Jägermeister, on 04 April 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:
Well, I'll give you some facts. I know that the number of active BT players has dropped drastically in Germany over the last decade. There are hardly any presentations at conventions, very few traders to get stuff from and the number of fights of registered players on our online portal has greatly decreased. In fact, when we still did presentations at conventions 2 or 3 years ago, many people would say "Oh, Battletech. I used to play that, but it's just too slow" Of the 20 people who used to play BT in our old unit, I know not one person who still plays BT. At least 10 still play other wargames, though.
That's all well and good- I lived in the Netherlands for two years. According to the gamers I spoke with and played with there, they didn't like Battletech. They preferred Warrhammer40k.
Because of the gameplay? Yes... the gameplay was 'too GERMAN'
Clearly, the problem isn't the gameplay. It's Germany.
Or... it could be in the past decade...
-FASA went out of business
-Battletech was in limbo for several years as its licence and Intellectual Property changed hands not once, but several times. The propery transitioned from FASA to Wizkids (whcih also went out of business) to Topps. The licence went from FASA to Wizkids, to FanPro (a German company) to Topps to Catalyst (an American company)
-Financial difficulties. Not only was FASA involved in a significant lawsuit with Harmony Gold 15 years ago that still lingered (the so-called 'Unseen' issue) but there was Wizkids as mentioned, and, one of the owners of Catalyst Game Labs was accussed of siphoning significant amount of funds...
-To the point that Catalyst was unable to pay their writers...
This is, of course, not mentioning the issue in regards to tabletop games having a greater and greater difficulty due to eletronic games...
Despite all this, however, CGL is a growing company- Battletech being their main 'bread and butter'. One wonders if the player base was dwindling, as you suggest, how the company would be not only viable, but continuing to grow no?
They also are producing many more sourcebooks and gaming materials for Battletech all the time- once again, something that shouldn't be happening if the player base wasn't growing.
I don't doubt that you're seeing smaller playerbases at conventions, especially considering a decade ago was when everything hit the fan (FASA closed in 2001). The early 2000s looked, for a time, like Battletech *was* dead and has only started to regain its footing.
Case in point: Microsoft scrapped MW5 and the Mechassault lines. This year we're now expecting not just one, but *THREE* Battletech themed video games. (Mechwarrior Online, obviously, but there's also Battletech Tactics which is another F2P game that appears to be the *actual* board game being developed, and a MechCommander-like game being developed for the iPad and Android phones)
I would think that the numbers you're seeing is a result of the licence changing hands- and the products shifting from a german company focus to an American company.
In North America, Battletech is alive and kicking. I don't know how focused CGL is focused on Germany like Fanpro was (I doubt it's even close to the same) but give it time. You'll see support for it trickle back into Germany soon enough, I'm sure.
Also- if you're looking for 'faster' gameplay, have you tried "Battleforce"? The rules have been updated and republished in
Strategic Operations