Cactus Game Design Message Boards
Open Forum => Off-Topic => Topic started by: EmJayBee83 on June 04, 2014, 08:30:10 AM
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So then, since 2007, Redemption has seen a fairly steady decline in attendance with an extreme dip in 2009 (CA) and an extreme spike in 2011 (MN). This decline has escalated since 2011, with the following two tournaments putting up low numbers, and 2013 showing the lowest numbers since 2001. Priests debuted in 2006, and after the tournament that followed it, the game has seen lower average attendance numbers. Since Priests was released (and keep in mind this was eight years ago now), there has only been one set that has contained cards of serious value, and even those did not differ in rarity from other cards in the set (TxP's release in 2009, which contained Grapes of Wrath and Mayhem).
Fact, in 2007 there were 2,400 Christian bookstores in the US. By 2011 that number had dropped to 900 and has continued to fall ever since.
Fact, per capita spending on consumer travel in the US peaked in 2007, contracted through 2010, and has only marginally recovered since.
I do not believe that this correlation is a coincidence. While it's true that correlation does not necessarily imply causation, I believe in this case it is safe to assume that there is causal here.
By the same logic, you would be equally safe assuming that the lack of Redemption ultra-rares has led to an overall decline in Christian retailing and the reduction of leisure travel. Other people may feel that you have causes and effects reversed.
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You could add the general decline in hobby gaming outlets as well. While some games do well, there are a smaller number of brick-and-mortar stores selling hobby games; a lot of the business goes on via Internet sales. Redemption does not have a broad presence on game-related web sites. I don't know what distributors Cactus works with, or if the merchandising flow even allows for a broader distribution, but that's something that could help. (The biggest factor we had in keeping our game alive was getting a distribution partner who could help us get into game stores and online retailers.)
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Fact, in 2007 there were 2,400 Christian bookstores in the US. By 2011 that number had dropped to 900 and has continued to fall ever since.
Fact, per capita spending on consumer travel in the US peaked in 2007, contracted through 2010, and has only marginally recovered since.
I'm not sure that sales in Christian book stores translates to attendance of the national tournament. Certainly sales from Christian book stores had an impact on Cactus as a whole during the peak of Christian book store popularity, but I can't imagine that buying a starter deck and maybe a few packs results in a long-lasting interest and investment in the game. Having other people who are experienced to help grow excitement for the game is almost certainly necessary as well in the vast majority of cases. Does it have impact? Certainly. Is it a major factor? I don't think so. Additionally, per capita spending has grown since 2011, while attendance has sharply dropped. The economy might be a factor in the game's initial decline, but there's no correlation later on.
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Christian book stores are the only marketing Cactus has. Pull the plug on that, and you're just relying on the Tournament Hosts.
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Fact, in 2007 there were 2,400 Christian bookstores in the US. By 2011 that number had dropped to 900 and has continued to fall ever since.
Fact, per capita spending on consumer travel in the US peaked in 2007, contracted through 2010, and has only marginally recovered since.
I'm not sure that sales in Christian book stores translates to attendance of the national tournament.
Because Christian bookstores (specifically church and smaller independent stores) were the backbone of Cactus's distribution strategy. They were the place where a large number of kid or his parents first saw and took a flyer on an interesting game.
Additionally, per capita spending has grown since 2011, while attendance has sharply dropped. The economy might be a factor in the game's initial decline, but there's no correlation later on.
I am not sure your premise is correct given the fact that Nationals had a (marginally) higher attendance in 2012 than they did in 2010, which fact stands in opposition to your claim of a sharp drop.
I could almost buy the "no new cards at all" argument, but trying to tie attendance declines into lack of ultra-rares is just not supported by anything at all.
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Cactus is relying on individual players to be evangelistic and spread the game to other people.
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special promo card for tourney host?
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Cactus is relying on individual players to be evangelistic and spread the game to other people.
Word of mouth is a terrible marketing strategy.
