So let's say HeroScape returns one day

[STAROCEAN980]

(ITT: wall of text)
Regardless of publisher; though yes different publishers could affect this, so let's leave it open to any likely possibility.

If this game came back, do you think they'd get it back into big market stores like the old days or would they try to smuggle it into the FLGS-centered market like they tried to do in the end. (And we know how that turned out)

I think that the only way the game would have any hope of growing popularity back(Whatever wealth of that it had) and hopefully beyond it would have to be back up in stores like Wal-Mart, TRU, etc.
I get that even in big stores it apperently wasn't selling enough to make Hasbro happy, but if they try to delegate it to local game stores and such, I think they'd just cause it to bomb back thus possibly resulting in permanent ending of the game if they get to see it "fail" twice.

For instance, I have a FLGS, but I've maybe been to it.. twice. And I almost make a point not to bother going in there. I have an enormous collection, and if HS had been a hobby shop-only carried game I almost absolutely would have never picked it up, resulting in a good sum of money not going to the publishers. (Obviously not like it had all been bought from Hasbro.com and Wal-Mart back in the day but you get my point). And I'm sure plenty of others don't care about FLGSs either. (Honestly I think here at this site a bit too much trust is given in a FLGS market, since most here probably visit them)

If HS is brought back, I really feel they'd need to have what they used to; boxes on Wal-Mart shelves, TRU, Target, etc. as well as even cased displays(Hell that's what grabbed my interest all those years ago in the TRU one day) even if prices are(and likely will be) ramped up some.

So what do you think HS, if it were to one day be picked up by whatever company, would need to/should do to succeed? We all know how fun and cool the game is, so marketing is really the issue held it back from the greater success it deserved.

Also this might be a thread to critique the faults that might have helped cause the game to go down enough for it's discontinuing. Obviously the D&D injection sure didn't save it; hell it might have pissed more people off into not buying it instead than generate extra sales from D&D fans.
I mean I know for sure the D&D stuff, mostly with the BS base change and the decent portion of the figures being crappy-looking, turned me off after D1.(I mainly got that wave because the Hydras were sweet regardless). But even now I've gone back and ordered D2 and 3 after I realized despite the issues that Colby and co. did a damn good job with the cards and making the figures at least play right even if many don't look right.



inb4 "the game isn't coming back"
Sure, it might not, but it can't hurt to at least really try to see where things went wrong so badly that a great game didn't sell enough.

[STAROCEAN980]

Wow I got negative rep for this.
To whoever the person it was, yes this has obviously been discussed before, but no thread I've seen on here has ever discussed it either in it's entirety or focused on where it went wrong. It's been in threads mixed with anger/sadness at the game's end or talking financial values at best, which is not what this thread is at all.
First thread in over a year, hmm.

[Dad_Scaper]

*chuckle*

Don't worry about getting a dock. You didn't deserve it & things will balance out over time.

I don't see 'Scape coming back ever in the big box stores or Toys R Us. Prepainted plastic miniatures - and unpainted plastic miniatures - games seem to be going to the FLGS of the world.

Even Hasbro knows that; I expect Battleship Galaxies will be at a FLGS (but not a Walmart) near you.

[AMIS]

This has been discussed quite often but IMHO you do have some newer points here.

Most people on this site (granted this is an assumption from the posts I've read) are 'gamers' and know where FLGS are.
There are a few of us who would never have gotten into the game if it wasn't for the big box stores and if HS makes a comeback, I'm not sure the average serious gamer will support it. - Hope I'm wrong.

For the serious gamer HS looks far to simple to be good and for the average non-gamer it looks far to complicated to be good and I think that's always been Heroscape's biggest issue.

Once played they love it, but until then...

[STAROCEAN980]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

*chuckle*

Don't worry about getting a dock. You didn't deserve it & things will balance out over time.

I don't see 'Scape coming back ever in the big box stores or Toys R Us. Prepainted plastic miniatures - and unpainted plastic miniatures - games seem to be going to the FLGS of the world.

Even Hasbro knows that; I expect Battleship Galaxies will be at a FLGS (but not a Walmart) near you.

I was only upset at the reasoning; for their supposedly being so many other threads, when I've never seen anyone try to discuss either where the marketing went wrong nor what, if it did come back, would need to do to succeed.

I think the FLGS market would worry me since a lot less people would be exposed to it. So even if it did get back in print, it might sell even worse than the first time.

[STAROCEAN980]

Originally Posted by AMIS

This has been discussed quite often but IMHO you do have some newer points here.

