Inside Tabletop - What is the current state of the Wargaming Industry? (With Adam Loper)

[Music] well welcome to to space yeah absolutely for having you're having studio blowups so uh I'm excited that that you're going to have something like this hopefully soon you can have a nice space to spread out in nothing nearly as big as this no no I'm going to yeah no my plan is this has been a plan for a while but coming this summer I'm going to start working on uh kind of like heading back to the basement because that's where I started yeah I started one hang absolutely and so now uh and and the thing is I haven't been able to work in my normal studio for like the last month because they're replacing they refurbishing the windows yeah I saw I saw that video you had where they were all like to yeah yeah before I went to Denmark and so yeah so I've been basically filming a lot of stuff in my uh home office which is in the sun room which is bright but then there's times when all of a sudden it's like partly cloudy and then bright and partly cloudy and bright and messes with like so that's a its own thing yeah but yeah my plan is to move back down to the basement just because it's so noisy downtown so yeah it's nice having an there's two things that's nice about having an outside space from home the first one is you don't feel like you're at work when you're home yeah cuz I often feel like I'm at work when I'm home when I'm editing and stuff like that uh and then the second thing is a controllable space so if the controllable space is not working out for you I got understand away want move back the only thing I don't have under my control probably at home is going to be uh cat Rampages like you you'll hear them though man that's sells that's content that's content baby let the cats run people love cats on the internet that no that's true well hey everybody Welcome to inside tabletop I here as you might see with Uncle Adam from tblop Minions absolutely uh and you're here in St Catherine's and shot me a message saying hey I'm 5 minutes away yeah exactly doing stuff with army painter can I come by and see the studio and hang outs I'm so glad you're here this is like uh we usually see each other at conventions the odd convention that I stick my head into last time was adepticon yeah it was adepticon um but it's cool to get to actually sit down and talk industry stuff with you because usually we don't have a chance because we're running around like trying to trying to beat everything to everyone yeah at conventions it's hard to actually show up and actually hang out with people and just get to like chill and be one-onone yeah yeah absolutely um that's why I like to go to adepticon during setup because the night of setup at adepticon this is I shouldn't say this to everyone here because you're just going to try and creep into this maybe it'll change it's just vendors usually it's just all of like the industry people and that night we all get to sit in the lobby and just kind of decompress and cerate and [ __ ] about being all Soul Proprietors and independent contractors and people who have to pay too much taxes after have to collect their own tax money from the government yeah yeah um but yeah so it's good to actually get to hang out with you because we don't usually get a chance to do this when we're when we're actually in the same physical area yeah generally it's it's just just really busy obviously like you know we got to hang out a little bit at epton this year but then you kind of you left early oh I took off on Thursday got my social battery's done my social battery's done I was I I i' meant to spend an hour there Thursday morning but it when they when they open the doors it's so slammed I just walked getting across the hall is a t it was nuts there this year having conversations between between like you know a 200 foot walk basic oh yeah no that's that's that's been a thing that's been for for the last couple of years is that I've had people that I that I know that will come to adepticon and things like that and then we'll be trying to get from like I want to show them something in a different part of the place and then it's like got to stop and you got to stop and you got to stop and I'm absolutely glad to yeah it's awesome to talk to people it's just that that you have to take that into consideration like I have to go to the concession stand it's going to take me a while to get pee really bad I need to pee so bad this person's so nice and I really want to talk to I'm dying right now I'm I've got a little bit of a camel thing going on so I can take it longer but yeah no I've Got Friends feel my back teeth floating just trying to get to the bathroom fast there's been if anyone was Kong where I was like I really need to pee I'm so sorry have to go that was not a trick you I really needed to I needed to get out of there um but uh but yeah I wanted to talk about a bunch of things with you today but basically you and I sitting in like a unique position where we can have this conversation that's hard to have with anybody else really sure where we interact with tons of different companies we interact with tons of different people inside the industry and we get to have kind of a kind of holistic view of how things are going well we're also both uh you know product creators to some degree you yeah both writers yeah Games and Things um so we're we're kind of in I guess what I would say is our fingers are in many pies it's true um and so it's you're an interesting person to have this conversation with about the current state of the industry like where we're at right now because we're in a very one you and I represent the generation I'm sound terrible that's leaving sure like we're we're the generation that is that was created during the 80s and 90s that spent all the money during the ODS during the biggest growth period of this industry right and now we're kind of the the High Fidelity Grumpy Old Men in the record store basically you know talking about feeling underappreciated for our wisdom and talking about the way things used to be back in my day yeah exactly I like this band you probably never heard of it right right yeah yeah yeah um and so talk like having kind of like just to sit and think about how things are and where things going I that would be interesting so i' like maybe we can just start at adepticon because one of the best places to see everything and kind of like poke at it is adepticon because everybody kind of hangs their shingle there sure everybody shows up in the tabletop wargaming industry at least um but people are showing up in other Industries now too yeah and they show off whatever their Wares are for that coming big sales period in the summer um and I stayed I I was there for like I mean eight hours basically when it was open open um but I'd love to hear your thoughts on on the what how and why like who's showing off what where the companies kind of sit because the one thing I did notice is there are not a lot of midsize game companies there there's a lot of small game companies a lot of independent creators a lot of onean shows in a basement and there's a lot of big companies right with either brand managed IPS right or Workshop right which is which is basically an IP brand managing company at this point yep the amount of licensed products that they do yeah there's not a lot in between like the closest thing I can think of is maybe Parabellum they have a lot of Staff now corvus belly was there but like they're midsize and they hadn't shown up the same way from what I know about Parabellum though they've got when so when when Parabellum first came up on the scene I was at the first place I ever heard of them I was at the gamma trade show I think it was 2018 and it was in Reno Nevada back at that time and uh I was there I we had a booth for game four the app that we were working on and all that kind of stuff and so we were there and there were these guys were just like not across but down and a little bit and they had this good siiz Booth filled with Miniatures big displays tons of Graphics all this stuff and I had never heard of these guys before and I'm like what's going on and so I went over and I talked with them and they gave me like a media packet type yeah I got that I got the same one it was this beautiful it was a beautiful Med packet you look in there there's a thing and I forget the exact mention but it was basically talking about how and the way it I you know uh translated it was that somebody's Grandpa's