by Bruce Whitehill
<em>An editorial published March 2006 in</em> Knucklebones<em> games magazine as “Playing Across the Atlantic,” written in the U.S. and referring to a trip to Europe</em>
I just returned from the “Game Days” in Essen, Germany (see story on page __), where over 140,000 people came to play. Yes, buying, selling, promoting, and networking were all part of the four-day event, but most of the public was there to play games, and they did so on tables, stairways, and all available floor space. Children and families took part, but the bulk of the visitors were the players engaging in games of strategy. Why are tactical games a hard sell in the U.S. whereas Germany has emerged as the principle spot for game invention and game playing in the world?
Let’s first take a look at the U.S. Games are a market-driven industry, and the market seems to be ruled by the most successful licenses. This is what I call “planned obsolescence.” Most themes and licenses are little more than fads, and once they run their course, they’re relegated to nostalgia status. A thriving game industry needs to create games that are good enough to be part of an ongoing legacy. How many hundreds of games based on TV programs are now only a part of history—the same history that the shows themselves share after years of being off the air?
Distribution is another factor in the games we get to see on store shelves. The K-Marts, Wal-Marts, and Toys-R-Us chains buy and sell in such quantity that the games that don’t make those stores have a hard time gaining visibility in the marketplace. More and more smaller companies are making better games, and yet, because of their small production runs and limited advertising budgets, they need to find specialty retail outlets to carry their products. The specialty game stores are having a hard time staying in business because the larger retail chains can easily undercut small store prices. Yet the best range of playable games can be found in these unique shops.
When I started working for Milton Bradley Company in the days before Hasbro, I had this vision of creating new games for the masses. I shared my sentiments with one of my colleagues, who quickly set me straight. “You’re not developing games for the public,” he corrected, “You’re inventing games for the head buyer of Toys-R-Us.”
The large companies are aiming to sell at least 200,000 games of one title, whereas many small, independent companies would be happy with annual sales of 20,000 copies of one game. Games have been dropped from Bradley’s lines because their sales dropped below levels that would have sustained smaller companies.
Another reason for the decline in family game playing is the change in the family unit. In the late 1800s, game boxes frequently illustrated three generations involved in the game. In fact, three generations were often living in the same household. And game playing was a popular evening’s entertainment. Now, children leave home earlier—and so do the grandparents. And the home offers so many alternative forms of entertainment now, besides TV. It was inevitable that families would spend less time playing games together. Now, some American companies are trying to reactivate the “Family Game Night”—I wish them success.
So what is different in Germany? Like Americans, Germans were playing games in the 1880’s. J.W. Spear & Sons started operations in Furth, Germany, in 1879 (compared with, in the U.S., John McLoughlin in the 1850s, Milton Bradley in 1860, and George Parker in 1883). The company was one of the first and most important in the games industry throughout the world. Elsewhere in Germany, Otto Robert Maier, a bookseller, began publishing in 1883, and by 1884 produced his first game, “Journey around the World.” In 1900, Maier registered his trademark under the name “Ravensburger Games,” a name that still resonates around Europe today. By World War I, the Otto Maier Publishing Company had a line of around 800 different books and games, many of which were exported to Western Europe, Russia, and elsewhere.
In 1938, Spear’s Nuremberg factory was turned over to a non-Jewish resident, and the dispossessed director, Hermann Spear, was killed in Auschwitz five years later. Game playing in Germany declined, likely a result of social and economic policies before and during WWII.
In the 1960s, an American company founded in 1902 as The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company introduced a game line that revolutionized the industry both in the U.S. and Europe. When the wrapping paper and ribbon division was looking for a way to expand revenues, employees came up with the idea of a game line aimed at upper middle-class buyers. Two up-and-coming American inventors, Sid Sackson (ACQUIRE, BAZAAR, SLEUTH, MONAD, VENTURE, EXECUTIVE DECISION) and Alex Randolph (TWIXT, BREAKTHRU, EVADE, and OH-WAH-REE), were enlisted in 1962 to create a games unit. (Alex Randolph was later instrumental in getting recognition for game authors [inventors] by getting game companies to put the author’s name on the box and instructions.) Meeting with success, in late 1966, 3M promoted its games throughout Europe, using its strong distribution channels.
An Interoffice Correspondence memo from 3M’s “Dept. of Communications – St. Paul” dated September 12, 1966, was sent out to 3M “Public Relations Personnel” in ten countries, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The message read: “International division industrial tape marketing has advised that most, if not all, of the above listed subsidiaries will undertake Bookshelf Games test marketing later this year.” The enclosed publicity material contained a press release from the International Division that included information about the 3M games deemed “most popular”: TWIXT, ACQUIRE, and OH-WAH-REE, and four “other games,” PHLOUNDER, STOCKS AND BONDS, QUINTO, and JUMPIN.’ The press release explained that, “although geared to adults”, the games could be “enjoyed by the entire family” and were “interesting and simple enough to play so that they can be enjoyed by children.” The games, “specially boxed for bookshelf storage” were “uniquely packaged.”
3M’s products and marketing revived the adult games market in Europe, especially Germany.
But what has sustained this interest for 40 years? Reinhold Wittig, acclaimed games inventor and manufacturer (Edition Perlhuhn) and organizer of the biggest game author’s annual convention (in Göttingen, Germany) thinks it’s because a few key people, including Bernward Thole, who maintains the Deutsche Spiele-Archiv (German games archives), and those behind the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award, keep games in the public eye. Certainly the Game of the Year award goes a long way to promising a game’s success, but more than that, through the media it promotes an excitement about games among the general public.
Noted German games journalist Michael Knopf, says “(studying) the phenomenon (of game playing in Germany) would be a big job for sociologists and psychologists,” and offers one simple, possible explanation: “Germans, in a middle-class way of life, like to sit in their warm rooms around the table, looking for entertainment in hard times; there is a big range of games because there are a lot of players, and there are a lot of players because there is a big range of games.” Another comment of his perhaps goes more to the point about the German character: “I don’t really know why so many Germans are players, I just know that they aren’t in their real lives. Maybe the reason lies in this fact.”
According to games researcher Sybille Aminzadah (see her article on page ___), the game scene in Germany is not just a small group—it has thousands of people. But these are not the mass-market buyers; these are the players who know the companies and know the names of the good game authors. Reputation is key to continued success. “You have a large number of companies providing a great variety of games and focusing on games of many different types; the players know what authors to look for and which companies to look at.”
Though companies like Ravensburger, Kosmos, Amigo and Schmidt may dominate the market along with the European branches of American giants Hasbro and Mattel, the European marketplace seems to support a multitude of smaller companies producing excellent games in modest quantities. Everyone wants a million-seller, but European authors and companies are more likely to value the continued success of a good game that stays around for a while than a flash-in-the-pan icon-linked hot seller that’s gone after two years.
So I’m not really sure if, as Michael Knopf suggested, the success in Germany is because the companies are providing good games, or because the players, in large numbers, are keeping the companies and retailers in business. At this stage, it has to be both. What I am sure of is that the media is very supportive of the industry, and the game inventors are recognized for their accomplishments. And that the play of a game is much more important than any licensed character who appears on the box. There are scores of independent game stores all around Germany, and all of them carry a variety of the best and latest games, both for families and serious players. Families play games regularly, and there are countless game-playing groups throughout Germany, making that country one of the most engaged and engaging game-playing communities in the world. I wish the U.S. could follow suit.
