The cost of producing computer wargames

Why do manual military board games still get produced.

There are many board games still being produced by makes such as Decision Games. The question is asked why are the best of these games not converted to run on a computer. The answer is cost. A major computer game costs an average of $20 million in 2010 and takes a team of 20-100 people. To produce a military simulation for the computer, of a standard to match a game from Strategy and Tactics, would cost a staggering amount and would never be recouped by selling several thousand copies. So manual wargames continue to be produced in a format that the early developers at SPI and Avalon Hill would have recognised. Paper maps, cardboard counters and printed rules will be with us for a while yet.

Update on Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame

As a few of you might know I have been hunting down original material on the Fletcher Pratt naval wargame. Over the years, I had enough to publish a book on the subject.

I reckoned there were only three more sources of unpublished Pratt material in the world. Two collections the size of a small shoe box and a large box worth.

Well, at last after a period of tense negotiations and help from some random American wargamers who I have never met, I am now confident the large box of Pratt stuff being dispatched to me from a cellar in the US. It apparently includes an original model ship or two.

I was sent a random page by email and by chance it had the formula Pratt used for his armour penetration. It was in a letter from Doc Clarke (Pratt's umpire). This alone would be good, but I am hopeful of more. Of course, it may just be a duplicate of what I have already found.

Is it going to contain the other half of the Fletcher Pratt Napoleonic Ship game (I have half), will it have the missing optional rules for individual ships (I know they had the rules, I just do not have them)? Will it have new material I had no idea existed? I live in hopes.

One of the really nice things about the project has been ordinary wargamers from around the planet who put pen to paper and send me interesting bits which add to the project.

Dungeons and Dragons - the return of Gygax

The late Gary Gyax was responsible for the ground breaking Dungeons and Dragons, the roleplaying game that spawned a whole genre of such games (and even laid the ground work for the next generation of computer based roleplaying games).


A new company, called TSR, is publishing a new magazine called table top role playing called Gygax (see http://gygaxmagazine.com/ ). The company is leg by Luke and Ernie Gygax, the sons of the late Gary Gygax. Assisted by some living legends from the world of D&D, such as the ex Dragon Magazine editor Tim Kask, the magazine is likely to be of high quality. However, what seems like a good idea is in fact a legal minefield.

Gary Gygax’s second wife, Gail Gygax (not the mother of Luke and Ernie) believes she and the firm Wizards of the Coast (a subsidiary of Hasbro) believe they own all the rights to Gary Gygax’s name, likeness and intellectual property.

I suspect the next battle in the world of Dungeon’s and Dragons will be in the courtroom and not on the table top.

Comments on Reign of Missiles published by Foreign Policy Magazine November 2012

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/27/launch_your_own_gaza_war

   

The game portrays the military aspects of the Palestinians in Gaza firing rockets against civilian areas of Israel and the Israeli military response including bombing civilian areas of Gaza. It is an original attempt to engage the wider public in a deeper understanding of the conflict by the vehicle of a simple wargame.

The idea of using a wargame is not original. Such as the 1910 Invasion of England game that aimed to demonstrate the vulnerability of England to a German landing. The implication of that game was a large number of lighter Royal Navy ships such as destroyers should be kept on alert in the channel ports to protect England from a surprise attack. (See Early Wargames Vol 2, to be published in 2013). However, the Reign of Missiles is almost certainly the first mass distribution magazine to use a game in this manner in modern times.

The game seems too complicated for public consumption. Perhaps it should have been designed to be less complex, such as those in the Decision Games micro series games. The latter are a ¼ of the size of a ‘quad’ game and play in about 30 minutes. Physically the map might have been better produced to print on an A4(letter) printer, rather than A3. More people have access to an A4 printer.

The game is focused on the military options, with the solo Israeli player using their assets to minimize the threat of the Hamas rockets produced by the game system. This seems to miss an opportunity for exploring the options available to both sides in terms of political manoeuvring. All the Hamas rockets in the world are not going to bring down Israel, as the missiles perhaps kill one person per hundred rockets. Conversely, the concept of an Israeli military victory is equally flawed; no amount of bombing, commando raids or surface to air missile defence systems are ever going to stop the low level of attacks by Hamas.

The game inadvertently implies that the Israeli’s are defending against a mindless opponent who is apparently striking out in a pointless and random manner. The game system is also based on a game about V1 attacks against England in the last days of the German Reich, but after consideration, I finally dismissed the idea of an implied or hidden cultural comparison by the game designer.

The game design seems to imply a particular military view of the conflict; but the Palestinian v Israel conflict is one of a contested discourse, with both sides having their own distinct view of recent history. To me a far more interesting (and controversial) game would be to make the game two or more players and involving each side having the full range of options available to them. Victory in such a game would be determined by the terms of the final peace settlement.  However, perhaps the world is not ready for such a game in a mass distribution magazine, at least not yet.

