Front Office Football, the Card Game

[Zeniazd]

Front Office Football: The Card Game by Jim Gindin (Solecismic Software) — Kickstarter

Jim needs your help!

[Danny]

There's really no chance this gets to 43k.

[Toddzilla]

Phenomenal

[Subby]

People can bag on Jim all they want about this, but kudos to him for getting this to the Kickstarter stage.

[Danny]

Not trying to bag on him, but being realistic. A $55 price tag for poor artwork and limited components will keep everyone except FOF fanatics away from pledging.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Danny

Not trying to bag on him, but being realistic. A $55 price tag for poor artwork and limited components will keep everyone except FOF fanatics away from pledging.

Well, the subset he needs to tap into is "board game geeks who want to play a football board game and who would move over from Strat." No idea how big that group is. My guess is that it's too small to sustain the game, but it's a group that exists mostly completely outside of FOFC. Therefore, I strongly suspect that the statement "will keep everyone except FOF fanatics from pledging" is incorrect. People will pledge who aren't into FOF at all. But will there be enough of them? My guess is no, but I fully admit to being completely ignorant of the market this would reach.

[DaddyTorgo]

$43,000?

Whoa.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I wish Jim the best of luck with this endeavor.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

$43,000?

Whoa.

Enough to print 1,000 copies?

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I wish Jim the best of luck with this endeavor.

+1

[Sun Tzu]

I'm 30 years old, and I have absolutely zero interest in this. I think it's fairly safe to say most people younger than me feel the same way.

I don't understand this move by Jim.

*edit* I think there's just a generational gap here. I have never, in my life, played a sports-related board game. In fact, most board games that I'm familiar with now have some kind of electronic integration, be it "catchphrase" or something similar. Of course I hope this works out for Jim, but I just don't get why he would put so much effort into something that's clearly based on personal nostalgia.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I wish Jim the best of luck with this endeavor.

Originally Posted by spleen1015

+1

[Marc Vaughan]

I think its feasible enough - I've backed it despite honestly not expecting to ever play the game ... because I think its a cool idea and I really respect Jim as a games designer.

I DO however think that if anyone here has art skills and wants to knock up some 'magic the gathering' style cards (ie. more fluff art, less programmer art) for Jim to post as mockups for the final products then that'd help a LOT with getting people who've never played FOF backing it ...

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

I'm 30 years old, and I have absolutely zero interest in this. I think it's fairly safe to say most people younger than me feel the same way.

I don't understand this move by Jim.

*edit* I think there's just a generational gap here. I have never, in my life, played a sports-related board game. In fact, most board games that I'm familiar with now have some kind of electronic integration, be it "catchphrase" or something similar. Of course I hope this works out for Jim, but I just don't get why he would put so much effort into something that's clearly based on personal nostalgia.

Don't think it's a generational gap. I'm a lot older and I have zero interest in this.

[AnalBumCover]

This brought back memories of an NFL based CCG called Red Zone which never really took off.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

Don't think it's a generational gap. I'm a lot older and I have zero interest in this.

This.

[Logan]

Unless I'm misreading how this works (and I don't think I am - it's a physical card game), I think the biggest problem is not only finding enough people who want to play it, but enough people who ALSO know enough people who will want to play it with them. This has to be such a narrow market...now you need two people in that narrow market to also live close enough to each other to link up for an in-person game.

I could kind of see it being interesting to people if this is all done virtually. Would obviously significantly reduce costs as well.

But another +1 to hoping this works out for Jim.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Enough to print 1,000 copies?

Valid point. Just seems like a big chunk of change.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Logan

Unless I'm misreading how this works (and I don't think I am - it's a physical card game), I think the biggest problem is not only finding enough people who want to play it, but enough people who ALSO know enough people who will want to play it with them. This has to be such a narrow market...now you need two people in that narrow market to also live close enough to each other to link up for an in-person game.

I could kind of see it being interesting to people if this is all done virtually. Would obviously significantly reduce costs as well.

But another +1 to hoping this works out for Jim.

Those were exactly my thoughts as well, especially the bolded part.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

I'm 30 years old, and I have absolutely zero interest in this. I think it's fairly safe to say most people younger than me feel the same way.

I don't understand this move by Jim.

