VPG News: At this recent GMT Weekend in Hanford, I met with Alan Emrich from VPG – something we do in April and October each year just to touch base and talk about various aspects of our strategic partnership. This time, we had a lot to discuss, especially in light of VPG’s recent move to printing higher-quality components, putting their games in boxes, and moving as a company into a larger distribution network mode. And we made a few adjustments to our joint direction based on what we think is best for both companies at this point.
First off, lest anyone read the wrong message into what I’ve written below, I want to note that our relationship is still strong and very friendly. Everything we discussed is in the context of what’s best for both of us going forward. The two big topics we discussed were 1)Games and 2)Designers.
On the games front, we have decided to give two of the titles that we had previously put on our P500 list back to VPG, as they now have the resources to do those games at a much higher quality than before. One game, Circus Train, was not doing real well on our P500 list, and Alan noted that they have the ability to get this game back into print very quickly, which will get royalties to the designer much more quickly than we could have, given where it sat on our P500 list. The other game we are returning to VPG is Revolt & Revolution, which is actually three of their State of Siege series games packed into one box. This was a case where the game was doing ok on our P500 list, but it proved not feasible for either of our companies to free up the necessary development resources to get the third game in the pack ready for publication anytime soon. I’d guess VPG will probably re-release those games individually at the first opportunity, but I can’t really speak to their production, just that we are removing this game (and Circus Train) from our P500 list as of today.
On the designers front, Alan made it clear that he absolutely wants us to continue to work with and develop designs with current VPG designers who’d like to do some games for us. So you can expect to see, starting probably within just a few months, some new P500 games from designers that you’ve known from their work at VPG. I’m very much looking forward to working with these guys who are bringing us some faster-playing games to help fill out our lower-complexity part of the game line.
Back to the VPG games for a minute. Our intention at this point is to continue to produce games in the No Retreat and Nappy 20 series for as long as you guys want to buy them. We just sold out of our first printing (5,000 copies) of No Retreat last week, and I’m sure we’ll reprint it (just not certain on timing yet). We just set a 2nd Quarter 2013 production slot for the second game in the No Retreat series, and anticipate adding the third game to our P500 list at some point in 2013. On the Nappy 20 games, we’ll wait until we see how sales are on Fading Glory before we determine how quickly we’ll add other games in that series, but at this point our intention would be to add enough of those that we can produce a game in that series every year or so. And Alan says he has some other games he wants us to take a look at as well, down the road, so I imagine you’ll see more than just No Retreat and Nappy 20 over time. But for right now, that’s where we are focused.
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I can’t claim any true behind the scenes info (or at least none I’m willing to disclose here) about two companies I truly adore. On one hand we have a company (VPG) which has produced a great many really fun and interesting designs only to find they get shafted and ignored by a great majority of the gaming media because the components, up until recently, weren’t up to expectations in some reviewer’s eyes and another company which I personally believe is run by some of the finest people you will ever find in the industry – let’s see… how many companies have offered free games to gamers who are out of work? By my calculations, and I may be wrong, only one – GMT! Readers can certainly correct me if I’m wrong but to my knowledge there has been one company which has been annually running a promotion which would provide gamers with two free games if they were out of work. That company is GMT!
I’m going to preface this op-ed by saying Alan Emrich is someone I consider a true friend in the gaming industry and both Tony Curtis and Gene Billingsley have never been anything but the greatest to deal with or talk to although I have to say GMT needs to encourage their designers and even the gang behind the scenes to be more open to sitting down with a mic in front of them (or through Skype) and talk about the company and games on the horizon. Hell, Elliott is one of the most shy persons I know but he’s still out there talking to Stan Lee even though my best friend is ready to pee himself; Go on the record GMT because we love you and we aren’t going to bite!
Suffice to say if you’re expecting me to rip on either one of these companies you best stop reading here and take a peek at our latest gaming news. That said, I think a very honest appraisal of the GMT press release bears some comment.
So VPG and GMT are beginning to distance themselves as far as titles currently, and in the future, on GMT’s P500 pre-order system. In my opinion this only makes sense as VPG is now moving into the realm of selling games in boxed editions. The reasoning behind this move holds obvious, and not so obvious, motives. On the surface the decision to produce boxed games is a no brainer for VPG because the company couldn’t compete in the gaming arena unless they made the move to better quality components and a more game store friendly format. Seriously, what’s the point in producing a game which people will enjoy if you can’t find an avenue in which to get it on the buyer’s gaming table. A great case in point is a recent release from VPG titled Swing States. I had previously reviewed the game, enjoyed it (although I had a handful of minor issues with the design,) and ranked it above average as far as my opinion. Yesterday, election day, my posting of Swing States drew over 16,000 visits from the web. You read that right, over 16,000 visitors read that page. Unfortunately Swing States came out in the zip locked bag edition before VPG moved to the new Gold Banner components and then into the boxed games.
