MPO, one extreme is no better or worse than the other.

Confucius says, "Death from extreme cold is just as dead as death from extreme heat." Or something along those lines.

Team Kitchen Table FTW!

Everyone's making salient points. I'm not sure what the deal with the whole City Championship thing is, since I've spent a total of 0 time looking into it and researching the ramifications, but it'd sure be nice to be able to tell a potentially interested individual that Batman DOES kick arse. Hopefully Spidey will live up to his comic-fame with MTU.

There are always people that talk about how the WORLD is going to end ... and people actually paid attention to them for a bit leading up to the year 2000.

In general, most people assume that nothing can last forever, and thus try to predict when the 'end times' will be. However, for the most part, businesses are cyclical ... just like comic books will likely never be COMPLETELY replaced by television, cartoons and movies ... table top games of all kings will not be replaced by electronic games.

Even with WoW, and so many other RPG games in existence ... D&D is still around, plugging away ... selling hardcover books at 30 to 50 bucks a pop.

Now, the thing with CCG market is that, while there will almost always be SOME card games on the market, there is definately going to be peaks and valleys. In a valley, there will be a mass culling of games, as the companies focus on existing games instead of making new ones, companies not in the business don't see tha market as being right for new products, and some of the existing games are cut loose to focus on the 'main lines'.

However, that's just a slimming down and refocussing ... and doing so would likely result in an eventual reignition of those core products, making CCGs more popular until eventually it's in an upswing and people start making "new" games to try to capitalize on the success of others, etc.

Anyway, I'm going to read this guys thing ... I might even WaKo-ize it here ...

EDIT:

Just read through it, and check out down below in the comments section, there's some interesting stuff there as well.

Ultimately, he is talking about things from an industry perspective. He's making some very specific predictions, so he's putting his neck out in that he could turn out to be very wrong, but at least he's got enough of a set to put it on the line that way.

Also, his forcast is hardly for the END of gaming ... but a downturn, which considering the rest of the economy, isn't a completely absurd notion.

Now, one glaring thing though is this:

There's a problem ... defining that as a hobby game store can cause some issues.

By that definition, someone that sells on eBay, exclusively hobby game products is a "hobby game store".

However, a store that you go to and play Vs. at, which say gets half it's revenue from comic books, and a quarter from say assorted merchandise [t-shirts, toys, busts, statues, DVDs, etc] and a quarter from hobby games ... that's not defined as a hobby game store?

Now, I'm not going to claim to know much about business ... however I know that our local gaming store likely makes more money off the pop and chips they sell during our gaming sessions than the stuff we buy for the gaming sessions [ESPECIALLY for table top RPGs].

Still, there is likely ways to improve the situation for the industry. The online retailer is a threat to brick and mortar stores, and without the B&M, you lose places to play, and places to interact with people that DON'T play ... which is a good recruitment 'tactic'.

Especially if the hobby store is ALSO a comic book shop/toy store type of location ... as there may be foot traffic of potential new players.

True, that is the negative of always being positive. And if I were able to verbalize my state of being it would not actually be described in exclusive terms.

The Tao that can be named...

Could it be related to the start of the newest console gen?
People are all playing with their shiny new Xbox 360s and Wiis and can't be bothered to leave the house right now.
Should wear off in 6 months or so. :)

This hasn't worked so well for Bush in Irag :p

The industry as a whole may decline, but this might not equate to a a bad thing for VS. Typically in a down market the products which tend to survive are those with the deepest level of support by the masses and not the broadest level of support. Personally I think VS would stand good chance of surviving a down turn in the gaming industry since the support seems to be not necessary large but very solid.

When the gaming industry recovers from a decline Vs would be positioned to attract new players

Anyway the Essentials collections are nice and the city championships seem promising.

Has anybody tried to compare this guy's numbers with... say... the number of comic book shops in the US? I can't imagine more than 2,000 comic shops across the land... and they're still printing comic books. Heck, Marvel filed for and lived through the big B back in the 90's... and look at them now.

I think the writer's just a bit jaded... working for WOTC will do that to you, from what I hear.

Actually, there is a statistic somewhere that explains the number of game/comic shops that open and fail each year. Few survive their first year of business. Those that do rarely seem to survive 5 years. Those that do last a really long time typically.

Lots of generalizations there, but all hold fairly true.

Game shops deal with a really tough crowd. Retail on games is rarely enough to keep a store's doors open. They need more of the collectible market's moneys. That means you need to have people willing to pay for the convenience of getting the cards they want when they want them and without having to risk the purchase of 40+ packs to get the card. Few gamers can actually afford to do this. Which puts a lot of pressure on the shopkeepers. Do they provide play space to free loaders? It is a fine line. The state of the games always has an effect on this as well. People play what is fun, and it is usually only fun if you have lots of people to choose from to play with. When players start to leave, paranoia sets in and like rats from a sinking ship, we all run. Many players cherish the chance to get in to a great game on the ground floor. Which is how so many games come along each year. Sadly, many great games just don't get a chance due to when and how the game is marketed. If you've ever been to a convention with me, we've probably sat and played a few hands of the GI JOE TCG. An insanely fun game for it's truly simplistic design. And it has been out of production for more than a year. But almost everyone that I've taught to play has had a blast playing it. My GF just bought 5 starters Thursday, since that's just about all you'd need to play any way is starters. Tonight we're going to make decks. The game will still be played by at least 2 of us.

