Age of Annihilation - Backer Trend and Discussion

[rudyvalentine]

Originally Posted by nyys

Another follow-up on the latest Board Games Insider with Ignacy Trzewiczek and Stephen Buonocore. They got a lot of feedback from their followers on their HeroScape 'predictions.' They're both steadfast in their speculation. Ignacy thinks the game will be produced regardless, that this campaign is for marketing reasons only and Stephen thinks it will be relaunched with tiers if it doesn't fund.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/295...laytesting-253

This seems baseless when those involved have said the opposite. I get they can’t announce it’s coming regardless as that would undermine the campaign but if true, why would anyone take another Haslab campaign seriously? It kills their credibility.

The most likely option to me is it’s shelved indefinitely. Maybe they revisit later and look at what they could do differently based on the consumer response, but even a relaunch in the short term makes it look like this campaign was a mistake and they lied about being a “this is it” offering.

[brak88]

Unless Hasbro didn't state it'd be coming back regardless to the war council for plausible deniability reasons? It's getting into conspiracy theory territory, lol. But they have done one time only due to consumer feedback things before. It wouldn't be the craziest thing. Maybe they'll be like "after seeing the overwhelming response on social media with a demand for smaller expansions, Hasbro feels there's enough demand to justify taking on a $1,000,000~ risk on tooling and etc.

I know there's been a lot of "they're not doing enough or anything to market this" complaints from various people, but I feel there's been a lot of articles and gameplay videos and etc compared to other projects.

Also, I know that one miniature isn't the same work comparison to a high quality action figure, but in my head I'm thinking "well, one action figure probably has the same amount of idea sketches as one miniature..... And there's been design work done on 76 figures, counting the stretch goals."

That's a load of pre planning to just throw out. Probably the most design and testing and creating work for any project they've done. Heroquest was just a slight edit proofing of rules and redone artwork. I don't even remember them mentioning wanting to continue down the line with additional expansion reprints and new expansions for heroquest, unlike with AoA. It felt more like a collectible reprint, but one that people would more likely crack open and play with.

I guess the big thing is.......will people really look at Haslab negatively if they were to release it anyway or redo the campaign quickly with tiers or whatever? I think people would be more overjoyed instead of calling them liars or whatever. I feel having four failed campaigns in a row would look worse. It could be a start to a reworking of Haslab as a whole for all we know.

[rudyvalentine]

I think Heroquest was more involved than that. All new molds for all new sculpts. And not just the figures. Open doors, closed doors, tables, chests, fireplaces, etc. The back of the box claims 70+ miniatures. Yes there are some duplicates in that count but still all new models with 90+ cards featuring all new art. Point is, lots of plastic and new work in that big box.

After it raised close to 3.8 million, I think it solidified the viability of the expansions. They’ve been dropping new ones every 4-6 months since it released.

[brak88]

Originally Posted by rudyvalentine

I think Heroquest was more involved than that. All new molds for all new sculpts. And not just the figures. Open doors, closed doors, tables, chests, fireplaces, etc. The back of the box claims 70+ miniatures. Yes there are some duplicates in that count but still all new models with 90+ cards featuring all new art. Point is, lots of plastic and new work in that big box.

After it raised close to 3.8 million, I think it solidified the viability of the expansions. They’ve been dropping new ones every 4-6 months since it released.

Oh absolutely. There was still a lot of tooling and remaking molds and etc, but there wasn't a lot of all new character design and having it for within old figures work involved. That's also part of why this costs more than Heroquest....all the hours and work of the gameplay designers coming up with all new stuff vs. just updated art, not that that isn't a lot of work also.

There's a more direct template with making plastic versions of the cardboard doorframes, vs. designing the new walls which are shaped and connect differently and seem to even play differently from ROTV walls and FOTA turrets and how they balance with old units in mind and scenarios and how they'll be utilized in them.

But that's all been done. Sure, the figures aren't finalized, but they're most of the way there. That cost has already happened and been accounted for, unless they worked pro bono unless the campaign goes through.

And yeah, it solidified the viability, but they didn't seem to have planned it out ahead of time. I dunno, I'm just hoping for the best and thinking of anywhere possibilities. I'm not saying don't buy it, it'll happen anyway. This is still going to be the best bang for the buck and best way to support it. Just be careful with buying 5+ sets lol.

Personally, I think it's weird for people to have wanted this game to come back as a regularly producing products, but then only wanted like 2-3 boosters worth of figures. I get the cost and personal taste regarding individual factions aspect, but it just seems odd to me.

