Alternative Expansion Splits

In the last post, I talked about my current thinking on how to split up the expansion packs for Close Encounters. I think the plan there would produce good results for both me and customers. However, I’m not married to the idea. Here are some of the alternatives which are lurking at the back of my mind.

One Expansion to Rule Them All

The obvious alternative is to just throw everything together, into one big expansion. There’s no need for customers to choose what they’re going to buy next; they just get it all. The main advantage for them would probably be that it would be slightly cheaper than purchasing them all individually – although the component cost would be the same, I could cut out some duplication and packaging.

There are advantages for me in doing it that way too. I can be sure that customers will have all the components, so I can integrate the design more closely and make the rules fit together a bit more elegantly.

The disadvantages for customers are firstly the cognitive load of taking on a whole lot of new stuff in one hit, and secondly the sticker shock – although it might be cheaper than buying all the expansions individually, it would probably be significantly more than the base game just due to the increased number of components. I wouldn’t blame customers for being reluctant to spend that much!

There’s also the disadvantage that “nothing is ready until everything is ready”. Pre-production would have to wait until development was more or less finished on everything. There would be a long wait for more content, and people might start to lose interest.

My view is that the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

Many Small Expansions

The inverse of the above – instead of bundling things up I split them up even further. Heavy weapons are in their own little expansion, which is separate to equipment, which is separate to squad leaders, which are separate to tactics, and so on. Each one gets some new enemies, some new tiles, a few story missions, etc. It wouldn’t work for some things (there’s just too much woven together for the mechs, for example), but for most of them it could be done.

Advantages? Quicker development for each means more frequent releases. Fewer components in each leads to lower prices. More choice about what to include in your game means the play experience can be customised even further. And, of course, I get feedback about what works and what doesn’t in time to iterate for the next development cycle.

Disadvantages? Not many. Total cost of getting everything would go up by a bit due to duplication and packaging, and it would start to be a bit of a hassle working out which bits went with each expansion if you’re the sort of person who likes to change customisation. But those probably aren’t showstoppers.

No, my real concern with this is that it might make each expansion feel a bit underwhelming. Instead of getting a fat stack of content in each expansion, you get some… but not heaps. Would it be enough to feel like the customer is getting a good deal? I don’t know, and I’m worried that people might start to feel like they’re being nickled-and-dimed to death.

I’m unsure about this option. I think it’s definitely worth trying a mini-expansion once (I have some ideas for ‘specialist’ troopers, for example), but I don’t want to commit to this course of development yet.

No Expansions at All

The final option is one that seems to have been assumed by some of my playtesters, interestingly enough. I could either stop with just what’s in the Close Encounters base game box, or conversely I could throw everything into it and increase the price accordingly.

I’ll be upfront about this – I don’t think it’s practical or desirable. If I threw everything together the cost of components would push the price to customers higher than I’m comfortable with. I still think it would be good value, but I can easily imagine people looking at the price and deciding to get something else… and honestly, I wouldn’t blame them. It would also take a long time to get everything together, and I think I’d get frustrated.

Not developing any expansions at all would be much easier and cheaper, of course. Close Encounters is a good game already – it doesn’t need anything added to it before it becomes fun, and there’s plenty of replay value in it. The problem is… well, you know that feeling when there’s this cool new thing, everyone agrees it’s cool, and you’re sitting there hugging yourself because you know about something that makes it even cooler? Yeah, it’s like that for me.

It’s the same thing which made me try to get Close Encounters to market in the first place. I have this cool thing: I like it, I know other people will like it, and I want to share it with them. I may be forced to give up on that dream – things happen, life gets in the way, and so on. But I don’t want to give up without even trying.

Question: What’s your opinion about how to split my planned expansions? Do you like a few decent-sized ones, one huge one, lots of little ones, or something else entirely? Let me know in the comments!