As I mentioned in last month’s Customer Update, GMT is now growing at a pace that is significantly faster than ever before in our history. Although I don’t pretend to understand precisely the mix of factors behind our exploding growth, what I believe is that we are benefitting from a sort of “perfect storm”:
- Popular games and game series’ that are standing the test of time and continuing to sell well as they age
- A growing corps of creative and skilled designers and design teams who continue to hone their craft and bring us innovative new games
- An increasing awareness of our games across the broader game market due to a core group of very popular strategy games as well as the increased customer reach fostered by our expansion into digital products
Of course, these synergies are leveraged by the power of the internet, and more specifically, an increasingly varied and eclectic customer base full of people who enjoy our games and are willing and able as never before to spread the good word about them online through the powerful tools of social media, blogs, YouTube videos, and mass-gamer sites like BoardgameGeek.
In this series of GMT Games State of the Union articles, I’m going to take a look at our games, our design teams, our strategies to increase our ability to embrace and foster growth, and finally the challenges that growth is bringing and how we intend to meet and overcome them. For this Part 1, then, let’s talk about our games.
The games are the product that we ultimately trade for your gaming dollars. Their quality is paramount. The designers of these games (we’ll look at them in detail in our next installment) and their teams are our capacity to continue to create future products. Because of this, they are possibly the most important cog in the GMT machine (although all of our team members are very important) because without them, we would lose the capacity to provide quality designs to our customers. And that’s really what it’s all about; putting consistently high-quality game designs on our customers’ game tables at a pace that we can handle and that meets but does not exceed our customers’ demand.
Now let’s look at the sales of our games in a bit more detail, as we examine where GMT Games stands today.
The Games
First off, our overall sales are increasing this year as never before. 2015, for reference, was one of the three top years ever for us in terms of gross sales. In our first quarter of 2016, we sold 60% of what we sold for all of 2015! (Now you see why we need some new infrastructure and systems – but that’s for Parts 3 and 4).”
Let’s start with a look at our All-Time GMT Best Sellers. For some perspective, back when we began and through the 1990s, all of our print runs were between 2,500 and 5,000 copies, with the larger runs reserved for our GBoH series games, pretty much our most popular games in the early years. And our product line was virtually 100% “wargames”; most but not all were of the “hex and counter” variety.
Our print runs haven’t changed much on the traditional “hex and counter” boardgames we print today. There remains a small but dedicated market for those games, and we continue to encourage designers who love to design wargames to create more to meet that portion of our customer base demand.
It’s clear, though, when you look at our all-time best-selling games, that it’s our non-traditional wargames, our card-driven strategy games, and our Euro and family games that have driven our growth over the past ten years or so. Although we occasionally hear from wargamers who bemoan our printing other types of games, it was the decision to do so – starting with Paths of Glory back in 1999 – that opened the door to more customers, growth, and the capacity to profitably print more wargames.
Our Best Sellers
Here’s a look at our best-sellers, with approximate lifetime sales.
| Ranking | Game | Approximate Sales to Date |
| 1 | Twilight Struggle | 100 K |
| 2 | Battle Line | 40 K |
| 3 | Dominant Species | 25 K |
| 4 | C&C Ancients (Base game) | 20 K |
| 5 | Paths of Glory | 16 K |
| 6 | Combat Commander: Europe | 13 K |
| 7 | Wilderness War | 11 K |
| 8 | Labyrinth | 11 K |
| 9 | Thunder Alley | 9.5 K |
| 10 | Formula Motor Racing | 9 K |
| 11 | Ivanhoe | 9 K |
| 12 | C&C Napoleonics (Base game) | 9 K |
| 13 | Washington’s War | 9 K |
| 14 | Here I Stand | 8.5 K |
| 15 | C&C Ancients Expansion 1 | 8.5 K |
Twilight Struggle is The Boss
So, clearly, Jason and Ananda’s T
wilight Struggle – the game that has broken all of our sales trend models – has been the biggest hit for us. But the impact this game is having on our company can’t be measured only by total sales. Twilight Struggle is the game – surprisingly more so than our more traditional Euro or family offerings – that has really put us on the map with the BGG gamer base (which is many times larger than our traditional wargamer customer base).
