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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

You want to play what?

So,
Been thinking about this for a while, so I thought why not write something down, so here goes. Why do we gamers stop playing certain games? Lately I have been wanting to play some classic games like Blood Bowl, Legends of the Old West and Necromunda, but I am finding it hard to get some of my game buddies to play.

I have noticed that with Games Workshop games, once the game goes out of print, the interest is lost on these games. Now sometimes the game companies don’t help this, like releasing a new version of the rules and totally screwing up the game (can you say LotR and then the Hobbit?). Now I understand it is hard to get new players into an older version of the rules and its even tougher if the rules are gone all together. But what about the folks that kept these older games?

If you invested into a game and still have all your “stuff” for the game, why not play it still? I understand that there is only so much gaming time available to folks, heck I only really get one day to play games now because of family obligations. I also understand that with less gaming time, there are many newer games that need to be played, so the older games slowly take a back seat. My own gaming experience shows this, for a few years Flames of War took up all my gaming time, heck it was the most played game for me for three years running. Now I hardly ever play, partly due to my interest level being low on it and the other part is that I want to play other games.

Is that the case then, too many games and not enough time? Perhaps I answered my own question then. This past weekend I heard from a friend tell me he missed Lord of the Rings, I replied that we all did in the game group. But that’s the gist, we all still have armies and all the books, so why don’t we play it? Maybe it is a nostalgic thing as my good friend Rob told me, it’s as if we have moved on from certain games like you do in relationships, I don’t know.

Now as I mentioned earlier, the game companies don’t help with this. Take Warhammer Historical products. When GW closed this branch of the company, there seemed to be a mass exodus from playing their games, people said things like “It’s not supported” and “Can’t buy it anymore, won’t play it anymore” as if that was a reason for people to stop playing the games. Once again my personal experience is that I had a few WAB armies for the dark age period. I had all the dark age books so I was set and didn’t care if they released anymore books. But our group moved away from playing WAB 1 or 1.5. Same thing for Legends of the Old West, I have all the figures I need, have all the books and terrain, but once Warhammer Historical closed, people got rid of their stuff.  

Maybe it has to do with the community, take Blood Bowl, it was a game that GW killed a few times but the community kept on going. They did not need GW to support it, they just kept playing. Heck once GW tried killing it, many other companies stepped up and kept making figures for the game. Blood Bowl still lives on and is still played all around the world. I find it funny that for a game has no support officially, there is ton of other companies supporting it. Heck one tournament back in the Midwest, had over 64 players show up to play, that’s amazing!

So where am I going with this? I guess what I am trying to say is keep playing the games you love and enjoy, you don’t need the companies support, just gather a few friends together and keep playing it if you enjoy it, maybe I am over thinking all of this, time to get back to painting my toys…
TK

7 comments:

Terry Silverthorn said...

Sounds pretty much like a lot of peoples thoughts..too many games with too little time. Looking back at all the stuff I've collected over the years...I even have all the original GW LOTR stuff in original boxes & blisters for the most part...love the theme & really liked the skirmish nature of it...before the Big Battle formed units, but its just one of those no time things.
Also a big fan of Mordheim, etc...other great games.
Now I look at my shelves of rule sets & miniatures & find ways of using what I have for multiple game systems...ie: Frostgrave which is my latest venture. Now I have a new reason to pull out those old RAFM D&D Miniatures for.

styx said...

Pretty much dead on. I was a huge GW Fanatic geek, then they cut things back and then cut the line in the end. The player base fell off and it faded. It is a trend really like other games. Some games draw players better than others, as I have grown older I go for quality of games now and damm the popularity.

Scottswargaming said...

What you say is very true... At the end of the day if you have the figures, rulebooks and army lists, why not play it if it you enjoy it, you clearly have all the kit you need!
Blood bowl is a classic and one that the NFL seasons always gets me itching to play... even though I havent played for years I still have the game and a dark elf team... Necromunda was fun, but I sold off all my big terrain items that really made the game when I emigrated... still have an orlock gang... LOTR/Hobbit I still really enjoy and dont see any issues with new rules, in fact the game seems to be going from strength to strength recently across the globe as folks start playing again, possibly of the back off the bollox that was AoS?
Havent played WAB in years either... more tempted to morph armies into a Hail Caesar/Black Powder variant if possible.... which brings me back to current interest Bolt Action which is really floating my boat... it lubes my love of WWII, is 28mm for painting and modelling, is fast fun hollywood-ised skirmish rules and fun to boot... compared with the frustrations of playing FoW and the crazy supply situation still affecting that game... interestingly a certain Mr Priestly seems to have been involved to a greater or lesser extent in all those gaming choices...

Tom O said...

Agreed on too many games and not enough time; that's certainly one of my downfalls. If I could focus on a single period or single scale I could probably have more accomplished and wouldn't get rid of dead projects. I was/am a historical gamer 1st so GW games were always secondary to me and it wasn't hard to divest myself of them when the time came. I don't have an issue getting rid of something that's been sitting on a shelf unused for over a year and likely will continue to sit there, it's just part of the hobby to me. That said I am going to work on just focusing on what makes me happy...if that means doing a game in a scale that no one else plays or using a rule set that isn't popular and I have to build both forces for, so be it...

Scooby Drew said...

Good article and good comments! I mostly play with my kids, so I am used to collecting both sides for whatever game we play. It's funny that when I walk into the FLGS and buy up old GW LOTR products, the shopkeeper is always surprised. "You mean somebody still plays that?"

But company support doesn't mean everything. After all, the guys who invented chess haven't done much to support the game lately, but it still seems to find a following!

But with miniatures, there is a big storage, transportation, and space issue which is different from chess. If only I had a teleporter from the USS Enterprise and Superman's Fortress of Solitude for storage!!

Knight of Infinite Resignation said...

I think people like to play the things they are actively collecting, and when a model line or ruleset is cancelled it is easy to file it as 'in the past' and not consider it as a valid option any more. Note this only applies to some people, others are braver and positively relish oop games!

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