"The Future: Spend More on Rulebooks, Less on Miniatures" Topic

"In my opinion it's sort of analogous to the cost of gasoline in that we perceive the price, at $3.00 USD USD a gallon outrageously expensive."

You can be thankful that gas is as cheap as that…

in the UK petrol has just passed £1.00 GBP GBP per litre!!!

Lucky the UK isn't the size of the US! Tend to use girlfriends car for longer journey as it'll do nearly double what mine will on a gallon.

I've been looking at the model railway hobby recently that's mentioned in previous posting – that seems far, far more expensive than my gaming hobby has been to date. The key factor in keeping costs low has been that I've painted my own stuff and not buying ahuge amount that will jsut still around unpainted in the first place.

Simon –

For FOG, a Battle Group (i.e. unit) normally consists of 4-6 bases ("elements" in DBx) for cavalry and skirmish infantry, 4-8 bases for drilled heavy infantry, and 8-12 bases for Gallic and other tribal infantry types.

John –

Base widths are the same in FOG as for WRG/DBx: 40mm wide for 15mm figures, and 60mm wide for 25mm figures. Most of the FOG rules writers and play testers appear to be coming over from DBM, so they have attempted to keep base depths as close to that "standard" as possible. The rules appear to be quite flexible in regard to base depths (and even number of figures per base), so I doubt that you will have any problems in that regard.

Cheers,
Scott

Thanks, Scott.

This has been interesting and instructive.

By the way, at John Holly's suggestion I checked Amazon, and these FoG books are currently pre-ordering at half-price (or actually a little under half-price), so heads up, those who are interested.

"Many of the most popular games today are points-based,"

I'm really not convinced by the basic premise here, how do we even know what the 'most popular' games are apart from in our local groups?

Even if some trends can be identified, in some cases e.g. WW2 rifle company sized games, it really doesn't matter in terms of toys required – a rifle company is a rifle company whether you are playing FOW, IABSM, PBI or whatever, or WRG 1925-50 which is what I started playing company sized WW2 games with in 1973….

How about spending more on both rulesbooks and figures, and less on non-essentials like baby formula and the mortgage?
:)

It's pretty obvious what the popular games are in the hobby, just look at revenues/sales. I spoke to neal catapano at thewarstore.net and he said that while GW is still the biggest single sale point for him, that Flames of War is rapidly closing in on them. Aside from that, check out what's most heavily advertized, and you'll see who the big sale people are. Some gamers here had a big debate on the market share of GW v. other games, and the size of the historical v. 'fantasy / sci-fi' market. It's hard to resolve b/c many of them are the same people. But market share and sales are easier to track.

The bottom line is that people are always able to get as involved as they want financially. You could easily spend your life playing with a few 15mm DBA armies and spend very little money. But that's not what we tend to do, is it? I think I still own enough lead to sink the QE2.

Don't forget that the expensive modern rulebooks are balanced by cheap or free downloads from the Web.

"I'm really not convinced by the basic premise here, how do we even know what the 'most popular' games are apart from in our local groups?"

This is a very good, and often overlooked, point.

Recently, there was a thread on the Reaper Warlord bulletin board about what advice to give a budding retailer on stocking his new store. My response was to advise the new owner to go ask the distributors and Reaper wholesale sales guys. They know what's really happening and what has the best chance of success.

Don't ask gamers. As gamers we have perceptions based on the company we keep (who tend to be like-minded…go figure) and our personal preferences and prejudices. The last people one would ever go to for an objective opinion on anythng realted to gaming is a gamer.

Again I don't see fewer big games at the cons I've been to. I do, however, see more skirmish gaming. That's more total games.

FWIW department, just got a brochure in the mail today from Osprey advertising FOG. They are listing a price of $ 34.95 for the rules and $ 19.95 for each companion volume. The thing is hardback, 176 pages or 20 cents a page.

You can do the math for games like mine or Sam's, but the cost of this book doesn't seem overwhelming.

In some respects the trend I see is more and more big name publishers moving into our hobby, thus pushing out some very fine "amateur" rule sets who can't compete on a per unit cost. With modern desktop publishing (hell, even Word), I don't think layout and production is an issue, but if BOFF is any example, the full color glossy is a very strong selling point. I think there are many reasons for this, one forgotten one being is that it perhaps portrays our hobby as a more serious and adult endeavor.

JMTSW, YMMV

Regards, Bill Gray

ageofeagles.com

cmdr kevin, you're a bit off with that 40k 'timeline'; IIRC, Rogue Trader had 10 supplements released for it. That's about as many as 2nd edition..