UFS has picked up a huge following in such a short time, stealing players from many different games, and merely borrowing a few of us ;) 74 players attended our event last week. 74. That is the second highest turn out in the history of the game. The events at Gen-Con So-Cal were only 3.00 to play and got you 6 booster packs. And on top of that, each round players received additional special promo cards. That is how you support a game. Especially while your competition is floundering through restructuring and what not. They don't even want to be the number one game, just a third string thing people continue to play for fun.

The industry has problems, but there are those out there that want to help and move things forward. Stu, I wasn't calling ya out earlier. I was simply saying that denying the problem isn't a solution. You have a voice that will influence hundreds. Use it. Tell people what is wrong and then tell them how you will be doing your part to change it.

chdb also. Your insights are right on point. Now, instead of playing Eeyore to Stu's Tigger, help us figure out how to fix these things!

UDE cannot do it alone. It is a faceless creature that needs direction and encouragement and guidance. The game industry needs ambassadors able to see the ills and failings and the ability to correct them.

The gentleman who predicts doom and gloom for the entire industry is right about many things, but not all of them.

All of you that post on these forums and read these threads are part of the solution. The fact that you are reading this means you care about the game industry or at least this game. Your input and thoughts are crucial to the survival of this game. Don't be afraid to share your thoughts and feelings. UDE needs to know what everyone thinks. The good and the bad the same.

Honestly, I just think people need to treat each other better. Play nice. Make friends. Enjoy yourself and help someone else to enjoy themselves.

That, to me, is the core of our problem. The game is rolling along as strong as ever from a product standpoint, now we need to improve the social part.

UDE cannot do that for us, we must do that ourselves.

Vs. System has the best group of social players in the world when we go to PCs and $50Ks. Now we need to figure out how to make it work on the local level.

Am I the only person stumped as to the prediction of UDE making an RPG? RPGs are not generally hot money items, especially the niche ones. There's already a Warcraft/WoW RPG, and several superhero ones. Combine the lack of any real market for an RPG with the issue that UDE doesn't currently publish books in any major vein to my knowledge, and that prediction seems pretty weak. I think the revamping they're doing with VS System is part of a plan to either reinvigorate the game to where it's truly stable on its own, or it'll be left to slump off over the next few years if there's a downward trend that doesn't break. The prediction of WoW's potential for an early demise is an interesting one. It's curious to see how well the game has taken off for a game which has been decried as having bad mechanics.

I wonder if the move to digital formats for more things will eventually create an electronic ennui in our culture, causing a period of backlash toward physical things before we eventually slide into our fully-digitized future. That would allow for one last period of great growth for the non-electronic gaming industry before it all transfers into a computerized form. *shrug*

City Championships is NOT evidence of UDE pushing VS support away with one hand and pulling WoW closer with the other. That's a very moronic statement. CC's are an ADDITIONAL support format. They are not replacing ANYTHING. If it was replacing something (ala the 'new' formats in Europe) then there would be reason to worry, however, as it stands it's a stupid assumption.

Worse is the idea that a new game is the death knell of the old.

Shouldn't SportsClix have killed HC then? Shouldn't MageKnight have been DEAD by the time HC came out? Shouldn't CreepyFreaks have been the death of SportsClix? Companies do not abandon a successful franchise. They milk it and milk it and milk it and when it gets sick, nurse it back to health as best they can and continue. UDE will not kill VS in the faint HOPE that WoW TCG will sell well. That's cutting off your leg to get more blood flow to your arm. It doesn't work that way. Where is Yu-Gi-Oh? Is THAT dead? Did UDE kill THAT to make VS more of a success?

Be real people.

The gaming world is dying? Sure, okay, whatever, maybe you believe in entropy and then this is true. I don't know, maybe I do too. Maybe I believe more that everything changes, which is different from dying, but only in spirit. Cutting the philosophizing short, the truth is it's not dying, nor is it dead. Everything is in cycles. As it's been pointed out by numerous smart, smart people, the gaming industry (like all industry and most things in life) is on a downturn of the wheel. It may end up under the water and it may not sink that far before it turns up again, but it WILL turn up again. That's how it works.

And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

-Mike

P.S. I don't mean to ignore problems, BTW, the idea of helping the upswing come earlier is a perfectly valid one and I would hope that topic is what comes of this thread.

Can, you're talking about board game RPG's right? Not the level-up Final Fantasy/Star Oceon/Pokemon crowd?

To take things out of context, Captain America may dispute that.

Yeah... in his blog, he discusses UDE working on an RPG for release this year. And by that, I mean the pen & paper, die rolling kind. Which comes across as really odd, given I've never seen anything that even suggested UDE considering such a move, never mind implementing it.

I usually stay out of these VS dieing topics but will say this. The VS secondary market is not good for hobby stores. Most gaming stores around here are droping the VS singles from their shelves. I can't even buy Legion singles offline. They just can't compete with internet prices. This doesn't mean the game is dieing. It will hurt the game some. At least most of them are still selling packs and doing hobby leagues. As long as they do this and make a profit the game will continue.