores in the UK had a stack of good will toward the company so were happy to deal with the disruption for a bit before things got back on track. PP, its still a struggle For me personally, my area of London, there are now 0 active WM/H players that we area aware of. Malifaux, there is a good healthy group of people. Our local gaming club is happy to give them a home and they are growing with new recruits from the interest they have gathered over the lockdown. For WM/H the games club owner doesn’t even want the game played in the club. I am moving to the North of England over summer. Where im moving to there is also a very active Malifaux group. WM/H group is really struggling from what im told through talking to people. To the point where it prob not worth me taking all of my collection with me. I can’t talk about Infinity or MCP, but I see them all over the UK and on UK discussion boards/forums etc. And I accept that the plural of anecdote is not evidence……. But for such a small company with a tiny footprint, Wyrd seems to be doing a lot better than PP is in the UK both in terms of player coverage, product on shelves and reputation with store owners. Your comments about Wyrd needing to advertise more. 100% accept. But again, on normal gaming websites, forums, news sites etc I see a lot more Wyrd stuff advertised than PP. And the reception to those products in the comments are always much more positive. Im not really sure exactly what my point was here. Maybe just to say that Wyrd, CB, AMG etc may be small, but they are competent companies. PP might be bigger, but they are struggling to connect. |
|
snoozer
Junior Strategist
Posts: 467
|
Post by snoozer on May 14, 2021 13:01:39 GMT
For me personally, my area of London, there are now 0 active WM/H players that we area aware of. Malifaux, there is a good healthy group of people. Our local gaming club is happy to give them a home and they are growing with new recruits from the interest they have gathered over the lockdown. For WM/H the games club owner doesn’t even want the game played in the club. Oh well if you aren't even "allowed" to Play Wm/H then how would any healthy community develop? |
|
|
|
Post by beardmonk on May 14, 2021 14:02:56 GMT
For me personally, my area of London, there are now 0 active WM/H players that we area aware of. Malifaux, there is a good healthy group of people. Our local gaming club is happy to give them a home and they are growing with new recruits from the interest they have gathered over the lockdown. For WM/H the games club owner doesn’t even want the game played in the club. Oh well if you aren't even "allowed" to Play Wm/H then how would any healthy community develop? Because there used to be a very healthy community. And the club owner used to be part of it. But so much has happened since Mk3 launch to turn him against it that he advocates against the game/company. And that's part of the issue, you have some many people who have been burnt or disenfranchised by the game that they will speak against it. Something you rarely find in ex-Malifaux/Infinity/MCP players. |
|
|
|
Post by Charistoph on May 16, 2021 0:02:56 GMT
I was talking to one of the people at a new LGS that opened up in the last few months about WMH, and he was talking about some of the marketing/selling strategy PP has started doing which makes it entirely unprofitable to carry their merch in the store.
Didn't say anything about not playing it in the store, but from what he said, there was zero chance of them carrying anything without a demonstration of a change in practice. Meanwhile, I'm playing Battletech regularly there, oddly enough.
|
|
Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
|
Post by Cyel on May 16, 2021 7:42:40 GMT
Two things: accessibility, affordability. Those were the 2 problems I encountered whenever I was trying to pull new players in or encourage old ones to return.
The only thing in the few last years that actually improved the condition of the community was Brawlmachine - it ticked the box of improving accessibility.
It would be easier to recruit new players if the game:
-had proper starter boxes. Battleboxes are mostly pointless. Few models, no meaningful gaming experience whatsoever. An equivalent of a Brawlmachine army for ~80$ would be a great starting point for a new player who'd like to try the game out without investing too much in it. ASOIAF faction starters or Start Collecting sets from GW are good examples.
With such boxes the game can also have presence in stores (people can buy and start playing), as having the entire range in stock is probably impossible.
-dealt with the rules bloat. We were promised a streamlined experience at the start of mk3 and I think PP failed to deliver. Now, say, a Menite Archon, an 8pt solo, has 16 freaking individual special rules and the back of the card full of small font text :/ We have universal special rules (Icons). What's wrong with them, aren't they enough? In my opinion the basic game of ranges, order of activations and dice management with a sprinkle of SPECIAL from the warcaster is really interesting on its own. WFB somehow managed to differentiate units just by giving them different generic weapons from the list of 10 or so...
-limited the impact of themes and relentless power creep - whenever a friend who used to play cosniders returning, and learns that to have a good game they need to throw 3/4 of their rag-tag collection in the bin and buy the equivalent in new, overpriced stuff, they just prefer not to bother. Having a workable "no-theme" theme could be a start.
-small point games. We already have those! Thanks LOS:)! Now it's up to the communities to have them played normally and widely (tournaments, pick up games and so on)
-seriously, do something with the prices. They are just so much higher than most competition.
|
|
cain
Junior Strategist
Posts: 243
|
Post by cain on May 16, 2021 21:51:20 GMT
Its interesting to compare with corvus belli. Like PP, its a rather small company living in the shadows of GW. Like PP it has been a company mainly supporting one game, but which over the years are trying to branch out. It also hasnt gone plastic, but are still mainly metal models. Infinity also is a rather well balanced game which have a yearly competitive mission pack.
CB rather than PP however seem to be way more active in trying to recrute new players, like:
- they still have an old school forum
- they still have their version of pressganger
- they produce well priced 2-player starter set with 2 small armies and lot of terrain
- they have made a new version with less rules for new players
- they produce starter packs for new army
- they produce YouTube videos who show of nice new models
They also try to give something to the fluff players like;
- they still produce paperbacks of the boks with fluff
- they regularly produce campaign and special missions with models
- they have started producing comic books and novel books are supposed to come
They also have a strategy for culling the huge backlog for themselves and stores;
- old models are killed of in production (you can still proxy)
They seem to get on OK with flagstores;
- models are being repacked to make it easier for flagstores
- they produce tournaments sets with prices for store/TO, like FFG xwing
- distribution seems to be a non-issue
|
|