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Cactus is relying on individual players to be evangelistic and spread the game to other people.
Word of mouth is a terrible marketing strategy.
Said no one ever...
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Let's get some more spoilers!
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Cactus is relying on individual players to be evangelistic and spread the game to other people.
Word of mouth is a terrible marketing strategy.
That's the only reason I started playing was word of mouth.
Let's get some more spoilers!
I agree! Something non clay brigade though...spark too much controversy.:P
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Cactus is relying on individual players to be evangelistic and spread the game to other people.
Word of mouth is a terrible marketing strategy.
That's the only reason I started playing was word of mouth.
A significant portion of people who play started because of word of mouth, as is expected because the game is advertised through word of mouth. However this does not mean its a good marketing strategy.
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Cactus is relying on individual players to be evangelistic and spread the game to other people.
Word of mouth is a terrible marketing strategy.
That's the only reason I started playing was word of mouth.
A significant portion of people who play started because of word of mouth, as is expected because the game is advertised through word of mouth. However this does not mean its a good marketing strategy.
For SOME things, word of mouth is not the best. For Redemption, though, it has been very useful.
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The problem with other forms of advertising/marketing is the sheer expense. I don't know what Redemption's sales figures are, but when the company I work with looked at doing an ad in a national game magazine, it would have cost us our entire year's income. (We are a very small company.) There are a few outlets that aren't too bad (we've had some hits from the Bring Your A Game web site), but convention presence and word-of-mouth are our most cost-effective means of spreading the word. Redemption does the same thing through the tournament system, and I know Rob does trade and marketing shows, which get you in front of retailers.
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Word of mouth is extremely finicky, and with Redemption having such a niche market as Christian nerds, it's not going to be the best. Nerds in general are anti-social, and admitting you play TCGs is generally not the first thing people do. Furthermore, Christian products are often looked at as knock-offs. Word of Mouth needs to reach a tipping point to make the gigantic shifts it's been known to make, but for a Christian TCG, I imagine that tipping point is much more difficult to reach.
Word of mouth is effective, but unreliable.
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Word of mouth is effective, but unreliable.
"Word of Mouth" has evolved due to Social Media. Owl City (and unfortunately Justin Beiber) got their start due to the "word of mouth" YouTube afforded them. It is possible to start a national marketing campaign through Social Media, but to have a "professional" company run it would still cost thousands of dollars (my wife runs social media for a company, so I know this from experience). Whereas, Redemption could use the help of people like us, who would spread the word through our own social media outlets, and not get paid (which is the more realistic definition of "Word of Mouth").
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Word of Mouth, got me interested, and I have used that methodology to get others interested. It has been effective. It may not be the best strategy, but it has gotten a lot of our long term players into the fold. I have been playing for 18 years.
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Word of mouth is effective, but unreliable.
"Word of Mouth" has evolved due to Social Media. Owl City (and unfortunately Justin Beiber) got their start due to the "word of mouth" YouTube afforded them. It is possible to start a national marketing campaign through Social Media, but to have a "professional" company run it would still cost thousands of dollars (my wife runs social media for a company, so I know this from experience). Whereas, Redemption could use the help of people like us, who would spread the word through our own social media outlets, and not get paid (which is the more realistic definition of "Word of Mouth").
Do you know how many other musicians have gone nowhere using the same method?
Word of Mouth, got me interested, and I have used that methodology to get others interested. It has been effective. It may not be the best strategy, but it has gotten a lot of our long term players into the fold. I have been playing for 18 years.
"Effective" is relative here. Because it's the only strategy Cactus has used, and the game is still alive, it's easy to give it the nod. Pretty much all of us are here because of word of mouth, but the fact of the matter is that there's less players now than there were 10 years ago. That's not a good sign.
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Do you know how many other musicians have gone nowhere using the same method?
I was just paralleling the idea of Word of Mouth. If you are suggesting that Social Media is not a good way to advertise in the modern era (as a Word of Mouth alternative), then I strongly disagree with you.