a big Greek oil guy yep and someone's grandson was like I want to start a game company so and overnight they had all the money exactly exactly and there's nothing wrong with that that's the way the world works and they you know initially they were producing stuff that was cool but I always thought the molds were probably being a lot of work because they were real the first molds were real soft not the plastic it was plastic was hard but nothing was sharp in detail the detail was really rounded right and that's just be by spending less money on molds and now the stuff that they've been putting out the last two three years is amazing and they have a full out product line so what I would a mid-range company is is if you walk in to see what their product offer is you get more than two choices and you could you could start with their initial product offer of like starter start or whatever and get lost for months in whatever you're add- on stuff so I would qualify them I qualify corvis belly yep um and corvis has been around forever for 20 years almost now uh and and I what do you think about um Catalyst where are they are they are they big enough or so no so well here's the thing is yeah Catalyst doesn't make games catalyst is a steward of an old game that they rent off tops sure and technically they don't even make Miniatures because ironwind Metals has the rights to make Miniatures well they don't make the plastic ones do they they make cards for Alpha strike that come with Miniatures is what Catalyst makes well but the plastic Miniatures aren't they are they prod you're buying the cards for Alpha strike so Catalyst makes expansions for BattleTech yeah I supp and under and but not technically Miniatures it just happens that those Alpha strike cards come with Miniatures that's weird it's a very weird loophole who owns what in the batt world the batt world is a weird place man um but technically iron medals makes the official batt Tech man that's so weird that's so I don't know if you knew that but yeah that's why they come with Alpha strike cards they make an expansion for Alpha strike that happens to come with Miniatures the Miniatures have tokens that go with those Alpha strike cards crazy yeah no it's it's always an odd industry in my opinion and so um but yeah you're right there's not a lot of like mid-range and I think it's because partially is that it's honestly not crazy hard to get started especially if you've got like a passion for it and are willing to work a job to feed your family and also do a buch of other things or if you're like in a lucky situation where your spouse has got a decent enough job and you get insurance that way and all that kind of stuff especially in the in the states and then you can kind of work on this sort of side gig and make this happen see where it goes exactly it becomes a side hustle um and there are people out there who can do a good enough job I think in that side hustle to make themselves look bigger than they are that's exactly it everybody looks the same size their website that was that was the thing that I think people didn't think about with like a company like Privateer back when they were like the Rival of Workshop is they're a Biz company they're doing very very well they didn't have 6,000 employees they had like sub 100 employees you know what I mean out out in Washington and that's and that's not there's nothing wrong about that but I think that the impression people get from the online presence thing like you said can be really really surprising when then you show up to adepticon you're like oh no it's just me and my wife ex she packs orders that's that's where we're at right now like we but we Su that kid's old enough he's going to start pack he's goingon to make his lunch money is going to be all packes cat and cash are going to start editing two camera setups is going to be their I don't have to do multic cam editing oh man so much more free time it's going to be incredible oh yeah yeah um so so that was the first thing that struck me and the second thing that struck me was even the Indian small producer companies have been around for a while now yeah there wasn't a lot of new blood in the mix there was a few like the high scum guys I love them under the dice guys they were pretty I know you're wearing podcast stuff they they had like just the most fun Booth full of like cool little zen games and fun absolutely it it with them it completely comes from I think two Aesthetics one is obviously a passion like a love for the stuff and then two is that DIY aesthetic they didn't want to look big like that's not what they're there to do they don't want to look corporate or big yeah the merch table at a punk show it's exactly what it was and I that I want to see more of to perfectly Frank with you that made me the happiest of absolutely absolutely but yeah you're right I mean the a lot of people especially in this day and age your website um it's really easy to get like cool popups and do all that kind of stuff maybe your graphics don't look all that good but you know if you do have somebody that you know that has the ability to do a good graphic it's very it's 200 bucks to build a really nice bunch of pop-ups that you can have in your booth and people will walk up and go oh wow that's really it's two people maybe three you know what I mean um um what was the name of the company um enemy Spotted Games they make blackout mhm like that that stuff kind of just came out of nowhere a little bit I'm excited for them actually I think um they're doing some work with Austin to get Miniatures and stuff made they already are I bought the last drd well I bought so what happened was I ordered um the star the two-player starter box on the website the beginning part of the year maybe the end of 2023 and it shipped and I'm 90 because they was all 3D printed and I'm 98% sure it was already stuff coming from Austin the drd and then um I picked up two more models at adepticon from them and actually they're going to be uh doing they're going to be vending at my little tiny convention up in J Yeah Austin a called more auction we're going to talk about uh the black stuff too yeah it's um I first came across it I want to say I think it was either at Nova last year or else it was at Las Vegas open one of the two I like the Neil Blan campy RoboCop sort of like aesthetic of the the pmc's and all that well it's got like that that's the thing is it's like pmc's versus insurgents and I'm like not sure if I want to get into love that but well yeah but but it's in it's in like 2200 on a different planet so I'm like okay that's better I'm fine with that you know but the look is near future which which I appreciate it's got that apple seed like kind of grounded still hard sci-fi looks like and it's also the game system like the book is really tiny and I love that and it's also a game where if you get shot you die I mean it's rare that you don't you know and so I I it's it's very quick and and you it's really about being in cover and be like you know and all that kind of stuff as opposed to like well I still got three more wounds F being cous in positioning I'm excited for because everyone loves watching me suffer when I play games anytime anytime I can extra suffer that seems to be their I can understand that um okay so so that being said then what did you think of the big companies that were there so who would and this is always a game I like to play yeah and we talked about this actually off camera but the the visually speaking just from footprint who would you think was the biggest company at adap not knowing anything about the industry foot traffic or footprint just footprint like who looked like they were the B company yeah well then asmo day because like well honestly it was asmo day and then probably Catalyst I was going to say catalyst is probably close second because asmod had like if at Gen Con they've got this massive big room that happen that that's that's not everything but it's a lot the middle part of it is just vendor Hall and so when the vendor Hall closes and you know this they bring those big kind of walls those movable walls and then they cut it off and now you've got uh a tournament room on one side and the termin room on the other side one of those was just asmo day it was Legion it was uh X-Wing it was uh mCP it was uh the shatter Point all that kind of stuff going on there they had stuff hanging off the ceiling they're just their counters oh yeah they they they bring in like a UFC event