Raymond P Wagner, former president of Mattel Toys, suffered a massive stroke on February 14 while attending the Toy Fair in New York City and died at the age of 53. In 1984 he formed Wagner Associates, serving as consultants to Hasbro Bradley, Inc. and other toy industry clients. At the time of his death, he was also vice chairman of Hasbro Bradley and a member of its board of directors. Having resided in Rolling Hills Estates, California, Mr. Wagner is survived by his wife, Carol, and their three sons. In a recent letter to its dealers, GHQ Micro Armour of Minneapolis, Minnesota, asked for feedback about samples of 15mm Seven Years War miniatures to allow dealers to have "some direct impact on the planning of a new line from the start," according to company president Gregory Dean Scott. Scott wrote, "If you have (seen these miniatures), you know you haven't seen their quality on the market before." If you're looking for statistics on the game industry, the U.S. International Trade Commission has released a report on toys, games, and wheeled goods with 81 statistical tables summarizing U.S. imports, exports, and apparent consumption of these goods from 1979. The Toy Manufacturers of America Inc. selected some salient facts from the report to publish in a recent news release. For instance, apparent U.S. consumption of these products increased from $5.7 billion in 1981 to $6.9 billion in 1982, but dropped to $5.8 billion in 1983 due to the contraction of the market for video games. Games, at $2.3 billion of sales, and toys, at $1.8 billion of sales, accounted for 72 percent of total consumption in 1983. Of the $1.7 billion in 1983 imports, games and toys accounted for 37 percent and 28 percent respectively Back to Table of Contents -- Game News #3 To Game News List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Dana Lombardy. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com