[Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

[TheQuestionMan]

Good day HEROdom, It looks like "Dark Champions Battlegrounds" has been removed from the 2005 Release Schedule and in not listed even as a Tentative Release. Has it been cancelled?

 

Thank you

 

E

[Steve Long]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Cancelled, no. Put off until 2006 or later, yes. The Battlegrounds books simply don't sell well enough compared to other books for us to do any more of them in the short term.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Cancelled' date=' no. Put off until 2006 or later, yes. The Battlegrounds books simply don't sell well enough compared to other books for us to do any more of them in the short term.[/quote']

What? But those are my favorites!

[Sociotard]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

This surprises me. Wasn't Dark Champions a good seller? I would've thought that would make supplements sell well too. Still, if battlegrounds books rarely sell well, the decision makes sense. I'll admit to not having bought one yet.

[AlHazred]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

I've bought them, and I like them alot! I thought the FHB book was intelligently put together - even though I haven't used the overall plot, I've still used the settings and other details already. I was going to adapt the CB book for my Golden Age Supers game until that folded; I still plan on using it eventually.

[Steve Long]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Wasn't Dark Champions a good seller? I would've thought that would make supplements sell well too.

 

DC has sold quite well. But that doesn't mean that all its supplements will sell equally well. While it's difficult to generalize about the gaming industry, there's a truth here that I think virtually everyone who produces RPGs would acknowledge: supplements virtually never sell anywhere close to as well as core books. To give you an example from our own lineup, our best-selling supplement (Champions) has sold significantly less than half the number of 5E core rulebooks we've sold. Believe me, I wish our supplements sold as well as you're thinking!

 

Another example: FH has sold really well for us. Many of its supplements have also done pretty darn well. FHB is one of the worst-selling books we've ever produced. Given the quality of it, and the ideas I have in mind for DCB, that makes me really sad, but so it is.

[Rapier]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

DC has sold quite well. But that doesn't mean that all its supplements will sell equally well. While it's difficult to generalize about the gaming industry' date=' there's a truth here that I think virtually everyone who produces RPGs would acknowledge: supplements virtually never sell anywhere close to as well as core books. To give you an example from our own lineup, our best-selling supplement (Champions) has sold significantly less than [i']half[/i] the number of 5E core rulebooks we've sold. Believe me, I wish our supplements sold as well as you're thinking!

 

Another example: FH has sold really well for us. Many of its supplements have also done pretty darn well. FHB is one of the worst-selling books we've ever produced. Given the quality of it, and the ideas I have in mind for DCB, that makes me really sad, but so it is.

: comfort :

 

That is amazing. I mean, I guess it makes sense. Hero being the generic system that it is, any single genre is only going to grab a fraction of the player base. I, personally, have back-burnered all the Star Hero and Vehicle books since they aren't going to give me any real benefit for my campaigns (granted, I'm sure there are some juicy rules tidbits in there).

 

D&D comes out with a new mage book or something and they can pretty much bank on it selling to a significant fraction of the playerbase.

 

Its strange seeing into the other side of the system. I bought a bunch of books from FRPGames a week or so ago and I did notice that SideKick was on their BestSeller list.

 

Any chance of getting some kind of ranking on the most popular genre (maybe by core rule book sales)? I'm curious to know how the genres split out.

 

EDIT: I bought both the BattleGrounds books. Haven't received them yet (CMON UPS MAN!), but I bought 'em.

[Steve Long]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

EDIT: I bought both the BattleGrounds books. Haven't received them yet (CMON UPS MAN!), but I bought 'em.

 

And we thank you for it.

 

Any chance of getting some kind of ranking on the most popular genre (maybe by core rule book sales)? I'm curious to know how the genres split out.

 

Sure, here's a list of genre books in order of number sold (though obviously I'm not going to reveal specific numbers) as of October. However, it's important to keep in mind that sales depend on how long a book's been in circulation. For example, NH has sold more than DC (barely), but it's been out ten times as long. By the time DC's been out as long as NH has as of last month, it will have significantly outsold it -- in fact, it'll probably outsell it in the next couple of months.

