- This topic has 23 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 9 months ago by
.
-
What is the motivation/intent behind the update?
My free rules are on the second edition.
The changes include, more images to clarify mechanics, additional rules for things such as drones, medics, walkers, a campaign system was added and a rough points value mechanic also included.
The core engine is unchanged, but it is now a bit prettier with more ‘official’ optional rules..Given they are free I doubt anyone objects, but if you had to pay…?
FULL DISCLOSURE: I own and operate a game design and publishing firm.
Your feelings on amending rule sets?
I think that wargamers, aka, “the market” hold two contrary positions at the same time:
1) Nothing should ever change.
2) OOOOH NEW AND SHINY, WANT!
These two things put anyone releasing a game in a tight box that can be hard to navigate.
Upon releasing our first title: Et sans résultat! in early 2015, we didn’t know what we’d have. Play testing had gone on for about 3+ years, the play testers were commonly interested in the game doing very divergent things, and truth be told the game had started as a hobby project and ended as a commercial product. Compromises were made between vision and feedback, many built on play tester feedback and others based on market perception.
Once we published and released ESR Original Edition three things were realized: 1) The compromises didn’t enhance things, they got in the way, 2) despite the long play testing period with diverse testers from multiple countries (US local, US remote, England, Canada), things that were clear to play testers troubled customers and things that were demanded by play testers provided unnecessary to players, 3) people really liked what we were trying to do in general.
This caused us to respond rapidly to the feedback and we heavily reworked specific mechanics, formalized the text and presentation substantially, and released Second Edition in spring 2016. We also offer (i.e. we *still offer*) 1/4 to 1/3 off of Second Edition if you own ESR Original Edition.
For the most part we received very positive feedback about how we handled this, I believe we have received three (? might have only been two) negative responses to the release of Second Edition and our pricing break. On the positive side we received a tremendous number of upgrade requests from owners of ESR Original Edition who took advantage of the discount we offered them. We don’t have any plans for a 3rd edition because we don’t want to alienate people and because we tried to be really holistic when we addressed things from version one to version two.
Editor Mike and I – I suspect – see this topic a little differently, as he notes, he gives away his rules for free. Frankly, I would say that from my perspective this is because Mike is a producer of figures and terrain. Mike’s product isn’t rules, Mike’s product is figures and terrain. Conversely, TWC is a game design and publishing company, if we give away our rules, we have no product. TWC giving away rules would be like if Mike started giving away his figures. I would also suspect that the resources we put into our publications more closely resembles what Mike puts into his figures than into his game system – which makes perfect sense.
So that is our experience with this topic on the commercial side.
On the wargamer side:
I don’t understand the massive desire of wargamers to always buy new stuff. What I observe personally as a wargamer is that it is radically easier to find people who have abandoned a system because they didn’t like the new version, than to find people who stuck with the old version after the new one was released.
A working example is Johnny Reb. One of our local gaming groups was very big into JR2. They participated in play testing JR3 and gave substantial feedback which was integrated into the published release. Then, due to internal disagreement, the group decided they did not like JR3. Did they go back to playing version 2? No, they moved to Regimental Fire & Fury. Fast forward several *years* and we have since dropped RF&F and play the occasional JR2 game – but that took over 10 years and a lot of hair pulling to accomplish.
Why do we do that? This is observable with most game systems. Once a new version is published, players either move to the new version or quit. *Some* but a minority to be sure will stick with the earlier version they like.
I also observed this with the local Empire Napoleonics group decades ago. Not being part of the group but knowing most of the membership, every time a new Empire release came out, they moved, eventually the group decided they didn’t like the new release, but reversion to an earlier version everyone liked was not seen as an option. A portion moved away to Napoleon’s Battles while another chunk quit playing, while a last chunk looked at home-brew solutions.
It is an odd thing.
The last thing:
The last thing I want to touch on is “market relevance”. Because of the “OOOH NEW SHINY!” response of the wargamer market, publishers are incentivized to put out new stuff. An initial release of a new game can get a lot of attention, but then interest [sales] commonly dries up immediately. This is true even with systems that seem quite popular. Sam Mustafa has a strong core customer base. Each time he releases a new system there is a lot of buzz and interest voiced, commonly from or supported by his core customers. That is a real milestone for a game designer and certainly an asset. However, even with this organic support, it is observable that adoption is front end loaded and that leads to products having short lifespans from the perspective of the publisher.
Games Workshop gets ragged on a lot for putting out a million different books and editions “you must buy”. I was never a 40K player so I frankly have no idea. But as a business model their system works – they are able to continue producing product and existing. Battlefront also constantly releases new books for Flames of War, however, in the case of FoW, once you buy the rulebook, you are not very behind the curve if you never buy a source book, you aren’t dropped out of the ecosystem, you can keep playing. Thus, you don’t “have to” buy more, you simply can buy more.
At TWC we are trying to address that by aggressively releasing supporting supplements which do not expand the rules of ESR Second Edition but instead provide supporting materials – scenarios, campaign frameworks, uniform plates, etc… In this way we are trying to keep the buzz going about our products but actively working to prevent our customers from feeling like they are forced to buy. It seems to be working as ESR Second Edition continues to sell well and our Campaign Guides are getting a lot of positive feedback and steady interest. Our Campaign Guides are also compatible with both ESR Original Edition and many 3rd-party Napoleonic games, so we aren’t locking you in or forcing you to upgrade. That is a gamble on our part, hoping that a good impression of one product will generate interest in our other products. A more tried-and-true method is the “walled garden” that 40K and FoW use where their supplements are really only useful with their rules.
My conclusion is that balancing all the involved factors that cause new editions of games to be published is hard, many do it poorly, and the market makes it difficult, but it is a needle that I believe can be threaded.
