Year in review - Official ASL releases in 2008

[Gunner Scott]

Hi-

Sure dude MMP came out with a few ASL products this year, with VotG's being the only steller product even with all it's little problems. (I'm sure if this had beeen A CH! product, you guys would not be so forgiving) AP 4? oh hum, another set of scenarios set in normandy with only one usable board for other fronts of ASL and the other two boards can basically just be used for bocage scenarios. I think the AP 4 scenarios were better suited for the Journal then an AP and none of them jumped right out and said play me. Oh and the bocage rules seem to still need fixin. Spec OP#1? Wyh would I be stupid enough to pay 40 bucks for a map and a couple of scenarios since I dont play other games? That HASL should have been placed in the Journal. Oh and before you say, Spec Ops will reach non-ASL'ers, it's ASL'ers that buy that stuff anyway.

As for MMP non-ASL games, Devil's Cauldron sold to either mostly to collectors or speculaters and of course the usual of ASL''ers that want to support MMP in their endeavers. As for why there are not alot of players coming in, talk to any retailor, either the game is out of print or MMP does not offer gamestores serious discounts on their products.

Lastly, and this is too the MMP fanboy corps: Why does the original AP 1 still sell on eBay for 90+ bucks still? Did'nt MMP have a product to alliviate that situation?


Scott

 

[Bret Hildebran]

tournament attendances, from what I've seen, are down

I think this is a fair statement from the point of view of individual tourneys. Few individual tourneys draw as many/more than they did 10 years ago for a variety of reasons.

One of which though is the proliferation of tourneys - I'd guess the "overall" tourney attendance is higher just given there are so many more tourneys today than 10 or 15 years ago. We've got 36 listed at http://www.aslok.org/links.html for 2008 with 3 going off this weekend alone. Tourney attendance overall has to be pretty good to justify 36 unique ASL events around the world...

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I think the AP 4 scenarios were better suited for the Journal then an AP

What distinguishes the two "types" of scenario?

Spec OP#1? Wyh would I be stupid enough to pay 40 bucks for a map and a couple of scenarios since I dont play other games? That HASL should have been placed in the Journal. Oh and before you say, Spec Ops will reach non-ASL'ers, it's ASL'ers that buy that stuff anyway.

Operations Special Edition was a unique product; in fact, it was the most content-rich special issue wargaming magazine ever printed in the history of the medium from what I can tell. That alone is worth the 40 dollar price tag. It wasn't aimed at ASL players or collectors, but at wargamers. A dying breed, which brings us to my next point later on...

As for MMP non-ASL games, Devil's Cauldron sold to either mostly to collectors or speculaters and of course the usual of ASL''ers that want to support MMP in their endeavers.

Facts completely not in evidence.

As for why there are not alot of players coming in, talk to any retailor, either the game is out of print or MMP does not offer gamestores serious discounts on their products.

Scott, the reason there are not a lot of players coming in, is that fewer and fewer people are interested in sitting at a table with a 5-pound set of rulebooks (plural - once you laminate and get a few HASL, you can't squeeze it all into one) and investing $1,000 dollars to get up to speed in what is now a 30 year old game system. The reason the core modules go out of print are that MMP probably realizes this and aren't in a rush to get them back in print - they make more money selling to those speculators you're talking about who rush to buy the new stuff. The guys "stupid" enough to support them by purchasing $40 special editions. I was one of them.

ASL was great to "grow up" with, when you could make the jump from SL, and as the core modules grew, a lot of guys grew with the system. Now, it's daunting as hell for a newcomer. MMP got that, and put out the ASLSKs. Great idea. Sure, there will always be newcomers interested in taking on a new challenge. How many of those can there possibly be? ASL will never eclipse newer, slicker, faster playing, less expensive and less complicated game systems, and the population will continue to decline. Smart money will go into products for the "greedy" collectors and players right now who are snatching up every scenario and mapboard they can lay hands on.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I think this is a fair statement from the point of view of individual tourneys. Few individual tourneys draw as many/more than they did 10 years ago for a variety of reasons.

One of which though is the proliferation of tourneys - I'd guess the "overall" tourney attendance is higher just given there are so many more tourneys today than 10 or 15 years ago. We've got 36 listed at http://www.aslok.org/links.html for 2008 with 3 going off this weekend alone. Tourney attendance overall has to be pretty good to justify 36 unique ASL events around the world...

Yeah, I was kind of thinking about that. Dave may be unduly alarmed by seeing his fav "big" tourneys in decline, but when I was at the Texas Team Tourney, I was led to believe attendance was up and keeps increasing year by year, bit by bit. There's a similar one in Oklahoma from what John and Michael tell me. They spread them out through the year, too, so if you can't make the "big" ones across the country or over the ocean, hey, you go to one of the smaller ones that are a little more local, at a time of year more convenient to you. It may be that the big ones Dave sees aren't declining, the populations are just redistributing a little?

 

[Bret Hildebran]

As for MMP non-ASL games, Devil's Cauldron sold to either mostly to collectors or speculaters and of course the usual of ASL''ers that want to support MMP in their endeavers.

