Farewell Euro Classics

One consequence of a large game business being run for profit rather than for love, of course, is that you get these pure-profitability decisions: the decision to cancel five complex games and put out five minis-heavy Kickstarters and ten small family games instead (or whatever) will be based entirely on which will make more money, not on whether anyone working for the company likes one sort of game over the other. One doesn’t see GMT saying “eh, war isn’t selling well, we’ll make the new Dobble”; instead they invent P500.

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I think reading it in the entire article I’d agree with you.

Maybe they’re saying that the euro market as whole isn’t very profitable anymore unless you get lucky with an SUSD review and then you hit the jackpot?

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Regarding recent Asmodee behaviour, this got posted yesterday:

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I think this is where everything is heading when I read the news that Matagot will switch to Kickstarter. For niche titles beyond the evergreens like TTR, an on-demand system will be in place - whatever form it is whether crowdfunding or their own variant of P-500

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Wow, big behemoth Asmodee shaken by an indie review team?! That’s a crazy admission to make public!

I’m surprised how much they’ve allowed this head from Z Man say. It’s all quite emotive and not at all business-like, like the standard Asmodee release. It reads like someone who doesn’t give a damn about the repercussions! Is Z Man feeling a lot of pressure from Asmodee and taking out the frustration on everyone else?

I have thoughts. I’ll post later.

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By switching to Kickstarter/Gamefound or their own P500 model, they are effectively isolating “casual boardgamers” from “hobby boardgamers”. And likely killing the boardgame portion of FLGSs business.

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Or “Launch 99”.

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Or Plaid Hat Games subscription model (both Ashes Reborn and Summoner Wars 2 are using a subscription model for release timing)

EDIT: what most of these mean is that we’ll be seeing a smaller percentage of games available in traditional distribution channels, which will make it harder for me to put something on my wishlist and expect to get it as a birthday/Christmas gift… Which is likely where the bulk of future collection additions will come from as I’ve severely slowed my direct acquisitions

EDIT 2: this is all not to say I’m not surprised. The industry has been ballooning in number of titles released each year over the last decade+. It’s only a matter of time before publishers have to find new models for releasing, distributing and overall managing their portfolios of products; the model that’s been in place over the last 10 years just won’t work forever.

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Yes! Plaid Hat’s subscription model reinforced my view. But… it make sense. The old model of “spray and pray” is just too risky - as many in publishing often say.

Same thing is happening in game design where the rift is widening. But thats a completely different story.

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Please do :slight_smile: I am intrigued now…

edit: instead of making another post.

My 2cents on this is that while this has not been a bad year for boardgames it has been a bad year for global supply chains and maybe Asmodee as the “behemoth” is more dependent on those than some other publishers. But that’s just my personal hot-take with some semi-knowledge of how several local publishers have kept their supply chains short enough to be churning out games that are not stuck on a boat in the port of Hamburg… I may be completely wrong.

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My stream of consciousness…

Z Man’s Predicament
From what we’ve seen from FFG and Plaid Hat Games, it seems like the Asmodee bubble is imploding in on themselves. They owned a virtual monopoly, and still do to a certain extent. Kickstarter offered an alternative to the Asmodee conglomerate, and now it’s successful enough to be a real threat to Asmodee. Instead of capitalising on their strengths, Asmodee seems to be placing a lot of pressure on its sub-labels to improve efficiency and find that game that sells gangbusters. Maybe that’s idle speculation, but we’re seeing these bought up brands either change beyond all recognition or leave. Something has to be happening behind the scenes at a high level.

I don’t know what to make of the release. It’s specifically authored by a single person, rather than a business. It’s emotive, and verges on libel. Why did Z Man allow this to be published? Why did they need to show everyone what they could’ve won? Who OK’ed this edit and put it to print? Did anyone look at this before it went to print? Are Z Man/Asmodee going to print a retraction in a few hours? It makes no business sense whatsoever to release this statement.

The death of old euros is somewhat to be expected. Games are big and expensive, and only getting more so. They take up a lot of space! That’s not good. Most people will think 5-10 games is already too much. That’s a huge limitation on your audience. So how are you going to sell these older games, great though they may be? Boardgames may be growing in popularity, but that’s leading to massive expansion of new games. There’s nowhere for older games to compete. The medium itself is self-limiting.

The push towards deluxe games is due to their physicality and tactility, and also to price. If you’re going to spend so much on a game that it becomes a luxury item, you might as well pay a bit more to make it properly luxury. SUSD are right, the response to that isn’t to release everything in fancy editions, it’s to release more in cheaper versions.

Publishers could even start considering ‘X games in 1’ packages. If similar components are needed, why not shove two games that have done their time into one box? Battles that issue of space on the shelf and makes it a lot more attractive prospect to buyers. And it provides a lot of accessibility to newcomers.

Blaming Influencers
Essentially, they’re angry that external media is more successful than their own marketing, and so they want external media to act as their marketing department and get angry if they don’t do so?