Anyway Sam, you might be asking the wrong question; I may be playing smaller games (because it's easier and more fun to finish painting a fireteam than a platoon), but I'm not buying fewer figures. I just buy more minis for different skirmish games. When I started out in the early 90s, there was 40K, and that was it for 28mm SF, really. I had one army. Now, I have 5 or 6 "patrol clash" 40K armies (leftovers from my younger days, really), forces for Infinity, Kryomek, a couple for Urban War, some for Void, plus dozens for no particular game – Copplestone, Foundry, Tactical Miniatures, the list goes on and on.

Given that the vast majority of those are shiny silver, perhaps I should have got into AT-43 rather than Infinity :)

[Again I don't see fewer big games at the cons I've been to.]

If memory serves, the most recent stats for Historicon showed the following trends:

"Of the ~150 games added tis year ~60 were short demos…" – Duncan Adams
TMP link

There were three times as many Sci-Fi games as Ancients games. More Pulp games than Renaissance. Sci-Fi and Fantasy games, which tend usually to be small-scale, skirmish, or at least smaller than "traditional" historical periods like Ancients or ACW or Napoelonics – accounted for @ 15% of the games, which comes up to @20% when Pulp and VSF were added. Virtually all WW2 games are skirmish-level, which adds another 30% of games this past year (and note that that's NOT even counting the additional FOW tournament games.)

TMP link

In other words, more than half of all the games at the last Historicon were small-scale or skirmish games. Even if this increase has not come at the expense of older, larger-sized games, it still represents a major change in the hobby if the proportion of games has shifted in that manner.

Is that really no different from how things were, say, 15 years ago? It *seems* different to me, but of course I don't have statistics for back then. maybe somebody does.

The hot new pick-up board/miniatures games hybrids of the past few years have also followed this trend: Memoir 44, a Napoleonic one whose name I've forgotten, the Command&Colors block series, and the Risk and Axis & Allies releases… in every case the taste seems to be running toward very simple game systems with lots of color, maximizing the use of pre-done figures or sets; games you can finish usually in one hour, but which tend to be *expensive* !!

FOR THE RECORD:

1. I am NOT criticizing people who like these games. I like some of them, myself. I'm just surprised that so few people see these trends.

2. I am NOT calling for some sort of return to the age of crappy type-written rulebooks with a billion rules… I don't know who started that line of argument, but it wasn't me.

I have to say, I prefer the older less glamorous rule sets with their "crappy type-written rulebooks" because they were the originals. Many rules systems today and over the last 10-15 years are re-hashes of these old rules or versions 2 to 29 of the same rules. THe older systems still were diverse with some very simple systems while others were still very complicated in there own way.

With the advent of computers and graphic design the rules books are all gloss and eye candy today but once you open the book and read and play the rules you are not getting anything better than what went before it pre-PC days IMHO.

Take away the glossy covers and the content is no different from previous works and in many examples the new books simply took earlier ideas and maybe modified a few things but thats about it.

Shane

One of the reasosn for this is also (I think anyway) that with gamers now being older, they have the armies and so are happy to diversify the rules to play them with, and so will experiemnt that bit more.

I think that while a trend towards skirmish and pulp gaming has cut down on the number of figures involved in those games, the increasing popularity of 6mm and 10mm scales indicates a desire for more figures per unit and larger battles with more units on a table (the size of which has neither grown nor shrunk over the past 20 tears), than in the earlier periods when 15mm was the 'big' battle scale.

As to rules, the general buying public for whatever reason (gray with more disposable income, GW and BF setting a higher bar?)has voted with their dollars and certain production values are in many cases a minimum threshold that must be passed, whatever the content which can be glossy and slick and still in many cases, contain value.

At the risk of being pedantic, I'd point out that quoting one year's statistics does not a trend make. Perhaps some enterprising individual can make a comparison over several years of Historicons to determine whether a trend exists or whether it's simply a misperception based on a perception of a minor fluctuation.

But I do agree that currently there are many popular games which require fewer figures. The advent of small unit WWII rules, interest in the Pulp era (BTW there is a ground swell of general interest in pulp era art and stories; it's not exclusive to gamers).

One of the questions is whether these small scale games are displacing larger scale games.

Sam's perception is that they are. My perception is that they are expanding the minatures hobby and drawing in people who would find other ways of spending their time and money. I don't have any evidence to back this up…like I said, it's a perception.

The other question is whether people are spending more money on rules and less money on figures. Well, given that there is a growing popularity in skirmish gaming and 28mm (and larger!) figure popularity seems to be rising, it would seem logical. However, one must ask if people are buying fewer figures because they are spending more on rules, or whether it's simply because the current rise of the skirmish demands fewer.

Sam observes that fewer people are painting their own figures. This is probably true, but then again, there never existed before the cottage paint contracting idustry. I think that a lot of people painted in the past simply because there was no alternative.

