"Niche Vs Mainstream" Topic

Over on another thread, my Bronze Age naval rules were described as "niche."

Fair enough — but it got me thinking.

Wargaming itself is a niche hobby, yet within it we clearly have a "mainstream" (WW2, Napoleonic, Medieval, etc.) and everything else somewhere along a spectrum. Most of my own gaming sits in that mainstream, though I occasionally wander off into things like Bronze Age seaborne antics.

So here's the question:

Is "mainstream" in wargaming defined by popularity, or by how easy a period is to put on the table?

For example, ECW seems well-supported and recognisable — but is it actually more "mainstream" than something like Late Antiquity, which sits awkwardly between Ancients and Dark Ages?

And a slightly cheeky thought:

Is "niche" just shorthand for "someone else's period"?

At my club I am known for putting on "niche" games, mostly to do with Canadian subjects such as The Northwest Rebellion or the Fenian Raids. I'd like to do the Mackenzie Papineau rebellion but availability of suitable figures in 28MM is spotty. I also do the War of 1812 and French & Indian War which are less niche. Further afield I put on niche games of the Boshin War of 1868 and Darkest Africa 19th century, The Northern Crusades in the 13th century Baltics. My current project is the Portuguese in 16th century Africa… niche enough for you? :) I also do want I would consider non-niche subjects, 19th century Sudan and Afghanistan Dark Ages and ACW.

Is "niche" just shorthand for "someone else's period"?

That's exactly what I meant.
It's not Napoleonics, ACW, or WW2, The Big One.

I'm taking time out from my Comanche vs Spanish in Mexico project to work on SYW Kleine Krieg, or Petit Guerre.
Also on my table are Zombie Pirates and Moby Dick.

Heck, even AWI or SYW could be considered "niche".

Because of GW, I think it's fair to proclaim today that miniature wargaming is no longer "niche". It's not the most popular hobby (far behind computer games and card games, for instance), but it's still popular enough that John and Jane Doe have likely heard the word "Warhammer" and probably think they know what it means.

However, historical wargaming with miniatures is definitely a niche of miniature wargaming. In the US, there are literally millions of Warhammer players, but probably only thousands of miniatures gamers who prefer or exclusively play historical topics.

Naval wargaming is a niche within that niche. I have a subset of players interested in my naval games, and it's a very consistent cadre. There are about 4 major periods that come close to "mainstream" naval gaming (Napoleonic naval, WWII naval, WWI naval, ACW ironclads), one or more of which non-naval gamers will have tried, but the people who show up for other periods of naval games are a definitely minority.

Ancient naval wargaming is a niche within a niche within a niche. I have trouble getting even other naval wargamers interested in galley battles. It might help for a while to have some kind of big pop culture event bringing galleys to the public consciousness again, but

Bronze Age naval wargaming is a niche within a niche within a niche within a niche. Even scholars don't know much about the topic, and there's no oeuvre of miniatures, rules, or standard mechanics for playing it.

- Ix

I'd say roughly "mainstream" in miniature wargaming terms means a choice of casting sources, scales and rules. When you start talking single sources, conversions or needing to write one's own rules, you're into "niche" territory.

One thing I'm not sure we can rely on is visibility.

We see what gets played at clubs, shows and posted online — but we've no real idea what's being played at home on kitchen tables, in garages or solo by non-posters. Who knows how many thousand games of the Mackenzie Papineau rebellion are played in the privacy of people's garages or sheds?

So saying a period is "mainstream" because we see a lot of it may just be a visibility bias.

There's also a geographic angle. ACW, for example, is very visible in the US, less so elsewhere. ECW feels strong in the UK but not globally.

So are we really talking about "mainstream"… or just what's mainstream where we happen to be looking?

If that's the case, then "mainstream" becomes a pretty slippery concept — and we may be back to:
"niche" = anything outside your local scene??

Is a factor how quickly a non-gamer recognises it?

I do like the "recognition" angle.
If you stopped a random non-gamer and said:
*Napoleon
*Hitler
*Roman legionary – you'd possibly get instant recognition.
But say:
*ECW
*Late Antiquity
*the Maori Wars – and you probably get a blank look.

So does that make the first group "mainstream" in a way the second isn't — regardless of how many rulesets or figures exist?

If so, then "mainstream" might actually be about cultural footprint, not what we as gamers think is well-supported or even frequently gamed?

I would base it on how many rule sets are there for it (WW2 has tons of them) how many figures, and in how many scales, the period has and how many people seem to play it especially at conventions. Again, Naps, ACW, WW2 ect dominate. They are mainstream.