commentator set oh yeah they got live streaming they're doing the whole deal and it's not just like guys sitting at a conference table live streaming they've got backdrops and they've got like everything is like dialed in and they're spending money and then on the other side what used to be always just Games Workshop stuff and has games workshop's the only one of the vendors that stays outside of the vendor but not out in the main hall like and I say Hall I mean the hall like the walkway C or not C all sorry uh catalyst is out in that main hallway and they've got a big thing and that's a big presence when you come in because you see them almost first it's like the best spot they're at the front door they get more footfall than any other V and actually especially the year before when they had the 50ft urban Mac outside to where it was like like a b convention driving to the Renaissance and it's like oh there's a giant robot right L this must be what this is exactly so that's I kind of surprised we didn't see that this year cuz it was gen too apparently it was apparently it was a union thing probably there's a lot of like who's going to set this up we couldn't find a union guy that knew how to do a giant inflatable robot so came a problem The Specialist robot guy was I could see that yeah probably on some sort of vacation but um to Japan looking at looking at big robots over there but yeah so you know that big that big side Hall that used to be all GW stuff including the GW Booth a huge portion of its Catalyst now and there's like a big huge giant Banner that they hang up like you remember from the old Gen Con days back before it was Catalyst and it was FASA they used to you always hang this massive banner up that was like a shot of like Seattle from like Shadow run y I still wonder if that Banner is around cuz that thing was like yeah 200 feet long it was monst wild and also the battle pods this year too so they had the big like the battle pods came they refurbish them so you get in you can pilot a Mech these things refurb but I don't know the software is the outside's refurbished but the software is very very old exactly the same experi exactly I'm here for it though I video games I I haven't done those since I did those at Gen Con probably 2017 or somewhere around those I I sat down it was a bit of a Nostalgia back then and yeah they're still running it and bringing it which is cool I remember when those were in Chicago like I had friends who traveled to Chicago to go to the to the battle pod like place and and then like do it J on every year they were they were a big deal like there think there was 20 they're like steam tanks there's only 20 and like only half of them work you know mean exactly yeah they're canalizing for parts parts they made them for people that don't know steam tank lore that was the whole thing was there was 12 steam tanks and when they get lost they were never made again because Leonardo de maragliano could only make like 12 of them or whatever right yeah these were the same sort of idea so yeah I would say that like between asmo day like like GW obviously has their big honken Booth but they don't and they have the big Ro they have the big uh Terminator in the hallway yeah it almost feels like they feel like they don't need to advertise like that does that make sense because everyone's playing their games they used to do that though remember back in the day when they just stopped coming to Gen Con because like we don't need to go to Gen Con you know and they used to do a lot of that kind of stuff and then they were like well actually maybe that's not a bad idea to maybe start doing this stuff again and yeah it's been interesting to kind of see how they kind of EB and flow and I think right now they're in like obviously they still go to a lot of shows and they they do a lot of stuff and they do work with the people I'm pretty sure on ground on the ground at adepticon but as a consumer you walk in and you don't don't see other than the big robot you know sorry the big Terminator you don't which I'm sure costs a buttload to bring over or whatever I'm hoping they have two I hope they have one in North America and one I think they probably have one in one in Dallas or because I know they also set it up in different ways like they have a different oh it disassembles for sure well no no I know but like the base like there when we were at Gen Con they had the entire base and when you're at you know the the show like adepticon when it's in the hallway it's a smaller base and that kind of stuff yeah so there's that kind of thing going on but yeah I um it is interesting to kind of see that and you're right there's not a lot in the medium area right now and I don't know like it seems like that's maybe bad right so what it does for me is I I'm always trying to sense Vibe and this sounds weird but like what are people excited about yeah what are people talking about there was a the thing that I saw the most people excited about weirdly and this is purely down to marketing was the monument Limited release of paints there was like a new iPhone line out the vendor Hall of like 150 people waiting for those paints yeah yeah so people excited about painting the the one thing Workshop did have set up but it was way off upstairs to the side is golden demon so they had their golden demon set up but it was kind of like you had to go to it like yeah yeah it's up on the second floor over by yeah yeah you got to go find it um and I don't think it's a good or bad thing necessarily it was just interesting to me that there's like a couple people that are midsize in the middle lots of like little independent vendors in the vendor Hall Hall and also playing those independent games kind of in the halls in like the free gaming areas and stuff like that and people setting up demos out there lots of people playing like a 40K tournament lots of people playing a agent sigar tournament lots of people sequestered over to one side playing all the Star Wars stuff it almost felt like watching people play all the Star Wars and Marvel stuff was its own advertising because it wasn't spread out like it was very intentional it was it was in a lump yeah you get to see all those customers be in one place and talk to all those customers in one place and to me that felt like a parable of where the industry is at right now because it feels like Workshop is kind of just shotgunning in every direction they're not super worried about their messaging they're not super worried about trying to say this is this is what we do we make new customers we bring people into the hobby we develop and build our games for everybody it is 100% them barreling forward into new releases and just because that's that's what they can advertise that's what they can Market it's I feel like it's hard for them to say oh well you know you can still get chaos rhinos or you can still get like this because for one thing you kind of can you kind of can't right and and also it's just like I don't know people get excited about new stuff and so that's what they've decided instead of like trying to get people excited about getting into it they're trying to get people excited about buying into it and that was the microcosm to me was so we do our new release presentation people get excited about things they cannot buy at that show did you do did you see the new release presentation I didn't go so we get there so we get there I'm in the room right there's thousand people in this room or whatever and they're like okay now no nobody take any pictures or your video or with your phones all that stuff because this is online this is very special and this is special for us this is for us now we're going to play a an hour and 12 minute video they told us right from the get hour 12-minute video and I thought I thought I think he's kidding and he wasn't holy moly it just a single video that ran for an hour and 12 minutes where they would like show like some close-ups of a model MH we never saw a model against like a white background static it was always like a closeup speed ramp smoke machine all that kind of stuff and they would talk about the lore and then there would be a cut and then it would go to two or three guys H in a in in a set from the design team or whatever and they would talk about it for five minutes and then they would go to the next one and it just kept going for an hour and 12 minutes people around me watch a movie you watch an actual movie people around me were falling asleep people