It’s also the only game we’ve ever produced for which we have printed more copies in each successive print run (we’re on our 9th printing now!). Most games sell 50% or more of their copies in the first month after release, with a downward sales curve over time after that. Twilight Struggle, though, continues to surpass its initial month’s sales (which weren’t really all that great at the time, actually) on a monthly basis; the game continued to sell at an increasing pace, even before the launch of the PC/Mac/iOS versions by Playdek this spring. As an example, Tony and I decided late last year to reprint 22,000 copies of Twilight Struggle – what we anticipated would be about a 1.5 year supply if sales trends continued. We got the games into our warehouse in December. And they sold like hotcakes, even better than we’d projected. By April, we were sold out! For us, even given the historical sales trajectory of Twilight Struggle, this was a stunning acceleration!
Something you always love to see in business is a “mature” product that continues to outsell the new products. We only have one of those – Twilight Struggle – but it’s a keeper!
The digital release of Twilight Struggle has been amazing for buzz and branding for us, but because of that massive upswing in sales pace between December and April, we don’t have any copies of the boardgame to sell (We’re printing 26K more now)! But the digital sales have been tremendous and have brought thousands of new players who had never heard of Twilight Struggle into the TS player base. Based on what we are hearing from many of them, they’ll get physical copies too – once we get the game back in stock. And of course, once folks see and like ONE of our games, it opens up lots of possibilities with the rest of our game catalog, as well. So this massive (for us) exposure of Twilight Struggle – even with some of the hiccups we had with the (ugh!) Kickstarter process – has really been good for GMT. And we think the best is yet to come.
A Common Thread
Let’s go back to the rest of the games on the best-seller list. #2 – Battle Line is a fast-playing Euro/family strategy card game. #3– Dominant Species is a deep strategy game, again themed and aimed at the Euro/family market. #4 – Commands & Colors Ancients is a lighter wargame, dressed up a bit with blocks, stickers, and cards – aimed at both wargamers and the crossover Euro/family market. #5 – Paths of Glory is a brilliant card-driven strategy wargame by Ted Raicer, aimed initially at our wargame customers, but over time embraced by many “crossover” strategy gamers as well. #6 – Combat Commander is the coolest hex-and-counter tactical wargame I’ve ever played (admittedly, I’m a tad biased). But because of the amazing system that Chad Jensen created – a game that immerses you in a new story every time you play – this series has gained a foothold among “crossover” Euro players as well.
As you look down the rest of the best-seller list, you see more two more awesome strategy CDGs from Volko Ruhnke, a wildly popular strategy racing game with a cool set of Euro mechanics (thanks Jeff and Carla Horger!), a couple of Reiner Knizia fast-action family games (Ivanhoe is still the game our family takes on vacation, and we’ve taught virtually all of our children’s friends how to play over the years), two classic strategy CDGs from Mark Herman (who created the CDG system that is at the heart of Twilight Struggle and so many other popular best-selling games) and Ed Beach, and more Commands & Colors, courtesy of Richard Borg. ALL of these games have found a fan base that includes but is not limited to our long-time wargame players. And for us, popularity among that much larger crossover game and euro/family strategy game market means increased sales and enhanced opportunities for growth.
Coming Soon to a Bestseller List Near You
So, did you happen to notice what’s not (yet) on that best-seller list? How about:
- Falling Sky
- Fire in the Lake
- A Distant Plain
- Cuba Libre
- Liberty or Death
- (OK, almost ANYTHING in the COIN series!)
- Churchill
- Space Empires
- Talon
- Triumph & Tragedy
These products are all too young in their life cycles to have had enough print runs yet to vault them into the top 15. Most of them have had just one or two print runs and are either sold out or are have just recently been reprinted. But I have no doubt that most of them will be there, over time, as they are VERY popular. (Liberty or Death sold out its first print run of 4,000 games in 37 days earlier this year!) By later this year, most of these will be back in stock and, we hope, bringing fun to thousands more game tables in our expanding customer base.
