FT losing market share?

Maybe it is losing market share because everyone who might want a copy already
has one.

***
Oerjan Ohlson responded:

> Full Thrust is steadily losing market shares to the space combat games
***

'round these parts, the only space warfare game that does anything is BFG
(tm).

So, the reputed loss of share would be 1) lack of ties to already established
system, 2) lack of constant, or at least, yearly flow of new materials, both
figs and written 3) lack of store presense. Interestingly, reasons it's always
appealed to me.

The former ADB stuff gets met with the same responses all the time, and
everything else is treated as 'and everything else'.

At the big cons, SFB gets a good play, FT has several devoted and some
not-so tourney's, and everyone else is lucky if there's a company rep
running a demo.

Perceived point problems were issues with a small, but admittedly vocal, group
of players. Most of the rest would discuss, agree, and accept dysfunctions,
and have gentleman's (sorry, all male group of players) agreements, and go on
to play with enjoyment.

A group, I add, that STILL wistfully says 'oh yeah, we've GOT to play that
again'.

Please note that, as far as I can tell, 3) is a major reason for any slippage
in the US, and however you feel otherwise, means KR is missed.

Also, 2) translates roughly into 'Maybe it is losing market share because
everyone who might want a copy already has one'.

I'd have to add game mechanics to expand beyond a tendency to only meeting
engagements, and developed operational and strategy campaigns would probably
help.

The_Beast

> So, the reputed loss of share would be 1) lack of ties to already

#1 has never been a major issue with myself or my standard gaming group.

As to #3 I only ever got into GZG stuff because there was a yearly warehouse
sale in my area. As I was strolling down the rows of product stacked ceiling
high I happened upon a *single* copy each of FT, DS, and SG.

If that magical moment had never occured I would have never gotten into the
GZG thing. Instead spending my starship fighting time with SFB, surface combat
time devoted to 40k and Battletech.

As nice as the GZG folks are to deal with the simple fact remains that it
costs a ton of bread to ship stuff from the UK. Especially if you like to
order bunches of stuff at a time.

Now that I'm all into GZG stuff (storyline, rules, etc.) it's #2 that's
burning me up. I want books!:)

> As nice as the GZG folks are to deal with the simple fact remains that

Huh? Where are you shipping to? It was always cheaper for me to buy straight
from GZG than from a US distributor. Not to mention the fact that I'd get it
quickly and I'd have access to the newly designed figures.

I would have to agree that at least in the states the primary reason that
sales would drop would be a lack of presence in the stores/no US
distributor. Of the four gaming stores within a 50 mile range of my house (one
of which is just starting so doesn't have much stock yet, including no space
games) 2 of them have BFG and 3 of them have SFB. I also found other games
like Babylon 5 and Armada in at least one store. One of them still has a copy
of Full Thrust and FB2, but they have been there for years, and he has no
intent to order any other FT stuff as there is no US distributor.

So far the only store I have been able to organize a FT game at is the new
store. But even there I fear that if they can't get easy access to product to
sell they might drop support for the game. After all they are in business to
sell product, not just to provide us a place to play. And as most of us here
in the states have no other place for public gatherings to play games but the
stores, this can limit exposure to games which the store does not carry. This
could easily account for market share loss.

[quoted original message omitted]

> Huh? Where are you shipping to? It was always cheaper for me to buy

> that I'd get it quickly and I'd have access to the newly designed

I've only managed to buy GZG stuff from two US shops in the past five years: a
bunch at the ECC cons and from small gaming store in southern Delaware. So
can't speak towards GZG US Distributors and shipping.

To their credit GZG bends over backwards to keep extra costs low.

Maybe it's just a hangup that only applies to me but when going through the
online store I have this recurring thought "they're in the UK...going to cost
mucho bucks to ship it here." Reviewing GZG's shipping policy on their site
should take care of this but it doesn't.
:(

I think lack of a US distributor is hurting. It is hard to get new players
when the rule books are not easy to obtain. I have run a couple of FT demos at
my local hobby store and had great fun and a great turnout. But when I told
the intrested players the only way they could get the rulebooks was to order
them from England the next question was could I make a copy of my rules. Yes
ordering from England is fairly quick and not that expensive but the "Me" and
"Now" generation do not want to wait so they will go on to other games where
the rule can be picked up at a local store.

> On Wed, Feb 11, 2004 at 07:30:56AM -0800, Bruce Gelinas wrote:

Perhaps a better question would be: why don't the _stores_ order
directly from Jon? Possibilities:

- they don't know how cheap and fast that might be;

- it's too difficult for them to deal with a foreign supplier (can't see
why really);

- they're already tied to using a single distributor who'll drop them if
they go elsewhere, even for things that distributor doesn't carry.