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I learned about Redemption when my Dad was looking for a alternative game to MTG on the internet. :rollin:
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Does anyone know if they're re - releasing a Stephen card since he was a church leader as well has being the first martyr. And can we please, pretty please see another new card on here.
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I'm actually curious about this. Is there anyone active today who wasn't introduced via word of mouth?
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I'm actually curious about this. Is there anyone active today who wasn't introduced via word of mouth?
I learned about Redemption when my Dad was looking for a alternative game to MTG on the internet. :rollin:
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I was introduced to the game by a booth set up by David Easterling at Spirit Fest at Kings Island just outside of Cincinnati. He did use words from his mouth...
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Yes. I was introduced to the game when my parents found the original starter deck in a Christian book store and got it for a Christmas present. I remember the excitement of Prophets coming out and how strong the cards were in comparison to the original.
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I was introduced to the game by a friend who sent my brothers and I an A/B starter deck and a pack of Prophets. :)
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Berean Christian Bookstore, January 1997. I saw a starter at the bookstore while I was there getting a Teen Bible, and picked it up as an alternative to Magic that I had received from friends from my birthday prior. Started getting into the game when Warriors came out...
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My parents bought the C/D starter decks for my brother for his birthday from a Christian bookstore. They were barely played with during that first year or two, and then I started playing! I went to a local tournament in someone's basement 2-1/2 hours away, and my brother and I split our ~300 card collection in half to each have ~150 card decks. We got creamed and learned a lot!
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My parents learned about it from some friends whose kids played Redemption. Then, my parents got decks for me and my brother. E/F.
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My awesome broski bought me an E/F starter deck. But as far as the rarity question goes, the game would be much better off with rarity.
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I'm actually curious about this. Is there anyone active today who wasn't introduced via word of mouth?
When I was in college, I was introduced to my first strategy card game. It was called Spellfire which was based on D&D. I found the strategy of the game to be interesting and was able to get to know some non-Christian guys who I probably would not have otherwise. I thought it would be a good chance to witness to them as we would often talk about God together.
However after a while, it became apparent that they were not really interested in growing closer to God or becoming Christians. I also had a nagging feeling that the game itself was not something that God wanted me to be spending my time with. At that point I quit playing and the next summer (1995) created my own Bible-based CCG called "Promised Land". When I went to a local Christian Book Store in Batavia, NY, and told the owner about my new game, he pointed out that a new game had just came out which was also a Christian CCG. It was at this point that the friendly owner named Daniel sold me the original starter decks and a couple blue packs.
I played the game against myself a couple times, and then when I returned to college, taught it to my friends Dave and Aaron. At the time we were mainly just experimenting with it as a comparison to my "Promised Land" game. Since the game was extremely "limited" back in those days, we didn't like it at all and preferred playing my game instead. So it sat in a box for a decade. The metagame at that point was "play a bunch of 2/2 GEs on your 4/4 GC and hope to end up bigger than the 6/6 EC with it's 2/2 EEs".
When I returned to Redemption about a decade later, I was brought back by a student of mine named Dawn Dobbs who had come from a playgroup out in Kansas City, led by rpgdirector. At this point, Priests had just come out and the game had evolved significantly. The dominant offenses of the time were Angels and the newly feared priests. The dominant defense was the minimal standalone splash defense. There were many students at my school who were playing Yu-Gi-Oh. I could have tried to develop better relationships with them by learning their game, but instead I decided to invite them to learn Redemption (which had become a great game). Most of them were willing to switch games.
I took a few guys to our first tournament at Ben Huntsman's house with the Northern KY playgroup, where I also reconnected with my friend from college, Jon Greeson (SoulSeeker). We had a blast and have been going to tournaments ever since. Redemption seems to ebb and flow in popularity here at Oakdale as players graduate or move away, but overall it's been a fun journey.