around me were having just full-on conversations cuz they didn't care anymore yeah and it was it was too long by more than half like it really could have been oh it was it was not good CU been a trailer basically for the six things that they're the thing that if you've ever been to one of these before and you have obviously but if you've ever been to one of these things before they show a video it's maybe two minutes maybe maybe less than a minute and then they talk about it for a while yeah they have an interactive discussion with people and they kind of chat and stuff like that and the thing is that they can also then gauge when people like cheer for a thing because by the end no one was cheering for anything they just didn't care anymore cuz and people were getting up and leaving and all that kind of stuff and it was so I appreciate that they're throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks but this presentation didn't work and that is also kind of a thing because it's always on the first night it has a tendency to sort of set a bit of a tone yeah exactly yeah yeah I didn't hear I I didn't hear really anything about it after it came out and that that that like I'm not saying it was a wet fart but at the same time it was it was a really long one it was a really long one it was it was one of those like moments where you're you're sort of like you're looking at the show and it feels like some people have kind of a plan at least what the show is supposed to be and then the rest of it was kind of just a well we're here and we're going to do what we always do yep but I don't know how that speaks to what the plan is right like and so that kind of dovetails back to something I've been thinking a lot about recently which is that the other thing I noticed is everybody at that show is getting old well and I don't I'm not I'm not trying to be like aist but as it turns out none of us are getting younger there wasn't we're not but I didn't see any teenagers there I didn't see any kids there that let that weren't with their parents being dragged along cuz Dad wanted to see these T toop soldiers and that's that to me said a lot but I've never really seen young kids there at that show people in their 20s gen sometimes yeah but I'm talking about like even like teens it's rare to see but give me someone in college yeah yeah yeah give me somebody give me somebody who's in college that likes Warhammer if you live in Chico how many people in Chicago are are first of all live in the suburbs of Chicago jillions yeah yeah yeah right and and that means that with the 10 or 20 Games Workshop stores in the let's say 100 mile radius of Chicago there weren't a bunch of teen to college age people that wanted to go to their show their ticon I mean I'll be perfectly honest I couldn't afford miniature games and stuff like that when I was in or even in college like I learned the first time I ever learned about uh Games Workshop at all was my friend had a copy of first edition space Hulk and we played it in like 1991 and then I would buy a miniature once in a while I would go be to a game store but that was like literally it like I never really started getting into the stuff because back then there were no skirmish games as far as like the big stuff it was all you got to play an army or you don't and so yeah I I I've never really expected to see at a Miniatures convention in general and there have been question about this there's a a YouTube channel called little Wars tval yeah and it's all historicals and they've gone to conventions and asked the same question basically is our historicals dying is everyone just aging out and croaking you know and the thing is is that I think it's just generally an older audience you get to a point and now you join in and then eventually other people age out either through just getting older or dying or whatever and so I don't know if it's ever going to be a really young audience but it really young I would just take 20s like like anybody in that age category but it's a really hard let's be perfectly Frank it's a difficult like if you were just to sell someone who's never heard about this this is a hobby you should try out you think it'd be great where you buy this thing and then you have to open it up you have to cut all the parts apart you have to glue it all together then you have to prime it you have to paint it and all that stuff before you can start playing it's not for everybody and I don't want to be gatekeeper I'm saying it's not everybody likes it is the problem I want everybody to try it but most people are not interested but my my response to that would be a lot of the people who were there this year mhm were also here 10 years ago and were in their 20s yeah I suppose possible so it was possible back then yeah yeah yeah what's changed well I mean that's the thing to me if you're 35 to 40 and you're adepticon this year have you been going for 10 or 15 years because that means that they got they onr ramped in back then well you've been doing this uh Channel about as long as I have and you've been looking at your have you been noticing your Analytics way is it see because mine stays about the same it's just it doesn't like there's 13 to 17 there's no 13 to 17 but I think I think we talk about different stuff too which is for sure for sure it it there's a there's a level of I don't and so here's the second part that pushes that into my brain yeah yeah I don't know what you would buy to become a tabletop hobbyist today I don't know what the on- wp is I made a video about that last year about how to get into wargaming these days I made kind of two different videos I made one about how to get into Warhammer mhm and how that you know and it's a little bit harder obviously and then also how to get into war war gaming and I also made a video last year about how to get into wargaming for under 100 bucks and it's not easy it's it is not easy especially when you are seeing all the marketing of all these things coming out like and you see that you're like well that's what I want to do that sounds awesome yeah well that's $120 right off the bat yeah so well combine that with I want to know what the popular thing is sure so so typically when you first enter into a hobby one the things you do when you obsessively research it especially when you're a kid is what's the best one what's the one everyone's playing I'm going to play that one because then I'm going to have faith that this this risk I'm taking is going to pay off for me right the one that you would know be able to find the most about is on the highest shelf exactly the high expensive it's the most expensive to get into and when you even get their Gateway product you don't have the full experience you have a quarter maybe of what the full experience is going to be I talked recently about the starter set for um war cry and how it's not really a starter set at all it's a it costs $10 more than the kill Team starter set and it comes with two four-person uh you know like forces you get a the Crimson court guys in there which are great models and then you get some sort of it's either three or four models that are um stormcast and you get like five maybe little tiny pieces of terrain on a card stock thing you know you get the walls and you get a card stock mat yeah but it it costs $10 more than the one from the Where kill team where you get two full forces that you can prod much and and and so it seems like for as much push as they like to do Games Workshop these days on getting new product new product new product you're right it's to the point now where it's getting harder and harder to figure out how to start because even the starters aren't starters to some degree you know um I used to have a viewer who would who would uh I he would say like I would talk about the new starter like Leviathan let's say or or you know indominus and he'd be like that's not a starter box and I'm like well it's the start of the new stuff that they're making for this season and it was it was pedantic a little bit to some degree it was semantics but it was like you know they they come up with the starters after the big box which is and they have three which then causes even more confus exctly because because if you're a store owner one's just going to be better yeah and so you're going to buy two that are dead stock intended to get them to buy the third one right right and it's like just have one that you're proud of why and have a loss leader there used to be in this industry L leader