*edit* I think there's just a generational gap here. I have never, in my life, played a sports-related board game. In fact, most board games that I'm familiar with now have some kind of electronic integration, be it "catchphrase" or something similar. Of course I hope this works out for Jim, but I just don't get why he would put so much effort into something that's clearly based on personal nostalgia.

I don't think it's purely "generational." There are lots of people not too much older than you (I'm 43) who got their start into the sim world playing dice-and-card type games, and a fair number of them (especially at *this* board..I'll deal with that later) won't purchase this.

In 1978, when I was 9, the very few electronic options didn't come anywhere close to what Statis-Pro and Strat-O-Matic could offer in terms of depth, stats, etc. There was Atari, Intellivision, and the little hand-held control-the-little-blip games. No stats, and just the barest hint of play calling or coaching or strategy.

Fast-forward 20 years to FOF's release. Those of us who had interest in taking the dice-and-cards concept to the next level and having career sims jumped over to FOF, Mogul, OOTP, etc. My personal story is that from around 1992-1997, I played every version of Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball, the PC adaptation of that game. I wrote the company every year with a list of issues that needed to be addressed. They addressed many of my issues, and I bought the newest version every year. I guess I would be what you'd call a "loyal customer. " But the one feature request they never addressed that caused them to lose me was that at least once a year I included a plea for some sort of "career" options to that game. They never did it, and when FOF and BBM showed up in 1997-98, Strat never got another dime from me.

And to circle back to why this particular board isn't the target audience, many of us are part of a self-selecting group. We're either too young to have played sports sim board games, or we played those games but our interest evolved to the computer and to *career* sims. Think about it: whenever someone mentions some teh awesome computer game that has no career option, the vast majority of people here write it off immediately.

However, nearly 35 years after I sat in my bedroom holding Dave Kingman's Statis Pro card and keeping score on a piece of paper, people are still playing Statis-Pro, Strat-O-Matic, and probably other games I don't care about. If JG can tap into that market by producing something better than Strat in particular, then more power to him, and ultimately, probably good for us as well.

[Ben E Lou]

Dola:

Though I have no idea who those people are, their demographics, etc, clearly they exist. They exist in numbers at least large enough for Strat to keep printing new baseball and football card games every year, and selling them for ~$50 a pop.

[Passacaglia]

I think Ben is on to something, in that the lack of a career option is a big negative, IMO. I don't know what the game will look like, but maybe hopefully it's the kind of thing where career leagues can form, or just some sort of team-building -- I played APBA Football back in the day (1990 set), and I immediately shuffled the teams and never looked back. I could see some online leagues forming with this, using random.org as well.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I think Ben is on to something, in that the lack of a career option is a big negative, IMO. I don't know what the game will look like, but maybe hopefully it's the kind of thing where career leagues can form, or just some sort of team-building -- I played APBA Football back in the day (1990 set), and I immediately shuffled the teams and never looked back. I could see some online leagues forming with this, using random.org as well.

But again, that's our interest. Clearly there are sports board gamers out there with little/no "career sim" interest, otherwise Strat-O-Matic and others would either be out of business or forced to evolve. He might not need any career play to reach people *outside* of the FOF customer base, but even beyond the "card-game" part of it, the lack of solo career play is doing to be a deal-breaker for a significant part of the *existing* customer base.

I just have no real clue how big of a niche the sports-sim dice-and-card gaming world is, or if Jim's game is good enough to move people already entrenched in that genre away from their existing favorite(s).

[dubb93]

I'm considering taking the leap of faith. I don't play board games, nor do I really know anyone who would want to play a board game with me, but hell, I can always guilt Mrs. Dubb93 into giving it a try. Or not, IDK. Seems quite a bit of money for something I would have to put work into just getting someone to play it with me.

That said I've recently fired FOF 2K7 back up and I sure would pay quite a bit for an undated version of that....

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

But again, that's our interest. Clearly there are sports board gamers out there with little/no "career sim" interest, otherwise Strat-O-Matic and others would either be out of business or forced to evolve. He might not need any career play to reach people *outside* of the FOF customer base, but even beyond the "card-game" part of it, the lack of solo career play is doing to be a deal-breaker for a significant part of the *existing* customer base.

I just have no real clue how big of a niche the sports-sim dice-and-card gaming world is, or if Jim's game is good enough to move people already entrenched in that genre away from their existing favorite(s).

