State of the Precinct

Don't you just hate it when you write a long and complicated post and then it gets eaten by a technical glitch?

I'm going to do my best to recreate it but, annoyingly, I've just come off a 43-second-long livestream in which I basically fell apart before ending the livestream, which means I'm in a very different place mentally than I was when I first wrote this update which I had planned to release to you guys on Monday. But due to the livestream I feel like I need to send it in earlier.

Basically, I've run my forecasts and I run out of money in December. My income has been diminishing and my attempts to reverse this course are taking up the time and energy I need to actually create new content, which I need to have to keep the business running, but which I can't work on if I don't have income from existing content.

I've reviewed my options and, despite having talked about how little I want to put the ol' suit and tie back on, it looks like the best approach is to put 90% of my Precinct Omega work on hiatus and go back to the office.

There is some good news for you guys.

First, I've decided that the right way ahead is to take a leaf out of Nordic Weasel's book and to write a lot more games - self-contained, original rules-sets that explore the phase space of miniatures gaming in more detail. These won't get tied up in development hell as I try to get them formatted and illustrated and suchlike. They'll just get thrown out there in their raw form.

Second, if and when I do get myself a job, it'll just be for three months and, during that time, I'll suspend payments on the Patreon. Not 100% sure how that affects my annual subscribers, but we'll work that out when we come to it.

The bad news is that Zero Dark: FEAR is going to be postponed a bit longer. OK, quite a lot longer. Like, 12 months, minimum.

The original concept for the supplement kind of got out of hand and from a simple set of rules for playing on grids it turned into something more complex and, even though it's 90% written, it requires a shit-ton of playtesting and tweaking before it's ready for public consumption and, to be frank, my projected sales for it mean that this effort just isn't worth my time. Most Wanted falls into the same category.

I had hoped to have been able to drive more interest in Zero Dark with clubs re-opening but, if anything, the opposite has been the case. With more folks returning to social wargaming, more interest has congealed around GW and GW-type fare. I went to a local club earlier this week and there were eight tables with games running:

40k

Age of Sigmar

40k

Kill Team

40k

40k

Aeronautica Imperialis

Me running a demo of Zero Dark.

It was an enlightening visit, because it reminded me of something important about club and store play that I had forgotten or never really appreciated. People arrange to go to a club to play a particular game. It wasn't just Zero Dark. Folks there weren't interested in anything else that was going on. The 40k folks weren't interested in Kill Team and those folks weren't interested in AOS, and the Aeronautica folks... Well, I played through a full (and excellent) demo of the Heist mission, turned around to see how the AI game was going and they hadn't finished turn one.

Fair's fair, it was a 2 vs 2 game with a lot of planes on the table, but that game looked cumbersome as hell.

Anyway, I had a good time and met some nice people but it was a powerful reminder of just how tightly the market for play time is sewn up by GW that people were playing games that, honestly, looked boring as hell.

The other bad news is that I'm probably not going to be able to sustain the podcast weekly if and when I get myself a contract. I say "probably", because I've actually applied for a job and, if I get it, I could keep up the podcast but it would take a new format for the duration of the contract. But if I don't get it, all bets are off.

I will do my best to keep making the Design Tutor videos, though, and I'm pressing forward with the game I'm developing in that framework.

You know, this post isn't anything like as good as the one I lost, which is really annoying. That one was much less rambling and more up-beat.

But this is just part of the journey.

I guess I should give you guys some context, too.

My family and I live a very frugal life. We came into a chunk of money quite a while ago and we spent a large chunk of that on creating a lifestyle that allows us to survive on surprisingly low outgoings for a family of four plus a chronically ill poodle. This lifestyle is one of the reasons I could afford to quit my job and run Precinct Omega full time in the first place. As long as I can make enough to pay my salary every month, plus my wife's (almost equally modest) income, we're absolutely fine.

A three-month contract at the level of seniority for which I'm qualified will basically make ten times what Precinct Omega makes in a year, which would allow me to then loan the business a chunk of cash to not just keep it running but allow it to pursue some of those more exciting ideas involving miniatures or new games that will hopefully allow the business to pay back the loan and raise its monthly income to a level that will mean I don't have to do another contract.

If you've ever heard it said that you need money to make money, this is what it looks like.

Anyway, as the saying goes, I'm not dead yet.

Anyway, back to work...