It’s launch day of that hotly anticipated tabletop game, and you’re super pumped. You’re first in line at the store to grab your starter copy; you rush home to unbox it, read the rules, paint up the miniatures.
And then… nothing. No one wants to play. It’s hard to even get one person to try it out with you. You get disappointed, feel burnt, betrayed. The hype is just that, hype. You’re a sucker for believing it.
Or maybe you’re not.
A Tale of Two Communities.
In my neck of the woods, WarCry is either the hottest title from Games Workshop right now, or it’s an overhyped game which is boring and no one plays it. It’s the tale of the difference in two communities of players, and what store managers and the gaming community can do to successfully launch a new game product, build up interest, and sustain it for the long run.
Community A is a gaming community who identify as non-competitive hobbyists. They are very active at their local gaming store, which provides space for both gaming and hobby activities (e.g. painting), and the influential members of the community are in it for the fun and hobby aspects of gaming.
Community B is a gaming community who identify as competitive gamers. They pore over rulebooks and play at tournaments, and their chat groups discuss the minutiae how to optimise for the game they play.
One would think that War Cry, which is pitched as a casual, easy to learn, fast paced miniatures game, to succeed better in Community A. In fact, it is failing in Community A, and here’s why:
- Community A did not have enough diversity of gamers. As with all ecosystems, gaming communities need diverse archetypes of gamers to launch and sustain a gaming product, and the same diversity needs to exist at the social influencer levels. Here’s a couple of archetypes that matter: The Expert, The Organizer, The Competitor, The Hobbyist. I’ll talk more about these archetypes in another post. As Community A was weighted towards Hobbyists, it did not have sufficient community support to launch and sustain a new game.
- Community A had a bad initial impression of the game. In a textbook marketing error, the community as allowed to try out the game themselves with assembled miniatures, with no experienced player/game master to guide them. As they were hobbyists and not rules enthusiasts, many of the benefits and subtleties of the game were missed over or misinterpreted, leading to a misperception of the game’s potential. And when the influencers started carrying the message that the game was boring and not worth their time, it was then quietly left in a corner to die an ignoble death.
- Community A was dependent on the Store (and Store Manager) to make the game work. Community A makes for a great customer base; it’s intensely loyal to one store and many members return to the store on a weekly basis. However, given its make up of Hobbyists, it is dependent on the store manager to curate a positive gaming experience for them. In effect, because of the lack of diversity in point (2), the Store Manager has to back fill the community roles of Expert, Enthusiast and Competitor while managing his/her day job of handling retail and marketing operations.
So yes, it’s the community’s fault. You’re not to blame. But maybe you are. In the next couple of posts, I’ll talk about some things in which game publishers, store managers and community leaders can try to kickstart game launches.
(Update: The link to the post is here)