How many copies of Swing States could VPG have sold if the company had moved into boxed games say in May? We’ll never know because Swing States wasn’t sitting there on the shelves of your local game store or Barnes and Noble. So the move to selling Victory Point Games in boxed editions, with higher quality components, was a must for VPG. I swear, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alan refinanced his home three times over to keep VPG afloat the last couple of years; that’s how important providing good games to the public is to this man!
Yes VPG is an advertiser with us, and yes I consider Alan a friend, and no (as Alan will attest) do we cut VPG any slack; if we don’t think a game they’ve released is very good we’re going to tell our audience it isn’t very good.
More so I’d take a stab the move to boxed games wasn’t only to make VPG more viable in the gaming market but also to keep some of the more popular designers at home with VPG. If you’re a game designer loyalty can only go so far and then you have bills to pay. Pulling off $50 or $75 bucks in residuals every month or every quarter isn’t going to make you want to keep contributing designs to a company; you may have come up with the greatest thing since sliced bread but if the public isn’t aware of your game, and websites and videos aren’t devoting time to talking about your game you might as well be dead in the water.
Alan might want to debate this with me but I correspond with designers all the time and it was getting to the point where some of them told me they wouldn’t look for VPG to produce any more of their designs because it simply wasn’t worth their while. How can you blame them either? For those of us who follow VPG, there’s been a noticeable lack of titles in the hopper from the same people who have kept the company semi-afloat – Chris Taylor and Steve Carey jump immediately to mind and a few other folks who will remain nameless.
Is this bad? Absolutely not! Yet as a writer I wouldn’t be chomping at the bit to provide material for someone who wasn’t going to get my musings in front of an audience… Neither would I, as an established game designer, jump at the chance to work with a company which couldn’t market my game to the public…
I’m not ripping on Alan but only providing the reality of the gaming world. Reiner Knizia can repackage the same old piece of crap design under a different theme and sell games because he knows he can and the uninformed gaming public will lap it up as if it’s some sort of nectar of the gods. It doesn’t matter if it’s crap, it will still sell because of his name and the name of whatever game company which got suckered into publishing that dreck. Sorry to say very few designers have the same selling power of a phoned in design from Knizia but the end game is the same: I want people to play my design.
So enters GMT…
I can say the gang at GMT seriously knows one thing beyond anything else: design talent! Take a look at Chad Jensen and Volke Runke as examples. These are guys who design the hell out of games and as long as TGG is standing we are going to sing the praises of GMT because Gene and his crew provide excellent gaming for those of us beyond the level of Risk players. I’ll be the first to point out I’ve been critical of what seems to be a move away from mounted boards while maintaining a mounted board price point as of late and I’m bugged by this shift but I’ll still attest nine out of ten times their games are worthy of a purchase.
But GMT reaches out to some of the design talent working with VPG to come on board to provide, if not designs, at least development work and you know there’s bound to be some problems. We’re talking about a very small circle when it comes to the world of gaming. GMT wants to bring talented people into the circle who they feel may have been underutilized at VPG whereas VPG feels a sense of betrayal if those people go to work for GMT.
This is completely understandable.
GMT has provided some VPG reprint opportunities as a way of saying thanks to Alan Emrich for the years he’s devoted to the gaming hobby, yet they still have a company which needs to stay solvent and look to constantly bring fresh ideas to your gaming table. VPG has gone outside the box (pun intended) to also bring game designs that don’t only fit the norm to you and your gaming pals too. If the VPG crew gets a little testy when another company comes along and offers opportunities to their designers (which the designers most certainly deserve) to enjoy more exposure and bigger sales I can understand the gang at VPG feeling unappreciated because they provided the avenue for untold designers to at least get a game in front of the public in the first place. Yet GMT is a great game company too and I’d expect nothing less from them than to pursue the sort of talent which has placed them in the upper echelon of companies devoted to the serious gamer.
All told I think it would be for the best if both VPG and GMT went their separate ways. There’s been a bit too much of publishing games on both sides as a way of doing someone a favor for my liking. If VPG is going to stand alone as a publisher of games the gaming media is going to take notice of they’ll have do so on their own accord; here at TGG we’ve been singing their praises over the last two plus years. Yet VPG needs to step back and take a hard look at what the gaming community is interested in as opposed to releasing some crap as a favor to a designer the modern gamer feels absolutely no attachment to – Boom and Zoom as an prime example. Really? Boom and Zoom? Ty Bomba’s Boom and Zoom?
