That's What I call a Press Release
Avalanche Press, Ltd., today announced the signing of an agreement with famed game designer Reiner Knizia to produce a series of family-style games. "This moves us into the first rank of game publishers," said Avalanche Press President Brian L. Knipple. "We are proud to add Dr. Knizia's fine work to our line, which should give us the same primacy in family games that we enjoy with our military history games." Avalanche Press Ltd. produces a line of military history board games and has moved into the general game market with Survival of the Witless, profiled this month in The New York Times, and the hot-selling AirLines card game. The company has also worked closely with computer giant SSI on such acclaimed computer strategy games as Panzer General II, Panzer Commander and People's General.
"I am delighted!" said Dr. Knizia, winner of the German game of the year award, held to be the world's most prestigious game honor. "I look very much forward to the new publications." Reiner Knizia is known for many well-loved game designs, including Modern Art, Titan: The Arena, Through the Desert, Medici and many, many more. "Dr. Knizia's accomplishments are almost truly countless," Knipple said. "The marriage of his design genius with our well-proven graphic and developmental skills will provide game players years of enjoyment."
Order of the Brown Nose First Class with Oak-leaves and Brilliants to Mr Knipple!
Eurotrash
The interesting products coming from the Continent are joined soon we hope by 1848: Ein Kartenspiel zur Revolution from Kuhlmann Geschichtsspiele. Produced by Gerhard Kuhlmann who published the wonderfully pretty, but rather too detailed, Welfen und Staufer. The card game looks very promising, almost Svea Rike physical quality, and yes it is Lola Montez. (Let's see Jack Aubrey get a look-in there!) Early reports indicate the Kuhlmann problem of great graphics dicky rules may apply. We will work on some improvements.
Withering Heights
Press release from Moments in History:
The remaining news is not good. Moments in History will be reducing its output of new games for the next couple of years to two to three products per year. The market right now is too insecure three major distributors went under in 1998. In addition, apart from a "core group" of gamers, few people seem to be interested in games not covering the most well known battles and campaigns. Moreover, I will now be concentrating more fully on my real job, being a historian.
I have thought about adopting a direct sales model, as did The Gamers, but feel that my customer base is not big enough. GMT's P500 program (sic) will not be pursued, as I consider it lacking publisher influence.
In addition, I must sadly cancel the following projects:
- AUSTERLITZ 1805,
Risorgimento 1859,
FLEET ADMIRAL,
RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR,
plus several others (not disclosed previously)
I do hope that these titles will see the light of day via another publisher, such as GMT Games and their P500 Program. Vote for them, should they appear!
MiH's revised schedule is as follows:
- November 1998: LODZ 1914
March 1999: TUNISIA 1943
Origins/July 1999: Two more games (one of them very small).
Although the future publication schedule for MiH has been severely curtailed, I nonetheless look forward to releasing quality titles every 4-6 months. Perhaps down the road, the market and my own professional commitments will allow for an increase in publishing activity.
From Ty Bomba
During the past year or so, while our subscriber base has held steady at about 3,700, our sales to wholesalers — the people who buy our products in large lots, then resell them to hobby stores for retail, off-the-shelf purchase — have imploded. That is, where we used to sell about 4,000 copies of each hobby edition to those wholesalers, we're now selling under 1,000. Naturally, so swift a shrinkage of what used to amount to over half the hobby edition's circulation has generated a lot of problems on that side of our corporate operation.
We've reacted the only way we can: we've instituted economies. After pulling back to a one-game-per-issue format, and finding that still wasn't enough, we had to make the decision to delay printing issue number 50's hobby supplement in order to gang-print it with hobby supplement 51. We'll probably have to do the same again with numbers 52 and 53; but we think the savings from those two joint-printings should then be enough to put the hobby edition back into the black, no matter what happens with what remains of its retail sales.
Interestingly, as this wholesale shrinkage has gone on, we've begun to get calls from individual hobby store owners asking to order our products directly from us. It seems when they ask their wholesalers for our stuff, they're told: "Sorry that is not available." After asking around, we've found what seems to have happened is the wholesalers have sunk so much of their capital into collectible card games and electronics they virtually have nothing left to purchase and stock other kinds of products. So any dip in sales of those two categories immediately sends them into a tailspin of order-cutting of their own.
Despite all the additional work it is meant over the years, at this point I have to be glad we went split-format back in '92. If it weren't for that decision, which thereby created two pretty-much-independent-of-each-other revenue streams for us, why, we'd be in really bad shape right now rather than just faced with a temporarily uncomfortable one.
So we're figuring the main magazine portion of issue no. 51 will ship during the first half of December, followed by the two twin-printed hobby supplements at the end of that month or in the first half of January. We thank you for your patience, confidence and continued support. We'll keep you posted here and on line at our Web site as we work through this, straighten things out and get back to a regular schedule again.
As reported by Clash of Arms on 16 December 1998
"Clash of Arms has announced that they will no longer be making their historical boardgames available for general distribution in the US. The following message was faxed to all of Clash of Arms' US Distributors on 16 December 1998, as the fallout of a deteriorating distribution channel continues.
