Heroscape - Community Marketing

[Velenne]

It seems to me the Heroscape brand has a lot of unrealized potential.

What is the evolution of a national (or international) gaming phenomenon? How long does it take for a brand to go from innovative niche market to widespread usage? More relevantly, what will it take for Heroscape to achieve the level of success and longevity of games like Magic:The Gathering, Warhammer 40k and other such contemporary staples?

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by Velenne

It seems to me the Heroscape brand has a lot of unrealized potential.

What is the evolution of a national (or international) gaming phomenon? How long does it take for a brand to go from innovative niche market to widespread usage? More relevantly, what will it take for Heroscape to achieve the level of success and longevity of games like Magic:The Gathering, Warhammer 40k and other such contemporary staples?

Honestly, in many ways, I would prefer that it not become a 'phenomenon'.

[Tiberius]

Originally Posted by Cavalier

Honestly, in many ways, I would prefer that it not become a 'phenomenon'.

Why not? What would happen if it did?

[MattserTruckRally]

It took MTG a little while before it really became really big. It was introduced I believe in 1993 and the tournament scene started exploding around 96-97 and now the level of thinking is so much more advanced then it was back then.

I wouldn't mind if this game did blow up though. I'm pretty competitve as a gamer and would love going to a Herocape tournament that had 50 and even over a 100 players.

[Sparky]

Okay, clearly we need a Heroscape cheerleading squad at GenCon. Oh, yes, my friends, we WILL be noticed...'Gimme an H! Gimme an E!...' Forget this whole passive wait-for-people-to-wander-past stuff. Hasbro/WotC needs to think BIG!!!

Mike

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by Tiberius

Why not? What would happen if it did?

I've just always hated the whole 'in thing' dynamic. I love the fact that all of us here play HS because we love the game, not because it is the popular/in thing. That's just me.

[rehlers]

I kind of agree about the game not blowing up within the hard-core gaming community anyway. This game is about having simple fun that can appeal to wider audience. I've never tried Warhammer myself, but I did play magic back in the day. I would say that half the people I know who play heroscape with me would probably not be interested in learning a more complicated system. Seems like once something goes mainstream, the creators tend to "sell-out". I dunno, that is all probably just rambling on my part. I just want heroscape popular enough that they keep making stuff for it.

[nbxfan]

I worked in retail back in the "era" of pogs, beanie babies, and MTG...not that pogs survived but, I must say that while MTG was massively popular on the West Coast, it hadn't made it to the East Coast. Our corporate office was back east and I constantly was emailing them and sending them materials on MTG to try and get them to bite and they finally did but, the point is, it does take time for things to move and become popular.

Heroscape has obviously been around for some time. I've had my MS set for over a year but only recently opened it and found it so enjoyable that less than a month later, I now have every expansion and wave pack except one as well as multiples of land expansions and the MS...Games do take time, and I think that people see games like these as for younger kids. I'm in my thirties and having a blast but convincing others isn't exactly the easiest task.

I can't see how it could get more popular just based on the outrageous prices that people are willing to pay on ebay for things. FB's for $130+ is ridiculous for five characters...You could say a few people are driving up the prices but if that were the case they wouldn't continually sell for that much. Also, having driven all over to find what I could and going to the same store multiple times, I can definitely tell that people are playing as inventory was never the same outside of those darn Nakita Agents everywhere....Anyways, I'd like to see it more popular but, I don't think it would have any affect on me personally outside of it being harder to get pieces as they come out.

If you are referring to unrealized potential as such a thing as expanding to other series beyond Marvel, I really hope they don't do it. Expanding to much is a bad thing and could see more of an adverse effect. Collecting for one or two things is fine but, when you start collecting for too many things something has to get cut at some point. I'd be happy if it were just Marvel and HS...

[RichardD]

I remember the MtG explosion. It took twelve months from launch to become reasonably well-known within the gaming community, another 12 months to become really big amongst gamers, and another 12-24 months to dominate and get into the mainstream. At least, that's how it was over here. It was pretty clear by the end of the second year after launch that it was going to be really big, although I don't think that many people even then realised just how big.

Warhammer 40k is a different kettle of fish entirely. The Games Workshop brand was established in the early 80s as importers of D7D type stuff. During the second half of the 80's, they expanded their chain of shops, and also started to produce their own games (including ealry versions of the two Warhammer franchises). At that stage neither WH nor 40k were particularly big. But GW noticed that they were particularly PROFITABLE, so structured the business at the end of the decade to concentrate on those two main product lines. By the early 90s they'd got rid of all the non-GW published stuff, and phased out all the non-WH/40k stuff. But neither game was any sort of phenomenon as I saw it - it was simply so massively profitable that the games funded huge retail growth, massive amounts of very tightly targetted marketting (mainly through the in-house catalogue, White Dwarf) and the retailer stocked only that product. By that point, it didn't matter that there were better games available *if you knew where to look*; the ONLY miniatures battle games that were readily available were WH and 40k, and there was enough of a profit margin combined with a high customer turnover to sustain a big business. Of course, when people start to realise that the games aren't so great after all, GW has already got their money and is moving on to fleece the next customer.

In the 21st century, I'm not sure that the GW model is sustainable - I just don't see a second-rate game that requires people to paint their own figures as something that will remain popular. The "video game" generation may well turn out to be too impatient to remain enamoured of a game demanding the time and money investment of the current GW games.

[Siran Dunmorgan]

Originally Posted by Sparky

… Hasbro/WotC needs to think BIG!!!

What makes you think it's not a big thing? Milton Bradley doesn't do "little."