Whither the Wargamers?
So where does that leave our hex-and-counter wargamers, the guys who’ve been with us since the beginning? Well, I’d contend that it leaves them in a heckuva lot better place than if we were producing only wargames for 2-5 thousand customers, and struggling financially to put out 2-3 games per year. Or worse, out of business, like so many of the companies whose games we played and loved over the past 30+ years. Because of P500, where we’ll print games even if only a relatively small number of gamers want them, we’ll be able to continue to profitably create and produce quality wargames for a long, long, time (and we have quite a few designers who love to create wargames)! And that makes me really happy, because I’M ONE of those guys who loves wargames, although I have to say that there’s not a game on that Top 15 list that I don’t enjoy. But because we make strategy games of all kinds that appeal to many wargamers AS WELL AS a much broader audience, we can be financially stable and put out enough games of many types each year to give virtually all of our customers games they’ll really like every year.
So what’s happening is that those Top 15 games (as well as some other older games) are continuing to sell really well, and the newer games are selling better early in their life cycles than virtually any of our games except Twilight Struggle, and the confluence of those sales means growth and financial stability for GMT.
Innovative, Unique, Eclectic Strategy Games
As I wrap up this Part 1, I want to take just a minute to talk about the TYPES of games we want to create as we move forward. I’ve used the terms “wargames,” “crossover games,” “Euro/ Family games, ” etc, throughout this article. But I want to say that those are only terms that I used to try to characterize or identify the various likes of customers. When we set out to create or produce games, we don’t think of the games in those terms. What we want to bring you are challenging Strategy Games, of all sorts. A lot of them will be military-themed or focused, because the roots and interests of many of our designers lie in that realm.
But we don’t intend to be limited by labels. Rather, across what are currently 51 design teams, we’ll do our best to create games with systems that teach, challenge, surprise, frustrate, and delight you as you play them. Like some of our past games, many of them will be games unique in the history of the hobby, weaving systems and methods familiar and not into a tapestry that brings something new to your game tables on a regular basis. Games like Twilight Struggle and Fire in the Lake and Dominant Species and Talon and Churchill, with plenty more Wing Leaders and Panzers and Next Wars and Operation Dauntless’ and MBTs mixed in. Some of them will be called Pericles and Welcome to Centerville and Next War: Poland and Mr. President and 1846 or 1960. Many more are already on the drawing boards and design tables of our amazingly talented design teams. We’ll talk in depth about those guys, the creators – next time.
For now, suffice to say, on the product side of GMT, considering both the burgeoning sales and the expanding reach of all of our games, and thanks to both our outstanding team members and our loyal and growing customer base, the state of our union is strong.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
July 20, Hanford, CA
Author: Gene Billingsley
I am curious about what is happening with board games. I have been playing them my whole life. Were they not mainstream before? What has changed?
In any event, your company is being rewarded for the quality of your products.
I’m not sure I can adequately explain it either. But it seems to me that the internet, and more specifically social media and big game sites like BGG, have allowed us to bridge the “distance gap” and share our games virtually and vicariously with other gamers around the world.
About 10 years back, I starting playing some of our games online via Cyberboard or VASSAL. I remember my first time playing 3 simultaneous online games of Volko’s Wilderness War (It drove me a little crazy – I wasn’t yet used to keeping several games in my head!). My opponents lived in California, New York, and Sweden. I thought “How cool is this? Maybe it’s the future….” Turns out, it is, and more.
So I think online play and online socializing around and about games has been a huge part of the surge in gaming’s popularity. I’m thankful that GMT exists in a boardgaming world where BGG and social media and VASSAL and Steam/iOS give us such a broader exposure than we had, say 15 years ago.
Best,
Gene
I don’t know how representative I am, but as 2016 dawned I was unaware (consciously, at least) of GMT as a publisher. I now own 7 games, 1 expansion, and have 5 more P500 orders pending. Why? Simply the quality of game and production.
