This weekend Amazon’s Holiday Dash catalog (deadtree edition) showed up in the RockyMountainNavy snail-mail box. My first reaction was a smile as I fondly recalled how excited I always was to see the Toys ‘R Us catalog every Christmas season back when I was but a wee young RockyMountainNavy Gamer. Given that I am now far (very far!) from those young gamer days, and the RMN Boys are much older too (but no grandkids, H-E-double toothpicks NO!), I was ready to throw the catalog into the trash recycle bin when I instead casually thumbed a few pages. Much to my surprise I found a boardgame. No, not a mass-market boardgame from Ha$bro or Di$ney but an honest-to-goodness hobby boardgame. Intrigued, I thumbed through the entire catalog. Here are a few impressions.
Wingspan spreads wings…
The hobby boardgame I found was Wingspan (Elizabeth Hargrave, Stonemaier Games) on page 6 right next to a Sesame Street Monster Meditation Elmo. Wingspan is the first boardgame—hobby or mass-market—one finds in the catalog. Does that show a widespread acceptance of hobby boardgaming? That’s probably reading too much into the product placement in the catalog but it’s a hope. I recognize that the Holiday Dash catalog is aimed at a younger crowd but finding Wingspan, rated for ages 14+, seemingly signaled an older audience was also targeted. I kept looking for more.
…but Ha$bro and Di$ney take the money
Alas, perusing the rest of the Holiday Dash catalog shows that Ha$bro and Di$ney clearly maintain a innovation-killing stranglehold on the mass-market gaming segment. One does find Catan (page 30) on the “Customers’ Most-Loved” page opposite page 31 which is fully dedicated to wholly unoriginal Ha$bro games. There obviously are limits to just how far mainstream hobby boardgaming goes.
Toy Fair affairs
On a somewhat related note, this weekend I read the article on ICV2 “TOY FAIR LEAVING NEW YORK AFTER OVER 100 YEARS” which reports: “The Toy Association is moving Toy Fair out of New York after the next show, and is also changing dates from its current Fall schedule, the organization announced at this year’s show. Toy Fair has been held in New York City since 1903.” For those who don’t know, Toy Fair is THE toy industry event where manufacturers and publishers show off their product to gin up major retailer orders for the next year. The article points out, “…Toy Fair’s key audiences find the most value in a North American trade event taking place in the first quarter of the year, ideally mid-January.” Though the hobby boardgame world has its own industry event—GAMA Expo—Toy Fair is the 800 lb gorilla in the larger toy industry. One would think that the big toy companies would be all-in at Toy Fair—until you read this tidbit:
Neither Hasbro nor Mattel, the two largest U.S. toy companies, exhibited at Toy Fair this year, although the Association reported that pre-registrations were up 7% over the 2020 event (see “Fall Shows“). It appeared to us that the number of game companies was down from Toy Fair 2020 this year, likely due to the proximity of the dates to Spiel Essen, which kicks off this Thursday, October 5, only two days after Toy Fair wraps.
It remains to be seen if the move of dates for Toy Fair brings the gaming industry back into the show and how it will impact—or not—GAMA Expo.
Spiel it out
Talking about Spiel Essen, thanks to BoardGameGeek we can search a comprehensive listing of the many(!) games being brought to the show this year. As of the time I write this post there are 1217 titles in the preview list. Since I am a Grognard, I wondered about the wargames coming to Essen. As I am in North America it is harder for me to get wargames from Europe but the few I have in hand I really enjoy. I wondered what am I missing?
Alas, Essen proves that wargames are just as much a niche in Europe as they are in the U.S., perhaps even more so. Of the 1217 titles listed, a simple filter on “Category – Wargame” reduces the list to a mere 44 titles (3.6%).
- Of those 44 titles, I am “Not Interested” in 22 titles because of either 1) subject or theme, or 2) I already own the game.
- I am “Undecided” on 14 of 44 titles, and “Interested” in six (6) titles.
- I rated only two titles “Must Have” which includes General Orders: World War II (Benjamin & Thompson, Osprey Games) which I already have on pre-order and Assault Sicily 43 (Wolfgang Klein & Eric Rankl, Assault Games).
I almost put Vuca Simulations Red Strike on the “Must Have” list but I am hesitant because, as much as I like the subject matter, I don’t know if I will ever get another 2,000 counter wargame to the table…
Feature image courtesy Amazon Holiday Dash, page 6
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