Supply and Demand

Oath is not what I want to write about today...

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Interesting, I have played a few Kickstarters recently and enjoyed them. Then I went looking for them and as you say they are unavailable, or at least parts of them aren't - stretch goals and the like, or the retail price is way higher than the KS costs.

So that game disappears into a pile in some collectors cupboard never to be seen again.

I'd be curious to know how much impact Kickstarter and the games that flow out of it are having on more casual players. My impression is that it's pretty inside-baseball, and most college kids dabbling in games are more likely to be reaching for a title that is available at Target or their comic book shop. I appreciate the point you're making, and I think that Kickstarter titles are certainly driving the conversation amongst us nerds. But it may well be that, short of you introducing them to a particular game, most casual players won't have heard of the titles delivering through that channel.

What remains is a lack of availability of the classics, at least in retail. I purchase much of my material second-hand so this doesn't affect me as much. I don't think most people object to getting a second-hand copy if they really enjoy the game.

And that said, most Kickstarter titles that are more than two years old are available in the aftermarket, many unpunched, at very reasonable prices. I own many Kickstarter titles, all but two bought used, several with the big upgrades that I traded for or paid very reasonable prices for. Although Kickstarter seems to get a lot of hype, those copies selling for $500 in the aftermarket come to rest somewhere, and when the excitement for them cools they generally sell for their proper value.

It’s highly unlikely that the casual/new gamer is going to get into the hobby via interest in a big ticket KS from AWAKEN REALMS, CMON, etc. and their limited supply. I think the supply issue is not so much an issue of stuff going out of print, but such a small percentage of titles remaining relevant/popular enough to warrant repeated print runs. Very few titles can emerge from the fire hose of new releases and gain evergreen status al a Settlers, Codenames etc. For instance I was talking to my cousin, a non gaming enthusiast and they play stuff they’ve gotten from Target, Barnes and Noble etc. They don’t know what is current vs OOP, they just buy what’s in front of them. They have no idea BGG even exists let alone what is atop the hotness.

I'd be impressed if ANY app enabled game is playable in 10 years. Maybe the android versions are archivable but I can't imagine the apple versions would survive a few OS upgrades. If anyone is gonna archive games, start with them.

Same with production heavy games like Fireball Island. That vacuform mold or whatever they use has got to be an expensive thing to make and there can't have been many made, when that game goes OOP what happens to it? Stashed in a game devs garage?

I'm fairly confident XCOM the board game will still be working in 5 years. Not sure if there is anything older than that comparable.

Almost all of these apps are available on PC which should be trivial to archive and access years later.

Also, regarding Fireball Island, they have a brand new streamlined edition coming to Target. The base game also has been through three print runs I believe. Pretty sure there is, or at least will be, a fairly large number of copies in existence.

Msample wrote: They have no idea BGG even exists

Lucky

charlest wrote: I'm fairly confident XCOM the board game will still be working in 5 years. Not sure if there is anything older than that comparable.

I'm still a little upset that Fantasy Flight Games couldn't take the effort to open the game files for the Arkham Helper iOS app and recompile it in 64bit and submit it as an update. I'd be shocked if that dev house didn't use proper tools instead of programming it by hand.