Twilight of the White Boy Club

Sagrilarus wrote: I could name a dozen poorly developed American games that crashed and burned. What does this prove?

Warriors of Japan is a game by a Japanese designer about an era in Japanese history, and it sold well in the U.S., particularly in light of its publisher's well-known incompetence with product promotion.

If anything, I think this conversation, well off topic has just proven the original poster's point -- a game of Chinese or other "foreign" origin likely needs characters that are relatable to the market where it is being sold. Without that they don't gain traction. This is precisely the OP's point, that modern board games should attempt to relate to a broader segment of the population.

I appreciate this thread has more or less worked itself into one individual holding court, and I shouldn't even bother to participate. But good Lord, recent posts indicate the wisdom of the original thesis.

I don't get the sense that it sold very well seeing as how it has been in pretty much every MMP Black Friday sale since it released. It certainly never got to second print run status like its predecessor, WARRIORS OF GOD. BGG shows four times as many people own WoG vs WoJ.

More to the point, its just not that good IMO. Sag I see from your BGG comments you seemed to like it. The only and only time I tried to play it, along with a fellow WoG fan, we struggled even to set the damn thing up. Once we did and played, the game ended rather abruptly and we both looked at each other like "WTF was that ?". That was before we were aware of some of the crucial errata. But even after learning that, we didn't think it would change our view of the game. The winner of the initial sumo match in the central space has a huge impact and the inability to funnel reinforcements to your best leaders make it hard to recover. The rule limiting movement to a single instance per round not only makes no sense, but is hard to indicate. Graphically the game is a hard to set up and process .

Its hard to say how much, if any, was changed in the translation as well as how much might have been changed by Adam. He also was the principal behind bringing WAR OF THE SUNS to market. That game was beset by graphics debates before it even got published; I get the sense Adam just got frustrated and abandoned it as soon as the final files got sent to the printer. Based on his more recent Compass efforts, it seems he needs the hands of a strong developer based on the rules questions and BGG comments I see. Adam championed a lot of the IGS line for MMP, much of it coming from Japanese designers. But at the end of the day, with a handful of exceptions ( WoG and VICTORY LOST ) its struggled to sell well. Blame MMP all you want, but I think the unfamiliarity of the subject matter and designer is more reason than perceived lack of marketing. Like it or not, most wargame marketing "campaigns" are just a reflection of how hard the designer is willing to shill their work. Some are much better - or willing - than others .

I think both cases show that interesting subjects, even if not of "Western" origin, can pique people's interest. But execution is even more important that on more mainstream subjects. People will tolerate having to smooth shit over in a Bulge or Waterloo game. But in a subject where historical knowledge is far more limited, its harder to divine designer intent and reconcile gaps in the rules etc.

Non mainstream subjects CAN work. JOHN COMPANY. while involving the British takes place in a time and place that is pretty far off the beaten track . God knows that are Euros that take place ( INDONESIA comes to mind, even though I hated it with a burning passion ) in non Western areas. Granted it might have been designed by a white dude.

Recently on FB I've seen more games from European designers/publishers that I was previously unaware of. One, a Polish publisher, has a huge catalog of interesting looking games. Some are in familiar territory - Bulge, Market Garden, etc. Others are off the beaten track. But comments on BGG indicate some translation issues. I find it interesting that more companies don't try mining the overseas waters for new designers with existing games and import the game, translate it, clean it up etc . Instead they either polish old turds ( Compass ) or pump out the Ty Bombas weekly rubber stamp designs.

the_jake_1973 wrote: I've played, and been overwhelmed by, most of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. I really like them, but the console format ends up bleeding my interest away. I'd like to see that ported to cardboard.

Dynasty Warriors would be a cool IP to explore in the 'games-with-pounds-of-plastic-minis' segment. And, yes, I can hear so many of you groaning at the thought of it. LOL

Borg did a Samurai Battles in the C&C range and the Medieval C&C tackles, in part, Byzantine conflicts. Perhaps further expansions to the Medieval C&C will move east to India and other parts of SE Asia. There doesn't seem to be any reason that, given the amount of current C&C product out there, that a fan made mod of the ruleset could be made for Chinese conflicts.

Interestingly I just got charged by GMT for CC Samurai. The original game was heavily impeded by being produced using tons of tiny minis that had to be assembled onto the stands . I never saw it played, but did see a number of copies sold secondhand, usually untouched or with a handful of minis put together. The new version, using blocks, should be much more accessible.

Man, stickering those blocks is soooooo satisfying

I kinda question the long term viability though, will they start peeling off? I think my CC:A set dates back to 2010 or maybe earlier so i guess we'll see.

Translating games brings up a good point. Are boardgames like we play (where player representation and theme are even a thing) just a western phenomenon? Its not like they are terribly old (compared to card games, the classic abstracts like go and chess, and some dice games). If there were a thriving south american boardgame scene i imagine we'd know about it and folks would be translating them from spanish and portugese like they do from german,italian, polish, and french in europe.

But there are very few from outside NA and europe. Why? I can find FAR more diverse, both in content and in designer origin, video games on steam than i ever can boardgames on KS or a game store. I think any talent that could be doing board games is doing video games instead, particularly mobile games. So maybe what we need are multi-lingual translator/developers that can adapt foreign video games into english language board games (or at least port over digital boardgame like games). Then we might see more depth and breath of content that get folks noticed and generate interest.

