Spartan Games announced it's closing down

[Craig]

Whatever some may think, the wargames' industry is small. In fact you could fit all the people who work in it into a large village.

So, when a company goes down, it is a sad day for all of us. All the creativity, energy and hard work put in by Spartan's people over the years has just come to an end, and we are all poorer for it.

Let's hope that this is just a localised difficulty and not the beginning of a trend.

To all you former Spartan's, good luck with your next endeavours and I hope you soon emerge from this with new jobs and opportunities.

[nic-e]

I love it when barely beyond cottage businesses style their management as 'directors', CEOs or MDs. I suppose at least director, might have some legal meaning in the context of going tits up but it's not like there's a board responsible for shareholders interests. Says a lot about the people running the place usually.

Not long ago I had cause to ring up a small gaming distribution company in Oz. Having fucked up my order in almost every way possible, including but not limited to swapping it with someone elses order on the other side of the country, the owner said he would pass me on to their 'Distribution Manager', which I assumed to be his wife. "Distribution Manager?" I enquired. "Is that the person that posts out your packages?". A brief pause followed by "Er, yes" was the response.

I used to have to do this at work. I was even worse before we separated the warehouse and the store. "Sorry sir, I'm afraid you'll have to ring the warehouse to enquire about the state of your delivery, I'm only retail."

wait two minute...

"hello, warehouse...Yes i'll just check that."

It's the same system and we could check everything from the store ,but out boss insisted on having the two be separate.

[nic-e]

In other news Tor has just announced that they are closing down aswell due to lack of demand and an over-saturated market.

I remember a couple of years back when kickstarter really took off someone predicting a tabletop crash if people got too used to getting heaps of stuff for no money, I'm really hoping this isn't the start of it.

[Gardensnake]

I saw this on Facebook and it saddened me as well but unfortunately didn't really surprise me. I never bought or played any of Spartan's games even though I looked at them and considered getting into them. The issue for me was stability. It seemed every time I looked at getting into one of their games, there was either a new edition or revision coming out or the miniatures were being redone. Sometimes a game just needs to be allowed to grow than constantly getting rebooted or redone. Marvel Comics is going through the same thing due to their yearly relaunches. Things need to be kept interesting to retain attention and sales but as a rule, people don't really like change and too much change too often can kill anything.

William

[Sir_Theo]

A shame, as it always is when a company goes.

I was a big fan of the Halo fleet battles game. Will have to pick up what I can before it's all gone!

[Andym]

This is a crying shame!.....but in hind sight probably predictable!

I loved their sci fi scenery! The cabinets, medical suites, canteen and stuff. I have ordered a load of it in the past and always looked to get more, but anytime I went looking for it, it was always out of stock! There's me, a customer willing to buy their product, and not being able to throw my money at them! It sounds the same for a load of people playing their games!

Still, a bad sign for a struggling industry!

[dartfrog]

Sad to hear Tor gaming is going. I have a large pile of the his figures, some fun stuff in the mix. 

[PaulJB]

Yes quite a surprise for me, I like Uncharted Seas and they stopped making it. Not too bothered about the other games although I'd bought starters when other local gamers expressed an interest.

In case there's any interest, I have a painted sorillian fleet, unpainted/primed Prussians for dystopian legions, painted fleet again Prussians for dystopian wars. Also a 28mm mdf set of SciFi rooms, all going cheap.

Paul

[Ray Rivers]

Let's hope that this is just a localised difficulty and not the beginning of a trend.

I think it is both.

Localized in that their product obviously had its problems...

And a trend, as folks like CMON and others team up with the Chinese to produce unbelievably low priced, highly detailed miniatures for kick starters, to wipe out as much of the competition as possible. It's called Predatory Pricing. Very difficult to prove but pretty obvious once the industry has been almost completely obliterated.

[Kommando_J]

CMON has possibly made a fatal error though...never ever get into bed with the Chinese, especially when their job is to provide the goods, the entire culture now has a massive culture of business dishonesty, constant lying and just running and starting new companies elsewhere when the current fades.

I recall Spartan had trouble when the Chinese held their moulds to ransom, GW is clever in that it keeps as much away from parties that would pirate it as possible.

[Ray Rivers]

That is part of the deal working with the Chinese.

Any manufacturing plant is inspected by the Chinese and no part of it is off limits.

So it is essentially a cheap way for them to gain intellectual property. It would seem strange that the Chinese would want to dominate such a niche hobby but apparently no sector is immune.

You sell your soul when you work with the Chinese. And when you send them your money, you contribute to the destruction of small business in the West.

When you look at the crushing effect that Amazon has had on local small business, it is just a harbinger of the future for our own hobby.

[nic-e]

That is part of the deal working with the Chinese.

Any manufacturing plant is inspected by the Chinese and no part of it is off limits.

So it is essentially a cheap way for them to gain intellectual property. It would seem strange that the Chinese would want to dominate such a niche hobby but apparently no sector is immune.

You sell your soul when you work with the Chinese. And when you send them your money, you contribute to the destruction of small business in the West.

When you look at the crushing effect that Amazon has had on local small business, it is just a harbinger of the future for our own hobby.

It's a niche hobby when it's being made at high cost by one man ventures in sheds here.
It's not niche when you take everyones ideas, pool them into one big factory and pump them out so cheap you can flood toy shops/online sales with them, or just sell them as "super awesome robot go toy soldier force" at the pound shop in bags of 300.

[Connectamabob]

This is one problem that, for the consumer at least, I'm hoping 3d printing will eventually solve. No more OOP or limited-edition kickstarter minis or any of that bollocks. Just files on servers that can be DLed or traded by anyone. DRM would/will eventually be a thing as companies try to hold onto the old ways with their fingernails, and so DRM cracking would become the new recasting, but it's my hope that the hobby community will eventually be able to sustain itself without commercial models. All you need is tools that are cheap (already there), easy to use (halfway there), and a mostly share-positive grognard culture (halfway there). And of course 3D printers that are both cheap enough and good enough to be truly mainstream (halfway there).

[nic-e]

This is one problem that, for the consumer at least, I'm hoping 3d printing will eventually solve. No more OOP or limited-edition kickstarter minis or any of that bollocks. Just files on servers that can be DLed or traded by anyone. DRM would/will eventually be a thing as companies try to hold onto the old ways with their fingernails, and so DRM cracking would become the new recasting, but it's my hope that the hobby community will eventually be able to sustain itself without commercial models. All you need is tools that are cheap (already there), easy to use (halfway there), and a mostly share-positive grognard culture (halfway there). And of course 3D printers that are both cheap enough and good enough to be truly mainstream (halfway there).

To some this sounds like utopia, To me it sounds like hell on earth.

[Connectamabob]

To some this sounds like utopia, To me it sounds like hell on earth.

It would suck for two groups: those who manufacture and sell minis for a living, and those who desire scarcity-based collectible value in their tat.

The former... well, it legit sucks for those people, but it's kinda just the way technological advancement is. All technological advancement. Old ways get made obsolete by new technology pretty much by definition. The bigger the leap, the more it changes. Sometimes a tech is big enough to make entire paradigms obsolete. On balance these changes are desirable (almost as a truism), but in the moment it does suck for those who have to retool their lives/livelhoods the most.

The latter can suck it, IMO, as their pleasure is explicitly defined by the limiting of others' pleasure. They can go in the bin with sumptuary laws and MMO griefers where they belong.

For everyone else it'd be grand.