Does it matter who bought it as long as it sold? Near as I can tell collectors/speculators money is worth the same as ardent players.

Lastly, and this is too the MMP fanboy corps: Why does the original AP 1 still sell on eBay for 90+ bucks still? Did'nt MMP have a product to alliviate that situation?

Because people want the original stuff? I'm not sure why you'd criticize MMP for this. The facts are if you desperately need a board 42/43, you can get them in AP3 (albeit with the overlay fix for the wandering wall), if you need the OBA flowchart it's in the v2 rules which you likely need anyway & if you want the scenarios you can download them here from MMP for free. i.e. presuming you need v2 rules anyway, it costs you $24, some download time & printing costs to replicate AP1. If people would rather spend $90 on Ebay for the original to get the mounted maps, or whatever, how's that MMP's fault?

Just enjoy it, at least if you have some extra AP1's laying around somewhere!

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Wyh would I be stupid enough to pay 40 bucks for a map and a couple of scenarios since I dont play other games?

Here's a blog entry that talks about the history of special issues of wargaming magazines that may put things into perspective.

http://forums.gamesquad.com/blog.php?b=548

 

[Portal]

Dorosh,

The reason the core modules go out of print are that MMP probably realizes this and aren't in a rush to get them back in print - they make more money selling to those speculators you're talking about who rush to buy the new stuff.

You seem to be giving MMP a lot more business acumen credit than I've ever seen them demonstrate. If they deserved it, they would be delivering on profitable products that hit P# much more quickly. This includes reprints that have hit P#.

 

[daveramsey]

Happy to oblige!

Just curious where you get your information from. Specifically:
* Devil's Cauldron, it's almost sold out

Sure - over on bgg: Nick Richardson (the developer, I think) said
"... I know the game was very close to being sold out, and it's possible that it already is. The sales for the game were much stronger than we had anticipated. "

* they sold probably twice as many of those as they will do of a BV3/DB3 reprint.

Obviously speculation on my part, but the thought process was that DB3 has 1000 pre-orders and I guessed (sorry!) that there perhaps 2500 Devil's cauldrons printed. I don't see a huge demand for BV3 but the circles I move in, people clearly already have their copies.

* tournament attendances, from what I've seen, are down

Sure, Intensive Fire had around 55 last year, and was down to 44 this year (20% down). The two half squads interview with Dave who runs ASLOK said that it used to attract 100+ and now the numbers were down on that (I want to say 50, but that seems low for aslok). The heroes tournament, numbers were slightly down on the years previously.

I of course didn't factor in new tournaments (Double One in London, for example) but I did quantify it with what I'd seen. I think there were perhaps 5 news faces at Intensive Fire this year. The previous years the starter kits had certainly brought in some new players from talking to those guys- this year didn't seem to have that going on.

* this forum's traffic's lower than it has been for some time

Absolutely. I'd say it's been noticeably lower since last year. If you take out the Mila thread and compare post counts (can one of the mods do this?) I'd lay money that there were less threads and less posts in the last 6 month period, year on year.

* number of new players coming in, through starter kits or just coming back after a break isn't exceeding the number of players that slowly drop out or move on to other things

(see above about the new players at tournaments)

[quote[Is any of this actually based on hard data that you have seen for yourself or is this gut-feeling research?[/quote]

My opinion, and my opinion only. You pay for what you get on these forums!

 

[rottenroller]

I was at ASLOK in Cleveland. Who's this Dave guy running the show that I missed?

 

[Psycho]

I was at ASLOK in Cleveland. Who's this Dave guy running the show that I missed?

Yeah? Who's Dave? And less than 100 for ASLOk? Sounds low to me. :hmmm:

 

[Bob Holmstrom]

Dave is Dave Goldman. He runs the Chicago Open not ASLOK.

 

[wrongway149]

* tournament attendances, from what I've seen, are down

I think there are more smaller ,regional tournaments. Look how big the NY State ASL championship (Albany) has gotten in what, 5 years?

 

[Portal]

I don't think overall ASL activity is more or less, but I would agree fresh blood momentum has slowed with the limited availability of SK1 until the re-print took place.

I wouldn't place any correlation between how much activity there is on GS and how much ASL gets played. I suspect GS numbers are down due to nature of activity and behaviour on this forum over the last 12-18 months, not how many ASL scenarios are getting in.

I know plenty of active ASLers who have no interest in Web forums to discuss board games. They'd rather play than talk, which might be a good point.

 

[RobZagnut]

Here we go again.

In realistic priority order:

Only realistic to you, because you have no clue.

#1) Bring DB3 and the Map Bundle to market. They've long hit P# already.

We've discussed this countless times and you keep ignoring the blantant reasons why from MMP, so I will asssume you're completely dense on this topic and skip over it.

#2) Ensure all the SKs and BV3 are in-print and available from MMP's online store

BV3 is an obvious choice. MMP has done a great job of keeping the SKs in print, so this one is moot.

