Keep Up the Good Work

In the last edition of Operations [34] you said you didn't receive much old-fashioned mail, so here's a letter and a seasonal wish. [The letter came along with a Christmas card.]

First of all I've really only been buying your products for a little over a year and was attracted to them by the consistent positive reports I'd seen about Gamers products, and because of the high focus on the Civil War. I don't feel really qualified to comment on the replayability as most games are played solitaire-usual reasons, busy work schedule, a young demanding daughter-but as a historian I like to set out a game as a historical problem, and your series allows me to gain considerable enjoyment from playing both sides. (Of course I may have got something wrong, so I may be writing to you soon with a raft of queries).

Anyhow I am writing to say I'm a little disappointed that the Civil War, Brigade series appears to have gone into limbo for a year- yes I know there's This Terrible Sound but I did hope that a revision of Barren Victory or August Fury might have been a possibility. Is there any progress in sight as this series appears to have remained in the Games in Design stage for more than a year?

Please note that this is not a complaint, rather an expression of regret that my preferences are "overlooked. " But then every garner would probably say the same!

Keep up the good work in the next millennium.

Best wishes, Richard Spence, Nottingham, UK

[The CWB did see the completion of the Battles of the Seven Days series in 1999. The combined, nine-map game was in play at both Origins and HomerCon and is very good for team play. A new edition of August Fury is in the works, but so are quite a few games. And remember, the CWB hasn't had a year off without a brand new game since 1993, when Thunder II came out in the spring. You can't be certain when you'll see any particular game published until we post a release date for it. If you can get your hands on a copy of Barren Victory, grab it. My opinion, shared by several gamers I know, is that BVis probably the best game in the series; Bloody Roads South and Thunder II are also strong contenders in my view. Champion Hill is still available. Buy it. It's small but full of exciting situations, real nail-biters.

I'm sure you're not the only newcomer to the CWB who would like to see some of the classic titles reprinted. The question of reprints and second editions, however, is difficult. The demand for a reprint is smaller than that for a new game. So a standard print run of 2,000 copies would result in many games sitting in inventory for a long time. That's very expensive for two reasons: the cost to print and the cost to store the unsold games. A smaller print run would drive up the per-unit cost of the reprints, making them very expensive for the guys who want them and further hurting demand.

Does this reasoning mean that The Gamers won't ever publish reprints? No. But to qualify for a second edition, a game has to be more than a straight reprint; it must offer significant value and appeal as a "new game. " The second editions of both Thunder at the Crossroads and In Their Quiet Fields included updated graphics, new series rules, and substantially revised game rules. Stalingrad Pocket II was a complete redesign. As for planned games, the "reprint" of August Fury will also cover First Manassas, and Guiderian's Blitzkrieg II will have a substantially broader scope than the original.

So thanks for your support, kind words, and reprint suggestions. Dean takes all of them seriously and thinks carefully about when, whether, and how to issue second editions.]

Suggestions

This is just a short reply to the first paragraph of the "In Brief" article you wrote to lead off the Winter, 1999 issue of Operations.

The new look of the Game Ratings chart is just fine. I don't think it was necessary to print the whole chart in each issue. I would like to see the whole chart once a year; that will suffice. Please don't leave it out altogether.

I was surprised to see some games appear with less than 5 votes. Until a game can garner at least that many votes, I think it should stay with the whole chart, and not appear on the new chart, even if it is a Gamers, MiH, OSG, or UGG game.

Thanks for the continued superb job you all do for The Gamers.

Ed Caylor, Hampton, NH

[Thanks for the encouraging words, Ed.

Let me provide a little information about the Game Ratings for anyone who's interested. We initially drew the "statistically significant" line at 7 votes. I increased this to 8 and then to 10, mainly in the interest of saving space as the number of games on the chart grew. But your point about not listing games that have been rated by a subhandful of people makes sense. Of course, it's easier to include the games with only a few votes in the smaller list, where the demand for is less pressing.

In defense of including low-votegames, let me point out that since we also show the number of votes, it's easy to weigh the significance of each rating. For example, all you know about Triumph and Fall of the Desert Fox from last issue's list is that at least one player really likes it. Second, listing games that received only a few votes is a good way to include fairly recent titles, like The Last Days of the Grande Armee and Lodz: 1914. Since we have discontinued the "Not Rated " list, I think it's worthwhile to get the newer titles out where people can see them.

Rest assured that we still maintain the big database of all game ratings. Maybe I'll designate the Fall issue for printing the whole list (to correspond with HomerCon, where people play a wide variety of games). The three "please rate these" titles in this issue all happen to be from consortium member companies, but we welcome ratings on whatever games, from any publishers, you choose to send. (Yes, we try to exclude very old games.) By the way, we do accept ratings of magazine games now; we just don't receive all that many.]