Perhaps we should be talking to the game distributors and getting _them_
to order in bulk from Jon...

Of course, a strong codicle is based on the fact most of this info has to do
with experience with stores in the US. While that's where most of the business
is, it's not the only place that gaming takes place.

However, in most communities I've seen, either it's at a store or
store-connected club, or at individuals' homes, which tends to be right
off the radar...

***
> Huh? Where are you shipping to? It was always cheaper for me to buy

...

To their credit GZG bends over backwards to keep extra costs low.

Maybe it's just a hangup that only applies to me but when going through the
online store I have this recurring thought "they're in the UK...going to cost
mucho bucks to ship it here." Reviewing GZG's shipping policy on their site
should take care of this but it doesn't.:(
***

Which IS the common viewpoint, no matter what our experience may be. Jon's
willing to jump through hoops to make sales for me, as in above and beyond,
and I'm STILL leery of making orders.

***
I've only managed to buy GZG stuff from two US shops in the past five years: a
bunch at the ECC cons and from small gaming store in southern Delaware. So
can't speak towards GZG US Distributors and shipping.
***

Which may help to explain part of KR's difficulties, though only a small part.
I know most of my large pile of lead is bought bargain bin, but even that was
at least where people could see and contemplate.

> Perhaps we should be talking to the game distributors and getting

I'm fairly certain Jon's already spoken to this; his business model doesn't
seem to allow enough discount to make distributor's attention worthwhile, if
I'm remembering correctly.

The_Beast (who points out problems, never solutions)

> On Wed, Feb 11, 2004 at 10:38:20AM -0600, Doug Evans wrote:

> I'm fairly certain Jon's already spoken to this; his business model

Ah, fair enough. So it's really a matter of people going to their local game
stores and saying "there's this really great game and miniatures line you
could stock, you have to do business with a guy in England but DON'T PANIC
because he's easier to deal with than the distributor you use for everything
else"...

> Perhaps a better question would be: why don't the _stores_ order

Having worked in a couple of game/hobby stores one that ordered from a
few select distributors and one that would order from just about any company,
I have seen the pros and cons to both.

> - they don't know how cheap and fast that might be;

Depends on what the minimum order, initial order, and discount rate for dealer
are. For some stores a couple of hundred dollars is steep. If the discount
isn't great and the supplier also has direct sales, the store is essentialy
competing with the supplier. Plus, most discounts are based on dollar amounts
so spreading out purchases across multiple distributors can cut into the
bottom line. Most hobby shops I know aren't exactly raking in the money.

> - it's too difficult for them to deal with a foreign supplier (can't

There is a mis-perception that once it crosses the ocean it's "too
hard." Heck, two time zones is "hard" for some people. A foreign supplier is
harder to deal with for communicating with and even something as simple as the
exchange rate. With the Internet it is getting easier but there still is the
perception that it's much harder than calling someone in California.

> - they're already tied to using a single distributor who'll drop them

I don't know of too many distributors that do this. They usually offer bigger
discounts as you purchase more. It ties you to a distributor because your
profits go up.

The one store who ordered from a smaller amount of sources covered the
majority of what people where asking for. There were always some exceptions
and if demand was high enough, we would put an order together from another
supplier. We also end up "stuck" with product that people
said they'd buy and never did (about 1/2 of those people didn't want to
wait the week it took us to put an order together and ordered directly.)

The other store who would order from almost anyone got stuck with stuff that
just wouldn't sell. The demand was there for some items, just not all.

The other sad thing I have noticed is that gamers can be impatient and greedy.
They want it now, and they want a discount. Ordering directly from a company
usually doesn't give a store a big margin to "cut deals" with. Also, when the
customer finds out he can order it directly (and often get it faster) they
start ordering directly.

> Ah, fair enough. So it's really a matter of people going to their

I have done this. There are a couple of us that have gone down and played in
the store and pointed out that the owner could order direct. Having
been burned before he's a little gun-shy plus his answer is along the
lines of "Yeah it might be easier but I already am dealing with the other guys
and they have everything else I need."

As has been pointed out, to get a game to spread like wildfire you need to get
it into the stores so people can look at the cool minis and flip through the
rulebook. I used to sell more games by letting people look through my copy of
the rules and telling them how good it was. Seeing the game played can
actually help, too.

