AT Games You Want Re-Printed?

"A smart publisher would do well to somehow finagle the rights for MAGIC REALM, GUNSLINGER, and MoV and release a "Richard Hamblen Archives" series or something like that. It's high time that his contributions to the hobby were fully feted, he's one of the best designers ever."

Hear Hear!!

BTW, I remember reading recently that Wiz War was scheduled to be re-released in 2011...

Ah, and Last Frontier was great. I got a copy a couple of years ago (it was in-print until quite recently, btw). If it took so long to sell the first printing (this was from the 90s, wasn't it?) I'm not sure we'll see a second printing so soon...

Michael Barnes wrote:

We'll never see 90% of the games that have been mentioned here so far, but the thread title ain't "AT Games that Stand a Good Chance of Being Reprinted that You Want Reprinted."

Look, I'm just trying to crush some hopes and dreams here. Leave me alone.

You know, other than the Hamblen games which I want to see reprinted because they stand as some of the best designs every published and I believe they deserve a full modern production and updating, I would really rather see publishers investing the time and effort in developing new concepts and ideas that are out there. For example, that GAME Z that Zev has, I'd rather see him work on that than even something like a MoV reprint. I have MoV, and it's great no matter how ratty the box is or small the chits are.

Reprints are great and all, but in the years following the Glorious War of Ameritrash Re-emergence, we've been deluged with them. I remember peddling around the internet a couple of years ago trying desparately to get reasonably priced copies of COSMIC ENCOUNTER, TotAN, SPACE HULK, TITAN, WARRIOR KNIGHTS, FURY OF DRACULA, TALISMAN, et. al. and now they're all widely available. It's almost ridiculous- I actually quit looking for any OOP games because the best ones are likely to be reprinted soon or in the near future. The upshot is that the games are more accessible and more folks can experience them, the downside is that we're kind of living in the past in a sense. And I wonder if the focus on bringing games back to print is ultimately hurting innovation and growth. Reprinting a game isn't like re-releasing a movie or a record or even a video game- there's a lot of resources that go into putting a game back on the shelves, and I can't help but wonder if the time for reprints needs to come to an end so we can move on from here.

My thought is: if a game is brilliant and fun and doesn't rely on seasonal gimmicks or popular-at-the-time licenses, it deserves to be readily available. A great game will still be fun 20 years from now. It's the same reason that there are people wishing for a remake of X-COM: UFO defense with modern graphics and some tweaks (like the new Talisman: modern graphics and some tweaks and its awesome).

Oh, I definitely agree with you Aaron- there's no reason in the world that a new gamer or a youngster shouldn't have easy and affordable access to TALISMAN or any of our other favorites.

The thing is, most of the games that really matter like that are already reprinted. Once we start getting into some of the more obscure stuff- H.M.S. PANDORA, COLDITZ (very obscure in the US), LAST FRONTIER, and so on- we're really getting into niche stuff where really, the aftermarket supply meets demand. And they're not really the games that _need_ to be made available to a wider audience so much.

There's also the issue of financial feasibility. It makes sense for TITAN, SPACE HULK, TotAN to be reprinted because there's profit to be made. As much as I love Zev, I'm not under the illusion that he did TotAN as some kind of service to the community. Sure, that's part of his objective, but he also saw a business opportunity there. I'm not so sure with some of these things that there's any money to be made with them.

That being said, I'll repeat what I've said many times before. There is no god damned excuse in the world that some of these 70s and 80s games with rudimentary printed components shouldn't be made available for PDF/print and play download at a reasonable price. The sales model for reprints SHOULD have changed to accomodate this, but it hasn't. Even companies like GMT and MMP would do well to simply reprint their older, less in-demand titles as PDFs so that interested parties could assemble their own copies.

But no, board games are so stuck in the past in this regard and there's still those old timers who fear that people are going to "steal" their games.

OGRE is a great example. That should be a $5 download. It needs to be in print, but it doesn't need a MEGADELUXE edition. You could print it out on five sheets of paper and play one of the best games ever published. It needs to be available and accessible, and over time I'd be willing to bet they'd make more money off a series of $5 OGRE/GEV downloads than producing a new retail edition of the game.

But oh yeah, their heads are stuck up their asses. Never mind

NeonPeon wrote:

Escape From Colditz sounds really appealing to me, especially since one of the designers literally lived the game. Didn't eBay ban the game from their site? Or is just the pics that don't censor the Swastika...?

That was Maj. Pat Reid - any self respecting British Commonwealth lad raised in the 60s and 70s on staple WW2 comics, books, TV & Film, and Airfix models knows all about Colditz. There was even a TV series in the 70s on it with - unless I'm thinking of something else - a token yank (Robert Wagner) in it.
I think the ban was just a short-lived knee jerk reaction by eBay, as they are still selling the Parker 'swastika' edition - you can get mint one right now from the UK: Escape from Colditz
I already have an excellent condition copy gathering dust waiting for opponents to show up so I won't be bidding.

There's also the issue of financial feasibility.

Perhaps the best disguised punchline in F:At history.

S.

Did you see what I did there?

