This is a Limited Edition Game

I do not believe that making this game a computer/console game may increase the number of person that would play A&A.

I don’t know man, I have to question your belief on that one then. :D

AI is not the issue for a computer game. A “decent” AI is a given for the game to be successful with neophytes, but its the solid support for multiplayer online gaming that’s really important. The AI doesn’t need to be awesome, it just needs to be good enough to introduce players to the system.

Gametable and TripleA style games are not going to cut it if we’re serious about attracting new players, and want to really wow the players we already have. What we need is a real computer game, and a real game engine designed for the long haul. Once you have an online community established, and good game for people to organize around, then you can use them to gather feedback and test design concepts for the actual board. This is the main benefit of going digital, because you don’t have to order 1000 molds of unit X, or print an edition of board design Y before you know if the idea is even going to be popular among the core fans. With the computer you can do all this and playbalance the set up with a large group of testers, before committing to the final changes. You just can’t do that anywhere near as effectively with Face to Face tournaments, which take longer and require more overhead to set up. The way they do it right now makes no sense at all to me, given what’s possible.

Sometimes I wonder how many people are even shown the rules and the set up, before it gets sent off to the printers. 10 or 20 people in a room brainstorming? Maybe if you’re lucky you can get a couple hundred to show up and give decent feedback. With a computer game we could increase those numbers by an order of ten over night, and make it a lot easier involve veteran players in the feedback process. Frankly I’ll be annoyed if we see another tactical board game like a “Stalingrad” or “A Battle of Britain” take precedence over a PC/Console/Online Community game. We need to start laying the foundations for tomorrow already. Putting out a computer game will increase sales of the board games, its just that simple. If your market research isn’t showing this, then you need to hire a better research team.

Seriously 1997 was eleven years ago, when are we going to get a new CD already? Like why didn’t AAPacific and AAEurope come out as expansions to the Hasbro CD? The whole point of going digital in the first place, is so that you can easily update and build on what you’ve already started.

@Black_Elk:

Well that’s a little discouraging, though considering that the Chinese manufacturing sector just took a nose dive, I can’t say its all that surprising

:?  Is that really a possible cause?  I didn’t hear about that happening, so either I’m living under a rock or there are so many things going on right now that it’s hard to remember what’s what.

About the game, I think Wizards just doesn’t want to invest in this game… they spent nothing advertising and are shipping just enough so that the first run will sell out.  Looks like they don’t want to be taking any risks.

I am thinking about buying a spare now, since I would be able to make massive profit 5 years from now… unless of course, they release the Axis and Allies Deluxe Edition which makes this obsolete, or something.

I agree that Axis and Allies needs to be turned into a good PC game with a nice engine

It should have a nice map editor too, one where you can make your own maps, set IPC values, program events
If that existed, it would not matter whetehr A&A was a great board game, becasue it would be such a hit PC game,
I consider myself a harcore PC gamer, and I could easly see something like this becoming a competive game among people who have never even heard of A&A

@Emperor_Taiki:

I agree that Axis and Allies needs to be turned into a good PC game with a nice engine

It should have a nice map editor too, one where you can make your own maps, set IPC values, program events
If that existed, it would not matter whetehr A&A was a great board game, becasue it would be such a hit PC game,
I consider myself a harcore PC gamer, and I could easly see something like this becoming a competive game among people who have never even heard of A&A

I dunno, it’s all about flashy graphics and short attention span friendly gameplay.  Even most strategy games, RTS games, are more going through hand motions than actually doing strategy.  Then again, there is a market for that type of game.  I’m just not sure it would be a hit, especially a computer game with virtual dice  :-( They could hide the dice off-screen though.

I dunno, it’s all about flashy graphics and short attention span friendly gameplay.  Even most strategy games, RTS games, are more going through hand motions than actually doing strategy.  Then again, there is a market for that type of game.  I’m just not sure it would be a hit, especially a computer game with virtual dice   They could hide the dice off-screen though.

