Age of Annihilation - Backer Trend and Discussion

[Knox]

Originally Posted by Mr Migraine

I wised up and canceled my second order, contented with just one of the Vanguard sets. With three other people in my playgroup having also ordered one, there's little reason to have even more copies of those unique figures, even if some of them become tournament staples.

I agree with what's been mentioned in the last few posts. This set is absolutely a great value, considering what used Heroscape and other miniature games sell for today. (It sorta reminds me of WotC selling limited-run premium expansion packs for their Modern format...it's based on aftermarket prices.)

But I remain hopeful they can pivot and revitalize the campaign to appeal to a broader audience, and I'll be able to divert that additional $250 toward terrain packs and common packs later in this product's lifecycle.

I also cancelled my 2nd set and am down to 1 order. I may get a 2nd fortress at some point but that's all I'd need.

I also agree that $250 gets a new player way more than they'd get online at this point from RotV or SotM, the problem is it takes a lot of time playing with ppl before they're hooked enough to offer that kind of investment

[chas]

As an old original Scaper, what held me back to wait and see for a bit was that the evaluation that AOA is a good deal assumes you want it all. Whereas I need no more original terrain or basic game components (unless the Glyphs are new). So paying for them is my own sacrifice for the future of the game.

As noted in my signature thread on my own local group, one fellow who I gave an almost free entire collection from another pal getting out of Scape many moons ago, just passed it forward to our first new player in 14 years (if he keeps coming). This older guy has less storage space available now, so will play with my stuff when he comes over--I'd bought a bunch of his own custom minis when he was selling off some stuff to keep them "in the family." The younger fellow is running Scape demos at a game store, so could use the old collection for that as well as his own plays.

Since I am the only one of the four of us backing, for the many negative reasons that have been discussed, I'll offer AOA to my pals to play next year, if it funds. Thus The New York City Gang of Four will stay current with the new AOA issues if there are any, as well as our Fan Customs, our own customs, and the fan Custom Supers!

[brak88]

Originally Posted by Knox

I also cancelled my 2nd set and am down to 1 order. I may get a 2nd fortress at some point but that's all I'd need.

I also agree that $250 gets a new player way more than they'd get online at this point from RotV or SotM, the problem is it takes a lot of time playing with ppl before they're hooked enough to offer that kind of investment

I started collecting in 2015. I was lucky then to find SOTM at a thrift store for $15 and ROTV at a pawn shop for $40. And I was working at that thrift stores in between jobs at the time, and I had to talk then into pricing it down from $50 after it didn't sell for a few weeks and then I had to hide it for three days until employees could be allowed to buy it lol.

Don't expect me players to try that hard to buy into a game they had no previous playing experience with beyond AOTP and a damaged but playable copy of epic diets they found on craigslist for $10 lol. I'm sad to see how hard and expensive it's gotten to completely new people to get in

[IAmBatman]

Probably the best argument for purchasing one or (especially) more of these, from the consumer perspective, is market value. If you don’t want everything in the set, there’s a good chance this has good resale value and you can recoup most or all of your investment in the aftermarket.

Bigger picture, I think one of the primary issues is out of everyone’s hands. This is a game that has a hobby market appeal and a mass market production cost. It’s tough to marry those two concepts. So far, both in its original production and now, the powers that be tried their best to push it to a mass market and it kinda/sorta worked for a while, but was probably never sustainable longterm.

[brak88]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Probably the best argument for purchasing one or (especially) more of these, from the consumer perspective, is market value. If you don’t want everything in the set, there’s a good chance this has good resale value and you can recoup most or all of your investment in the aftermarket.

Bigger picture, I think one of the primary issues is out of everyone’s hands. This is a game that has a hobby market appeal and a mass market production cost. It’s tough to marry those two concepts. So far, both in its original production and now, the powers that be tried their best to push it to a mass market and it kinda/sorta worked for a while, but was probably never sustainable longterm.

