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Call of Cthulhu CCG
I'm a fan of the Call of Cthulhu CCG. I think it has a cool theme, obviously, but I also think the resource mechanic is among the best I've ever seen in a CCG, and actual play is interestingly confrontational without just being about hitting the other guy with stuff. A while back it stopped being a "collectible" card game, and they started releasing cards in fixed Asylum packs instead. While it was a little disappointing to lose the "I got a [whatever]!" enjoyment that comes with a CCG, it did make it easier to collect playsets of things, and I was happy that the game still existed in some format.
FFG now has an announcement that they're going to make it and A Game of Thrones into what they call "Living Card Games," which appears to mean they'll both follow the Asylum Pack style of realeases. In fact, the only change for Cthulhu appears to be that starting in October they're going to make the releases monthly.
Ack. Didn't AEG do this sort of thing once before, and it was called Rolling Thunder? Didn't that almost kill L5R and cripple Doomtown and the second version of Rage? All of that aside, I don't think I could afford to keep up with playsets of the new decks. I'd need to buy 4 of these things every month to do that and that's going to get expensive quickly. I don't think a month is enough time for a game to stagnate and require new cards. I also can't imagine that a release schedule like that would allow for much playtesting.
I guess we'll see how it goes, but I'm not particularly optimistic. = P
FFG now has an announcement that they're going to make it and A Game of Thrones into what they call "Living Card Games," which appears to mean they'll both follow the Asylum Pack style of realeases. In fact, the only change for Cthulhu appears to be that starting in October they're going to make the releases monthly.
Ack. Didn't AEG do this sort of thing once before, and it was called Rolling Thunder? Didn't that almost kill L5R and cripple Doomtown and the second version of Rage? All of that aside, I don't think I could afford to keep up with playsets of the new decks. I'd need to buy 4 of these things every month to do that and that's going to get expensive quickly. I don't think a month is enough time for a game to stagnate and require new cards. I also can't imagine that a release schedule like that would allow for much playtesting.
I guess we'll see how it goes, but I'm not particularly optimistic. = P
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To make it work you need two things to be true:
1. There is an existing base set that is always in print to make it easy for new people to join the game. (this is where Rage Tribal War died. no base set!)
2. You need to make the set small enough that people can reasonably buy the whole set in a month, every month. (that's where ALL the games flunked)
The basic problem with Rolling Thunder is the sets were Too Damn Big. And were collectible. To get a whole set you dropping around $60 a month, as opposed to $80 every 4 months. it knocked all the casual players out of the game and pissed off the serious players. Sets were ranging about 70-100 cards per set.
It also pissed off the retailers so they wouldn't order the next release because they still had too much money tied up in last months inventory. So they woudn't order the next one til the first one sold though, which meant they might miss a month, which annoyed players...
Chulhulu might work as a monthly because of the fixed card strategy and if they keep the set size small enough that people can resaonably pick it up every month. If the retailer can sell through at least half the stock in the month, he'll probably place the order for the next month.
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