Rotation
No, not that rotation. I want to talk a little bit about the concept of rotation in a TCG. I've enjoyed the discussions going on related to the insert cards, so I thought I'd see what people think about this issue.
So, here is my theory.
For a TCG to have sustained legs longer than, say, 2 years, regardless of the strength of the IP behind it, rotation is a must. And here is why.
TCGs are at their heart, a hobby. I think that most people, even those who are completely passionate about their hobby, burn out after a year or two (maybe three). Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions who go on and on (look at the people showing up over on CK's blog), but most move on.
So, a TCG, to have the afore mentioned legs, must have new players. As a generalization, new players are not willing to buy into a game with a thousand cards of backhistory (or more!). Both from a learning curve point of view, as well as a purchase level required point of view. Otherwise, a player may enjoy a free demo involving a limited card set, but when they realize the towering pile of history about to fall on them, they go in another direction.
What does this mean a company making TCGs? Well, here is what I think. They need to either annouce rotation from the beginning (and *cough cough* stick to it), or decide that they are doing a game that they want to last about 2 years, and plan a new game to pick up when that one (inevitably) runs out of steam and can't get new players.
What does this mean to games I worked on in the past?
Interesting question...I've been chatting a little with Jason about it and he raised some interesting points along with a little model. I'll let him present it here if he wants. When pressed for an opinion, I would say that it could have added a couple of years of life to LotR, assuming are marketing department focused completely on getting new players...not something it seemed like they had a lot of sucess with (see earlier theory on lack of rotation foiling them). SWCCG? It would have had to have been instititued by 1997 to have a prayer, and our design team didn't have the understanding back then to really make take advantage...to be clear, only WotC apparently did (when did they announce the policy?).
I guess the evergreen SWCCG community would argue that rotation would have done more damage than good. They still haven't rotated a card out, have they? I don't claim to have paid much attention to the structure that currently backs their play, though I hope they still get some joy from the game (but for gosh sakes, they should be nice). Anyways, I'd argue that is their fanatical "never going to burn out on the hobby" community doing rotation in their own way by redesigning stuff they don't like.
Anyways....curious what other poeple think.
So, here is my theory.
For a TCG to have sustained legs longer than, say, 2 years, regardless of the strength of the IP behind it, rotation is a must. And here is why.
TCGs are at their heart, a hobby. I think that most people, even those who are completely passionate about their hobby, burn out after a year or two (maybe three). Don't get me wrong, there are exceptions who go on and on (look at the people showing up over on CK's blog), but most move on.
So, a TCG, to have the afore mentioned legs, must have new players. As a generalization, new players are not willing to buy into a game with a thousand cards of backhistory (or more!). Both from a learning curve point of view, as well as a purchase level required point of view. Otherwise, a player may enjoy a free demo involving a limited card set, but when they realize the towering pile of history about to fall on them, they go in another direction.
What does this mean a company making TCGs? Well, here is what I think. They need to either annouce rotation from the beginning (and *cough cough* stick to it), or decide that they are doing a game that they want to last about 2 years, and plan a new game to pick up when that one (inevitably) runs out of steam and can't get new players.
What does this mean to games I worked on in the past?
Interesting question...I've been chatting a little with Jason about it and he raised some interesting points along with a little model. I'll let him present it here if he wants. When pressed for an opinion, I would say that it could have added a couple of years of life to LotR, assuming are marketing department focused completely on getting new players...not something it seemed like they had a lot of sucess with (see earlier theory on lack of rotation foiling them). SWCCG? It would have had to have been instititued by 1997 to have a prayer, and our design team didn't have the understanding back then to really make take advantage...to be clear, only WotC apparently did (when did they announce the policy?).
I guess the evergreen SWCCG community would argue that rotation would have done more damage than good. They still haven't rotated a card out, have they? I don't claim to have paid much attention to the structure that currently backs their play, though I hope they still get some joy from the game (but for gosh sakes, they should be nice). Anyways, I'd argue that is their fanatical "never going to burn out on the hobby" community doing rotation in their own way by redesigning stuff they don't like.
