It feels great to be back in the saddle!
Before I begin, first let me apologize for the delay. Between relocating to the ‘Burg, building a brewery, personal illness, and changes at CGL, I’ve been distracted from personal writing and using the interwebs for anything other than business. Hopefully with a little luck, and a whole lot of toil I’ll be able to provide more consistent offerings.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled content!
But where to begin…
I’ll spare you BattleTech’s current state in the gaming industry. There’s too much to cover in too little time. Needless to say, but between BattleTech’s dwindling and aging player base, the increasingly competitive game market, and the rising cost of game production, really, the only item worth discussing is managing existing capital resources to best use. This means reprioritizing—going back to basics. In today’s competitive gaming market that means the reintroduction of a solid box set and powerful web presence.
In a prior post I spoke about building a better box set. I want to readdress/update the earlier post (now 2 years out of date) with a few additional comments.
Following the same rational as before, any future box set should be built towards meeting the following objectives.
- Game (Line) introduction
- Repeat play
- Competitive wholesale & retail cost
- Follow up sales
- Incidental marketing
- Player retention
Using these objectives as guidelines I can frame the new box set. For reference, here is my original box set’s suggested contents.
My original box set’s contents:
- 24 unpainted, instantly ready-to-play plastic BattleMechs
- 2 premium BattleMech Miniatures
- 72-page pre-generated Record Sheets
- two tables cards
- two 18” x 22” mapsheets, with four different maps
- two six sided dice
- 318-page Total Warfare core rulebook
- 80-page full color introductory rulebook
- 4-page “Dig Deeper into BattleTech” expansion pamphlet
For a box set designed to sell the Total Warfare rule set version of BattleTech, it’s a strong set. The overall cost MSRP increase is comparable to the competition, and pound-for-pound is of very high value. Sadly, this particular set is too hyper-focused on one particular BattleTech ruleset, and a poor candidate for production in CGL’s resource-poor situation.
My new set would instead be organized accordingly:
- 22 unpainted, instantly ready-to-play plastic BattleMechs (12 IS & 10 CL)
- 2 premium BattleMech Miniatures
- associated game aids*
- Fast-Play BattleTech Rules*
- Game Line Introduction Pamphlet*
LETS FACE FACTS
To forestall argument, lets faces facts. It’s 2017, and BattleTech as it exists today is irrelevant as a viable flagship product. Such is the nature of the gaming industry, and the changing tastes of today’s tabletop gamers. And while Alpha Strike could have been a viable quick play alternative to new and possibly returning players, the opportunity was squandered. Instead, Alpha Strike was turned into another bloated gaming system. But one that could support its own box set if the company coffers could pay for it. (Whether or not it would be a success is another can of worms…)
For BattleTech to remain a relevant and commercially viable game line with any hope of future survival, it’s time to get smart, be smart, and act smart.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In business, this means evaluating the competition for what works, absorbing and then improving it. And we need look no further than Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) for our object of emulation. FFG are market heavy-hitters who understand the gaming industry and gamer tastes, who does a phenomenal job building approachable, economical, and well designed box set games. In fact, FFGs set their game goals in their first press release for the X-Wing game:
“(X-Wing) With its easy-to-learn rules system, beautifully detailed components, and range of gameplay options…”
Easy-to-learn rules, detailed components, and a range of gameplay options…these are the benchmarks of the modern tabletop game. The very same benchmarks that can be applied to a new BattleTech Box Set. While I’ll detail the contents of the new box set in another post, for now think of it as the BattleTech version of X-Wing.
But why would we want X-Wing BattleTech?
What’s important to accept is the idea that a new BattleTech box set needs to shed the rule bloat, extraneous print content, and focus on the new benchmarks of playability outlined above. But how does this type of game “work” for BattleTech? Meaning, how can a box set like X-Wing grow the player base without alienating the game’s dwindling supply of current customers?
This is where emulating FFG’s game expansion strategy can be uniquely modified for BattleTech.
Here’s the scenario—try to keep up.
Say we have X-Wing BattleTech: a box set that’s every bit as approachable and playable, with similar contents, etc., and is thematically themed to BattleTech’s fictional aesthetic. Where does this leave BattleTech’s other rulesets, i.e. Total War, Alpha Strike, and AToW, or the players who have an interest in playing them? Do we abandon three-decades of BattleTech? Other games have suffered similar fate—tossed aside, revised beyond recognition, or worse.
No way. BattleTech can thrive with ruleset inclusivity.