Why on earth would they hide the dice?  :-D

The whole point is to recreate the Face to Face experience, with a computer. Complete with chatting and dice rolling and cards and such. It should look like the ultimate war room that we all have in our heads, but it should play exactly like the board games. Yes, with all the flashy graphics, cool looking units, medals, historical photos, and jazz like that. A classy and intuitive user interface, with a way to link up with other players online. Hold tournaments, encourage player guilds and online accounts… things that they do for computer games all the time these days.

It has to be the board games though. A computer translation of the board games experience. Not some RTS click fest, that bares no resemblance to the game we all play. You have to do what they did for Monopoly and Risk and Trivial Pursuit. I don’t see why it should be so difficult. The games are already designed, they just needs to be polished up and given the digital flare they deserve. :-)

@Black_Elk:

I dunno, it’s all about flashy graphics and short attention span friendly gameplay.  Even most strategy games, RTS games, are more going through hand motions than actually doing strategy.  Then again, there is a market for that type of game.  I’m just not sure it would be a hit, especially a computer game with virtual dice   They could hide the dice off-screen though.

Why on earth would they hide the dice?  :-D

The whole point is to recreate the Face to Face experience, with a computer. Complete with chatting and dice rolling and cards and such. It should look like the ultimate war room that we all have in our heads. Yes with all the flashy graphics, cool looking units, medals and historical photos and jazz like that. A classy and intuitive user interface, with a way to link up with other players. Hold tournaments, encourage player guilds and online accounts, things that they do for computer games all the time these days.

It has to be the board games though. A computer translation of the Board Game experience. Not some RTS click fest, that bares no resemblance to the game. Do what they do for Monopoly and Risk and Trivial Pursuit. I don’t see why it should be so difficult. The game is already designed, it just needs to be polished up and given the digital flare it deserves. :-)

Oh I agree with you as that’s what it SHOULD be, I just doubt that that’s what it WOULD be, seeing how AH is concerned about profits moreso than satisfying the customers.  Clickfests sell better  :-(

What would be the reason(s) for this?
Do they think the Anniversary Edition is flawed now?  Too complicated for the novice player?
I’m not sure that I want to get it now, if most people are going to go back to Revised.  :-(

i don’t think most players are going back to revised. don’t get us wrong, this game is awesome. it’s just a shame that wizards didn’t take the time and effort to make it truely perfect (well, as close as could be reached anyway haha)

I’d like to see better treatment of the game in a PC version. They almost did it once, but as I recall the last Axis & Allies PC version had no multiplayer support, which made it useless.

For those looking for something similar, I find Gary Grigsby’s World at War to be an excellent A&A PC substitute.

OMG!!! I was about to have a ‘Rainman Fit’ as I was reading the posts.

Plastic is a petroleum product and I don’t need to go on one of my tirades about the pieces in the the latest A&A editions. That said, the crash in global economics combined with oil prices and the drop in Chinese manufaturing had resulted in:

1.This may be a Ltd. Ed due to profitability v.s. nieche product.
2.The poor quality in aspects of recent AA products.
3.A decline in interest in hobby poducts accross the board i.e. Paper/Pen RPGs, Tabletop Wargames, etc.
4.More focused production and marketing of CCGs combined with higher profit margins.
5.The popularity of console/computer gaming combined with the relative ease of production and, more rapid placement in the market. i.e. you can buy that crappy RTS A&A for ten bucks at Half Price Books or Walmart.

My last example is with AD&D miniatures the whole line will be cancelled sometime in the next 1-2 years.
The production in toys (AKA Hasbro), is one tenth the production is was last year due to us Yanks spending less.

Finally, while I admire alot of peoples passion for going out and buying copies of AA50 even if you bought ten each that wouldn’t stop the axw from falling. You wanna buy multiple copies, buy them for yourself, but don’t expect it to save the line. :cry:

@Black_Elk:

I do not believe that making this game a computer/console game may increase the number of person that would play A&A.