Wow, Bill – that’s awesome! Thanks so much for your support! I hope those games bring you many hours of fun around your game table.
Gene,
I am very happy to see that your commitment to your customers, tothe quality of your games and to your design team is getting rewarded and that GMT Games has taken such a great development!
You provide me with the vast majority of my most-liked games and if the last years are any guide, the best is yet to come! E.g. Churchill suprised me with it’s innovative and tense design and Triumph & Tragedy was a great suprise for me overall! T&T had a wide appeal to various types of gamers: my wargaming friends loved it, my euro-playing friends liked it very much and even non-gamers were highly intrigued. And of course I am forgetting all the other great games of the recent years 🙂
Keep up the good work, it is highly appreciated!
Michael
Thanks Michael! I appreciate your encouragement.
I’m with you on Triumph & Tragedy. It was indeed a bit of a “sleeper,” but wow, Craig and his team delivered a tremendous game! I think it’ll be popular (more so once we get it back in stock) for a long time.
Best,
Gene
Thank you for an informative update on your company
You’re most welcome, Doug. Enjoy the games!
Gene
I am happy to see GMT grow like this. I picked up Combat Commander: Europe, my first GMT game, back in 2008 and have been a loyal customer since.
I was born in 1980 and I missed out on the heyday of hex and counter boardgames. It’s because of Combat Commander that I discovered this genre. I now own dozens of strategy war games both classic and modern.
I have GMT to thank for this hobby and I’ll remain a loyal customer.
Thanks for your kind words and support, Tom! Really glad you found Combat Commander. Best, Gene
Great update. Thank you. I look forward to many more GMT games on my shelves.
Thanks Chris! Really appreciate your support! Best, Gene
Appreciate the comments Gene. I’m an old fashioned Hex guy, but understand modern dynamics – the blowing winds in strategy games – and the newly gained stability.
Enjoy the well deserved success. Now, when I can see the game on Gallipoli 🙂 ?
Ivan
Hi Ivan! Great to hear from you. Thanks for your long-time support. As for Gallipoli, it’s not on our print schedule yet, but I’m thinking once Geoffrey and his team sign off that it’s ready, it won’t take too long. Take Care, Gene
Hello Gene,
As someone who’s been playing and collecting wargames off and on since the mid 1970s and who owns dozens of GMT titles (heck I think I have around 17 on pre-order at the moment), the good fortunes of GMT are music to my ears. The quality of your product is unsurpassed in the industry and I fully support your expansion into other types of games (although my personal definition of “wargames” includes those point to point and card driven strategy games).
I have to admit I had not played “Twilight Struggle” (even though I’ve own it for more than a year) until I recently bought and played the PC version. What got me to finally get this game on the table (or screen in this case)? It was the AWESOME, and I mean AWESOME!!! training tutorial embedded in the game. I wish I had this kind of online instruction for every game I own. What would have taken several hours of reading and 2-3 practice games is accomplished in minutes! I’m not saying I’m ready for the WBC TS tournament or anything, but I know basically how to play the game and the “visual” nature of the instruction makes my retention a lot higher than I get from reading a standard rules book.
I could definitely see the COIN games or other CDGs like “Empire of the Sun” and “Paths to Glory” benefiting from that kind of video tutorial and I hope that’s something GMT is considering.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you are doing! As a (primarily still) hex and counter gamer, you have my unwavering support and I wish you continued growth and success for as long as you have the passion to bring us these wonderful boxes of joy…
Don Brent
Phoenix, AZ
Thanks for your kind remarks, Don. It’s our pleasure to bring you games that bring you enjoyment.
I’m really happy that you enjoyed the TS Tutorial in the digital game. Man, Gary Weis has done such a great job with so many aspects of that project. Gary played TS just about every day at lunch with Randy Stevenson (long-time TS player and SHARK who also worked at Playdek) to get ready for his work on the game. And I think it really shows. He’s put so many things in there that TS players appreciate – and the AI – watch out, it’s going to get a LOT better. Gary beat me the last time we played TS – he’s good. And I think he’s the right guy to translate that, over time, into a really good AI opponent for even more veteran players.