Despite the issues above, I salute those involved in getting Reign of Missiles into the public domain. At the moment, the game has added a paragraph to the never ending history of wargaming; if their original efforts meet with the success they deserve, they will add a whole new chapter to the history of our hobby.

Making a living from wargaming, a modern holy grail

Few people making a living out of hobby wargaming.

Many wargamers are outstanding specialists, who know a great deal about particular aspects of the most diverse hobby of wargaming. Some of these are fine rule writers, excellent at organising games, figure painters worthy of artistic accolade, great board game designers, clever model makers etc. A bold generalisation could be that practically any wargaming club in the land has some people who are very good at the hobby. The problem is that some have sufficient self-awareness to recognise their expertise, expect others to recognise this and then anticipate hobby to reward them with a living.

Games Workshop, like them or loath them, with a 2009 turnover of £61 million, are an outstanding commercial wargaming company in the world. They produce figures, rules, paint, scenery and fiction (based around their fantasy/ science fiction). In 2009, they reported a net debt of £11 million. By factory efficiencies (using cheap labour, such as paying staff in figures), reducing staff numbers (and age, making them below the minimum wage for ages 21+), moving shops to lower rent locations, they expected a profit of £14 million for the tax year ending April 2010. The decline in sales of Lord of the Rings figures almost finished the company.

Apart from Games Workshop, there are not many companies of 25 staff +, making money out of wargaming. There are a few board game companies, a few computer companies who produce products most wargamers would acknowledge as ‘proper wargames’ and many, many small companies jostling for entry level positions. 

The reason for the scarcity of major or even medium sized companies in wargaming are due to inherent characteristics of the hobby itself and do not reflect a lack of desire, enthusiasm or effort on behalf of various entrepreneurs who turn to the their much loved hobby of wargaming in an attempt to get rich. SPI found that its 80,000 Strategy and Tactics subscribers received 6 issues a year and on average bought 6 more games per year. It seemed that for most wargaming consumers, this was enough material to keep them happy for 12 months. In today’s terms, they would be spending a mere £200 to sustain themselves in their hobby. 

Wargaming armies are not that expensive, especially if one is willing to use plastic or second hand figures. Shopping around with £100 would get a good army (or more) at a local show. The problem for making money out of wargaming is that figures, scenery and rules have a relatively long shelf life. Once painted, with a bit of care, armies can be used, sold and resold many times. Some rule books become out of date, but many are still entertaining decades later. Well made scenery seems to go on forever. I am using a bridge which was painted by Charles Grant (the first one) from 50 years ago.

To participate in the grand hobby of wargaming does not need a huge expenditure to sustain it, there is a large second hand market, an investment in a set of scenery could be utilised over a whole lifetime. A single set of rules with a suitable army can keep a wargamer entertained for months.

The conglomeration of these factors creates a sector of business where it is very hard for entrepreneurs to make significant amounts of money.  Few people making a living out of hobby wargaming.

Bristol (UK) Wargaming Show Sun 25th Nov

An excellent local show:

see http://www.bristolwargaming.co.uk/reveille.html

I will be trading and selling wargaming books, as well as running a participation game.

Two new books in print

Two new books have just been added to the project.

Donald Featherstone's Complete Wargaming.

As with many of Donald Featherstone's books, there is a story behind the book. The first edition of Complete Wargaming in 1988 was an editorial shambles. The publishers wanted another wargaming book on their lists and so they turned to the author in British wargaming, who duly assembled some wargaming material that had not been used for his previous works. The publishers turned over the material to an editor who obviously knew nothing about wargaming and apparently nothing about history. The ideas, scenarios, rules and historical pieces were assembled into a random sequence that was based on efficient use of the page count; such as putting smaller pieces into the margins of the book wherever they fitted. Unfortunately, the lively correspondence between the author and the publisher as a consequence of this editing has not survived the passage of time. At some point, Donald Featherstone decided it was better to get the let the publisher get the book into print, 'wargamers, being a group of above average in intelligence and endeavour, would uncover the pieces of immediacy and use to them'. Upon reflection, this was probably the correct view.

Over twenty years later, the task of bringing order out of chaos and putting the chapters, sections and notes into a logical sequence fell to the editor with the assistance of Arthur Harman. As a result, the book has been completely restructured.

  Section 1: Introduction, Wargames Rules and General Themes/Ideas, Terrain, Forming a Wargame Club.

· Section 2: Scenarios and Period notes thereon in Chronological Order.

· Section 3: Reference, Bibliography, updated lists of wargame magazines, societies &c.

 
The second book is George Kearton's Guide to Collecting Plastic Soldiers 1947-87. Collecting toy soldiers in 1/32 scale (54mm) is a large hobby, in the UK, USA and other places. This was the book that was largely responsible for launching the hobby. The book is aimed at the collectors of plastic soldiers.