Patrick Korner: The Sky Is Falling?

What, today is Thursday?  Hmm, I suppose that means I’m late with today’s article.  Oh dear.  And I was just starting to recover from the last round of beatings…

Actually, it’s very simple.  This past week has seen a flood of last-minute Nurnberg news that needed translating, and I just couldn’t find the time to write a column in there as well.  Ergo, column is late.  But still of the finest quality!

I’ll start this week off with another peek at Nurnberg.  Thanks to a number of German / European gaming sites, we were able to read up on some of what was released (or is pending release, since quite a few of the games on display aren’t actually shelf-ready yet).  And, true to form, there are always some games that showed up out of nowhere to surprise Rick and myself, no matter how diligently we scoured the Net for information before the event.  The biggest surprises?  Here they are:

- A designer game from Clementoni (to go along with the dubious TV show tie-ins) called Fischmarkt, designed by Mario Panini (of Fuedo and Siena fame).  This game lets players send their boats out to sea and catch fish, then try and sell them at the market for profit.  I can’t wait for the Perfect Storm expansion…

- Not two but four games from Goldsieber.  And that two of them are pure abstracts (Spin & Trip as well as Zeparate).  And that none of them (that’s right NONE) have an age range starting higher than 7 years old.  You know, I used to rag on Queen quite a bit because of the miserable quality of some of their games (I’m looking at you, Lucky Loop) and the non-existent usefulness of their website.  But now, Queen is releasing decent games (were you as surprised as I was that there’s something reasonable for just about everyone in the small box line?) and their website has gotten a major makeover (hey, you can even find English rules there now!  Alert Ted Koppel!), which means that I guess Goldsieber will get to be my new whipping boy.  Yippee!  Actually, I will make a bold prediction: Goldsieber will not last another calendar year.  In other words, next year’s games will be released under the Noris brand, and they’ll be kid’s games.  Goldsieber, which used to be known as a ‘gamer’ label, will go the way of the dodo.  Too bad, because they did release some really solid games.

Reiner Knizia doing a designer game for Hasbro Germany (I know, I know, this must be a sign of the impending apocalypse).  It’s called Tal der Abenteuer (which means Valley of Adventure), and so I’m presuming it’s an adventure – exploration game, maybe a non-electronic version of the gameplay found in King Arthur / Die Insel.  I wonder if there’s any tie-in to the Enid Blyton ‘Adventure’ books?  I used to read the German ones several times over when I was little – you know, the Island of Adventure, the Valley of Adventure, the Mountain of Adventure, etc.  Good stuff, well worth seeking out in English for your little one if you’re looking for a good adventure series for your little ones, by the way.

And finally, a series (not just a game, a whole flippin’ series) of designer games from Upper Deck.  What the…?  I thought Upper Deck did sports cards and Yu-Gi-Oh? Or is it Inuyasha?  Or some other ridiculous Japanese-themed CCG?  I can’t recall.  In any case, what the heck is Upper Deck doing getting into the board games market?  It’s a pretty competitive arena, so they’d better know what they’re doing.

Switching gears slightly, was anyone else somewhat depressed to read the ‘state of the union’ gaming commentary that the Europeans put out?  It’s not just one person’s opinion – just about all of the sites commented that the tie-in and mainstream games are prevalent, and that their expansion has come at the expense of the strategy gaming / spielfriek sector.  In other words, hope you don’t mind that your gamer game was shelved in favour of Yet Another World Cup Game ™… Personally, I’m not 100% convinced that the doom and gloom is justified, since Essen is now where the gamer games tend to get released, not Nurnberg.  In short, there’s probably just as many ‘gamer’ games being released, but they’re mostly coming out at Essen, instead of being spread between two major release dates.

Let’s check my hypothesis, shall we?  Here’s the list of ‘heavy’ games (my cut-off was any game with a weight rating of higher than 2.5 on BoardGameGeek, by the way) released in the past two seasons (i.e. Essen 2004 to Nurnberg 2006) by the ‘major’ German publishers:

Australia (Nurnberg 2005) – Ravensburger
Elasund (Essen 2005) – Kosmos
Euphrat & Tigris Card Game (Essen 2005) – Hans im Gluck
Flandern 1302 (Essen 2004) – Queen
Hacienda (Essen 2005) – Hans im Gluck
In the Shadow of the Emperor (Essen 2004) – Hans im Gluck
Kreta (Nurnberg 2005) – Goldsieber
Louis XIV (Nurnberg 2005) – alea
Oltremare (Essen 2005) – Amigo

Not a bad list (although I don’t know what Flandern is doing on it).  Total of 9 games, one of which is a small-publisher reprint (Oltremare).  Note Hans im Gluck’s position as the ‘champion of the hardcore gamer’ – a third of the list is thanks to them.  The split between Essen and Nurnberg is 6 to 3 – in other words, twice as many ‘gamer’ games were released at Essen than at Nurnberg.  Here’s a comparable list for Essen 2002 – Nurnberg 2004:

Abenteuer Menschheit (Essen 2002) – Kosmos
Amun-Re (Nurnberg 2003) – Hans im Gluck
Bridges of Shangri-La (Essen 2003) – Kosmos
Domaine (Nurnberg 2003) – Kosmos
Dos Rios (Nurnberg 2004) – Kosmos
Fifth Avenue (Nurnberg 2004) – alea
Goa (Nurnberg 2004) – Hans im Gluck
Industria (Essen 2003) - Queen
Puerto Rico (Essen 2002) – alea
Santiago (Essen 2003) – Amigo

Well what do you know.  The list is only 1 title longer (10 vs. 9) – which means that my first contention (that there are similar numbers of heavy games being released) seems to be borne out.  The split between Essen and Nurnberg is dead even: 5 to 5.  So the other half of my hypothesis also seems to hold water.  Hooray for me.

So what does this mean?  That those wailing about the state of the industry can probably (for a while, at least) save their breath.  Yes, it’s probably true that no major publisher had a ‘heavy’ game to show off at Nurnberg this year.  So what?  Instead, we had four of them to enjoy at Essen – more than any previous recent year.  If you look at the year-by-year totals (instead of looking at it over two years like I did), you get this:

Essen 2002 – Nurnberg 2003: 4 games
Essen 2003 – Nurnberg 2004: 6 games
Essen 2004 – Nurnberg 2005: 5 games
Essen 2005 – Nurnberg 2006: 4 games

Pretty steady totals if you ask me.  So have we really seen the last of the ‘really heavy’ games to be released by the major German publishers?  My feeling for now is ‘no’.  But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

I should mention that there’s also another force at work – the explosion in the sheer number of releases over the past few years, especially at Essen.  If the ‘major’ publishers have been holding steady, then where’s the tidal wave coming from?  From smaller and/or foreign publishers, who seek out the niche markets and make themselves cozy.  So in other words, there are probably more heavy games available now than there used to be, thanks to folks like Phalanx, Warfrog, Eggert, etc.  So explain to me again what the cries of despair are about?  It’s fun to point at alea releasing a family game and take it as a sign of impending disaster, but it’s also dangerous.  Extrapolate too far from a single data point and it’s easy to get things wrong.  Me?  I’d rather be gaming.  And thankfully, there are plenty of excellent options to choose from these days!

pk

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