That’s a good idea about video tutorials for some of our other games. I know there are some on YouTube already, but not official GMT productions. I’ll definitely think on that….
Thanks again for taking the time to comment. I appreciate your suggestions and your long-time support!
Enjoy the games!
Gene
One more Comment. I still have my copy of Operation Shoestring…
Ivan
I believe you, Ivan. I remember you from the early days of GMT!
Gene
Gene,
Thanks very much for this very interesting article. I started out in board games with Avalon Hill’s “square and miniature ship” U-Boat board game in 1960, followed a few weeks later by “square and round counter” Tactics II! I’ve been a hex and counter gamer ever since, and I love hex and counter games. I’m really looking forward to the new edition of Silver Bayonets! Another early game was Avalon Hill’s Dispatcher “section block and counter” railroading game, a game I still play more than 50 years later. More recently my go-to game company is GMT with a wide selection of great, high-quality games from innovative designers, and customer service without parallel!
As a life-long fan of hex and counter games, I am proud to say that I have added card-driven and card-assisted games to my repertoire for game nights. As I have mentioned elsewhere, Churchill has edged Paths of Glory down a notch on my all-time favorite games list, and Wilderness War and Twilight Struggle are right up near the top, as is Here I Stand when we can get six players to commit for a weekend. I’m really enjoying the COIN games, and looking forward to Colonial Twilight to see if it can push A Distant Plain off of my counter-insurgency game table.
As an old, mostly retired bureaucrat, I’m eager to put Mr. President on my political game table, and see if it gives Churchill a run for its money on the top of my all-time list.
I confess I’m a certified game nut, I enjoy games of all types and topics, and I just hope there are still some games left in the inventory when the Fall Sale rolls around in a couple of months!
As for some games I don’t have, but would like to play, here are a few ideas for your design teams to contemplate and perhaps become inspired to tackle:
Mexican Revolution, any type: COIN, or card-driven similar to Wilderness War, or hex and counter similar to Reds or The Spanish Civil War; truth be told, I would buy all three types if these were available. I am enjoying Tierra y Libertad, published in Mexico a few years ago, and I would like to have GMT games on this topic.
Thirty Years War similar to Here I Stand and Virgin Queen for a complete trilogy on the Wars of Religion.
Combat Commander China-Burma-India, with fate decks for Stilwell-trained Chinese.
There is a real shortage of Coup games, Jim Dunnigan and SPI made a reasonable start in the mid-70s, but a modern game using current gaming ideas and methods would be on my must-have list.
Espionage game: MI-6, MI-5, and all the rest, not a spoof game playing out a JB adventure, but a serious espionage game, I’d even enjoy a game on inter-agency in-fighting, but I’m a P500 of 1 on that sort of game …
And lastly, again as a P500 of 1, I’d buy an update of Dispatcher, especially if it included historical railroads.
Many thanks for all the great games, and keep them coming!!
Jan
A CDG on the Thirty Years War, you say? https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2748/thirty-years-war-europe-agony-1618-1648
Hi Aaron,
GMT’s Thirty Years War is a very nice game as far as it goes on the continental side of things, actually the Central European side of things, and I recently acquired a used copy in excellent condition from a friend as part of a new project I’ve added to my to-do list for developing a linkage between campaigning on the Thirty Years War map and then fighting out resulting battles using the Musket and Pike tactical games. This is sort of way on the back burner at the moment, but I’m hopeful that it will come to fruition in the fullness of time!
I’m also enjoying GMT’s Unhappy King Charles, especially with the new mounted map.
What I would like for a Wars of Religion trilogy would be a six-player multi-faction Ed Beach-style extravaganza similar to Here I Stand and Virgin Queen. This one might have a little different flavor, because some of the powers might be very pre-occupied on internal affairs for part of the game, English Civil War for example, but still, an extension of Virgin Queen into the final throes of the war leading to the Peace of Westphalia would be the icing on the cake that started with Here I Stand.