Anyways....curious what other poeple think.
posted by Tom at 10:08 PM
12 Comments:
I would never disagree with your 20/20 hindsight.
Wait! My last comment sounded like a passive aggressive jab. It wasn't. I am saying that I agree but i don't think things would have been different even with this knowledge.
Rotation is key for any evergreen core hobby TCG/CCG/Minis/Collectible Game.
I still think you could have called them a Southern Villian.
Most of the games I've worked on... hell, most of the TCGs anybody has worked on... didn't last long enough to consider this problem. Agreed that it would have helped ST, SW, and LOTR if it were done properly.
Announcing it out of the gate for Wars (or any other game) is a mistake, though. Says to the charter subscribers that we're going to start over with set 3 or so. You should do it when you have to.
Entry points are part of this strategy, too. Which SWCCG had virtually none of.
Here's most of what I e-mailed Tom:
Even if everyone knows that rotation is the "right" thing to do, there's the hurdle you have to get over (and explain to your bosses/accounting, etc.)
Suppose your product is making $X and you can do one of two things:
1) Lose 10% profits each year. So your profits in succeeding years are .9X, .81X, .73X, .66X, .60X, .54X, etc.
2) Lose 30% profits this year and then stabilize. So your profits after this year are .7X, .7X, .7X, .7X, etc. Maybe there's even a slight increase.
It's not easy to explain to the people who control the money that you'll lose a lot of customers and revenue right off (not to mention the negative PR hit) but that it'll all be better once it stabilizes. I remember hearing once (so take that for what it's worth) that a majority of CEOs surveyed said they would prefer a plan that doubled their company's revenue next year if it meant the company would be out of business in 5 years over a slow, steady growth pattern.
(And, of course, businesses in category 1) always believe they can "right the ship" if they just make a better product, innovate, market better, etc. Which is sometimes true, depending on the product, but not often for TCGs.)
What I use above is a gross simplification, but it's probably in the ballpark of what actually happens: Whenever someone announces rotation (I remember it for both Magic and Mage Knight), there is voluminous gnashing of teeth and vows of "I'll never play that game again, they don’t care about their players," and so on. Whether those people actually quit is another question, but I'll assume most of them do. And only the biggest games can absorb that 30% (or 20% or 35% or whatever it is) hit. SWCCG in 1996-97 probably could have. I'm not sure it could have in 1998-99, but I don't know all the financial details.
In short, I agree that, strictly from a gameplay standpoint, rotation is the right thing to do. But as you know, actually pulling the trigger on it is a risky move and one that not everyone's willing to make. I'd like to have seen how it would have worked out for you guys, to have people know from day 1 that it was going to happen. I think that's the only way you have a chance at making it work unless you're so huge that you can take the financial hit. I bet that, now that they're owned by Hasbro, WotC would have a tough time pulling that off if they tried it with Magic today.
Announcing it out of the gate for Wars (or any other game) is a mistake, though. Says to the charter subscribers that we're going to start over with set 3 or so. You should do it when you have to.
Chuck, my only problem with that is that people buying into Magic right now with the intent of playing Type 2 already know their cards will be obsolete in a couple years. And it hasn't seemed to hurt them much.
Again, it's probably like my assessment above, except that the "hit" comes sooner and (I would think) will be lesser. If you have X total potential customers and announce you're going to rotate right out of the gate, you might "lose" a certain number of those people (say, 20%). But, theoretically, those people will still stick around once rotation comes into effect.
Naturally, some people will still complain or just not know what was the plan from the start. But some of those people probably still won't care -- they got into the game because they liked the property. Plus, we can never really tell how many people leave a game because they don't like how it's played any more ("I can't beat all those old rare cards.") and might actually want rotation. I'm not saying I would have stuck around for tournaments, but I might have at least played Trek a little more casually if they would have eliminated all the stupid stuff from the first few sets. Would people like me have been enough to offset the people who liked playing with 20 Kivas Fajos and 20 Amanda Rogers? Probably not, but it's something to consider.