Indeed. It isn't the blind purchase for cheap fun of ROTV or even AOTP back in the day. Sell up the investment of family bonding, entering a great community, the cheap value of fun compared to a bar, movies, concert tickets, etc, the amount of money it'll skyrocket to. Sell the investment and sell the PayPal payment plan. I get that having to piecemeal factions that don't interest you is a bit of work for new players.... especially if you play for a while and then think "wow, this is really fun, but I wish I hadn't sold off the other figures and had more army building variety. It sucks that I have to find figure lots of just the figures I want now."

[IAmBatman]

I think selling the PayPal payment plan is pretty cringey, but I don't even have a credit card, so I'm pretty against borrowing as a concept when it comes to my personal finances. (When it can be avoided, at least - I do have a mortgage).

[brak88]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

I think selling the PayPal payment plan is pretty cringey, but I don't even have a credit card, so I'm pretty against borrowing as a concept when it comes to my personal finances. (When it can be avoided, at least - I do have a mortgage).

Yeah, it's not really something I'd personally suggest for a board game. I personally question the aftermarket value of these figures without the paint job. I honestly only recommend it because there's no interest involved. It's just dividing payments into smaller chunks that's more manageable over time. If there was like an added 10% tacked on, I wouldn't advise people to do so out of principle. (I'm so punny.)

[rudyvalentine]

If you have to sell financing options as a positive of the campaign you’ve already lost a large audience for this game. Beside the unique Lego-like terrain and battle of all time setting, one of the big selling points for many of us was how accessible the game was.

Unfortunately that’s not the case here. I’m not arguing value. What they are offering is worth the price, but they’ve also priced out any casual interest and even a portion of the existing fan base’s interest.

[nyys]

Originally Posted by rudyvalentine

I’m not arguing value. What they are offering is worth the price, but they’ve also priced out any casual interest and even a portion of the existing fan base’s interest.

100% The value is great, but the buy-in... ugh. Can't imagine new players were in mind with this offering.

[GamerDad74]

Originally Posted by nyys

100% The value is great, but the buy-in... ugh. Can't imagine new players were in mind with this offering.

It was completely disingenuous of Hasbro to say this was to draw in new players and then run the campaign they have at the price point they chose.

I'm dubious of the aftermarket value of this as well with so many already talking about flooding the market with their "investment" copies.

[Shurrig]

Before the campaign launched I knew $250 was my upper limit, I was hoping it’d be cheaper but I had already prepared myself to shell out some major cash. My thought process throughout the updates leading up to the campaign was that this would simply be an investment to bring back scape and honestly, I’ve loved everything they’ve shown us thus far (clockwork combine didn’t really appeal to me at first until I saw them polar bears). I get that people want their historical units, their marro, those old factions and races from the first generation of the game, but I just don’t understand why. Why do you want more of the same?

A ton of the complaints about the terrain have been about how they’re only getting new ruins and they don’t need more jungle/old terrain, okay, so why would you want the same old figures? Sure, I’m very excited to see some of the old races return as pirates and potentially get some 2.0 and 3.0 heroes (Sonlen and Q-11 especially) but you must’ve had to have known if they were to bring back this game they would have to start with something fresh. I would surely love to see some older factions more fleshed out in the future, but after a game has been out of print for over a decade how would it make sense to bring back units that are meant to mainly synergize with figures made back in 2005? It doesn’t seem very fair to new players who might be trying to get into the game (emphasis on “trying,” again that price point is quite a hard sell).

You all have to understand that Avalon Hill is trying to reboot this game, not add on to what has already been more or less done. The investment of this campaign, despite its many flaws, determines what we get in the future, and I am just more than eager to get anything that is new. Whether that’s a winning argument or not, people shouldn’t have been surprised to see things in this master set we’ve never seen before. If you don’t like the figures, don’t like the terrain, don’t like the tiny wound markers (what!!), fine, that’s your MO and you should not feel like your wallet is being held at gun point. I’m very excited to see what new scape is offering and genuinely do not care if the figures are painted or not, everything looks and still feels like the game I love.

[nyys]

Originally Posted by GamerDad74

I'm dubious of the aftermarket value of this as well with so many already talking about flooding the market with their "investment" copies.

If the project funds then I think the aftermarket will be there for sure, especially if things turn more toward what everyone whishes this campaign would have been.

Of course if this ends up funding because there are 2000 backers who got 3 copies each, maybe not so much.