Fantastic summaries.  Makes me miss Jason Sato (Magic Rat) and his summaries even more.

Based on this list, sounds like you might like King of Siam.  Any thoughts on 1960?

"The really scary thing is that when I went through the Essen Preview I was shocked to find that I’ve probably played less than 25% of the games on it!”

That’s the thing with the industry right now.... quantity over quality.  And it puts established publishers hesitant to produce new games.  Too many games. Not enough fans!

Just ask Days of Wonder.  They were supposed to publish a second new game, that was not a Ticket to Ride variant. (Colosseum was the first for this year) It didn’t happen.  They did not because of the market conditions.  The Mark Kaufman interview with Eric Martin offered the most insightful comments on the state of games this year, IMO.

Ryan, you’re actually referring to this column (http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/boardgamenews/comments/patrick_korner_mini_interview_with_mark_kaufmann_of_days_of_wonder/) by Patrick Korner, not something from me. And I think you’re expanding on what Mark said. Days of Wonder wants to publish a particular type of game, and if it doesn’t find the ideal submission, then it’s not going to just publish something that’s close.

But DoW’s ideal game doesn’t match the specs of other companies and other designers. If I as a publisher have what I feel is an ideal game for whatever my market is, then I’m going to publish it. All of those individual decisions lead to hundreds of new games being published each year. Not all gamers will agree on what’s a quality game and what isn’t.

I think the counter to the high development cost of a DoW game, which needs to sell 10,000 copies to turn a profit, there is Jay’s approach that he can sell 2,000 of almost anything.  Personally, I am fine with cardboard, rather than plastic models, but understand the cost pays off in the mass market.

Is it really bad to chuck 200 games/pieces of spaghetti against the wall and see which ones stick?  Then you can reprint/enhance those that sell well and let the others go OoP?

If the hardcore players play 25% of the games, that means that within the most compulsive 100 gamers, almost all the games will get played and buzz will leak out.  Then there are the people across the world who take chances on games, sometimes getting them,then raving about them online.  I would have had less faith in the spaghetti method before the Internet, but for now, are you suggesting that this method hurts the industry in the long-run?

"On the other hand, we still believe there are many more games released in the market each year than should be (at least from a business perspective). Our strategy has always been 1-2 new games max each year; and we’re very comfortable releasing zero if none match our publishing criteria during a given year.”

Mark Kaufman

“And from a business (and industry) perspective, Mark is absolutely right.”

Ryan B.

"But from a hobby perspective, Mark is wrong (primarily because he wasn’t trying to speak from a hobby perspective).”

Larry L.

No one ever said that what’s good for a group as a whole (i.e., the gaming hobby) is necessarily good for the individual (i.e., single publishers trying to make a profit).  Ask Darwin.

Valerie, I envy the number of new games you’ve gotten to try.  On the other hand, since our group is waiting for a lot of the English editions, we’ve had the chance to concentrate on a few favored ones and I’m enjoying the opportunity to actually replay excellent games.  Anyway, here’s my ranked list of Essen favorites so far (with many more to be added in the future):

1a. Agricola - Not all-time great material just yet, but excellent.  I think you’ll love the solo game, Val--I do and I NEVER play solo games.

1b. Brass - Yes, reading the rules is a chore, but we gamers have to tackle far worse examples.  I mean, they’re not THAT bad, they just require careful reading.  It doesn’t help that the game is a bit hard to grasp at first.  But it’s a great one, one of Martin’s best.  Running neck and neck with Agricola for the top spot.  Do yourself a favor, spend some time on the rules, get them down pat, and play this again.

3. Hamburgum - Very nice, very quick rondel game.  It needs to be determined how much replay value it has.

4. King of Siam - I was very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this seemingly simple game.  Very tense, quite short, and extremely elegant.  One of the big surprises of the fair for me; now let’s see if it holds up to repeat play.

5. Ticket to Ride: Switzerland - Based on my plays of the prototype, this is easily my favorite TtR game for two or three.

6. Giganten der Lufte - I continue to be amazed at how little buzz this game is getting.  I realize I’m predisposed to liking dice games and a lot of folks are waiting for the RGG edition, but it has fewer than 100 ratings on the Geek.  What about all the Europeans, not to mention the early purchasers elsewhere (the rules are in four languages)?  Is Queen having a problem with distribution?  Did their stealth strategy for Essen blow up in their face?  It’s a Seyfarth game, for crying out loud, and plays well for both gamers and families!  I’m just not sure what’s going on.  Anyway, I think this is just about as good as To Court the King and Pickomino and plays a lot faster than either of those, which puts it pretty high up in my rankings.