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When I was in high school, Ken and my sister (now his wife, then just his girlfriend) would hang out at my mom's house frequently and they had this card game they'd play together. I have always been interested in games and I played Yu-Gi-Oh! casually back then. I begged them to teach me but for the longest time my sister declined (I think cuz she wanted it to be something she and Ken could have just the two of them) but eventually I wore her down and they showed me how to play. I don't remember what I started with initially, but my first large purchase was when I bought a complete set of Angel Wars (which was the newest set at the time) from Ken who at the time just had his own private business (I don't think he had bought TLG yet).
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I'm actually curious about this. Is there anyone active today who wasn't introduced via word of mouth?
Topic Split (roughly from when everyone started talking about Redemption Marketing and not the new set.)
As for Chris's question,
2nd encounter: a poster of an angel caught my eye as I was walking by a booth at Spirit Fest at King's Island. I walked into the booth and started asking questions about it. I called my wife and decided to invest into the game that day. In 2 days, I spent around $70. It wasn't until later that I discovered "tournaments."
I didn't realize until later that encounter was my second with Redemption. I discovered this when I found a Limited/Unlimited pack of Redemption cards that contained Goliath in the mix of some of my youth stuff. It was then I remembered stopping by a booth at Youth Specialties in Cincinnati (1999, I think). I had too much dept to invest in it, and the game didn't grab my attention like it did later.
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I was taught by my brothers which I guess qualifies as word of mouth. I'm not even sure how old I was when I really started playing but I do remember being at Nationals 2005 and I think I played Type A.
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I was taught by my brothers which I guess qualifies as word of mouth. I'm not even sure how old I was when I really started playing but I do remember being at Nationals 2005 and I think I played Type A.
According to the Covenant Games spreadsheets, you placed 24th out of 46 in Type A and 12th out of 62 in T1 MP.
Not bad for a 7 year-old I guess... ::)
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I remember discovering Redemption after I was introduced to Yu-Gi-Oh! 10 years ago. I saw it in Family Christian Bookstore, and I thought it was pretty cool and I wanted to learn how to play. I was later given the C&D and E&F starter decks for my birthday.
I don't think that really counts as word of mouth, per se, but I have introduced people to the game and told them about it. That probably counts. :P
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I was taught by my brothers which I guess qualifies as word of mouth. I'm not even sure how old I was when I really started playing but I do remember being at Nationals 2005 and I think I played Type A.
According to the Covenant Games spreadsheets, you placed 24th out of 46 in Type A and 12th out of 62 in T1 MP.
Not bad for a 7 year-old I guess... ::)
Dang. Basically a pro.
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I was introduced to the game by a booth set up by David Easterling at Spirit Fest at Kings Island just outside of Cincinnati. He did use words from his mouth...
Yeah, major props to him and Michalyzian (for Creation festival)
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My son led me to the toy section of Christian Book Supply in Beaverton.
My curiosity led me to look at the C/D starter deck on the shelf.
The URL on the box led me to Cactus Game Design.
My appetite for wheeling and dealing led me to search eBay.
eBay led me to Covenant Games.
...and the rest is history! (And I mean "history" since I ended up retiring. ;) )
(P.S. However, this doesn't mean I retired from collecting. You'll never see my T2 collection up for sale.)
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...and the rest is history! (And I mean "history" since I ended up retiring. ;) )
We're still working on that. :o
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A fellow gamer from Colorado, who knew I was a pastor, told me about the game. I started with C/D and Warriors, and my first tournament was the Northeast Regional in King of Prussia, PA, where I won Sealed Deck. (Disclaimer: I was probably the same age as all of my competitors put together.) I"ve come full circle, from attending Regionals to hosting them, and my kids all play, so I guess that would count as four "word of mouth" players (although in the case of my kids, it's more "hey, Dad will pay for cards if we play this game").