#3) Start scaling back freelancer projects on other games which don't generate as much revenue as ASL. Get back into this business if ASL stops making money or Hasbro pulls the license (no problem to do this)

That is an ASLers view and the same one that doesn't get the concept of Special Ops #1. You have no idea if these other games 'generate as much revenue as ASL', so this statement is ridiculous. MMP knows how much revenue they generate and keep on producing them for a reason. MMP has created a good market for itself with these other games and to pull the plug now just to satisfy ASLers is bad business.

Not sure how you can't see that. And how you can only have such a narrow view of what MMP needs to do.

#4) Re-print FKaC

FKAC needs to fall way down on any priority list. CoH should be in front of this. Haake Paale, Manilla or Budapest or Ortona, APs 5 and 6, Journal #8, the new HASK,

You'll notice no new APs nor HASLs appear on this list. That's because I firmly believe they are a needless distraction from a MMP strategic perspective. TPPs are doing a great job getting fresh scenarios and even HASL-like products to market. New geo-boards released outside of new core modules aren't necessary when more pressing issues are at the plate.

Of course you do. But, it's MMP ball and they clearly understand where APs and HASLs fall in the importance of what grognards want to purchase.

Again (for the 17th billion time), it is much better to sell 3000 of a new product to existing ASLers rather than 100 of a re-issued module to the few newbies that need it.

And for the 17th billion time...

THANK GAWD YOU'RE NOT RUNNING MMP!!!

 

[Bret Hildebran]

* tournament attendances, from what I've seen, are down

Sure, Intensive Fire had around 55 last year, and was down to 44 this year (20% down). The two half squads interview with Dave who runs ASLOK said that it used to attract 100+ and now the numbers were down on that (I want to say 50, but that seems low for aslok).

Dave's not hear man...

You have the wrong tourney. David Goldman runs the ASL Open in Chicago whose attendance peaked around 90 and now runs ~60 in recent years.

ASLOK is still drawing well over 100, 136 this past year well up from it's nadir in 2004 of 115. Granted ASLOK is off it's peak of 183 in '99, but still drawing well. You can view the ASLOK attendance history here: http://www.aslok.org/profile.html FWIW attendance has never dipped below 100 at ASLOK since it first break into triple digits in 1990 at ASLOK V.

As much as I post around here, I'd have thought you might have caught my sig at least once and noticed the name's not Dave. NTTAWWT.

 

[Portal]

Wolkster,

Amidst your typically low-class approach to posting in my direction, I will try to address the fragments of legitimate argument inside:

1) MMP has never given a legitimate public reason why it's taken over 2 years to bring DB3 and the Map Bundle to market after hitting P#, even if they both had to be laid out from scratch.

2) Both SK1 and SK2 have slipped OOP at different staggering times, making it rare to find them both available on the shelf at the same time in recent years.

3) You have no evidence other MMP games are generating as much profitability as the ASL line when new ASL is available. I can see the top lines from the confirmed P#s. I see ASL consistently in first place. MMP started for ASL first, but chose to stray from that path. I don't hold back from holding them accountable for that decision.

4) Most players would consider access to the British OB to be pretty essential. Certainly moreso than new scenarios or HASLs for old grogs who can get those very things from the TPPs.

Again (for the 17th billion time), it is much better to sell 3000 of a new product to existing ASLers rather than 100 of a re-issued module to the few newbies that need it.

And again, with attitudes like this from "seasoned" grogs, we wonder why fewer new players pick up the massive 3-ring binder to play this game.

BTW - DB3 has 1007 pre-orders as of today. The Map Bundle is a big-ticket $180 item with 712 pre-orders. A heck of a lot more than this "100" number you're pulling out of your rear.

 

[kcole4001]

It's still been a pretty good year regarding oficial products, with next year looking promising.
Hopefully more stuff will come off the 'to do' list.
Not every player will be interested in every product, official or TPP.

Considering the total output of MMP and TPPs it's been a great year, and it's not over just yet.

Now what I don't get is why people are still paying big bucks for Journal 2 on ebay when the reprint is on the way!

 

[Barryrk]

I think it's been a good year for official products and TPP as well(got DBP, Chosin, ITR). I refuse to spend the $ for Singling in a mag that I won't read much less buy the other games it supports. How about including it in J#8 to fill pages? Anyway it's been a good year for me&my ASL addiction.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I think it's been a good year for official products and TPP as well(got DBP, Chosin, ITR). I refuse to spend the $ for Singling in a mag that I won't read much less buy the other games it supports. How about including it in J#8 to fill pages? Anyway it's been a good year for me&my ASL addiction.

Why would I buy Journal 8 if it included content I already paid $40 to get elsewhere?

Sometimes being a loyal customer should have its rewards...

 

[Psycho]

You'll notice no new APs nor HASLs appear on this list. That's because I firmly believe they are a needless distraction from a MMP strategic perspective. TPPs are doing a great job getting fresh scenarios and even HASL-like products to market. New geo-boards released outside of new core modules aren't necessary when more pressing issues are at the plate.

MMP should stop making APs and HASLs because TPP are doing them? And how much of that money will MMP make off that?

Where exactly did you get a business degree cuz you ought to get a refund.