Want a Commander of the Guardian Knights for HeroQuest? How about the Tholian faction for Star Trek Ascendancy? Maybe something easy, like a 250 Megaton Warhead for Nuclear War? What do all of these items have in common? Simple, intentional artificial scarcity. Let that sink in for a minute. Game manufacturers intentionally force large portions of the player base to miss out on portions of their game. Another way to put it is the game producer wants to keep their player base limited and actively destroys the trust that their customers place in them. Is this good for the game, the hobby, or is it even a viable market strategy? Let’s take a look and see.
Historically, game producers would publish a game in a known quantity of units, say 5,000 boxes. They would then use distributors to get the game to the general pubic. This process was financially front-loaded by the producer and could be the death knell for a company if the game failed. In the last 20 years, there has been a shift. Rather than allow the market to determine the viability of a game, the producer now leverages funds from would-be customers to minimize their own risk. This has led to a dearth of massive, high-quality games. Additionally, a corresponding fragmentation of the content and player base for these games has become more apparent.
The barriers that game producers use to limit access to their games can be mind-boggling. Let’s look at the 5 most popular methods of depriving players of game content.
Methods of Intentional Limited Availability
- Convention Exclusives: Items sold or given away only at conventions with no intention to ever be made available in any other format. Often these are limited-print runs. Possibly low-fee or free items. They are used to hype the game, at what is essentially a sales pitch on a grand scale. Dune – Chronicles of the Imperium, Lost Ruins of Arnak – Rat, and Nuclear War: Damping Field, are good examples of this.
- Website Exclusives: Items only available through the manufacturer’s web store, cutting out the local game stores that they initially used to get you interested in their game. Far more prevalent now with the rise of crowdfunding. Mice & Mystics – Turtle Shell, Nuclear War – 250 Megaton Warhead, and Evolution: Cybernetic Limbs, are good examples of web store exclusives.
- Third-party Exclusives: Items only available through a single vendor or requiring the purchase of unrelated products, a favorite of marketing executives everywhere. Magic: The Gathering – Nalathni Dragon, HeroQuest Commander of the Guardian Knights, and Monopoly: Wu-Tang Clan Edition, all different styles of third-party tie-in exclusives.
- Crowdfunding Exclusives: Items only available because the player learned of the crowdfunding campaign and was willing to risk never seeing their game, or their money, ever again. Red Nails expansion for the Conan the board game, Star Trek Ascendancy: The Final Frontier’s 3 exclusive factions, HeroQuest Mythic Editions’ alternate female characters. Individuals that miss out on these crowd-funded events may never be able to own or play with this content.
- Regional Exclusives: Items intentionally made available in limited locations. Games like: Dark World: Village of Fear (1993), Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Board Game (2003), HeroQuest: Wizards of Morcar (2026), all produced by major game companies and released in limited areas.
Limited-availability expansions, regardless of their source, have a disproportionately negative influence on the game and modern gamers. They bypass simple supplement status and become something else. They are seen as trophies that allow bragging rights. They are a source of frustration and considered a barrier to completing a game collection. They are often in high demand with minimal product availability, rapidly becoming unaffordable on the secondary market.
FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Marketing
Modern game producers are increasingly relying on fear as a form of engagement to sell their games. Crowdfunded campaigns thrive on exclusivity. Publishers offer stretch goals with accompanying bonus goodies to get would-be players to fork over more cash. These have a very broad range: exclusive miniatures, exclusive scenarios, expansions that will not be available through retail channels, and the list goes on. This behavior creates anxiety because players fear missing out on content forever. The Conan board game is an excellent example of this FOMO marketing. The crowdfunded campaign generated huge amounts of interest and cash that translated into extensive exclusive content that expanded the game’s scope, but only for a select few players. For example, Conan: The Legend of the Devil in Iron (2017) was sold as an exclusive for the King pledge level only and was never made available for general purchase. How is this a good method of supporting a game over time?
Reputation
For collectors, limited expansions are status symbols. They provide the collector’s player base with a pedestal to look up to the collector. Ownership implies dedication to the game, perceived superiority to the rest of the player base, and a false sense of seniority within the hobby. The flip side of this is the prospector. The individual who is only in the crowdfunding to make profit off the exclusive content because they know the exclusives will not be reproduced. Both of these behaviors and the reputations they bring are universally reviled by most gamers. This is a net negative to the game.
