Introduction

The Wargamer is pleased to present the second of a three-part series written by Jon Compton, editor-in-chief of Fire & Movement Magazine. This article was originally published by Against the Odds Magazine in Volume 2, No. 2, and The Wargamer would like to thank them for sharing these with our readers.

Part One of this series was published earlier.

Groping for the New Paradigm, Part II: Through a Glass and Darkly

One striking statistic that every wargame publisher eventually becomes aware of should it conduct a customer survey is that the largest portion of military wargame consumers play their games solitaire much of the time, if not exclusively. This characteristic begs several questions. Perhaps the most important among them is whether or not the games are played solitaire because of a lack of opponents, or because of something else? Unfortunately, I’m unaware of any empirical research that has occurred attempting to answer that question, but I can take a few anecdotal guesses.

The most obvious, and perhaps most often assumed answer is lack of opponents, but it doesn’t hold up well under a certain type of scrutiny. With the preponderance of Play by (E)Mail (PBM or PBEM) tools available these days, even the most rural denizen of our hobby should be able to play wargames against an opponent. Further, there are many opponent services available through user groups and the like on the Internet. Granted, many people still don’t have computers or Internet access, but I think if they really wanted to find an opponent, they could by putting up a notice at a local hobby store. The answer lies elsewhere. 

The players themselves in various wargame forums have offered another solution to this mystery. Many say that they do not view the products as games at all, but rather tools with which they can further analyze and garner greater understanding of the historical situation. This act is done through reading and analysis of the rules and components, and play, if you will, of the game in a non-competitive way to examine how the situation unfolds on the map.

Given that so many wargame customers play their games this way, it is critical that we as designers and publishers pay close attention to this issue. If the second of the possible explanations offered above is true, we have to ask ourselves if designing games at all is what we should be doing. The people playing solitaire aren't really playing a game, they’re futzing around with an interactive illustration. With that being the case, why have a game system at all? We could all save ourselves a lot of trouble by simply producing a map and some counters, along with a few guidelines on how to push the pieces around.

Then again, if the first explanation, lack of opponents is true after all, we have another set of problems to think about. If we cast that explanation for this behavior under a different light, we may just reveal something interesting, not about the customers, but about designers and publishers. People who are using the games as interactive illustrations frankly don’t bare a lot of consideration. We design games. And as game designers, we need to concern ourselves with the people that actually play them. If there is a paucity of opponents out there, we have to ask ourselves the question why. The simple answer is obvious: there aren’t enough players. We get more players by designing games that play. Because we have produced games over and over again with the same system, and made that system increasingly complex or arbitrary (or both) depending upon the designer’s personal bent, we’ve lost all the players. 

Therefore it behooves us to examine wargame design itself more closely. It’s important that we ask ourselves some hard questions about our craft, examine what we’ve done, and think about what we should be doing instead.