FoG 2.0 hum . . . shoot their own foot?

[Syr Hobbs]

FoG 2.0 hum . . . shoot their own foot?  or will they really start a Wargaming Revolution?

Just saw this on the US FoG Yahoo group and then followed up on their Forum.

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=35719

I own several of the printed books and have played a few games but folks in my area are not interested.  I have no investment either way but interesting none the less.

Duane

[Fenton]

That all seems a bit odd

[lentulus]

Well, it's interesting to see the idea of "digital rules for miniatures games" mean something more than "Here's the same pdf we sent the printer, aren't we high tech?"  

Releasing it as an "app" seems odd, but I don't know much about abbanan.  And it may be a marketing thing, "apps" are trendy and people grasp they should buy them.  And its easier to do DRM if there are brains there instead of just readable files.

Now, at the same time as a rules change may be a mistake; and no paper version I am sure is a mistake.

Sure thing is that it will be interesting.

Update: https://www.abannan.com/MiniSite/Publishers#!div4
"Publishing platform with targeted advertising"   

Well, depends how obnoxious it is and who they figure to sell the add space to; I remember buying rules books with adds on the back page.

[Serotonin]

Interetsing. Pete Berry of Baccus was talking about this on Meeples and Miniatures podcast. Hes planning on doing all sorts with the electronic version of his rules, moving away from them just being a pdf with hotlinks in (such as the very well done TooFatLardies IABSM3), but adding video, voice overs, animations etc to explain rules. Makes a lot of sense, making the rule books truely interactive.

[Chad]

I suppose eventually we can all sit back and let the games play themselves. Won't that be fun!

Chad

[lentulus]

Or have transponders in the bases, and let a computer track the whole thing

"RULES VI-O-LA-TION! RULES VI-O-LA-TION! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

[OldenBUA]

Or have transponders in the bases, and let a computer track the whole thing

"RULES VI-O-LA-TION! RULES VI-O-LA-TION! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

[OldenBUA]

Or have transponders in the bases, and let a computer track the whole thing

"RULES VI-O-LA-TION! RULES VI-O-LA-TION! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

Just thinking that's probably the next move for BattleFront.

I noticed that Battlefront have announced that ony BF miniatures will be allowed to be used in offical FOW tournaments from now on

[Fenton]

Well Slitherine have announced that there will be no printable copy of the new version , well not at first...I think they must have a lot of rule books and supplements in their warehouse, for them to go purely digital...Lot of annoyed people I think about this announcement as well

[lentulus]

One wonders if it might represent a breakdown of the relationship with Osprey, them being the bindings and paper part of the team.  Slitherine itself is  a computer game company, so going with a geek-oriented publishing platform is not that surprising.  And of course, from a costs standpoint, pure software delivery is pretty cheap per-unit, I expect the delivery application engine is  per-"subscriber" billing, and the content creators are being paid royalties only.  So pretty tempting to test the waters.

My problem with this is that I am not going to read on a computer, this is not enough of a drive to get me to enter a very immature tablet market, and they are not supporting the modestly-priced e-readers.  The question is going to be, how big is the intersection of the sets of tablet-owners and miniatures gamers?

[GordonY]

"The question is going to be, how big is the intersection of the sets of tablet-owners and miniatures gamers?"

and those that want to play FoG?

[lentulus]

Actually, I think this could turn out to be a good way to distribute rules.  I do plan to play a bit with e-pub and hyperlinks on my own rules project.

[Syr Hobbs]

I agree I do think this is the future and with the possibility of updating rules, adding extra etc this would be a great inexpensive way to keep rules current without having to print out an extra page or waiting for years for a second edition.

However, I said future.  I wonder if this technology isn't beyond the ability and willingness of older players to use.   There's just a lot of older gamers who like myself are not that comfortable with new technology etc.  I have a hard enough time using my cell phone and my wife refuses to read a book from an e-reader.   LOL  I just think it is a bit premature to think there is enough market out there to make this profitable without printed books as well. 

Duane

[lentulus]

OK, so we got 2 UK software companies, one around for a while (but still private, not public) with a product that happens to fit (just) in the profile of another UK software company that's just starting up and probably needs some success stories.

I expect there's business going on behind the scenes here.