Greetings fellow MWANers. The summer has come and gone. Not much of a summer as it rained almost every day and the weather was extremely mild this year. However summer continued to be a hot bed of activity. Having attended Origins, Historicon and GenCon, your Legio X team was quite busy. In this issue's editorial, I want to talk about the current financial trends in our hobby. To be more frank, I am concerned with the cheap atmosphere that permeates our hobby. I feel that hobby organizations like HMGS-East help foster this kind of thinking.
Why do we as a hobby look for the cheapest way to do things and not the best? The demographics of the hobby show that our mean income levels are over 40k dollars per year. On the fantasy side, the average income is 20k dollars per year, yet they spend twice as much on a figure than historical players. Why is this? I am not saying because we make twice as much we should spend it all because we have a different set of priorities, but we should not have to cry if a 28mm figure costs more than $2.00. Why are more kids drawn into the fantasy side of things instead of Historicals? We always talk about getting new blood into the hobby. Look around at some of the conventions and see what events are being offered. Conventions are supposed to be our time to bring out the best and we as a hobby fall way too short on this. It is a disgrace when you see unfinished terrain, half-painted figures, masking tape for roads and no respectable ground cloth.
Conventions games should be something you work on all year to produce. They should be playtested many times, have the best painted figures in your collection, the finest terrain, the best of everything that you can personally offer. You should have something on your table for people to wow at. This is what gets people fired up about the hobby and interested. Now before everyone gets their undies in a bunch, no one is saying you cannot play with unpainted figures and every game has to be a master-class production. What you do at home or with your friends or club is one thing. But what you should bring to a convention is another. Just as your are showcasing our hobby with events at the convention, so are you showcasing your club or gaming group also. Do you think people would be more or less interested if you just threw down a game at the show or put effort into it. Everyone wants to be a part of a winning team and not a loser. Just look at what some call the "evil empire", Games Workshop, does with their outrider program and their stores. The terrain is firstclass and the figures are exceptional, both in the casting and the painting. They encourage young people to play in the stores and offer painting classes and information on how to build and collect an army. Our retail stores are too few and far between. The store that I have the most contact with is the Last Square in my area. They have adopted some of the Games Workshop model and seem to have a following of kids who come to play on a regular basis.
The flea market at conventions also helps contribute to this aura of frugalness. I used to see the purpose of the flea market many years ago. I have since changed my perspective on it. I had thought the idea of the flea market was for a average gamer to sell off unwanted items to get the cash to make new purchases.. That has slowly not become the case over the last few years. On the East Coast, you can find many quasi-dealers in the flea market. The abuses in the flea market have become rampant. I have seen people in there taking credit cards, advertising their businesses, handing out professional business cards, etc. They are not helping the hobby. They are unloading stuff at below market value and not putting that income back into the hobby. You also have stores that are closing or stuck with too much of a product blowing things out in the flea market. They pay less money for the tables than a bona fide dealer and can cherry pick the prime time to make sales. How can the manufacturer compete with someone who is selling the product at cost or even a loss just to get rid of it. This also perpetuates the theory on why should I pay X for a figure when I got some figures in the flea market for less. The guys in the flea market do not have the overhead the dealers do, rising metal and gas prices, postage and packing cost etc. I am against the flea market as a cheap dealer area.
In today's technology, with Bartertown and eBay online, the multi-day flea market is no longer needed. I do not understand why the flea market has to occur every day of the convention. Why not limit it to the first or the last day of the show. If it was the first day then it would possibly boost attendance to the convention on that day and give those selling a chance to re-invest that money into the dealer room. The same could be said if the flea market was on the last day of the convention. It might give people a reason to stick around on Sundays. I know people say that the flea market is what the attendees want, and it is a valuable hobby resource. I ask how many people would not attend a show like Historicon or Little Wars if there was no flea market. I would bet the numbers to be very low. The very name flea market helps add to a cheap atmosphere of our hobby. HMGS-East has done its share to help promote this cheap nature of the hobby, by charging a measly $10 for admission to a 4-day show. It helps promote cheap thinking. At these rates, why even charge admission.
You are saying the convention has no value and therefore is worth nothing. I am not saying the prices need to be on par with GenCon or even Origins, but it should be at least $30 for a weekend. When in comparison it cost $10 to see a movie which has roughly two hours of entertainment no one can argue the entertainment value of conventions. At some shows you can game for 24 hours a day. You have to place a value on something or it will never be taken seriously. I have also heard people say, "why should I pay that price for a building when I only paid $10 to game all weekend?" By setting these low prices, HMGS is hurting the dealers who support their own shows and the hobby at large. Most people do not realize that the income from the dealer rooms pays for more than 50% of that conventions budget. With HMGS having an unchecked flea market, our dealers are suffering. I wonder if there was no dealer room how many people would attend shows, I would bet the number to be large indeed. HMGS is supposed to be the support organization to help promote and grow the hobby, but with its current policies it is only stymieing it.
I do not understand why our hobby has gone down this cheapy road we are on. Things must change, especially now with metal costs at an all-time high. Our figures, by comparison to the adventure game market, are still very inexpensive. A single 28mm foot figure from Games Workshop can cost up to $12. I know most people say that you do not need as many of their figures as you do for our hobby. I can agree with this for periods like Napoleonics and American Civil War, or if you are trying to play anything but a skirmish game. If you take an average Warhammer Fantasy army, I will bet it has the same number of figures as most historical skirmish games. Why are we being upstaged by the adventure game players?
I know the average person who reads this will say I am pro-dealer. Well, I am and always have been, even before I was on the business end of the hobby. Without our stores, manufacturers, and importers, our hobby will soon dry up and die. The cost for our dealers to operate is going up at a rate which revenue does not compensate. Very few businesses in the hobby are thriving. Most are just getting by in this tough time. I, for one, have no problem paying a premium for the hobby if the quality is there. If we do not support our dealers then there will not be any new products coming out and a smaller variety to choose from. This cheap mentality must end in order for our hobby to thrive, let alone survive.
PS: On a unrelated note, at this years HMGS East Membership Meeting at Historicon, I succumbed to my emotions and embarrassed myself and the organization. I owe the HMGS-East membership, the Board of Directors and certain individuals, especially Mr. Coggins, an apology for my actions. For that, I am sorry.
Back to MWAN # 131 Table of Contents
Back to MWAN List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 2004 Legio X
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com