There were, I suspect, more Rise of the Valkyrie Master Sets sold in the 2006 Christmas season than there are 3.5 Edition Dungeon Master's Guides in all of existence.

The probem is not that HeroScape isn't selling well—anecdotally, it seems to be selling in staggering numbers—but that it's selling to people to whom it doesn't even occur that there might be a gaming community.

The issue is visibility: we need things like HeroScape-branded shirts, caps, vests, bookbags, and dresses, so that we can promote the game without having to actually carry pieces of it around with us.

When I proposed HeroScape-themed clothes to my kids (slate-gray skirts or trousers, dark red shirts) they jumped at the opportunity. With the basic clothes ordered from a school uniform supplier and the logos added by us [1], so we have a half-dozen per child, my kids are expecting to wear them as uniforms for the whole summer. I'll be getting matching dark red Oxford shirts and slate-gray trousers.

In one of the News threads, I offered a proposal for our own HeroScape Camp, i.e. a summer program for kids and teens interested in HeroScape. No one responded, though I'm happy to re-post here. Such a thing is almost certainly not practical for Hasbro, but is perfectly reasonable for the community—this community—to conduct.

Personally, I spent much of the morning checking advertising rates in the local newsweekly to see what it would cost to get into their "Children's Summer Programs" issue along with the local summer camps, theatre companies, music schools, and sports leagues.

There are more than enough families that have bought into HeroScape. But most of them aren't on-line, they don't frequent game stores, and their kids don't bring anything as complicated as terrain sets to school with them. We need to be proactive in finding them, and telling them that they are not alone, that there are other 'scapers in the world, and that the community is waiting to embrace them with handshakes and crown them with laurels.

—SD

[1] We have a really top-of-the-line sewing machine and a scanner. The sewing machine will handle embroidery of arbitrary images; we have "Warlords of Valhalla" designs that evoke the feeling of HeroScape without violating Hasbro's trademarks.

[RichardD]

I remember the MtG explosion. It took twelve months from launch to become reasonably well-known within the gaming community, another 12 months to become really big amongst gamers, and another 12-24 months to dominate and get into the mainstream. At least, that's how it was over here. It was pretty clear by the end of the second year after launch that it was going to be really big, although I don't think that many people even then realised just how big.

Warhammer 40k is a different kettle of fish entirely. The Games Workshop brand was established in the early 80s as importers of D7D type stuff. During the second half of the 80's, they expanded their chain of shops, and also started to produce their own games (including ealry versions of the two Warhammer franchises). At that stage neither WH nor 40k were particularly big. But GW noticed that they were particularly PROFITABLE, so structured the business at the end of the decade to concentrate on those two main product lines. By the early 90s they'd got rid of all the non-GW published stuff, and phased out all the non-WH/40k stuff. But neither game was any sort of phenomenon as I saw it - it was simply so massively profitable that the games funded huge retail growth, massive amounts of very tightly targetted marketting (mainly through the in-house catalogue, White Dwarf) and the retailer stocked only that product. By that point, it didn't matter that there were better games available *if you knew where to look*; the ONLY miniatures battle games that were readily available were WH and 40k, and there was enough of a profit margin combined with a high customer turnover to sustain a big business. Of course, when people start to realise that the games aren't so great after all, GW has already got their money and is moving on to fleece the next customer.

In the 21st century, I'm not sure that the GW model is sustainable - I just don't see a second-rate game that requires people to paint their own figures as something that will remain popular. The "video game" generation may well turn out to be too impatient to remain enamoured of a game demanding the time and money investment of the current GW games.

[Siran Dunmorgan]

Additionally:

We also need to enhance the standing of the game qua game, i.e., its social reputation in the gaming community and in society. I recommend the development of a body of literature around the game, by which I do not mean (though I do include) fan fiction. I mean primarily a body of literature showing how to teach relatively specific lessons in strategy, tactics, logistics, critical thinking, situational analysis, scheduling and planning, with HeroScape as the centerpiece.

I'm working on a first draft of this kind of thing: Sun Tzu's Art of War, annotated for HeroScape.

The difference between this and similar guides that have appeared from time to time is that I am treating the strategic and logistical points as occurring in the real world, e.g. Sun Tzu's advice about foraging in enemy territory maps onto the notion that you can save money by having your opponent buy the expansion packs.

His concepts of supply and time of engagement, weather, and similar issues map onto planning your HeroScape afternoon, including having snacks, drinks, places to sit, and appropriate lighting for the game.

His advice with regard to the Moral Law, concord between sovereign and general and discipline among the troops, is directly applicable to the self-discipline of a player: it is more difficult, for example, to concentrate on playing HeroScape when you, as a player, have a nagging sense of guilt that you are playing a game, and have not cleaned up your room as you had promised your mother that you would.

Sun Tzu's advice on tactics, is, of course, directly applicable to the play of the game: even his advice on the use of fire in warfare is applicable to the play of special abilties and glyphs that affect allies and enemies alike, such as Runa's Helm of Mitonsoul, or Kee-mo-shi's Toxic Skin.

I also have outlines for articles on HeroScape as a teaching tool with respect to literature, creative writing, mathematics, and both the social and physical sciences.

The thrust of this kind of document is to provide a framework for HeroScape as a focus for life improvement, for parents with the so-called "Soccer Mom" perspective to understand that an interest in HeroScape does not imply that their child is a nascent deranged serial killer; rather, it can be—and, in our house, has been—a means for children to improve their abilities to concentrate and maintain self-discipline.

—SD