Now my opinion is that today's slick rulebooks are exactly what we, the gaming community, asked for for years. Now that we've been given what we wanted, we turn on the publishers and say "But I wanted it at the same price as the typewritten version, too!" For the quality of production and the quality of rules, I really don't think that they are expensive at all.

This is an interesting discussion. I don't think that Sam is wrong, per se. I just think that he's talking about his perception. And perceptions, like opinions, are different for everyone.

Sam,

After reflecting on this thread a little, a few thoughts spring to mind.

In my 25+ years affiliated with the wargaming hobby, I notice that wargamers tend to skew in one of two directions. Either they tend toward the hobbyist side or they tend towards the "gamer" side. It is a continuum, and there is a mix of the two in all of us gamers, but each of us tends to break one way or the other.

Gamers tend to have huge rules investments and hobbyists have more terrain and miniatures then they will ever use (gross generalization but indulge me)

In years past, gamers had to hump it and paint and make terrain if they wanted to get a descent game in. Now, however, with 'ready-mades', prefab terrain, and cheap professional painting services, the gamers really don't have to devote any time to the "hobby" side that they do not wish .

Compounding things is the myriad of scales, rules systems, eras to game/collect and it is easy for one to find their interests stretched into many directions (for those with too many interests, skirmish systems may be an appealing way to dabbling in lots of eras/scales/systems with limited time/budgets.

I, myself, am somewhat "old school" and skew towards the hobbyist side. I model/game in 2 scales, only a couple of game systems, and in only a couple of eras. I'll "push troops" on someone else's table readily, but I've resisted the temptation to branch too far from my core interests. I've managed to be pretty good about it for the last 10 years too.

So is the question: Are there fewer "hobbyist" gamers out there? How would we be able to verify that?

Actually, I think the price of books is a game played by the publishers. Amazon wants big discounts for the books they sell. The publishers give them the discounts, by raising the price for everyone else. The price you pay Amazon is the real price for the book. The list price is simply a gimick.

The effects -- independent bookstores are going out of business. They can't compete charging a premium price.

On the price of books:

The price of all books has risen right along with the cost of a loaf of bread.

I'm sure allowances discounts are worked into the margins as are allances for advertising and other expences, it would be seriously stupid not to do so. But the price of books of all types was on the rise long before Amazon was around.

Are you seriously suggesting that a publisher who discounts some sales to promote a book, then sell the books at a loss?

BTW, I can't think of a single independent bookstore that isn't a specialty shop or a dealer in used books (even used book stores are turning into chains).

I haven't had time to read this entire thread, so excuse me if this is repetitious.

I have, for quite a long time now, been predicting the death of the miniatures industry as we now know it.

The trend towards conversion to an information based society is going to happen in areas like the production of miniatures long before it hits other areas in hobbies (well, some areas… In RC products, it has already fully happened. You can buy Ready to Fly RC Planes, helicopters, ready to drive cars, boats, etc. that are all produced by some for of 3DO technology).

Miniatures are already beginning to go this way with the pre-paints and methods for creation of plastics molds.

Eventually, the rules market will have this happen as well.. It is just that the technology for digital paper is less along the Moore-Curve than that of Prototyping/3D instantiation.

So, you are going to see a very short term (2 to 3 years) increase in the price of rules as they shift more toward "high-production" standards (which really aren't that high considering the ease with which they are now produced… You could put together any GW product on a desktop publishing program on a PC or Mac… Same for the FoG rules – it is just the printing that is still expensive).

Once the digital paper technologies of Sony, Berkeley or Stanford mature… You are going to be able to pick up a rule book for a song-and-dance (They will probably have to give them away as promotional materials to get you to buy the 3DO files for the minis).

I know that in the "hobby" area… That is where I am putting my money (At least in tangibles… Most of it will go toward digital technologies to facilitate these changes)…

I, myself, am somewhat "old school" and skew towards the hobbyist side.

Me too. I identify myself as a military modeller who wargames with his finished pieces. "Gamer" to me, bring to mind the folks who sell/buy finished armies, contract out painting, etc. Although I acknowledge they like play the game rather than do the modelling/painting side of things, I've never understood how someone can take the same sort of pride in a non-DIY army or terrain… remembering that modelling is a major part of it for me, to my mind, the non-DIY approach is like getting someone else to impregnate your wife…

The accessibility of painted plastic minis opens face to face gamign up to a huge market who are currently buying were buying CCGs and graduated to CMGs. The next step has already been taken by Reaper in their new non-collectible inexpensive plastic miniature line.

I think, though, rather than a death knell, this is a boon to the industry as a whole. Once that juvenile crows starts to understand the they can play a game with the miniatures that they choose rather than what they blindly purchase in a sealed box, we got 'em!

It's only a matter of time before their painted plastics come up against a well painted metal army and they take the next logical step.

