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Anyone worried that Axis & Allies might flop?

bonebrahbonebrah Member Posts: 25
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
I've heard very little buzz around this, youtube announcement got few views, the AMA got like 5 questions and all my gaming circles/websites/discords aren't even talking about it. Was this project the right move for Beamdog? Seems like such a far cry from their usual work, as if it came out of left field. Was there any official statement on why this game was chosen? I hate to be negative but I feel like the efforts should have been directed elsewhere. I supposed only time will tell.

Comments

  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,371
    It depends on who they target. I was a huge fan of the original A&A game back in the late 90's. I also enjoyed the 3rd Reich game from Avalon Hill back then as well. The V for Victory games were my absolute favorites in play-time up until Baldur's Gate in 1990. I still played strategy games at least as much as military simulations until strategic games died out in the early 2000's. There's likely still a niche there. A Napoleonic global strategic game would be a wet-dream of mine!
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,371
    An interesting Napoleonic concept would be if France had actually tried to really challenge Britain on the seas. They wouldn't have to, but the opportunity to try would be a very interesting variant as opposed to the forced Austria/Russia/Prussia then Russia or die strategy imposed on most games of the period...
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Nah, I'm not worried. A&A got quite a bit of positve response just here on the forums. Digital boardgames are kinda big right now.
  • BelgarathMTHBelgarathMTH Member Posts: 5,653
    I don't wish any failures on Beamdog, so I hope it succeeds. It's not a game I'm interested in, though, so I personally won't buy it.
  • megamike15megamike15 Member Posts: 2,666
    yeah this is the first beamdog game i have no interest in. i'm just not that into strategy games.
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    I think it'll be a slow burn build up which is kinda what you need for a game like this. Its going to depend on the community it generates, Beamdog's ability to keep up with demands (such as other maps) and ability to have engaging online tournaments that attract players for this to keep going.

    Player reviews (and word of mouth) is going to be paramount to its success more than any hype.
  • bonebrahbonebrah Member Posts: 25
    Don't get me wrong. I'm not wishing ill will on beamdog with this project. I'm just wary of the efforts being directed towards the game when I felt like the BD community at large never asked for it. Sure, this might reach out to some folks outside of the DnD bubble. I'd have just preferred a new RPG project =P
  • SkipBittmanSkipBittman Member Posts: 146
    I'm sure they did, too. Seems like a low budget potboiler to keep the lights on since whatever D&D pitches they had were seemingly passed on, alas. I hope the other studios working on D&D stuff right now manage to come up with something playable! And that Beamdog has a premium NWN module or two with new assets up their sleeve for 2020-1!
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    edited May 2019
    Well, I cashed three paychecks the day before yesterday and none of them were signed by Beamdog or Oster, so worried sounds like a very strong word to my ears.

    That being said, it wouldn't surprise me. I do know that there's a target audience for this sort of game but that doesn't seem to be Beamdog's. And I honestly have no data to affirm or deny that the effort to reach this audience, at the cost of disappointing some of an already conquered market share, worth the trouble.

    A quick Google search for "axis and allies" gives me no clue about its online version at the first page of results, however. That is already a flawed strategy in my opinion - and would explain the lack of hype and OP's impression that the game might flop.

    I did discover, and that got me surprised, that A&A is also owned by Hasbro. My initial thought was that @TrentOster picked this game to escape from WotC's tyrannical ways without Beamdog having to develop its own universe - the lack of will to do so would be explained by all the pointless controversy over SoD - what would be a somehow brilliant (and risky) solution. Apparently I overestimated the strategy.

    With that also out of the way, my preliminary conclusions are that stepping away from what your market share wants/expects without something as simples as a good Google-Ads campaign smells like a receipt for failure. And also signals to me that Beamdog's communication's issue goes beyond this forum.
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    edited May 2019
    Well, to you, who works at Beamdog and probably types Axis and Allies Online several times a day.

    I have a link to Beamdog, Google knows I visit this forum, Google knows Beamdog will release AAO, yet Google doesn't show anything to me.

    You can't use yourself as a parameter if you already biased the algorithm, @JuliusBorisov . That's the whole idea of Google-Ads and tools like that: make stuff appear for people that it usually wouldn't.

