Been following the game piece discussion...and as a potential consumer,
here's my take.
I'm the father in a family of four. Kids are in ten and eleven. We all
enjoy playing chess, chess variants and a variety of other board games.
We have maybe 20 fairly standard board games.
We enjoy chess variants quite a bit, and in fact enjoy inventing variants
of any board games when we feel the playing field may not be fair under
traditional rules.
If/when we need new pieces, we usually just find something around the
house, maybe from another game board, maybe from a pencil case or even the
fridge, to represent a new piece.
Recently played Wuss II with my daughter and we used erasers as the Wuss.
Played a variation of falcon chess (8x8 board) and used lego firemen as
the falcons.
Played 8 stone chess using the Korean version of jacks (Gong - gi) as the
stones.
Much as I like the variants and the variety of pieces, think that I'd
likely just improvise instead of buying pieces.
One thing I might buy, if available, is a 10 x 8 board. Have been able to
make do with checker + chess board, but it's a bit inconvenient.
Anyway, as a casual yet enthusiastic chess variant player, and one who
truly enjoys the alternative and obscure pieces...I'm afraid I wouldn't
be a consumer. Hope I'm in the minority, as I'd really like to see
chess variants spread and even become a profitable venture for those
involved.