The RTF (Ready to Fly) and ARFs (Almost Ready to Fly) RC models have been around since I was flying in early 70's There are still avid RC modelers out there…probably more than ever. Kits and plans still sell well.

The same, I believe is true of this hobby, For instance, I recently bought 5150…a perfect use for all the Star Wars plastic minis I have. (I never got into the CMG, I got the minis with the full expectation of using them for RPGs and miniatures gaming. 5150 seems like a good fit). Using the painted plastics has not made me paint any less, I have tomes of historicals on the painting table as well as a coupl Reaper Warlord armies. I just invested in a $300 USD Master Paint set and replenished my supply of sable brushes. If anything, the availability of the plastics has simply freed up time for painting other things.

Of course this is only my personal experience. For others who don't like painting, the painted plastics gives them release from an activity that they don't like anyway.

The ability to print on demand and reproduce color easily has as much to do with publishing as a camera does with photography. It's a tool. People who publish rubbish (like those who take terrible pictures) will simply be able to produce the very same rubbish faster and with electonic ink!

One of the reasons that I'm looking forward to FoG is the fact that it is published by Osprey. I really want to see what a very well established historical book publisher with a proven track record for quality can do. They certainly have the quality control, proof reading, art department and presses to do a good job.

[Are you seriously suggesting that a publisher who discounts some sales to promote a book, then sell the books at a loss?]

No. What I am suggesting is that Amazon so large that it demands much greater discounts than what is given to other booksellers. In fact Amazon's price is often lower than what other bookstores pay for a book from their own distributors. This is particularly true with imported books, which typically carry a discount of 35% or less.

The publishers give Amazon a larger discount. But what they really are doing is increasing the list price of the book. Amazon's price is the real price for the book, but the price is jacked up for everyone else.

[BTW, I can't think of a single independent bookstore that isn't a specialty shop or a dealer in used books ]

Now, you're getting it. Independent stores cannot compete against Amazon when Amazon is selling books to the public for the same price that the distributors are selling books to the independents.

A used bookstore is actually getting a higher margin -- typically selling books (and particularly trade paperbacks) at half the cover price, but they typically pay 1/4 of the cover price to get the book (and that usually will be in trade credit).

The independent bookstores selling new books have largely vanished.

[The RTF (Ready to Fly) and ARFs (Almost Ready to Fly) RC models have been around since I was flying in early 70's There are still avid RC modelers out there…probably more than ever. Kits and plans still sell well.]

Actually, traditional hobby stores are vanishing as well. Even one of our local Hobbytowns cut its floor space in half.

I remember talking to the owner of a local hobbystore, before he went out of business. He told me that the whole hobby industry has changed. People no longer want to put rockets, planes, models or trains together. They want a finished product in a box. The model come prepainted and preassembled. The rocket is ready to launch. The aircraft ready to fly and the model railroad ready to run.

At some point the economics become such that it no longer makes any sense to make the model kit, the model rocket with cardboard tubes and balsa fins, the model aircraft with balso and tissue paper or the lead figure.

Of course it is expensive to make plastic models. Many companies are unwilling to spend the money to have a line of figures manufactured in China. A lot of periods simply do not have the demand. I suspect the prepainted figures will be limited to science fiction, fantasy and WWII -- the best selling markets. I would not expect a line of pre-painted Napoleonics, Ancients or even ACW in the foreseeable future. The sales simply would not justify the costs of tooling up.

Last set of rules I spent money on was published c. 1980.
Maybe if someone comes up with something clearly better I might be tempted. But they're not going to gull me with pretty piccies.

Interesting chat guys. I'll chip in..

1. Smaller armies.

Probably true.
a) That Barker chap showed that an unfeasibly small set of emlements could provide a passable game.
b) Some love painting, but even they must start thinking "Do I really need 1500 libyan javelinmen? I'd live to finish this project and move on to some hittites"
c) We all like having lots of stuff, but lets admit it, those big battles where we lay out the whole lot are often the slow disappointment which demonstrates the upper limit of the rules.
d) Rules again – 20 years back there were few rules which could cope with battles of 10000 per side or more. Lots of little battalions moving about slowly and making large numbers of tests seemed typical. Now we have rules whihc enable the gamer to take a level of command from Sergeant up to Generalissimo.
e) Trends for the fringe scales. 28mm are larger and fewer will fit on the regular table. They also support (Some might say demand) more care and attention in painting – more love and care per figure might encourage smaller armies. 6mm looks great en-masse, but wheras I'd probably happily paint another 24 15mm Gauls to expand my horde, the prospect of 200 little guys is somehow less attractive. – I already have the visual mass with the 2000 I have.

Rules

I used to buy a lot of rules at low prices.
About 75% never saw any play, and only about 10% combined the period feel, playability, and consistency for me to repeatedly use them.