7. Galaxy Trucker - I like both phases.  C’mon, Valerie, having your ships sliced up into swiss cheese by space pirates is FUN!

8. Race for the Galaxy - I prefer San Juan at this time as well.  Really, the two don’t feel much alike at all.  Race has many more strategies to examine, but until we do, it’s going to feel much more like multi-player solitaire.  It’s a fine design; I just hope I’m able to devote the time necessary to really get to know it.

9. Crazy Diamond - Superior roll ‘n move game that lasts a little too long.  Part of our group has had success with a variant.  When I get to try it out, I’ll report on it.

10. Filou - I’ve already made my feelings clear about this one; no sense beating a dead cat.

Then there are some of the new designs that didn’t go so well:

Borneo - Played with five, which is clearly too many.  Some weird stuff in there, but needs to be played again, as I’m not sure we played all that well.

Jantaris - Sounds like our experience was similar to yours.  I don’t think the simultaneous selection is that bad, although it can make the game a bit fragile since one casual selection by an opponent can make a BIG difference.  And like you, our game took forever to end.  I’d try it again, but am in no rush to do so.

League of Six - Extremely processional and somewhat lacking in control.  Took too long to play, too.  Some genuinely clever ideas here, so again, I’d try it again, but no one really cared for our first outing.

Patrician - Played with five and it was absolutely dreadful.  I’ve been told it’s better with three, so I’ll try it like that if the opportunity arises, but I don’t see that happening for a while.

Street Smart - Nothing smart about this title.  Unbelievable layers of chaos.  Came very close to the Geek’s definition of a 1, “defies the description of a game”.  Avoid.

Others I’m sure to play soon:

Year of the Dragon - I played an early prototype and liked it.  This is almost certain to fit securely in my Top 10 for the show.  I’ll be picking up Jay’s version as soon as it hits the streets.

Cuba - Had the chance to play it yesterday, but we decided to do Brass instead.  I should like it, but others in my group are less certain.  Still, that’s how they felt about Brass before we played, too.

Antler Island - Another game in the group that should get played soon.

And finally, some thoughts about other games in your list:

Wabash Cannonball - I’ve made a reasonable attempt to pick up a copy, but haven’t been successful, as there’s just too high a demand for it.  The next time we get together (which, sadly, probably won’t be until April), the first order of business is to try this out.

Glik - I’m not a fan of abstracts, but I do love me some Ricochet, so I guess I need to try this.

Power Grid Expansion - This will be in the next game order.  Looking forward to playing it.

Gipsy King - See my earlier comment on abstracts.  But it’s getting plenty of love and van Moorsel is talented, so I need to try it at some time.

Amyitis - I’ll probably try before I buy, but I have no reason to think I won’t enjoy this.

Palastgeflüster - Michael Rieneck is on a roll, so that alone makes this worth checking out.

Oregon - Not sure how this will play, but I want to try it.

Kingsburg - The rules sound very promising, but the price is steep and the reviews are mixed.  I definitely want to try it, but that may not happen for a while.

Black Box+ - The original was one of my favorites way back when.  I’d love to try the new version.

Tammany Hall - This is the first Statamax game that really intrigued me, not least because it doesn’t include those damn multi-colored dice.  I want to try to scare up a copy, but they’ve been hard to find.  Maybe something to add onto my Funagain Through the Ages order?

Macht & Ohnmacht - Not the sort of two-player game I tend to play that often, but the rules sound very interesting.  I’d like to try it out.

Master of Rules - Kawasaki-san is very original and talented, so despite the implied chaos of this one, I definitely need to try it.

That’s still a lot of stuff I need to try--hot damn!  By the way, technically 1960: The Making of the President is an Essen title.  If so, that winds up high in my Top 10.

Pretty darn good fair, so far.  I can’t wait to play the rest of the games!

Valerie, thanks for all the quick reviews!  I’m struck by how many are positive.  I don’t get the ‘quantity over quality’ position Ryan brings up in the next post.  Which publishers are churning out more stuff than ever?  My take isn’t that publishers are choosing quantity over quality, but rather that there are suddenly more quality publishers.

Will the market bear it for long?  Maybe not, but as a fan I think it is a great thing.  No one tries to read every book that gets published.  I’d love to have game stores that match the selection of a bookstore though!

(FWIW, I have a ton of respect for what Marc and Eric have done with DOW and they have proven it is a strong business model.  Still, they have had misses for my tastes, and I wouldn’t want all the publishers to try to match their strategy.  It is the market diversity that I find so appealing right now.)