products that you intentionally made less money on because they were the Gateway into just letting people try right and it feels like now the the the impetus is on making as much money off that initial purchase as possible because they might not come back it's a fire and forget kind of situation like you know the uh age of Darkness um you know heresy box fantastic box sure and it was like 200 bucks and I in the video I talked about it I'm like it's a loss leader and people are like they didn't lose money on it I'm like no they didn't no but they made less money on it which to them is like losing you know what I mean so yeah they're going to sell more of these than anything else because it's a loss leader and that will equate to the money they would have made I worked in camera stores uh back in the early 90s and you know the reason you you would spend $20 to buy a Polaroid camera is because the film cost $25 exactly so yeah it's like it's like you buy a new printer to just to get cartridge cuz it's cheaper than the an cartridge you throw the printer away and our mother earth is burning exactly yeah no so strange that these two things are related can't possibly be related absolutely but that's I think that's the interesting to me is I so those three things put together I think add up to me a weird state of the industry where you you have Junior companies who are dependent upon the larger companies to create their their follow on customers they will create their own customers they will inherently they'll go to cons they'll they'll talk to people they'll give demos fantastic and they their own customers but for the most part people who find them have hav't countered tabletop War gaming somewhere else first the less of those come down the chain yeah is is not great and that's a weird spot for me where I'm like I'm watching that happen and I go and again I'm not trying to like Doom say yeah yeah but but it is if I don't know what to buy my 10-year-old for them to to comfortably enter into the tabletop wargaming sphere and feel comfortable playing it like they know what they're doing they want to so bad oh yeah and I want to give it to them and I don't know what that looks like today yeah now are you saying that from uh the standpoint of a parent or are you saying that from the standpoint of a person who's immersed in the industry and you still don't even know what to get for them from point of view of a salesperson from the point of view of someone who has been selling tabletop war games for 24 years someone brings in a 10-year-old and you as the person and you go ah so there's I my top three and I'll ask you your top three the first one I would say is if I was a parent and I wanted to take a risk on tabletop war game with my kid I would sell the beginner set for catalysts BattleTech the two model beginner sets 25 bucks us yep or the old ones I'm not sure what the MSRP is right now so quote me on it but 25 bucks us two Miniatures tons of standies terrain a quick start guide all the stuff to play it's probably too complicated for someone not in their teams that would be the problem to me um I would do the alpha strike box set if they're willing do a little bit more money M same exact experience way more models com of terrain all that Stu 65 bucks yeah yeah right those two are at a level that I think you could get a decent experience out of it and I feel catalyst is finally in a position where they're starting to actually have stuff in stock they're product offer yeah because for the longest time like you know I was kind of interested in Alpha strike for a minute and I was at a show and they had a bunch of alpha strike models and they were on sale I was like oh wow this is cool I could get this and this and this and this and all I'm like so then how much does the rule book cost and she's like we don't have the rule book this was like 2018 I think at Origins I was like what she's like yeah no I was totally out of stock like no they had no concept they were going to be that successful right so then like like the next year or I think it was the next year I think it was 2019 Origins I came back to the booth and I'm like and I was like oh you got this rule book awesome I'm like so the models are like we don't have any models you know what I'm just like it's all sold out exactly right and so they're finally in a point where like I can walk into pretty much any store and I can buy this stuff so that's imagine being them though where you spend 15 years in like a we barely really sell anything attraction we limbo abut and then all of a sudden hit lightning with that first Kickstarter and everyone wants your product and everyone's like it's kind you know what it reminds me of it reminds me of two things reminds me of the first release of X-Wing when every xwing was liting a bottle it could not keep stuff in stock um because it's it's based on a brand everyone knew and loved it was on a super low shelf as far as 40 bucks for the starter box originally I think yeah but also like just open it and play the Christmas morning test was instantaneous you know what I mean it was one two3 fun you're just you're having fun there's other than hero clicks there was nothing else in the industry like that really it was popping and the same thing goes with the Catalyst stuff Min are pre-built pop your tokens the rules and start playing like and they did I think it's funny cuz they backed into Star Wars had movies these guys had 40 Years of books and novels Tech and like a video game several video games an incredible cartoon which you watch it has aged incredibly poorly bet um but the that that level of like of like uh brand awareness they kind of backed into this big launch I think they're expecting so that would be number one number two would have been if this was 20198 I would have said the shades SP BLX sure because that was a great lost leader product um the age of Darkness star set I think is still a good L leader product but again too complex Oh by by far I think yeah and those are the main brand ones without me getting into indie games where it's like I know a million great two-player Ser sets I I can't think of other ones that would that would satisfy the criteria of lots of people know what this is in play it so I can get someone to play with you're a big music fan yep when you first started getting into music as a teenager or even a bit younger a tween or whatever you were probably not getting into Indie music right off the bat you were listening to just like everybody else you listen to pop music for a while like one of the first tapes that I ever got for Christmas was like Thriller by Michael Jackson you know way back in the 80s and all that kind of stuff and everybody's kind of wargaming experience has a tendency to sort of move in that same direction every once in a while you get somebody who's like oh well when I was 12 I discovered uh this band from uh Portland Oregon called The Thermals and they've been out you know they haven't been making music in a decade but that was the first tape I ever bought or CD or whatever that's pretty rare it's usually popular music and then eventually you start to find the Indie stuff that you dig and it's the same thing in this kind of industry where you start out and you're like well obviously you're going to get into 40K or something with a big name like Star Wars or whatever cuz it's visible it's above water visible you know it is it's not the I under water but then there are people that stay with that there are people that stay with popular music their entire life and that's totally fine and then there are people that start to get into like the smaller Niche stuff and the things that really start to like scratch their particular itch and so um yeah I I think it's the the problem is is that when the popular music of Warhammer or of wargaming um starts to be Troublesome then it's real hard to draw people into music AKA in this case uh wargaming if I keep the analogy going but it's almost like it's not playing on the radio anymore that that to me is well and the radio is not the radio anymore the radio or or it only plays on the radio and no one can see it only whatever it's only playing at uh it's funny the the bit of like it's only playing at uh UFC shows you know because it's like the competitive guys get the the noise yeah yeah and it feels like to me one of the like one of the big things is they seem to be marketing based on engagement that they can prove not the message they want to give right they