I must be in the niche of a niche of a niche of a niche, etc., etc., etc. I am going to a convention this weekend and signed up for:
1. Gladiators
2. LOTR
3. Pulp
4. Guards of Traitor's Toll
5. WWII 1941 Hong Kong

I've never played any of these, so looking forward to trying something new and game with others for the first time in over 2 years. Looking forward to all the games.

If all you play when you go to conventions are "Alamo" games, then to you they're Mainstream.
But they certainly are "niche" to me.

I'm (sorta) with ochoin on visibility bias, and I suspect--with due respect to Grattan--conventions may not be a good sample. But "cultural footprint" hands a deciding vote to non-wargamers. That far I won't go. I don't decide what's mainstream or niche for model railroaders or dollhouse builders: they don't decide what's mainstream or niche for miniature warfare.

Here's a proposal: ready availability of figures and rules from multiple sources and play in public venues denotes something which is clearly mainstream. When you don't know of players outside your own circle and figure and rule availability is an ongoing issue, the period is pretty clearly niche. But there's a pretty broad gray area. Generations pass, fashions come and go and our information is fragmentary and biased.

The ECW/ACW bit is duly noted, but it seems to be unique. I don't know of any other wars whose popularity in the Anglophone gaming community at least, varies so much with nationality. There is, I think, enough ACW play everywhere to qualify it as mainstream, but I'd hesitate to call ECW "niche" even if we were doing different rankings for different countries. It isn't as much done this side of the water, but it's nothing we'd have trouble doing, and our earliest serious commercial manufacturer sold figures.

If anyone has an idea for an objective scale and definition, I'm interested.

To me, part of niche means that the con dealers and local hobby shops don't carry what you game or collect. I have a lot of 54mm figures. I think that is niche. I played an AWI game at a con and the soldiers were paper flats. Niche.

Well, we haven't even touched "niche" & "mainstream" scale yet; good catch 79thPA.

I'm exclusively 1/72 so I think that is niche.

I'm not getting into the "It's not a scale, it's a size!" debate.
When I started, there were no decent 15mm ranges. So, I went exclusively with 25mm, which kind of grew. 🙄

So, yeah. "Niche" is what The Other Guy plays.
When I told a friend that I was getting into AWI, he looked very puzzled and asked "Why would you want to do that?"

An importer of 25mm figures asked me "Why would you want to do Carthaginians?" He didn't sell any. So my cynical mind thought. A year later, his main line did carry them. I didn't bother to ask.

Even within the Big Four, there are niches. I have a WWII army for Bolt Action or Chain of Command. It is Greek. It has been great fun to research.

My group decided to move into 15 mm Napoleonics, one guy latching on to French, another British, somebody else Austrians. I was not particularly interested in Napoleonics, but I did want to contribute. I got a great deal on some Saxons and painted them up as my contribution.

Grelber

Over on another thread, my Bronze Age naval rules were described as "niche."

Those are silly people. I love "niche" games that explore interesting periods of history that may be overlooked or unknown. You Bronze Age naval is pretty cool!

Is a factor how quickly a non-gamer recognises it?

I do like the "recognition" angle.
If you stopped a random non-gamer and said:
*Napoleon
*Hitler
*Roman legionary – you'd possibly get instant recognition.
But say:
*ECW
*Late Antiquity
*the Maori Wars – and you probably get a blank look.

Yes, because that's an indicator of sales to the "big" wargames companies who need to engage popular interest to sell their games. It's much easier to tap into an already known and popular aspect of history. And I'm sure there are aspects of the hobby that have also "aged out" so to speak -- American Civil War and Colonial Wars used to be much more popular, but gamers age and pop culture changes and Colonial period gaming can even be looked down on by younger audiences as immoral. But bashing WW2 Axis power about? Doesn't grow stale.

And even within the hobby there's a bias towards easy Convention games like Bolt Action, and so on. So there are "niche of niche" games like NUTS and Chain of Command with different design and play philosophy, not oriented toward organized convention play and they have a much lower footprint in the hobby.

@ Grelber. WW2 Greeks? Seriously cool.

54mm is niche – but looks splendid.

Anything which involves messing about in boats is highly niche – and yet I have ACW ships from 3 different manufacturers (well 4 I guess if the 15mm floating mortar counts as a naval asset). I could get just ACW in probably 5 different scales – so, is it really niche?

Niche anything the Perry Twins do that you never thought of but have now researched.

Niche the backdrop period in a drama movie that seems exotic.

I'm exclusively 1/72 so I think that is niche.

The one true scale.

Although I am a frequent heretic.

we clearly have a "mainstream" (WW2, Napoleonic, Medieval, etc.)

If you know those are mainstream, how do you know it? That answers your question.

So, what does mainstream mean in the first place?