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I was introduced to the game initially via seeing the cards in a christian book store, sometime back when warriors was still in print. I was a kid though, and I didn't know there were tournaments so I eventually stopped just collecting the cards around the time of Angel Wars. Then a few years ago I heard through someone at my church who knew I had once collected the cards, and who worked with Shawn Capron that Shawn had a group of people who played Redemption, so I attended his playgroup and started playing competitively after that.
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My mother-in-law knew that my family loved to play card games (Spades, Hearts, Bridge), but their family did not. She saw the A/B Starter Decks at the Christian Bookstore in Chesapeake, VA and bought them for me as 1996 Christmas present. I had never heard of it, so I opened it, tried it, then put it in storage.
In 1999, I was a Youth Pastor in MD. My middle school kids were all into this new game called Pokémon. I decided to learn the game and play with them. I eventually thought "Wouldn't it be great if there was a Christian version of Pokémon." That's when I remembered the Redemption Starter Decks. I took them out and played again. I looked up the website and saw the new expansions, so I bought the Factory Set. We all started playing that instead.
It wasn't until I was teaching at a Christian School in CT in 2003 that I decided to take Redemption more seriously as a host. Reyzen was instrumental in that decision. ;D
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Found it in Long's christian bookstore with the release of c/d decks. Messed up the rules (thought border=brigade) and then didn't play for a long time. Got back in with the release of patriarchs, got a few of my friends into it, found the EZboards and the tournaments that were being held up in Leesburg. and that is what kept me hooked.
Also to the word of mouth discussion....
(https://www.cactusforums.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimgs.xkcd.com%2Fcomics%2Fmarketing_interview.png&hash=cd85d00895ea3124b87ef9d2d84f8ce0421b016f)
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Hi there,
just nearly copying my post from the other board.
I am from Germany and learned about Redemption from web when I was looking for an alternative for MtG which I played years ago which is more suitable for Christians resp. Christian perspective but still gives me this plenty of combinations and opportunities and challanges MtG provides. Redemption fulfills this for me.
As also said within the other thread:
When it was stated that Redemption seems to be declining in terms of members I can just bring my perspective to this: The lack of publicity of Redemption outside the US!
But here in Germany only some of the Redemption products are availabe (via Amazon.de or via dealers selling via Amazon.de). This includes 10th anniversary Gift Set, Starter Decks I+J and Disciples expansions (which need some weeks before they are shipped).
I already spent quite some time to search for other purchasing possibilities here in Germany or at least within western Europe. I also wrote to quite a few German online shops which sells CCGs - some of them told me that they contacted their wholesalers which also do not have this game for sale!
This is not only Germany I assume but maybe entire Europe at least! This really great game is not known here at all it seems and I also assume not even within Christian parties - Christian friends of mine who also like playing games and regularly meet accordingly also never heard about that game (well so far they did unfortunately not get very excited about Redemption since they are not familiar with TCGs at all).
Maybe it might be an approach to spread the game within the world using Christian catalog companies or online shops (mentioning Weltbild as an example here while knowing that they might not be the right one since they are also selling lots of secularised products [well most of their products]) - but just to provide an example.
Isn't there any way or possibility to spread the Redemption (and other Cactus Game Design products) throughout the planet?
BTW: It is also unfortunate that from Europe you are not able to benefit from the incentives announced here in the boards top right (below search bar) for particular orders placed at Cactus Game Design web shop (since it is not shipping to Europe yet)!
But anyway I am really happy that I discovered Redemption for me! Thanks a lot to all who make this game (still) possible for us!
Best Regards
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I found out about Redemption through playing the board game. I bought the c/d decks, and played against my cousin, and other friends... Now, I haven't really touched my cards. (I don't know anyone from Idaho who plays anymore. Or host tourneys.) And I haven't been on the forum for awhile. Someday I'd like to see an online version without RTS. Like the quality of Hearthstone, and Magic Online.
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There is an online version aside from RTS called Lackey. Info can be found here: http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/rtsonline-play/lackeyccg-plugin-beta/ (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/rtsonline-play/lackeyccg-plugin-beta/)
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I want to start playing lackey