Agreed, I was definitely speaking of myself regarding career play. But on that not, Strat-O-Matic has been around long enough that a "me too" game won't move people away -- there needs to be something that differentiates it. I've never played Strat-O-Matic, though, so I'd have no idea what it is. From reading the Kickstarter page, and my APBA experience, my guess is that the differentiation would have to be simplicity.

[DaddyTorgo]

That's why making it playable online would be hugely helpful. Isn't there that program that people use to play physical boardgames online vs. other people (I'm not a boardgamer, I don't know the name of it). Jim should definitely make this game compatible with that, as that would alleviate the concern of having to have multiple friends nearby to play with.

I find that I buy boardgames and then have no friends who are interested in boardgaming with me.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Logan

I think the biggest problem is not only finding enough people who want to play it, but enough people who ALSO know enough people who will want to play it with them.

This is also me. I think I'd have fun playing it, possibly, but I don't know anyone else who would. Maybe when my kids are old enough or something.

[molson]

It's interesting to me even on this message board, with the known interests of the posters here, we have, apparently, nobody, that can even shed light on the existence of the sports board gaming crowd. I don't doubt these people exist, they're just kind of mysterious. Are there people having parties in the midwest somewhere where they play Strat-O-Matic for hours on end? Has anyone here ever lived among these people, observed them in their habitats? I could see the whole thing being a lot of fun with the right people, but it'd be near impossible to keep it going over time, and I myself wouldn't be able to stop wondering, "can't we just do this on a computer?" I'm thinking maybe Strat-O-Matic sells a lot of products as gifts to baseball fans that end up in closests unopened.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by dubb93

That said I've recently fired FOF 2K7 back up and I sure would pay quite a bit for an undated version of that....

I'm surprised this wasn't Jim's method of getting a "kickstarter" for this project. I guess this presents a more unique marketing opportunity for the (hopefully eventual) release of the game.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by molson

It's interesting to me even on this message board, with the known interests of the posters here, we have, apparently, nobody, that can even shed light on the existence of the sports board gaming crowd. I don't doubt these people exist, they're just kind of mysterious. Are there people having parties in the midwest somewhere where they play Strat-O-Matic for hours on end? Has anyone here ever lived among these people, observed them in their habitats? I could see the whole thing being a lot of fun with the right people, but it'd be near impossible to keep it going over time, and I myself wouldn't be able to stop wondering, "can't we just do this on a computer?" I'm thinking maybe Strat-O-Matic sells a lot of products as gifts to baseball fans that end up in closests unopened.

Quick, someone PM that Bigfoot guy.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by molson

It's interesting to me even on this message board, with the known interests of the posters here, we have, apparently, nobody, that can even shed light on the existence of the sports board gaming crowd. I don't doubt these people exist, they're just kind of mysterious. Are there people having parties in the midwest somewhere where they play Strat-O-Matic for hours on end? Has anyone here ever lived among these people, observed them in their habitats? I could see the whole thing being a lot of fun with the right people, but it'd be near impossible to keep it going over time, and I myself wouldn't be able to stop wondering, "can't we just do this on a computer?" I'm thinking maybe Strat-O-Matic sells a lot of products as gifts to baseball fans that end up in closests unopened.

The tabletop gaming forums on Delphi are as good a focus group as any I think (and the fact that the niche is still active on Delphi probably says something in & of itself).

The majority seem to be solo gamers who have the occasional opportunity to play h2h against a live human. Otherwise there's a whole variety of systems/workarounds/house rules/etc that create ways to play ostensibly h2h games by yourself.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I don't think it's purely "generational." There are lots of people not too much older than you (I'm 43) who got their start into the sim world playing dice-and-card type games, and a fair number of them (especially at *this* board..I'll deal with that later) won't purchase this.

I think the disconnect here is what you and I consider a generation gap. I'm not speaking to generations based on "you're old enough to be my dad." Rather, I'm speaking to technological generations, which IMO turn over once every 5-7 years. I've never seen a commodore 64, and I've played an Atari maybe twice in my life. My earliest memories were of playing Tecmo Bowl, and very shortly thereafter...Madden on the Genesis. To me, and many other folks very close to my age, playing a sports board game is akin to the current tech generation calling their friends rather than texting them. The technology seems outdated, and if you were to suggest the outdated option you would very likely get a response to the tune of "Why would you want to do that, when you could do this?"

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

...and the fact that the niche is still active on Delphi probably says something in & of itself...

