Ok its been a while since I had a post that could be
described as a general musing on the hobby however here’s one that’s been
mulling over in my mind for a few days now. Beware this is quite wordy, has no
nice pictures of toy soldiers and may annoy a few people (or not).
Many many years ago I was introduced to a rather niche
game called Warhammer. It involved painting little metal toy soldiers, putting
them on a table covered by a green sheet and rolling dice. Apparently the
people that made the game (and the toy soldiers) really liked doing it, so much
so that they kept working on it in their free time, writing new rules,
background, stories and artwork, so much so that it could probably be referred
to as a labour of love.
This struck a chord with me as not only was the game set
in the Fantasy genre (which I loved) but the writers and designers genuinely
seemed to be having fun whilst at work (I know, weird).
Slowly but surely this little niche business became more
and more successful, the money started to roll in (in small amounts) and it
became a proper business, at least in the sense that they started to attract
investors who saw it as a sound way to make more money.
Then it hit some kind of invisible threshold, I’m not
sure exactly when but there was a tipping point where it changed from being a group
of hobbyists running a company to a company employing hobbyists.
Boom, the end of a golden age (at least for me) when the
purpose of the company seemed to change. It stopped being a group of stereotypical
cardigan wearing geeks choosing to write games or make models because it was
fun (and what they did in their free time), and turned into a return on
investment, how does it look on a balance sheet, must wear a suit and attend board
meetings company.
Meanwhile in the background the historical side of the
hobby was quietly continuing on its merry way, cheerfully hand writing rules
and printing them on photocopiers or producing limited print runs for the sheer
joy of it. One or two hobbyists would form companies that would see limited
success, enough so they could do it as a job and as such devote more time to
perfecting their art (so to speak).
Then BLAMO – the internet arrived and the giant of the
fantasy side of the hobby expanded dramatically, however so too did those hobbyists
who had hand written rules who could now share their ideas beyond their
immediate gaming groups. Production values went up and so did sharing of
genuinely innovative ideas. As this was happening so too was the departure of
some of those individuals that had contributed to what had made that fantasy company
great, as the direction and goals of the company seemed now to be about share
prices and satisfying investors.
The supply market for the fantasy side of the hobby became
larger as the internet fuelled this ability for anyone with an idea to market
it. This is in a way was a return to the age when hobbyists developed a product
not because they could make money out of it but because they genuinely enjoyed
it. So now there are wide number of players (no pun intended) in the fantasy
wargames market, some of which are doing it with the old ethos of “because its
fun”. And this isn’t just fantasy, the historical wargames market is in the
same position (however it got there in a different way), great games and ideas
being made available on a wide scale and produced by one or two individuals.
The barriers to entry have been reduced dramatically by the medium of the
internet and once again I can see hobbyists producing games because they have a
passion for it.
Weirdly I started writing this post with a goal in mind
and have managed to wander into a much deeper train of thought. However I’ll
get back on track now and highlight a set of wargames rules that I think
highlight exactly the passion and ethos that I alluded to in my first
paragraph:
To the Strongest has been written and developed by one
person, Simon Miller, a historical wargamer and hobbyist who wanted to play
large scale historical battles in a single evenings play but couldn’t find any
system that satisfied that need. So what did he do? Well he sat down and
started to write his own rules, then conducted playtesting, redrafted them,
playtested, redrafted, etc, etc.
This wasn’t an overnight process, several years of his
time has gone into developing the system along with countless hours of his friend’s
time in playtesting. Now he could have then just sat on the rules and used them
with his gaming group however he (presumably) feels that he has a game that
others will enjoy, something that gives a slightly different experience to
other systems out there. So through the magic of internet and computers he
produces an electronic version of the rules, sets up some webspace and sells
them for a small fee. Then through feedback from the wider gaming world he
tweaks the rules, adds a few bits, works with another hobbyist on the other
side of the planet (there’s that internet magic again) with some design skills
and produces a high quality, high res version 1.1 of the rules, distributing
them electronically freely to anyone who has already got version 1.
Now if you were to conduct this activity in the
aforementioned large gaming company there would be significant analysis on
return on investment, the resulting price would be set based on how to recoup
costs over a period of time, what profit levels need to be achieved, the
products longevity, subsequently related products that can leverage further
profit and a whole miniatures range that would be tied in to the system (in
fact you wouldn’t be able to play the game with anyone else’s models!).
I highly suspect that Simon will never recoup his costs when
you factor in the hours taken to develop his system. In fact he’ll probably be
happy to recover his overheads, the return on investment for him arguably will
be the fact that he did it. He wanted to write some rules that satisfy his
gaming needs, his sense of fun. And he did it! Yes he is selling them rather
than giving them away however there are one or two studies that support the
idea that if something is free people don’t actually value it as much as if
they have to pay for it. Weird!
I followed the development of his rules through his blog (bigredbat.blogspot.com),
purchased them from his online shop when they were released (bigredbatshop.co.uk)
and yet have never actually played them. I don’t know if I’ll like them, I have
no connection to Simon at all, as far as I am aware he doesn’t read my blog, I’ve
never met him and most likely never will.
However I bought them because of a feeling, that feeling
being that here was a hobbyist creating something, this being the very heart of
the hobby. That you are able to suspend belief and imagine that you are
commander of armies trying to defeat your opponent in (usually) make believe
setting. There are too many examples of spoonfed imagination out there, where
all you need to do is take your hard earned dollar/pound/euro and hand it over
to some organisation in return for instant imagination and enjoyment.
Unfortunately this can then lead to laziness on the part of the buyer who then
becomes indoctrinated into the idea that they need to buy imagination when its
sat there for free inside their heads.
I want to contribute to the enjoyment of this hobby, I
don’t believe that what hobby companies are doing is bad, in most cases they
want to make money to pay their mortgage thus giving them more time to do something
they love. However the scary part, the bit that I think is the slippery slope
is when they see an idea, a product, as a way to make more money before they
consider whether the thing they’re creating is! Because that’s when you become
a slave to the idea of profit and the risk is that those genuinely great ideas
don’t get developed because they’re a risk to profit.
I’m not sure whether this was a rant or just a stream of consciousness
however I’ll sign off now – rant over!