Meanwhile I have plenty to work with between Thirty Years War and Musket and Pike, along with Unhappy King Charles!
Enjoy your games!
Jan
Thanks for the feedback and game ideas, Jan. I’m really happy that we’re making games that you like. And thanks for your support and feedback this past year on Mr. President! As to espionage games, I have something like that on my to-do list after Mr. President – more of a mix of counter-terror and espionage, though. But it’s quite a ways off – MP gets priority.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
While this is a very informative update I find it difficult to square my own Kickstarter experience for Twilight Struggle with the “amazing” experience reported here. Two years after paying my money to support this project I, and many other overseas backers, have been left without a copy of the iOS game and, weeks after promises were made, no refund or even a response to a single email. In this instance, unusually, GMT (along with Playdek) have fallen far short of the expected level of customer service – the experience will definitely make me think twice when considering future purchases.
Hi Phil! Thanks for taking the time to write. I’m really sorry you’ve had trouble with the Kickstarter. I talked with Playdek yesterday, and as far as I know, they solved a mass payment problem with Paypal and are sending out refunds this weekend. You should be getting an update from them soon, if you don’t have it already. Again, really sorry for the trouble.
Best Regards,
Gene
Well i am a hex and counter wargamer since 1974 when i came accross wooden ships and iron men. long before GMT. I have a lot of wargames but my BGG top 10 goes
#1: Talon
#2: Space Empires: 4X
#3: Axis Empires: Totaler Krieg!
#4: Paths of Glory
#5: Battlestations
#6: The Napoleonic Wars
#7: For the People
#8: Swords and Bagpipes
#9: Pandemic
#10: Heroes of Normandi
A lot of those are the newer GMT games. I never thought anything would push Totaller krieg off my top spot… but Talon and Space Empires 4X are really great games.. and can be played without me needing to lock up the dining room for days with games left out while i wait for opponents to find just a few more hours.
And FTP/PoG are prob played much more than TK! by me now! and yes in PoG the war really can be over by Christmas if schlieffen Plan falls just right.
Keep up the way you are.. I love a lot of these new games.. as well as the old hex n counter
That’s a good list, Jef! Really glad you’re having fun with Talon and Space Empires. Jim Krohn is such an excellent, creative designer, and a joy to work with. Nice to see a few of our CDGs on your list, too!
I hear you on hex and counter wargames. I still love them, too. Every once in a while I just want to play something with a detailed system that makes me feel like I’m playing an old Victory Games game. It’s one of the things I really like about Jim’s Panzer and MBT. They’re detailed and I can geek out on their detailed simulation for a while, but you can play the scenarios pretty quickly, so I can get my “detailed game” fix without having to commit to leaving a game set up overnight. I love the Next War and East Front series, too, but THOSE I have to leave set up, and I just don’t have as much time or space for that as I used to! And for operational-level single-sitting games, I love ANYTHING by Mark Simonitch.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
Is 1989 next for you guys to port to iOS/Steam?
Keep up the good work.
I’m not sure what’s next for us with Playdek, Gordon. Right now finishing all the different platforms and getting the various expansion digital content for our Kickstarter backers is the most important thing on their plate. I’ve had a few general conversations with them about what might be next, but we all agreed just to table that for now while they take care of making Twilight Struggle the best it can be. I’d guess that a couple months down the road, as most of that is winding down, we’ll start talking more seriously about what’s next. And naturally because of the system similarities, 1989 will at least be considered, although I think maybe Labyrinth might be a stronger product. It’s really going to come down to what they WANT to do and what they think fits their resources best.
Thanks my take for now.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
I take it you haven’t played Maneouvre yet? 🙂
Only several dozen times, Aaron! Although I seem to lose a lot! 🙂 I really like it. Jeff did a great job on it. Hoping to see someone pick it up someday for a digital game – I think it would really shine there.