There have been great leaps forward in terms of the quality of rules presented. I find the design notes in Frank Chadwick's rules are an excellent feature. You may not agree with his design decisions, but at least you know where he is coming from.

Now we have access to a host of free rules. At the other end of the spectrum are some very pretty commenrcial sets.
I now buy very few rules. Partly because I already have sets whihc satisfy me. Partly because I no longer feel the pressure to be playing GQ3 – perhaps I'm old enough to realise that GQ2 didn't simply break overnight. But there is another factor.

For me the great breakthrough in rules technology took place over a decade ago. Writers tried new mechanisms and got them to work. Different sizes of engagement were possible and poorly served periods of history were addressed.

My last couple of highprice purchases have been disappointing. Rules which promised a lot, but didn't live up to the hype.
The "new mechanisms" were frequently a simple "Let's grab command rules from set X, we can abstract skirmishing like set Y and we'll do combat outcomes like set Z".
Colours and pictures are lovely to have, but no substitute for well organised and indexed text.

Today, my biggest spend is on paints ad scenery

Perhaps the question should have been, "Do you spend more money on rules vs. figures than you did a year or two ago."

That wouldn't have generated as much discussion, though.

(NB: For puropses of the discussion below, my "year" begins and ends with the Millennium conventions. This is becasue projects for the convention drive my purchases and the vendors at the convention know I'm an easy mark.)

For my part, I can say that over tha last three or four years, the amount of money I've spent on figures has increased dramatically and far, far, otustrips the amount of increase fro rules.

However, even this doesn't tell the whole story. The last few years has seen large investments in 28mm Napoleonics and 25mm LotR:SBG. Since before those projects, I was a 15mm historical guy, the dollars went up, but the number of figurres declined.

This year I'm returning to 15mm but still doing a few 28mm. So far, this year I pruchased two 28mm DBA armies and six 15mm DBA armies along with a smattering of 28mm Reaper Warlord figures.

So far my rules purchases have been "Check Your 6!", "5150", "Warlord", and (preordered) FoG.

BTW, if FoG turns out well, I may bring the old NKE DBM army out of retirement. I have to get them out anyway to see if I can make three DBA amries out of them…if I can, then I'll just have to buy some Hitties to throw against them in BBDBA.

Last year I added "Wellington Rules!", "British Genadier", and "DBMM" to the rules collection, but I bought about 350 Foundry and Perry 28mm Napoleonic figures.

"the non-DIY approach is like getting someone else to impregnate your wife… "

Not quite. Think of it more as they do all the hard work, preparing the house, buying the food, cooking the meal, opening the wine, listening to their chit-chat, empathising over their worries, making the coffee, sitting through the chick-flick and discussing the merits of the film. At which point the contractor leaves and you come in from the pub and start the fun bit.

If any one's met my wife I was never here right !!

Steve P

Erik Bloodaxe wrote
<quote>The publishers give Amazon a larger discount. <quote>

Technically this is illegal and in fact not reality. They don't give Amazon a larger discount – Amazon receives a larger discount based on their ability to purchase more (a slight but significant difference). A publisher or distributor cannot offer discounts to one party and not offer the same discounts to another. Instead, most publishers and distributors have set discounts based on volume and/or miniumum purchase. In some cases there are different rates based on whether the books are returnable or not. So, if I was large enough to sell $1,000,000 of books a week then I would be able to buy books at a higher discount and pass those savings on to my customers just like Amazon.

So, back to the Wurstphobe's original post…
I think the price of rules will continue to increase and my thought is they will increase rather dramatically for the short term until a level is set by the market. Not too long ago $20 USD rules sets were considered expensive (at least to me). No I have no problem with a $35 USD price point as most rules now seem to be in that range. I would hesitate buying anything over $40 USD not just because of the cost but because somehow it seems there's not that much difference in quality between a $35 USD rules set and a $45. USD So for the price difference what am I getting?

But, what the $40 USD – $50 USD rules do now is start the upward trend of rules prices. Once it's established that people will pay $50 USD for rules then subsequent rules will be priced at or near there.

As for paying less for figures I see your point and with a bit more convincing might agree with it 100%. Leaving skirmish games aside what I have seen as a trend is a reduced reliance on the number of figures per unit. Instead, the number of bases or frontage is more important than the number of figures. This allows a gamer to reduce the number of figures needed to play – for instance in some games a battalion was represented by 24 figures each mounted two or three to a base and figures were removed as casualties were taken. Now there seem to be more games where that same battalion can be represented by 12 or 16 figures on one or two bases and casualties are noted on a roster or handled in a different manner.