"Financial feasibility" in the game industry, I'm pretty convinced, means that you lose your pants but not your shirt.

My turn:

1. Dune - not the FFG universe retheme but the original but with production values of today's standard. I want minis for the six factions' units and a 3-D board like we are seeing coming out in the newly announced FFG games.

2. Fortress America - I have a copy but every Ameritrasher who likes wargame with plastic needs a copy of this. Perhaps slightly updated rules, a better mapboard, and maybe different/new units and tactics. I'm sure in todays world a boardgame about invading the US would sell well.

3. Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit.

4. Samurai Swords - The other great game from taht series, but I think it could do with some event card and diplomacy options to make it more than just a highly advanced Risk game.

A couple of GW oldies

5. Blood Royale - An interesting game where diplomacy takes precedent over combat as you marry your children off with each other to form alliances. I won the only game I played by having alliances with most players in the last few turns (blood alliances can't be broken until) so I was untouchable.

6. Blockmania - I think this could be easily updated (and it uses action points - those thieving euro designers).

7. Kingmaker - Does need trimming down and streamlining for today's AT market.

I also endorse Thunder Road, the Space Crusade line, and Escape from Colditz.
I haven't played Merchant of Venus and Gunslinger but they are two genres that need representation.

Michael Barnes wrote:

"Financial feasibility" in the game industry, I'm pretty convinced, means that you lose your pants but not your shirt.

Gamers can use their fanny packs to cover their genitals.

You should attend a Martin Wallace seminar. It costs $1000 and might even be held.

SPACE CRUSADE is an awesome game, and GW really should have looked at it as a way to get kids into 40K. Sadly, I bet the bulk of the reprint rights lie with Milton Bradley. Not that GW would act on them...I'm just sayin'.

BLOOD ROYALE was actually announced by FFG ages ago when the GW deal was first made public, but it seemed to have disappeared along with REINS OF POWER.

BLOCKMANIA _can not_ work without the Mega City Four setting. The whole concept is as much a part of the game as anything you'll find in DUNE. I'd like to see it made available again, but only as a Judge Dredd title. Maybe with that new UK-based production on the books...

KINGMAKER...that's an interesting one. It's a great game, but one that time has NOT been kind to. It could use an overhaul.

1830 ?

I haven't played it. I'm just askin'.

Michael Barnes wrote:

BLOCKMANIA _can not_ work without the Mega City Four setting. The whole concept is as much a part of the game as anything you'll find in DUNE. I'd like to see it made available again, but only as a Judge Dredd title. Maybe with that new UK-based production on the books...

KINGMAKER...that's an interesting one. It's a great game, but one that time has NOT been kind to. It could use an overhaul.

Warrior Knights (both editions) stole a lot of it's thunder but the whole mechanic of capturing/holding/executing the different heirs to the throne until there is only one King/Queen is great and I'm sure hasn't been done before. There needs to be fixes to stop players hiding in castles/cities once the respective plague card has gone (deck shuffling or different siege rules), making parliament easier to work (vote cards to be collected with cities/nobles), and maybe something to keep the time down but otherwise it would be a great thematic game. The other great mechanic is that you can't get eliminated, yes you can lose all your support and troops so you just have to start again recruiting nobles.

Still trying to get Blockmania (and expansion) out at my small club.

The problem with 1830 is that the majority of people that want to play it have moved on from it and now play all the other 18xx games. There's all these options like 18GA, 18AL, and so on for new players. So 1830, in some sense, has become kind of obsolete.

Which is sad, because it's the only one that I think is really worth playing- it's the original design, and it's Frances Tresham so it's the work of a master.

Still, you'd think SOMEBODY would greenlight it for a reprint. Could be another "who's got the rights" issue.

My #1 pick would be Gunslinger. It could be streamlined and modernized without losing any of its vitality. I haven't owned a copy since high school, but I recently downloaded the rules and have been thinking about remaking it myself. That game -- like all of Hamblen's work -- was way ahead of its time.

My other picks would be Asteroid, whose basic concepts are awesome but need to be heavily tweaked, and Divine Right. The original designers of Divine Right have been promising a print and play reprint since the beginning of the year, but that's a game that could really benefit from some gussied-up production.

I actually think that the more classics that get reprinted, the better. It's not going to hurt innovation. In fact, the opposite is more likely. The more people experience these games, the more seeds of inspiration will be planted for the next wave of innovation. The more people get exposed to Ameritrash, the broader their perceptions will be of the medium's potential.

According to chatter on the DIVINE RIGHT Yahoo group, there is a new printing in the pipleline. I think it's just the same one they did in 2002 with a couple of rulebook tweaks.

I don't think that actually playing and appreciating old games or reprints is what hurts innovation- I'm looking at it more from a business angle. If I'm a publisher, I can spend X amount of dollars buying rights, reddeveloping, and reprinting or I can invest that money in a new idea. Some companies, like FFG, pull it off because they've got an exponentially larger revenue than most companies. I guess what I'm leary about is the balance between new games and reprints getting off-kilter.

1830 is also being reprinted by Mayfair.