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Contact Report: Multi-Man Winter Offensive Gaming Convention

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14 Jan 2009 18:00 #241294 by Sagrilarus

 

Below is a shameless repub of material that I dropped into a Trash Talk thread yesterday.  I plan two detailed blogs entries to follow, one on the conference as a whole and one on the in-development IGS game Storm Over Europe that I got the opportunity to play, but this is the thumbnail sketch for people that read very slowly.  I've added a bit of crunchy goodness to the original thread entry to get you into the conversation in short order.

 

Funny you should mention that. I got the opportunity to sit down with Adam Starkweather about MMP's apparent disinterest in selling products (that is, their lack of advertising on the more mainstream boardgaming sites or even thread-presence.  Starkweather is the point-man on MMP's IGS series, which are shorter, broader, more "accessible" war games that are getting quite the reputation for plush look and feel.) I mentioned CSW, BGG and F:AT each by name and asked him about MMP's presence on the sites. These were his observations:

1. F:At -- Huh? There's another site?
2. BGG -- A game database. It's great for looking up information on a particular game, but it's a pain for the game developers. There's no way to tell when someone has entered material for your games and there's no way for the players to contact you.
3. CSW -- A great site for the game developers. The users can contact you directly and everything is easy to find.

It is likely obvious to everyone reading this that Adam's viewpoint does not jive particularly well with the view from our side of the table.  That's the point of what follows.

Now, keep in mind that these opinions are coming from the guy that very likely is the most active MMP designer on the web.  A bit later in the conversation, he essentially he boiled MMP's web perspective down to "people on CSW preorder, no one else does."

I'll leave it to each of you to judge this perspective of the gaming community for yourselves, but I will add to the mix that he is quite apparently a very smart guy. I was sitting down at his prototype for Storm Over Europe (getting tooled playing the Russians) and he spoke with great intelligence. I am curious to know how MMP is slotting their pre-order people by web site, as I don't see any questions for it on their pre-order page. But that's his perception.

MMP is still pumping out ASL material, and it sells.  This is a game you play over decades and when a new chunk comes out once a year it's more of a membership fee than a purchase decision.  But that audience is not going to be significantly enlarged due to its large entry barrier -- someone seeing an advert on the web isn't going to run down to their store to casually pick up a copy to try out for the weekend.

 IGS (International Game Series) titles, for those of you who don't know are much tighter packages.  Each game ($30-$70) is a complete unit, no expansions to date, are FAR more plush in their appearance, and have vastly simpler rules to the behemoth that is ASL.  Warriors of God, largely due to Hancock's review jumped to the number two slot on the hot games list and stayed there for an extended period of time, and is quite clearly being played by non-wargamers, something that is very obvious due to some of the comments and questions being posed on its boards.  These titles are selling without advertisement.  Any.  MMP is strictly word-of-mouth communications and the vast majority of that is on CSW, who's user interface harkens back to the days of dial-up bulletin boards.


The highlights of the visit were this --

1. Storm over the Leyte Gulf is in the works and was on display. I got a chance to peruse the rules a bit. Looks like a wargamette with fewer territories and pieces. One counter sheet.

2. Storm over Europe was available for play so I took a spot. The western front is polished and looks sharp, though the piece and map art is incomplete. Eastern front still needs work. Two fronts each on a separate board, two to four players. Playtime looks about two hours once you have it down. One inch counters, simple rules with two card decks for each of the 4 player seats -- a tactics deck which is reused each time and an event deck with one-offs that can greatly change the strategy of the game. Of particular interest to me was the cascading nature of the cards -- they can be played in combinations of two or more and it puts a multiplicative effect in play. His strike price was $70 which he thought would scare us off, as if that's still considered expensive for wargames. Quaint really.

3. A firm definition of the gamestyle called "Tahiki" (best guess on the spelling) that I will expound upon in a blog entry. I had a camera so I recorded Adam's discussion of it and will let you guys have it once I have time to transcribe. The audio wasn't the greatest but I should be able to dig it out.

4 Next project on Adam's sheet is a game in the Tahiki style on the US Revolution. No leader death, but instead an opportunity to roll leaders over politically.

5. PLENTY of IGS stuff at the tables. This event is billed as "ASL for ALS" and is a fund raiser for Lou Gehrig's Disease. Lots of ALS, but a lot of Storm Over Stalingrad, people asking for Warriors of God but wasn't on the table until I had to leave, Storm Over Europe and one other prototype who's name escapes me.

6. I saw about fifty men in attendance, all quite manly. One room the size of a basketball court with tables going strong. I counted five different accents, although New Zealand and Australia are pretty much the same country really.  Stallwarts who all seemed to know each other on a first-name basis.


I'll do a better writeup once I get a chance to sit down for a bit.

Sag.

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24 Dec 2016 23:35 #241295 by Sagrilarus
It's pretty remarkable to see the level of conversation in this topic from 8 years ago. Really a pleasure to read the responses to this article.

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25 Dec 2016 00:25 #241296 by jeb
I should put together a Greatest Hits things someday. We've had some really great threads. They get buried in the noise and chatter, but there has been some really thoughtful stuff posted here over the years. Stuff I am proud of, and stuff I aspire to.

You are thoughtful, eandearing people. And I appreciate you and this site more than Facebook, Twitter, and all the other heavy hitters. This is where I want to talk about stuff.

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25 Dec 2016 23:58 #241323 by Hadik
Thanks for reposting. I've given up on MMP because I don't want to line Kurt Schilling's pockets. I've owned and played some of the games designed/released by Adam Starkweather and they are good. One thing I will point out is that many of his games are direct ports of games designed and published in Japan.

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27 Dec 2016 10:01 #241353 by Msample
For whatever its worth at this point, once Schilling wrested the ASL license from Hasbro - and that was a long time ago - I think his connection to MMP was ceremonial at best. I don't get the sense he had a financial tie. This was borne out by MMP stating that they were not endangered once Schilling came into financial trouble . Elsewise someone who filed bankruptcy financially connected to MMP might have dragged them down with them.

Can't remember if it was already posted elsewhere on F:AT, but Starkweather is no longer with MMP. Here is the announcement recently posted on CSW:

talk.consimworld.com/WebX?14@@.1dd087eb/13085

Its certainly an ambitious schedule - 5 boxed games as well as helming Paper Wars over the next year. And to boot, I recently got a full page Compass catalog in the mail ( yes, some companies still use snail mail ) and there are about 10-12 non Starkweather games supposedly coming out in 2017 also. We'll see.....

Its worth noting that none of the games Gary mentions playing/seeing almost 7 years ago. And while vilifying MMP is a popular hobby into and unto itself, none even made it into prepub that I can recall. Adam has a fertile mind to be sure, but focus at times seems to be lacking . Its a lot to juggle for one person to be sure.

I have a lot of the IGS games - most of them actually. But as popular as they were, I don't get the sense that many of them were particularly good sellers. Most end up on MMP Black Friday sale lists.

Meanwhile MMP will continue publishing the GTS series he started; next up is the Utah Beach and Crete games.
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27 Dec 2016 11:51 #241358 by Hadik
Schilling is 1/3 owner, according to Brian Youse, who emailed me when I said I wasn't going to be a customer any more. He very politely said he regretted losing me as a customer.

And, for whatever it's worth, I'm not saying MMP is a bad company. Far from it. They have some great games. I'm just making a personal choice.

I"m happy to hear that Adam is moving forward with the GTS series. I'm not enough of a grognard for them, but they have a good following.
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27 Dec 2016 13:19 #241365 by Gary Sax
Didn't know that, Msample, re: Starkweather

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