Hey, folks. SinSynn here.
Ermahgerd- Borderlands 2. Entirely too much fun.
Da purple loot am mine! Gimme! Y U take it? DUAL NOW!....Awww. Y U kill me?
Must. Stop. Playing. Slots. At. Moxxy's...Soon. One more pull. Gimme Iridium! Three Bandits NOOOO!!
Hold that Golden Key! I'll wait till Level 50...but wait, won't one of the DLC's bump the cap to 60?
0_o
Sigh...My tentacles are cramped up and locked into the shape of an XBox controller right now, so I'm experiencing technical difficulties with typing.
GUNS FOR THE GUN GOD!
Far more interesting to say than 'Blood for the Blood God,' since GW went and made the new Chaos Codex FIFTY BUCKS! Lolz! Or you can haz da 'limited edition' book for eighty three.
It's a whopping 104 pages.
No, I won't be buying that, G-Dubs. I WILL, however, bootleg it offa da internet and slap it on my smartphone, you idiots.
Oh, and single figs costing twenty to thirty bucks? Aspiring Champion 20, Warpsmith 30?
-_-
No. Just no. Especially since I know you'll beef those guys up in yer overpriced Codex and make them 'must-haves.'
Clearly, the folks over at Games Workshop have lost their tiny lil' minds.
Which brings us, in a sorta roundabout way, to the subject(s) for today's post- video games, and the folks in 'the industry.'
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| *And then you charge ridiculous amounts of money for it, amirite?* |
So, last week I said that video games are killing our lil' hobby (perhaps a dramatic overstatement, but I'm prone to doing that), and while I think that our hobby will likely never disappear fully (like...opera music), this is a concern of mine.
SandWyrm, over at the Back 40k (another cool blog you should be reading), posted this a while back, and I think it's pretty darn interesting. Sandy is da man.
Games Workshop manages to post a tidy profit every year, and I think they've made some wise decisions when it comes to expanding the 40k brand- mainly with video games licensing. The Space Marine game was met with a warm reception, and honestly it was a pretty well produced product. Dawn of War II wasn't so hot, though; the first game had a bunch of expansions but the second...did not. That says it all.
Pretty sure we'll see a part three, though, and hopefully a return to proper RTS form.
Oh, and lest we forget, there was a Blood Bowl video game!
Y U NO MAKE BOARDGAME, GW? Y U GIVE US DREAD(ful) FLEET?
Licensing accounted for what, like, forty percent of GW's profits last fiscal year? And that licensing went where?
Video games.
Funnily enough, the rise of the 'free to play, but pay to win' MMO games, like World of Tanks, drove a stake through the heart of the 40k MMO Dark Millennium, and I believe THQ is reworking it as a single player/multiplayer RPG kinda thingy. I'm not sure, I stopped paying attention to it, to tell ya the truth.
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| *For a hot minute it looked cool, though* |
I'm sure that video games aren't directly responsible for so many FLGS's going out of business here in the states over the last few years- the rise of the online retailer had far more to do with that. From a business perspective, this makes sense. Ours is a niche market, not likely to support a lot of brick and mortar locations anyway. Having a low overhead allows online retailers to offer a steep discount. Combine that with the convenience of shopping online, and well, the results are inevitable, albeit sad and tragic.
Isn't that what happened with the whole model train thing? It kinda...dried up and blew away, right? It still exists, but on a...smaller scale now.
Ooof- bad pun. I'm sorry...sorta.
Where are people playing their wargames? I have to travel an hour or more to get a game on with someone who isn't the Ultimate Rival, and the place where I play is basically held aloft by Magic the Gathering, collectables and comic books.
MTG requires no table, little commitment beyond spending money, and is dirt cheap compared to 40k. Compared to conventional tabletop wargames, it's doing pretty darn well. Easily three times the amount of people show up every weekend at my not-so-local games shop to play Magic, even when we throw a 40k tournament and there's NOT a Magic tournament.
There are no more Fantasy tournaments held there (no one shows up), and we've never seen a LoTR player. We're convinced they don't exist here in the states.
40k is king at GW. The breadwinner.
Games Workshop is wise to push 40k out into the realm of video games. The franchise is well suited to it, after all. Fantasy, on the other hand, could never hope to compete with the Elder Scrolls series. Not many 'swords and sorcery' things can, though. Not LoTR (despite the popularity of the movies), and not Game of Thrones, either.
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| *Sigh @ cash-ins* |
The best thing that will come of 40k expanding into the video games market is that it just may attract the odd person to an actual game table. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, the people that make 40k aren't quite as dumb as I tend to imagine they are.
Honestly, the decisions that GW makes in regards to their tabletop games tend to befuddle me. Also honestly, I am easily befuddled.
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| *Well, I start my day befuddled, but whatevs dude. Let's do this* |
Being constantly befuddled is...prolly not good for a blogger. We're supposed to like, know stuffs. Have an informed opinion, use big words and whatnot. At the very least, we're supposed to be like, actually good at the games we talk about, or be super-duper painters or whatever.
I am none of those things.
It comes as no surprise to me that the many bloggers who bless me with their comments are far better informed than me in regards to who actually makes our games, or are heavy hitters/important players in the industry.
I rely on them, and anyone else who leaves a comment or e-mails me, for many things- to edumacate me, to tell me when I'm being an ass, and to give me ideas for stuffs to write randomly and somewhat haphazardly about.