SUSD curate their reviews, and it’s really the only way to have any sort of quality. To review en masse requires Dice Tower style business with such a rapid play/review cycle that there’s little room for any thoughtful critique. Here’s a game, here’s how it plays, good or bad? Next. Boardgaming wouldn’t be where it is now if all we had was Dice Tower. Dice Tower do what they do, but it’s still an amateur shambles. All SUSD did was come in with their industry journalism experience and clean up by being professionals in a world of amateurs.

Of course it’s also bad that one media franchise have such sway. SUSD have said so themselves several times. They don’t want that pressure, and there’s enough room for 5+ different outlets of equal pegging. But the quality/training/commitment isn’t out there to support it. Even the greats like NPI are labelled copycats.

SUSD could have easily done that at any point in the last 8 years, it’s to their credit they didn’t. It’s clear that several small channels set themselves up with a quite blatant aim of representing external marketing to a greater or lesser extent. Quackalope (the biggest offenders of this IMO…), Before You Play, Board Game Coffee. A whole bunch of them. If Z Man are concerned that independent reporting is threatening boardgame publishers, they don’t need to be concerned.

The Future
All in all, Z Man are dinosaurs who had their day in the sun. They were essentially the English translators of euro games. That isn’t a niche that needs filling anymore. They’re just lashing out at anything that moves now. I doubt they’ll die outright, but I expect Asmodee will gut them out and keep them in name only.

As others have said, my big concern is what this means for the future. The big publishers getting fed up with Kickstarter and either joining them (and harming FLGS) or tightening their grip on retail (and harming FLGS) isn’t a great choice. I’m quite worried they could kill the hobby and send it to the proverbial stone age. Boardgame publishing is going to struggle once it hits it’s reach. If we’re relying on the same people to keep buying games over and over, that isn’t a great market to be in. It’s sustainable on a small scale, but isn’t attractive to big business. Taking it all out on retailers is terrible for the hobby, and will ultimately speed up the decline to online retail and KS only.

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It was never about the future growth of the industry. It was about cashing out the intrinsic value as fast and as effectively as possible. While some brands/imprints may have been a long-term investment (Catan, Ticket to Ride, etc), most of their activity are more akin to Corporate Raiding; cashing out what’s worth cashing out and closing down whatever’s been sucked dry. PAI has never given any indication they care about growing or maintaining the hobby.

Best guess is there’s about to be a schism within the Asmodee properties.

Or, perhaps, an intentionally inflammatory statement designed to drive a number of community-based discussions just like this one to, at least, get people talking about Z-Man again.

Or… perhaps both.

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I think the biggest mistake boardgame publishers can make is thinking internet discourse matters. It’s such a tiny pool. Wingspan and Codenames have shown the money is in extending beyond that perimeter. It’s not even like this sort of discussion encourages clickbait articles in mainstream publications. At least the Snyder cut has that!

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The vocal minority has a strange power in strange places.

Look at the number of products that are being offered that now accommodate sleeved cards. And sleevers represent about 10% of the active boardgame hobby community.

I think Asmodee knows their business is a few pillar brands. If it sells a million Asmodee buys the company - they bought Days of Wonder for ticket to ride, z man for pandemic, FF for Star Wars X wing and now I think Plan B simply for Azul (and possibly Century)

The idea that Rando euros fits that model is impossible.

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shakes fist at the sky

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In regards to Asmodee itself. Asmodee is owned by Equity Investment Firm B who bought it from Equity Firm A, and they end up “holding the bag”. They are doing these measures to squeeze as much ROI they can out of Asmodee before selling it to Equity Firm C.

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My take is that the “obligations, like supporting our four major game brands” means that Asmodee have told Z-Man to milk their most profitable games lines for all that they are worth at the expense of doing anything else. And the reason for doing this is that their other games require SU&SD (or other major reviewers) to recommend them for them to be successful.

But… SU&SD have praised all five of the games that were in the Euro Classics line, with Through the Ages getting on to SU&SD’s ten recommended games to buy for Christmas in 2018.

As was said above I guess that Asmodee’s owners are looking to sell and are incredibly risk averse as a result, the risk being a single bad review (or non-review?) sinks your product. I can understand being frustrated by that situation if you work at Z-Man, but I can’t see how blaming SU&SD is helpful. They are pretty consistent with their message that backing projects on Kickstarter is something to be approached with caution.

Not to mention that Quinns declared Pandemic Legacy Season 1 one of the greatest board games ever made, Matt spent several hours streaming himself making a jigsaw of the Season 0 box art, and Paul reviewed Citadels in Season 1, Episode 1!

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Leveraged buyouts rarely benefit the firm being bought. The company takes on debt which is paid to the firm buying the company. The new owner now needs to find a new buyer (through another leveraged buyout or an IPO) before the debt collapses in on itself.

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Z-Man retrenches some more… though I see this as a combination advertisement and retrenching really.

Short version: they’re doing a final reprint of Arabian Nights 3e.

(I used to own it and I’ve enjoyed playing it, but never hugely, especially considering its length.)

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