It is always difficult to predict the future of the hobby. Sales of games that are as playable as classic Avalon Hill board war games, largely so-called 'German' games, are doing extremely well. Publishers of overchromed board war games with tens of pages of rules, complex turn sequences, and insistence on the importance of realism seem to have hit their baseline, namely that they sit and collect orders for some hundreds of games, using the income from those orders as the capital to fuel the next printing cycle. Historical miniatures seem to be doing respectably well. The internet appears to have solved the sales challenge, namely that with large numbers of figures and lines it is impossible to keep in stock all the armies and navies that might at some point be wanted for sale. Indeed, by report manufacturers are moving to Just In Time processing except for extremely popular lines, so that as little money as possible is tied up in possibly worthless stock. Rolegaming continues to be popular, and with an emphasis on cooperation rather than interplayer combat brings in players who might not have liked classical board wargames but liked more the traditional Eurogames. To judge from the local mall, computer games still sell well. Indeed, my own employer--Worcester Polytechnic Institute--appears to be on its way to launching a major in computer game design. There are places you can go to study computer game design. Ours will be one of the few design programs half inside an accredited orthodox computer science department, so that with modest effort a student will be able to complete a second major in computer science, and half inside a humanities and arts program, with an emphasis on aesthetics, graphics, and large scale collaborative efforts in the design. Game! will continue to seek to bring you news, reviews, and articles on all aspects of the hobby, including those so new that the don't yet realize that they are a new branch of the hobby. After election day, we will be launching a new news recruitment program, aimed at greatly enhancing local and regional news on all aspects of gaming. And Until Next Month, Gamers! To Your Tables! Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 9 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com