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Author Topic: Too much ego?  (Read 9183 times)

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Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #30 on: April 13, 2011, 05:41:20 AM »
WARNING: SW HAS A LOT OF OPINIONS. I love talking about this stuff. Apart from my family and religion, the two things in life I love are miniatures and small business. So, while i have a lot to say, it's out of enthusiasm for the subject. That and I'm an ar**hole.

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Well, Inferno was a scale most fantasy and scifi gamers don't collect or paint. It was also a big effort into a new market, in effect.

Consider the people buying your products: they were ALL into board games or 28mm or military scifi, guaranteed.

Some might also have been into 6mm fantasy-horror, but that wasn't guaranteed. I mean, for example, I loved the military scifi of LOS and later appreciated the historical element. It was nice to have a straight scifi background, too. I am still collecting LOS miniatures as and when I find them. I have zero interest in Inferno; not saying it's bad, just saying there's no overlap.

There was still room for LOS to expand; some armies had only a handful of miniatures relatively speaking and those that had fuller lines, UNE and machines for example, had heaps of room for specialists, boutique sub-armies, or experiments in marketing that could be wound back if they failed (say, gruesome special castings for Bloodlord Overlords.... you bring out some zombies with Deadbolt launchers, if they fail, meh, if they sell you bring out an Assault Fiend that looks like a flesh and blood demon.... if it sells, hooray! If not, no biggie).

The point here is that gamers who like a line will likely stick with it and expand their collection. We tend to be that kind of animal. So the key would bhe to keep those guys buying and keep them happy with new shiny things, whilst tentatively adding things that they might like or might gain you some interest from fence-sitters, who will then perhaps start collecting an army, or two armies.

If you have a look at Reaper miniatures, everything they've tried that wasn't 28mm has failed to gain any real traction.

If you track them over time they've had their 28mm fantasy line of characters and monsters that they've expanded faithfully every month since forever.

Then they had a 15mm fantasy line they ditched.

Then they had an 8mm scifi line that never really gained much market share.

Then they introduced a new line of...... 28mm fantasy characters and monsters, which had a game attached and was mildly successful but which still mainly makes its money off the same set of customers as the original 28mm fantasy line.

So now they have two lines of 28mm fantasy that are interchangeable and which they faithfully expand every month.

Finally they recently added a line of...... 28mm sci-fi characters and monsters which they faithfully expand every month.

Nothing they've done has been show-stopping. Their miniatures are good quality but not the superb, critically acclaimed artworks that Rackham was producing before it.... you guessed it... went bust. They don't have rights to a big IP like the Starship Troopers miniatures line before it.... you guessed it.... went bust (actually it got shelved). They don't even have any really original IP like FASA did before it.... went bust. Their successful lines are not original. Don't get me wrong, I love their miniatures, they're good and they're well-priced. Reaper don't take bets they can't afford to lose, don't borrow money, and keep their eyes on the meat and bones of business: marginal cost of production, cash flow, balance sheets.

So yeah, I hve been hanging out on the Reaper boards since they went up six years ago, and the folks from Reaper do in fact talk shop there.

Last thing is, OF COURSE Clark knows his business better than I do! I'm just throwing up a combination of trivia, observation from the sidelines, and a smattering of actual experience in the general overlap of business. Farming. No, it doesn't just come out of the ground and then you get paid for it,  LOL.

Offline Nukelavee

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #31 on: April 13, 2011, 11:42:07 AM »
Pretty solid points, SW.

As for Reaper - Ed is a shark.  He's a very very smart businessman, who understands what works, and when to move.

One of his strengths is knowing where his business can outmaneuver another.  When RAFM started to slow down, and before they had time to adjust, Reaper was there.

Btw, RAFM's problems directly affected LOS, in that they did our casting, and once they started taking hits, it got harder to maintain our releases.