Three or four years ago I used to play DBA and HoTT, with units of a single element of 4 figures; then I changed to Command and Colours with 4 element units of 16. Recently I remodelled all my units as 6 elements, 24 figures because they look better. Last month I started building pike units of 48 figures…

This is a horrible trend, which is only going one way…

Simon

Cost of FOG in Canada as per my earlier message on 'Field of Glory pricey investment'

For those in Canada you can pre-order the Rules from Chapters.ca

Field of Glory: Ancient and Medieval Wargaming Rules
List Price:$39.95
Our Price:$26.36
You Save: $13.59 USD USD (34%)
irewards Member Price: $25.04 USD USD

Rise of Rome: Field of Glory Republican Rome Army List
List Price:$22.95
Our Price:$15.14
You Save: $7.81 USD USD (34%)
irewards Member Price: $14.38 USD USD

Storm of Arrows: Field of Glory late Medieval Army List
List Price:$22.95
Our Price:$15.14
You Save: $7.81 USD USD (34%)
irewards Member Price: $14.38 USD USD

So the price of the rules and the army list are not that bad.

Amazon doesn't get a better deal from publishers, they just make less per sale and make it up in volume and the fact that they operate a Long Tail business.

The trend is spend more on rulebooks, less on miniatures? Man, no one tells me anything! I guess I should stop giving professional quality rulesets like "Over There!" away for free!

Hey… Why haven't you given me one for free then?

[Amazon receives a larger discount based on their ability to purchase more (a slight but significant difference).]

A lot of other large online retailers, such as Overstock.com and Walmart offer prices which often are lower than those offered by Amazon.

From the standpoint of an independent bookseller it makes little difference that Amazon often sells books at the same price you get them from a distributor like Baker & Taylor because (1) they are Amazon or (2) they buy so much.

Amazon, does in fact, demand terms from publishers. The nature of these negotiations are never made public and Amazon never comments on them. link

Whether it's illegal or not, any legal proscriptions are not being enforced. In fact the same thing happens with WalMart every day. Vendors travel to Bentonville Arkansas all the time where WalMart lays out the terms for dealing with WalMart. The bottom line is that main street retailers cannot compete with WalMart and independent booksellers cannot compete with Amazon.

The downside to this is that the only source for many of these publications becomes Amazon. Are you as a bookseller going to stock a title for $50.00, knowing that the same product can be had from Amazon for $34.00?

Take Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare, for example. It lists for $50.00 USD You can purchase it, as a bookseller for $32.50 USD from Baker & Taylor. You might get a few more points by purchasing it directly from Casemate, but shipping costs might eat the difference. Amazon is selling it pretty close to the price you purchase it from a distributor or publisher.

If you carry the book and offer it at full retail, many gamers will balk. They might paw through the book, see if they like it, then turn around and purchase it from Amazon. It then becomes a question why you would want to promote Amazon's sales.

Givent that the historical market is rather small in the first place and historical gamers are notoriously cheap, a retailer might quite rationally choose to forego the historical market and focus on selling GW products and Flames of War.

The funny thing about miniatures prices is that they probably are lower than ever. With the Old Glory army, it is possible to purchase a bag of 30 figures for $17.40, approximately the same dollar cost as you would have paid in the early 1990s when the Old Glory figures became available. (Of course you have to join their army and buy in bulk; there is no savings for the gamer who only wants one or two bags of figures.)

However, when you factor in inflation, the price is a lot lower. According the the consumer price index(which does not account for energy, housing, food or medical expenses) that $17.40 USD equals $12.19 USD in 1992. Not only that, Old Glory's figures today are of a much higher quality than they were in 1992.

Now imported figures are expensive, and are becoming more so with the collapse of the dollar. But then, imported figures have always been expensive. The price of these figures by and large explains the movement away from 25mm to 15mm that we saw in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I don't know how many times I heard that 25mm was dead back then (and how many 25mm armies I picked up).

A while back I got bored with the never ending circus of poor game design by GW and set about trying to find a system that I could get more fun and realism from.
I went through a whole bunch of systems , some good, some not to my taste….
I settled on Armies of Arcana, the rulebook is only around £14.00 GBP pounds, thats very cheap and a whole lot cheaper than FoG.
The system promotes the use of more models, not less, so that doesn't fit with the original post either.
Now because I have truckloads of Fantasy armies (and I love miniatures) I went out and purchased a half dozen 28mm Ancient armies from Foundry, Vendel and Perry Miniatures to use in AoA with the Fantasy armies.
AoA is small but it's growing… and none of the facts I've offered fit in with the premise of the original post.

Maybe he was referring to 15mm miniature gaming…

£50.00 GBP quid does seem like an awful lot for a new ruleset but they have been putting FoG together for a while now with lots of playtesting.
Do you get any models with that £50.00 GBP quid purchase?
Or just a rulebook?

Having said that I've spent £2,500 pounds on miniatures in the last 12 months so £50.00 GBP quid for a rulebook is no biggie if you are going to play the system regularly.

