Deck printing app stopped by Roberto Di Meglio

[Honza]

I have almost finished an app which would generate a ready-to-print pdf with any deck you want to assemble. You just pick the speed, your own set of maneuvers and a background theme and it generates a 300dpi pdf. I asked Roberto from Wings of Glory if he agrees on this and that i will make it very hard for people to create official decks (definitely not under the same designations), so people can make their decks for unofficial aircraft.
Well, no.

"Dear Jan

to be honest, we do not really like the idea to make easier for people to pirate our maneuver decks.

While I am aware that people already do so, in various different ways, maneuver decks (and their design) is something which the designers work hard to develop, and are a commercial asset of our company, so we cannot green light a way for people to get them free.

An app like the one you designed, which supports the game without interfering with those elements, is something we appreciate and we thank you for developing it.

Thanks for your understanding.

Best regards,

Roberto Di Meglio "

[David Manley]

It sounds like a very useful app for people wanting to develop their own decks for other games, well done

"An app like the one you designed, which supports the game without interfering with those elements, is something we appreciate and we thank you for developing it."

Doesn't sound like he's saying "no"

[Flying Helmut]

I think he means the currently-available app, which helps with plane selection and on-line play, not this new as-yet-unreleased app which would produce manoeuvre decks.

I think Roberto IS saying "no".

[malachi]

Alternatively, Ares could sell maneuver decks individually or in bundles so they could leverage the commercial assets of the company.

[Flying Helmut]

Alternatively, Ares could sell maneuver decks individually or in bundles so they could leverage the commercial assets of the company.

[Honza]

They don't release standalone maneuver decks, they actually haven't released anything new since the big bombers, so people make their own aircraft and once they have them, they will bootleg the decks anyway. So i am surprised of this protective approach. People can go to eBay and buy official stuff there, often overpriced, secondhand, and if they do, Ares won't get money out if it for the second time. What harms their busines is them, not an app that helps people bring somethng new to the game.

[David Manley]

Are the MATES cards still available? You can recreate the role of the manoeuvre decks with those and a piece of paper and pen.

A pity if it is "no", the app would be handy for creating cards for a chariot racing game that a friend is working on

[flash]

Pirating it is then. I have all the decks, I just don't always have enough to share with the unofficial types or create/experiment new things, like the D* we use for the Pup.

[CrashCraig]

What Tim said - so eloquently.

[camelbeagle]

Ares just needs to put them on a print on demand service. People will buy, no stock to worry about. Easy cash!

Again, like Tim said.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Is it and do they also need a white stick and a guide dog!

Rob.

[milcoll73]

did you answer Roberto that then ares should start selling print on demand decks and stop leaving money on the table by not fulfilling an obvious market demand?

[Honza]

I didn't. I think i understand their business plan. You want a deck - buy it with the miniature. This would be absolutely acceptable and fair for me, if they created an environment where people can actually do so. You need P deck, then what? You need O then what?

It doesn't matter if i go to eBay and get it for a crap load of money or if i scan and print it. Ares loses the money anyway, scanning just hutrs less.

This reminds me of something that happened to me in the past. I really wanted a CD with soundtrack from the Predator movie. It was released just in limited numbers and sold out and only way i could get it was to copy it from somewhere, or buy it for ten times as much from people who probably don't have a job, so they make a little extra money on everpricing stuff. So i pirated it. Then this fellow who works at the music industry, could poop his pants when i told him what i did. I was surprised - would it make you happy if i go and buy it second hand then?

[Hedeby]

Difficult one this. I agree it is very frustrating that we can’t grow the hobby as we wish, but I do see it from ARES side as well.
The obvious solution would be for ARES to widen the product portfolio…

[milcoll73]

I didn't. I think i understand their business plan. You want a deck - buy it with the miniature. This would be absolutely acceptable and fair for me, if they created an environment where people can actually do so. You need P deck, then what? You need O then what?

It doesn't matter if i go to eBay and get it for a crap load of money or if i scan and print it. Ares loses the money anyway, scanning just hutrs less.

This reminds me of something that happened to me in the past. I really wanted a CD with soundtrack from the Predator movie. It was released just in limited numbers and sold out and only way i could get it was to copy it from somewhere, or buy it for ten times as much from people who probably don't have a job, so they make a little extra money on everpricing stuff. So i pirated it. Then this fellow who works at the music industry, could poop his pants when i told him what i did. I was surprised - would it make you happy if i go and buy it second hand then?

thats a nonsense business model. i will never buy a mini to use its deck for another mini, because that then leaves that mini without a deck. i want a deck for each mini. id rather scan and print to get a deck than purchase another mini just for the deck. id draw a deck by hand before id buy a mini to use the deck for another mini. and theres a lot of others like me that feel the same way. all theyre doing by that tactic is gyping themselves out of a sale.

