Game Designers' Workshop president Frank Chadwick laid out his company's strategy for 1985 in literature distributed at its HIA exhibit. Excerpted here, is a concise analysis of the marketplace. 1984 has been a mixed year for the Adventure Gaming industry overall. While sales were generally good, many of the old reliable products that could always be depended on had a disappointing sales year. The, reason is fairly clear: the market is changing and that affects the type of products in demand. How is the market changing? 1) The traditional role-playing audience has shrunk somewhat. The explosive growth of the late-70s and early-80s created a large demographic "bulge" in the roleplaying audience. As those gamers moved on to other interests, the market declined sharply New gainers are still entering the market, so the customer base will stabilize, but at a lower level. 2) There has been a sharp increase of interest in military subjects, particularly contemporary military subjects. This has been fueled by books, movies, and toys. 3) The boardgarne market has gotten younger. As the older gainers who started in the hobby in the late '60s and '70s move on, they are being replaced by younger gamers with less experience in gaming but a real interest in learning. Change in any market is inevitable and can be profited from if the manufacturers, distributors, and retailers recognize the nature of the change and then position themselves to take advantage of it, Here are our plans, in broad outline form, for 1985: 1) Continue to Emphasize Series. This is particularly important with the increasing number of younger, less experienced players. A gainer who is still intimidated by the length of war game rules is more likely to buy into a series than a standalone game. He knows that he just has to learn one game system to enjoy a whole range of products. 2) Emphasize Modern Military Subjects. Our continuing Third World War and Assault series are good examples of this, but it doesn't need to be limited just to boardgames. Twilight 2000, our new role-playing game, is enjoying a large part of its success because it emphasizes modem military technology and situations, 3) Emphasize Simplicity and Clarity. With as many new gainers in the market as there are, i6 important that rules be clear and lucid and that game mechanics be simple and smooth However, it's also important to keep it rich and detailed--inexperienced players aren't simple-minded or infantile. If a. publisher makes the product simple-minded, instead of just simple, he loses the veteran players that still make up a very large part of the market and can also alienate the intelligent novice player 1985 is going to be a good year for all of us if we remember who our audience is and what his needs are. Back to Table of Contents -- Game News #4 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