"The 4 Rules of Commercial Sci-Fi Game design." Topic

I've been reading a lot of posts around here again... I'm working on a new book, to follow up on the relatively-successful run my first published game, which entered national distribution months ago and is selling steadily, if not well.

Now that I've been through the wringer, I have some new perspectives on things. The first experience has really hardened me... I totally lack patience with a lot of the things I used to worry about, when people would bring them up. If you want to make as a game-designer... think about these points.

Here are the 4 Rules:

1. Games are entertainment products. Period.

2. Sci-fi games shouldn't bother trying to be "realistic". The market is indifferent.

3. Fiction is far more important that science, when it comes to sci-fi.

4. Game designers shouldn't even bother worrying about people who get upset about rules 1, 2 and 3- you can never please them, and they don't spend money.

The results? The next sci-fi games I publish will have backstories and art direction much more like 40K's, and much *less* effort will be spent on trying to make things "realistic"- it didn't market well, and I had to deal with countless idiots wasting my time.

Let the flaming begin...

I have been thinking of doing a sci-fi game and have been thinking the same things. Problem is, any backstory or alien race I can come up with has already been done in some way or another! Is there really anything new that can be done?

JT

"...you can never please them, and they don't spend money."

"...and I had to deal with countless idiots wasting my time."

If that is your attitude--that those who expect quality science fiction games instead of yet another 40K/Warzone/Vor/Void clone are "idiots"--then I'm not going to spend any money on your products no matter what you do.

Everything's been done at least once. At least in fiction, if not in gaming.

But *how* things are done matters at least as much as *what*. For example, William Gibson wasn't the first guy writing "cyberpunk" novels. But he did it well, and did it consistently. Pick anything that you like... tweak it a bit... and present it to somebody for a first read. Better yet, develop it with one of the many groups dedicated to "indie" RPG writers... you'll get lots of good feedback.

That's where my first game got off track, I think- I tried too hard to tie up loose ends, and didn't worry nearly enough about just making things entertaining. I'm going to think more about making things "fun" this time, definately. From the art direction to the writing... the emphasis will switch from trying to depict things that "could work" to making things that look cool and are fun to think about.

Don't forget that the game design has to serve these needs, as well.

For example... one of the first things my user community asked for was "powers" for their creatures. I was surprised, frankly- I thought that the people buying the game would be content with the incredible variety provided by the points-based design system I put into the game. But no... people *like* all of the things that break the conventional rules and add "character" to their creations.

This time around, I'll be thinking about that quite a lot- people don't play games around the numbers, and they like "toys". I should've known better, of course- whether we're talking Grand Theft Auto or 40K, it's the toys that make the larger game work so well.

As for siefertma... you're *exactly* the kind of problem I'm talking about.

Think about it, for a moment... you come to this discussion, and instead of evaluating why my experience might've changed my perspective, you come in with a negative attitude.

I started out with almost polar-opposite views on all of these things, when I started promoting the first game. I was convinced that my "revolutionary" ideas would instantly gain converts, that people would buy the game because it was the "anti-40K", and that it'd be a snap to pick up the disaffected by giving them tools that no other company has provided. It didn't work out that way.

People like you don't understand, apparantly, that at the end of the day, I have to make money, and that my job as a game designer is to figure out what people will buy, not what fits your pet theories about sci-fi warfare. If you don't like it... don't buy it. It's as simple as that.

WolfeGames -- it's the same story with every other bit of "media". You can be an artist and take the time to craft quality, literate materials or you can focus on the mass market and going for a "formula".

You can be a great writer like Paul Watkins and sell dick or you can churn out shlock like Danielle Steele and make a fortune (rare is the Richard Morgan who is a great literary writer and brings home the bacon -- Ernest Hemingway was another)

You can make smart, thoughtful films like Henry V (Kenneth Branagh) and disappear from the screen after three months or you can make a killing on Independence Day. (rare is the Peter Jackson who makes a killing on an epic, very well done, thinking-persons film)

Etc, etc.

Now if you can bridge the gaps between the two -- THEN you've got a real winner you can be proud of. Me, I'll take the cash...

Thanks for understanding where I'm coming from, Fifty4. It's not that I *desire* to make crap, by any means. If I just desired to make crap, I could turn out a new "book" in a month, full of junky sketches and poorly-written prose, instead of laboring for months on my 3D artwork and laboriously-explored backstories. If I can make something that's not crappy and sells well, then I'm happy- nobody has to hail me as a genius, because the cash spends better.

Hmmmm. I can see where you're all coming from. Although I kind of am sick to death of the 40K universe ( I practically grew up with it) I also find many commercial "hard" SF games play way too much like WW2. I'd like to see at least some nod towards a quantum shift in technology or such. Yes the man at the end of the gun is important but I'd like to see SOME aliens please!!??! The less anthropormorphic the better (a round of applause please for my spelling at this late hour, after so much beer). Anyhoo I don't see the intellectual profit in ripping off 40K like void or vor have. Wanabees! And why do they Wanabee? Cos 40K etc, like it or not has cornered the market and is the global standard. Yes it may be sick and wrong but every one else in comparison is the proverbial "cottage industry". So my advice to you is..... become a GW stockist. Ha ha ha ha Bwa ha ha!!!!!

Hmmm. Reading your original bitter post I'd have to say....OOOOOOH! Don't go down the Stargrunt route if you want to make money :) Look back fifty or a hundred years and extrapolate, the Japanese WILL make giant robots, the Americans WILL make power armour, things will get automated and freaky to an unbelievable level. Who would've thought thirty years ago that a world super power could be attacked so badly by a group of people willing to die for a religious doctrine?

