Gaming Nookie: Of measuring instruments, sideways card orientations and random number generators.

Wednesday, November 30

Of measuring instruments, sideways card orientations and random number generators.

Before gaming online, we had the “real” sort of games. Those that needed actual hardware, like dice, cards or miniatures. These are still very much alive, the preferred games of the pioneer “geeks” that colonized the uncharted territory known as gaming.

There seems to be a minor rennaisance going on with gaming in general. Magic: the Gathering, the first CCG, came out with a great set for their new arc which stayed true to a lot of the initial Magic concepts while putting in something new. Versus, the upstart comic-based game, released the long awaited JLA expansion which surely pleased a lot of those playing the game, since they have been waiting for their favorite heroes to come back or come out for the first time.

At our local gaming shop, Warhammer is beginning to attract games again and keeping the tables busy. L5R is also attracting those veterans with the new base set which introduced better mechanics, great cards and reprints of beloved cards and personalities of old.

The theme seems to be to get back those old players back into the game, even for a while. These are those that before enjoyed the game when they were kids and now have the spending power to continue their passion. A lot of the young ones are into the online games, and so attracting the more mature audience seems the way to go. These are the ones who are really passionate about the game and keeping them happy would be very good for the gaming companies and retailers as well.

Veterans are the new buck.