As of January 18, 1992, Fresno Games has announced that they will be selling games only by direct mail; they will not be supplying local stores with product. This change in marketing appears at about the same time that retail stores are reporting many returns and much customer dissatisfaction. It may also have to do with the rather shallow discounts they were requiring stores to accept. Their official position - and one not entirely unbelievable - was that many of their retail customers had fallen behind on their 30-60 day notes, and FGA could not afford to carry these notes. . . . And, somewhat in that vein, the following comes right from the source. Essentially, Simulation Design, Inc., has ceased publishing its own games, a fact which may not come as a major shock to anyone. The last remaining SDI-scheduled game, Blood & Sand, has been sold to Victory Games for release later in 1992. New counters for Guns of Cedar Creek are being worked on even as you read this and they, together with the remaining copies of CC (about 400) should be available, once again, later in 1992. SDI's other games - First Blood, Dead of Winter, and 1862 - are being held for ransom by the Evil Printer, who had the audacity to demand that he actually be paid for his services. There aren't that many copies of each left (all of the games sold about 2500+ copies), but SDI has hired the King John Ransom Collection and Cement Shoe Company, Ltd., to attempt to rescue the remaining games. Don't hold your breath. . . . For those of you who are proficient in French (which leaves out Clash of Arms), I heartily recommend France's premier gaming magazine, "Casus Belli". Glossy and highly professional, this bimonthly covers all aspects of the gaming world. The December issue contained their first "in-magazine" game, 1792 - La Patrie en Danger, a French Revolution adaptation of Kevin Zucker's operational Napoleonic system. Spectacular graphics (better than FGA!), even if you do have to cut-and-paste the counters. For information, write to Excelsior Publications, 1 rue du Col Pierre Avia, 75015 Paris. Tell 'em BROG sent ya. For each sub we get two free baguettes and a bottle of beaujolais nouveau. . . . And in an EEC vein, we are trying, apparently in vain, to get review copies of some of those French and Italian games you never hear about. After all, the continentals cover our stuff. IES, the company that did that huge Cannae game several years ago, has a TSS-like monster on Solferino, among other items. . . . And from our roving Japanese correspondent (and we actually do have one) comes word that the Japanese wargame industry has all but disappeared. Maybe Georgie B. should have thrown in some FGA games with all those Fords and Buicks. . . . "Command" magazine now comes in two forms: with the game (but only from XTR), or on your neighborhood newsstand - and without a game. If XTR can keep up the high level of writing and graphics (a very nice cover for the Midway issue), "Command" will be a welcome addition to (and hopefully replacement for) that skim-the-surface rag, "Military History" and its sisters-in-sin. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. II #2 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com