The number of gamers and groups of gamers out there who are planning to start manufacturing companies right now is amazing. I hesitate to speculate how many there might be, but I've talked personally to several of them. Of course, no one can tell how many of these proto-companies will actually undertake operations, nor how many of that group will last more than a year. Many will be sorely disappointed when they start. Most who start such companies will be self-assured that they know what is right and will be able to do it far better than them (the companies now functioning). Naturally, this vision of the future is severely colored by the fledgling entrepreneur's lack of experience. If you are going to make the attempt, I wish you luck and I'll give you a little advice; you will not set the world on fire, and you must be patient.

Many have expressed an interest in the 29th Division expansion of Omaha. Most of that support has been in the form of questions--will it be coming out? To tell you the truth, we will put the thing out--but it's going to be a while. Our experience with Omaha was luke warm. While it sold in numbers comparable to our other titles, the amount of capital absorbed into it was painful. While that capital is not gone (my favorite analogy is that our printers are elves which hammer money into games), it is tied up in inventory which cannot be expected to turn around quickly. The result slowed our growth. As most of you realize, we ride on a tight profit margin as it is. This all being digested as a lesson learned, we cannot help but conclude that while we can afford to put out monsters-those games must never come out closer than two or three years of each other. Reality has again dictated what we can and cannot do...

On another front (literally), the OstFront project has met a competitor. Wig Graves has undertaken to work on a TCS sub-series of games which would follow the Gross Deutschland during WW2. This sub-series would consist of several games which would show the GD in France and in various operations of the war in the east-the GD acting as a theme. If he proceeds with this project and presents a good series of games, OstFront would be cancelled as redundant.

As a last point concerning projects, a number of readers are still intimidated by the long list of "projects without dates" and the status of those games. Those games are being worked on by someone. They have yet to be submitted, and until they are, no production date will be assigned to them. They are listed for your information and cannot be considered a backlog of games which will be "in front of" anything else we decide to do or which gets submitted to us.

As the water built up in back of the dam, something had to give. UPS and our beloved USPS have raised their rates two-even three-times since we inaugurated our shipping rates as seen in our catalog. In order to accommodate both the increased "getting it there" costs and to make our retail friends happy with respect to our preferred policy, I'll be incorporating the following changes. These changes will take full effect as of December 31,1992.

First, a little background. Well over 80% of our customer list is preferred, so I feel that extending its benefits to all our customer base is not out of line. The savings in record keeping and time spent managing those records will be most helpful.

The difference between what we should be charging for shipping and what we will charge now will be the "discount" and will be applied to all direct orders. There will be no discount applied directly to our game sales--the savings will be exclusively in the form of shipping costs which are being reduced behind the scenes. The new shipping rates will be 3% US and Canada, 10% Overseas Surface, and 20% Overseas Air (or US 2nd Day Air, for that matter). The existing preferred customer discounts will be dropped.

How will this compare to existing discounts? On a $32.00 game, the US purchaser will pay an additional $0.96 in shipping for a total of $32.96. Using the old system, he would have paid $28.80 for the game and $3.60 for shipping, a total of $32.40, provided he was a preferred customer. While, it is obvious that the new system makes the game cost $0.56 more over all, remember, we were at the point of needing to raise shipping rates anyway. Naturally, the 20% of folks out there who are "non-preferred" got nothing the old way, a bit of a break in the new-so they definitely come out ahead.

We will continue to honor the existing shipping and discount system for the rest of the year, and will honor the new system from this point on (please don't calculate an order using both methods ... ) All mailings and what-not will be based on the new system.

I want to thank you in advance for your understanding in this matter. Given the pitiless concerns of cash and our desire not to compete (or appear to compete) with our retailers, this is the best solution to the concerns involved.

If you, or someone you know, has not received a replacement for a "scored" Bloody Roads South countersheet, be sure to check with the store it was purchased from. They should have a replacement for you. If this is not possible, contact me and I'll replace it myself. There are enough replacements for all the bad ones, so be sure to obtain one for each copy you might have.

PS. Mr. Simpson, the TCS article I promised is on the way. I haven't had time to get it into this issue.