At Origins this year, we had many people from the Ohio, and surrounding area, come up to our booth to buy and play Mage Wars. It sounds like you may be referring to the Diversions group that are playtesters for us in the area, but may not be actively running events recently in terms of the Ohio area scene. I can't speak for them as to why they are doing, or not doing that, but I can assure you, there are many players in the area.
The number one thing I hear from players at all the conventions I go to is "I don't have a lot of people in my area that play this game." There's no easy way to answer the question of "how do I fix this" either, as the real answer is "it depends".
Here's things I've been told by others, that helped them find players:
1.) Speak to the FLGS employees and ask if they know of other players?
2.) Remember that not every player wants to play competitively and may only purchase the game for home use - let's face it, not every one is comfortable just playing with anyone and sometimes they just like playing with close nit friends.
3.) Make flyers or posters and ask you FLGS if you can hang them, to set a night for players to meet - and know that the first few nights may be very light, if nothing at all. I've heard of fans having to go through 2-5 nights to get it to stick, so persistence is the key to this one
4.) If you are going to play, play at a store, so other see you playing and ask questions. - This is huge.
5.) Be active on the forums for your FLGS
6.) Ensure your FLGS is on our Retailer Locater. -
http://www.arcanewonders.com/retailer-locator In terms of what we do, yes, we're a small company but we still make every effort we can. We advertise regularly, on a monthly basis, on BGG, in Meeple Monthly, and have a monthly newsletter that goes to over 800 retailers with a very high percentage of click rates.
We offer a Retailer Locater for FLGSs to ensure their store is on and there's no cost to them for that. We allow anyone to post on our social media pages to promote events (store owners or fans) as well as have the forums here to post about events coming up, or that have been held.
Yes, we have focused on Academy to be a tool both for new players to be introduced to the world of Mage Wars and allow existing players a new way to play, and have a lower barrier to entry option to teach new players about the game they love. Our hopes and plans are that Academy is a stand alone game on it's own, but also acts as a springboard into Arena.
Culturally speaking, I do think we fight an uphill battle every day. If you look at the world of tabletop gaming in general, it's seen an influx of smaller, more portable, faster paced games since the introduction of Love Letter a few years ago. Everyone is trying to capture that magic, and, as well, there's been an influx in social games.
Social gaming, like Sheriff, One night Werewolf, Avalon, Resistance, Coup and many others, attract new consumers to the hobby, but they are most likely casual consumers. They are looking for low price to entry and fast gameplay. They don't want a 90 minute game, they want 3 x 30 minute games. This affects Mage Wars directly as new consumers see the 45-90 minutes and immediately can be turned off. We're not about to lie about how long a game takes, so this is simply a dichotomy of the industry we must work with.
Mage Wars has been consistently successful since 2012. We have not flooded the market with an overload of cards where players couldn't keep up, but admittedly, we can do more than what we have done. We're not Asmodee or Hasbro, but we have our hearts set to make Mage Wars the best game it can be. That starts with us, and continues with our customers who help promote the game.
As for PvS, that was simply announced WAY too soon. The team who was here before I got here, made that public before it was even under development and it's hurt the company overall. I won't mince words about that, as in my opinion, it being announced so soon sets an expectation that can't be fulfilled and upsets everyone, most importantly, our great fans. We are working hard to get that out this year, towards the end of the year. I can promise you it will be awesome when it hits!
Now, as for today... I'm about to post a big announcement right now, which I hope makes everyone a bit happy, if not intrigued for Gen Con...
As always, my "virtual door" is always open to our community. If anyone has questions, just let me know and I'll always do my best to answer them.
In the near term, thank you for your efforts to help promote our game. They are appreciated and frankly, no matter how good a game is, if there's not a great community behind it, it will fail. We believe we have a tremendously awesome community and love all of you!
