Ask Jay: Spiel des Jahres Spillover on American Shores

The nominees for the 2007 Spiel des Jahres (Germany’s Game of the Year award) were announced on Sunday, May 20th, and Rio Grande Games is handling the English-language version of all five games, despite them being published by four European publishers (Ystari, Abacusspiele, Ravensburger, Queen).

Q: Do the SdJ nominations affect your sales for those games? How about sales of the SdJ-winning title itself?

A: In the early days, there was little impact, but in the past two years I have seen a change. Last year, for example, I took orders for 1500 copies of Thurn & Taxis in the week following its announcement as SdJ winner. Of course, all the winners are good games so it is a bit hard to determine how much is due to the award and how much is due to it being a great game.

Q. Are you putting in preprint orders for any of the nominees in anticipation of a bump in sales?

A: Yes, for all five!

Q. Do you see one of the nominees as a front-runner in your mind?  Do you generally act on those instincts between the nominations and the final announcement, either in terms of ordering added copies or promotion?

A: I really do not know which will be selected by the jury, so I have to be prepared for all five. But all are good games and I expect to be able to sell all I print. The winner will just sell more quickly.

Q: Why are certain games from the Alea series (Ra, Princes of Florence) not reprinted by Rio Grande, but by other companies? (There’s a new European version of Princes of Florence by Ystari and QWG with two-player rules and two expansions with no English version planned.) Is it a problem with the rights? There clearly is a market for them! [Editor’s note: The original question also asked about Taj Mahal—but Rio Grande (together with Abacus) is responsible for the new version that came out in 2006, so I removed it from the question.]

A: As for Ra, the rights were acquired from Reiner Knizia after Alea dropped them before I knew they had been dropped. In the case of PoF, I still hold the English license (and will continue to hold it), and will continue to sell the original version. When that is sold out, I will reprint and may use some of the new version when I do so—that depends on the reaction of players to the new game.

Q: Do you have any plans to come out with an English language version of Queen’s Show Manager or Atlantic Star?

A: That is really up to Queen, but I expect they will be a bit busy for a few months with two games on the short list.

Q: Have you ever considered producing English versions of Anno Domini from Abacusspiele? (The game has 19 different versions out in Germany, so it’s clearly a success.)

A: I did ask, but understand the license is not available to me.

Q: I just downloaded the Origins Pre-Reg booklet, and I did not see a booth for Rio Grande Games.  Will you be at Origins this year?

A: Yes, as in the past, I am sharing a booth with Decision Games.

Q: Could you tell us about the early history of Wargamers West and how you chose the name Rio Grande Games when making the transition?

A: I wanted an exciting game-related name that would be an immediate draw for customers. After about a month of headaches, I had nothing. Then, I thought of all of the successful game companies with boring names and realized that the name was not as important as what games we published. As I can see the river from my window, that seemed to be as good a name as any.

Q: Do you have a rough target date for the release of the new RGG website?

A: I think it will be about two months.

And to end, three questions about the upcoming release of Khronos:

Q1: What size will the box be?

A:  I believe that is unchanged.

Q2: Are you going to increase the number of cards in the deck?

A: Yes, absolutely. I suggested this to the author and he agreed to make the change.

Q3: Will there be any changes in the rules?

A: Yes, we have discussed several minor, but I thought important, changes. I will know soon which he has accepted, but I believe the game will be a better game on reprint.

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