I don’t know man, I have to question your belief on that one then. :D

AI is not the issue for a computer game. A “decent” AI is a given for the game to be successful with neophytes, but its the solid support for multiplayer online gaming that’s really important. The AI doesn’t need to be awesome, it just needs to be good enough to introduce players to the system.

Gametable and TripleA style games are not going to cut it if we’re serious about attracting new players, and want to really wow the players we already have. What we need is a real computer game, and a real game engine designed for the long haul. Once you have an online community established, and good game for people to organize around, then you can use them to gather feedback and test design concepts for the actual board. This is the main benefit of going digital, because you don’t have to order 1000 molds of unit X, or print an edition of board design Y before you know if the idea is even going to be popular among the core fans. With the computer you can do all this and playbalance the set up with a large group of testers, before committing to the final changes. You just can’t do that anywhere near as effectively with Face to Face tournaments, which take longer and require more overhead to set up. The way they do it right now makes no sense at all to me, given what’s possible.

Ehm… Black Elk maybe I have expressed my thought bad.

@Romulus:

I do not believe that making this game a computer/console game may increase the number of person that would play A&A.
The principal problem of making A&A a computer game is the AI, having a good AI is difficult. So we should rely on human players.

Personally I think that the best solution would be a browser game with more flexibility than GameTable Online to exploit online communities an forums that are one ofthe great interest in A&A.

What I had tried to say that we do not need a “Computer stand alone program for playing A&A” that is useless but we need a “Web Application Browser based with a supporting website, forum etc”.
For what I see we agree on the added value of the community and all the other multiplayer on line game features.
Moreover we do not need a RTS game (based on clicking abilities as Rakeman said), we need a virualization of the board game, maybe a 3D model of the table with the board and units or otherwise we should have a 3D environment with animated units. But the added value should be the players active participation.

Perhaps it was planned, BY THE MAKERS!!

if they keep like 100 copies, and waith a few years,…
they’ll count out even more money then if you buy like 3 or so and waith

I can’t help but feeling that Limited Edition does absolutely nothing to promote that game.
A silly ploy that hurts the product. Sad.  :-(

I think this is a bad precedent for whatever other “special or revised release” they would think of in the future.

Would you buy an “Axis & Allies Europe (or Pacific) Revised Edition” with such precedent ?
I wouldn’t.

I personally expect to see the A&A franchise to dissappear altogether in a year or two. I’m stocking up on as much AA stuff asI can get.

@toblerone77:

I personally expect to see the A&A franchise to dissappear altogether in a year or two. I’m stocking up on as much AA stuff asI can get.

I don’t think so.  Money is there to be made.  Look at the number of Axis and Allies board games and the few computer games that have been made in the past decade vs the 1980’s.

They could make a computer game version of every game and introduce it to new crowds who have never visited a forum.  I realize that the AI is a problem, but Classic and Iron Blitz brought new people to game.  Computer games offer a synergy to the product that would enhance other sales.

The fact that Hasbro is a toy company and makes Its’ money on toys is a big reason.

In thier big picture A&A is just another toy. I’ve stated before that the AD&D minis game is going to the chopping block sometime in the next year or two.

The plastic components made for the A&A series are more than likely made in the same place in China if not the same factory. Toy production in China is a fraction this year of what it was in previous years due to consumers not buying.

Toys for Tots has also had a significantly lower donation rate as ro previous years. Last but not least is the cost of foriegn patrolleum which adds to Hasbro and it’s subsidiary Avalon Hill’s production cost.

I love A&A but walk into any major retailer and look for A&A products, you won’t find alot if any. That right there should tell you that the A&A line is a minor part of Hasbro.

Any parent looking for games for thier kids is most likely going to pull Risk or Battleship of the shelf at $20.00 before A&A at $40.00 (AAR) let alone $75.00-$100.00 (AA50). They’re going to say, “A hundred bucks for that ?” even if they understand what the game is.

Yeah, but it still sucks about the limited run. Now I might have to rush into picking up a second copy as a backup if my first gets rundown.