Best,
Gene
Dear Gene,
Upon the demise of Avalon Hill in 1998 I asked the owner of Boulder Games in Lizella(?) Georgia who was producing the best wargames at that time. Unfortunately, I can’t remember his name but I do remember he recommended GMT as the company most likely to pick up the mantle. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. To date I own over 100 GMT products (with more on preorder). Congratulations on your success and keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Robert
Wow, Robert! Over 100 of our games! You’re my hero! Thanks so much for your support over the years and for your kind words. I hope our games bring you many more hours of fun around your game table.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
Gene,
I have played 60 games plus of Twilight Struggle digital version already. It has an awesome AI. I do think Playdek is a perfect partner with GMT in translating the game mechanics and gameplay AI, as so evidenced before in Battleline. While 1989 and Labyrinth are my absolute buy if they churn out, is there any plan with the COIN system? I think the AI can work very well in that system with evaluations of the minimax situations.
Lawrence,
60 games already of digital TS! Wow! Really glad you’re enjoying the AI – I hope Gary sees your comment.
Regarding COIN, I’d love to see a digital version for the series, and have spoken with Volko about it. Alas, no digital partners yet, but absolutely looking for one.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
If you were ever to get a digital implementation of Liberty or Death, you would be my hero. I’m working my way through it’s COIN system, but man, it’s been a struggle, and, the only “how to” video out there focuses on the playthrough provided by the game designers.
Current count is 87 GMT games including 4 Combat Commander Battle Packs and the Eagle of Lille expansion pack, with a whole slew on pre-order and the Fall Sale coming up. I doubt I’ll ever catch up with Robert though! The oldest GMT game in my collection is an original un-punched Silver Bayonet that I acquired a couple of years ago, and the next newest one is likely to be the anniversary edition of Silver Bayonet, two copies!
Nice bookends to your collection there, Jan Paul (admittedly I’m a little biased! 🙂 ). And 87 is an impressive number. Thanks, as always, for your support!
Best,
Gene
I just read this article and the second part in the email and they are very informative and I actually learned a lot and you make perfect since. I love your games especially the GBOH and EFS I have all of the EFS and will probably still buy the reprinted ones and I have most of the GBOH or at least the ones on the time periods that I like, I mainly like Hex and counter but I do play Twilight struggle on the computer now. Just keep up the good work and improving I hope you out grow your buildings because you get that big and need more staff.
Thanks for your kind words and well-wishes, Mike. We definitely have more hex and counter games on the way. Thanks for your support!
Enjoy the games!
Gene
Gene-
In regard to your July 21 Update from GMT Games, “so what’s the deal with games that keep getting delayed”, I understand that you want to produce complete and well-developed games and I’m willing to wait for those new designs to be as good as they can be. However, my beef is with reprints of out-of-print games: why the delay with tried and true games that have sold out and then gain a few hundred P500 pledges for the reprints? Why does it take months for reprints of already well-received and well-developed games like Unconditional Surrender, Churchill, and Navajo Wars to be ready for purchase?
With those, Joe, it’s almost always a funding issue. When we have enough set aside in strategic reserve, we can reprint. We supplement that with P500 Reprint orders (and when we get a lot of those for a game, it REALLY helps), but remember, these are virtually never to the same sales volume as an initial run P500 game. So it’s a lot harder to fund the roughly 50K it takes to do a reprint game than it is to do that with a new one.
Now there are times where we do a 2nd edition that is a MAJOR overhaul of the original – such as Fields of Fire, for example. In a case like that, there’s a lot of extra work to be done, and it can run into the same problems I listed for new games.
But usually, on a reprint, it’s just that we have a lot of games out of print and only so much money to print a few of them. Last year, we reprinted to get a bunch of our CDGs back in stock, plus a massive (for us) 8th printing of Twilight Struggle. Then we reprinted several of Mark Simonitch’s operational games, plus Deluxe Alexander. And then this spring, we got a couple of COIN series games (ADP and CL) reprinted, and then just this past month, the reprint edition of Panzer. Next month we are reprinting C&C Napoleonics plus the 3rd printing of Labyrinth, then in September we have the 3rd printing of Sekigahara. And so on. So we are actually reprinting a ton of games; they’re just running out faster than we can reprint. There are limited funds for limited reprint slots, so we have to prioritize. And no matter how we do that, or seemingly how quickly, we still end up with quite a few out of print games that end up waiting on funds.
