New Board Games:
Agricola : World Championship Deck Expansion
Call of Cthulhu LCG – Words of Power Asylum Pack
Hive Pocket
Maya
Revolver: The Wild West Gunfighting Game
Masters of Commerce
Labyrinth 25th Anniversary Edition
Nations at War – White Star Rising
Zombie Survival 2 : There Goes the Neighborhood
Seeland
Just got another article up, with a list of games for large groups. I’ve restricted the list to games that come pre-built for large groups (i.e. more than 6) rather than games that can expand to accommodate large groups. I’ve also restricted the games to the easier to learn type; rather than more complex games like Arkham Horror as I assume most large group games like these will include at least a few non-gamers.
Let me know what you think of the list. I’ll also be updating some of our lists soon too – there’s been a few new games since we wrote them in 2007 that I think should replace some of those we originally listed.
This is a ‘best practice’ article in many ways, but delves into something I’ve discussed before – negotiating. One of the most important aspcets of negotiating is understanding the motivations & incentives of the parties involved. As an example, let’s talk about leasing & the commercial real estate market. There are basically 3 parties (sometimes 4); involved in negotiating a lease.
The Landlords
The landlord’s motivation is simple – he’s there to rent his space for the most amount possible. Now, depending on the landlord; he might value this amount in the short-term (i.e. the most money he can get per month) or long-term (taking into account ‘down-time’ when the space is empty and the most over the terms of the lease). He might also value his time and peace-of-mind (i.e. long term tenants who are quiet) quite highly.
So, time, money & peace-of-mind are his 3 major motivations.
The Lessee
The Lessee wants a good space, he wants a location that he can likely grow into (if they’re thinking of growth) and the least onerous terms possible including the lowest rent. Depending on the lessee; they might also value peace-of-mind and certainly want to mitigate potential risk factors as much as possible.
His incentive is his bottom-line and any risk mitigation possible
The Realtor’s
The realtor works for the landlord generally, posting his listing in an attempt to find a lessee for the landlord. His motivation is the sale. There’s also a secondary motivation – a desire for continuing business from the landlord and to a much lesser extent, the lessee. How much they value each of the above is dependent on the realtor obviously; but here’s where incentives come into play in a large part.
The realtor is paid by the landlord as a percentage (%) of the final lease. As such, he is incentivised is to get the highest possible lease rate for the landlord; especially when you consider that the landlord likely has multiple locations to lease.
At the Table
At the table, as a lessee you need to realise that while the Realtor might sound like he’s working for you; his greatest incentive is to get the highest lease amount possible. Close behind that is keeping the landlord happy (not necessarily the same thing). He is not greatly incentivised to make you happy . Understanding these motivations allow you to approach the negotiation in the right frame of mind, allowing you to get a better deal.
This is true in any negotiation of course, especially when there are multiple parties involved and there often are. It’s also why creating the proper incentives for salespeople is important.
New Board Games:
Gold!
Coney Island
Agricola : NL Deck Expansion
Pathfinder Player Companion : Blood of Fiends
Who’s Got Game? The Game with Benefits
Tschak!
Catan – Junior!
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Isles of the Shackles
Pathfinder Adventure Path : Skulls and Shackles – The Wormwood Mutiny
Pathfinder Module: The Midnight Mirror
Munchkin Zombies : Kill-O-Meter
Fantasy Flight Deck Box : White
Fantasy Flight Deck Box : Red
Fantasy Flight Deck Box : Green
Fantasy Flight Deck Box : Blue
Fantasy Flight Deck Box : Black
Knowing you like seeing things like this, thought I’d post the latest updates on what has been selling. This is by Quantity by Manufacturer, so someone like Mayday Games with their dozens of sleeves pop-up really high. Same with FFG with their multiple LCGs and sleeves and huge collection of games. Still, figured you’d find it interesting:
PS : Click on the pie chart to see the original; larger version.
Let’s talk about marketing again. Specifically, what I’d like to term Passive & Active marketing. No, they’re not real terms but it’s a distinction I occasionally use in my mind.
Passive & Active Marketing
The difference between passive and active marketing is the way those tactics bring customers in. Passive marketing continually draws customers in due to its nature by building the company’s brand, while active marketing if turned off would result in no customers at all. Here’s a few examples:
Passive: Blogs, Videos & SEO
Active: Social Media Marketing & Adwords
Now, this obviously isn’t a direct correlation – some Active marketing like the Social Media marketing does help build the brand; but it also requires a larger commitment of time and continuous management. Same with Adwords to some extent – you can turn it on quite easily and not manage it; but if you ever stopped investing in it, you’d get no additional customers due to its very nature.
Passive marketing on the other hand builds the brand and is ‘consistent’ in its returns. In some ways, banner advertising falls under that category by building an impression of the company with your customers. There’s long terms return from this type of marketing; but it can often take a long-time to take off. SEO for example requires consistent work for a long period before you notice any actual difference – but also has a large amount of inertia behind it (generally speaking – we won’t discuss algorithm changes here).
Implementation
Theoretically, you could only use one or the other form of marketing and build a company. However, I’ve found it more useful to balance both forms – passive marketing is great but takes such a long time, while active marketing brings immediate short-term returns but doesn’t add to your long-term results.
Another way to view this is via the sales funnel and where you are ‘stuffing’ customers in. A lot of active marketing targets customers as they are in the later stages of their decision process – pushing them to ‘buy’ now. Passive marketing works to ‘stuff’ customers in in the earlier stages, increasing the total number of customers in the funnel.
By only using passive marketing, you might increase the demand for board games but you also lose many of those customers when they finally make the purchase. On the other hand, only using active marketing means you continually fight for the same few customers with your competitors – a nasty business of diminishing returns.
This week’s subject is Ascension: Chronicles of the Godslayer, a deckbuilder developed by former Magic: The Gathering champions that maintains the feel of the popular CCG without the expense and complexity.
We just released a new article – the Top 10 Science Fiction Board Games. I’ve been playing with that list for ages now; but till recently hadn’t been that excited about that many SciFi games. Now, I’d say there’s a pretty good number out there, and some that I feel are quite fun to play. Thus the list.
Have fun reading and do feel free to comment.
New Board Games:
Warhammer Invasion LCG : Rising Dawn
The Penny Arcade DBG : Rumble in R’lyeh
Dust Warfare Core Rulebook
Pathfinder : Midgard Bestiary
Ultra Pro Deck Box – Solid Green
Marvel HeroClix: Avengers Movie Starter Set
This week we have a video review of the popular TV show board game Battlestar Galactica. It’s a highly evocative board game and one of our most consistent and popular bestsellers. Enjoy!
Starlit Citadel
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