I have to echo a few of the sentiments here. A couple of months ago I ran a
series of FT demos at a local game store. They loved it and loved the GZGs
minis I brought for the game. The number one question they had was: Where can
I get it? I told them that GZG no longer had a North American distributor and
they would have to order it online. To say that they were disappointed by this
prospect was an understatement. Some of the disappointed were of the "support
your local game store" mentality. Others where teens who didn't have access to
a credit card.

The owner, who had played FT in the passed was initially pleased with my
demos, said there was a lot of talk of making FT a regular feature at his
store. However, that talk died down soon after the demos when players realized
that they couldn't get the game as easily as they could get any other.

I think we better rethink the whole North American distribution issue.

Later,

I asked my local store owner this question (Waterloo, run by the
owner/creator of Fantasy Games Unlimited and he hates GW so much that he
refuses to carry any more of their product. Nice guy:)). He has no problem
going with whatever distributor can get him the stuff he wants, but GZG
doesn't show up in any of his distributor books. It still shows up as "go
through GeoHex" followed by "GeoHex is dead". Which means he could try to
place an order via phone to the UK (yeah, right) or go through the website
(which, IIRC, doesn't say anything about what to do if you're a store). Either
way it's too much of a hassle for him for minimal returns. I personally don't
think it's unreasonable for him to expect a nice, convenient manner in which
to order product.

As a follow-up to the "Me and Now"... I've been talking up GZG for the
last 2 years (since I started going there). I ran a couple of really small,
really basic FT demos down there. Everybody (over a dozen) liked it and wanted
to play more, but balked at ordering figs from a
none-too-spectacular
catalog from the UK. BFG is horrible, SFB is too complex, B5W is dead and they
don't know about Starmada. They want to play FT, but want to see what it is
they're buying. What am I supposed to tell them?

David

> -----Original Message-----

Watching this discussion and some experience over the last two days, I have
something I can add to this conversation.
> From time to time I get interested in SGII, and GZG miniatures. At the
All in all I am extremely frustrated. I'd be willing to lay down some real
money for some good power armor if I knew what it looked like, and I know that
GZG has some I like, but I can't for the life of me even tell you what forces
they belong to because there are no pictures to match to names!!!!

The War Room in Atlanta (Duluth) Georgia has a good bit of Full Thrust and
some Dirtside figures to boot. They also have some of the resin 25mm vehicles
as well. All things considered Kirk has a very good selection of Full Thrust
ships.

> What am I supposed to tell them?

Download the PDF catalogs?

Thanks, but I addressed that issue already. The catalog pics
are...ok...at
best.

> -----Original Message-----

Or everyone on the list should just be a FT "crack" dealer and order an extra
set of rulebooks. If you are at a con and someone wants to buy a
set - you have one set ready for their instant gratification.  You then
take that money and order another set (or two if the demand is high).

Considering the amount of unpainted lead that most people have, purchasing an
extra set of rulebooks to sit around is probably not a huge temporary
investment for an increased return in getting more people to play. For example
if you put down about $75 for two sets of rulebooks (approximate price for 2,
20 pound FT 3 Book deals) before putting on a demo or convention game, chances
are you will sell one or both sets to a new player. People then have the
ability to see the rulebooks, the miniatures, and you gain the benefit of the
immediate gaming enthusiasm to make a convert to FT.

If you sell both sets of rules, you end up even money-wise and you might
have two new players to the game who have already invested in the rules.

Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary (just kidding)

--Binhan

> -----Original Message-----

***
Or everyone on the list should just be a FT "crack" dealer and order an extra
set of rulebooks. If you are at a con and someone wants to buy a set
- you have one set ready for their instant gratification.  You then take
that money and order another set (or two if the demand is high).
***

I already have an extra set, that includes FTII, MT, FB1, FB2, AND EFSB.
;->=

However, they were in a bargain bins, and I felt a little guilty not leaving
'em there for folks to stumble upon. On the other hand, I've seen the bins
dumped on occasion, and didn't want them to go that way. I did hold myself to
one copy of Galactic Starfire, though.

What I really need to do is start playing pickup games in places like unused
class rooms and the student union here at work. Someone seeing a game in
progress can go a long way to picking up newbies.

The_Beast

> On Wednesday, Feb 11, 2004, at 21:31 Europe/London, B Lin wrote:

> If you sell both sets of rules, you end up even money-wise and you

Well, I've stuck as much promo lines as I can into PP for FT and the GZG
minis....

