The Rise And Fall Of Computer Strategy

Game design philosopher Chris Bateman explains why, if you're an NT in the Meyers-Briggs taxonomy, you probably think that games have gone all downhill since the 90s:

Because the Rational temperament is associated with programmers and game designers, early videogames were extremely influenced by Strategic play. Early mainframe games in the 1970s , such as Star Trek (Mike Mayfield, 1971), Adventure/Colossal Cave (Will Crowther, 1975) and Dungeon (Don Daglow, 1975) and its spiritual descendent Rogue (Toy, Wichman and Arnold, 1980). Many early games were influenced by the tabletop wargames (and role-playing games) of the 1970s, which were also great examples of Strategic play – providing complex play resulting from many different rules and options.

In the 1990s, turn-based strategy games raised Strategic play to a new level with games such as Civilization (Microprose, 1991), Master of Orion (Simtex, 1993) and the X-COM series (Mythos Games et al, 1994 onwards). Additionally, strategic role-playing games such as the Heroes of Might and Magic series (New World Computing et al, 1990 onwards), and point and click adventures such as The Secret of Monkey Island (LucasArts, 1990) made this decade the golden age of Strategic play for many people preferring this play style.

This screen represents hundreds of hours of my life.

Sadly for players preferring Strategic play, the arrival of the PlayStation in the mid-90s marked a change in the focus of the videogame market. Until this point, players favouring Strategic play were (arguably) in the majority, and the bulk of the games being made appealed to these players in some way. But a new era was arriving in which effortless 3D graphics opened the door to a wider market. The Strategic player was about to go from being the key audience for videogames, to being a strong but diminished niche market. 

This change was to mark the end of the commercial importance of adventure games, and a gradual narrowing of the importance of turn-based strategy games which today support very few viable franchises, and maximum audiences of no more than 2 million units (while other types of games were able to pull in maximum audiences of 8 million units during this time). Today, Strategic play in isolation is a commercial backwater, although many successful games support Strategic play along with other play styles.

Miniatures and the Game Industry

In my college days, the centerpiece activities of my game club's members were usually (1) massive, campaign-scale, 6-12 player wargames (World in Flames, Empires in Arms, Imperial Starfire) or (2) homebrew RPG campaigns. We did a few odds and ends with board and card games, but that was just filler. The priority was always on providing large-group social activities. This makes a certain amount of sense, since this is the one dynamic that computer games couldn't match. Of course, that was two decades ago, and now MMOs are stealing that portion of the market too.

What's left? Miniatures. I think they've survived for a few reasons. First, they can't be replaced by a computer, since so much of their appeal is based on tangibility. A computer rendering of a battlemech still can't quite eclipse the satisfaction that comes from actually moving a little model of your Atlas around a hex map. But more importantly, I think, it's the only remaining profit margin in the industry. Everything else has been replaced by pdfs, and in a world of bit-torrent pirates, pdfs are probably stolen instead of purchased, nine times out of ten. Minis can't be downloaded, so they're safe.

Recently I found this breakdown of sales components from a Friendly Local Game Shop owner. It's eye-opening. Miniatures (and accessories to customize them) make up something like 70 percent of all profits. RPGs are maybe another 25%, and everything else (card and board games) is just slivers. This is probably because collectibles are considerably more likely than other products to turn customers into "whales" who provide a reliable income stream, allowing stores (or publishers, or designers) to weather economic downturns. Other games are too faddish and cyclical, or involve making initial investments that don't prompt any need for further purchases.

In some sense all those games I played back in college were "too good", providing so much replay value for their price point that they could be played for years without needing to spend another dime. An RPG system, or a six-month-long wargame, will keep a creative group of players busy for a decade and free up their disposable income for other uses. That's great for players, but terrible for business.