[nyys]

Just passing along from a couple of people who have some clout in the industry. They've made it clear that it's speculation, but I can't imagine they're completely shooting from the hip on their guesses. :grainofsalt:

[brak88]

Oh totally. I'm purely guesstimating too. But I'm not a successful toy and game company so I don't know for sure lol.

[Heirloom]

Originally Posted by nyys

Another follow-up on the latest Board Games Insider with Ignacy Trzewiczek and Stephen Buonocore. They got a lot of feedback from their followers on their HeroScape 'predictions.' They're both steadfast in their speculation. Ignacy thinks the game will be produced regardless, that this campaign is for marketing reasons only and Stephen thinks it will be relaunched with tiers if it doesn't fund.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/295...laytesting-253

Buonocore is super plugged-in to the board games industry, but I don’t think he understands how and why Toy Giant Hasbro does what it does. I’m taking them at their word that this is our 1 shot.

[rudyvalentine]

This take also discourages people from backing. If I’m rooting for the campaign to succeed I don’t really want someone with a decent following telling everyone it’s probably coming one way or another.

[ThrasherDarkrai]

Originally Posted by Heirloom

Buonocore is super plugged-in to the board games industry, but I don’t think he understands how and why Toy Giant Hasbro does what it does. I’m taking them at their word that this is our 1 shot.

This gets to the right of it, I think. If you're approaching this from the perspective of a board game/tabletop company, relaunching the campaign makes perfect sense; other companies in that space have turned flagging campaigns around by relaunching them. Heck, if things were solely up to Avalon Hill, they probably would attempt to do precisely that if the Heroscape campaign fails (which, to be clear, is far from guaranteed at this point in time, as earlier discussions in this thread indicate; the campaign is only over when it's over)! Things aren't solely up to Avalon Hill, however; AH is ultimately beholden to Hasbro, which changes the calculus somewhat. I fully expect that AH will attempt to advocate for relaunching the campaign internally if the need arises, but the fact that they will have to convince Hasbro execs of a relaunch's feasibility renders the prospect less likely than if they were an independent board gaming/tabletop company.

[brak88]

Originally Posted by rudyvalentine

This take also discourages people from backing. If I’m rooting for the campaign to succeed I don’t really want someone with a decent following telling everyone it’s probably coming one way or another.

Yeah, but then they'd pay more buying stuff individually and wouldn't be getting the exclusives. I'm thinking for the most part, people waiting that long to get smaller amounts for more money either have no previous experience with the game and don't want to get the super deluxe for hardcore fans version, just don't have the funds, or really only want select bits of what's being offered did to personal tastes, which is kind of easy, but also hard to estimate such exact tastes and division possibilities.

Which is another point....would the two exclusives get another shot if it was relaunched? It would be great to get like a last week cut the funding goal in half, stretch goals at every 1,000 passed at that point so we'd get Raelin at 9,000 sales. That'd probably get real momentum going. I can wish haha.

In hindsight, it is kind of an odd expectation that they needed to really rely on basically half of the 8K purchases to be from brand new players wanting a deluxe edition of a game they never played before. But I dunno. This was a mass market gave back in the day. They must've expected more people that had stepped away to see this as a great way to come back and not have to rely on a small but dedicated die hard cult following.

I'm curious to know a rough estimate of both people that had been playing with more than just a very casual collection of just 1 ROTV and/or SOTM at home during it's prime and how many emails AllThingsHeroscape sent out to buyers Scott y this campaign.

[Shurrig]

At the very least this Haslab is bringing old and new players of the game back into the discussion. I'm encouraged by the amount of people I've shown this game to and their reactions, and I'm excited for what's to come, regardless of the outcome.

[ThrasherDarkrai]

So there's a new Wargamer article (link here) that just dropped wherein Chris Nadeau (Encarmine) talks a bit about what'll happen if Age of Annihilation fails to fund. This section seems like the most relevant to the conversation going on right now:

"Are you worried the game probably won’t come back at all if you don’t make it now?" we ask Nadeau.

"I don’t know," he says. "The question would be: is it the right time? Is it the right economic climate? These are the questions that swirl around something like a crowdfunding campaign."

"Did we miss the mark in terms of our data on the size of the community, or their desire to get in at a price point that high; to go in at the all-in $250 offering?" he adds.

"It would open the door to ask if HeroScape is something we want to continue to do, and, if so, what does it look like? Does it still look like the same thing anymore?"

"As opposed to, if we do succeed, the conversation is: all right, what does next year’s line look like; what’s in there; how’re we going to grow that?

"Those are the two polar opposites of conversation we’d have come November 15, I guess."

"That’s that’s why this is an important moment for us, because it does represent something that feels like white space to the rest of the Avalon Hill portfolio," Nadeau says. "We want to see that succeed."