The Philosopher -- what's the "Stargrunt route"?

#1: Soldat...#2: Nice Looking Toys (Minis/Terrain/etc)...#3: Solid World & Game Play (Art/Setting/FUN Game Missions/Etc)...#4: HAVE FUN!!!

Them iz "My" 4 rules!

:)

BME

Giant robots may look cool, but (1) they are done to death, and (2) they are a stupid concept. Like tanks, smaller, more streamlined, HARDER TO HIT is better than building really really big targets that nobody can miss. For the most part, historically, missiles trump armor. Really BIG robots would die a lot from being peppered by little anti-mech missiles that cost a fraction of the mech's cost.

I don't think that realism is per se a turnoff, WolfeGames, but playability obviously comes first. Think of some tech that will help prevent the "WW2 in space" problem that The Philosopher mentions:

Troops with jump packs that can stay in the air, adding a more 3D element to the combat.

Robots, robots robots. Not big-assed I-cost-a-gazillion-
bucks-kill-me-with-one-cheap-shot mechs, but little fast robots. You can have two basic types: (1) cheapo ones that get simple programmed orders at the beginning of the game: advance along this route, reach X point and go hull down, shoot anything you see that doesn't have a IFF code you recognize.* (2) More expensive models with either strong AIs or remote-control devices that let them be controlled by some hot-shot kid way behind the lines. They should have interchangeable weapon systems that allow you to do some custom modifications before the game (Hmmmm, what do you think, Sarge - the eviscerater beam or the frumpgrenade launcher for the left arm?).

Good luck!

-Michael

*XGV-33’s score for the game? 7 pigeons, 2 squirrels, 4 civilians, a neon sign, and 3 bad guys.

Games have to be fun.

The problem with REALISTIC games is yeah, it's just WWII with meaner guns. Stargrunt or hammers slammers is just WWII, except tanks can hover, and transports aren't just gliders. Otherwise it's the same. It's hardly 70 years into our future, the tech these games show. The US Army is working on that stuff NOW. We'll have railguns fielded in 2020.

What about bio-engineered nanotechnologically enhanced super soldiers. Would they even LOOK human? Would they even BE human. The more I read, the more I become disenchanted with SF, because Vernor Vinge is right, the cultural singularity is approaching, and what comes after is impossible to describe. It's not hovering tanks, or guns that shoot lasers instead of bullets, it's incredible, and we can't even begin to comprehend it. I've read SF that takes place at the 'edge' of this change. But beyond it, what will a post/trans human society be like? Most modern SF is just better guns, and better tanks. You could slap this into any WWII set and be done.

Stargrunt utterly bores me. It's played by people who THINK hovering tanks is cutting edge SF.

He's right, a good game system needs to be novel and fun. And people who complain about accuracy will not buy it. If accuracy or realism is so important, then WHY aren't Stargrunt and others more popular? Why is 40k the market leader? The people have voted.

I play warmachine because it's fun, and the background is great.

I think the problem with SF wargames is a LACK of imagination. We'll have Hammers Slammers in 70 years. It won't be in 2200, or 2300, but much sooner. Except for interstellar travel, Stargrunt technology levels will be here within 50 years (Read up on the US army's Objective Force program). We bomb people in afghanistan from 12 miles away using steerable bombs that glide in on wings, and calculate the best impact trajectory based on target type. Stargrunt just launches them from orbit.

True SF futures will incomprehensibly alien to us. I don't know what it will be like. In nearly all sf, technology somehow stops after space travel, everyone has rayguns for hundreds of years, and is still pretty much human (Star Wars, Star Trek, yadda yadda). I don't think anyone can truly understand or comprehend the next 300 years of technology. If someone can capture this in a game, then they'll have a winner.

Whoa, no need to blast the realism folks for a sluggish market response. There are a *lot* of factors that could be responsible, ranging from outside economics to advertising choices, marketing choices external to the game, etc.

One of the biggest factors is length of presence on the market. It takes a *long* time for a game to develop a following capable of sustained sales, and that's even more true for niche market games. For example, the makers of UNO spent nearly SEVEN YEARS marketing their game before it took off— and that's a mass-market family-oriented card game!
A publisher had better be prepared to hang around a lot longer if they want to make money in the much, much smaller miniatures gaming market.

Another factor is the depth of the game's market presence, meaning how often is the game *seen* by the gaming public. Is the game regularly appearing at major gaming/sci-fi/toy conventions around the country? It may take attenders several different encounters to decide, "Okay, this looks like it has legs... I'll buy it," especially when the game is competing against other games they either already play (and want to expand) or have heard about and want to try. The more they see it, the more likely they will be to give it a try.

Another factor is perceived value for the price. Rules alone have a low perceived value compared to boxed sets with minis, or rules with companion separately packaged minis. Generic *sounds* great, and everybody says they want them, but in reality most people prefer the simplicity of limited options: you know what to buy, because the rules state what to buy. For those who already have figures, the problem with generics becomes that the generic rules can't match the fluff and specificity of battlefield utility for specific figures (which the generic author can't predict) that the captive rules provide. Add to this the difficulty people may perceive in convincing someone else to abandon the rules they know for the ones they don't... well, it's not going to help sales at the start.

