Hi On Mar 8, 2006, at 6:53 AM, Mike Schoessow wrote:
I agree with this (the German board game thing) but the popularity of German board games in this country is very "relative" and only a tiny percentage over-all, (and is often grossly over-estimated by game geeks) but this is a very non-main-stream (but certainly positive!)thing. In general though, the majority of people, especially in the USA these days, are not inclined to use their imaginations if they are given the choice, more's the pity. The readers of this forum are members of an elite group in this sense.
Here in Spain, the German-like boardgames are starting to get mainstream exposure. You can buy some (mostly Settlers and Carcassonne) in the toy section of most supermarkets. The problem is that they're not really advertised... but I guess they're getting decent sells...
Cards are still very popular, and while not everyone who likes playing cards would have to like piecepack, a lot will... I think it's all about getting people exposed...I agree with this only to a very limited extent. Keep in mind that most card game players commonly play only one or two games, which are well known and well established, in most cases for more than a hundred years. It is a very rare instance when a new card game joins this elite group. Popular (I mean nationally or internationally popular) new card games don't arise overnight! And card players seem, in my experience, to have a stong aversion to any game bits other than playing cards sporting the traditional four suits and ranks :-) So this is from different from the world of German board games in which an SDJ winner can become very popular within six months among a majority of players. Although I love the idea, I don't see piecepack rapidly becoming popular with traditional card players, even if there were a reasonably funded advertising campaign behind it.
I think you're right about this one... I wasn't thinking so much about the "tradicinal" card player, but more about cards as a family game, but it's true most people play one or two games mostly... Maybe younger people (if they still play cards :) are more open to new games...
What I was thinking is if there would be more games that combine cards with piecepack, it could be a way...
I was thinking, maybe big companies don't like the concept of the piecepack system because it means 1 sell for 150 games instead of 150 sells for 150 games... they'd probably rather release each piecepack game on it's own with specially themed components :DYah, that's a good bet! :-) Keep in mind too that piecepack is in the public domain, which is another mark against it from the point of view of the big companies.
But isn't that more a problem for the small publisher, that could get swallowed by a big one very easily?...
-Mike-JorgeSPONSORED LINKS Chess board game Family board game Monopoly board game Board games Classic board game Game board game---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS a.. Visit your group "piecepack" on the web. b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: piecepack-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.comc.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.---------------------------------------------------------------------- --------Yahoo! Groups Links