Cheers,
The Bandit
PS
Most game designers to it as a side hobby, not as real work, thus a big factor in new releases is that they want to take the game in a new direction, or the vocal portion of the game’s following has convinced them it needs a “refresh”, i.e. it is a personal, not market driven decision.
Also worth noting is that once sales of a first edition plateau or even slump, what better than a nice new improved set to re-kindle sales.
Sometimes it is just about getting cash, the first edition rules may have been fine.
Second edition is often about bettering sales, not the product.
Also worth noting is that once sales of a first edition plateau or even slump, what better than a nice new improved set to re-kindle sales.
Sometimes it is just about getting cash, the first edition rules may have been fine.
Second edition is often about bettering sales, not the product.Sometimes, though I would argue less than it is perceived. Most games are published by small shops or individuals, they aren’t releasing new versions often enough to drive much terms of net revenue.
There is a conflicting relationship between the market and the business.
Wargamers buy a set of rules, if they adopt using it, they use it for years and years. Maybe 1-2 other people in their group of 10 also buys it. Then, after those years pass, there may be frustration that the company that produced them no longer exists.
The problem is – in my mind – the expectations wargaming businesses have of customers is unrealistic. That and the market is ridiculously fractured both product-wise and social-wise.
Typical marketing problem is convincing people to buy your stuff. TWC doesn’t seem to have that problem, people seem to like our stuff – *once they see it*. Reaching customers is that hard part for us. And to compound that, the feedback we receive from other companies is, “Wow you guys are good at marketing”. If that is true, that is terrifying.
Cheers,
The Bandit
Personally I have more difficulty understanding the “nothing should ever change” camp
I don’t think I’m a GOM*. Repair problems by all means but a good rule set is, after all, a good rule set & needn’t be changed for no good reason. Interestingly, when we noticed the pending #3, one of my pals wrote, “I have been looking at Sword and Spear …..”. This tendency was noted (above). donald
- Grumpy Old Man
No accusations of GOM-ery against anyone here from me. Frankly I don’t think there are that many true GOMs in the hobby, excepting those few individuals (none here) who seem to revel in the role for the sheer provocativeness of it.
Anyway, I’m going to waffle on a bit on some quasi-philosophical, quasi-OT matters now, for which I beg your indulgence
I think it’s perfectly natural for someone in a group using ruleset X to say “I’ve been looking at ruleset Y”, for no other reason than the fact that ruleset Y came along. It is the product of someone’s creative drive and that makes it interesting as a possible alternative to the status quo. Our hobby inherently celebrates the human creative drive and that goes for rules design as much as it does painting, sculpting, converting, scratchbuilding, terrain-building, illustrating, writing fluff/background, scenario design and whatever other creative aspects of the hobby I may have overlooked just now.
(On top of those we have the non-creative, but likewise enjoyable, aspects such as the researching of military history, but that’s beside the point, and anyway those aspects still intermesh with the creative ones, such as whenever a military history guru reckons he can write a more accurately representational ruleset than all the ones already on the market).
So I think it’s right and proper that there’s a steady stream of new rulesets coming along. Established rules designers feeling the need to reinvigorate their own products is a side-effect of that – a negative side-effect, but an unavoidable one in this, the best possible of worlds (as far as concerns the hobby).
I suspect that had there been no FoG revisions, there would still be FoG players saying “I’ve been looking at Sword & Spear…”, only for the opposite reason, or for no reason to do with discontent with FoG at all. And I’d sooner be living in a world where Sword & Spear did come along than one where it didn’t. The latter might be a world where FoG also never came along. Maybe also no Hail Caesar, Warmaster Ancients, WAB, WRG or the rest of it. We might all be playing Little Wars, and I choose to believe even HG Wells wouldn’t have wanted that
To be perfectly honest I find it a rare occurrence to come across a ruleset that genuinely compromises on substance in favour of photos, artwork, graphic design or other visual production values, so I consider that particular fear to be an exaggerated one.
I’ll just leave this here.
It didn’t go to a second edition…
Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.
Of course, it’s also true that I don’t often see writers of free rulesets try to draw much attention to their titles, whereas a lot of writers of paid-for rulesets go out of their way to engage with the community, even to be pillars of said community, thus fostering a sense of trust and confidence in the product. That matters.
PLAY KR 16!!!
PLAY KR 16!!!
I AM A NICE GUY.
🙂
To be perfectly honest I find it a rare occurrence to come across a ruleset that genuinely compromises on substance in favour of photos, artwork, graphic design or other visual production values, so I consider that particular fear to be an exaggerated one.
I’ll just leave this here.
It didn’t go to a second edition… That one did come to mind as I recall discussing it with you before. Beyond that one rulebook, though, I can’t think of many.
Of course, it’s also true that I don’t often see writers of free rulesets try to draw much attention to their titles, whereas a lot of writers of paid-for rulesets go out of their way to engage with the community, even to be pillars of said community, thus fostering a sense of trust and confidence in the product. That matters.
PLAY KR 16!!!
PLAY KR 16!!! I AM A NICE GUY. 
I think it’s fair to say you’re an exception, at least for those of us who frequent TWW and/or your social media places
But when I browse the list at the Free Wargames Rules wiki, it’s a “wall of text” of ruleset titles I’ve never heard of before (or more to the point, titles I’ve never heard anyone praise or support), at least once I discount the ones that are ancillary to proprietary miniatures ranges. It’s difficult to have confidence in something unknown, picked out from a pile of unknown things.
Don’t mistake what I just wrote for a lack of appreciation for the Free Wargames Rules wiki. In and of itself I think it’s a great resource and a valuable service to the community.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