Now, it is true that "realism" in a sci-fi setting is an elusive beast. Different people have different interpretations of what is "realistic." This is compounded when a system is presented as generic. The designer's interpretation of what a "plasma rifle" is and how it works (and therefore what game effects it should have) may be radically different from any given player's, and the players' opinions will differ radically across the market. The best solution is to create a background story that defines various weaponry, how the work and what effects they have, and then develop the game in support of this background— but this by definition ceases to be a generic system and becomes a captive one.

Also, what is defined as "realistic" can be interpreted in many ways. Mweaver's comments on 'mechs and robots is a "practical" or "historical extrapolation" realist's approach; i.e., what he believes is the likely future development of warfare based upon trends today and practical battlefield considerations. But others may only be interested in a "physical" standard for realism. For example, 'mechs are fine as long as the physics of making, moving, and damaging a walking robot tank are respected. So which "realist" do you strive to please?

There are more things to consider, but this is certainly a start...

I infer from the discussion that you're talking about ground warfare.

I, like many, tried realistic (3d Newtonian) space combat, and found it to be simply a pain in the overthruster. We switched to the FASA StarTrek game because we could play a game in two hours.

Both SF land and space warfare suffer from a cruel disadvantage that historical rules do not - no prototype. If I'm designing a set of medieval miniatures rules, at the very least I can research a dozen or twenty battles in the medieval period and write rules to achieve the effects of those battles. I have a prototype; I have a target.

With SF, we have -all notion of what future warfare is going to look like. That's why SF ground combat games tend to look like either WW2 or Vietnam.

I agree completely that first and foremost, games have to be fun. Second, then, ask yourself "What kind of choices and decisions would make for a fun game, and how do I present them?"

Good luck.

Well said Crusoe the Painter & Gronan of Simmerya! We have no idea what warfare will be like in 200 years! Just go back 200 to 1800. The people then could never have dreamed of the tech we have now, just like we can't dream of the tech we will have in 200 years.

Personaly I imagine battles in 100-200 years time to very small. Small groups (squad-platoon?) of soldiers with all sorts of high tech gear, maybe infared googles, auto targeting guns etc. And they could pack a LOT of firepower. What are other peoples visions?

JT

WolfeGames wrote: The next sci-fi games I publish ...

What was the previous sci-fi game you published?

This is a really good discussion! I lke Stargrunt, but I wish threre was more of the future SF feel to it. Walkers exist now; John Deere has functional prototypes of six-legged harvesters and Japan has powered exoskeletons and invisbility cloaks. Masamune Shirows "Ghost in the Shell" series 1+2 make some good points about the future of what it means to be human. They're very entertaining too.

Eric

The question I have for you, WG, is why not do some OTHER 'realistic' Sci Fi topics, instead of rehashing 40K?

Where's my Asteroid Miners?

What about a near space exploration game (like conquistador, but exploring and setting up stations at near stars? Plenty of possibility for realism and story).

How about a solar sail race game, ala A.C. clarke?

How about my favorite desert survival story, "Brightside Crossing", where the players have to cross the sunny side of Mercury (maybe something like 'Source of the Nile', where players discover the board as they move?)

C.J. Cherryh's Chanur novels has several different species of aliens who have overlapping trade and contact -- and different motives and interests -- how about a game with sets of really alien aliens, and common borders?

The less like the present or familiar past models your game and story are, the more YOU have to sell it. Fun factor certainly helps. Ease of play helps. Interesting story and characters helps. Cool fresh mechanics helps. I would love to play some fun, easy, 'realistic' sci-fi games, but I won't be buying into YOUR 40K anymore than I've bought into Games Workshops'. Stop the madness.

Apart from great miniatures, playable rules & succesful presentation, what makes a game popular is that can appeal to a variety of player types. Take WH40K, it offers you a fairly wide choice in forces to play. Regular infantry, fantasy space knights, gothic types, non-human aliens, hi-tech, low tech, funny looking green guys... all have a recognizably different look & feel, which means that many players can find something in the game that they like to play. Compare this to many so-called "realistic" sci-fi, where all you have is a set glammed up WWII armies with slightly different uniforms & tanks. They lack variety, hence can only appeal to a more limited group of players.

"Realistic" sci-fi also lacks flavour. It's background stories & technologies are usually so bland that anyone could have come up with them, most people simply never bothered. What succesful games have is a vision. Something new & exciting that can be presented to potential players via good graphics & through the miniatures and which can WOW! them on sight. That's what WH40K was like in the Rogue Trader days. And it's what Warmachine has today: a new concept that is presented to the gaming audience in a ready-made package, so they can start exploring it immediately.

People also expect an out-of-the-rulebook game they can play immediately after skimming through the rulebook. Doing your own force or customizing rules only comes later (if at all), because the first thing one needs to do is to learn to play the game & see if it's any fun anyway. If I'd try to do a commercially viable game, I'd include pre-produced forcelists that strongly capture the flavour/style of the game, and have them lavishly illustrated with quality artwork, pictures tell more than words. I'd also include rules for designing your own army, but only because as an amateur designer I like that sort of thing. Most players will come in the first because they like the vision you present them, not because of interesting & customizable rules. I think the TMP audience is a-typical in this respect, as it seems to be made up for a large part of veteran gamers who can be quite knowledgeable about rules mechanisms & effects and who like to tinker a lot. Few of the people I chat with at the local gamestore even think about such things, they just take the game as it is presented to them & either play it or not.

