Corvus Belli has released their stats for the 2015 ITS campaign season, highlighting just how well Infinity has taken hold. While they are not releasing explicit numbers the percentage increases seen across the board are impressive.  

Active Players saw a 70% increase over 2014, although the explosion of 2014 is still pretty mind boggling at 491%. That was their breakout year.  

Player & Tournaments witnessed very strong growth in the United States and Internationally as well.  

The popularity of the Nomads has grown to make it the #1 faction, with Panoceania in the #2 slot. Seems that I choose well when it came to my main faction.


Personally, I am impressed that a game that is generally seen as complex as Infinity, is seeing strong growth even when competing against games like X-Wing and Star Wars Armada which are relatively simple and a lower entrance price point. More importantly, the relatively heavy requirements for terrain does not seem to be stopping people from jumping into Infinity.

The rules clean up with N3 and more re-sculpts of certain miniatures may serve to make 2016 a banner year for Infinity!


http://infinitythegame.com/article.php?id=106

This Kickstarter by Elder Wood, is off to a tremendous start, just a day in and the project is not only funded (goal $5,000) but is at $42,248 with 386 backers. Gaming is going high end with this line of custom boxes to carry either your card decks or RPG accessories. The early days of gaming and the Crown Royal dice bags are long gone!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584169644/spellbook-gaming-boxes

Just a few days into their new Kickstarter, Kobold Press has 446 backers who have pledged $34,896 ($20,000 goal) ensuring that the project goes forward. The goal of Tome of Beasts is to add more than 300 NEW monsters for 5th Edition! There are plenty of stretch goals, including the Book of Lairs! All these new monsters have to lair somewhere after all! You can learn more here!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/350683997/tome-of-beasts-300-new-monsters-for-5th-edition

Warsenal has released a second wave of USAriadna Comanche Bases. As with their other acrylic bases there are two layers, each 1.5mm thick that are glued together to create 3mm thick base. Having purchased and assembled their Tunguskan Bases I am sure that gamers will find the full range of Comanche Bases worth a look!

http://warsen.al/collections/bases/products/comanche-bases-wave-two

Anarchy Models is doing a Wave 2 Kickstarter for their HS (High Speed) Stencils, where they dramatically increase the range that they are offering. At the time of this post, they are about $3,000 from unlocking the 1/2 sheet stencils!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/805848592/hs-stencil-system-wave-2-from-anarchy-models




Harebrained Schemes just started their BATTLETECH Kickstarter! Only a few days in they are funded to the 1.4 million dollar mark! However, it is at 2.5 million dollars that we unlock PvP, which is really what we are after...right!?! So if you love classic BATTLETECH (circa 3025 era) be sure to check them out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech




Arc Dream Publishing has started a Kickstarter for none other than Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game! With 24 days remaining there are still tons of great rewards to be unlocked!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcdream/delta-green-the-role-playing-game?ref=tag

You can read the full article by Eric Grunhauser here…

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/05/29/pinball_was_banned_in_new_york_until_a_single_miraculous_shot_convinced.html

The short version was that by the early 40’s in the United States, pinball machines were “considered by many to be both a moral and economic stain on America’s proud cultural quilt.” It was such a scourge that Mayor of New York City Fiorella LaGuardia got pinball machines banned in 1942…a ban that lasted until 1976. A seemingly well intentioned individual that was trying to save us from ourselves, banned something as innocuous as pinball machines for 34 years.  

Ancient history…who cares?

I do and you should too.

You see back in the early 80’s there was this wildly popular game, D&D, you may have heard of it. Well it turns out that this game, D&D, “it received negative publicity for alleged or perceived promotion of such practices as Satanism, witchcraft, suicide, pornography and murder.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controversies

All of the controversy was basically a news media that sensationalized a tempest in a teapot (or crack pots).

Does anybody else see a trend?

Well the UN Cyber Violence Against Women And Girls: A World-Wide Wake-Up Call report came out (10/1/2015).  

http://www.unwomen.org/~/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2015/cyber_violence_gender%20report.pdf?v=1&d=20150924T154259  

To say that I would wipe my ass with this report would make me criminally negligent in wasting printer paper (and the trees from which they come). They trot out the usual dog and pony show.  

Page 48 of the UN Report.

“Recent research on how violent video games are turning children, mostly boys, into ‘killing zombies’118


Reference 118

PROGRAMMED TO KILL – Video Games, Drugs, and The ‘New Violence’  

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/New_violence.html  

Just a taste of what can be found in PROGRAMMED TO KILL…

“The child-killers we have seen so far are only the first of what will be many more Nintendo killers—if we fail to recognize and stop the phenomenon. There is a pattern, certain features which are common to all of these cases in the United States:  

Moses Lake, Washington, February, 1996;
Pearl, Mississippi, October, 1997;
Paducah, Kentucky, December, 1997;
Jonesboro, Arkansas, March, 1998;
Springfield, Oregon, May 21, 1998;
Littleton, Colorado, April, 1999  

In each of these cases, Satanism, nihilism, and a fascination with violence and destruction figure prominently. In several of the more notorious cases, addiction to video games, and to nihilistic and graphically violent movies (such as Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers”) were major components of the lives of these children.” [Emphasis added]

Yes, there is a pattern…in that they are offering up the same old tired tropes as excuses for these tragedies.  

Over 100 million people have played Call of Duty, I have certainly put more than a couple of hours into the game. Nearly 60 million people in the United States surf the net for porn. Yet, for all the handwringing and gnashing of teeth the simple facts remain. The overwhelming majority of people who play violent video games, paintball,  tabletop rpgs, view violent movies, watch porn, read comic books, and yes…I am going there…own guns are perfectly well adjusted souls who go about their business without incident.  

I am of the school of thought that you can’t blame an inanimate object for people’s actions. Hopefully we can have an epiphany as a civilization in the not so distant future, violence is a people problem not a tool problem.