At this past Comsimworld Expo I kept dodging Alan Emrich because Boom and Zoom was his game of the moment and he was gung ho to get everyone within arm’s reach to play Boom and Zoom. I knew he wanted TGG to tackle a review of the game and, after about three minutes of watching the game play, I knew it was crap, didn’t want to play it and certainly didn’t want to review it. I didn’t care how legendary a designer Ty Bomba is (he could have designed Dungeons & Dragons for all I cared) the game stunk worse than a skunk you’d just run over on the highway. Too much of VPG’s limited resources are devoted to nonsense like this in an attempt to make sure every couple of weeks a new game hits the market. I’d rather see a good game come out every month or two from VPG as opposed to them staying on schedule with something new twice a month as garbage is still garbage.
GMT also needs to look in their own backyard as they’re moving in a direction of providing $70 and $80 dollar games with paper maps. As much as I absolutely love what GMT does, this paper map fiasco is of major concern to gamers. Crown of Roses looks like a really interesting game from my first play through but there simply is no excuse to charge an MSRP of $79.00 and not include a mounted map. You can’t tell me cheaping the buyer on the map is putting more money in the designer’s pocket. Yes, times are tough and I get that but it’s in GMT’s best interests not to start pinching the pennies. It would be one thing if Crown of Roses was an exception to the GMT rule but these less than stellar maps are becoming a real issue with the company at a price point beyond say fifty or sixty dollars.
All in all I’m not reading some big falling out between VPG and GMT based on the news release. We’re seeing two companies, and the leaders of those same said companies, growing beyond the scope of where they assumed to be at this point. Victory Point Games has needed to bite the bullet of providing boxed games in order to stay solvent and GMT understands they don’t have to help prop up VPG because of a loyalty they might feel toward Alan for his contributions to the genre. This is no doubt a bigger issue for VPG than GMT but if the Victory Point Games line is going to hold its own weight it’s better that they look to swim now rather than completely sink later…
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“I swear, I wouldn’t be surprised if Alan refinanced his home three times over to keep VPG afloat the last couple of years; that’s how important providing good games to the public is to this man!”
Thankfully, no, I haven’t had to do that, despite the economy. But yes, life it too short for bad games.
“there’s been a noticeable lack of titles in the hopper from the same people who have kept the company semi-afloat – Chris Taylor and Steve Carey jump immediately to mind”
Well, it’s not like these people have put out a bunch of games for other publishers in the meantime. Chris and Steve have “real lives” besides making games for VPG, and we totally respect that. Now, for Chris, if you’ve read our company updates, you’ll know that his MOONBASE Alpha and Aliens vs. Zombies games are both nearing completion, and I’m starting to do the second edition work on Nemo’s War, so Chris is keeping his hand in over at VPG when he can.
“Pulling off $50 or $75 bucks in residuals every month or every quarter isn’t going to make you want to keep contributing designs to a company;”
Oh my goodness! Really? You think these people design games for the MONEY!? Some might, but most find this way more “hobby” than “job,” and the royalties from game making are just a little bonus that they can spend buying other games. We do our best to give our designers freedom and try to have the game making experience fun and educational for all. If you think making hobby games is all about the Benjamins, you’ve missed a lot of motive.
“VPG feels a sense of betrayal if those people go to work for GMT. This is completely understandable.”
Except for the fact that it’s completely untrue. That goes off the scale on the inaccuracy-meter, my friend, like a politician’s promise. VPG is the AAA farm team for GMT and other big game publishers, and we hope our developers can land full-size game deals with other publishers. Shoot, you think I teach my students to STAY students their whole life? That’s frickin’ ridiculous… If a designer or developer wants to make a new small-format game, we hope they come to us and have fun with it; when they’re ready for a larger projects, that’s NOT us and we hope we have them trained and ready for the Big Time when they venture forth.
“GMT has provided some VPG reprint opportunities as a way of saying thanks to Alan Emrich for the years he’s devoted to the gaming hobby…”
Funny; Gene and I didn’t discuss that at all when we shook hands. We agreed that it made business sense and would be mutually beneficial to the companies and gamers. I didn’t get the whole sense of “thanking Alan” out of that — but maybe I missed it. It was just a business deal between two friends that made sense, that’s all. It’s amazing how you ascribe motivations into things like this, a meeting you never attended…
“VPG feeling unappreciated because they provided the avenue for untold designers to at least get a game in front of the public in the first place.”