know that people are are are reading articles about Meta Meta and that kind of stuff but but that isn't a that's that's that's a that's a bounceback message that's a response they're responding to interest exactly not saying this is what this is what we that doesn't drive sales doesn't drive sales to some degree it does when people are like oh this is the good unit I should buy it but then also if you've been doing this for a while you know they're going to Nerf it so and imagine how confusing it is to a new person to look at that and go I don't know why I care about any of this stuff exactly and also this doesn't speak to me cuz I'm not this person right I'm not I want to know you know like why the product that I bought this starter set with two armies in it why does it never get talked about why does every show great versions of this painted or a battle Report with that being featured in it or I think it's just because they've got so much new stuff constantly they couldn't talk about everything I think if they dialed back on how much new stuff came out like when I first started in 40K fifth edition yeah you were lucky if a codex came out for your army this year like they would come up with like three codes a year you know and that was it and so you be like man I'm hope I think this is my year it's going to be great I'm not going to have to use this fourth edition or even Third Edition codex anymore it's going to be really cool and um and that hasn't happened in a long time and I not I don't I'm not saying we want to go back to the old days but I think it does need to slow down a bit because it does allow them to focus on like this is why we would you would be interested in this even though we came out with it two months ago you still might be interested in it because it's still in stores but now it's just focused on what's this week what's this week what's this week when we're in a and we're in a state where the physical act of being a hobbyist takes longer than the release cycle takes to change the thing you're working on I hear constantly the comments from people who are like I worked on this Army and then a New Codex came out and then it was useless and it was and it was well could get it done in two years could get it done in a year I made a plan and then that plan was invalidated the next six months and it's I think there's an inherent exhaustion that comes from that and I think it's similar in our I think we're actually very prone to it sociologically cuz I think it's the same same thing that's coming from Marvel and it's the same thing it's coming from we're just overfed oh yeah and it doesn't have a chance to marinate I think about my experience with the horor sesy I was so excited for the horor sesy I built this beautiful ravengard Army we went to the UK and talked about it and then as I was like coming back here I was like I'm G to spend this whole summer playing the horror Cy game it's really good I'm really excited about it the old design team worked on it everyone who started horror sesy armies with me that spring stopped working on them and jump to the next thing yeah 6 months later the next kill team thing or the next war cry thing or whatever it was yeah and it got paved over by attention and I was prone to it too and then I didn't play a game of wary for two years yeah and I was like I was so excited about this but it didn't get a chance to marinate it didn't get a chance to to land and and and be worked on and be loved I've always wanted to make a skit uh where uh a guy comes into the front of the shop and like some guys that have already got like the game game X whatever it is and they're like you really need to get into this this is the new thing you know really this is awesome it's great and all this kind of stuff we're going to go in the back and set up so then yeah so then he talks to the store owner and stuff he buys some stuff and then he walks to the back of the store and he's like what's this like oh this is game why this is the this is this is exactly yeah and and like you know that should be the way that's not the way it should be but that is the way it kind of is to some degree and you're right even not even within like different brands but even within the single Brands um that's why I I love seeing stuff that Indie folks do because they have a tendency to if they're going to build an ecosystem where they're like this is our game MH they have a tendency to work on it slower partially out of necessity they just can't put out stuff like that us scale but it also allows the people that are interested in that kind of thing to be able to to breathe a little bit more and I think that also part of that though too to be perfectly honest is if you can get a gaming group a group of people three four people you'd like to play with if you can all just decide this is the thing you know what I mean and just sort of you can have so much more fun than than just constantly trying to keep up with anything you can just go like I I know people that still play Third Edition sure 40K you know and they're having a great time with it now are they getting any new stuff are they getting FAQs no but they're house ruling stuff they're doing what they want and they're having a good time with it and that's one of the things that I think that in my mind puts this above video gaming is that when they make a patch for the video game and the servers change you can't play the old version anymore but with this you can play stuff that you've had for 20 years easily yeah well and then and then it's complete I think there's actually some satisfaction when people collect older games that's one of the reasons why I do it is that you can actually have a complete collection now you can actually have the whole thing and you can enjoy it and appreciate it for what it is and that's a I mean that's a final records guy mentality tabletop War gaming and that's not really possible anymore like you couldn't have a complete collection of Warhammer 40,000 it's just not possible no of any Edition really cuz it's bled over into itself so many times that I think that setting up what your definition of complete is you know what I mean is also important and with something like 40K being an ecosystem that they constantly have to be able to ring money out of that's a different story but you could easily be like I've got everything that we want for war cry or I've got everything that we want for necromunda and they might come up with something new and we'll make a decision about whether we're going to add that to our repertoire or not but I think we're capable of that I think that think that what happens is that a lot of people want the Safety and Security feeling of being told by the marketing what the right thing to have is when we relas those meta watch articles prove it to me because it's like oh I want to know what the best thing is for this engagement then that's when I was a kid we didn't have a computer and I was and friends of ours did and stuff like that you know other families and whatever and my I said to my dad I'm like why don't we get a computer he's like I'm waiting till they make the best one and then we'll buy that one yeah I'm like that's that's even as a kid I'm like that's not that's not smart I don't think it's a good idea no we had the same uh IBM 386 uh while my friends were running like you know Mac 2 and Max full color playing playing like old like early Sierra like adventure games and I was so jealous oh yeah so jealous I'm here playing digdug like a some kind of scumbo yeah no I it wasn't I I didn't get a PC until I got to college and then bought one for myself and I bought like a 386 and went through all that kind of stuff and my and and and then my dad would start to use it and I'm like come on but um yeah I don't know it's it's interesting I think that like when we publish when Vince and I publish our games the first we published we were like it's Minature agnostic use what Miniatures you want and people be like yeah okay that's cool but but what Miniatures am I supposed to use we're like whatever whatever you want you know demons can be anything on like yeah that's really that I agree yeah but what should I be using though you know so now whenever permission whenever we publish a new game the first thing we do like literally the night that it launches we also put out a blog post and say Here's a bunch of places you can go find stuff for space station zero here's a bunch you know that kind of stuff and that helps but