Alfred
Posts: 6685
Joined: 9/28/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
quote:
ORIGINAL: PresterJohn
The appetite for east front wargames is pretty big, its a fascinating conflict, many parallels to the Pacific War but with one big commonally assumed difference - Germany could have won (Japan in reality could not, Germany debatable). So i'd disagree and certainly from volume of wargmaes produced and played suggest that the East Front has the larger potential fanbase.
I would propose another reason for popularity. I wouldn't press this theory too far, and it may be more specific to Greatest Generation and Baby Boomer players. But one attraction for the Eastern Front is that both sides are "bad." One Nazi, one communist and at the will of the greatest mass murderer of the 20th C. (OK, maybe 2nd worst to Mao; figures differ.)
I plan to play the Japanese side next game in AE, but more to get full value from my purchase and to see the production system. I don't relish trying to sink ships of my navy. Similarly, I think Silent Hunter 3, with mods, is the best submarine sim ever developed, but I have trouble enjoying it as I have to play as a U-boat commander.
The Eastern Front, aside from the scope and other factors that made it the largest land conflict in world history, and likely to remain so in the future, removes the guilt. At least perhaps for some players.
Agree with the fine citizen from Frostbite Falls.
Would also add the geographic customer base to be a significant factor. As a generalisation, I would suggest that the overwhelming majority of continental European plus Canadian wargamers would have very little interest in the PTO, instead focussing very much on the ETO. Whereas the interest in the two theatres from American, British and Australian wargamers would be more evenly distributed.
I would attribute this primarily to two factors; location knowledge and national participation.
Europeans would have at least a passing knowledge of most major ETO cities, how many would have prior knowledge of the location of tiny Pacific atolls or obscure jungle locations, or Chinese cities whose current names are written differently from how they appeared in 1942.
Then there is a common factor of the ETO, the Wehrmacht. The major potential wargamers customer market is based on countries which at some stage of WWII had significant combat with the Wehrmacht. A much smaller subset of that market had significant combat with Japanese forces.
A third element might well be that the PTO is a combined arms operation, with a strong focus on naval operations. Not too many continental Europeans would be interested in Mahan. Maritime operations is simply not as ingrained for them as it is for the great maritime powers of Britain and USA.
Alfred
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Printable Version
RE: WITE vs. WITP - 
So not really an immobile mire... er more like the Soviet Steamroller 
Oh well, just like the Germans did: "we have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down..." Hitler dixit. Hahaha! NOSTRADAMUS!
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