Publication of BROG has slowed to about a quarterly rate, recently, mostly the result of two factors: 1. While the number of games appearing is about the same as last year - c.60 - they are being grouped (almost as if by design). Thus we get long stretches with no games, which translates to long stretches with no reviews. Add to that... 2. My house has been under construction for seven months now - almost finished, but still no furniture to speak of - and that means that lots of paperwork gets packed into boxes and shuffled around. Finding a box of unknown items in this dusty mess is not a viable method of moving forward. Anyway, I've been trying to discern what the gaming consumers are buying these days. Interestingly, sales for a given game are about the same as sales for any other game … double the numbers (at least) for AH, because of their smoothly working distribution net. But, several major distribtors have bitten the bankruptcy bullet, a fall-out from the CCG Craze Meets Prozac. And this has had a major impact on sales. Essentially, the standard boxed game will sell c. 2000+ in the first 6-9 months, when most sales occur. After that, you can raise that number to close to 3000 with good word of mouth,etc. But it's really hard to climb above 3000 in the first year. There are, of course, exceptions to this "rule", at both ends of the Bell Curve. Based on the conversations I have had, and read, on the Internet, consumers seem to be leaning more and more towards games that use rules with which they are familiar: series games, for one, with "quad"-style packages as another. It is becoming more and more difficult - albeit not impossible - to sell a game with a new system. The true exception to all of this are the staple subjects of the hobby: Gettysburg (we get two more of those this year), Eastfront titles, and, lately, a slew of Napoleonic battles. Seems to be no end of appetite for those. Speaking of the Internet, after much agita in dealing with AoL as a provider - their latest Rocket Scientist Move was to change the Keyword location for wargaming and not tell anyone - I have decided to switch the nexus of my internet discussions over to John Kranz's estimable Manzanaland (as we call it). Those of you who can get into the internet and haven't seen this yet should stop reading immediately - the parrot cage will wait - and check out "www.manzana.com/webx" Lots of topics, lots of commentary … and lots of fun. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. 2 #27 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 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