Gilad Yarnitzky: Interview with Yonatan Aloni

Yonatan Aloni is the owner of Silverstars Publishing, the official translator of D&D into Hebrew, one of the largest game companies to translate Euro-style games into Hebrew, and probably the largest importer of Euro-style games. With Eran Aviram, he also co-owns the only game shop in Israel dedicated to table-top gaming. I spoke with Mr. Aloni after he returned from the Nuremberg toy fair to find out what’s expected from Silverstars in the upcoming year.

First, Silverstars is looking at doing a Hebrew version of Kingsburg if retail price will not be too high. Due to the relatively small number of games in Hebrew, this is exciting news. Several German gaming companies are considering producing Hebrew versions of their games, but nothing is final so Aloni preferred not to give more details at this time.

The main problem that Aloni encountered at Nuremberg while trying to convince companies to produce a Hebrew version of their games is that the Israeli market is a very small one, so the print runs would also be tiny, say 500-1000 copies. Many companies simply refused due to the small print run; in other cases they made clear that the costs would be high, which would make it impossible to sell the game in Israel.

As an alternative approach, he asked permission to add a Hebrew version of the rules to games sold here. This would be a vital tool that could help increase exposure of games to people who are intimidated by the English rulebooks, but many companies refused to let him do it. Z-Man Games and Nexus were the exceptions, with Z-Man’s Zev Shlasinger even offering to publish the Hebrew version of the rules on the Z-Man website.

Most games here are regarded as kids’ toys and nothing more, but Aloni feels that the Israeli market is starting to accept these more advanced board games. His estimations are based on an increase in sales of games, an increasing number of people participating in Hebrew board game forums, and more people contributing material to the Israeli boardgames website. This increase was what encouraged him to open the game store, and and hopefully we’ll continue seeing growth in the market.

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