I'm pretty sure that it is a lot better to do it right from the start than to do it in the middle. The people you lose ("I'm never going to play a game with rotation!") at the beginning seem small compared to the people you lose ("I hate those greedy bastards, I quit!") by doing it in the middle.
To say it another way, I have some serious doubts that people would choose to not play a game at launch do to rotation...much bigger factors are the appeal of the IP, pricing model, and demo experience.
CK, can you speak to the entry points you mentioned? I'm not sure how those can be effectively provided if I feel like I have to play thousands of dollars and pages of rules of catch up...lessen I'm missing something.
We did not announce rotation for Wars TCG before the game came out. Rotation was announced after the first set was released yet before the second set was released.
Was a second WARs set released? :)
I don't think rotation did much + or - for that game...the name on the other hand...I told a few people the name of the new game I was working on who hadn't heard of SWCCG...just blank looks on their faces.
Who am I to doubt what Trevor says -- but if it wasn't announced...it was heavily hinted at that rotation would happen with WARS.
The problem wasn't rotation alone, it was a serious of things that made the game lose its market (note: to this day I still think WARS was the best game put together). It started with poorly communicating the differences between WARS and SW -- and changing some things (movement) that probably didn't need changing.
The banning of (Talken?) the black main in the starter deck -- considering he was never sent to playtesting.
Having the ability to react into your own battles was always retarded.
High destiny mains.
In terms of rotation - the key to announcing it later is that way you can demonstrate what it means. Magic doesn't just have Type 2. The have sanctioned event have Extended, block, legacy, draft, sealed, hell - this year 2-Headed Giant Sealed/draft is a Pro format. All format are very healthy and all formats work to keep rotation from meaning "my cards get banned in two years".
The problem with the crew playing Decipher games has always been a complete unwillingness to explore the different format -- perhaps because the big events didn't use them (chicken or egg). Sealed SWCCG was a blast...but never caught on. Bespin and Beyond - good couple weekends. Episode I...well that flopped hard.
Good to read your stuff Tom. Hope everyone thing is going well for you.
Evan Fitzgerald
Jason and Chucks points go hand in hand. The reason why you can't easily convince a company to take a loss now for a longer legs in the game (Jason's) is because 95% of games don;t last long enough to recover (Chuck's).
And that means that your require either prescient like business abilities (in a very astable business) or balls of steel combined with deep pockets. Also a rarity in this niche industry who's boom time's have passed.
I think the only way you could do it at the start is with a very strong license, or the desire to only produce a moderate-selling game with low-profit targets.
And Trev, you make some good WARS points, but methinks movement needed changing. I can't tell you how many times I faced the SWCCG question on the cost for shuttling/docking from tournament level players.
Making all movement cost 1 wasn't the problem - it was making movement unlimited. The reasoning was because of "memory issues", which sounded like "its too complicated to have to remember if you moved something". It was seen as a big step back because it made it easier to make up for dropping someone in the wrong place and it was seen as a BS excuse since I never once recall someone complaining that having to remember if something moved was too tricky.
Frankly I thought it improved the game -- by making interaction easier. Just like the change to tapping for attrition and damage was a brilliant way to handle battle and make weapons actually useful (without making them too good).
Ok - considering the people here are perfectly suited to answer this. I am going to ask...
I have often thought that WARS would have been a good chance for a company to bypass the traditional way CCGs are sold. Instead of going through distributors and retail stores, why not the manufacturer be the only place to buy from online and have stores buy directly from the company?
The reason is that I don't think new games are sustainable at $4 per pack. That's why everyone buys from online stores at $2.50...the retail store gets screwed in the traditional system. So have the company sell boxes at $2 a pack...and preferred bricks and mortor stores buy at $1.50 - to sell at 2.50 (I know that's below their typical margin).
Obviously the numbers are total WAGs but the point is - remove the middle men because they don't do anything for the game. I can't believe anyone is going to potomoc and saying "hey - new game, I guess I will buy a couple boxes". Maybe I am wrong.
Anyway - I would love to hear your opinions.
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