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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4936659" data-attributes="member: 40961">I don't think Mearls is missing anything, because I don't take the rhetorical question "what would you do" as implying the answer "give up and die," or "stop publishing hex games and start publishing computer games."  I take it more like the guy in post 4.  Ask why computer games are suddenly eating your market.  Adapt.  Recognize that you're not a "hex game company," you're a "wargame company," and it just so happens that up until now that's meant hexes, but it doesn't have to mean only hexes. In the specific example of hex and counter wargames, a computer wargame has a number of significant advantages: You don't have to memorize rules minutia if the program handles it for you.  This not only helps your brain not hurt, it allows for different rules.Ease of matching yourself with opponents, as opposed to the broad diversity of low sales volume wargames that made finding opponents difficult.The computer can handle minutia of rules faster than you can, even after you memorize it.If you can't find an opponent at all, you can play against the AI.Graphic improvements.Setting up a wargame can be very time consuming, starting a computer game is very fast.Patches instead of errata. Meanwhile, of course, the hex and counter industry was being attacked from another direction: miniature wargaming.  Its advantages were, Better appeal to the hobbyist fiddlers who like spending hours messing with their game components (true counter wargamers prep materials, sort them, trim their hexes with special tools, etc, but true miniature wargamers paint metal, which allows greater customization).3d graphics.Counter games are almost all historical, but some miniature games have special appeal for the fantasy and science fiction fans.Better business model that encourages multiple repeat purchases instead of one single purchase of a set of rules and some sheets of perforated cardbaord. Now, many years after these developments took place, the original companies didn't learn their lesson.  In fact, there is good reason to think they doubled down on their player base, designing games to appeal to the most dedicated existing customers, earning themselves a very small, EXTREMELY committed fangroup that is unfortunately aging and even more unfortunately has, probably as a result of the encroachment of other games, become very insular and negative towards changes in their gaming culture. They've not done so well for themselves sales wise.  If their goal was to become an insular fan group of people who know each other and have a sense of community, then they're doing fine, and that may indeed be the goal of some small, one-man studios, to have fun, publish a little bit, and participate in a community.   But in spite of flagging sales for the big companies, wargaming has NOT died out.  In fact, I'd argue that the lessons listed above have in fact been taken to heart by the larger (not just hex) wargaming community, and incorporated into game design.   Look at modern wargames like Memoir 44, or Battlelore.  They address these problems almost categorically?  Shorter?  Done.  Better visual appeal?  Done.  Paintable miniatures if people want to?  Done.  Instant set up for those who don't care about painting or fiddling with bits?  Done.  Fantasy themes available as well as historical?  Done.  Easier to teach to new players?  Done.  I could go on, but won't. So... yeah.  I lost track of the thesis in the historical interpretation.  At this point, hex and counter wargames are a pretty small thing that functions as a sort of vestigial limb on the body of the boardgame community.  But wargaming as a whole is doing really, really well.  I think that recognizing the wave and deciding to ride it instead of fight it could have let them build their existing player base and reputation and maybe become something like Games Workshop or Fantasy Flight in scale and scope.</blockquote>

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