I think you it is time to have your psychology license renewed. We don’t feel under-appreciated, and we can’t appreciate the great people we get to work with enough. We LOVE bringing new talent to the market and showing the “VPG way” of game development. We’re a teaching company in addition to being a game publisher. I can’t believe you’re ascribing with such certainty our motives! A phone call before publishing this article would have taken this piece a long way toward accuracy, Jeff…
“All told I think it would be for the best if both VPG and GMT went their separate ways.”
Well, we are, as separate companies of course, and we’re not, as we are staying strategic partners for some projects, just as before.
“Really? Boom and Zoom? Ty Bomba’s Boom and Zoom?”
Yep, and it’s a GREAT BattlessonTM game! If you would look at it, it introduces people to wargaming by taking a “battle checkers” approach and teaches the principles of level design in a very thoughtful way. Of course, all you’re looking at, apparently, is the superficial connection to Ty Bomba. I assure you, there is an extremely worthy game there, but it seems like your mind is closed to hearing otherwise. I would appreciate the opportunity to show you what the game really is all about.
“after about three minutes of watching the game play, I knew it was crap, didn’t want to play it and certainly didn’t want to review it.”
Ah, that explains a lot. There’s a lot more in that box than can be demo’d in 3 minutes, my friend. Back in my game reviewer days, we reserved judgement until after a thorough examination of the entire game (of course, that was in print media without all of the urgency of today’s internet).
“All in all I’m not reading some big falling out between VPG and GMT based on the news release.”
That’s correct, because there isn’t a big falling out. Gene is one of my best friends in the hobby, and I will always stand by the man. PERIOD.
Well, I need to go to work now. Much about the tenor and tone in this editorial is, I believe, way off, but then I make games now and don’t editorialize about the industry any more.
You (and everyone else) know how to contact me if you’re interested in what’s really happening at VPG. It’s no state secret; you don’t have to conjecture.
Alan Emrich
There you have it folks, right from the person who would know best.
Wow! Mr. Emrich sure didn’t seem pleased to see this opinion piece. Would you say he comes across as very defensive? Maybe he’s not telling us the whole truth?
Interesting opinion piece. Well done and worth reading. Great response from Alan Emrich –full of information and useful commentary. Great stuff all around. Not sure what Ace Turley is talking about.
And that’s simply what the piece is designed to be – an opinion piece. Alan has gone on the record as far as what’s going on with VPG and GMT, both companies I happen to like a lot. I’ll stand behind what I’ve written as it’s based upon various discussions with designers who have had their work published at VPG; it’s very possible they don’t see all things in the same vein as Alan.
Plus, no matter how Alan wants to try I have a good feel for Boom and Zoom and I still wouldn’t want to review it. 😉
As far as Ace’s comment, I’m not sure why he would indicate Alan is being anything less than honest. There aren’t too many people I’ve encountered in the industry who I would consider more upfront about his thoughts than Alan always is.
I was of the same opinion about Boom and Zoom when I first heard about it; I thought it looked simplistic, dull and not my type of game. But after seeing Marco`s 15 min. video review I changed my mind. There is a lot more there than a 3 minute glance will reveal. Take 15 out of your busy schedule and you may be presently surprised by what you learn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eufR0CkBKzw&feature=share&list=UUqjObEZh6BQw2xpgMjPZ7qg
Actually I saw more than three minutes of Boom and Zoom and I still don’t see it as a VPG flagship title. Dawn of the Zeds? Yep! Flagship! Zulus on the Ramparts? Yep! Should be a flagship. My comment was more along the lines of not necessarily saying VPG shouldn’t publish B&Z but that other games should get the premium treatment before that title. I know every game Alan puts out isn’t going to be up my alley – I’m not the core audience for B&Z – but I can happily say there are way more hits than misses IMO when it comes to VPG.
I understand where you are coming from. And other games Will be getting “premium” treatment. In fact the long term plan is to to give them All premium treatment. Its just that retrofitting older titles is waaay harder to do than planning on a premium treatment from the get-go. Thats why Boom&Zoom could get the jump, so to speak, on older titles like Zuluz on the Ramparts; B&Z was planned to have the premium parts from the beginning. Zulus has finally been published in it super premium form, and its awesome, but man, its been a long and bumpy ride getting it there! Even though it is in essence the same game as the original, all the little changes to version 2 meant it had to go through the entire design, development and production cycle, including playtesting, again.