Industry distributors talk about the HIA shows merits and demerits and offer opinions on adventure gaming trends.
Distributor opinion of HIA. Building a better hot dog.
Three distributors who attended the HIA show and one who didn't, offered a blast of opinion remarkably similar in viewpoint. Nobody liked Dallas as a location for the show. Chicago, they said, is more central and more economical for most to get to. Ed Lukatch, president of Hobby Game Distributors in Lincolnwood, Illinios, sent no one to the show because of the location. "HIA is not furthering the industry by staying in California and Texas," Lukatch said. "The idea is to get retailers more interested in pushing the product. The cold won't keep them away from the show, but the economics of getting there will."
Lukatch liked the idea of the new trade show HIA began last year devoted solely to the modeling and adventure gaming industries. He especially liked the location of the national show in Chicago in 1986, and the regional convention coming up in Detroit this fall because it is "targeted to where the retailers are."
Even though he feels the HIA show is useful for introducing new products, Lukatch said, "the game industry has topped out in hobby shops; there's no new business to be made there." He added, "Perhaps gaming could grow in the book industry."
The three distributors who did attend the HIA show noted that several game manufacturers didn't take exhibit space at the show.
Bernie Sher, general manager of The Armory in Baltimore, said since the show was predominantly crafts-oriented, the manufacturers "might have thought that it was a waste of time and money to go." Sher said of the 170 game product lines he carries in the Armory, only about 20 lines were exhibited at the show in Dallas.
Bob Boyle, president of Greenfield Hobby Distributors in Royal, Michigan, was not as understanding of those who were absent as Sher. I think the game manufacturers who were not there are missing a bet," he said. "Any manufacturer that doesn't show at HIA is not going to get the first crack at trying to sell me goods. I don't buy at Origins or at GenCon because these are consumer shows and the manufacturers don't have the time to talk to me and tell me what I want to know!"
Joe Budreck, president of Windmill Hobbies Inc. in Geneva, Illinios, said this year was his last to attend the show, because he feels it's not a very "viable vehicle for the hobby industry to show its wares," adding that it's "not economical for shops, distributors, or manufacturers."
All agreed that the booths for distributors to take orders from retailers at the show were situated and publicized poorly by HLA, though Greenfield Boyle said he believes the set up may have been valuable because of the new contacts he made, he said it was lucky that the customers found him. "The saving grace was that we were situated between the lunchroom and the bathroom," he said.
Three out of the four distributors expect the science fiction robot games to fizzle in the marketplace. Budreck expects these games to die in the wind, because he feels the manufacturers of them are going after the wrong market. "The kiddies that bought robots will not buy the robot adult games," he said. I don't expect robots in the adult game market to do anything spectacular."
Budreck said the games involving robots are coming out a year late because they were hot last summer. 'A bonfire can go out in six months or a year in this industry," he said. Ed Lukatch echoes Budrec's sentiments: "People who want realism won't stick with the robot adult games. Robots are pot boilers. They don't have the depth to capture your imagination." 'A real society of robots would probably work. Paranoia, for example, is very popular and is about a computer-robot world of the future," Lukatch added.
Bob Boyle said that the robots died in the Japanese market so they "dumped" the products in the U.S. "Nobody really knows if it will be a marketing boom," he said. Boyle predicts computer games will continue to capture the imagination of the marketplace. He also picked historical games as good sellers because 11 there's a marked increase in equipment available and periods covered."
Both Boyle and Budreck believe that the trend toward games linked in a series is nothing new. Boyle said that the series are probably being noticed more because "the caliber of some releases has come up."
Even though Boyle feels that the quality of some games has improved, he also said that "role-playing games' sales, particularly miniature sales, are off-way off. It has plateaued, and I see a downward trend. There's a shakeout coming, and only the strong will survive."
Boyle said he thinks the way to turn this trend around is for manufacturers to improve the overall quality of the merchandise by making miniatures "more pertinent to the game."
Budreck sees survival tactics exhibited among manufacturers that are cooperating with other companies to sell compatible products. He said manufacturers appear to be collaborating with "a little more intelligence about it." He added that the attitude is "if my products helps yours sell and yours helps mine sell, that's great." Budreck also took personal note of an insidious trend in the Southwest: "Dallas has really poor hot dogs. Hot dogs are far better in Chicago."
The Retail Viewpoint
Three distributors who are also retailers put on their retail hats to analyze what they saw at HIA.
Wayne Godfrey of Wargames West in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he saw a couple of products that excited him, but as far as trends, most were disappointing. Godfrey said, "A lot of companies small and big are crying their eyes out about cash flow, about adventure gaming being on a downward trend." Having been to HIA for the last four or five years, Godfrey noticed the dwindling number of adventure gaming manufacturers exhibiting. He said he felt many did not have the dollars to exhibit, and that the industry is "in for a major shakeout this year, because the market is saturated with so many games coming out in so short a time." He added that "the strength of the dollar hurt several companies, because it cut down on their export business."
Godfrey expressed disappointment because many of the companies did not seem to have new, fresh, and innovative ideas" West End Games was an exception, he said, mentioning Junta and the Star Trek board game as items he felt were exciting new releases. "West End is good at taking an old theme and reworking it."
Godfrey was also impressed by three new TSR products for Dungeons & Dragons Book of Marvelous Magic, Modules T1 through T4 by E. Gary Gygax, and the 1985 Players' Handbook supplement. Mayfair Games' DC Hefoes superhero role-playing series is another product line he expects to do well.
Don Reents of Games of Berkeley in Berkeley, California, said he thinks the "industry is maturing, finding its niche." He noted a strong trend toward adventure games being marketed through comic book shops and science fiction book stores. "Manufacturers are beginning to target the person who frequents these types of stores," he said.
Reents mentioned that TSR has begun to zero in on its market. "They're no longer trying to sell the whole world," he said. "They're realizing who makes up their market and are developing products geared to them." A poster of FASM line of Star Trek starships caught Reents' fancy as an excellent merchandising idea. He liked the idea because it provides a "permanent record for the store of all the miniatures available in that line, like a catalog." He added, "It's a good attempt to help begin organizing the whole field. There's so much (miniature) stuff coming out; it's hard to keep track of," Reents said. The posters are being distributed free to dealers through distributors and trade magazines (including the premiere issue of GAME NEWS).
Reents noted that more and more licensed products were being introduced. "Licensing is growing for two reasons," he said. "The customer will pick up the game because he is familiar with the subject matter, and licensing reduces the manufacturer's risk of introducing new products."
He sees the resistance to new, less familiar products coming from the retailer and distributor, who has to stock the item, rather than from the customer or "end-user" of the product. Even though licensed games are increasing, Wayne Godfrey doesn't feel that they do well in his marketplace. "Generally, licensed games do poorly in adventure gaming stores with a few exceptions like (FASAs) Star Trek" Godfrey said.
Shelton Yee of Gamemaster in San Francisco "noticed a trend toward manufacturers doing things to solidify their lines." He said, "They're adding more products to support the lines and make them more sellable. For instance, Ral Partha took some of its older figures off the market and replaced them with a new product line."
Yee feels that quality has been improving and said that manufacturers are doing better cover art for packaging. However, not everyone is keeping up with state-of-the-art packaging, Don Reents commented on one game he felt was a notable exception to the trend in better cover art. A science fiction game to be released by a well-established manufacturer "is a good game, but the cover is going to kill it."
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© Copyright 2000 by Dana Lombardy.
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