Shrapnel Games Blog

Well, it has been a long time since I have had the time to sit down and write something. You see we are releasing many games in the coming months - we just released two new ones, Salvo! and The Falklands War: 1982 - and have another 8 scheduled for before the year ends. It takes up alot of my time, and our staffs time, to get these games into the market. So, that is why I have been visibly absent from the BLOG.

Origins 2005

We just returned from Origins last week. It is the first time we haven’t exhibited in two years. Our reasoning was simple, with the economy the way it is, especially gas prices, and with many of our new releases just missing the Origins date, we thought we would take a year off and go and enjoy the show in a different way. We were glad we didn’t exhibit. The show just seemed dead. The number of exhibitors appeared to be way down, the lines were much shorter and the exhibit hall less crowded. Our retail consultant was there, and she even said we should be glad we weren’t exhibiting, that traffic was way down. Why?

Gas. Does Anyone Feel Bloated?

Maybe one reason is that it fell this year over the 4th of July holiday. Although I think that is just a small part of it, as I have a theory as to why gaming sems to be down across the board this year. It has to do with the outrageous gas prices. I read somewhere that the average consumer is now spending an additional $60.00 per month on gas. Hey, that’s the price of a game! Interesting, huh. Does that mean that your average gamer is buying once less game a month so that they can afford to get to work each day? I think this may be a huge part in the drop off at Origins as well as the industry drop in sales as well.

Vaporware, Not Just for Computer Games

This year at Origins, in addition to meeting with developers and some of our fans (Annette and Mindi said, “Thanks for the gifts, Mac!”) we hoped to spend alot of time in the exhibit hall, specifically to see some the new offerings announced for Origins. How disappointing that a number of board games, as well as a new magazine weren’t there as promised. Between the vapor products and the fewer exhibitors, our time in the exhibit hall was shorter than anticipated. How a company can miss delivering a game or magazine to Origins that was announced to be there only a month or so before the show is a mystery to me. Maybe if they had announced it three months in advance, I could see this, but with the short announcement time, they should have known that it wouldn’t be ready. Especially when the gave us shipping date over a month away. It wasn’t lie they missed by a day or two. A month! I guess it happens to the best though, but I can’t understand it.

The Developer as Publisher

This year at Origins, we saw two games that we would have loved to put our name on. Unfortunately they were self published by the developer of the game. Doing this almost always makes the game unpublishable by us, as they undervalue their offering, thinking the way to sell more is to lower the price. It has been proven that price has very little to do with the success of a game. In fact pricing a game too low, can make it unappealing to the reseller markets, as they must have enough in their margins to make it worth stocking and handling. If I could just say to those devleopers with great ideas who are thinking of self publishing, please speak with us first. We have contact information on our website here. You can always self publish after talking to us. Hell, we may even be able to offer you some valuable help with self publishing, if that is the route you choose. After all, we are all in this business together, and I don’t believe for a minute that your game(s) being successful will hurt sales of our games. If anything, making this industry bigger and better will help us all to succeed.

Shrapnel Games Gets Weird!

And finally, we have heard from a number of you regarding our latest product announcement, Werid Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. Most of the e-mails we received praised our unique press release on this announcement. It was a little different, even for the warped minds behind Shrapnel Games. I wish I could take credit for it, but praise should go to Scott Krol who writes almost all of our press releases. I say almost all, because sometimes I will write one, so if it you read any lacking in style and flair, blame me for those.

Until next time,

Tim Brooks
President, Shrapnel Games, Inc.