Most people on this site (granted this is an assumption from the posts I've read) are 'gamers' and know where FLGS are.
There are a few of us who would never have gotten into the game if it wasn't for the big box stores and if HS makes a comeback, I'm not sure the average serious gamer will support it. - Hope I'm wrong.

For the serious gamer HS looks far to simple to be good and for the average non-gamer it looks far to complicated to be good and I think that's always been Heroscape's biggest issue.

Once played they love it, but until then...

I agree, that's why I said I think the site has a bit too much faith in an FLGS-centered market scheme.
And that's a good point, I never thought about how complex it might look from the box(or simple, depending on the level of gamer), but you're right. In big box stores it may seem to hard-looking for some, and in FLGS D&D or Warhammer players might scoff at it for looking inferior compared to their very complex games. That''s why I think those displayes like TRU used to have would be great, since it made the game look really cool to me when I saw it for the first time, and really helped encourage me to buy it. (Aside from how cool it seemed period)

[Onichi]

Probably won't happen but for the sake of pure speculation (and for anybody hoping to not make the same mistakes)...

Here's what I believe Hasbro did right and wrong with Heroscape.

Right:
Small expansions are affordable. I may not feel guilty buying a single pack so it's easy for me to buy them and overtime those small purchases add up and Hasbro gets their money.

No Blind purchases! who wants to buy something they might not want?

Modular. Never play the same way twice. Replayability is important for longevity.

Well balanced between strategy and luck.

Great story. It's easy to get absorbed into the fiction.

Notice most of these are mostly about game design.

Wrong:
I think the biggest reason the Marts out there lost interest is due to the disproportionate Unique-to-Common ratio. A store buys 100 cases and two months later they have a shelf full of Uniques that everybody has already. A well balanced Common-only wave wouldn't do that, or a 10-pack case with 3x3 commons plus 1 Unique. Those middle waves with 2 common and 2 unique packs are what I feel did the most damage.

Minimal advertising. Other than during the initial launch, i don't think I ever saw a commercial for it. Also the ads I saw were mostly cartoon-ish giving people the impression that it's a simple or child-ish game. There's the complex, strategic side to the game that they never mentioned

High cost to start. I was intriqued the first time I saw it but I'm not going to throw down a large chunk of change out of curiosity. It wasn't until the smaller Marvel set came out that I could justify the cost. Honestly I think the DnD MS had the best marketing idea of the 4 because it's smaller and more affordable to start and includes common squads so if you buy multiple MS for more terrain you also get more usable squads (Anyone else have a couple spare sets of RotV figs?)

Erratic releases. We'd go a couple years with nothing and then get flooded with a whole bunch of new stuff. With excessively long times between releases you'll have some people lose interest. When the market is flooded it's hard for people to buy everything they want.

Few reprints. For those of us that started late we missed a lot of the early waves and now will probably never get them. A perfect example of how this should have happened is when a later wave bonds with an earlier wave there should be a small re-print of the previous wave; when the repulsors came out we should have seen a few snipers for those of us who missed them the first time.

Notice most of these are on the marketing side of things.

I'm probably missing some obvious things from both the right and wrong side of things, but it's a good start.

If I were to plan the marketing for HeroScape (or another similar game) it would be something along these lines...

Advertising would be broken up into 3 tiers; cartoony, family and competitive. The cartoony would focus on the fun, easy to learn gameplay and the deep fiction. This could even include a cartoon or comicbook series. Family would be geared towards parents to spend some quality time with their kids with something that can be both easy for the younger kids or challenging for the older kids. And of course competitive would aim for the teen and young adult market focusing on the intense battles and deep strategy. I would start the (re)release with multiple smaller starter packs, 2-4 of these. Each set would be about the size of the DnD MS have the same set of commons, probably one "good guy" squad and one "bad guy" squad. Then each set would come with it's own collection of unique heroes. Each set is fully playable on it's own, but if you buy one of each then you have multiple commons and no duplicate uniques. I would put some terrain back into the small expansions, but maybe not just ground.I already described the way I would pack the expansions (3x3 common packs plus 1 unique pack in a case of 10 packs) but I see the Unique set having something really special, like a fountain with restorative abilities, then the commons would each have something different, like terrain in one, a tree in another and rock outcrops in the third. I would distribute them about 1 year between each wave, and maybe a half-wave terrain expansion halfway between the waves. Included in each pack would be a tease for the next release (I imagine something along the lines of a siluette of a figure with a hint of it's abilities, like "New Robo-Rat synergies coming Summer 2012"). The one downside to this would be having a good chunk of the next wave designed a year in advance...