Offline Vok Ytalinov

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #32 on: April 13, 2011, 04:43:27 PM »
  LOS was growing just when GW was really antagonizing retailers and distributors...It really was in a place to hold a significant spot in the 32mm(ish) SF miniatures market, although there were others moving in to exploit this gap as well.  Then, the decision was made to switch horses.  Not my call, but after Junction Point, the main emphasis switched to Inferno.  Until it was finally decided that Planetstorm HAD to come out to give LOS fans something other than the odd new arm set for Fantasians or Infranites, etc.  I was the only one working on LOS at all.  A fair bit of the spot art for JP and Planetstorm was cannibalized from an LOS comic that never saw release.  Finally, when it was seen that LOS really was just as important to GG as Inferno we had lost the initiative as it were.
  Planetstorm, or Typostorm, as Wes and I like to refer to it, was finalized and coallated in one epic Easter long weekend plagued with software malfunctions, lack of open copy centers...remember, this was in the infancy of desktop publishing.  The photos were taken on a "cutting edge" digital camera called a "Snappy" that was less than a megapixel...etc.,etc..

Offline Vok Ytalinov

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #33 on: April 13, 2011, 04:47:29 PM »
I was writing rough drafts for the manuscript and Wes was editing them as he entered them into the sole office computer, then Marco would lay out the page text, print it out and I would do the mechanical paste ups, whereupon we would take the pages to be photocopied...Crazy stuff...

Offline Clark

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #34 on: April 13, 2011, 08:41:58 PM »
I wasn't around for that but it illustrates the hilarity of small business. . .when the business is not yours at that point.

You traitors, lol, I thought some fan coined "TypoStorm" .

The strength that GG had to start was the way the three of us interacted.  It is providence that Marco and marketing are such similar words.  :D  Derrick was the conservative who kiboshed certain whacky notions from time to time.  I was the creative genesis and filter, and the ideological moderate of the group. I was the idea guy and the guy who took ideas played with them.

FYI: Inferno was my idea.  My working title was simply "EVIL". Who do you cheer for when princes of Hell go to battle?  Anyways , it was in its infancy when I parted ways with Marco/Global and let him run with it as long as LOS was mine, mine, mine.  Same-same with Stalingrad.  It was my idea to port the LOS system into the biggest WWII FIBUA meat grinder on record.

Inferno was a journeyman work by a guy who knew how to package a game.  It was years later that I realized the flaws in the mechanics I originally developed, because I never playtested them.  The Inferno figs need some sort of endurance factor to draw their power from before it is drawn from vitality. Add a new line on the chart and most of the problems should go away.

But until I have evidence to the contrary, it was the Europeans that screwed GG and therefore LOS.

My memory is fuzzy, but I think Infrerno sold something like 12,000 copies which catapulted it into a top 10 position.

Wes, Tom: the Europeans pay up?




Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #35 on: April 14, 2011, 04:20:37 AM »
FWIW, the painting section in Planetstorm was the first time I'd had actual technique explained to me by a gaming publication. Cheers to whoever wrote that in.

Offline Clark

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #36 on: April 14, 2011, 06:49:40 AM »
I'm sure GW has done something like it. 

Over the past couple of weeks I sent out some feelers with a view to taking the miniature painting guide from Planetstorm and releasing it as an online PDF on a pay as you will basis.

The text and pics are great but maybe Tom wants to tweak it a decade and a half later
If Wes still has his typesetting skills . . .
Kindred runs this site and has a PayPal account.

To be clear, it's a labour of love that I don't expect any money from.  But if Tom and Wes are willing to put it together and Will acts as banker, I thought that would be a  win-win-win scenario because it would be good PR for LOS.

Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #37 on: April 14, 2011, 09:56:31 AM »
At the time, the painting guides in GW game books were a lousy joke. I mean that, looking back as a now merely acceptable painter, their painting guides were total garbage and contained not the slightest hint of actual technique. While I have learned a lot since, that was my first exposure to actual useful painting advice. It may remain a decent guide to wet-blending, I'm not sure, I'd have to go back and read. These days there's a lot of really good advice on the 'net, but not much of it is on wet-blending, or blending and feathering or whatever you call it. Mostly these days people talk about layering.

