On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 06:04, David Bolack wrote: > Rolling Thunder.
Rolling Thunder failed. That said, I don't consider it a mistake, nor do I think we were wrong at the time we attempted it. Rolling Thunder addressed two perceived problems with the trading card game business(*). Both of those problems turned out to be far less important than the other factors that had to be changed to implement Rolling Thunder. Before we did it, all we had was a theory. After we did it, we knew a lot more about the market economics of small-sized trading card games. Some of the information that we learned is being used today by several companies including AEG, White Wolf, and Fantasy Flight to make successful small-sized trading card games profitably. That said, John Zinser (AEG CEO) and I still believe that for Doomtown (the Deadlands TCG), the Rolling Thunder business model would work even today, provided that we focused on the original concept for that game which was that each expansion would represent a different building in town, that each building would be themed, that some buildings would be small and some large (to accomodate different set sizes), and that the game needed a basic set to establish a competitive baseline for organized play. Ryan (*) Those problems are the cyclical nature of the cashflow in the TCG business, driven by the feast/famine cycle of major releases by Magic, and the continuous complaints by a vocal number of players who don't like the rarity schemes in TCGs and the appearance that spending money on the game is the primary factor determining competitive success. Rolling Thunder showed that the cashflow issues were far less important to the average retailer than we thought they were, and the people who don't like the rarity schemes are a very small minority of the total consumer population attracted to the TCG hobby - and the rarity is actually hugely important to most of the consumer population who stay away in droves if you take it out of the game. _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