So, anyone hiring in their marketing department?

[Agent Minivann]

It's an interesting topic. Heroscape is a horrible match for big box stores as it was implemented. At the same time it was a horrible match for FLGSs as it was implemented. Making a comeback is a complicated mess, but I'll take a stab at it.

The biggest hurdle to making a comeback right now (and for some time to come) is the economy. Hasbro just did a bunch of layoffs. They also made some rumblings that they were going to focus more on things like yet another version of Monopoly rather than new unique games. Unless they sell the IP to another company, the economy needs to rebound and upper management needs to restructure as well.

To get back into big box stores, Heroscape either needs to be completely restructured as far as how it is sold, or it will need a different set of SKUs for big box stores. Shelf space was a problem at big box stores. Heroscape needed a ton of shelf space at a big box store to really work, and big box stores couldn't/wouldn't justify that much space for one small subsection of boardgames. Having more or less stand alone releases would almost be an absolute necessity for big boxes. That way Walmart is stocking it just like Monopoly. They just put a single set on the shelf that has rules, dice, order markers for 2, a little terrain and obstacles and enough units to put together a couple small (300-500 point) armies in a starter set. Maybe every 6 months or every year there is a new version. Now it becomes like Monopoly in that there are only ever a couple versions of the product to stock.

FLGSs would be a place to take advantage of what Heroscape really has to offer. Shelf space is still going to be a problem, but they are going to be a lot more willing to stock a larger amount of SKUs. The starter sets could show up here, or they could just have them a big box item. Terrain only sets would be a big hit IMHO. Demold, hit the top with a single color, package. Higher profit for Hasbro (or whoever acquires the IP), and Battletech players, for example, don't have a bunch of minis (not to mention rules and dice) that they will never use. They could even do an all in one rule book as a separate item, along with order marker, dice, wound marker packs. Then the other sets are the figure packs. That could remain more or less unchanged. But for FLGS sales to really fly there should be something in place to make it worthwhile to the FLGS owner. Some sort of organized league or tournament structure might fit the bill, but the FLGS would need to assume the responsibility of tournament director.

That would put 1-2 SKUs going to big box stores. It is treated as a regular board game there. At the FLGS you have 3 categories of product. There is the generic (terrain), the infrequently purchased (rule books, dice/marker packs), and the recurring (figures). Both the store and Hasbro can do a lot more fine tuning and better forecasting with manufacturing/purchasing levels.

[Fuzzie Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Onichi

A store buys 100 cases and two months later they have a shelf full of Uniques that everybody has already.

Actually, my understanding (as I've heard from a couple of FLAGS owners) is that the uniques sell way better than the commons in B&M stores, though the commons tend to do better online. A single hero pack is more interesting, varied, and useful to the casual 'Scaper than a single common pack.

So really, rather than selling flats with a certain ratio of one pack to another, just allowing the stores to purchase certain packs individually at whatever quantity they wanted would be the best strategy, IMO.

[lefton4ya]

In addition to master sets, sell waves in a box! $30 gets you 4-5 uniques and 2-4 different squads with 2-4 of each squad based on what is playable, plus this would be less units than current waves and they could more easily come at regular intervals, say 4 times/year. Solves problems of seporate SKUs, glut of uniques online and lack of common purchases at stores. IMO the only other option (id hate to say it) is blind packaging. That way they can adjust the ratio of figs available in rereleases based on demand and online resellers can take care of sinle sales. Magic, Pokemon, Heroclix, etc. do well in both big box stores and FLGS. If they want to do seporate marketing (kid, family, teen/adult & big box/flgs) they can do non-blind battle boxes in big box and small pack blind purchase in FLGS and online, like heroclix.

[Agent Minivann]

Originally Posted by Fuzzie Fuzz

Actually, my understanding (as I've heard from a couple of FLAGS owners) is that the uniques sell way better than the commons in B&M stores, though the commons tend to do better online. A single hero pack is more interesting, varied, and useful to the casual 'Scaper than a single common pack.

The Nakita Agents might have something to say about that.

[STAROCEAN980]

Originally Posted by Agent Minivann

The Nakita Agents might have something to say about that.

I'd have to second this, as back around the time wave 6 was out I was cleaning off Nakita and Ninja unique boosters from Walmart's sale shelves for $1-2(To get the extra snow mainly) because nobody bought them. the commons however(Aside from a couple Ashra packs) were eaten up.