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    Strafeby ICS ic ie-ie son rena mae Tai ee a so ne BACKGROUND ON S&T Nrs, 16817 by Christoper Wagner NUMBER SIXTEEN This fsuo as especially designed as 8 give ny at the Hobby Show We wanted Avalon- Fittoriantec! material 10 fit in with the Ak booth, and we did have a [ot of articles whch toe ware poing 10 spread out in future Insies fnyhow, The lateview with Tom Shaw gives ome limited. insight into the “Avalon Hil ftitude at the time, ond ie fay frank and ‘pen. tor of times, we make Tom out vo be the bad guy, He wasn't, Tom looked on the {omes as 8 busines: we looked at them more fa cause, We were, for the most part, sediated nuts, and Tom was cast In the role ‘of the unfeting entrepreneur despite the fact ‘that S47 could not hve gotten subscriber ‘number one without his help and intercession ‘with the AH, manegement on 2 number of [Although the new printer charged us 20% ‘more than lohneon Printing, ne. dolivered barely on time, 1 loaded up miy Renault and headed non-stop to The Chicago Hobby Show ‘vith only” enough space for me andthe ‘opazines, displays, price its, ot. In order to ‘et all that stu, | borrewad 85,000 from the focal banc over my signature, and conrted Low Zocchv ut of $1,000 of his Bate of Britain foyaltias a+ on Investmont. Aor thee long oy, we had 9 dolor partcfpationg of about ‘26% of my minimum estimate, we ad Avalon Hil's representatives handling S&T, and we hod spent every last dime of the capital worked up (except for enough to adverts Jn othee magazines, and 9 reve for publics tion of the next lxve of SBT). We returned home and wate “The results of thie final push were almost entirely napative, Dealer circulating never tom- ‘ea 1,000 copies A.H.s representatives never {21d 2 single magazine for us. Wo had over 4000 displays that cost 80 cents apiece on our hands. We printed. too. many. mapazines in ‘ntiipation ‘of orders whieh "rover materia Izod. ‘The adverising for Battle of Britain just broke even. We had just enough money to print the next iste. efore I ever stared laying it out | new it would be the last. NUMBER SEVENTEEN Redmond and | decked 10 wy 10 tot him layout this isue trom a distance | estimate the ‘exuied liniage and sent the gies t0 im #0 psteup. We were now on our third printer in fs many fue, and my fool forthe space was fo longer valid, | sont Redmond too litle fectype. As» result, he worked up one of the ‘most beautiful issues we publi, and one oF the shortest on content. But Isl lke (Once that issue was nthe mall, | set about losing up shop. The one thing | wantod most ‘wae 1 Insure the continued publiation of S87 and to fulfil cur obligation to the subscribers. There were no taker. Finally Jim Dunnigan offered to continue It. Bofors the wolves bogin to get vhroush the door, | signed ‘ver the material yet 10 be published, the ‘moling and subscription iss, the Bock ise ‘Mocks and the copyrights to Jim for $1,00 ‘ach, ad the assumption of lable ubscrip- tion obligation. We stopped all advertising, but Continued to fill orders for games from the {ralable inventory #0. the limit of our capa Biliy. | got a jab and spent Saturday ond Sunday cleaning things up. Financially, didn’t wen out all that bad. 1 had to scoot the responsibility forthe $5,000 Ton, and we paid off our creditors 10 the ‘extent that we could from the ses of the fame Inventory. In a year i was all over. We voided formal bankruptcy, although it could have Been toreed at any tia, By a number of people. We ust quietly faded away. On sum, those who held stock in Project ‘Analyst ‘Corporation lost thair Investment 1 fost tha plus the $5,000 which was borrowed, ‘but we all gained greatly Yrom the experience, Everyone wha Investad in SAT Knew exactly ‘the risks they were running, but | do regret ‘that we could not have pad all our creditors in full, A couple of years st starvation wanes had lett my personal finances in bod shape, so 1 decided to devote all my eneries to atoning {or my o90 trip with $87 to my family. | sappeared trom" the wargaming scene 3s completely as could 1 wit alveys be lad I started the publestion ‘of Strategy & Tacties If we hadnt taken what opens to me now to be a compltaly unac- ‘ceptable risk in starting the thing, | would Ssinays have wondered shat would have hap- pened had we tried it, Some one would have Sone It anyhow..th8 time was ripe. Looking back, the things that I would do diffeontly ‘now ore a function of the experience | gained inthe actual doing. V3 do it goin inthe some cireumatances, nd It would probably have the same rau. ‘With n intial investment of $200, with no ‘experience in ournaliem or publications, with rn knowledge of the extent snd complexity of ‘the market, we set out 10 do something, Mostly becouse we wanted to do it badly fnough. More guts than brains, At that, we ‘idn’t do. badly. Strategy & Tactics Iss bing published. Most of the material publish fad in the first savemaan sues Is goed, and ome of it fe outstanding, S&T had, either Sirsctly or indirectly, enormous impact on the ‘sign and marketing of adult battle games From tha, | uess $87 vas ‘And while i fasted for me, it was more plain {un than anything ve dane before or since, TRANSITION: ‘S&T Changes Publishers by mes F, Dunnigan [At this point Chie Wagner drops from sight ‘encialy,(at least 0 far as S&T is concerned) | had teen involved with Chris and S&T trom ‘the very baainning, although | hab nothing 10 do with setusly starting the magazine. 1 was Just in the habit of doing just about whatever fanyone asked me for. Chris asked for some contributions 10 S&T, 501 gave. My initio Involwsment In simulation games came about through my interest in history. Not military history at first, but three years in the army ‘honged that A civilian egsin in 1964 | was ‘tuck with Tt. | came across the Avalon Hill ‘ames In the army (1062), looked for awhile, and then continued on my way. In 1966 the ‘bomes returned 10 haunt me inthe form of a Tequest by Avalon Hill to sign @ naval game fon the Battie of Jutland. They (opecificaly ‘Tom ‘Shaw! had been Impressed by 2 mono. faph {ha writen on the Battle oF the Bulbe {eenich, in pessing nd not on purpose, Blow ‘away any pretensions to histories! socurscy that their game of the same name may Mave seed to). They were constant being snd i by their costomers for more historical reall and. “authontilty". So, because 1 speared to have all the answers, JF. Dune figan (highschool drop-out extreordinry) was chosen £0. give. Avalon Hill games ate feholony "class". All this I slowiy leaing to fisue 18 of S&T. Jutland wont over very val in early 1968). I ‘wae becaure Irae Tts designer that Chis contacted ma, He wanted an article from the ‘nly knows “professional” gome designer 3 ound at the time (I vas nox averse to lina ‘he world know who designed Jutland) Pre ously dome designers had been enonymous. Why, "L don't know. Something to 40 with “waitin”, Km told. More on thot later. was always. a. Secondatringer_on Chris Wagner's ‘S&T edvorial team. This was primary because wwe never had Much opportunity. %2_ work facetotace | supplied ideas and articles. The ‘eas were often” Impossible. to "implement without my actully bolng there. Sut, as you tan See from the difference io SBT as stands row and or it wns in 1967-59, my ideas were {quite ditforent. Chris Wagner's problems with ‘SET finally came to 2 head in June, 1900. | wae pretty. much unaware of chem. 1 had Blonty ‘of my own, After doing 1974 tor ‘Avalon Hil In 1967 they lost Interest in my work for 9 while "Your games ore too complicated”, | war told, So 1 put them onto ‘someone alge for 1069's game and wort back to the drawing board | ot only worked on something less come ‘ated, but alvo on something more appropri ‘ate, Avalon Hill hod been wancerieg in the Wilderness since their founder, Charie Ro bert lett in 1983, 1 wae finally becoming ‘wate of this At this point (lat 68, erly "63) IR became cbvious that good, playable, realistic and authentic games could be designed quickly Sand ficiently with the proper organization We (myself, E4 Birsan, 8b Chomper, Al Nef tnd Larry Ruseicki) formas the fst design "taam and produced the first bunch of Test Series Gare. Originally, these games wero 10 fhe been sold through S&T. 1 had also Cliscused the possibility of publishing gsmes ‘ight inthe manazine, But tis ves another one (of thowe projects thet never realy got going because of the physical distance between Chris (in Albany) end myst (in New York Civ) The news that Chris was giving up S&T came a surprise, At Trt hoped he woul be able {o intoret somone ela in tak it over. But this proved Impossible and finally, im early duly, it downed on ma that | wasnt going 10 ‘beable to try out my new games without S&T. And it appeared that the aoly ne stil willing to take ft over vor myst. Whether oF not ‘Could succeed where Chris failed os Inte At first | attempted to recruit many of the focal game freaks to help me run the mapszing The mestheads in she tat fw tems shows vo these people whore. Without exception, ‘CoTRED CN INSDE BACK COVER, A JOURNAL OF AMERICAN WARGAMING oe igs Stra _speutal ike AE Tact ‘Vol. II - No. 6 (# 16) — March-April, 1960 Avalon Hill Interview Page 3 Page 9 Opinion: James F, Dunnigan Military Symbols for the Wargamer by K. Benton .. Page 11 Midway Systems-Package by R. Simonsen ........ Page 13 Rditorial: Amateur Games Page 20 Wargamer's Notebook by R. Johnson = Page 22 Gettysburg, Up to Date by J. Dotson ...esssessses+ Page 23 Battle of Britain Rules by L. Zocchi Page 25 Diplomacy by RC. Walker Page 28 Pott Box cocesseees Page 29 PROJECT ANALYSIS CORPORATION Publisher Christopher Wagner Editor J. K, Norris (128, Teal Close, Rest Bay, Porthcawl, Glamor- fan, South Wales, UK), Representative for Great Britain, Scott C. Berschig, Variants Editor. James F, Dunnigan, Technics! Euitor, Redmond Simonsen, Art and Layout, Ray- mond Johnson, “Table-top Editor. Capt. Rodney Walker, Diplomacy Editor. Richard Gutenkunst, Design Editor. Rich- ard Grout, Staff Artist, Lyle E. Smethers, Photography. Pa tricia G. Wagner, Subscriptions. Credits: “Diplomacy” is a registered trademark of Games Research Inc, 48 Wareham St, Boston, Mass. Cover: The cover shows & wargamer moving into battle with the Ger- man forces in Avalon Hill's BATTLE OF THE BULGE. We think BULGE is the one AH game that represents the flavor and style ofall of them; we think Mr. Simonsen’s cover depicts the feeling and mystique of board games for the im- laginative player. Printing: Printing for this and subsequent issues of S&T is being done by Caslon Press of Delmar, N. Y. Copyright @ PROJECT ANALYSIS CORPORATION 1969. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved. Published bi monthly by Project Analysis Corporation, 50 Fairfield Ave, Albany, New York 12205. Application to mail at second class postage rates is pending at Albany, New York. All editorial and general mail should be sent to S&T, Box 11-187, Loudonville, New York 12211 USA. Subscriptions are available at that address for $7.50 yearly in the United States. Please write for Canadian and overseas rates AUTHORIZED BRITISH AGENT: Tain H. McLellan, 12 South Road, Wick, Caithness, Scotland, U.K. Readers are invited to contribute articles. published works will be paid at the current prices. S&T, BOX LOUDONVILLE, NEW YORK, 12211, USA. Authors of| After the beat- This is the Avalon Hill Special Issue, ing we usually have given them over the last several years in S&T, it's about time. BUT, you'll note, we have included both the long “pro” interview by Thomas N. Shaw, and several shorter “con” articles and letters, This is all to the good, of course, since ‘AH is stil finding itself as far as game design and marketing cexpsnsion is concerned. We should help by making all sides of the issues known, ‘There it one point that we feel is not brought out ade- quately enough in this issue, however. That is this: Avalon Hil has, wether they intended to do 50 or not, become the pivotal point in U.S. wargaming — of all types, Yes, games with miniatures were slowly becoming more popular with- ‘out the influx of all chose thousands of board game enthust auts, but the fantastic growth of all types of battle gaming in the last ewo years is a direct result of the Avalon Hill gamer’s awareness (through S&T and other sources) that wargaming has many faces. Although AH's market is stil small by national standards, it isthe biggest market by sev- eral thousand ever to be exposed to all areas of battle games Of course, Avalon Hill has grown t0o, widening their own rarket through extensive promotion and advertising—more in 1968 than in any year previous — and capturing some small number of wargamers who were unaware of AH games But mostly it has been the other way ‘round So we all owe AH a vote of thanks, because the more people become involved in wargaming, the more products will be made available in the field, the cheaper these prod- vues will become, and the more opponents wel all have The December 4th, 1968 issue of the AIR FORCE TIMES carried a very extensive and pictorial article on Louis Zocchi, designer of BATTLE OF BRITAIN. Pictures of ‘Mr, Zocchi, his games and his minature set-up are many and interesting. Check the ALNAVCO ad on the back cover, Their new Armor Division catalog is worth the effort if just to eyeball. Pete Paschall, Alnvco's President, was instru ‘mental in getting Superior to re-introduce their fine 1” - 9° scale tank models in metal. A little on the expensive side; but well worth it. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to look — Chris Wagner Jke AVALON HILL (Company An Interview with Thomas N. Shaw Late in 4968, the Editor made the pil igrimage to Baltimore, home of the Ave- lom Hill Company and Mecca to board gamers. After driving from the plush Holiday Inn through the morning drz- tle, he wat ushered into the fairly new, fairly large building of Monarch Serv” sees, home of AH. Upon entering the spartan (for 4 vice president of any- thing) office of A. Eric Dott he met Thomas N. Shaw, with Eric the king- pin of the game company The following candid interview was conducted im the relatively quiet board room of AH, with only a few ster ruptions while Mr. Shaw diveced, slv- ed. problems or generally took a break to think. Tom Shaw is the man who snakes it all go at Avalon Hill. He is the General WAGNER: How did Avalon ill start anyhow? What sort of company is i? Who owns it? SHAW: AH was begun as a private, foneman company by Charles Roberts, a school friend of mine. ‘That was in 1953, He was developing wargames be- cause his inherent interest was the mil- itary and the gamea were a carry-over ‘of his own military instruction. In 1958 the company incorporated, taking. the ame Avalon Hill (Avalon is the area of Baltimore in which Mr. Roberts lived, and he lived on a hill) WAGNER: Did you become associ ated with them at that time? SHAW: [was not associated with them until 1961, I was in advertising for cight years and had developed a couple of sports games of my own. These were published by another friend of mine who was not able to make a go of it. The games and myself came over to Avalon Hill in 1961 WAGNER: Is that what got AH into the sports game field? SHAW: Right. WAGNER: You say it was started by Roberts; is he still connected with the company? SHAW:° No, due to the specialized nature of the AH product, the company could not make a profit and was pur- chased by Monarch Services in 1964 WAGNER: And Monarch runs it to- aay? SHAW: Let's talk in terms of con- slomerate. Monarch Services owns many companies; one of them is AH. Avalon Fill is a self-operated company, but it i under the direction of Monarch simp ly because Monarch is the major stock- holder. WAGNER: All this occured about the time many of the original games went cout of print, right? SHAW: Yes. At that time, sles were low due mainly to the fact chat we put too many games into the market pipe- line, none of which did very well. In fone’ year we put out seven games, 2 major marketing mistake. The games were Air Empire, Verdict TI, Gettys bburg (and redesign into the’ hexagon version), Chancellorvlle, Civil War, and.one oF two other numbers which died the very same year. This was t00 big a chunk for the market to. accept and shorly thereafter the overall mar- keting drop came to a head WAGNER: Who designs the games? SHAW: The order in which the games appeared on the market can be discov ered from the code number on the box The first game was Gettysburg, 501. The second was Tactics Hl, $02.” Then the 500 series goes on up to Stalingrad, S18, After that we have the 600 and 700 series. “The original owner, Charlie Roberts designed from 501 to 505 (U-Boat) He took the basic format and applied it to a new historical situation, ani voila! you have the game. Once you've designed one, the rest are rather easy depending on how elaborate and ex tensive your authentication and research becomes S14 and S15 are Baschall and Foot: ball, my games. Waterloo and Bismark were designed by Mr. Linsley Shute and myself. This was no great. task because we simply followed Robert's formula, All Lindsley and I did was provide the historical research, make pro- totype games and test not only between ourselves but also as many game nuts as we could get into the office. Mr. Schutz and I also did the work on Stal- ingrad, but it was mostly Schutz there. Te was a very tough game to research because Russian information was very hard to come by.” We got much of the Russian information from captured Ger- rman documents in the Library of Con: gress. We also went to the National Archives in Washington to get-much of the information including the box cover