there are people that are like that want the permission exactly and then there are people me when I look at a new uh some some you know uh miniature agnostic game that I come across and I come across it and I'm like this is very cool for me the excitement is now I'm going to go figure out what Miniatures to use you know I'm going to Kit bash or I'm going to do that stuff but that's not that's another issue I think to some degree with the industry is you got people who want the almost plug-and play and you want the people but you get that in computers and computer games too there're the people who want I want to play Playstation I put the disc in and I go and other people who are like I want to edit bat files you know what I mean like yeah I think it's a generational thing to where where does your entertainment come from were you forced because you didn't have access to it to have it come out of you and you were interacting with it I think that's the generation of the pen and paper RPG you know the the the theater of the Mind people versus the generation of entertainment was directed towards me from film and TV from you know all of these sort of like um tablet games and video games and stuff like that so I think it's it's not a it's it's almost like a what are you used to like I don't there's no value judgment there it's just how did you inter interact with media and hobbies entertainment when you were forming your opinion of what that's supposed to be and so getting it right and having that permission is going to feel more natural for someone who has always had their entertainment projected on them as opposed to having it come out of them I think there are people that want to play in Worlds and then there are people who hate playing in someone else's world and again not a value judgment but it's a situation of people who are like love to read these books and they love the stuff that comes out of these creators and as creators we should be happy about that for sure but on the other there are people who are like no I'm going to write my own thing because I don't I can't I can't live in somebody else's world corner of this universe exact I'm going to fill I'm going to fill in the gaps yeah so I think we're in an interesting place because the last thing that I was going to ask you about the state of the the industry thing is what is your opinion of the and and I want to predicate this by saying at this point I think Games Workshop is its own licensing company but what is your opinion of the fact that it is incredibly hard to find a product that isn't a branded product right now in the industry that there are junior companies making their own products but the vast majority of the big players and I count warmer as this now because they have Diversified so much into video games and books and TV and media and stuff now that they already Cal I'm not supposed to talk about the breakfast cereal sorry you just broke our gold bu this it's out we're deleting this whole episode um yeah no I I think that again it comes down to I don't want to say permission but it comes down to well I could play this thing that I've never heard of or there's this Marvel thing or this Star Wars thing or this Star Trek thing or This Game of Thrones thing or whatever um Halo you know all that kind of stuff and I don't find myself usually too interested in license things myself now that being said I played the old Star Wars miniatures game the pre from um from Wizards of the Coast I played that for quite a while and that was sort of fun um used to play that at the old comic shop cuz we didn't have a game shop in town yet um I do have a legion Army that's painted and I'm waiting for my store owner friend to get his Rebels uh commission painted so that we can start playing the summer um I don't know I don't Vince and I have made the joke that we want to do a license game at some point and we were trying to figure out how to get the license for uh hellc comes to frog town there you go old 80s movie yeah man yeah yeah with Rody Ry Piper um we think it's owned by Disney now actually we did the like the company that owned it and now that companies own like Disney like United living dead it's all free he didn't get a copyright you can always United Living Dead falls back on it but so I don't know I'm not the thing is is that if it didn't sell it wouldn't do it so here's the thing it's all fast nickels there's two problems with licensed products one they end M there's an edge of the sandbox you can't make anything new for it can only make what's inside the license that Star Wars miniature game like they got to the point because they would put out 60 new um you know 60 new prepainted things in those like random pack boxes every quarter and they got to the point where they're just making stuff up it's why second edition X-Wing failed you don't need another X-Wing that's just in po Damron colors I don't care about that I already have x-wings I'm just buying these cards to put next to the x-wings I already have right you you hit a logical end point so you're on a conveyor belt where you have to always pay your fees back to the LI the people that you're you're given free money to and you have to hope you make enough money on top of that so your products intrinsically going to be more expensive CU it's cost of production plus licensing right and then you don't have any creative control oh yeah you constantly have to go back to the licc and say is this okay is this okay and you run out a rope eventually because you run out of things to make content about right the bonus is you rent their customers their marketing is your marketing right so you get to have their customers who vend diagram over into having an interest into tabletop games they put out a new season of Mandalorian you've got a bunch of Mandan cont Mandan content that's exactly it yeah but it's none of it makes a Games Workshop and the big companies are engaging in this far more than the small companies sure so there's no long-term possibility here because eventually people just have eaten their fill of a licensed product Marvel TR they're trying to cheat the runway Y where like you know gw's been doing this for 40 plus years whereas these guys are like well we want a 40-year-old you know IP as well so we'll just work with these folks exactly we'll just buy one and and to me that's actually causing damage to the ecosystem because it's pulling money away from any of these Junior companies becoming a major player becoming an actual company because the they're not making enough profit necessarily because of how much they've got to pay back to the license that's right and also it's just taking time and attention away from money that could be spent inside the community if you will like I'm always thinking about how long can you keep your dollar away from Disney mhm how long can you keep your darer away from these license holders and keep it going to a Shan Suter and keep it going to you know somebody who's basically making something new and different right that's their own right like and and and that's a that to me feels like a it's it like I don't want to put a value judgment on it because it's good business right it's good way of short-term making money it's good for shortterm bus long term it's redirecting money outside of the ecosystem of this industry into the license holders you get really really into Star Wars because you played Legion for a while or even Star Wars you know uh like like X-Wing try selling X-Wing on the second End Market right now you can't exactly but the other thing though too is that if at that point it just keeps that's just more advertising for the next show on Disney that that that Star Wars puts out or whatever and so it can get to the point where the person's like you know I'm just having a better time watching the show then I am doing the thing you know what I mean and I own enough Miniatures I own tons of if I own tons of Legion Miniatures why do I want want to buy these shadow point minatures right if I hav tons of Shadow Point Min why do I want to buy these Legion minur self cannibalizing still once in a great while I still get together with a friend of mine and we still play X-Wing we play 1.0 we just never bothered to upgrade you know what I mean yeah but it's just the two of us and it's fine if I was to try to go into the shop and play X-Wing with other folks I don't even know what version they're on to be honest right now so yeah exactly you know so yeah I don't know I've always