One thing I've noticed with totally customizable games (both roleplay & miniature) is that for most players this goes nowhere. They either try to min/max to get a killer army (nevermind flavour, munchkins only want to win) or else copy something from another game, which can mean that if people use your game with their existing miniatures collection, they'll simply be doing WH40K with different rules, so why bother in the first place? In my experience this works best if one gamesmaster works out the game universe & basic forces, and then modifies them here & there according to player input. That's the way I run skirmish-level campaigns from time to time and it works, whereas every other attempt I've seen to use generic sci-fi rules ended in them being abandoned after a couple of games because they seemed to offer nothing new.

"Think about it, for a moment... you come to this discussion, and instead of evaluating why my experience might've changed my perspective, you come in with a negative attitude."

Actually, the negative attitude started in the very first post with the comment, "I had to deal with countless idiots wasting my time."

I think that all that siefertma was pointing out was that YOUR negative attitude, and the slam against YOUR customers alienates any potential customers.

Too bad, too because, although I personally wasn't interested in what you were hawking, I always root for the guy who brings a new game to market. But siefertma was right, in my book -- a manufacturer who belittles his potential customer base is probably not someone I'm going to be doing business with. And while rules 1-4 are certainly valid on the face of it, perhaps there should be a fifth rule: treat customers (and potential customers) with tact or risk losing a portion of your base.

Thank you Jizbrand, that was exactly my point.

good to see you back wolfe. Im glad your game did ok and I agree with your new direction. Is there a group where we can fling Ideas at you?

Although I prefer 'realistic' scifi to stupid scifi (game remains nameless) this seems to be a minority of scifi gamers. Your rule number 1 should have been:

Know your market.

So, judging by what's currently popular, why were you surprised?

@WolfeGames

so basically you're whining because you created a croaker, is that right?

and people who like what they like, and what they like not being what you seem to like, obviously are ignorants, and "idiots" for not seeing the ancient enlightening wisdom in your products' design.

if you're feeling like throwing pearls to the pigs, and anger at how they dare to not buy your products, then maybe you got the wrong approach to business making.

especially _IF_ you're in this for money-making reasons rather than for-the-fun.

there are a gazillion sets of rules available, and you'd have to give me good reasons to buy yours over others.

it's not that I'd buy anything just "because it is there", and the maker telling me how wonderful and innovative it is.

you will have to make me interested in it. that's called "marketing" last I checked.

and fact is that you will at best become a regular under the "alternative" rule sets. but even there the air is getting mighty thin....

Wolfe don't get discouraged if you try and push the envelope it will push back. I know that if I'd tried to get our local drama group to do Joe Orton they would have refused so instead I did a serious version of Frankenstein with lots of 'hidden' sexual tension. They discovered that they enjoy doing harder plays than the normal light weight comodies. Next time we'll try Dark of the Moon and in five or ten years they will tackle What the Butler Saw or Streetcar named Desire. It just takes time.

Ignore people who insist you sell your game to them. Try Ed at Two Hour Wargames approach instead. Be a gentleman. Listen to people, debate with them politely and ignore the abusive ones. Support your games if they are any good they'll be played for years and years. A couple of my game rules for one-offs at conventions have come back to haunt me when people contacted me for clarifications on them four years after the game.

Slow and sure will win the race, but its not going to keep you in the lap of luxury.

To illustrate the games I play regularly are...

1. Achtung! Achtung! a set of home brew rules that do WWII skirmishes, maybe will be published in three or four years when all teh kinks have been worked out.

2. Hordes of the Things, twenty year old rule set of generic fantasy rules and almost certainly the second most 'popular' fantasy rule set out there, based purely on convention attendance and competitions. There is no real support for the publisher from this but it has an enthusiastic fan base instead.

3. Chain Reaction, I love this ultra 'realistic' generic set of heavy firepower rules. So do many others. My local players dislike them intensly so I smuggle them in whenever we have a scenario that needs rules.

4. WH40K, not my favourite but it guarantees I can play a game anywhere in the country.

Sebastian

Speaking of SF games -- how about a chicken vs. egg debate?

What comes first for a small company -- the minis or the ruleset?

Neither, I think. If the company is going to do it all, then it must start with the storyline. From that, you can build a picture of what the troops must look like. And simultaneously, you can develop how they fight (i.e., the rules).

First off, I've had a chance to read through the commentary, and I was pleased to see that quite a few people at least get where I'm coming from here. Or were interested enough to insert their commentary.

I'm not sure where the commentaries about giant robots et al came from... really, guys, I'm not talking about specific instances of "realism" in sci-fi wargames here. I'm talking about whether that's a worthy goal, even in the abstract sense. My contention is that it isn't.

Now, on to specifics.

*******************************************************

I'm coming back from a year and a half of work, testing, and marketing. I've been watching the results, both online and in the marketplace, and I've learned a few things. My 4 Rules reflect what I've learned, thus far.

I think the "5th Rule" proposed by Jizbrand is a red herring- if there's anything I've learned, it's that you will *not* please a significant segment of this market, no matter what you do.

Yes, you *should* be nice to people who've already paid you money- and I am. I run a Yahoo Group, return email promptly, and generally aid my customers in whatever way I can, whether it's handling returns or giving a gaming group help interpreting a given rule. But worrying about people who haven't paid me anything... nah. No profit.

One of the other things I've learned was that marketing is extremely hard- and forgive me for saying so, but telling me that I didn't produce a mega-hit because of marketing is kind've cruel, because I surely tried, with the budget I had.

You can't put out TV ads for a wargame, for example- it's a waste of money- one 30-second spot during prime-time would cost more than a year's profits for most games. Radio ads? Same problems. Newspapers? Complete waste of time.

