If you missed it, we reviewed Dominant Species right here and, if you haven’t had a chance to pick up this exceptional game, we’ll be sure to announce when it will be available next time around.
Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media, Jeff tackles any and all sorts of games but has a special fondness for strategy, conflict sims, and roleplaying games. Plus, he's certainly never at a loss for an opinion...
Latest posts by Jeff McAleer (see all)
Actually a print run of 5k is pretty unusual in the hobby these days, even for a bigger player. We’re talking about all genres here too. Most games, unless they’ve had rave prerelease news (and we all know what that’s worth many times) or are making their way over from a successful debut in Europe are right about the 500 or 1000 copy range for a small publisher. Even with the Kickstarter financing and preorders for Alien Frontiers, that game came out of the printer with about 500 copies. I’d guess that GMT went with about 1000 or 1200 out the door with Dominant Species and they’ll be looking to reprint in early 2011. The reprints are where the profits lay in the industry anyway; tooling up for a new release is mighty expensive so I can understand going small the first time out. Plus, with the P500 system, GMT doesn’t have to take a bath if a new title underperforms.
I wish more companies took up the business plan of GMT; they’re a company that has ten times the available titles as some of the supposed “big guys” and just continue to crank out great content!
Luis is lucky though! He lives in AZ and comes out the the gaming get togethers so I can always loan him my copy of DS! 🙂
Guess I wont be playing it for Christmas. What’s up with the quick selling of games lately? Is the hobby picking up steam?
Luis,
My understanding is that our print runs are actually quite small. Five thousand or fewer is about right, particularly for small publishers. The good news is that a small company can respond to customer demand quickly (though printing does enforce a lag), and they aren’t beholden to a behemoth box store to drive their decisions.
Yow! And I was trying to be generous with the 5k. I was thinking closer to 3, but just 1000? No wonder they disappear.
Dare I invoke Pokemon?