[HeatDeath]

Ever since the four player limit in the base set was announced, people used to the enormous convention free-for-alls of yester-version have called loudly for options for massively multiplayer scenarios. Despite all this, SJG have consistently held their ground on "four players is the effective limit - the game begins to distort in bad ways beyond that."

SJG /know/ that they could sell a very significant number of "extra player kits" consisting of a dashboard and a base. They're, truth be told, leaving a fair bit of money on the table by not doing this.

If they're leaving money on the table intentionally, you can take that as /very/ compelling evidence of the deep sincerity of their claim, informed by literally years of testing and development, that going beyond four players in a single furball at once does noticeable damage to the play experience.

As noted above, Double Drum's structure represents the well-tested and official compromise and happy medium here - up to eight players can be made to work, and indeed work very well, as long as the arena structure ensures that you have no more than 4 players in a single furball at any one time.