From the Editor: New Year, New Features, New Look

The year’s odometer has rolled over to 2007, and with the changing of the calendar comes a number of changes on Boardgame News. Let’s jump to the news headlines:

Item! Nuremberg Preview Ready to Inspire New Shopping Lists
The Nuremberg 2007 Preview is now online and will only grow in the weeks ahead as new titles are added and fresh details and images find their way into the newsstream. Anything of interest to the majority of gamers, as determined by the whim of the BGN editor, will be posted as a Gone Cardboard News item on the BGN front page in addition to appearing on the Preview; kids’ games, reissues and similar niche items will go straight to the Preview. Seen something that has yet to appear on the Preview? Drop me a line!

Item! Board 2 Pieces Easier 2 Read
Ted Alspach has increased the size of his Board 2 Pieces comic strip by roughly 25%, giving him even more room to make jokes at our expense.

Item! Ben Baldanza Brings Boffo Biweekly Broadcasts
What’s with the swarm of Bs? Well, B is the second letter of the alphabet, and famed game reviewer Ben Baldanza (or B2 as he’s known around the office) is kicking off a biweekly column on two-player games on Twosday, January 2nd. Ben’s column, “Two for the Show,” will appear on alternate Tuesdays thereafter.

Item! BGN Members Get Free Games
Well, a few of them will anyway. As part of our continuing efforts to encourage readers to become subscribers, Boardgame News will give away one game to five randomly chosen BGN members at the end of January. The games are:

• Animalia, by Sébastien Pauchon (Yspahan) and GameWorks SàRL—this gorgeous card game was created specifically for a Swiss client and is not available for retail sale
• Elementalis, by Robert Kalajian and Tremorworks
• Genesis, by Reiner Knizia and Face 2 Face Games (two copies)
• Treasure Fleet, by John Morgan and Ship of Fools Games

Anyone who becomes a Boardgame News member by January 31st has a chance to win one of these games. More giveaways and special offers will be announced in the months to come.

Item! Jesus Castro Torres Takes Over as BGN’s Spain Correspondent
As part of our effort to cover even more games in more countries, thereby costing you even more money, BGN has recruited Jesus Castro Torres to report on games and the gaming environment from the Iberian peninsula.

Item! Gone Cardboard Scrubbed Clean
Take a gander at Gone Cardboard today, and all you’ll see are titles yet to be released. Most of the release dates have been updated for the new year, but a few stragglers still need to have new dates plugged in. All of the games on the GC list that were marked as released have been siphoned into the Gone Cardboard Archive: 2006 for posterity.

Item! A New Look for Boardgame News
Alas, the Nuremberg 2007 Preview has consumed much of my time, so I haven’t been able to redesign the site as I had planned. The redesign will shift many of the navigation tools to the crossbar near the top of the screen and widen the central text column a smidge, making room for a few ads in in the left-hand column. Expect to see a few changes in the days ahead…

Item! Coming Soon—A Sortable Gone Cardboard
I’ve also been toying with Gone Cardboard in an effort to allow readers to sort the list of upcoming games by publisher, by title, or by date of release. Ideally this change will make Gone Cardboard more usable for you without creating more work for me. Once I know more, you will, too.

Item! Coming Somewhat Soon—Boardgame News Boutique
Games from self-publishers and tiny publishers are typically available in only a few locations: the publisher’s website and one or two online retailers who go out on a limb with unusual games.

In my news-gathering efforts, I’ve been repeatedly surprised by the number of decent-sounding self-published games that have received little to no coverage. In order to provide the game-buying public with a central retail site—and these publishers with a larger audience for their fine creations—the Boardgame News Boutique will open for business in Spring 2007. Any publisher interested in participating can contact me for details.

As always, I await your suggestions and comments for the site. I may not implement every suggested change, but I do consider input from readers when determining the future of Boardgame News.

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Comments:

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Sounds great!  The initial previews for Nuremburg are excellent!  Keep up the good work… Also don’t forget that your hard-working columnists have been doing it without regular benefits (not even a good dental/vision plan!) for months now! Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Jan 1, 2007 at 06:35 PM | #

Nice! I really love the boutique feature! Posted by Mike Doyle on Jan 1, 2007 at 06:43 PM | #

Sortable Gone Cardboard is going to be awesome!!!! I’m very excited about that and other new features. Thanks again for all the hard work, Eric!! Posted by Ted Alspach on Jan 2, 2007 at 01:04 AM | #

Sortable Game Reviews. Posted by Ryan Bretsch on Jan 2, 2007 at 01:36 AM | #

great! I really like this 2007 start! good play Eric and let we know what we can do to make sure BGN will live and grow! Liga Posted by Andrea Liga Ligabue on Jan 2, 2007 at 09:23 AM | #

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