Deep Thought: Boardgames vs Wargames – the Lines Blur
As we’ve been reviewing the ever more elaborate boardgames we wonder – are “traditional miniatures games” becoming extinct?
So let’s get a few definitions out there to start so we can all start at the same place:
Traditional Boardgame
What you expect to see when people say “let’s play a boardgame”. You get a board, dice, cards, and a bunch of abstract playing pieces. Think of what you get with Settlers of Catan
Premium Boardgame
The new upcoming fancypants boardgames. These will often have very elaborate boards, often modular in nature. Dice, cards and most importantly very detailed one piece playing pieces that could be considered miniatures. Think of things like FFG’s Imperial Assault, or Rum and Bones. Paint them if you want to.
Hobby-lite Wargame
These are the new generation of open movement wargames that come with miniatures you pull out of the package and play. they have all the complex rules, dice, army construction, and meta concerns you get in traditional wargames. You just don’t have to do any of the hobby side of things. Examples are X-Wing Miniatures, Star Wars ARMADA, and DUST with their primed, or prepainted minis.
Traditional Wargame
Exactly what you expect. The full complex rules, dice cards, and sprues. You have to make the full commitment to the hobby aspect of the game to ever get to the tabletop. Think Warhammer 40k, Kings of War, Warmachine, Infinity and the like.
OK, Got It, Moving On…
Ok, now that we have our definitions down, think of how the increases in manufacturing technology is making the quality and detail of pre-painted miniatures ever cheaper and more available. I seriously doubt the miniatures in X-Wing could have been mass produced at a marketable pricepoint even 10 years ago.
Now think about these categories from the point of view of a manufacturer. Because when you are now designing a game, you will have real design decisions to make about what category to put your game into. As a thought experiment take two sample products:
FFG’s Imperial Assault and Prodos Games AVP
Both of these games have broad similarities. They are both played using missions on a modular construction heavy thickness board. Both have complex rules. Both have strong Hollywood inspired licenses. But both have very different manufacturer choices in playing pieces:
FFG chose one piece faction colored playing pieces. You can paint them if you want, but out of the box you get this:
Prodos chose super detailed resin multipart miniatures. You have to fully hobby these up, and in the end you end up with this:
The Future?
And my real question is what effect do those choices of playing pieces make on sales. If you reversed the materials on both products and put them in stores, what effect on sales do you think it would have? Or as a further thought experiment take the same product (say AVP), and put two versions of it side by side on shelves – one with onepiece plastics one with and multipiece resin models within. Which would sell more?
To me it feels like every year there is more and more pressure on game makers to go the ever more detailed playing pieces approach – and that makes traditional “full hobby” wargames seem like an ever steeper climb for customers. Young people seem to have less and less interest in the hobby side of things each year. It was already revealed that tabletop wargames is the slowest growing segment of the tabletop games industry. The hobby aspect may be the smoking gun.
We may have one day face a future of the hobby side going the way of the dodo if manufacturers want to keep sales strong with the masses.
~What do you think the future holds and how important is the hobby side of gaming to you?