Predation on Psychological Traits
The completionist player’s experience with limited expansions is very different than that of the basic player or collector. Most players can live without a limited release if it doesn’t dramatically affect gameplay. Most collectors maintain a white whale list of things they have elected not to chase. Completionists, however, suffer the psychological pressure to own every official release regardless of its use or necessity. It is in the exploitation of this mindset that the limited releases really shine. In games with on-and-off support, players develop fear about missing an expansion. Such events can create a permanent gap in their collection. Discussions on Reddit about HeroQuest frequently touch on this anxiety. It is especially true regarding the collector hero packs. Limited availability expansions turn what should be an enjoyable hobby into a stressful race against product availability.
Prospecting -vs- Playability
Some of these items actually enhance gameplay. Others are mostly for collecting. The Commander of the Guardian Knights added an entirely new concept to the HeroQuest game: skills. But it was limited, so it appealed to the prospector. This resulted in a massive shortage for the player base and a huge boon to the secondary market. Eventually, the producer elected to make the class available in another manner by including it in a later expansion. This is important because making the knight available in a general expansion added the gameplay experience to a wider player base, without impinging on the collector market. “Rare” expansions often spend more time sealed and displayed than actually played; this allows for both groups to be satisfied, bravo Avalon Hill.
Casual Players are Screwed
The casual player, one introduced to the game a year or two after the hyped launch, is highly unlikely to find or play the limited-release expansions. Unlike crowdfunding participants, collectors, or prospectors, casual players are not “in the know”. They generally purchase games through regular retail services expecting a full game experience. If gameplay components are not part of the game and are permanently unavailable, new players can feel cheated by the producer. Monolith’s forum conversations around the Conan Board game regularly discuss frustration with free producer-published scenarios and community-produced scenarios or campaigns that require crowdfunded materials. Materials that are not, and never will be, available to retailers and the wider player base. This divides the player base into “haves” and “have-nots”, fracturing the gaming community. How can this possibly be good for the game?
Financial Preferential Treatment
Exclusives available only at conventions create a similar problem, though on a more focused and smaller scale. Promotional items only distributed at conventions reward a gamer’s attendance. This is good; however, it creates a geographic limitation to the rest of the player base. An individual who lives near Essen Spiel or Gen Con, certainly not me, has access to limited exclusives that international players will never acquire. While many are novelties, occasionally there will be meaningful gameplay content. When they do, it creates resentment among fans. In a few cases, the exclusive became more famous than the rest of the event at which it was released. For example, Gen Con 2000 had 30,000 attendees and sold out all 3,000 copies of the only printing of Dune – Chronicles of the Imperium. It has been hovering around 300.00 USD ever since; players who want it will most likely never see it.
The Capitalist Bent
Publishers are very financially aware. Limited availability expansions address real issues they face. Crowdfunding stretch goals provide incentive for players to drop their cash to foot the bill for production. It also helps the publisher determine the demand for the product at that point in time. Convention exclusives get people interested in games they may have otherwise ignored. Retail exclusives, like the initial HeroQuest – First Light release, drive customers to stores that many would not normally frequent. The crowdfunding model of Monolith Board Games’ Conan demonstrates limited availability expansions can drive interest in a game for years, allowing a series of crowdfunding campaigns to snowball around them. Artificial scarcity is not merely customer manipulation; it has a financial benefit to the game’s producer. By sacrificing the game’s availability, the producer makes more money. It seems counterintuitive until you realize that it is intentional customer manipulation. This type of manipulation, from a single human being, is considered controlling and unacceptable; why then is it financially rewarding for businesses?
Limited Availability -vs- Accessibility
The game impact of limited expansions really rests on the mentality of the game’s players. Collectors generally enjoy pursuit and ownership. Completionists feel pressure and anxiety. Competitive players or campaign-focused players are frustrated as gameplay content disappears behind exclusive walls. Casual players may elect to ignore expansions, playing only what is easily available and accessible. The healthiest game environment separates cosmetics from gameplay essentials. This allows collectors to chase rarity without limiting gameplay access for everyone else, in the same way Avalon Hill did with the Knight expansion for HeroQuest.
The Ugly Truth
Limited collector expansions will stay a permanent fixture in tabletop gaming. The financial payoff to the producers is too lucrative not to continue using fear as a motivator. They generate funds, interest, excitement, and social momentum. Publishers will continue to twist the balance between exclusivity and accessibility toward exclusivity for as long as it is financially viable. The stories of the Commander of the Guardian Knights, crowdfunding Conan content, and convention-exclusives highlight manipulation inherent in scarcity-driven production. These items create legends in the gaming community. But not all legends are good, and not all of them are bad. This type of production raises important questions about game preservation, player accessibility, who is really allowed to play the game in its entirety and most importantly, is it good for the game?
– Dru
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