[Ben E Lou]

Holy cow, Jon. I just went over there. Ok, those forums are CRAZY active. That's....wow.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

I think the disconnect here is what you and I consider a generation gap. I'm not speaking to generations based on "you're old enough to be my dad." Rather, I'm speaking to technological generations, which IMO turn over once every 5-7 years. I've never seen a commodore 64, and I've played an Atari maybe twice in my life. My earliest memories were of playing Tecmo Bowl, and very shortly thereafter...Madden on the Genesis. To me, and many other folks very close to my age, playing a sports board game is akin to the current tech generation calling their friends rather than texting them. The technology seems outdated, and if you were to suggest the outdated option you would very likely get a response to the tune of "Why would you want to do that, when you could do this?"

On the other hand, my kid loves 'em & he's 14. It's actually fairly common for tabletoppers to get their kids hooked, although not always on the same games.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Holy cow, Jon. I just went over there. Ok, those forums are CRAZY active. That's....wow.

I haven't been in a while, both because I'm pretty much out of the tabletop genre these days and because I grew weary of the incessant drama between fans of competing baseball games. Last time I looked though it was pretty much the same traffic as a few years ago, mostly the same faces actually.

There are some truly high quality guys in the genre (both playing & developing) and there are also some seriously annoying asshats (particularly of the fanboy variety).

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

On the other hand, my kid loves 'em & he's 14. It's actually fairly common for tabletoppers to get their kids hooked, although not always on the same games.

Right, but would you agree that fathers getting their 14 year old kids hooked on tabletop games is an extremely small niche market? Far too small, in my opinion, to put any kind of uber-effort into publishing and investing in a new game.

Maybe my idea of this being successful is different than Jim's. I couldn't see kids wanting to grab this at Target, and I sincerely doubt you'd find this game on many X-mas lists to Santa, regardless of how big their Daddy's were into Strat-O games.

[CraigSca]

Along with Jon, I've been on those Delphi forums for a good, long while. There's huge interest in any new football game that comes out, but the majority of people I see on those forums are looking for:

1) Ability to replay their favorite teams/seasons
2) Typically solo
3) Looking for games that last around an hour

I'm not really sure Jim's game fills any of those demographics, but it doesn't seem to be attempting to. I've thought about kickstarting his game, but I know I won't really play it - it's more of a "support Jim" kind of thing.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

On the other hand, my kid loves 'em & he's 14. It's actually fairly common for tabletoppers to get their kids hooked, although not always on the same games.

That's what I'm hoping for my kids -- I think I'd rather see them playing board games as opposed to playing on the computer, it just seems slightly more social. I wonder if there will be another generation gap, with the next generation thinking of board games as a stand-alone thing, as opposed to a thing that got replaced by computer games.

[Passacaglia]

Just throwing some numbers out here.

Posts in 2012 video games thread: 784
Posts in board games thread since 1/5/2012, the day the 2012 video games thread was created: 707

That's pretty interesting. I don't think the issue is with board games in general, at least among this crowd, but I think it's what molson said -- with a football game, especially among this group, there's going to be a notion of "can't we do this on a computer?" going on.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Just throwing some numbers out here.

Posts in 2012 video games thread: 784
Posts in board games thread since 1/5/2012, the day the 2012 video games thread was created: 707

That's pretty interesting. I don't think the issue is with board games in general, at least among this crowd, but I think it's what molson said -- with a football game, especially among this group, there's going to be a notion of "can't we do this on a computer?" going on.

Not a surprise when most of us were brought here by a computer football game.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Not a surprise when most of us were brought here by a computer football game.

Right, that's what I was referring to when I said "especially among this group." I guess I singled out FOFC twice in that post -- the first time was to establish that we are a group that likes board games, but the second time was to say that we're a group that plays football sims on the computer.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by molson

It's interesting to me even on this message board, with the known interests of the posters here, we have, apparently, nobody, that can even shed light on the existence of the sports board gaming crowd. I don't doubt these people exist, they're just kind of mysterious. Are there people having parties in the midwest somewhere where they play Strat-O-Matic for hours on end? Has anyone here ever lived among these people, observed them in their habitats? I could see the whole thing being a lot of fun with the right people, but it'd be near impossible to keep it going over time, and I myself wouldn't be able to stop wondering, "can't we just do this on a computer?" I'm thinking maybe Strat-O-Matic sells a lot of products as gifts to baseball fans that end up in closests unopened.

