For anyone interested in what it's like to run one of these small pre-order-based publishers, I recommend Bruce Geryk's interview with the owner of Legion Games on 3ma: https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/legion-wargames

Yep, GMT Games's P500 is just better than the old wargaming business model, and there are plenty of other companies, like Victory Point Games. It may be that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Board games have exploded in recent years, but like abstract strategy games, wargames are no longer the center of the boardgaming world. I think board games have expanded so much because designers and publishers have introduced new games and gaming styles that expanded the market. There are still the same thousands of people playing chess or Gipf, and the same thousands playing hex-and-counter wargames, but there are also thousands of people playing CCGs and thousands playing eurogames and thousands playing cooperative games. There are some really cosmopolitan board gamers, but there is a large group of people who would like to play Pandemic but abhor the direct confrontation of hex-and-counter wargames and abstract strategy. Some of the most successful games are those that appeal to multiple groups, like Twilight Struggle or Legendary.

Of course, that's a re-definition of terms as well: back when Charles Roberts started Avalon Hill or Gary Gygax &c. started TSR, there wasn't really a "boardgaming world"—boardgaming was just getting itself organized; there were wargamers and miniature games, but the eurogame was just a gleam in Sid Sackson's eye.

This article's postmortem is almost comical in hindsight, but it looks like the core of the analysis is from 1998, when boardgaming was in a very different place.

It's definitely true that wargaming is stronger than it was in 1998, but it's still not a shadow of what it was in the 60s. Wargaming, as far as I know, has had a greying problem for a long time. Light Weuros are attracting some crossover boardgamers, but I'm not seeing those people moving into the historical simulations of actual wargaming.

I love Sakigahara, the COINs and most of the Mark Herman games, but I'm not moving any farther in that direction.

I dunno, I've been reading the book Playing at the World [0], and while in the 1960s, wargames and miniatures were at the center of hobby gaming, it seems to have more of a small-but-passionate fanbase. There was one major company that went bankrupt, and lots of small, transient publishers, gaming groups, and fanzines, mostly going into and out of business after a couple of issues.

Wargames got so baroque, I find it hard to believe very many people playing the 60+ hour campaign of Terrible Swift Sword. Although probably thousands of people have played Pandemic: Legacy, which itself will look strange in 30 years.

[0] https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/

> It's interesting how this article thinks it's inevitable that wargames have had their day in the sun and will now die away almost completely, when in fact the wargame world is far stronger and the games far more interesting now than back in 1998.

There's a kind of inverse hype cycle whenever a newer, better version of something comes out. In the late '90s no-one dared make a 2D videogame, because 3D was the future. Then we saw which things 3D did well and which it didn't, and have a new appreciation for what 2D games can do, and we've seen a resurgence in recent years.