    Otherwise you're just letting Google be Google.

    Edit: and just to demonstrate how creepy this algorithm is: AAO's Steam's page appears now as the last result of the first page. But only it, nothing more.
  • DoubledimasDoubledimas Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 1,286
    Interesting. I get A&AO on Steam as the 3rd hit and the official website for A&AO as fifth.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    We're in close contacts with the Axis & Allies .org community, and their admin. That site is the place to go for everyone interested in Axis & Allies and similar games.
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    Interesting.

    @semiticgod did you made your search on a mobile device or in a PC?
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    @Raduziel: PC. When I use my phone, the order is almost identical: WotC, then BoardGameGeek, then Wikipedia, then Amazon, then Steam, then Board Game Barrister, then the axisandallies.org homepage, then the axisandallies community announcement of the online version. Wikipedia, Amazon, and Steam are still 3, 4, and 5.
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    Raduziel wrote: »
    With that also out of the way, my preliminary conclusions are that stepping away from what your market share wants/expects without something as simples as a good Google-Ads campaign smells like a receipt for failure. And also signals to me that Beamdog's communication's issue goes beyond this forum.

    Communication issue? I don't see any communication issue... They communicate plenty. Maybe they don't tell everyone exactly what they want to hear, but that does not a communication issue make.

    Why must any recipe for success include Google Ads? Plenty of people just use ad blocking software anyway (or they just ignore them completely). Why does a Google search mean so much to begin with? I dunno. I think advertising to the specific crowd that would be interested in this sort of game seems to be the way to go, and it also seems to be what Beamdog is doing by getting involved in the A&A community.
    Raduziel wrote: »
    I do know that there's a target audience for this sort of game but that doesn't seem to be Beamdog's. And I honestly have no data to affirm or deny that the effort to reach this audience, at the cost of disappointing some of an already conquered market share, worth the trouble.

    I wouldn't exactly say that Beamdog has "conquered" a whole market share, especially since the SoD thing. Maybe a small niche of a market share. I don't really see any problems with trying to reach more people with different products. Stagnating with an already conquered niche would probably be worse. Granted I am a bit disappointed it isn't going to at least be another RPG, but I can certainly understand the decision to try to expand the consumer base. Besides that, looking on other sites, and even this forum sometimes, it seems a large portion of what would be Beamdog's fantasy RPG target market has already made up their minds to hate Beamdog and to bash it at all costs. In light of that, a fresh start in a different market, though somewhat regrettable (from my perspective at least), makes a lot of sense.
  • lroumenlroumen Member Posts: 2,538
    10th hit for an anonymous search with org as 9th. The rest are all board game related.

    In any case. You might get good hits when you search for it, but who still searches for it in the first place...
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    @Tresset I really prefer that you completely ignore me from now on, please. I am doing the same. Thanks.

    ---

    @semiticgod @JuliusBorisov I found the problem and it is on my end. Due to my military background, Google gives preference to other content to my research. Hands up to an employee of mine who pointed this.

    I was wrong about the Google thing. My apologies.

    I keep not understanding Trent's strategy toward AAO, though. The interviews were quite superficial.

    But none of this is of my business (literally). I'm writing back here just to recognize that I was wrong.

    Cheers.
  • DreadKhanDreadKhan Member Posts: 3,857
    I think there were better picks for a war-based game, but I intend to check it out eventually. I don't do as much computer gaming as I used to, and I'm more into struggling to write and playing against myself at MTG, which I think is actually not a useless way to learn the game a bit better. I know I'm a crap ton better than when I started doing it, though I was considered among the best in most groups I played any card game in, though I usually took forever to get decent cards on 0 budget. Now I'm looking at buying some Sinkholes... and actually have Lightning Bolts! Enough off topic though, after how happy I was with SoD and the EEs, I'm very likely to at least give any Beamdog project a shot.
  • kansasbarbariankansasbarbarian Member Posts: 206
    If they were going to do an Avalon Hill game they should have went with Magic Realm. I love that game.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,371
    kansasbarbarian wrote: »
    If they were going to do an Avalon Hill game they should have went with Magic Realm. I love that game.

    Advanced 3rd Reich, Advanced Squad Leader or War & Peace would have been my choices...
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