I second that… I have spent a ton on 15mm figures in the last 18 months.. Probably close to $1500, all on Xyston, Corvus Belli and Mirliton figures (I still have about $500 USD to spend on some more Xyston and Mirliton to fill out my Early Romans/Latins and Samnites: Samnites from Xyston, Romans/Latins from Mirliton)…

I have spent roughly $2,500 USD on 28mm figures (That would amount to around $8,000 USD in retail if you factor in the discounts I have made from eBay), and I have spent about $1,000 USD on various conversions and such that I am doing…

So… To second RT's point… $50 USD is a drop in the bucket if I want a set of rules, and considering that I don't have to spend that money (I can either go through eBay and wait to snipe a bargain, or go through Amazon to begin with)…

I will be buying FoG for a lot more than just the rules as well. Any product that has slick illustrations/diagrams/photos will be bought to oogle those like an adolescent at a newstand with a penthouse…

And… As I keep saying…. It's the shape of things to come, and the price of rules will eventually take the same beating that minis are now starting to see… As soon as a viable digital paper (Viewer) becomes available… You are going to have to give the rules away to get people to use them, and they better come with 3D Animation, or movie clips to illustrate them… Never mind glossy stills… I am going to want to see those miniature elements walk themselves through their allowed maneuvers, and see what happened in their fight with the enemy… I am going to want to see fully animated or high production movie transition scenes (like you see in Halo, Gears of War, or Final Fantasy) that take me from one section of the rules to the next….

Only then will you see me shelling out any money for a set of rules.

We pay for the still photos and illustrations now. In the future, it will be the motion pictures we pay to see in the rules to get us to buy them…

@Judas, go get it yourself ya lazy bum!
link

What am I, a singing telegraph service too? Door to door delivery? ;P

I went to the Amazon site and the rules were US $23 USD and the army list for Greeks, Persians, and Macedonians was us $13.57. This is not a bad price! I purchased them at the same time and qualified for SuperSaver which means no postage cost. It will take a bit more time than normal shipping. Probably shipped by alpacas. I was so pleased with myself until I realized …. I don't play ancients.

Rich

Interesting observations, all. I'm not sure whether conventions are a good place to determine a trend in table top game *size*. Conventions 'tend' to attract games that are easily transportable and easily played in a limited amount of time. I've rarely seen more than a few 'large' games at a convention, even twenty years ago.

Considering the importance of a good set of rules overall, I don't have a problem with a $50 USD set, if it's well-done. The bar for a miniatures rules has been set by GW and others for the last decade or more. It isn't surprising that most rules are attempting to rise to that.

The move from DBA to DBM and such suggests a move to larger games, but even so, I don't see Empire as requiring more figures than AOE or F&F. In fact, if you pick out pre-20th Century game pictures off the internet with the same scale, and it is hard to see one rules set having intrinsically more or less figures. Looks pretty equal. The same is true of the scenario requirements. Larger scale games may use smaller figures than skimish games, but the number of figures in a GA game is about the same as a TSTF game, and they're more than twenty years apart with much the same design philosophy as far as formations etc.

Axis and Allies, and a whole raft of games like MBs Shogun, and Fortress America, or OGRE and Space Opera games which had low numbers of figures were popular in the 1980's and 90's. There could be an argument that BattleCry spin-offs like Memoirs '44 and Ancient Colors are far more detailed and require/have far more figures and play aids that Battle Cry.

Money's always an issue, and certainly the more expensive figures and rules get, the fewer figures and rules folks will buy. I think one possible direction has already been mentioned: stick to one set of rules and build only a few armies.

All I know is that some of the scenarios for AOE and F&F take a boat-load of figures, and it's not walk in the park to get enough figures to do many V&B and GA scenarios.

I do think that the variety of options in HOW games are played and with what has broadened, which might be one reason there is a sense that games are growing smaller. Over all, I don't see it.

Sam:

Did you say skirmish gaming is less expensive? I game French North Africa and I must have 500 + 25mm figures. That's not counting buildings, tents, forts, trees, desert geo-hex and other terrain items. For every French figure I buy I need three natives. First you need Legionaries then you need cavalry, artillery, machine guns, Turcos, civilians, etc. I painted all the figures except for about 30 or so. The rules were cheap, The Sword in North Africa.

I spend way more on figures than on rules. I am putting together AWI armies. Most of the figures are Perry/Foundry figures. The rules were free online. I just had to download them. I painted four regiments the rest of the painting I outsourced.

I both paint and pay to have figures painted. To me it's mathematical, take my age, how many periods I want to get into, how long it takes me to paint and I calculated I would be finish painting all those figures, 25 years after I am dead.

