Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne looks at some new game products that illustrate a principle of brands.
Several notable new items came in this week before Halloween (sorry, no puns about how they are scary good). First up, yet another
Munchkin. This one, however, is
Munchkin Pathfinder. It's
Munchkin, with
Pathfinder, and Goblins, and John Kovalic art. How can it not be good? Should sell to fans of
Munchkin, probably less to
Pathfinder players. Munchkin players are already conditioned to purchase new Munchkin expansions, while selling this to
Pathfinder players requires convincing them to cross over into a whole new gaming genre, though the
Pathfinder Deck Building Game has started conditioning them to do so.
For
Princess Bride fans, Game Salute has
The Princess Bride: Prepare to Die! The gameplay reminds me a lot of
Apples to Apples, with players striving to come up with the most amusing combinations of people wanting revenge and reasons for seeking it. Fun but likely won't appeal to those who are not already fans of
The Princess Bride (of which luckily there are many), much like you probably won't get many purchases of
The Big Bang Theory Game by those who aren't already fans of
The Big Bang Theory. That is the problem, or blessing, of producing games and other products based on another property. You have automatically limited your target market to those fans of that media property. The slavering hordes that swooped down upon Gale Force 9's
Firefly: The Game did not do so because of its cool game mechanics, but because of its cool cast photos on the box. Would they keep playing the game if the mechanics stunk? Of course not, but the mechanics did not get them to look at it in the first place,
Firefly did.
Up next is a product that has the exact opposite problem of the other two games,
Codex Celtarum from Troll Lord Games. Since it bears the
Castles and Crusades logo of Troll Lord Games house RPG, people who don't play
C&C will likely pass this one by, which is a shame as Celtic mythology underpins much of the fantasy RPG category and the
Codex Celtarum is one of the very few print sourcebooks on Celtic mythology and beliefs. With entries on Tir Fo Thium, the Dusa and Echtrae (look 'em up in the book), the
Codex offers extensive detail that anyone running a Celtic inspired RPG would gladly incorporate into their game. Heck, I run a Celtic-inspired game and I didn't know half this stuff. Unfortunately, most people spotting the
Codex on their store's shelves will see the
Castles and Crusades logo, and, since they don't play
C&C, sadly pass right over a truly wonderful book.
Licenses and branded products are the proverbial double-edged sword. A strong license that brings lots of eyeballs, such as a
Princess Bride or a
Firefly can really pump up sales and is often work the trouble and expense a company must go to in order to obtain one. However smaller licenses or brands can push away those same eyeballs and those without an interest in the brand pass over the product and look for something else more in tune with the customer's interest.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
