I expect we'll see one large game company close up shop this year. I don't think it'll be UDE though, they seem to be in a pretty solid #2 position with Yu-Gi-Oh, VS and Warcraft all selling well.

No one is saying games are going away, that wont happen. But since he was part of the change over at WoTC, certainly muhc like UDE, I think his insight has some validity. But they didn't bring him online at Wizards to design games, they brought him over to make games succeed in the marketplace. Thats his specialty.

I am not fanboy, don't get me wrong. The OGL and D20 is as much a curse as a blessing truth be told. But the model is sound. HERO woudl do well if they coudl licenswe their engine out. And UDE woudl be wise to expand the VS engine to more licensed properties. But when you get the eventual complaints ... can Superman beat Spiderman, yadda yadda.... that gets in the way of fully realizing the potential of a scalable modular gaming engine. Be it card, mini or dice..... tabletop RPGs never had to worry about that as much.

I would have felt much better if i saw UDE adapt VS to support WOW. But instead of focusing resources on a successful engine (whcih WOW copies HEAVILY anyway), they are diverting resources into 2 R&D strweams now. And both wont be sustained equally. If UDE followed Wizards/TSR... and the OGL model.... they would market the VS system as an open license, and everyone under the sun could then base their games around it. They woudln't make it free to use like D20, but they could license it out and help regulate it. It would be hugely successful, and would likely spark some real growth as people developed their own cards and sets.

But instead we have even more CCGs fighting for the same player base, and the same thin wallets. Now UDE has thrown a HUGE competitor to their own game into the market. And the sad part is... as much as I don't WANT to play WOW... as much as it is based on an online game I hate.... the tourney rules and ideas they have in place for it are better than VS right now. Maybe not the game itself, but their support structure shows more attention to detail and seems to be way more fun.

But focusing JUSt on CCGs, and not other games... what new game will come and blow us away?

The Spoils has a very short future it seems. UFS? Wow made a HUGE splash, but numbers of players of WOW online are taking a hit as people are fed up with Blizzard, so who is to say the CCG will see a better fate?

I guess I am defending his position because my area starting fading long ago, and I see the truth in it.

A little off topic: I actually think the Spoils is a very interesting case of marketing. Whereas other card games are advertising cash and prizes, the Spoils seems to be offering an experience. Hence the whole, ride the bus with the "Spoilers"or the luxury cruise, Spoils marked gear etc. They know they can't compete with UDE and WotC head on, so they're taking a different approach and I think it's commendable. I personally would love to play the Spoils - but there seems to be a much stronger following for it on the East Coast then the West Coast. The fact that they started off by giving off tons of product isn't going to hurt them either. I totally expect to see them thrive because of how different their approach is. I expect to see other gaming companies to copy this model, as they move away from an established IP in order to maximize profits.

The fact that a third company is offering another professional circuit seems to suggest that the collectible card game market. Add in WoW, and you now have four different options. While this has the potential to incite growth by attracting more players, it also leads me to fear an implosion of the industry. Growth propelled by solely by players' interest in making money, but not supported at the casual level or at the brick and mortar stores - a little bit like what's happening to VS - may very likely cause a bust that will damage the industry for awhile - similar to the dot com burst.

Quoted for savage, savage truthery.

However, there is a BIG difference between CUTTING personel, and having a turn over of personel.

One implies the company is getting smaller to cut back on costs.

The other involves the same ammount of cost, if not MORE when you factor in severance packages and/or incentives involved in both eliminating the 'old guard' and setting up the 'new guard'.

So, if they fire people and THEN replace them ... and even more so, INCREASE their total number of employees, that DISPROVES the prediction of a cutting back in the number of employees.

Spoils basically, instead of investing in an IP, or even really advertising based on the 'flavor' of what are in their cards, seem to have put all the marketing/advertisement/incentive to play the game into the prizes. Combined with giving essentially free demos [a lot of the beta stuff was free right? I don't remember] ... basically they create a massive ammount of interest ... especially when you add in the "well, what exactly is it?" factor of having no IP, nor really advertisment much about the flavor of the game, or about it's game play. Basically saying "play the game and you'll find out" is a good second step to a marketing strategy. Spoils can be succesful if they can hit on all three points:

(a) Get people interested via the HUGE prizes
(b) Get people to play the game because of the interest and needing to play in order to find out what the game is
(c) Get people to continue playing because they enjoy the experience of playing the game

Since the pro prizes cannot be the reason TO play, they need to make sure the game itself is solid, etc ... and that people enjoy playing it casual as well as they do competitively. Still, their ultimate strategy of getting people to play it in the first place is the competitive side.

To that end it makes sense ... as they are marketing it as basically a competitive CCG for people that play competitive CCGs ... no IP needed ... still, in order to be succesful they have to get people to "come for the competitive, stay for the casual" ... that's a bit risky.

Vs. sort of has to do it the opposite way ... get people to join in casually based on the IP, and have them stay in spite of the competitive [and/or get into the competitive side]

In the case of d20 ... would they really intend for EVERY product to work together, and have it all be balanced together?

Not to mention, there is so much allowed for DMs to determine their own house rules of allowing or ignoring whichever rule variations they want it's not really comparible.

Heck ... ultimately, it's VERY hard to compare the two.

You can make Vs. an 'open' system ... however at that point, you'd be making Vs. products that do NOT work together. If you are making too many Vs. products at the same time ... you can't have them all working together. You'd still be splitting your R&D force and you'd make it impossible to keep everything in balance with each other.

The thing is ... if it was 'part' of the Vs System, but had the same number of releases, and had no changes in the number of comic book Vs. system releases either ... would they all be playable together? Wouldn't they still be competiting with each other? Would they all be balanced with each other?

It's one thing to say that WoW could have used the Vs. Engine and thus wouldn't compete with Vs. ... however it would either mean much LESS WoW, or less Marvel/DC, or tons of more Vs. which would stretch the limits of how much can be released while keeping it balanced and keeping the player base from exploding.

OR, it would use the engine, but be considered a seperate game and thus, outside of it being easier for players to transition from one game to the other [because of the rules being more similar] they'd still be competiting with one another.

Personal anecdotal evidence ... always the best evidence of business trends.

And then I win the bet.

I really think these types of threads/topics are getting sort of tedious, but there's nothing I can say to make them go away so I figure I may as well comment on them . . .

This article is pretty interesting, but I don't really see it having any basis in fact. Then again, it is purely speculation so there wouldn't be such a basis, but some of the article is still pretty far-fetched, even coming from someone who has been "inside" the industry. I think some of the predictions will eventually come true but not necessarily this year. Still, I think the post illustrates some interesting "What if?" opinions but I think that the article needs to be taken with a grain of salt.