BATTLETECH CAN THRIVE WITH RULESET INCLUSIVITY
The solution: turn BattleTech’s other ruleset play-components into expansions for the new box set.
Total War Expansion: includes maps, tables, record sheets.
Alpha Strike Expansion: includes cards, tables, measuring aid.
Ruleset expansion packs allow players to convert and expand their gaming experience in a scalable fashion without pushing aside older rulesets. In this fashion, the new rules become valuable additions to the new box set, while simultaneously lending new life to older supplements supported by Total War and Alpha Strike as new players are exposed through the expansion packs.
Having ruleset expansion packs in-turn, dovetails into another contentious area of argument: free rulesets.
While it may seem contrary to the corporate good by giving away rulesets for free. Take a moment to access the situation. On it’s own now, BattleTech is a dwindling intellectual property incapable of generating new income through market share expansion. Players who continue to purchase BattleTech products already own the rulesets. They’re not going to purchase it a second time around, and BattleTech is a game system that remains fairly rule-consistent from one updated version to the next. In a nutshell, the rulesets don’t make CGL or BattleTech any new money. The money they generated has long since passed and long since been spent.
Instead, rulesets for Total War & Alpha Strike should be downloadable and free for play with print-on-demand options. Why? Because time and time again, rulesets are often a major hindrance, for example—as a cost of entry to a new game—preventing new players from “buying” into the game. Freely offering rulesets to potential players allows perspective customers the opportunity to “test the water” while the company makes use of a pre-existing and sales-stagnant product. Depending on BattleTech’s overarching product expansion strategy, rulesets in general can better be considered marketing or advertising materials, while the real money makers lie in expansion packs and new digital print products.
With a competitive and scalable box set offering rules expansion packages, it’s time to tackle another competitive emulation ripe for exploitation: Era Expansion Packs.
A chief strength of BattleTech is the many codified eras of game play available for play. Campaigns, pickup games, etc., can be set in any of the six main eras using most of the hundreds of available combat designs. Using the new box set framework, CGL could provide two types of Era Expansion Packs for the core set. The first set is an “Multi-Era Play” set that includes cards, game aids, etc., that modify the core set’s game pieces for specific era play, but covers all six major eras. Providing multiple era expansion adds another layer of playability to the initial box set by offering players the opportunity to play mixed era games, add new special rules, etc., with their existing set in a readily measurable fashion. The second type of Era Expansion Pack would revolve around era-specific combat units, or, as I like to call them, Era “Hero Units.” Now, this is where the idea of Era Expansion Packs get a little complicated, as these are two very effective package scopes available for execution.
The first executable package type is the multi-era expansion. Meaning, this expansion pack provides combat unit examples available across all eras. With extra game aids and special rules, this player pack expands the core game through size, scope, and variability, in addition to unique era play combos.
Multi-Era Pack Provisions:
4-8 Multi-Era Combat Designs
game aids for multi-era play (cards, tokens, etc.)
special rules
The size and cost of this expansion is the higher of the two version, but with good reason. The enhanced playability and variability of multi-era play means this expansion pack covers six eras worth of game aids—such as six unique cards per unit—in a single package.
The second type of era expansion pack is the Hero expansion pack. Built around 1-2 era-specific units, this expansion pack provides commander, or hero-level player units with associated game aids and special rules for specific era play.
Hero Unit Pack Provisions:
1-2 Era-Specific Combat Designs
game aids for specific-era play (cards, tokens, etc.)
special rules
As a smaller expansion pack, and era-specific, “hero” unit packs would ostensibly be numerous and potentially collectable. And while this may hark back to the days of MechWarrior: Dark Age, these are not “true” hero units in anything but card stock. These combat units can first and foremost play in the capacity as a regular unit in a era-specific game. Again, this offers additional expansion capability to the core box set in addition to its role as a game enhancer.
If all this sounds a bit formulaic and decidedly familiar, it should. Ultimately, a super approachable BattleTech game shouldn’t be breaking any new ground, but rather distinguish itself thematically, visually, and with a great cost-to-offerings ratio. Although, if we want to talk about the actual ruleset design, I suggest boning up on this mini-instructional primer to get a sense of great game-design organization and foundation.
In Part 3 &4 we’ll dive straight into the ever valuable SWOT for each individual product type, and potential unit cost/ROIs per package.
And before I forget, I have a cohesive web strategy for BattleTech’s primary digital platforms built around a new box set & expansion set program, large back catalog of digital products.