My intention with this series is not to point fingers and accuse the companies that make our games of stuffs like racism and sexism. I could never believe that anyone seeking to turn a profit would go that route.
Nevertheless, our hobby is white-guy-centric, and as someone who lives in a multicultural, multi ethnic neighborhood and sorta takes that for granted as 'the way life is,' I find it odd. Compared to many of you, I'm kinda new at the whole hobby thing, having only been doing this for like...six years, I guess. Most of my games are played against the Ultimate Rival, who's Puerto Rican and Irish. My buddy Nascar, who we recently inducted into the gaming garage, is Dominican.
Whatevs, we're Americans and we live in the Bronx, NYC.
You know what I think when I go to a 40k or Flames of War tournament?
'Holy crap there's a lotta white people here!'
Since every one I've attended has been upstate, it doesn't take long for someone to recognize that I'm from the city, since I'm usually rockin' my crisp white Nikes and yeah, my Bronx accent is pretty thick, from what I understand.
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| *Never, ever scuff my Nikes. An ungentle tentacle probing will ensue* |
The people I meet at tourneys tend to find me greatly amusing, and I them. Our differences make for interesting discussions over a table top. I enjoy it, very much. Yes, I've met the odd...disturbing person, but I meet disturbing people alla time, so I'm not put off by that.
If anything, I come away being pleasantly surprised by how readily the good folks in our hobby accept me.
I slip right in, just an average gamer. I rarely mention to the gamers I meet that I blog, cuz I've found that most gamers don't read blogs, and I don't wanna sound pretentious (or like I actually know sumpthin,' cuz I don't for the most part). A lot of them hit various forums, and a few are aware of Bell of Lost Souls, but that's about it. In my personal experience, the folks I game with don't really care about 'who makes the games,' either.
They just play them.
I can toss around the names of the GW staff, but even names like Mat Ward and Robin Cruddace don't produce the reactions I would expect. Those names make me pretty darn heated, but even the Ultimate Rival gives me a blank stare, and he's firmly a hated Imperial.
The bloggers who left comments last week suggested that a broader spectrum of people would be attracted to our hobby if the gaming company staffs were more diverse. This...kinda makes sense to me, since many of these companies put their staffs up front on their websites, in their forums and even in their magazines, if they've got one- GW, PP, and Battlefront all have magazines, after all.
On the other hand, I could give a crap who the heck is working at Battlefront. I really don't care, even though I enjoy Flames of War. There's usually a staffer name attached to their announcements, but I don't pay attention.
I stopped reading White Dwarf like, forever ago. I used to care about who was doing what at GW, and I ended up with Mat Ward.
-_-
Our hobby, and the games we play, are a luxury form of entertainment. Like video games, or goin' to the movies, or whatever.
So- Grand Theft Auto 4 was a huge hit worldwide, featured a black protagonist, and was made by dudes in...Scotland? Yes, Scotland.
The Avengers movie was also a pretty big thing, but featured a mostly white cast (one of the Avengers was green, sometimes), was directed and produced by white folks. How did it make so much darn money in non-white countries? Did they show up for Samuel Jackson's lil' part?
Admittedly, Samuel Jackson is pretty bad ass. Why else would we suffer through Snakes on a Plane?
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| *To hear him say 'mother fucker,' that's why. Cuz we love that* |
I love the Blade movies, cuz they're bad ass too. I own all of 'em. Again, black protagonist. Not just any black protagonist, either, but Mister 'always bet on black' Wesley Snipes. Yes, an awesome badass.
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| *Nobody, but nobody, does the 'superhero pose' better than Wesley* |
The movies and games I've mentioned here have sucked money outta people of all kinds, as they were designed to do. They are almost universally considered awesome.
I don't think 'awesome' is tied to one race, or creed, or type of people. No one cares that the actor who plays Sheldon Cooper is gay when they're laughing at his completely awesome, hysterical antics, do they?
Could Niel Patrick Harris be any goddam funnier in the Harold and Kumar movies? I don't think so.
We love those guys, and Wesley, and Samuel, and a whole host of actors and actresses, regardless of...whatever, amirite? We love 'em cuz they're awesome.
I personally believe that successful forms of entertainment are successful simply because they're awesome. I usually suspect something is awesome because I get hooked on some lil' marketing thing they do to convince me it's awesome.
Damn you, Wimoweh trailer...damn you!
GW is showing a broader spectrum of people how awesome 40k is, by giving a license to THQ to market it through video games. I, for one, applaud them for doing that. I've seen a Warmachine video game trailer as well, but I don't believe it showed up at E3 this year. I hope it's still gonna happen.
I think our hobby is awesome, but how would it best be served? How do they go about getting more people, different types of people, not just to the game table, but past that and into the design studios themselves? Companies like GW don't seem interested in 'conventional' marketing, that's for sure. It's pretty awkward when they try stuffs like that, anyway.
Personally, I think they should hire these guys to make viral videos for them.
(Warning- not for children and NSFW!!!! But so friggin' funny!)
So, hey...video games (and movies. Actual good ones, hopefully) based off of our favorite hobby franchises. Why not?
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right?
Is this one way to draw new people into the hobby?
Now that I've gone on for entirely too long, I'm relying on you guys to tell me if I'm being a knucklehead.
I...sometimes am.
:D
Until next time, folks- Exit with catchphrase!
-SinSynn
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