Actually, I think a FT-lite would be good, even if it was slightly
crippled (no ship design, no FTL and a limited number of FB ships). In
fact, I reckon that a FT-lite under Fleet book rules with good illos
for the vector movement (I recommend Paul Lesack who did PP) and a couple of
smaller ships from the various forces (or an escort, a light cruiser, a heavy
cruiser and a battlewagon) would be a great
introductory pack. Say this pack had two sides/forces, and 4 or 8 minis
in it in a blister pack too as a starter kit. It'd work for me.

There again, that's exactly the method that I've adopted with Power
Projection. Except for the minis ;-)

Cheers,

I concur! The only real problem that I (and our local gaming group) seem to
have in getting more folks hooked on FT is not so much the lack of rulesets
(I've
got three myself). It's the perceived lack of available ships in stores. Yes,
before the winds of derision hit me, I'd like to comment that there are lot's
of great sites online to purchase ships but it's a little tough trying to hook
someone on my and others, favorite space combat game when if they ask you
where you got those great [brigade,GZG, etc] ships and you tell them that they
can get them online. Not in insurmountable response but one that cannot be
ignored. Also, in this day and age, if store owners can't at least sell them
with some small markup then their less likely to encourage folk to
use up table space during game days/times as opposed to a game that they
can sell.

One personal solution, that I've followed is to build a couple of "throw away"
task forces of ships that don't fit my collection, are excess or just stuff
that I've picked up and then offer them at cost to new players just to
encourage them to play. Nothing spurs on a new FT'er like having his own ships

Please comment as needed (God help me!)

Pat Connaughton St.Louis, MO

PS - I'm a big fan of both Brigade and GZG ships myself

[quoted original message omitted]

Everything I was going to say has been said. My store's example is that my
partner does the ordering from one of several US distributors and it's easy to
do. He gets a fax from Gameboard every day listing restocks and new products.
He checks that list daily, and highlights things he wants to order. He doesn't
only order from Gameboard (they don't care everything), he does talk to other
distributors and we do have their catalogues.

Now, I could remind him that we are out of FT books, but frankly, I want FT3.
I don't want to have new players buy FT and FB1 to get the rules. I second the
idea of a free Full Thrust Lite, which should probably come with a product
list and some pictures of the miniatures. Also include a couple ship designs,
new or from FB1, plus cut outs for the ships, but no design rules, so players
can play the game as soon as they get it.

And a little funny: my partner saw something about the Phalon ship miniatures
being very cheap and ordered hordes some time ago. You should have seen the
look on his face when he saw what they looked like. We still have hordes of
Phalon miniatures. We even priced them really cheap (passing the savings onto
the customers).:) or is it:(?

Here's an idea, not sure how feasible it is, though. Place a SSD in each
miniature package.

Hmm, we have several B5 Wars miniatures hanging around. Maybe I should work up
some SSDs for them to hand out if they are bought for Full Thrust; that is if
we do get more books (if we do order we should get DS and SG, also; but I
don't play those myself).

Glen Dragon's Lair Games Ft. Lauderdale, FL

http://www.adventuregamestore.com/index.html

On Wed, 11 Feb 2004 06:43:03 -0800 "Karl A. Bergman"
> <karlbergman@charter.net> writes:

> <snip> But even there I fear that if they can't get easy access to

Son of a toadstool! I get so tired of that situation.

It's only been since I moved to Saint Louis in 1986 that I have encountered
this practice. I guess I was spoiled by years of war games in the Public
Library meeting room in Sacramento (supplemented by two
homes with war games playing owners with dedicated tables - thanks Randy
V. V. And Alan L. - for the games) for free (If the public was allowed
in, it cost for 'private' events) and while I know that free may no longer be
an option even at the tax supported libraries of the world, there are other
places to play war games besides shops fer heavens' sake!

Yes, it's easy: Yes, it free (well unless you feel coerced to play only games
the shop carries (then it isn't free is it?) even if the source of the
coercion is an over active guilt trip); Yes, it's nice to play and buy at the
same place. But sometimes the 'path less chosen' might be the best path. That
said, we have a fine collection of supportive stores (4 that we use once a
month for 4 games in a month and at least four other stores that sell
miniatures of one genre or another.)

My regrets for those who have no other place to play war games.

Gracias,

> Laserlight wrote:

> Huh? Where are you shipping to? It was always cheaper for me to buy

> that I'd get it quickly and I'd have access to the newly designed

Me, too, both in Canada and Louisiana. In fact, even with Geo-Hex's 20%
off going-out-of-business discount, figures were _still_ cheaper shipped
from Britain.

I will say a couple of things about the market share issue.

