Origins, a great show...

This year's show was great. Attendance appeared to be up, there was lots of activity on the floor. The sales we had were propelled by War of Resistance. We sold about 40, half of which went to gamers that had never played a Europa game. We call that "market penetration". That is good. We sold a fair number of March to Victory games. There was solid interest in the upcoming titles.

The fest suffered from the absence of John Astell. He was scheduled to appear but his driveway blew up (water pipe) and his presence was required to take care of that problem. The rest of the fest went well. Lots of games played, hot grub at the party and my impression was that everyone was having fun, which is the whole point to the fest. We don't have the final number, but a head count indicated that attendance was about 60, up 8 from last year. This is good.

Now for something completely the same

At the time of this writing we are packing the autoship for War of Resistance. Our auto ship number are down due to the nature of the industry, the distribution net and the like. We lost ground, my brothers, as several of the major distributors have sucking chest wounds from the aftermath of the card influence. Many stores have gotten ill. The overall numbers appear to have declined by as much as 30% in the last year. Many of the remaining stores order only those games their customers have requested, like a Sears Catalog Sales store. We expect a second wave of ordering to follow shortly after the initial wave. We certainly have seen the shift here as our direct mail orders have increased. Each time we sell direct it is about the same as selling two games to a distributor. We had a short pre-order time for WOR. The initial indication is that we sold at a faster pace on the WOR pre-order than we did for MTV. The next game, Storm Over Scandanavia, will tell yet another tale. Remember, SOS will be sold direct only from GRD or in the Headquarters stores (on the inside back cover).

SOS is a test of the strength of our direct mail market. The game will be available for distributors some months after we have released it. My guess would be about 6 months after release. There is an ad for the game on the back cover of this issue. The game is on schedule, on track and may even be out early, but expect this next game to be available November 1, 1998. That would make three games in one year.

NOTE THIS PLEASE: When you call us let the phone ring at least 8 times before hanging up. Sometimes we are far away from the phone.

When will it end?

Special ops, black box, Area 51. We can do that. As I indicated in a previous magazine we are doing a special project: Europa East Africa Maps. The project is underway and will be available from GRD only. The counters and rules are present in War In the Desert. You must have that game to use this map module. The price has been set, $35 per set of 5 maps, detailed obs and new TEC covering the rest of the conflict area, Cairo, Egypt to Mombasa, Kenya, from Kampala, Uganda to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 16 miles to the hex. Some new terrain types, sure to break the ice at parties. Limited run, one time only, total of 850 sets available. These are not for sale at this time, we will announce in the magazine when they are ready.

A group of dedicated gamers approached us some time ago about this project. I told them that if we were to undertake this project it would have to meet two criteria: 1. it could not consume staff time to such an extent that it would cut into design and development of games, and 2. it would have to be prepaid with no expectation of return. They said okay and we closed the deal at Origins this year.

If there are any of you out there that want to buy into this project a minimum of $240 is required. More can be invested in lots of $10. Each $10 buys one share. The proceeds from the sales of the maps goes back to the investors until they are paid off. Each investor will receive two sets of maps. $15,000 is the target, we have received about $2,000 to date. We will finish the project when the money is collected. An accounting for expense will be sent to each investor. If you wish to invest it is by check or money order only, no credit cards will be used.

Next

What will become of military history games. I don't see much real change in the next 12 months. We still have a strong distributor presence. We sell more through distribution than direct and shelf space is what we want. Now, there are changes occurring. As I said before, the landscape is changing. The reason we are doing a direct on IN represents our test of this direct sales approach. Making the game available, later, to the distribution chain will sell more games, give us the shelf space such as it is.

As a counterpoint to this approach I recall a company at Origins that refused to sell some of its games to a retailer stating that the company wanted to take advantage of another convention before releasing the game to the general retail market. This is wrong thinking as the point is to sell your games, in my opinion. GRD is beginning to have a real presence and Europa is ascending. Life is good.