Dear US Distributor: It is no secret that the last several years have been tough on the historical boardgame industry. We at Clash of Arms Games have had to revise our expectations of sales downwards with each game we have released since 1993. In fact, our latest game, Summer Storm (9804-76) had initial US distribution sales of under 250 units. This is 25% of what you would have ordered in 1990. Advance sales of less than 250 copies make it impossible for us to cover printing costs, not to mention the other costs associated with production. We've trimmed our print runs accordingly, but it has gotten to the point where they would have to be cut to where we would no longer achieve the economy of scale that makes it possible to price the games for distribution. By trying to keep abreast of this downward trend, our games have virtually doubled in price, which of course, means that even fewer titles are sold. Simply put, there doesn't seem to be any way out of this vicious cycle if we keep doing business in the same old way.
Therefore: In order to stay in business our stockholders have demanded that we radically change the way we do business in the future. We will continue to make available for general distribution the titles we import from our affiliate in France, Tilsit Editions. We will also continue to make available our role-playing products for the game Empire Of The Petal Throne (stock number prefix TEK). However, starting January 1st, 1999 we will no longer make our historical boardgames available for general distribution in the United States. This will effect the availability of our game La Bataille De Lutzen (9803-75) which will be released the third week of January.
We look forward to doing business with you under this new policy and we have a wonderful series of imports on our plate for next year (starting in February) which should more than compensate for the lack of product flow the withdrawal of our wargames from your market may engender. We also wish to express our regret that we must implement such a drastic measure and to assure you that if there had been another alternative that did not also jeopardise our survival as a company, we would have gladly chosen that course instead of this one.
Sincerely, Ed Wimble - President
Charlie Spiegel - Treasurer
Clash of Arms sold 1,500 copies of Home Before The Leaves Fall, at between $90 and $110. That was 18 months ago. An expansion game, Wavre ($30) sold 1,200 in the first three months in the summer of 1994. Close Action sold 900 its first three months. War Without Mercy, a game that has gotton (sic), overall, excellent press by those who played it, has not yet hit 900 after six months.
It seems that the sales of a game have little to do with the price. Summer Storm is on a popular subject, has excellent graphics, is as playable as any other Gettysburg game of the same scale, has some very interesting concepts in the rules, yet languishes in domestic sales (unconfirmed reports indicate only 250 units sold through US distributors). Our Spanish distributor took as many as some US distributors, and Esdevium Games, in the UK, took more than all but three of them did.
CRITICAL HIT PRESS RELEASE
Critical Hit, Inc. Acquires Moments in History Ulrich Blennemann to Stay on as Game Developer Advances Firm's Expansion Plans One-Year Ahead of Schedule
NEW YORK, NY., Jan. 25 /Critical Hit/ -- Critical Hit, Inc., ("CH") http://www.CriticalHit.com, New York historical simulation game company, today announced that it completed the purchase of Hattingen, Germany-based Moments in History on Friday, January 15, 1999. Critical Hit is a leading publisher of historical simulations and expansion sets for existing wargame systems.
Raymond J. Tapio, President of CH, commented, "This acquisition advances our growth strategy by one year and expands our line into all forms of historical simulations and periods. Our product line now includes award-winning games covering all periods and the inventory of yet to be published games at Moments in History assures a continued flow of new games from the finest designers in the industry. We are also reviewing a large number of new submissions for publication at this time."
"With the completion of this acquisition, Moments in History looks forward to expanding its plans for rolling out many new and exciting products to our world-wide customers within the classic hobby store distribution channel," said Ulrich Blennemann, former President of Moments in History.
Critical Hit, Inc. announced plans to keep Moments in History in the marketplace as a division of CH. Moments in History, founded in 1993, is a two-time Charles S. Roberts Award (CSR) winner, with games "All Quiet On the Western Front" and "Fields of Glory" winning "Best Of" honors in their categories in 1997 and 1998. Other Moments in History games have received nominations and runners up honors. "Ulrich Blennemann is the best game developer in the industry and his involvement in the line makes sense based on our firm's goals to add top talent to our staff," said CH President, Raymond J. Tapio. "Continuing the line as a division of CH dovetails with our plan to support, not absorb, this award-winning game firm with our capital and distribution capabilities, " said Tapio.
"Moments in History makes the best boxed wargames on the market today," said the head buyer for one of the largest distributors of historical simulations during a recent phone interview.
Strategy & Tactics Schedule
1999-These are in production now
- Murmansk
Borodino & Friedland
Hue & Khe Sahn
Angorra & Bannockburn
Forgotten Axis (two Finnish battles)
French Foreign Legion (special double-size issue #200)
2000-these are finishing development now
Asia Crossroads
Taipei
March of the 10,000
Twilight of the Habsburgs
War of 1812
Kuban Gateway (Forgotten Axis Rumanian battles)
2001-these are finishing design now
Seven Year's World War
Dien Bein Phu
Belisarius
Boer War
Twilight's Last Gleaming 2
Syria, 1941 (My Ally, My Enemy)
2002-these were just selected to be designed
Wellington in the Peninsula
Indochina War
1066
Operation Elope
Chancellorsville
Manila
Some good stuff in there, I think I can guess everything down to Operation Elope? [Apparently something to with US support for the Whites in Russia].
More My Back Pages
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© Copyright 1999 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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