wondered about licensing and thought I mean I I see again the short term but I do Wonder because think what's what's the what's the licensed product that's been out for more than 10 years at this point there isn't one xwing xwing is probably closest but even that is barely like I don't know A store owner who even wants to really carry it much anymore you know what I mean exactly and so and so if you're talking about this faith in the investment I have thing of bring new customers in all their experience is going to be if they've played X-Wing is oh I was this was really popular for a while and then it was gone and I had all the stuff that I ended up trying to get rid of this is why I love the miniature agnostic kind of mindset and also being part of that miniature agnostic L mindset is that I never look at a model as well if this game goes away this model is useless no of course not you know what I mean so in the warehouse exactly yeah yeah no exactly but that's the thing is that you're in a situation where you know you can you can I I like to call it like the the the the buffet kind of because you can do a little bit of this and a little bit of this you can play these games and now you can take these two robots and put it over here and play this game the doomed with a bunch of Eden Miniatures mixed Dark Age Miniatures mixed with like whatever right like and I think that's longevity it's obviously not huge business stockholders don't like it I don't care I think it's really interesting to people who have again it's not good for the long-term giant business but I don't know that this I don't know that tabletop wargaming should be giant business I don't think it should I'll be honest with you I don't think it should be and I think that any kind of attraction that happens the next while will hopefully allow some of those Juniors to graduate into being midsize companies I think what what I'd like to see yeah self correcting I'd love to see diverse options that aren't trying to be everything to everybody that aren't trying to make a game that's that aren't trying to have a rank and flank game a skirmish game a fantasy game a Sci-Fi game a historical sci-fi game a sports game a kitchen table competitive game you know what I mean like you don't need to be everything to everybody make a couple good games you don't need you don't need to fight in every single one of these weight classes just make the cool game that you like making right and when that eventually grows to a certain size make another game like just change make the game yeah and we have this thing where because you do see things eventually run their course older IPS tend to run at of steam at some point because they just have too many releases and it's too many skews and it's too topheavy and you have to have well you have to have retraction just it has to happen it's a logical retraction from the point of view of the 10et of wall space that you're giving them in a gaming store that needs to get turned over at some point yeah yeah so I don't know I think we I don't think we've answered any questions we definitely had a very long conversation about where it's at I do think that there is change Brewing mhm oh yeah absolutely I mean I was just in a store uh yesterday here in town and they had an entire wall full of 3D printed stuff because cuz they've been 3D printing their own stuff there and selling it to people and I don't think that's going away and I don't think it should n you know and and so uh you know I've had a lot of people go I don't know why you know local stores don't just start at 3D printing more and in many situations it's because it's usually a oneman operation and they are the same person who has to order who has to clean the bathroom who has to sell stuff who has to close the store that's a whole other workflow exactly exactly you're now adding manufacturing to but the stores that can do it I think that you're going to start seeing more and more of that yep I think that's going to be that's going to be a new a new manufacturing point where people can create and then ship to stores without ever having to pack a UPS truck and that's that's going to be a really interesting thing in the future exactly I also think that as a species we are sick of Licensing we are sick of every movie we go to see being based on being a derivative of or a remake of we are getting sick of that and I think that that's going to bleed out because if the a24 movie streams have taught me anything is we are desperate for original media right like we are desperate for things that don't look like something we've seen before and we're not getting it a lot of places well you just mentioned the doomed you know I mean like there's and this then steel riff we were talking earlier about I'm working on my second steel Rift mode I mean like all these different things the other thing I find too is that I don't personally want too much lower M I want to be given a framework I want to be given a jumping off point and say this is the cool thing you come up with some stuff go play in it and that's what I want to see too and I think that the licensing comes with its own entire you know lore and all that kind of stuff and obviously GW is super incredibly heavy into it um but I think that we are going to see a bit of a correction where you're going to see people who I hope are just making games that are more fun and don't necessarily lean so much on the marketing of it and the the lore of it and getting a you know a proper IP that you have to pay a whole bunch of money for yeah yeah well there you go guys we talked about where the industry is currently at it sounds like we're in the same level of chaos as everything else exactly it's too expensive it doesn't seem it seems directionless and without purpose uh and much like our media film TV and everything else a lot of it's based on someone else's original idea that came up with 40 years ago exactly yeah um and a spreadsheet and a spreadsheet and then the rest of it's being done by money people that don't understand what the actual thing is because they can find their quants you want to know what a Quant is don't just don't look up KP don't look up kpis and quants because that's a whole ass that's a whole last reason for decisions being made that you don't want to know about right um so thanks for coming in manely man absolutely and I hope I get you in again I'll see it whatever the next show is we both buum into each other at probably adepticon next year when's your game launching do some pluggies what's your pluggy that you're um when can we when can we see the next snarling Badger creation it should be end of this month end of May the 24th yeah well that's our long weekend that's the Queen's birthday it's also Memorial Day over in our states yeah it's weird that's our song 24th of May is the Queen's birthday for Holiday while run away yeah yeah so go check it out obviously it'll be linked on the Starling Badger page the blog it'll probably on War Games Vault yeah it'll be on war gam Vault that's what we're doing it through and so Vince will talk about it I'll talk about it you can see it on our channels as well what's this one about we haven't really said it's still sort of secret Dark Fantasy Dark Fantasy Dark Fantasy yeah yeah yeah and um I'm really happy with the way that it looks I mean like the especially and the game itself is very cool don't get me wrong but like after I got back from Denmark at at army painter I basically had 12 days to lay the entire out and it's a little shorter than the last two games but it's longer than our first game but still that was that was days it was a lot of work in 12 days um but we wanted to hit May 1 to get it sent off so that we'd have time and all that kind of stuff and everything and I got a UPS thing that said the proof should probably land at at home today so I won't see it till I get back tomorrow to the States but um yeah I'm I'm I'm really I'm really happy with the way it's turning out awesome sweet so like three weeks you guys are going to get to see some new snarling badger Vince ventrella and Adam Loper uh like Creations absolutely I'm excited to see it myself soon all right man all right bye [Music] everybody h

Channel: Guerrilla Miniature Games

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Keywords: Tabletop Media CoOp, Ash Barker, Guerrilla Miniature Games, Tabletop Games, Miniature Games

Id: DSWDQGConKI

Length: 58min 35sec (3515 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2024