Ask Rio Grande: Ten Years on the River

Eight titles from Rio Grande Games were released into the distribution stream in mid-November after most of them debuted at the Spiel game convention in Essen, Germany this past October. Does that satisfy a hungry gamer’s appetitie? No, they want more, more, more! Thus these questions:

Q: Hi Jay, what sort of ways is Rio Grande looking at celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2008?

A: Still looking at options, but I will have a party of some sort at Origins.

Q: Did you see the Kosmos Perry Rhodan two-player game at Essen? If so, are you reconsidering your decision not to publish this game?

A: What decisison not to publish? I am planning to publish an English version. [Editor’s note: Jay’s previous answers might have given the impression that he wasn’t doing this game, but he specifically said “I have no plans” and “I plan to discuss these at Essen."]

Q: Will Rio Grande release international versions of the Queen titles Giganten der Lufte and Eketorp? If so, when?

A: Still no word from Queen on this, sorry. [Editor’s note: Rio Grande does have the games listed on its website, but the release date is unknown.]

Q: Will you be doing a Bohnröschen translation/English release?

A: Sorry, I do not know this game.

Q: Will you be releasing the Burg Appenzell/Chateau Roquefort set of expansion tiles that came with Spielbox 5/07?

A: Eventually, I plan to, yes!

Q: Is Medieval Merchant still being reprinted?  If so, when might it be released?

A: I hope to do it in 2008.

Q: Jay, the new website is excellent, but it does not provide any information on a game’s potential release date, nor does it state that a game isn’t currently available. Do you plan on posting this info in the future?

A: Yes.

Q:I really enjoy Hacienda, but more maps add more variety to the game. Do you have any plans to produce more maps? Maps specifically targeted at 2-3 players would be especially nice.

A: Hmmmm—I will consider that.

Q:Do you still plan on releasing other map expansions for Power Grid?

A: Yes.

Q: In the half-dozen copies I’ve seen of Thebes, all of them had time-wheels that had the two discs’ die-cutting offset from each other, accordingly they didn’t line up properly when assembled. This leads to difficulty reading and using them. Is this a print-run-wide issue, or relatively isolated? What are the chances of replacements?

A: I too have noticed small line-up problems, but none that detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

[Editor’s note: The following questions were prompted by Mayfair Games’ decision to set a discount floor of 20%. Jay Tummelson prefaced his answers as follows: “For openers I should say that I can only comment based on my direct sales, as I do not know who my distributors sell to.” In other words, these answers paint only part of the RGG online sales picture.]

Q: Based on your estimates:
1) What proportion of your overall sales are to online retailers?

A: Less than 10%.

2) What proportion of sales of “Carcassonne,” an entry level game, are to online retailers?

A: No more than the above.

3) What proportion of sales of “Puerto Rico,” an evergreen gamer’s game, are to online retailers?

A: Same, I think.

4) What proportion of sales of newly announced games tend to go to online retailers?

A: Again, I see little difference in orders to online stores than to distributors.

BTW, I have no plans to place discount floors on my sales. —Jay Tummelson

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Comments:

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Good to hear about Giganten.  I got smoked at BGG con, but only because I was thinking like I do for To Court the King.  Your goal for this game should always be MAXIMIZE number of dice that you need.  There is minimal dice manipulation (like in To Court the King). Posted by Robert Ramirez on Dec 2, 2007 at 10:58 PM | #

(and the last line should read “as opposed to...To court the king") Posted by Robert Ramirez on Dec 2, 2007 at 11:02 PM | #

I already had a good idea about Giganten der Lufte from talking with Jay at BGG.Con. We just have to wait on Queen to print the international edition. It is definitely on my must buy list. I’m also glad to see that Perry Rhodan will see an English language edition. I guess that I should remove the German language edition from my Christmas list… Posted by David Reed on Dec 3, 2007 at 12:19 AM | #

Origins party - finally one that I WANT to go to… I had a nice conversation with Jay at ORIGINS ‘07 over Zooloretto and look forward to celebrating Rio Grande. I have so many games from them and enjoy finding new ones. I hope that Jay finds other creative ways to support the local game shops that have helped proliferate sales and knowledge of board games to so many people. I think extra effort to aid these stores shouldn’t be frowned on as favoritism, but rather viewed as valued customers worthy of reward and aid for their work on behalf of Rio Grande. I can certanly understand not putting a cap on discounts, but wouldn’t mind seeing a reward system for the local stores (and I am not a retailer). Posted by William Baldwin on Dec 3, 2007 at 09:49 AM | #

First of all, I am immensely relieved to learn that Jay is sticking to his policy of not limiting discounts. That said, I have to admit that if only 10% of his sales come from online sources, Mayfair’s decision makes more sense than it first appeared.  Any cut in online sales due to higher pricing is unlikely to be material. Interesting that Jay’s perception is that there is no bias between online and B&M sales according to game type.  I would have expected gamers’ games and new games to bias more heavily toward online, with very popular gateway games like Carcassonne biasing toward B&M. Posted by Jonathan Degann on Dec 4, 2007 at 11:53 AM | #

>if only 10% of his sales come from online sources He didn’t say that. He only said less than 10% of his DIRECT SALES are to on-line retailers. He has no idea who his distributors sell to. Nor is it any of his business --distributors can be pretty cautious about revealing a client’s customers since everyone wants to cut the distributor out as a middle man given the chance. Posted by Stanley Bourgeois on Dec 11, 2007 at 10:36 AM | #

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