Out of curiosity i looked up the current iterations of really classic boadgames, at least ones where this discussion applies (so games like checkers, monopoly, sorry, were excluded). There is for sale at target right now a CLUE game that, on the cover, features "Meet the NEW suspect:Dr. Orchid[name written in pink]" I'll let you figure out what that character looks like. Progress? Certainly more diverse than the clue game from my youth, though maybe it is a bit of a lateral step since it is kind of a stereotype? Adds a doctor to compete with the professor though I suppose.

Damn, just the licensing of clue is a deep rabbit hole. Firefly Clue? SEINFELD clue?? D&D clue??? Oh maybe that one makes sense

jason10mm wrote: D&D clue??? Oh maybe that one makes sense

I tried to run a murder mystery adventure of my own devising for my first D&D group. They cast Raise Dead on the murder victim and asked him who killed him.

Japan has a huge game scene, at least on the wargame side. Both licensed US products as well as home grown stuff as well.

I played Warriors of Japan once, and also did not think much of it.

I did own the Russian plastic version of Samurai Battles, and yes the plastic minis were entirely unsuitable for games. They used that airfix type plastic which is very brittle and the minis had long spears etc and were way to fiddly to effectively control. The game did ship with a russian designed ruleset that was actually quite interesting but sort of didn't work. I wrote a review for it here; boardgamegeek.com/thread/853166/review-f...re-art-tactic-system

East Asia does produce a lot of games. This is most obvious in video games, Nintendo, but also Oink Games do export to the western market. Didn't Nintendo start off printing Hanafuda cards?

ubarose wrote: Board gaming is pretty big in Korea. It isn't always obvious that the US versions of Korean games, distributed by US publishers, originated in Korea.

Geek List of Games from Korea

That Athens game looks to be the most meaty one, though not all of them have pics of even just the components. Should ask that Leon Scheuber guy if he can weigh in on getting Korean games to the US/EU, he seems pretty interested in it. Certainly not what i would have expected (art design wise) from Korea but maybe they were made for euro distribution (or thats the aesthetic over there?).

Wasn't starcraft and/or WoW mega huge over there? Kinda surprised there aren't licensed (or pseudo copied) board game versions of those games made just for that market. I never got the chance to play the FFG(right?) Starcraft or WoW games but given how f'n huge those games were I'm shocked we didn't see more board games with that IP. Too expensive??

I've checked out of this thread but I'll just mention that Matt Thrower did a brief write-up on this game (Last Aurora) on Patreon that I thought made this point particularly effectively. It got me thinking in other directions as well, towards body-type and age as much as skin tone. Worth a read for those of you that have access. I always forget that there's content there.

the_jake_1973 wrote: I've played, and been overwhelmed by, most of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. I really like them, but the console format ends up bleeding my interest away. I'd like to see that ported to cardboard.

Dynasty Warriors would be a cool IP to explore in the 'games-with-pounds-of-plastic-minis' segment. And, yes, I can hear so many of you groaning at the thought of it. LOL

Borg did a Samurai Battles in the C&C range and the Medieval C&C tackles, in part, Byzantine conflicts. Perhaps further expansions to the Medieval C&C will move east to India and other parts of SE Asia. There doesn't seem to be any reason that, given the amount of current C&C product out there, that a fan made mod of the ruleset could be made for Chinese conflicts.

If they EVER made a board game equivalent of Koei's Bandit Kings of Ancient China, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. The character summaries in the manual enthralled me so much, I got a first edition copy of All Men Are Brothers and ate it up. Not the first time that a video game has prompted me to venture out into other mediums (Fallout for music by the Ink Spots, etc.).

Shellhead wrote:

jason10mm wrote: D&D clue??? Oh maybe that one makes sense

I tried to run a murder mystery adventure of my own devising for my first D&D group. They cast Raise Dead on the murder victim and asked him who killed him.

Actual investigation? That's too haaaard.

Raise that due from the dead and see who killed him!

Rliyen wrote: Actual investigation? That's too haaaard.

Raise that due from the dead and see who killed him!

Now you guys got me wondering, has this ever been done in fantasy book? Not just raising the dead for questioning, but hard core D&D csi/crime noir? Closest thing i can think of are the Glenn Cook Garrett P.I. novels (which are pretty fantastic) but this has gotta be a thing, right? Some subbranch of LitRPG maybe?

Edit: I'm specifically NOT asking about urban fantasy Dresden type stuff, i know that genre is LOADED with this stuff.

Sagrilarus wrote: I appreciate this thread has more or less worked itself into one individual holding court, and I shouldn't even bother to participate. But good Lord, recent posts indicate the wisdom of the original thesis.

So enlighten me with your immense wisdom and intellect. I have followed the whole thread and I have no idea who you are referring to holding court. To be honest I have no idea what point you are trying to make, and even if I did I wouldn't be too convincing given the attitude it is paired with.

Sagrilarus wrote: I've checked out of this thread but

Not really cool. This is the type of comment that was so prolific is many discussions at the original site that made me leave. Basically a post saying you are better than the rest of us, but if we want to bask in your wisdom we need access to something that we don't have. Yet you don't even try to raise a point. Honestly you are doing your position (whatever it is) more harm than good.

Personally, I suspect that like many other things there is some institutional weight (lack of games with diversity leads to lack of people thinking they can include diversity), combined with subconscious decisions by publishers because of what they think will sell. I'm not going to solve it. Frankly my game buying has slowed to nothing so I won't really have an impact one way or another. So while I lament the lack of diverse content, I'm pretty tapped out at this point.

Rliyen wrote: If they EVER made a board game equivalent of Koei's Bandit Kings of Ancient China

Koei's games seem to be heavily influenced by Feudal Lords (Sengoku Daimyo). I toyed with it on Vassal but I can't decide if it's actually good. MMP tested a possible English release but it did not go anywhere.