"Heoscape: Doomed?" Topic

Now officially treansferred to TotC, where good (and bad) games go to die:

heroscapers.com/?p=184

If that the death knell I hear sounding now?

Allen

I wondered why when I contacted Hasbro CS they refered me to WotC. I got a pretty friendly response from the WotC CS rep in regards to a missing part from one of the sets I had picked up.

I hope it's not the death knell as my son and I really enjoy playing the game. Hopefully, with the ball in WotC court the game won't become too marginalized. My fingers are crossed.

David S.

One word…. Dreamblade…. :( :( :(

Hasbro has said that the popularity of HS was growing despite its age, and the demographic has skewed to fit WotC's audience more than that of a 'traditional' Hasbro game. This sounds like good justification for the changeover to me.

One can HOPE that WotC will stay the course, and that it has learned its lessons from Dreamblade. Despite Wizard's track record, I am VERY familiar with Hasbro's handling of their long-running lines, and most all of them eventually fall victim to corperate senility sooner or later. I feel confident in predicting that the brand would have met with an untimely demise under Hasbro, anyway.

"I wondered why when I contacted Hasbro CS they refered me to WotC."

Yes, I saw your post. David. Friendly is good. Actually supplying the missing part would be.. oh, I dunno… professional? Competent? Customer service oriented?

But I agree with you. Hoping for the best…

Now Dreamblade: released August 2006. Fourth of the quarterly expensions released September 2007, before the fifth one was canceled. That's 13 months of life. What do you want? Longevity?

Maybe Hasbro is expecting Wizards to sell lots of Heroscape in their retail stores. Oh, wait…

Allen

Well..WOTC can crank out a lot of prepainted plastics. The quality of the Heroscape was generally higher than that of D&D minis IMHO. Maybe new life will be breathed into the project and we will see another year or two from the franchise? I wouldn't be shocked to see a D&D/HS full crossover.

Going slightly off topic but since it was mentioned above: What did WOTC do wrong with Dreamblade? I know it is dying but what was / is the reason for that

Dreamblade isn't dying, it's dead. Shortly after its fifth expansion released in October, WotC announced it would be the last one. Many proponents of the game claimed Wizards put all its marketing behind big-prize tournament play in a few venues, and virtually ignored casual players. Also, many have said the piece-balance was poor, meaning that a few pieces were 'must haves' with horribly inflated prices on the secondary market, while a disproportionately high number of pieces were considered virtually worthless for competative play. Thirdly, unlike D&D minis, their scale (about 40mm) and theme wasn't any good for "secondary" applications (role-playing or wargaming), which accounts for a large proportion of DDM sales. Also, many players outside the US have said that WotC made absolutely no efforts whatsoever to promote the game there. I've heard enthisiests in metro European, South American, and Australian cities couldn't drum up enough players for even very small tourmaments.

There are other reasons as well, I suppose, but those are the big ones. I can only assume that the DB failure (as well as the failure of the CCG "Hecatomb", which suffered the same fate for many of the same reasons) cost Wizards loads of money. They can ill afford NOT to watch their step this time.

I'd like to see HeroScape continue; I like the cheap parts and accessories.

I'm glad they won't make it "collectible," since this would destroy any desire I have to keep buying it.

I do wonder how many people buy it for the parts and figures, rather than the game itself. I've only played the actual game four or five times, but I've used the parts for a whole slew of different games and projects…

I heard this will be better for game stores, who can now carry the game at a good profit instead of 10-20% profit when bought through Hasbro. Target can live on that, but not Mom & Pop Game's. I've heard nothing but good from retailers. The opposite of the WizKids distributor deal.

Yes, but WizKids has games like Creepy Freaks and Shadowrun Duels that I'm sure just *jump* off the shelves in stores (Hey, at the GTS, we were told they would!).

I just think it's a shame that a game that had exposure through Wal-mart and Target seems to be retrenching. My local Wal-mart hasn't had a Heroscape item on the sheves since they redid everything before the holidays. It never came back.

Allen

Hasbro is not putting out any new HS until well into the new year, and the result may be skimpy store shelves.

IIFC, WotC is planning on releasing some less extravagantly packaged game-store exclusive HS expansions, thus allowing for a wider profit margin for the small retailer.

The WOTC rep that has been posting on heroscapers.com also made comments leading me to believe the master sets will not be seeing any discount for retailers. How they expect to convince game shops to carry expansions for a game they can't carry I don't know. My FLGS owner laughed out loud at the concept.
They really need to rethink that plan, and the part where they discontinue ROTV.

I remember what HASBLOW did with their lasertag line. Fantastic product but craptacular marketing/advertising.

I do not know what to tell you guys on this one.

I wondr what the Heroscape move will mean internationally. Heroscape is avaible in Europe in normal toy stores because it is a Hasbro game. I donīt think WOTC will be able to sell to them that easily.

On the other hand I wonder if WOTC will be doing anything abot the way to high price point internationally. Normally games / toys (mass market items, not hobby store imported stuff) sell in Germany approxiametely at a 1 Euro = 1 USD rate. Which is not good if you know the official exchange rate but acceptable because of different taxes and higher wages. But last time I saw Heroscape here it sold for 60 Euros! I think the list price in the US is 40 USD? (I got mine at a Target sale even cheaper when I was over.)So 40 Euros would be more in line with the normal relation between toy/game prices.

Given the generally lousy way the Big Box stores stock HS, I can't see why shifting it to WotC and (eventually) giving local game stores better discounts and access to the product qualifies as a bad thing. Sure, WotC might screw things up themselves, but I don't see how they're going to do much worse than the current situation.

Thirdly, unlike D&D minis, their scale (about 40mm) and theme wasn't any good for "secondary" applications (role-playing or wargaming), which accounts for a large proportion of DDM sales.

And yet, many of the DB sculpts work quite nicely as not-human-sized monsters in D&D. Throwing homebrew critters at players and watching them try to figure out they can do is more fun than pulling stuff from the official books, and cheaper too.

I think so, to. But buying the occasional pack of Magic cards to stick in your bicycle spokes ain't gonna keep WotC in business, either.

I'm optimistic as well. There's a WOTC rep answering lots of questions on the HeroScapers.com fan site which is a good initial sign.

Wizards really needs a non-collectible game to expand their game offerings, and HeroScape fits the bill well -- especially since it has caught on more with adult/hobby gamers rather than with kids.

Looks like they will be restocking Wave 7 in stores come April and will be releasing the next expansion (Wave 8) in mid-summer during convention season (Origins and GenCon). And they're also planning to cancel the Jungle terrain Set as it was originally conceived and release a desert set instead (with sandy rocks based on the same molds used in the snow/glacier set).

I personally think the game will survive at least another 3 years, although I'm sure the prices will increase and the days of getting a box jammed full of minis/terrain like in the Return of the Valkyrie set are now over.

Just saw a new set for this with Marvel superheros in it.