 

Champions

FH

SH

NH

DC

[Rapier]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Sure, here's a list of genre books in order of number sold (though obviously I'm not going to reveal specific numbers) as of October. However, it's important to keep in mind that sales depend on how long a book's been in circulation. For example, NH has sold more than DC (barely), but it's been out ten times as long. By the time DC's been out as long as NH has as of last month, it will have significantly outsold it -- in fact, it'll probably outsell it in the next couple of months.

 

Champions

FH

SH

NH

DC

Huh. Who knew? I mean, I've always really enjoyed the DC stuff. I was always more of a fan of the gritty street level than the standard 4-colour boy scouts. I just didn't realise that it was all that popular. KUDOS! I'm really looking forward to the darned UPS man. I can't wait to get my grubby lil mitts on DC and FH.

 

While we are on the topic, what was your greatest surprise (what genre is performing better than you expected)?

[BobGreenwade]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

FH has sold really well for us. Many of its supplements have also done pretty darn well. FHB is one of the worst-selling books we've ever produced. Given the quality of it' date=' and the ideas I have in mind for DCB, that makes me really sad, but so it is.[/quote']That also bodes very, very badly for the possible future of Star Hero Battlegrounds.

[Steve Long]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

what was your greatest surprise (what genre is performing better than you expected)

 

I wouldn't say there've been many surprises in that regard. All the genre books are doing about as expected, taking guesstimated popularly, market conditions at time of release and after, etc., etc. into account.

 

Aside from genre books, the Resource Kit definitely caught on a lot more than we expected. Wish we'd made the initial print run bigger, but so it goes.

[Darren Watts]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

For me the biggest surprise was USPD, and probably for everybody else here except Steve, who believed strongly in it all the way. It's one of our best-selling supplements ever (along with UMA, Bestiary and CU.) dw

[KA.]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Steve, Darren, etc.

 

I am not asking for specifics, but how have sales been for Sidekick?

 

KA.

[Steve Long]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Sales of SK have been pretty good. If it were a regular book, we'd be really happy with it. But given its low price point, it barely makes any money at all. The hope, of course, is that it leads to sales of other books. It's done that anecdotally, but I don't think there's any statistically measurable effect.

[Bucky]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Sales of SK have been pretty good. If it were a regular book' date=' we'd be really happy with it. But given its low price point, it barely makes any money at all. The hope, of course, is that it leads to sales of other books. It's done that anecdotally, but I don't think there's any statistically measurable effect.[/quote']

 

Well, for what it is worth, we have Sidekick, and my wife is going through it first to get her head wrapped around the system. (We're ancient D&D players and only discovered Hero about 10 months ago. Its a slight jump, plus we have old brain cells) Since then, we've gotten 5ER, All the Star Hero books presently out, (SH, TE, AW, Spacer's Toolkit. (What can I say, love the sci fi)) Beastiary, Champions, Dark Champions, Ultimate Vehicles, U Brick, U Martial Artist, Ninja Hero, UNTIL Database, Gear and Gadgets, et.al. I know I am missing some of them.

 

Also have FH, FG1 and 2, Mystic Worlds, Arcane Adversaries, and am eagerly waiting U Mystic. (The gaming stores are finding me annoying)

 

While we already had 5ER when we bought Sidekick, we have found it very helpful to make the transition from other gaming systems to Hero. Its less intimidating. And because Sidekick made Hero more accessible, it has led us to continue purchase of more Hero books.

[Steve Long]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

That is a heartening story! Hopefully it will get repeated many times all around the world.

[Darren Watts]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

That also bodes very' date=' [i']very[/i] badly for the possible future of Star Hero Battlegrounds.

