All remaining copies of I3M to be burned.

[Henry J Cobb]

So you can either buy a copy of Imperium, 3rd Millennium now for $7.50,
or wait until July 4th when the remainders will be burned.

http://www.avalanchepress.com/

Talk about a tough choice.

-HJC

[Fred Kiesche]

Greetings:

Tough choice? Talk about idiotic management of your
inventory, etc.! What a waste of company resources!

Fred Kiesche (FPK3)

My books are water; those of great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water. (Mark Twain, "Notebook")
Over 6,000 postings served! See The Eternal Golden Braid (http://theeternalgoldenbraid.blogspot.com/ ).

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[Fred Kiesche]

Greetings:

Well, despite the fact that I already have the game
twice over via GDW ("...those were the days, my
friends, we'd thought they'd never end..."), I placed
an order for the Avalanche version. Hopefully they'll
find homes in the future as I cultivate future gamers!

[kmfrye]

I agree with Fred - how DAFT are they at Avalanche? Or is this a very
clever stunt?

Regards,
Keith F.

[Martin Gallo]

I am not sure they are daft on this. I think the decision to burn has
more to do with issues of shelf life/diminishing returns and shelf
space (in the warehouse).

It is known that as a game ages, its sales potential decreases, at
least until it becomes a collectible treasure - but that can take
years. What this means, making up numbers, is that upon initial
release a game might sell 50% of its print run in the first month or
so. The next quarter it might sell roughly 30% of the remaining stock
and in the next half year it might sell 15% of its remaining stock,
after that, it might sell 5% per year of remaining stock. Sometimes,
if too many games are printed, there may be 100's of copies in the
warehouse that only sell one or two copies a year. These numbers are
probably valid somewhere, but the idea is that sales decrease non-
linearly with time. This means that money brought in for a given game
decreases with time.

Balanced against this is warehouse space. Games take up space in a
warehouse until sold and warehouses cost money. The better the
climate/control, the more expensive they get. Not many consumers want
to buy a game that has been in a hot and humid warehouse for a year
or so. Since warehouse leases are generally fixed in cost/term, space
is finite. As new games are produced, they have to be stored.

Combine those two facts and you can arrive at a situation where a
game occupies more space (and therefore costs more money to keep)
than it is bringing in in sales. In some (valid) business models,
that is a very bad thing.

In an ideal world, the stock levels of existing games would diminish
at a rate that allows new product to be brought in without cramping
anyone's style. We should all have learned by now that the world is
not ideal - if it were a tiny bit closer, supermodels would play games.

I do not know why I felt the need to type all of that so do not ask.

Marty

"If you haven't got your health, at least you have something to talk
about."

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't
matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Love is a full time job, with fringe benefits.

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to
make them all yourself."

[Jeffrey]

Stunt I think, one way to get people to buy games at the end of their
runs.

[Henry J Cobb]

Jeffrey wrote:
> Stunt I think, one way to get people to buy games at the end of their
> runs.

And it seems to have worked.

http://www.avalanchepress.com/newsletter/letter.php?date=20060706
"Sales volume has been enormous for Imperium, Red Steel, Cannibal and
America Triumphant - so much that our normal order and shipping
process is completely overwhelmed. We're going to halt the sales of
these four games but not burn them just yet, to make sure everyone who
wants one has their chance. Later this week sales will re-open for a
brief final fling before the flames climb into the Virginia sky."

-HJC

[Henry J Cobb]

And here's the background story.

http://www.avalanchepress.com/ThePrecious.php
"Imperium as released is overly complex, the inevitable result of
design-by-committee; committees are great at blamestorming, less so at
creative work. We later issued simple space and planetary combat rules
that bring it closer to what it should have been and with them it plays
nicely. It sold very well, mostly thanks to beautiful artwork, and has
spawned any number of fan websites proving that they, too, have "lots
of ideas." What it could not generate was a series, due to both
license issues and the game's flaws. And so we've decided not to
reprint it, to sell off its remaining stock and not renew its license."

-HJC

[Fred Kiesche]

"We're going to halt the sales of these four games but
not burn them just yet, to make sure everyone who
wants one has their chance."

O.K., so let me get this straight...

(1) Sales were good given the new price (which might
mean that you ought to extend the sale price to a
permanent level...maybe older games would sell if the
price went down)

(2) But, sales were good, so were going to "halt the
sales"? Halt the sale price? Halt selling them?

(3) And, sales were good, so we're going to burn them
anyway?

I don't think I'll be doing any business with these
folks in the future. The whole thing stinks of dead
fish to me.

Fred Kiesche (FPK3)

My books are water; those of great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water. (Mark Twain, "Notebook")

Over 7,000 postings served! See The Eternal Golden Braid (http://theeternalgoldenbraid.blogspot.com/ ).

[Fred Kiesche]

"...committees are great at blamestorming, less so at
creative work..."

And some game companies are great at blaming
everything but themselves.

They wanted to make a series out of it? Sounds like a
pretty silly idea. But the whole game industry is
enamored with franchises and the Gillette "blades and
razor" approach.

Hey, maybe they should have done "Imperium: The
Collectible Card Game"!