News of the Avalon Hill acquisition generated a good deal of discussion on The Gamers' e-mail list, even among people who profess not to have played an AH title in years. Any psychologist will tell you that an increase in discussion (gossip?) is a typical reaction to uncertainty. Paradoxically, people generate more "information" when there's little information to be had. Perhaps part of making sense of a questionable situation is to propose answers and see how sensible others find them. Perhaps nature abhors a vacuum in the info-verse as much as in the physical universe.

For some reason, this news about Avalon Hill seems to be provoking more of a reaction than GDW's shutdown (see the "In Brief" in Ops 21). It may be that people hold stronger opinions--both good and bad--about AH than they did about Game Designers' Workshop. More likely, a couple years' progress in telecommunications means that I'm hearing more reactions this time.

Our collective reaction says something about what we value in our hobby, especially in the case of a company that has been publishing games since before most of us were wargaming and even before some of us, yours truly included, were breathing. Therefore, without pointing fingers or naming names, let me give an overview of the reaction in The Gamers' corner of the on-line world, and perhaps even detect some themes in it.

First of all, the funereal tone was pretty strong, with subject headers including "AH demise" and "AH's passing." One exchange ran "Q: Is it possible that the rumors of AH's death are greatly exaggerated? A: No, only the possibility of AH publishing any more wargames." Several messages ended with "Goodbye, old friend," "R.I.P." and "I will greatly mourn the loss of the Hill."

A few guys remarked that they would shed no tears. I have reported here why, like the old man who didn't want to go on the cart in Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, AH is not dead yet. But certainly it's no longer the old AH. Anyway, such was the mood. Even people who announced they hadn't played or purchased an AH title in years were using the word "sad."

Many pointed out that Avalon Hill is the undisputed pioneer of board wargaming, and they listed off the titles that gave them the first taste of the hobby: Tactics II, Kriegspiel, Battle of the Bulge, Gettysburg, and others. AH was "the first of many companies to put out fine wargames," and most gamers "cut their wargaming eye teeth on AH stuff." Though the hobby "exploded" with SPI, "it was AH that opened the door." Along with this acknowledgment of how AH broke new ground and made wargamers out of so many of us ran a thread of nostalgia, with many guys mentioning the stacks of old Avalon Hill games in their closets.

A fair number of people who evoked the good old days of playing Stalingrad (or whatever) did, however, point out that they had not bought an AH title for a good many years. While no one tried claiming that AH put out poor games, many expressed the idea that the games coming from the Hill were no longer their cup of tea. One person commented that, while he had learned the hobby with AH titles, "I've sold most of my old AH stuff because there are much better games for old grogs like me." This sentiment was shared among several guys--"Sure, we have mostly moved beyond AH"--while others made a case for AH providing good and sophisticated games to which experienced players could "graduate."

There was general agreement that many AH games make excellent introductions to the hobby. "The produced some of the best simple and playable games on the market." One person remarked that he plans to use that closet full of old games to introduce his kids to wargaming. Probably more important for the sake of introducing the hobby to new gamers than the approachability of some individual AH designs is Avalon Hill's retail exposure. Some list members remarked that, while they are now happy to order games directly, they might not ever have discovered wargaming if the games had not been available in stores.

The question, then, is what might be left is Avalon Hill disappears from the retail shelves. (Of course, we don't know right now that those games will disappear.) One game store owner observed that, from his point of view, Avalon Hill titles had been losing attention and market share "for years." If wargame distribution was fluctuating near the minimum threshold for viability already, the consequences of Avalon Hill going away (if it does) would be critical. Seeming to presume AH is a goner, one writer remarked, "There is a long list of reasons why the demise of AH is definitely bad for the hobby, whether you've bought a game from AH in the last five years or not."

In a similar vein, this remark seems apt as Avalon Hill either becomes extinct or changes into something different after some 40 years: "Whether we liked their games or not (and there were as many gems as clunkers) we all owe them a debt of thanks."

More on AH General

The Next Hill? Avalon Hill in Transition
Reaction: The Digital Buzz
Grains of Salt