As I stated in the annual report, we lost some money last year. We are dealing with this problem in a number of ways.

1) Honcho/Helpers. This is an organizational tool designed to energize the development and series support parts of the company. I want it to break the log-jam of titles in development. Each series Honcho (there are five, counting myself, the RSS was left out of this organization due to the limited number of titles expected) is tasked with delivery of one all-but-finished game to the company each year. This will allow four things:

1) Games languishing in development will begin to move toward production,
2) I can up the production schedule slightly to allow (generally) one game per series, per year for a total of five games (with RSS thrown in as available),
3) new design submissions will be encouraged by the movement of games out of the developmental pit and into production, and
4) I can finally free up some of my time to work on future series design.

Oh, and for those interested, examining the CWB with Honcho Bob Cloyd, I found that the series has about 10 games (years) left.

2) The usual corporate belt tightening. Here, Sara (the financial officer) will be pinching pennies and doing all under her power to keep costs under control (the other side of the balance sheet). Part of our higher costs is advertising budget. That cannot be cut in a major way (killing the seed-corn), but can be applied in thoughtful and imaginative ways to maximize its effectiveness. The other high, but changeable, expense is the high cost of flyers and mailings. This can be addressed by increasing reliance on e-mail flyers. If you can receive e-mail and are willing to help out by getting your mailings by e-mail, let the office know.

3) Building Up the Web Site.

This effort (mainly by Sandi) will be aimed at making the site more user friendly, filled with useful information, and a really easy secure place to purchase products.

4) Dean on Tour. This is my effort to press the flesh and talk with as many gamers as possible. In the past few years, my travels have been confined to Origins, but starting this year (thanks in great part to the set up in #1 above), I'll begin adding local cons to the mix. This year, I expect to attend (in addition to Origins) Termcon in Knoxville, TN, Euro-Homercon in Germany, and John Kranz's Monstercon in Arizona (if that gets going). Others (such as Historicon) are being considered, but won't be attended until the program is fully operational next year and after. Any help that Con coordinators can give us will improve my chances of attending as those expenses are still high.

5) Product Expansion. Given that we are already making 1/6 of our total revenues on other game products (generally the consortium games), I will be adding other games, books, CDs, and accessories to the list of things you can purchase from us at the same time as you get Gamers stuff. All of that will be at a discount with my goal of making The Gamers your "one stop shop" for all your gaming needs. Much of this effort will be centered around the web site, so stay in touch there to watch it develop.

Those are the important parts of my plan to move into the future. Comments and additional suggestions are welcome at Dean@tgamers.com

A little Fun!

Last January we ran a sweepstakes (giving guys a reason to order in what is normally a down month). The idea was for each purchaser to make a guess at the number of Gamers' game units sold in 1999. This was announced in the e-mail mailings (another good reason to sign up). The closest to the actual figure would get a free copy of every game and magazine we ever make and the other ten nearest would get all of this year's games free plus a year extension (or sub) to the magazine.

The guesses we got were interesting ... from the "boy, I wish it were so..." figure of 63,000 to two votes of "no confidence whatsoever" of 675 and 574, respectively (Ouch!). Lots of guys participated and it was a very successful promotion for us.

The real answer was 6,680 game units. And the winners are:

Grand Prize: Arthur Balliet

Runners Up: Dennis Benson, Rory Colling, Paul Dallas, Andrew Fischer, Lawrence Fischer, Chris Jepson, Mark Roberts, Hans Stearns, Paul Tisevich

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all who participated!

Remember: Good Planets are Hard to Find...Please Recycle!