"Top 5 Reasons Spartan Games Went Under?" Topic

It is so startling that a company, apparently large and successful as Spartan Games, should abruptly take a nose dive.

What do you think were the factors behind their failure?

Never heard of them.

The Owner ( Neal) is very ill. His health will not improve.
I believe the book publisher Spartan used going under was also a major factor. I did receive most of my Kick starter. Neal is a true gamer and I wish him the best!

A poll suggestion? Seriously?
How morbid can you get?

Yeah. I know. "This is of great interest blah blah blah."
Let it go. Give it a rest.

Frankly, it's none of our business why.

Not my thing.

To answer Bills question.

1. Scale of miniatures. Not 6mm, not 15mm. Starships too large to use with the other available lines.
2, Overextended. How many lines of figures can you realistically support in a hobby as small as miniature wargaming?
3. Restricting you product. Lots of stuff I would have bought to use with other miniatures but they generally limited what could be bought as individual bits.
4. Poor rules. I can only judge this from all the negative comments I have seen.

Maybe more problems but those are the ones I am aware of.

The Owner ( Neal) is very ill. His health will not improve.

Is his health the main factor the company is shutting down?

Wow. So sad. Thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family.

Dan

Overextended and presumably costly Halo license.

Licenses are very expensive. Several conversations with others who have licensed products say they are not worth it for hobby manufacturers. You have to be a mass market product and sometimes not even then, to make it pay.

That being said, I never heard of them, or their products until this announcement, and the same is so general, even if I had heard of it, it would not have seemed like something I would remember, and I would have associated them with ancients wargames, not science fiction.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
bunkermeister.blogspot.com

True. I'm still not clear what their figures or product was.

Dan

The first thing I though of when I heard this was the overhead on that HALO license.

And their universal rules systems seemed to be universally disliked. Ive never heard of anyone who particularity cared for them. I was very excited when Dystopian Wars came out, and ran out and bout two fleets and the rules. I never even finished reading the rules; they seemed a horrible re-implementation of Man-O-War (but not nearly as good, not that I thought MOW was terrific). I planned to just borrow and splice something together myself, but as so often happens, that turned into just another dusty project, and so I sold everything off.

I think much of their problems stem from trying to compete in the unique universe world with bigger companies, along with rules that never really caught the imagination. Their miniatures were excellent, but some were on the expensive side. I am surprised to read that regular posters to TMP who include fantasy an sci-fi amongst their interests had not heard of them (or TOR's Relics range) since their ranges have been available for over 10 years. Perhaps some people need to look at their settings as they could be missing many ranges.

Its tough times in the wargames world at the moment.
The financial crisis first saw spending on wargames increasing (perhaps people were cheering themselves up) but then spending dried up and is still low.
Why Spartan, I suspect poor management.

Spartan games? Because you just can't get the helots these days.

I liked their models and picked up a few models when they were on sale. However, their MSRP for their models was rather high. Enough to keep me away unless they were on sale for 50% off or more.

I really liked the Firestorm Armada, models, however they were generally too big to be compatible with other companies' ranges, and that was also deal breaker for me.

It's odd, the day before Spartan's announcement I had just thought "They could use a 3-D scanner and put them up on Shapeways to make the scale variable. That would be great."

That spent more money then they brought in ???

Regards
Russ Dunawsy

I liked some of their ships. But the expense. Plus discovering i suck at star ship painting stopped me. But i did leave some £200.00 GBP over the years before i gave up.

Firestorm Armada – great models, but too big to be compatible with all the other stuff I have. Dystopian Wars.. great models, but it didn't fit with my Aeronef stuff (too Gothic).

In this case, it seems like it is primarily the health issue. Most wargames companies rely on 1 or a small number of key personnel. If one of them is so sick, it's simply impossible to keep going.

I do hope his health improves for Neal, and wish him all the best. They did some really ice products and it's always a shame to see a company go.

Incidentally, was there this same level of critique when (for example) SMM announced closure?

Again, lovely models and great range but awful rules. Still sad news and sad to see them go.