This

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

That's what I'm hoping for my kids -- I think I'd rather see them playing board games as opposed to playing on the computer, it just seems slightly more social. I wonder if there will be another generation gap, with the next generation thinking of board games as a stand-alone thing, as opposed to a thing that got replaced by computer games.

I think stand-alone is pretty much the future of dice-and-chart sports games.

My son just busted out one he hadn't played in months the other night (a pro wrestling game) & was asking for help on creating some new character cards so he could freshen it up a bit. At no point in his life do I think he's ever considered it realistic to hope that he'd find anyone to play any of the tabletop games with him (other than me).

By comparison, I'd say probably 50-60 percent of his friends/peers are console gamers, but even there it's a split thing. The XBox kids play with the XBox kids, the Wii kids with Wii kids, PS3 kids with PS3 kids ... and only maybe 1 or 2 of them ever cross platforms.

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

This

There are a lot of leagues that still get together to play APBA, Strat and Replay Baseball. I've never joined one, only because I've always like career type play with my own leagues (FOF, OOTP). From what I've seen, while there are a number of leagues, they are very much a dying breed (in their 50s or greater). On the forums I've seen a few younger people, but they are few and far between (because the younger generation is much more comfortable with the computer).

It's funny - in replay leagues (either with friends or on their own) the season people choose to play usually comes from age 10-14 of the replayer. Therefore, a large demographic of the tabletop crowd loves to replay seasons from the 1960s. Whether they work on a computer all day doesn't matter, their game playing is all about comfort, and their comfort exists in what they were doing as a 10-14 year old.

I see tabletop gaming today as a much more social operation (Magic, Settlers of Cataan, etc.). I don't know if there's a huge market for a "social, statistically accurate football simulation". Non-social, sure, just because of the demographics.

[chinaski]

I would love to play this, but I can almost guarantee everyone I know would not want to play it with me.

[Pyser]

this is screaming for a phone app to me. people dont sit down and play card games much for an hour anymore, but if i could take my turn whenever i have time to check my phone? sure, i'd give it a whirl then

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by Pyser

this is screaming for a phone app to me. people dont sit down and play card games much for an hour anymore, but if i could take my turn whenever i have time to check my phone? sure, i'd give it a whirl then

Wow, absolutely.

[Passacaglia]

My thoughts after a quick read of the rules:

I'm surprised the home defense is stronger than the away defense, but the offenses are the same. I'd have thought the home offense should be stronger than away, but the defenses would be the same.
Is the manual in black and white? It seems like with the colored dice, it would make sense to put it in color.
That's a lot of lookups for each play -- I like how it adds to the complexity, but I wonder how long it takes on average to figure out what happened on a play.
I like the idea of having the formation on the back and playing the card face down while the defense chooses a play, along with the audibles.
I think it's confusing that the game is called Front Office Football. For one, there's already a (computer) game with that name, and for another, Front Office doesn't really describe it (though I understand the idea of name recognition).

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I think its feasible enough - I've backed it despite honestly not expecting to ever play the game ... because I think its a cool idea and I really respect Jim as a games designer.

I DO however think that if anyone here has art skills and wants to knock up some 'magic the gathering' style cards (ie. more fluff art, less programmer art) for Jim to post as mockups for the final products then that'd help a LOT with getting people who've never played FOF backing it ...

Thanks, Marc.

I hope "fluff art" isn't important for something like this. I was going for something clean and easily read. Admittedly I've spent far too much time working on these cards. And there really are too many of them (hundreds) to make individual designs feasible.

I think there's a middle ground between having the really great art we see in Magic, Dominion, the collectible card games, and the plain white tearsheets.

The question, to me, is if there's a market for this type of game mechanics among sports enthusiasts. Obviously, if I solely market this to FOF players, I'm going to be disappointed.

Sports games offer an instant complexity that those of us who follow sports instantly tap into. The downside is that there's also a complex rule set we have to follow.

I do love a new challenge, and getting this project into a form where even hard-core board gamers are telling me it's ready has been quite a nice experience. It may well not get funded. Marketing is the elephant in the room, and a role that does not come to me naturally.

The "light bulb" moment in this was when I realized that there are similarities between the deck construction mechanism for Magic, and how NFL coaches approach game-planning. That's what motivated me to finally get off my ass and do this. Of course, while this concept may appeal to me personally, it might well not be enough to attract enough customers to make printing this possible.