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