[Diamondback]

One of my longstanding worries with this game has been the militant hostility towards ANY kind of Spare Parts support. "Some idiot loses a card or two out of your Mini X maneuver deck at a con? Sux2BU, buy another one IF YOU CAN." Also why I refuse to play with Altitude Rules at cons, every time some Barney Breakmyfingers touches a mini to add or remove a peg is another chance for a peg or plane to get broken.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

Another mistake is the fact that expensive moulds are lying idle and not paying for their cost, I very much doubt that they are lying idle because they are worn out with the low production for whicg they have been used! When you add up all the things mentioned by members on this forum over the years, it just goes to show what an inept set up it is. Ares are letting money just slip through their fingers year after year.

Rob.

[Honza]

I moved the deck evaluator here https://www.hoho.cz/app/wog-deckbuilder/

[David Manley]

I moved the deck evaluator here https://www.hoho.cz/app/wog-deckbuilder/

Thanks, this looks great. How do you access the extended mode?

Enjoy the coffee

[Diamondback]

Another mistake is the fact that expensive moulds are lying idle and not paying for their cost, I very much doubt that they are lying idle because they are worn out with the low production for whicg they have been used! When you add up all the things mentioned by members on this forum over the years, it just goes to show what an inept set up it is. Ares are letting money just slip through their fingers year after year.

Rob.

This is not helped by the fact that Ares is BADLY undercapitalized, which means they have to take what factory time and production numbers they can get. The hostility to any way to meaningfully expand market cap for fear of losing creative control doesn't help either.

Then you have retailers who won't stock because of Kickstarters, retailers who refuse to deal with Ares at all because "they only make niche shelfwarmers not bestsellers"... a combination Gordian Knot and Vicious Circle. Heck, my efforts to just compile "Repair Paintjob" notes have been studiously ignored. I don't know what it would take to make this bird fly right, or even if it CAN be done.

Worth noting also that quite a few of those expensive tools were in whole or part damaged or destroyed in the process of relocating to Dust, and Ares insisted on replacing them all before restart and suck up precious capital on that rather than focus on the next project and use its proceeds to pay for the retools as they become needed.

I'm starting to understand what Frederick Fleet felt like up in the crow's nest that cold dark North Atlantic night in April 1912...

[Honza]

Thanks, this looks great. How do you access the extended mode?

Enjoy the coffee

Hi David,

i have PMd you. Please confirm

Jan

[Honza]

Thanks everybody for the coffee. I got an airplane like the old times. Nowadays, when they don't release them ... i can't even remember when it was the last time i got an airplane.

[OldGuy59]

IIRC, the big issue for Ares is selling minis.

And again, IIRC, the overstock of unpopular minis, when the molds were in four-plane sets. So, the two-seaters would be peg queens, and there weren't enough of the single seater planes in the mix.

Hmmm... Some place I haven't looked in a long time is the "Ares Availability" page. Scrolling down, there are lots of planes listed as available. Are people not buying planes from Ares?

Link-> Ares Games - Upcoming Products (Scroll to near bottom of the page)

Are these planes listed as available because they are in a warehouse, undistributed? Are they in shops around the world, but not in places Forum members are located?

Hmmm...

[Diamondback]

IIRC, the big issue for Ares is selling minis.

And again, IIRC, the overstock of unpopular minis, when the molds were in four-plane sets. So, the two-seaters would be peg queens, and there weren't enough of the single seater planes in the mix.

Hmmm... Some place I haven't looked in a long time is the "Ares Availability" page. Scrolling down, there are lots of planes listed as available. Are people not buying planes from Ares?

Link-> Ares Games - Upcoming Products (Scroll to near bottom of the page)

Are these planes listed as available because they are in a warehouse, undistributed? Are they in shops around the world, but not in places Forum members are located?

Hmmm...

As I understand it, that means the mini is in stock in either the European or ACD (global master distributor) Fort Wayne warehouse for retailers to order. Then you have ACD slow-walking or outright ignoring orders from some stores preferring to have inventory collect dust than cash coming in from retailers who have gotten on somebody's s***list. (Miniature Market I get them slow-walking some, while they're one of America's biggest shops in the sector they're also owned by hated-by-them rival Asmodee formerly known as the hated-to-us-for-trying-to-shaft-Andrea Fantasy Flight.)

We need to face that we are a sideshow, not the main profit center. It sucks, but Wings is the sideshow hobby for them in a world where more people don't wanna leave their homes and "club gaming" nearly died under Covid and as I understand it hasn't made much progress in recovery over the years since.

Were it up to me, I'd shelve Pacific and other "themes" for now and do some quick repops of top-selling WGF and WGS minis to get some cash flow moving, keep the development costs down so this batch is as close to pure profit as possible. Something to put poduct on shelves and money in offers quickly.

[Honza]

I may have not been understood. I purchased an aircraft after a long time, because i don't have it yet. I have the rest, or at least the pretty ones. Ares won't make any new ones. Thus it feels nostalgic buying one, because one has nothing new to buy.