 

Well, in a "Battlegrounds"-style format, yer probably right. But "Worlds of Empire" will have many interesting locations and probably at least a few cool maps. It's a slightly-different format, but the same basic idea. While no Star Hero supplements have exactly been hits, they've done quite solidly as backstock titles and certainly have justified continuing the line even if it's only a book or two a year. dw

[JmOz]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

I'm really surprised by the lack of sales of Ninja Hero, While I would expect it to be your least popular genre book, considering how long it has been on the market I would expect it to be doing somewhat better (like maybe DC taking 3-4 more months to catch up )

[Mark Taylor]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

I'm really surprised by the lack of sales of Ninja Hero' date=' While I would expect it to be your least popular genre book, considering how long it has been on the market I would expect it to be doing somewhat better (like maybe DC taking 3-4 more months to catch up )[/quote']

 

I'm not particularly surprised by it. There is a bit of a mini-revival of Martial Arts movies going on just now, sparked by Crouching Tiger, Hero, and other such major cinema releases, but I think it would have to get much bigger still to have a serious impact on the RPG market.

 

Having said that, I personally think Ninja HERO is great (I'm running a NH campaign myself right now). My only criticism is that there is so much overlap between the nature of the ground covered by chapters 2 and 3 of NH and UMA that from the perspective of a GM actually running a NH campaign like I am, they would have been several times easier to use if they had been all one book, twice the size of either (still would have been smaller than Fantasy HERO). I can see why the material was split the way it was though, since a lot of people will just want UMA to create martial artists in their Champions games or whatever.

 

Still, I can dream, and if in my personal fantasy world DOJ could release one book just to please me, it would probably be a NH / UMA combined volume with all the material from chapters 2 and 3 of both just mixed in together.

[AlHazred]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

See, I don't know how much popular culture is an indicator for this. About a year ago, there was a huge amount of support for the soldiers overseas, and yet I haven't seen a single successful product with Soldier PCs as a selling point...

[Bucky]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

See' date=' I don't know how much popular culture is an indicator for this. About a year ago, there was a huge amount of support for the soldiers overseas, and yet I haven't seen a single successful product with Soldier PCs as a selling point...[/quote']

 

Maybe someone could write up War Hero? But it would be a repeat of stuff found elsewhere. Several of the genrie books give almost all you need to know about military structure, organization, tactics, ranks, etc. Dark Champions alone has just about everything you need to build a War Hero.

 

I guess it would come down to setting then. Dark Champions: Sheherazad with a full detailed city somewhere in the middle east, a place where your heros chace the bad terrorists to.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

Maybe someone could write up War Hero? But it would be a repeat of stuff found elsewhere. Several of the genrie books give almost all you need to know about military structure' date=' organization, tactics, ranks, etc. Dark Champions alone has just about everything you need to build a War Hero.[/quote']There'd be a lot of overlap, to be sure, but I do think War Herp would be a cool book. It could also include histories of the major wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a bit more on standard military tactics than has been published in any Hero book to date, real-world military regulations and organization (as opposed to the reality-based fictional stuff in Alien Wars or the relatively sketchy stuff in DC), along with the usual military equipment (borrowing from DC, TUV, and HSVS) and general story/campaign ideas.

 

There's a difference between being "cool" and being a good seller, of course....

[AlHazred]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

I'm talking big picture here. WotC has enough backing to try some pretty risky ventures. If it were as easy as "what's popular now," they'd have done it already, and there'd be a ton of imitators. Similarly with a great book like Ninja Hero, I don't know that we could correlate its success to that of movies like Crouching Tiger; sure, they make my skeptical friends consider such campaigns as a possibility. But the mystical quality that "makes" a game popular enough to fly off the shelves is sadly elusive.

[JmOz]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

I think War Hero would really have to be a sub genre book for Dark Champions with the way it is set up now days...

[BobGreenwade]

Re: [Release Schedule] Dark Champions Battlegrounds?

 

I think War Hero would really have to be a sub genre book for Dark Champions with the way it is set up now days...

I do agree.