So what's left?

Attending cons helps, but it's pretty expensive and time-consuming, and if you have a "day job", then it's nearly impossible to do cons that aren't within a day's drive.

You can get into wargaming magazines- most of them will publicize your release for free. After that, they're not very expensive, but they don't seem to be a good way to market a game, based on my experience thus far. So you're basically left with word-of-mouth and distribution (*if* you can get a distributor interested, which is a big if), which at least gets copies of your games into stores. Both of these can be very effective, but they're not going to make you rich quickly.

This market consists of two different main strata, which are almost mutually-exclusive in their buying habits: hard-core wargamers and casual "hobby" gamers. What I did was make a game that was intended to please both... and it didn't.

Casual gamers didn't know what to *do* with something that was as open-ended as what I'd designed, and wargamers sneered openly at my lack of all of the trappings of a "real wargame", such as extensive and "realistic" command-and-control rules, right out of the box. Never mind that such things had been playtested, and found to be anti-fun.

I quickly responded, and built/tested/wrote optional rules that covered just about every objection that the hard-core community came up with, and gave those supplements out for free to everybody who'd bought the game, and included them on the CD-ROM that ships with the book, so that future buyers would have those things available. I publicized the release of each new item to the gaming community here and elsewhere, and it hardly made a difference in my sales.

This was to be a continuing pattern, and I think it's illustrative of why wargaming has become such a sideshow, compared to RPGs. Lots of work... zero reward.

And lots more complaining. Very few people attend forums and routinely trash AD&D, for example ;-)

Some day, one of the smarter frothing-at-the-mouth people will really surprise me, by successfully converting 40K's army lists to SGII (with special rules intact, mind you), so that people can be converted more easily to the "realistic" community... and contribute something positive, instead of just joining in whatever anti-40K rant is going on. Some day. I'm not holding my breath, here.

To those who are insulted by my harsh depiction of the realities of the wargame market: well, I'm sorry, but things are tough all over. I really had to talk myself into making another wargame, instead of just making a RPG or a D20 supplement, which would be easier and almost certainly more profitable.

I love sci-fi wargames- I've been playing them since Car Wars and Rogue Trader and Battletech were all infants, and my first games that I designed as a preteen were all wargames. That's all that really convinced me to try, try again... maybe I can get enough people to get into the next one that the time invested will be worth it. I dunno.

"I think the "5th Rule" proposed by Jizbrand is a red herring- if there's anything I've learned, it's that you will *not* please a significant segment of this market, no matter what you do."

Read the words again, please. I said, ". . . treat customers (and potential customers) with tact or risk losing a portion of your base." That's nothing more than Marketing 101. The key word is "tact", not "try to please everyone."

Is it even remotely possible that confusing "tact" with "pleasing everyone" had anything to do with the outcome? Even though I'm a dyed-in-the-wool historical gamer, I have always enjoyed SF; and, I'm always in the market for something that depicts what I'm looking for in that genre. The fact that you've repeatedly come across so strong (and sometimes lacking in tact) put me off from trying your product.

In other words, I could have been part of your customer base, but I'm not. Whether your game would have "pleased" me, I don't know, so it really wasn't an issue of that at all. I buy rules just to see what is in them, hoping for a gem, settling for something playable, and borrowing what I can for incorporation into my own systems.

I would say that I'll never know, but your last post presented you and your position in much better light. I don't think anyone was upset with your "harsh depiction of the realities of the wargame market (sic)"; we all know that already, although not to the detail that you do. The hard realities can be presented without verging on the insulting. And you've done that in your last post.

"Yes, you *should* be nice to people who've already paid you money- and I am. I run a Yahoo Group, return email promptly, and generally aid my customers in whatever way I can, whether it's handling returns or giving a gaming group help interpreting a given rule. But worrying about people who haven't paid me anything... nah. No profit."

Well you should worry about people who show a bit of an interest in your game. I wouldn't want to buy from someone who is rude to me, except when I give him money! Would you?

I stand by your side, jizbrand.

From what I have read here, it is kinda putting me off ever buying from Wolfe Games!

JT

No, I don't think anybody's upset with my comments about the "harsh realities". They're upset by the resulting analysis.

That's the part that kills me. People don't *buy* games that aren't fairly heroic. Not in numbers that justifies making a game that competes with GZG, which has more-or-less cornered that tiny market.

Yet they get upset by the resulting shift in perspective this creates in the business. If you want to change this trend... don't yell at me, folks. Get more people buying sci-fi wargames with a more "realistic" game design. Shooting the messenger isn't productive.

Really, the market gets what it *actually* wants. And what the market wants doesn't really resemble what the anti-40K ranters say that the market should want. That's essentially what I'm arguing.

For example:

I told people, when I developed the first game, that I wouldn't get into the mini-sales side of things even though it "only" takes $2,000 or so to get into.

Why? Because I thought (wrongly) that people would realize that *this* time, they weren't going to get jerked around by a company producing supplements that (ta-da!) seem to be designed around a mini release... and they'd buy the games my company produced, because they could trust me not to jerk them around.

Did this work? Heck no. I should've plunked down some change and had a few sculpts done, and commissioned somebody to cast them and take orders. Apparantly, nobody cared about my philosophical position that making minis tied to a game amounts to a conflict of interest ;-)

So I will be the first to admit that I made most of the newbie mistakes that can be made, and all in the name of naivete and good intentions... which is why I put this post up in the first place. It's not really a post for gamers. It's a post for anybody who wants to make money in the biz. Don't do like I did, guys...

