> Nick Brooke on Playin' Games, on Hero Wars:
>> They told me they're selling "bucketloads" [...]
> I'm enormously glad to hear it. To hear fevrid enthusiasm here is
> one thing, but for a hardened, glint-eyed merchant to sound impressed
> is genuinely encouraging. (Though I'm still not getting totally carried
> away, since there have to be a 1000 or so truly hardened Gloranfans,
> for whom selling to is more a matter of velocity than discretion.
> I do hope it's making significant inroads into the 'new blood',
> and 'Ah yes, I remember when...' camps, too.)
OK, my last news gladdened Alex enormously, so I had another chat in the shop yesterday.
Apparently Hero Wars is selling *much* faster than they'd expect a "new" RPG to -- "surprisingly fast" -- although lots of early customers seem to (a) know the game's out already (from Internet/word of mouth) and come to the shop just to buy their copy, and/or (b) say something along the lines of "I've been waiting since 1980 for this to come out." So there's no hard evidence yet about how well "new blood" is taking to the game. But the takeup among the "velocity, not discretion" crowd is certainly impressive.
The "hardened, glint-eyed merchant" I spoke to (*not* a fair description, as she gives me free sweeties) says the thing most needed for Hero Wars to *really* take off would be an imminent and continuing stream of supporting publications, so that new players will have a stream of things to play (and spend their money on): fast and visible support from Issaries, Inc. in order to catch and hold new fans.
(I know this will not come as a surprise to Eric Rowe, who has about 10w2 in Marketing (last time I looked). I hope he still has much input into Issaries' Master Plan).
:::: Email: <mailto:Nick_Brooke_at_btinternet.com>
Nick
:::: Website: <http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/>
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