The Impact of Good Game Design on Popular Licenses?

[Henry]

In my eyes, good game design and license power MUST go hand in hand for a very successful game. A property can achieve modest success on license alone, or on game design alone. But Another factor must always be present.

Some would say that Magic: the Gathering is an example of great game design. I would say that it had several factors in its success, and two of them were TIMING, and POOR GAME DESIGN.

What were the #1 selling magic cards in the after-sales market for years?

The Mox Gems, Time walk, Ancestral recall, etc. - in other words, the "broken" game cards. Broken because the "world-size" (card-pool that was expected to be printerd) was vastly underestimated. As a result, when WotC ceased printing these cards, the after-market went through the roof.

The game has excellent mechanics - but the timing of its release on the gaming scene, when many gamers were looking for something new and different, made it the "D&D of the 90's." It enjoyed the same kind of groundswell that D&D did in the early 1980's.

 

[Desdichado]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Tangent from a closed thread

**Disposable** income, not income. At the FLGS, there's literally a queue for the Yu-Gi-Oh binder. In my game demos the **best** way to get a sale is to find a game the kid wants to play. And although half the customers (viz. kids) don't have email accounts, enough of them have $20 allowances.

Of course disposable income. You're confusing demand with disposable income. When was the last time you saw a 10 year old put down a down payment on a new car? Adults certainly have more disposable income than kids, they simply (generally speaking) don't have any demand for CCGs. If I wanted to (and I'm only 31 - not 40 something. Presumably by then I'll be making even more money) I could go buy out the entire stock of DBZ booster packs at my FLGS, which my 7 year old certainly could not do. The difference is, my 7 year old might actually be interested in doing that, while I am not.

 

[Tsyr]

I think good design is still needed even with a good licesnse...

Look at the Buffy RPG... It's a great game on it's own rights, even if Buffy wasn't a big name. Likewise with Slaine (Which isn't nearly as big a license), or Judge Dread, or Wheel of Time, or the Lord of the Rings RPG... All good games in addition to being a good license.

On the other end of the spectrum, look at some of the other games that had fairly big licenses in the past the failed... Conan, for example. Good license. Bad game. Or Dragonlance SAGA... Good license, bad game.

I think a good license will get you so far, but it's not a free ride... You'll have great sales initialy with a good license, but after people find out the product isn't any good, sales will basicly stop, except for the occasional die-hard who just has to have it for his collection, or people who have been living under a rock and don't know the product isn't any good.

 

[Delemental]

Of course disposable income. You're confusing demand with disposable income. When was the last time you saw a 10 year old put down a down payment on a new car? Adults certainly have more disposable income than kids, they simply (generally speaking) don't have any demand for CCGs. If I wanted to (and I'm only 31 - not 40 something. Presumably by then I'll be making even more money) I could go buy out the entire stock of DBZ booster packs at my FLGS, which my 7 year old certainly could not do. The difference is, my 7 year old might actually be interested in doing that, while I am not.

Actually, you'd be surprised at what a 7 year old can or cannot buy... some kids get way too much allowance. I've seen kids buy entire boxes of boosters. With money out of their own wallet.

While adults have a larger pool of cash to draw from, thanks to having jobs, their responsibilities demand that much of that money is tied up (the down payment on that car, mortgage, food, insurance, etc). The amount of money a child receives, though much less substantial, is 100% free of obligation - they can spend it how they wish. $20 a week in allowance may not seem like much, but it adds up.

And don't forget the "whine factor". I've watched countless parents give in and buy things they weren't intending on paying for.

 

[Desdichado]

Actually, you'd be surprised at what a 7 year old can or cannot buy... some kids get way too much allowance. I've seen kids buy entire boxes of boosters. With money out of their own wallet.

While adults have a larger pool of cash to draw from, thanks to having jobs, their responsibilities demand that much of that money is tied up (the down payment on that car, mortgage, food, insurance, etc). The amount of money a child receives, though much less substantial, is 100% free of obligation - they can spend it how they wish. $20 a week in allowance may not seem like much, but it adds up.

And don't forget the "whine factor". I've watched countless parents give in and buy things they weren't intending on paying for.

Doesn't change the fact that the source of those kids disposable income is the parents in the first place. If the parent so wanted, he could spend all that money on cards himself instead of giving obscene allowances to his kids.

If 40 something adults (in general) wanted to, buying booster packs of DBZ cards would be no problem for most of them. As I said, though, in general, 40 something adults don't want to do so.

The initial post above that I responded too seemed to be making the point that DBZ was successful because it marketed its product to where the disposable income lies. That's not true at all, although it certainly was a good strategy to access disposable income. But a game that was so good that mainstream 40 something folks bought it like crazy? That'd be a runaway success the likes of which we haven't yet seen in the market.

 

[diaglo]

Some would say that Magic: the Gathering is an example of great game design. I would say that it had several factors in its success, and two of them were TIMING, and POOR GAME DESIGN.
<SNIP> but the timing of its release on the gaming scene, when many gamers were looking for something new and different, made it the "D&D of the 90's." It enjoyed the same kind of groundswell that D&D did in the early 1980's.

someone (Me) could say the same thing about the current edition of D&D.

 

[diaglo]

$20 a week in allowance may not seem like much, but it adds up.

i got a quarter/week for doing my chores as a kid.

 

[Mark]

i got a quarter/week for doing my chores as a kid.

Quarter a week?

Luxury...

When I was a young lad doing my chores at the sewage treatment plant we used to get raw fishheads once a month embedded directly into our spinal columns...and were expected to sing out the praises of our parents for doing so!

 

[Tsyr]

Man. I was considered lucky in that I got $5 a week. And that wasn't that long ago... like 10 years ago.

 

[Liquide]

When I was younger (some 10-15 years ago) I got myself the (equalent) nice sum of $20 / month , damn kids are getting spolied these days (but then again, a big chocolate bar cost just $.5 when I was a kid as well, compared to $2 now).

Still somehow I managed to get loads of Action Force (G.I Joe in the US), Star Wars, Transformers and Masters of the Universe (it might have something to do with knowing how to convince your parents).