First, I had a friend in Canada who produced an RPG product with a
partner. It was well received, but it took _forever_ to come up with the
follow-up volume. This killed interest and sales. People gobble up new
things. They do get tired of game systems, and they do get interested when a
new supplement comes out. Supplements are the life blood of games, whether it
is a repackaging of old material or brand new material.

Second, lack of a store presence is killing interest in GZG stuff in North
America. I was at the main game store in New Orleans over the weekend. They
had the FT rule book, the DS2 book, and FB1. They no longer carried GZG minis
at all. Needless to say, most of the store had converted over to GW. This has
been mentioned on this list before. GZG is a small company, and the fact is
that Jon can make more profit doing mail order to North America even if North
America becomes nothing more than a small, niche market. Some have criticized
this, but Jon's business model seems to be based on streamlined mail order,
something that the rest of the world doesn't have much of a problem with. It
may
_never_ be too wildly popular in North America because of this. Instead
of lamenting, we should realize we should simply snort and behave like the
elitist snobs that we deservedly are! We have the superior product in our
hands, and that's that! (I know some will complain about lack of a prese! nce
meaning they can't convince people to play miniatures with them that aren't
based on Warhammer. To them I say, "You have friends who play minis? And
you're complaining???")

Third, the miniatures are what make Jon profitable, not the rules. You
buy one set of rules per player _maximum_ and usually far less than
that. You buy many, many figures per player. Knowing a little about the
publishing industry, I can tell you that the mark up is considerably less with
rules than with miniatures. Few can make money at rule books. That being said,
Jon's figures are pretty darn good. Having popular,
competing rules -- as long as they are generic enough to use any
company's figures -- is good for Jon's business even if FT goes down the
dumpster in terms of players. It's hard for Jon to justify spending time
working on rules instead of working on figures. I'd be interested in knowing
how many hours Jon puts into developing a figure line comparied to working on
a rule book. I'd imagine that his return on investment is
_way_ better for figures.

So, short of Jon farming out the rule book part of the business (and don't
think we haven't suggested it on the playtest list!) the rules will always
take a back seat to the miniatures, and putting food on Jon's table.

> You buy one set of rules per player _maximum_ and usually far less

What? You don't buy a backup set?

Seriously, if the local gamers showed a hint of interest in spaceship battles,
I'd have a spare copy of FTFB on hand if possible. If they want more stuff, I
would NOT say "You'll have to order it from the
UK"--they don't know how easy it is.  I'd say "Sure thing, those FSE
ships sure look cool, don't they? The best way to do it is to get a battle
pack, that's about $25 and you get <whatever>, I'll order it for you and it'll
be here in about two weeks."

You mean when they're up to date. The only one's they got up date back to
2002.

Later,

"Bradley, Jason (US - Minneapolis)" <jabradley@deloitte.com> írta:

> Watching this discussion and some experience over the last two

Greetings!

Just to add my 2 cents... Yep, they are missing a lot of stuff, but a bit of
help could be to download the catalogue and the flyers in the download
section. As far as I've heard they are working on getting pictures to all
items.

Greetings,

Akos Büky

From: "David Mihail" <dmihail2@cox.net>

> GZG doesn't show up in any of his distributor books. It still shows

NOTE TO JON: Put up a "retailer enquiries" link on your site.

Now.

> What? You don't buy a backup set?

I meant on average. It's very, very rare to have more than a rule book per
player in a group. Usually once you hit a couple of rule books in a club,
someone decides not to bother buying one as they can use or borrow someone
else's. In all my years of gaming, including roleplaying, it was rare to have
more than 1 rule book per 2 players.

For the record, I have one copy of all the GZG rule books, and the Earthforce
sourcebook, except for SG2. That I have two copies; my main copy is beat up
and I wanted two sets of chits.

> In all my years of gaming, including roleplaying, it was rare to have

With the exception of being jobless, having low funds, etc. your experience
has been the exact opposite of mine. At one point the gaming group I was a
member of reached 14 members.

If we started a new system it was only a matter of a few weeks before the
entire group at least had the core book in hand.

My current group is *much* smaller and I'm starting to see some reluctance in
purchasing new books based on a whim. But it still happens.;)

Agreed -- our group typically tries out a new system at least once a
month. The more people who have the rules, the better the game experience. I
might read a rule on morale that someone else missed while I missed a rule
about combat that they read.

Part of this has been to try to find "the" set for different styles of
play and then stick with it.  SG2 is our Sci-fi rulebook of choice while
Ares fast-play has become our fantasy ruleset.  And FT for space, of
course, with the occasional Starmada thrown in. Interestingly, Ares looks a
lot like what I imagine "SG2 Fantasy" would look like.

Nick

[quoted original message omitted]