Next time, for example... my game will launch in August, timed to work with GenCon Indy publicity, but not so early that everybody's forgotten my name by September. And I'll get some advance copies to distributors, so they can send copies to interested stores.

I'll have at least the sketch of a mini line, and have a few cool photos of painted figs. The website will be ready, and I'll just work on marketing for the run-up to Christmas... and then start working on new product. 8 months of dev. time, more profits per unit sold, higher up-front investment but better prospects of long-term success. Treat a business like a business, not a personal crusade against market trends... that's the message here.

As for Trojan's comments...

I'm *not* saying "be rude to people who haven't bought your game"... I'm saying, "don't waste time on them".

There *is* a difference. For example, putting up sales materials for people, and providing a FAQ... that's a good idea for potential customers.

Answering long email or forum posts asking you questions about the game design, or implying that your game stinks... there's no profit in that. Don't bother.

People *will* attack you- if they aren't, that means they just don't care, which is worse than being attacked.

Just learn not to respond, or if you do... keep it short, polite... and point to whatever resources you've put out for customers- preferably PDFs. If they don't get their questions answered there, then you've lost a potential customer, but you shouldn't waste time. That's my message, not that you should tell people who criticize your product that they're idiots :-)

"""People *will* attack you- if they aren't, that means they just don't care, which is worse than being attacked."""

Raises hand.

Wolfe, I think you're essentially right in your analysis, and if your first game did ok, your next one will do better with everything you've learned :-)

The problem with the "hard" SF anti-40K critics is that they're generally conservative & uncreative. There have been numerous attempts here on TMP to get some sort of creative "hard" sci-fi gaming discussion going, and it never worked, because the proponents of this type of gaming always limited themselves to saying what didn't fit in (anything not already in stargrunt or ultramodern-type wargames basically) & repeating that they had no idea what far future warfare would look like, except that speculation should be based on "real science" (never any specific examples though!). There's no way to please this minority, except by offering them what they already have, and that niche market has been cornered by GZG, as you pointed out. Their complaints are not really a demand for better sci-fi games, they're expressions of frustration that the field is dominated by styles of SF they dislike. You're absolutely right in ignoring them.

How much of a niche market even _exists_, one wonders?

Consider that Dirtside II was recently released as a scanned PDF for free. In other words, they ran out of the last print run and DECIDED NOT TO PRINT ANY MORE!

Consider that the "Bugs Don't Surf" supplement for SGII has been on the waiting list for over 5 years. If there was a substantial financial reward in doing it, perhaps Jon would bother either doing it or hiring someone to do it (and there's no lack of volunteers in the fan community).

Consider that Full Thrust, the fan favorite that continues to bring in awards every year, has been badly in need of overhaul for OVER 5 YEARS. In fact, much of the overhaul work has already been done and included in the Fleet Books. It would be a relatively straight-forward editing job to compile all that stuff into a new edition. Has it been done? Naahhh....

I'll close this off with an anecdote from Bryan Ansell:

"Science Fiction doesn't sell."

(However, later Bryan found out that Science FANTASY does sell...)

It seems the choice is between either doing Science Fantasy and try to compete against 40K or doing a realistic game and trying to be a big fish in a VERY small pond.

"The problem with the "hard" SF anti-40K critics is that they're generally conservative & uncreative."

A broad generalization. I presume you have the facts to back that up.

The problem is NOT in creativity; I've seen plenty in the "hard" world and in the 40K world. The problem is that some people, who have no concept of what warfare is really like, nor any historical background as to its development, assume that the future is exotic weapons.

In actual fact, it is not, although for game purposes, it is probably valuable to categorize something as a "Death Blaster" rather than as an "AK-2004 rifle". The answer, however, lies in employment of weapons. And that's what the "hard" crowd is all about. Step 1, extrapolate what weapons will look like in the future (I suspect it will be individual small arms with a squad support weapon of some kind, then scaling up to platoon and company). Step 2, extrapolate what combat will look like with those weapons. This is harder and requires some real knowledge of both the present as well as the past.

To take 40K as an example: a world that is capable of producing high-powered weapons, both point-fire and area-fire, and yet relies almost exclusively on close combat to achieve resolution. That is NOT a logical extrapolation of any historical trend. It is a GAMING artifact. And that's just fine for players who want to do that kind of thing. And there should be games for people who want to play that way.

But . . . for those who want something realistic, they're looking, not at the hardware, but at the user's manual, as it were. They're interested in questions like, "Does bounding overwatch still work?", "Is suppressive fire of value?", "How do you obscure maneuver with smoke-like ordnance (i.e., how do you get around enemy sensors)?", "Are observation, cover and concealment, key terrain, and avenues of approach still the keys to offensive and defensive analysis?", "What do mobility, counter-mobility, and survivability mean to combat support functions in the future context?"

So, if you define "creative" as "Whiz-o-blat Sonic Particle Dematerializer Guns", then yes, the "hard" SF people are uncreative. But if you ask the real military questions (not just the gaming questions), they're light years ahead of the pack.

They may be a minority, but that has more to do with the trends of modern wargaming than any innate differences between the two groups. But understand this: just as you have a right to lobby for what you want, and an expectation that someone should listen to you, so do the "realists".