Cambridge Dictionary

mainstream – considered normal, and having or using ideas, beliefs, etc. that are accepted by most people:
This is the director's first mainstream Hollywood film

used to refer to education for children who can be taught in the same way as most other children, or to people, schools, etc. connected with this type of education:

Marriam-Webster

a prevailing current or direction of activity or influence

having, reflecting, or being compatible with the prevailing attitudes and values of a society or group

link

Since the word itself in the majority of definitions relates to a major proportion of the whole, and the people who routinely poo-poo the idea that we have no idea what the denominator for "all wargamers", "all wargames", "or all wargaming events" is have have said that, yeah, we only know what we see … Yeah, we don't know.

Why would you care?

Recentely a couple of articles talking about hobbies being about your own enjoyment that had a lot of support would make me think we really shouldn't care if what we play is mainstream or not. Even if we could know.

1/72 may or may not be niche now but it was anathema not that long ago. I am a "True Believer" which meant (maintaining the religious imagery) I was burnt at the stake in several forums.

Surely "burnt at the stake" is an exaggeration? (Even as a metaphor of emotional overreaction.)

Everybody has preferences for brand, scale, sculptor, period, whatever, and that will include negative opinions of categories that were a letdown or caused problems (e.g. I'm done collecting 1/144 plastic model planes – they look nice, but they're too fragile and expensive and hard to get and so on). But most miniature wargamers stop at "not my cup of tea". I've never seen anyone say "you shouldn't play with those either".

Mainstream – covered regularly in the wargaming press

Niche – covered occasionally

Uber Niche – maybe covered once or twice in the entire history of a journal. 😀

I am happy to say I am a niche (naval) wargamer who writes on and plays things like the 1976 Cod War (uber niche!)

Ix, not much of an exaggeration.

Plastic 1/72 figures were looked down on for one simple reason: they came out of the toy box.

Brands like Airfix sold them in bags to kids, often in shiny coloured plastic, while "proper" wargamers — especially in the Wargames Research Group heyday — were using metal figures, rulebooks, and talking earnestly about frontage and formations. One looked like a toy; the other felt like a hobby.

That perception stuck. It didn't help that early plastics could be, a bit soft on detail, prone to flash and bendy weapons, full of heroic or downright odd pose and weighed about as much as a crisp packet on the table.

So "plastic = toy soldiers" became received wisdom, and a bit of quiet (sometimes not so quiet) snobbery set in.

The irony, of course, is that for actual wargaming they're superb: cheap, plentiful, easy to base in numbers and perfect for big battles — which is what many rulesets claim to want.

These days the quality gap has narrowed massively, but the old prejudice hasn't entirely died out.

I've been keenly following 1/72 figures for over 20 years, and I've never encountered this snobbery.

I would find it inexcusable if I did. Besides the advantages you list, I'll add superb proportions, excellent rendering of detail (when it's carved right…), and a really nice size for gaming – mass battles, mass skirmishes, individual figure skirmishing, pick your style, they'll work.

For a while I thought that if I had to start over I'd switch to 1/72 plastics, though I've since changed my mind due to troubles with discontinued lines, glue and paint adherence issues, plenty of poor sculpts (including Airfix – yech!), and insufficient coverage of some wargaming topics I want to play. I still think they're awfully neato, and I own enough 1/72 Napoleonics to actually register on a scale. I wish 1/72 got more attention from our hobby. I was always an avid fan of the work of Mateus here on TMP and on his blog.

We're in the same camp, Ix. I can assure you that it wasn't always…"kosher" to use 1/72 plastic (am I using that word right?) & there are still pockets of intolerance.

…you sure about Airfix?
Afrika Korps:
link
RAF ground crew:
link
Ghurkas:
link
Imperial Guard:
link

Go back far enough and you'll find huge plastic (mostly Airfix) armies were in use. The expansion of metal ranges did encourage people to abandon them somewhat but through the seventies and eighties WWII was still fought with plastic kits and figures (20mm metal figures were usually way out of scale with model kits).

I think the expansion of manufacturers and periods in the last 30 years has helped to revitalise interest in plastics – but the lack of outlets has prevented it expanding as far as it probably should. It's a shame because a few boxes and a ruleset enable entry into the hobby for around £30.00 GBP, and yet I hear all the time what an expensive hobby wargaming is.

Niche or Mainstream? Does it matter? If you enjoy it, you enjoy it!
To me, Mainstream is having plenty of players to play with/against!

Niche can become mainstream and the transition is difficult to intify. Where does a forrest start is a good analogy. 3D printed models were definitely niche at the start, folk 8 deep round a table with a significant number of 3D prints attest to that, as did interst at shows early on. Now there are so many folk that own a printer it is definitely mainstream. Niche period become accessible now 3D prints are available so they become more mainstream.

On a personal note who cares? I play what I like regarless of any Mainstream lable or not.