I love all aspects of this hobby, the painting, modeling, historical research, scenario design etc. But I simply do not have the time I did when I was younger and painted 1500 plus 15mm ACW figures. My aging eyesight and back can not tolerate it. I still paint for my skirmish gaming for the sheer joy of it. But painting all my FPW French and German battalions for TDFG, forget it. I have to outsource most of it.

Many years from now we will look back on this period and regard it as the golden age of historical miniature gaming. Compare to the late 1970s when I entered the hobby we have more variety, more miniature conventions, more rule s, more and better made figures.

David

Call me cheap, but I nearly choke every time I drop a C-note on little lumps of metal. But as far as figures vs. rules go, I will always spend more on figures. The main reasons are the availability of free rules and the relative ease and satisfaction of writing your own. I can't make my own figures… or at least I can't be bothered to.

"£50.00 GBP quid does seem like an awful lot for a new ruleset but they have been putting FoG together for a while now with lots of playtesting.
Do you get any models with that £50.00 GBP GBP quid purchase?
Or just a rulebook?"

Just to clarify (again):

The retail list price for the Field of Glory rules book is £25.00 GBP in the UK, $34.95 USD in the US. Here's the link from Osprey Publishing: link

The Amazon UK prepublication special has apparently ended (they must have reached their target number for pre-sale orders), so it is now also being offered there for the retail list price of £25.00: link

The Amazon US prepublication special is currently still in effect, so FOG can be preordered there for $23.07: link

The Amazon preorders include free shipping, which makes the total cost for ordering FOG there lower than at Overstock ($21.92 + $2.95 USD shipping = $24.87).

Retail list prices for the FOG army list supplements are £12.99 GBP in the UK, and $19.95 USD in the US: link

The army list supplement prices at Amazon and Overstock are discounted at the same percentage rates as for the rules book.

Cheers,
Scott

Probably shipped by alpacas. I was so pleased with myself until I realized …. I don't play ancients.

Don't worry Rich, the rules have a supplement for early Renaissance: Wars of the Roses, late HYW. With a few tweaks and modifications, I'm sure you could make them into a respectible set of rules for the Italian Wars, or even later periods.

The bottom line is that the armies that gamers collect are getting smaller, because of the vastly over inflated cost of figures, apparently justified by some manufacturers due to the increased cost of tin. It's odd that it seems to be the same old manufacturers raising their prices while others don't! The is especially true of the 28mm scale. Funnily enough, at recent shows, certain highly priced manufacturers were complaining at the lack of trade, well what do you expect! Simpler rule are always a good thing and I even like glossy sets with lots of photos. Yes, they are getting more expensive. The difference is that you only need one set of rules, but will need more figures. One manufacturer actually said to me that if all the manufacturers treated the correctly as a business, then a 28mm infantry figure would cost about £2.00 GBP and that we gamers were just a bunch of moaners. I pointed out that they would sell many figures if they did! We only have so much money that can be spent on our hobby.

I always thought that figures and rules were the least expensive part of the hobby. The expensive part, at least for me, has always been the books I buy for painting guides, historical information and the like.

Just this weekend, I ordered some $500.00 USD in books on antiquity. While I might spend a few hundred dollars here and there on figures, I still have unpainted lead I bought 20 years ago!

In this day and age, it amazes me that anyone is still producing hard copy rules (or books for that matter), but I also understand that some people like a hard copy and will just not be satisfied with a pdf. The books I just ordered, for example, would be best for me as a pdf, but are unavailable in such form.

- Greg

Hell no, the expensive bit is the time spent painting. Most of my figures are painted on the basis of a single book. (Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome. Haythorne's Uniforms of the ACW. Osprey's Wars of the Roses. And so on.) I am not a uniform fanatic so as long as the basic colours are fine I am happy.

Until eBook readers become mainstream, people will still need a hard copy of rules. And a properly printed and bound hardback is much more durable than a laser print of a PDF in a ring binder.

I personally plan to spend as much as possible on 6mm painted figures in 2008, since I want to play BIG Napoleonic battles and my eyesight will not allow me to paint them properly.

I agree with Kilkrazy. Time spent painting is the most expensive bit.

I still paint, as I seem to get some masochistic pleaure from it, but am making more use of Fernando. They will paint a 28mm fig for me to a much better standard than I can achieve for $US3.50. I'd spend two hours odd per fig and get an inferior outcome – and I am now taking big bites out of my lead stockpile.

I still think it's an affordable hobby compared with say, golf. Or collecting Faberge eggs.

I don't spend much time painting figures anymore, so it is not even a consideration. I'll gladly pay the low cost to have them done for me, and even with that, the figures are by far the cheapest aspect of the hobby, at about a buck apiece per figure painted, including the figure cost.

If you paint your own figures, time is the cost, and my time is best spent elsewhere. My biggest issue is finding the time to draw up the painting guide for the painter!

- Greg