And any time you'd like to restart the "hard SF gaming discussion" (because this post is really an unintended hijack), I'd be glad to participate. But if your expectations have to do with Whiz-o-Blat (TM), you won't find much of that in the discussion; all that superficial, shallow stuff goes by the wayside to get to the real meat of future combat -- employment of weapons, deployment of troops, mission definition, etc.

Jizzbrand, nobody cares :-)

Yes, it's a gross generalization to say "hard" sci-fi gamers are by default uncreative, some do not fit this bill. But many do, particularly those who loudly look down on the 40K crowd. All they can talk is bigger & better tanks or yet another bug hunt. It might be the assumption that future war needs to be extrapolated from late 20th century tactics that cripples them, I don't know. I've never seen any of them post anything meaningful on sci-fi gaming, other than grumbling about evil game X having ruined the genre by being "unrealistic". I'm not really interested in restarting this discussion. It never got going in the first play, because the gulf between historical gamers being adventurous (i.e. extrapolating at most 30 years into the future based on current US army tactics) and sci-fi gamers who prefer imaginative "game-type" games set in a distant future probably cannot be bridged. Some of the questions you raise are interesting though, but you're the first of the so-called advanced hard sci-fi guys to pose them here on TMP. Light years ahead? I don't think so, most are stuck in 20th century historical gaming.

Here's another rule: You can price yourself out of the target market. Price matters. Believe it or not many gamers are cheapskates.

Sell too low and folks'll think your product isn't very good---close to freeware. Sell too high (as in the same bracket as the leading game by GW) and folks will think you've got a lot of gall.

BTW, I'm not really lobbying for anything. I don't even play 40K, Warzone or Void myself (used to...). I'm just commenting on what Wolfegames talked about, and what I see as the state of sci-fi gaming. The so-called "realists" like to blame the limited appeal of their genre on the Evil Empire's big marketing budget and/or a general decline of intellectual standards & "dumbing down" in the world of wargaming. Maybe that's also happening, but I think it's only part of the explanation.

Agreed; it is part of the explanation (and the latter is the one that troubles me). Another part, though, is as Wolfe said, "it is entertainment". For some, that is indeed science fantasy. For some smallish group, it really is science fiction. I personally prefer to be in the latter group and deal with the issues that reflect the reasonable future; and, although I don't look down on 40K players, I reallllly don't like that kind of game.

As an aside to the "dumbing down" question and the related "immediate gratification" question, I'm reminded of reading SF back in high school. The picture painted by some authors (I'm thinking Poul Anderson and C.M. Kornbluth in particular) has really come to pass.

Wolfe,

Keep the chin up.

maxxon wrote:

"Consider that Dirtside II was recently released as a scanned PDF for free. In other words, they ran out of the last print run and DECIDED NOT TO PRINT ANY MORE!"

Because it was a dated set of rules that needs revision. Current militaries have abilities beyond some of those listed in DSII so it needs an injection of future possibilities. GZG could have kept on selling it, but putting it up for free increases the market base for DSIII in the future.

"Consider that Full Thrust, the fan favorite that continues to bring in awards every year, has been badly in need of overhaul for OVER 5 YEARS. In fact, much of the overhaul work has already been done and included in the Fleet Books. It would be a relatively straight-forward editing job to compile all that stuff into a new edition. Has it been done? Naahhh...."

Actually FT needs much more of an overhall than what has been included in the Fleet Books. Beta test rules for the UNSC fleet and revised fighter rules have been made available. FBII was rushed into production and that resulted in problems with the Sa'vasku that should have been caught.

I think sci-fi does have a market for realistic games. Attack Vector has found a market with 'realistic' space combat.

WolfGames wrote: "I tried too hard to tie up loose ends, and didn't worry nearly enough about just making things entertaining"

Entertaining games will be played, if it ain't fun, why bother. Make it fun AND tie up the loose ends. That will set you apart the 40k style games. A 'realistic' game can be fun and that would have a market.

"employment of weapons, deployment of troops, mission definition, etc." is the core of "realistic" wargaming. Ok... that's pretty much how I would define it, too.

I dunno about you, but I'd much rather fire my Blasto-Matic from my Gee-Whiz Astrobike as I dodge explosive Nastilizers fired by the Butt-Pirates of Planet Plaid.

I want a *story*, preferably one where I'm the heroic winner... but I'll even settle for one where I'm the pathetic loser, so long as it's fun and memorable, and I lost in a spectacular way. I want to laugh at the die rolls that went badly, and think about the story that was created during the game. "Remember when you got that lucky pair of sixes, and took out the Grebulon Fruxolator's Arm-o-Deth? That was soooo funny, man... I couldn't *believe* you had a card of Infinite Wounding in your Damage Deck...".

I *don't* want to spend the last hour in a post-mortem, discussing how my delayed flanking attempt during the 5th suppressive-fire segment probably contributed to the decaying morale of my Heavy Weapons team, whereupon we all decided to quit having a war and had tea and crumpets instead.

How dreadfully *boring*- I'd have more fun re-doing my taxes.

That, and after having had to playtest my own game for months on end with different focus groups... every weekend and many weekdays... after awhile, one gets thoroughly bored with the mechanics of it all. Really. It's not that the mechanics don't *matter*- of course they do! It's how it's *presented* that's the trick. And what gets left on the cutting-room floor...

**************************

I think Rotorvator has a point- there's very little fertile ground here, if "here" is a discussion about whether we should all be playing SGII. That's not what I was driving at, from the start, of course... I'm talking about business here. Where making money counts.

When we get into that... well, there are some serious things to explore.