Tony and I are gradually expanding our print runs, but we have to be careful. We also don’t want to overprint and waste money.
I hope this info helps.
Enjoy the games!
Gene
Thanks for the explanation. I’m frustrated because I can’t get my hands on more GMT games fast enough! And I’m not talking about games that need an overhaul- I meant the proven winners like Unconditional Surrender, etc. It’s been out of print for a long time.
You said: “So we are actually reprinting a ton of games; they’re just running out faster than we can reprint.” I would think that indicates that there’s already a demand out there for those out of print games which is why I question the delay for reprints. Running out of games too fast seems to be a good “problem” for you to have.
This was so nice to read. GMT probably got me back into wargames in the late ’90s, after I thought I had left board wargames behind forever. And I was playing stuff like Blitzkrieg and Panzerblitz in the early/ mid ’70s when I was 8 years old…
We’ll never see that kind of heyday for wargames again, but we are certainly in the greatest boardgame heyday of my life. I can definitely say that GMT’s ‘deluxe’ releases are higher quality than maybe any wargames made up to this time. AH, in the early days (I mean ’60s/ early ’70s) had great boards (my dad’s old copy of Blitzkrieg, which I have had since I was a kid, has boards so heavy they would lay flat after a nuclear war), but their counters were frequently cut offset.
We (wargamers) are spoiled nowadays by the physical quality of the games, for sure, and most especially by GMT. Thanks for being such a large part of my life. Maybe I’m lucky, but I have yet to be disappointed by a P500 preorder.
You are most welcome, Mike! And thank you, for the kind words as well as for your support over many years!
I’m really glad you like the quality of our deluxe editions. Like you, when I open up their boards, I think back to those times in the 70s opening up the Avalon Hill classics. I spent many hours trying to lead Great Blue or Big Red to victory over that Blitzkrieg board. Back then, I thought that map was the most fascinating game map I’d ever seen. (That changed when Third Reich came out!). For me, it’s a big compliment for our games to be mentioned in the context of the quality of AH of my youth. Thanks again!
Enjoy the games!
Gene
Congrats, Gene! As someone who has been with you guys since the original printings of Silver Bayonet/Airbridge to Victory/Operation Shoestring (and I still own all three), I’m happy you guys are still around. I’m one of the hex-and-counter wargamers you mention, but I must say that I like the eclectic mix you have. The older I get, the less time I have to read, learn, and play “hardcore” wargames, especially those with multimap campaigns. I’m finding the single (hardmounted preferably) map games more workable and just as engrossing, especially the COIN series, which I find brilliant. Here’s to another 30 years.
I’ve been a GMT customer ever since the company’s inception and bought almost all of your wargame titles (and gotten quite a few non-wargames through your holiday sales) and the quality of your products just keeps getting higher and higher. Most recently I have received MBT via P500 and am blown away by how much got packed in that box. I still have my older game for Avalon Hill but can already tell you I am not sure I can go back to it after my first few playthroughs of the newer version. As a die-hard fan of PANZER, it was quite easy to pick up. I’ve also appreciated your forays into more arcane topics and your devotion to upgrades (e.g., WON BY THE SWORD update package) — it’s not often we see such commitment to customers such as GMT has demonstrated in this particular example. The stable of products is top-notch and, yes, your older titles still compete with the newer ones for time/space on the game table! Thanks for reprinting the older stuff via P500 because so many of these titles are still finding new players as those of us who love them share play experiences in clubs, conventions, and in our homes!
I’ve bought more GMT games over the years for a few reasons. I can get easy access to the rules, the modules are on Vassal, the components are top notch, and the games are the cream of the crop in war gaming and they push the boundaries of what’s available.