Contrary to published reports, SDC is alive, functioning, and growing. Conflict is again on schedule and our customers have been pleasantly surprised to finally receive their goods.

This Spring the first of our new boxed games will be published: Sinai, a battalion-level wargame of the Arab-Israeli 6-Day War in 1967. It will include a geomorphic board and separate combat tables for the Arab and Israeli armor/infantry/artillery units; and LOOPHOLE, a game of economics about corporations, conglomerates, and taxes. It shows ways a millionaire can beat the I.R.S. and amass a fortune. In addition to "Expansion Kits" which will supplement our existing games, three other boxed games are in prototype stage. Conflict will increase in size and scope, as you may have already noted. It will be an interesting 1973.

Take note of our expanding and changing staff. We've been busy contacting professional experts in all fields of human conflict and the format and future games within our magazine will be adding new areas of interest. While Conflict will remain primarily a magazine of military history and wargames, the addition of related topics (and pages to the format) is what we are striving for by the end of 1973.

With all of this good news, you'd expect some bad news also. You're right. Beginning with this issue, all single copies of Conflict are priced at $2.50, all subscriptions of six issues at $8.50. Renewals will be $7.50 if you are a current subscriber. The bookcase boxed game Dunkerque -- 1940 is now $8.50. The higher costs of the new format for the magazine necessitates this price hike. These prices are fixed for all of 1973. Also, we are no longer accepting $6.00 subscriptions that were offered in our first ads back in February of 1972.

GAMES WITH A PURPOSE, A PURPOSE IN GAMING

Quite literally thousands of different games will be published within the next ten years. Games have a potential that will be developed in the next decade to significantly in fluence American leisure time, education, business, and even government. Simulations Design Corporation will be caught up in this geometric growth, touching upon as many subjects and interests as there is a demand for.

Wargames are a popular topic we will always publish, but there is ample room for political games, economic games, science fiction games, psychology games, and more games, ad infinitum.

All of the games we will deal with will be adult games, directed towards a sophisticated audience. Such games must simulate as many factors of the real world that they represent, but the most important criteria for our games will be that people enjoy playing them. And not just once, but many times. A game that collects dust on a shelf doesn't inform, educate or entertain anyone.

The purpose most games should have is entertainment. In many cases it is quite possible to also design such a game to make it useful in a classroom as a teaching aid. Additional rules or higher levels of conflict and interplay can transform a simple game into a more accurate, albeit more complicated, simulation.

Striving game designers should keep this fact in mind, especially before submitting materials to us. Most of the games and variants we have received to date concern military topics. Orders-of-battle, exact unit location, correct terrain maps for the battlefield, etc. are all very important information vitally necessary in the design of a wargame. However historical research is not a substitute for game design, and too many games, while extremely accurate, are also extremely unplayable and unenjoyable.

This is not to say that we are going to ignore complicated simulations. In many specific instances, for education and business, we will develop games that are very involved simulations which may utilize computers to keep the bookwork, and last over a period of several days or weeks. A not-too-distant goal is to have a simulation replace a textbook for a class on the college and university level. Such a game would supplement an instructor's lectures; the students would learn through participation in the game.

Every game should have a purpose--a specific application -- which the designer intends for it when he creates his game.

As a rough guide, games that are included with Conflict magazine should be level 1 games: entertaining, easy to understand and play. Such games do not have to be "simple," but they should not be over-complex. Variants are supposed to be supplemental, additional, and make an already published game more accurate and realistic. Sometimes they may actually make a game easier to play, but usually they are level 2 games: simulations.

Our boxed line of games are conceived on all three game levels: level 1 for the novice or inexperienced gamer to familiarize him to the game; level 2 with additional rules and components to make a more realistic simulation for the hobbyist and student; and level 3 with all possible phases of a complex simulation without actually using a computer.

We do not want to discourage anyone from submitting games and variants to us for review. But realize that a detailed, well-researched historical subject placed on a hexagon or square grid game board is not necessarily a game. In the next few years highly complicated simulations will come more into demand, but for now let us concentrate on the games people play.

Finally, the substance of Conflict would be inadequately presented if it were not for the excellent form given it by the PHOTO SHOPPE and GREAT WEST PRINTING of Sorrento Valley, California.