First off, sci-fi games should *not* be "logical extrapolation of any historical trends", imho. Nor should they try to embody current tactical theory, except when it sounds like fun.

Again, it's the "boring factor"- most gamers simply aren't interested in *real* military theory, especially when it's postulated on the basis of weapon systems that don't exist today. That's just how things are, folks.

If I had to make "totally realistic" game about combat a century from now (let alone 5), I'd probably have very few humans fighting each other directly, as remotely-piloted drones that can see through walls, shoot guided bullets, and sense hidden weapons by using infrasound seem like pretty good bets to me, given our steady progress in these areas, and the things we're deploying now. I work in the IT world, and it's clear to me that while the future of warfare is uncertain... what's *not* uncertain is that it will include a lot more robots doing dangerous things.

But lots of people think that we'll still have infantry trotting around... and they're welcome to their points of view. It's arguable either way... but only one of them is even slightly fun as a wargame, imho.

A game about remotely-commanded robots who are completely without fear, rarely miss an acquired target, and are darn-near invisible to the naked human eye... would be pretty darn boring. I can see it now... "yup, you've just killed everybody on the map with your first burst of "brilliant bullets" Joe- now just roll on the Innocent Casualties table, and the Political Consequences table, and we'll all go home".

Don't forget Rule 1. Yes, there will be people here who'd say, "yeah I'd play that"... but they won't *pay* for it.

Otherwise, we'd have *lots* of games about autonomous robotic warfare being used in "surgical strike teams" by xenophobic Isrealis fighting the still-angry Palestinians in 2103, and it'd be the 40K players who'd be saying things like, "science fantasy is fun... really guys... c'mon... not more realism... come play a game where we can all run through gunfire like it's gentle rain... please?"

Which brings me back to my original points, plus a challenge for the worthies of this board who disagree with my contention:

I have *yet* to read a post on this thread from some genius explaining how to make "realistic" sci-fi popular and profitable, which begs the question, "why should any game designers wanting to make money cater to your interests".

C'mon... give it a whack, people. I'll happily steal whatever you come up with, if you've got a really great idea, and you can sue me when I've tumbled the last brick in GW's wall.

Until then... go on... doing whatever it is you're trying to do here. Hopefully it'll make you a more jolly, profitable and generous person, and if I really minded catching slings and arrows, I wouldn't have asked for flames :-)

BTW the point about pricing was dead-on, although it's not really worthy of a Rule.

Pricing is *very* tricky, especially if you want to actually make a profit after the distributors get their cut (typically, this is between 50% and 60% of your "retail price", depending on a wide array of factors).

You have to set it high enough that you'll make a profit, after subtracting taxes, marketing costs, replacement costs and incidental expenses, such as attending cons. If you don't have a figure line... add 20% or more to your unit pricing, because you're not going to see much profit per unit, and you're going to sell to fewer people, period- that's one of the harder knocks I've taken- I should've gone ahead and put money into a figure line, as it probably would've helped book sales, and I would've gotten better exposure.

You *can* just put out a PDF and sell it for $10/copy, which is almost pure profit (assuming you get a decent web-hosting firm- the good ones all support EZ-e-commerce systems these days) but then people will happily pirate it. I will probably do that with the first game, when the second book is going to debut, just for the publicity's sake... hoping that it'll make me money is just more wishing, though- maybe I'll make enough to take me and my Significant Other out to eat somewhere nice for a change.

The wargaming market is always tight-fisted- gamers would usually rather spend their hard-earned dollars on cool minis and good paint than on some guy's book.

Which is *perfectly* reasonable, but it adds additional wrinkles. For one thing, it virtually requires one to get distributed. And distributors don't like talking to people they don't already know- I spent a lot of time being ignored for the first few months out-of-the-box, trying to get them to stock me.

Once distributors are carrying your stuff... if you didn't price yourself correctly, then you may be looking at $1 per book or so, after all expenses are paid. Which sucks, even if you sell 10,000 copies- an unheard-of number of books for any but the biggest publishers. So, yes... you have to worry about a lot of factors there. It's not Rule-worthy, though... the Rules are more about philosophical points of view, not the basic math of the whole thing.

WolfeGames, did you ever tell us what your previously published game was called, and how we can get info on it?

Thanks,

w.

Hmmm....

I've read my fair share of hard sf, but...

I just realized why I have trouble intellectually with the usual hard-SF gamer "future warfare is just like 20th century warfare only more so."

My very favoritest historical gaming period is medieval, especially 13th century and Wars of the Roses.

Okay - we have as little idea of what warfare in 2644 will be like as King Edward III had of what D-day would be like.

And look at how warfare changed from ACW to WWI. Or even WWI to WW2.

We have enormous blind spots we don't even realize are there.

Plus, if I want to play Vietnam or WW2, I'll play Vietnam or WW2.

The simple fact is, Big Stompy Robots are fun. Silly, probably. Implausable, possibly. But fun.

Several people have asked, and I've declined to answer- I'm not here to advertise :-) I'm sure you can guess my URL, though...

Seriously speaking... what I'm arguing in the thread isn't about the game I wrote then... it's about the game I am writing now. And why they'll be different animals.

Judging the merits of my arguments by the previous game would be like judging the life of the Dalai Lama because you once watched him swat a mosquito.

I made mistakes- I've enumerated many of them above. I won't make them again. And I'm basically urging would-be designers to avoid the same mistakes, so that they can be happy, profitable game-designers, and not have to work day jobs like I do, just to keep the lights on.