Brian,

That’s my point.  The quantity of games is not being increased by “existing” publishers.  It is being increased by the proliferating number of NEW publishers, many of whom have brought substandard product to the market.  Nevertheless, those publishers are selling copies of their games and diluting revenue streams that could go to better run companies.

Not to worry, however, because in time, the market will solve that.  : )

The problem is that with the divergence of revenue across a small market, there is a lack of profit efficiency in the overall industry model.  By concentrating revenue streams in a small market among a smaller number of producers, it leads to the potential for the high-quality companies to become even stronger and more financially viable.

When this goes too far, you have a monopoly, of course.  But other than Hasbro, no player is even remotely close to that, however.

Think of it this way:  would you prefer to see a few strong companies thriving and expanding to give us new titles for many years to come?  Or see a never ending cycle of many new companies which enter the market, put out a few mediocre, plodding fantasy games and then go right back out of business?

I mean really, Brian, how many tired incarnations of goblin, godzilla monster, space marine, wizard, dwarf, orc based games do you want to see?  That’s what you typically get when gamers run and start game companies.  And even if I liked those types of games (which I absolutely, definitely, positively do not) there’s no way that I could “sell” that to a bunch of couples used to playing Catchphrase.

I constantly think about how many great themes out there lay dormant that would appeal to a larger, mainstream audience?  And they stay dormant because its not enough to have 36 brand new wizard casting spell, fightin the orc fantasy games out there in 2007.  Hey, what’s one more?  Why not? 

How many games did I purchase this year?  Here they are:  Lifeboats, Last Word (a party game), Mr. Jack.  Four years into boardgames.  But I still only have 27 regular boardgames.  Total.

And it looks like it may stay that way for awhile. 

-------------------------

One last question:  I’ve always wanted to ask this:  What the heck ARE orcs, anyway?

Ryan,

My goal isn’t to change your mind, because that doesn’t seem likely.  I will note however, as someone who has been going into hobby game stores looking for good games for the past 20+ years, the choice I’ve seen has generally been between a few (or fewer) good new games and severalt bad new games put out each year (the past) and many good new games with proportionally more bad new games (the present).

I think a lot of people come into the hobby, catch up on the ‘classics’ that took decades to come to market over the course of a couple years and then start bemoaning how many bad new games come out on an annual basis.  There has always been more pulp fiction than classic novels.  It sounds like you aren’t interested in games with a high fantasy theme.  Based on your purchases list I’m guessing you wouldn’t be too into WWII, Civil War and Napoleonic simulations either.  Prior to ten years ago (in the U.S.) I think your new purchases in a typical year would have been between 0 and 1 at most game stores.  So by that measure things seem much improved.

Personally, I’d love to see more Godzilla Monsters and Space Marines.  Fantasy is being pretty heavily tapped right now, but building a [garden, tower, mansion, city, state, trade empire] in renaissance Italy would top my list of tapped out themes.

--

Orcs (in popular modern culture) are a construct of J.R.R. Tolkein based upon his linguistic and storytelling approach.  So, read Lord of the Rings to find out.

Ryan, I know what Mark said, and as I pointed out, what’s right for Days of Wonder isn’t necessarily right for everyone else. Days of Wonder has a particular audience and wants to release a particular type of game. As Jonathan and Larry have pointed out, individual designers and other publishers have different goals from DoW.

Corné van Moorsel of Cwali creates theme-light abstract strategy games that aren’t necessarily going to appeal to the DoW audience. Martin Wallace of Warfrog creates highly involved economic development games that appeal to a different crowd. In fact, looking over Valerie’s list, I don’t see a single “goblin, godzilla monster, space marine, wizard, dwarf, or orc based game,” tired or otherwise.

As I stated above, if I were a publisher and I thought the market existed for my game, then I’d publish it. To answer your question, I’d prefer to see many new companies enter the market and publish whatever games they felt like publishing because new companies often publish new designers with new ideas. If they interest me, I’ll buy them; if not, I won’t. Thousands of other people will also make such decisions. Yes, some new publishers will produce knock-off games similar to others on the market. This is true in all industries.

They should give me an award: most times hijacking a Valerie Putnam thread to suit my own purposes. (LOL) Or maybe give me a knuckle sandwich?  : ) Don’t answer that one, Eric and Larry!

BTW, I’m online right now because of my fantasy football team.  I may make the playoffs still yet!

Brian,

You get a BIG “Amen” from me for that now tired and stale theme of building a [garden, tower, mansion, city, state, trade empire] in renaissance Italy.  If that one isn’t overdone, I don’t know what is!  Blech.

