Origins postmortem... really!

The Ft. Worth Origins attendance was less filling and had fewer calories; it was Origins Lite, or as was described, WacoCon with the difference being that the tragedy at Waco was better organized and had fewer casualties.

Even with the low attendance and lackluster site, the Texas summer, and all the rest, Europafest attendance was great. We had about 75 people participate at one level or another and some great seminars by David Hughes, Charles Sharp, and John Astell.

A Winter War was nominated as the best 20th century boardgame, Second Front had a good demo, games were played, the party had guests from the retail world: Kevin Fitzpatrick of Games, Crafts, Hobbies and Stuff of St. Louis, and from the distributor world: Bob and Joyce Boyle of Greenfield Hobby Distributors. There were also appearances by Frank Chadwick and Rich Banner, our founders.

All in all, a good time. Now, where do we go from here.

What to do, what to do?

For some time there has been an internal debate within GRD on how best to represent our company at annual conventions. Should we attend Origins and hold Europafest at the same time? Should we attend Origins at all? Should we attend more regional conventions and designate one of those as the Fest for that year?

There are some good regional wargame conventions. In fact, there are over 300 conventions every year in the U.S.

This was discussed at Ft. Worth. At one point I was in favor of dropping convention attendance altogether, but then I sat down and got better. As the convention was mostly a disaster and I was mostly busy, the only final decision was to keep attending Origins. One other option I have considered is for GRD to travel to four conventions each year: Origins, one on each coast and one in the midwest.

This is quite a number of trips and nothing will be done before next year, after Second Front, but possible sites are: Atlanticon in Baltimore, Strategicon's main wargame convention in L.A., a midwest convention in Ohio or Minnesota, and then, Origins.

As I said before, this is an ambitious schedule and will require planning and bucks, but we are seeing a steady increase in the sale of Europa games, a rising interest in new titles, an increase in the mail activity, and other solid signs that our work is reaching an increasing audience.

It will take a couple more years of work to see if my market research is correct, but since I will be leaving my position as Executive Director of GAMA no later than July of 1994, I will have much more time to devote to GRD. This is good, just ask Victor.

New Directions

I have received several phone calls from members expressing their approval for the new format of the magazine, with a special nod of pleasure for the cover design for TEM # 30, but how can you go wrong with a map of Norway? Anyway, thanks for all the kind words. We are always thinking of ways to make the magazine better and we seem to be able to come up with a better issue at least three times during the year. Much of the recent improvement is due to better planning [having Victor here full time really helps] and some better technology.

Crank, crank, crank...

As is evident by the Second Front maps that some of you have in your hands, the game draws near. Our best planning is to have it on the shelf, that is through production, distribution and to the retailers, by November 1, 1993.

The components are growing. This may be the first game with an OB book that is almost a novel. There are seventeen countersheets, and this will not include any counters for the strategic Allied Air Forces. Well, it lives and with the prodigious work of the final playtest grinding away we will have rules, final charts and all the rest in the very near future. The estimate of production cost is about $55,000.00, the final retail price will be about $99. That will make it the most expensive game ever produced, I believe. That is not something I am happy about, but with the component cost being what it is we should be charging about $110 to $120--too much!

So, now I talk about the next release, For Whom The Bell Tolls, which has been making continuous progress, albeit on a slower track.

That game will be ready for the next Origins, in San Jose, CA. I have not talked recently with the two main movers of the game, John Gee and Jeff Millefoglie, but I believe they will attend, conduct a seminar, answer questions, sign copies, and all the rest. In addition, the usual crew will be present and at this Origins I will be available since my tour of duty as the Executive Director for GAMA will be behind me. That means I get to be at our booth, attend seminars, and have fun [what a concept]! And, I have asked Frank Chadwick to join me in a Narvik game, played with miniatures, using Command Decision. Fun, fun, fun!