"Whatever happened to?" Topic

"Button Men" games?

First they were there…

Then they were gone…

Just like ….Pogs…

What happened?
Where did they go?
And…why?

Never heard of them.

But I am familiar with the Pog, and its near-relative the Tazo.

I saw Button Men at Gencon last year. I suspect it never really caught on in a lot of FLGS, like many game products. Store owners don't like to order new things unless they think it will be a huge success.

For those in the dark:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_Men

By their nature, they're really not geared for FLGS sales.

Allen

You could say much the same about Cheapass Games stuff in general. They're not gone, but the new release rate approaches zero, and many of their hotter titles have been rereleased in decidely non-cheap versions.

Button Men was kind of clever for a dice game, but the long-term replay value was questionable. I've still got a few kicking around…in fact Iago and the Give Me the Brain Zombie are in the (unused) ashtray of my car right now.

By their nature, they're really not geared for FLGS sales.

Totally untrue. I was working in a game store when they were fresh product, and they generated impulse dice sales like mad. We upped our numbers by 500% for months. Not quite as close to printing money as Disk Wars was in its glory days, but well worth carrying.

Sometimes, store owners recognize a lemon when they see it! Anyone remember BreakKeys? Boy Crazy? Button Men was the gaming equivalent of tasty chewing gum that quickly lost it's flavor. Pogs nothing more than a child's playground fad that was used in an attempt to lure younger kids into game stores. More importantly, some FLGS owners recognize that SOME companies release products that aren't properly play tested and that they have an established track record of NOT supporting their products.

"I was working in a game store when they were fresh product…"

And how are they selling now? Better than Creepy Freaks?

Allen

I still get people to play Button Men- without the buttons. It takes about a minute to play and there is always some down time between games. I just have people select whatever combinations of dice they want without getting into the many varieties of dice types in the game.

Better than Hecatomb? 8^O

Creepy Freaks is a fun strategy game. I used to have a blast playing it with my son. It was the only thing that finally got him interested in miniature games. Cost is what did in CF. We got ours on clearance for $1 USD a box.

BreakKeys was lame from the start.

I never did Button Men, but we did a bit of Disk Wars and lots of Doomtown, which I loved. Sold my DW but kept Doomtown.

My FLGS brought some Break Key samples back from GAMA, popped a couple out of their wraps and proceded to demo the game for us. All 2 seconds of it. We had a few minutes of bemusement, the store owner reassuring us that he wouldn't be ordering any, and then it was safely forgotten until the release blitz many months later. I still have a couple of the release demos squirreled away in a box somewhere as a testament to the power of marketing without thought.

I remember being at either Origins or GenCon when the game was released and EVERYONE was jumping on the bandwagon. There were a lot of "special edition" buttons being handed out (I have some lunch money ones)

We always viewed it as a "Tweener" game, although it was fun…