Descent definitely totally not 3.0

Fantasy Flight are going to need to come up with their own payment plan feature to compete with these Kickstarters.

gamefound.com/projects/wearecgs/cod_apocalypse/updates/20

If you have to put your damn board game on a multi-month payment plan, you need a reality check.

I for one look forward to the arbitrage opportunities 0% financing and partially delivered kickstarters will provide BoardGameCo and the KS flipping community.

Msample wrote: BoardGameCo, Alex R., Has created an entire brand and YouTube Channel that he is close to moving full time on simply due to the commodity aspect of board games and Kickstarters. Every week he releases videos discussing whether you should back that week's hot KS game and the discussion is 100% from a value perspective.

This is a move lifted straight from the TCG "finance" community. There's loads of channels for Magic, Pokemon etc, with people giving financial hot takes on what to buy, sell, etc.

Despite the trading card precedent KS "investing" feels like an incredibly slow way to get minimal returns on your money; first you have to wait a year or more to get the thing, then you have to store the giant boxes in your basement for a year or two and then finally you can put it on the market and what, make a few hundred bucks?

Bust out the cigars gents!

And that's if the reviews are great and demand is high. A bad review from the likes of SUSD could devastate your "investment".

All that before we get to reprints and/or the game being replaced in the zeitgeist by the new hotness. Around these parts big "All in" KS bundles tend to only sell for what they were bought for. And they pop up with regularity.

Yay for easy money and all but if you're going to become an investor then the "boardgame market", while more fun to speculate on, is probably not going to be as effective as putting your money into boring old-fashioned stonks.

All that said I understand the entertainment value in watching "finance" vids. I watch them now and then. But I'm not clearing garage space to stockpile towers of game boxes for the next five to six years.

IMO hoarding sealed boxes of games or cards seems like a good way to suck the joy out of a hobby. Although I understand how that becomes the hobby for those that are into it.

Back on topic: Am priced out myself but am looking forward to reading the Descent 3.0. reviews when they surface here.

This should make for an interesting sequel to Repo Men.

Put $300-$500 in a product that may or may not ship in a year and that may or may not live up to expectations in return for what, a $100 profit maybe? And I bet these people think they are INVESTING.

Ankh is put $150 into a product and get $300 profit. It's not so clear.

But, I'm not arguing that anyone should be doing this. It's actually been bothering me a lot lately and I'm getting pretty jaded with the platform.

charlest wrote: Ankh is put $150 into a product and get $300 profit. It's not so clear.

But, I'm not arguing that anyone should be doing this. It's actually been bothering me a lot lately and I'm getting pretty jaded with the platform.

Where else can you get a 200% profit in a couple of years. A bit absurd.

I’m thinking of selling my old magic cards to buy a new car. My play set of dual lands would probably get me most of the way there

^Yeah, it's wild out there.

Michael Barnes wrote: To hell with it...I sold Iron Helm for almost what I paid for it so I’ll just get Descent with those funds. I like how upset this game is making people, I like that it’s disruptive and potentially a disaster. If it blows I can always Noble Knight it for $50 or so. Stay tuned.

It’s nice to see someone try something different. After playing dungeon crawl games since the 80s, I was thinking how at least some of the older games had something unique about them even if the execution wasn’t smooth.

Modern dungeon crawls (especially all the KS games) seem to come from the same template to largely make me uninterested (and that is probably my most naturally favorite genre). I’m very thankful to Msample for his review of the Gloomhaven-esque game; saves me from having to think about it. All the gushing (both online and in the flgs) almost had me considering it.

I think I'm in, but want to wait a while. Still feeling a little burned by Heroes of Terrinoth which has a great start, but was terribly unbalanced and needed some expansions desperately. I'd still rather go back to Warhammer Quest TACG than do Heroes of Terrinoth.

I'd like to see this with some support first.

FFG's track record with IP "reboots" has been... spotty. Runebound is effectively dead. Same with Heroes of Terrinoth (offering no balm for the WHQ: TCG discontinuation). Same with Battlelore. Not sure what the hell is going on with Arkham Horror 3. I guess Twilight Imperium went well?

We must come to terms with the fact that an increasingly important amount of games are bought to never be played. In fact, the majority of tabletop RPGs are sold this way.

The implications are rather grim if you ask me.

Gotta say I don't think it's KS money they're after here, it's Games Workshop money. Some of the previews I've seen have gone hard on the fact these are detailed hard plastic figures, not the squishy faceless miniatures of yore. Pack all that terrain on top and you've got something that should appeal to painters and hobbyists as much as gamers.

At least I suspect that's the theory. In practice, while they're a big step up from your standard board game fare, the photos don't make it look like they're up to GW quality. They're mimicking some of GW's dynamic poses but they don't have the practice yet to make it look fluid and natural. And while the fact they're almost all pre-assembled is appealing in some respects, it looks like you can see the join lines in the photos.

We'll see. With luck, I think I'm in line for a copy of this to give it the write-up treatment.

Erik Twice wrote: We must come to terms with the fact that an increasingly important amount of games are bought to never be played. In fact, the majority of tabletop RPGs are sold this way.

The implications are rather grim if you ask me.

I agree with the general thrust of your argument but I do think, particularly with RPGs, that it doesn’t necessarily represent any sort of problem. I have very little interest in running or participating in an RPG session. I’m bad at improv and can’t help but break character; however, I do enjoy immersing myself in settings and to that end have purchased sourcebooks for the world building within and to appreciate the systems and rules that tie them together. e.g. I picked up Necronautilus just to understand MB and Josh Look’s ravings about the system as it piqued my curiosity.

Also you could probably extend this argument to Steam libraries, do you see that as having worrying implications? A lot of purchasing is aspirational, this is true even in the realm of more traditional consumer goods. e.g. one day I’ll have a group to play this with, one day I’ll have the time to clear out my backlog, one day I’ll need to BBQ twenty burgers at once while roasting a chicken, etc. It’s a bit sad if those aspirations never come to pass but I’m not sure if there’s a problem to be solved.

Edit: on further thought, there’s the obvious negative implication of such purchasing of physical goods on the environment but my perception of that issue is coloured by my preferred solution not being driven directly by consumer choice but through governments taxing and pricing in the externalities such that we can’t afford to spend frivolously. If we put that aside, I wonder if you feel the same way about a collector of digital goods.

Matt Thrower wrote: Gotta say I don't think it's KS money they're after here, it's Games Workshop money. Some of the previews I've seen have gone hard on the fact these are detailed hard plastic figures, not the squishy faceless miniatures of yore. Pack all that terrain on top and you've got something that should appeal to painters and hobbyists as much as gamers.

At least I suspect that's the theory. In practice, while they're a big step up from your standard board game fare, the photos don't make it look like they're up to GW quality. They're mimicking some of GW's dynamic poses but they don't have the practice yet to make it look fluid and natural. And while the fact they're almost all pre-assembled is appealing in some respects, it looks like you can see the join lines in the photos.

We'll see. With luck, I think I'm in line for a copy of this to give it the write-up treatment.

That is a fair comment and with gamers showing little reticence in throwing big money at quality KSers it is a very worthwhile gamble, but also when you consider RRP of Descent 2.0 is $80 and with this new offering you are getting nearly double the scenarios (50hrs they say, that's Tainted Grail territory) plus quality minis plus some quality looking 3D scenery it is maybe not as poor pricing as we all first thought.
If I didn't have a lot of KS games arriving in the next year I'd be very interested in this, and if there was some type of upgrade path for all my Descent 2.0 content (as mentioned previously this is very unlike FFG not to provide that) I'd be all over it.