Dammit. I hate being a poor Grad Student. :(

This was in response to the same thread on the Avlone hill boards and I copied and pasted it here for this discussion too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nexus73 
What I am curious about is the true production number for AA50. The War Game: World War II was a 2000 unit production run and it still has yet to sell out.

You can’t compare “The War Game” to AA50. The war game is a self published product with little or no distribution chain. AA50 has the backing of Wotc, it’s distribution chain, the Axis & Allies brand name and Larry Harris. Yes the marketing for AA50 has been horrid but let’s look at some numbers:

In publishing, publishers price an item at 5 to 8 times the cost of the item. So if AA50 retails for $100.00 then it costs Wotc $12.50 to manufacture (100/8=12.50). They sell it to a wholesalers for 50% of retail, $50.00 and they make $37.50 (12.50-50=37.50) They give Larry his royalty say 10% of net or $5.00 taking their profit down to $32.50.

Now, I know that for the Minis they like to produce about 50,000 units. This is boxes of minis. So if we guess that they did half that for the AA50 game, which would be 25,000 then we take their profit $32.50 x 25,000 =$812,500. That’s a tidy sum. Now out of that has to come all the expenses of design, game testing etc. but these people are all full time and working on games any way so production of AA50 doesn’t effect the overall cost of running Wotc. After all they are in the business of making and selling games.

You’ll never get a real answer. In publishing, knowing how much to print is a very hard thing to judge and the information is closely kept.

This is my best guess.

@Marquis:

This was in response to the same thread on the Avlone hill boards and I copied and pasted it here for this discussion too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nexus73 
What I am curious about is the true production number for AA50. The War Game: World War II was a 2000 unit production run and it still has yet to sell out.

You can’t compare “The War Game” to AA50. The war game is a self published product with little or no distribution chain. AA50 has the backing of Wotc, it’s distribution chain, the Axis & Allies brand name and Larry Harris. Yes the marketing for AA50 has been horrid but let’s look at some numbers:

In publishing, publishers price an item at 5 to 8 times the cost of the item. So if AA50 retails for $100.00 then it costs Wotc $12.50 to manufacture (100/8=12.50). They sell it to a wholesalers for 50% of retail, $50.00 and they make $37.50 (12.50-50=37.50) They give Larry his royalty say 10% of net or $5.00 taking their profit down to $32.50.

Now, I know that for the Minis they like to produce about 50,000 units. This is boxes of minis. So if we guess that they did half that for the AA50 game, which would be 25,000 then we take their profit $32.50 x 25,000 =$812,500. That’s a tidy sum. Now out of that has to come all the expenses of design, game testing etc. but these people are all full time and working on games any way so production of AA50 doesn’t effect the overall cost of running Wotc. After all they are in the business of making and selling games.

You’ll never get a real answer. In publishing, knowing how much to print is a very hard thing to judge and the information is closely kept.

This is my best guess.

I gladly paid $100.00 plus tax for the game.

What I’m saying is: Compared to EVERYTHING ELSE Hasbro makes; Avalon Hill, WotC, etc., is ‘chump change’.

In corporate market, in times of trouble, executives count how many forks are being used in the staff lounge. When retailers like Walmart buy cargo loads of and stocks pallets of other stuff Hasbro makes, A&A is like a minnow in an ocean.

I’m just trying to point out that buying a thousand copies of a game doesn’t save it from extinction and that it would be a good idea to buy an extra copy.

WotC used to have a chain of stores if we all remember, and now they’re gone, to save money. I’m not saying they shouldn’t. Just because most people on this site love the game doesn’t mean that A&A is profitable. Just because the license has changed hands several times doesn’t mean it’s amoney maker.

If Hasbro makes a billion dollars on GI Joe, and makes 800,000 on A&A50 and needs to cut costs, where do you think they’ll cut?

As popular as WotC was the stores were losing money and they cut them.

WotC has the Star Wars RPG license, (A big license) and product from that has been cut recently. All I’m saying is if you like A&A you should buy any A&A products while they’re around because in my opinion and observation they are likley to not be her in a cuople years.