Offline Nukelavee

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #38 on: April 14, 2011, 02:19:30 PM »
The painting guide was entirely Tom.

Inferno actually sold more than 12,000 copies, it sold 12k on release.

If the Europeans (read Germans, actually, because the Dutch and Belgians did pay, in general) ever paid, it was a fraction of what they owed, and so incredibly late it pretty much was meaningless.

With Inferno, we were incredibly lucky, flaws, mistiming, and all.  For all the lightness of the system itself, the creative team REALLY had a ton of control on some things, and the "colour" writing, art, and graphic design was very cohesive.

plus, i had a bigger role than in any other project, so, yay me!

Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #39 on: April 14, 2011, 07:19:21 PM »
Okay, some LOS fans were all "damn Inferno for killing LOS!" or "Damn marco for loving Satan!" (I kid you not). Lots of super-interesting infogossip coming out here. I had no idea of the scale of some of the stuff GG was into, or very nearly into.

So the moral of this story is that satan is relatively trustworthy, but Germans pay COD. My German great-grandparents were reputed to have much the same opinion.

Offline Vok Ytalinov

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #40 on: April 14, 2011, 07:41:13 PM »
I don't mind updating the painting guide...but you'll hear nothing but scorn for non-metal metallics...What other info is needed?  I know  there's a ton of good stuff on the 'net already.  I do a lot of vehicle weathering without powders or airbrushes that budgetary minded gamers might find useful.

Offline Clark

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #41 on: April 14, 2011, 07:56:15 PM »
And to think, Inferno was originally my idea, the concept anyways and some of the basic mechanics.  It was an excuse for Global to launch a line of fantasy miniatures that wouldn't be generic.  I figured that Tom and Wes would go nuts with the designs.  My actual contribution could fit on the back of a playing card.  I wanted to simply call it Evil, and the tagline would be "This game is Evil!"  Marco didn't like it; he thought it would offend someone.  So then he got the idea to connect it to Dante.

I remember that it sold 12,000 copies right off the bat, which immediately launched it into the top 10 of fantasy miniatures games.  It was a beautifully put together package.  But after it came out I noticed a flaw in the game design.  There was a simple fix but it was too late at that point.

Tom, you lost me there with non-metal metallics.

I seem to have Planetstorm as Quark files but no way to open them.

And I was thinking that maybe Wes could do the layout but apparently he hasn't done any for a few years.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2011, 08:03:11 PM by Clark »

Offline Vok Ytalinov

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #42 on: April 14, 2011, 08:34:11 PM »
  Non metal metallics...using greys etc to simulate steel...nothing with metal flake in it.  After all, in flat paintings, they don't use metallic paint.  I think, said the old fogey, that this is just showing off blending skill, adding another layer of artificiality to the whole deal, except, perhaps in a vey specific diorama, such as a light box...
  Re: Stalingrad....Frak, that could've been great if it had just used the straight LOS engine.
  Clark, have I ever mentioned a little concept I came up with on the infamous bus ride of doom...a little concept called "Hitler's Head"?  It'd play real nice using LOS.

Offline Clark

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #43 on: April 14, 2011, 09:07:51 PM »
Ok, non-metal metallics.

Did Stalingrad actually get released?  I saw a PDF or something of a completed rule book.  And I've seen some of the figs.

I've mentioned a few places that I'd like to release an open gaming system, like WotC did with d20.  A lot of players do it anyways by porting their favourite properties into LOS.  Steve Gibson has done more than half a dozen:

http://stevegibsongames.wordpress.com/legions-of-steel-conversion-files/

It would be good to get everyone on the same page.

And it's not like Stalingrad is going anywhere.  Once I get Planetstorm straightened out and non-powered troops it would be easy to port in WWII troops.

I vaguely remember Hitler's Head but not the details of how it would be LOS-ish.

Offline Kindred

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Re: Too much ego?
« Reply #44 on: April 15, 2011, 12:17:06 AM »
I still have several of my Inferno miniatures sitting on my shelf... and a few others still in the display case down at the local store.