By the way, does a “Lord of the Rings” book come in the pop-up variety?  That’s about all they let me read these days.  ; )

-------------------
Hi Eric,

How ya doin?  : ) You know, I’m not against new games coming out or new publishers either. And I realize not everyone will publish with the same mentality and intent that DOW does.  Heck, even DOW doesn’t do that sometimes.  Just take a look at Battlelore as an example.  To me, that might just have well been called BattleBore.  It’s cool.

So fine.  We’ve established game companies can have different goals.  And yet, we have so much that’s similar nowadays, don’t we?  Eurogames, Ameritrash, War Games, Fantasy. 

So where’s MY company?  The one that produces the next Clue, the next Scotland Yard, the next Mystery of the Abbey, the next I’m the Boss or Ticket to Ride?  That’s what’s missing from this industry right now: the lightly strategic, highly social, light hearted, FUN, boardgame that has a theme everyone can relate to.  There’s 250 million people I know that might be interested in such a company.  : )

But to be successful, while they are still a fledgling company, they will probably need gamer’s support first.  Call it the DOW Blueprint, if you will… : )

I’m good with the rest, but only up to a point.

To Brian:

On a similar vein, I reread your last post Brian.  Very well reasoned and I agree with most of it. 

And actually I should clarify:  I love history. So I do have a separate segment of games that I never count in my game total. 

Why?

Primarily because I own but never play these games :  Napoleon in Europe, Shogun, Conquest of the Empire, Diplomacy, Fire and Axe, Samurai Swords.  I keep hoping for 23 inches of snow in Florida and everyone is snowed in for several weeks with no power, so I can wheel ‘em out. (LOL)

Just to add another dimension, one of the great things about board game publishing is the relatively low cost of entry.  For example, one of the best fantasy games of recent release was created in the Czech Republic, Prophecy, which then got picked up and tweaked by Z-Man.  Many at BGN have games from Poland, Japan, Korea, and undercapitalized US companies.  Some made awful business decisions and some spend their weekends hand assembling games that are in hot demand. To me, this suggests there might not be the market consolidation you expect to occur. 

Ryan, how about the success stories of Wits & Wagers, Giftrap, and Hive?  In fact, how many more copies of TtR would have been sold if it had had a less fancy production and a $20 pricetag from Hasbro?  Does our adoration of production values actually limit the market penetration of the mass market end of these games?  Thereby decreasing the chance of ‘your company’ actually reaching the market you define?

Another comment that Ryan made resonates with most of my friends: How many games do you need?  I think the ‘normal family’ might want/need one or two a year.  At that rate, they never get beyond the classics, so for them, I am not sure it matters how many games get released, so long as one or two meet their needs and are distributed to the places they normally shop (aka not Thoughthammer).  To me, this suggests that really the industry could survive on 2-3 100,000 sellers each year and a ton of 2K sellers.  Great for the masses and those with OCD.

A final thought, the more games you play, the more jaded you get about the reuse of mechanisms.  This suggests that for the majority of people, the games we deem mediocre might not seem that way.

In terms of FUN - that belongs in Yehuda’s column discussion.

Hi Jonathan,

Great points as well.

I can easily concede to you “Wits and Wagers” etc. as success stories.  I’m just not high on those games in particular and the predominance there is really weighted more to party games, don’t you think?

As far as TTR, I think it has done really well despite the $35.00+ price.  It’s all about the price/value equation… people will pay for quality, so to me “price” is not quite central to the debate.  I think TTR has a great theme that is easy for everyone to get into.  Its a fun game. And that’s why they buy in quantity… despite price.

So I don’t know.  Does that make sense at all?

Ryan B.

Another great game story is Qwirkle, Ryan:  created by a housewife and her family and produced by their own small company, it’s won numerous awards and is enjoyed by gamers and families alike.

I also think your argument may be hurting your own desires.  There’s a particular type of game you’re looking for which isn’t currently being produced.  Thus, your best chance of getting it is from one of the smaller game companies (since the big ones don’t seem to be interested).  If our needs aren’t being met, what we want are MORE game companies, not fewer.  Doesn’t that seem logical?

Wow!  Thanks for all the comments, everyone.  Amongst them you already pointed out two games that I have played but left off the list.

Crazy Diamonds (and the other game on the flip side of the board).  This is definitely better with more people, but still mediocre.  It would probably fall right below Liebe & Intrigue.

Gift Trap.  Oh, this was painful.  I insisted on a house rule as soon as I saw the scoring mechanism that as soon as one of your pieces reaches the end it can’t go backwards any more.  I don’t like games that could conceivably go on forever.  This would fall towards the bottom of the list, probably just behind Affentennis.