My interpretation of that is as follows.

He is not rebuking his critics because he feels they are cowardly inherently hostile naysayers.

He is merely stating that anonymity (or pseudonymity) often breeds a certain casualness and informality of thought and expression owing to the lack of any consequences regarding what you say. When nobody knows who you are you are less likely to exercise caution about how accurate what you say is. You tend to become playful, whimsical and impatient because your words are associated with a psuedonym instead of your real name. People are communal, even on computer networks, and so eventually an atmosphere of speaking carelessly develops on a forum.

That “casualness” aids in the propagation of misunderstandings, exagerations, rumors and can even result in a small loud minority seeming to be a majority. People tend to shoot from the hip and type the first thing that comes to mind or almost blindly repeat what they take for their peer’s consensus opinions.

This can result in bad PR, both deserved and undeserved that agents of companies like Rackham wish to counter.

For instance you might see a lot of people loudly hating the music of a certain pop star and not realize that that pop star is one of the forty richest people in Europe and selling more units in a quarter than anyone before him or her. People who see these posts assume that the popstar is hated by EVERYBODY and a sort of fantasy world is created where those who share this opinion will routinely say and believe that which they cannot confirm as if it were objectively true.

All Mr. Bey seems to be saying is that conclusions about how poorly or well something is received, that are drawn entirely from some forum posts, will be unreliable at best. They and can lead us to accept false conclusions about business, sales, popularity, success in the market, or other subjects. That can affect our buying habits.

i don’t think he is arrogantly suggesting that anyone who disagrees with him about Conforntation or AT-43 is automatically a member of some clueless peanut gallery, or twisted, angry, cabal of haters who need to get a life or any of that stuff.

Rather, he is trying to set the record straight and feels that he sees more and better information about how his product sells in the current marketplace than any internet heresay is likely to provide consumers like you and me. He prefers to form his opinions, policies, plans, and market startegies from HIS information rather than relying entirely on feedback gathered from wargaming forums.

In a few weeks time we will be opening on http://www.confrontation.fr a section specially dedicated to the previous editions of Confrontation. It will allow you to download the entire rules of Confrontation 3 as well as its supplement Dogs of War and all Confrontation 3 cards for free since

Better late than never I guess. The sad things is perhaps that the communities moved to other skirmish games but now there is at least possible to attract new players.

But, we cannot ignore the fact that the COGs are out soon !!! And finally, that’s the best news ever.

SHWTD. Karman for ever, excpet for COGs.

It couldn’t be fanatical protection.

I assume you meant “financial”? And if so why couldn’t it be the restrictions that they were under while under that financial protection?

More likely the French are no longer their target audience.

The French haven’t been their target audience for some time though correct? The AT-43 rulebook was in eight languages so I think its clear that they are looking at a worldwide market for their games now.

This would have been the case all the way back to Conf v3 which appears, to me at least, to be an attempt to widen the game outside their core French market.

But in either case I can’t see how that would or would not effect their decision to go to GenCon Paris?

I hardly think anyone would go to them and ask them any unpleasant questions at a con to the point where they wouldn’t want to come.

I mean these are still just games. We’re not talking about politics and world events where reporters press on to get questions answered or fans stand in protest around a manufacturer’s booth to show their distaste over something. Not at least in any of the cons I’ve been to.

Perhaps that’s the reason Rackham not attending Gen Con Paris this year.

They were in a form of financial protection earlier and perhaps this had some impact on their ability to attend.

Looks like Starplayer in france displayed those for Rackham.

We’ve discussed this very issue here on TGN in a different context and I don’t know that he is attacking any group of people more than he is simply explaining the fact that he listens to sales and not the comments of people who post under pseudonyms.

—–

As far as the Anonymity goes, it’s a crock! On the Rackham forums, most of the people “complaining”, were well known to Rackham, either because of the NDAs signed for the Cadwallon play test, from the Con’Fed’s and from the on-line store. There is no way they could not know who is behind my handle “AAvH-Darkblade” from all three sources. Even a Google search will tell you exactly who I am, it is a crock.

Any one who has spend as much money as I have and been playing since version 2 has a right to express their views, and mine were long, well thought out and eloquent, if I do say so myself. ;)

Seriously though, I was quite pleased with the responses from Mr. Bey. Particularly with regard to the Con3 support, It’s great that they will at least allow the game to live on, by putting the docs and cards on-line and having the mins available in the Legends line. Though no new profiles will be released there is more then enough already to keep most people busy. The player community for Con3 could certainly create profiles for any really new models coming out. So far there have only been PPPs version of the metal, so it’ll be a while before that is even needed anyway.

As for CAoR, my position has softened a little, I will at least try it when the Lions are released, with my very heavy & large metal Lions army originally built for Rag’narok. Whether I play more then a few games remains to be seen. Which is a long way from where I was a few months ago. I’m not likely to buy any of the PPPs. Unfortunately, I’ve found At-43 to be a very mediocre game; I’d rather play a 1000 pt Hordesmachine or a 40K game. I’m still playing Con3 and will continue to, but I’ll try CAoR.

What I have gotten however is a better understanding of where Mr.Bey was coming from when the decisions were made. So for that, I do thank Mr. Bey for taking the time answer these questions as fully and informatively as he has.

Cheers, AAvH-Darkblade

p.s. Can’t seem to get the quotes to work, maybe Zac can clean it for me. Thanks.

I wonder if the 13x sales in comparisons were smaller or even a negative amount if it would have been perceived as less “apples and oranges”.

Sales are sales. The comparison was given for the same release time and amount of products available. Thats an equitable comparison.

Doesn’t surprise me however that negative “spin” will tried against the sales figure. It a damn high different versus metals and totally justifies their change of focus.

The market has spoken. Loudly.

Primarch

Just to counter this, In the store I work in, the new PPP has seen an equivalent swing in uptake. *shrug* I guess it’s all dependant on where you live and what people like.