photos. We start the 600 series with Afrika Korps. AK was started by Lindsley Shutz at the time the company reorganized, but Lindsley left the company for a time, as did many people. So I finished up AK. Midway (601) was designed by myself and Mr. Schutz when he came hack to the company. At the time we were designing Midway, he designed Guadalcanal with some outside help. We are now getting to the time we ‘went to a number of sub-contractors for a lot of the historical data and even to getting some hints and new ideas on the games, if only to keep them from becoming stereotype, Midway, Guad- alcanal, and Bulge were started by Mr Schutz’ with this sort of outside help. T was not involved with these becauce got into the advertising, marketing and administrative end ‘After Bulge (602), Guadalcanal was begun — before Blitzkrieg. Marketing trends dictated we come out with Blitz lerieg first. Blitzkrieg was a very easy game to design, a potpourri of all the goodies and better ideas in the previous games. We had fun with Blitzkrieg be- cause many of the names of the rivers are names of people who have helped us ‘with design ideas and many are names of cur salesmen. The game did not re quire any historical research; it was sim- ply a matter of equating the design ele- Bitzkrieg originally was to be called Tactics INL Every once in a while we feel it is necessary to come out with a non-historcal game, more of an abstract nature and Blitzkrieg was it, It is a highly successful game, and one of the szames which continues to sell better than many of the games introduced after it We finally released Guadaleanal after Blitekrieg, but I cannot say the same thing for that one Guadalcanal is — qui bomb, The only reason we can se is it heels of Blitzkrieg Bltskrieg takes too long to play and people were not tired of it at the time we introduced Guadaleanal. So they put off buying Guadalcanal. When they did buy it, nobody wanted to take the part of the Japanese, so there was not the glamor Of the vicarious experience chat we find in German oriented games. Following Guad was Jutland. Juland was designed, by and large, by the same people who put out Kampf. A very excellent research job, a very excellent game. .if you like 8 to 12 hour games. Jutland is doing so, after che initial excelent sales. Jueland vas very_well received at frst and is very well liked among the hard-core fanatical. group. Unfortunately, there are not enough of those people to sustain Jutland with as high a level of sales as we'd hoped. Jut- land now sells fewer titles than Blitz frankly — a kerieg. Because Jutland’s design was so very well done, the same research and design team handled 1914. WAGNER: You mentioned that Blitz- kerieg was once to be called Tactics I ‘Was there ever a Tactics 1? SHAW: Tactics I, or just plain “Tac tics", was nothing more than an oil-cloth game. Tt was sold strictly by mail be 8 and 1958, It cannot be considered a commercially marketed game, but because the sales of this game ‘were good, it was the reason the original owner decided to go into this thing full time, There were some paper boards made in the latter days of the mail or der business, but it was not put up in any sort of box. So for all intents and purposes, Tactics II is the original game except that the specialized units. wei added. WAGNER: Is there any chance of re: issuing the older, out-of-print titles, par ticularly Chancellorevlle? SHAW fone that stands even an outside chance of being re-introduced. And if we were to reintroduce it, it would be a major foverhall — especially the board. ‘The playing board, as many have told us, is more a study in psycothera thing else. We would make tures much like those in Gettysburg or Waterloo first, and go on from there, WAGNER: Is there any chance of the older titles, Stalingrad, Waterloo, etc., being redesigned eventually? SHAW: What is wanted in a redesign? ‘And no matter how we redesigned the game, there would be decenters, We went into this more mat with our 1914 and nd the people who pre plicated games are all up in arms, ‘They would like us to produce more games along the lines of Stalingrad. Since 3 Chancellorsville is the only complicated Jutland games fer the not-s0-co do what they're det them do their own redesigning, as they see fit Te would be a marketing failure on our a Stalingrad II or Wa The magic of the name has part to produc terloo I. now worn off with the wholesalers and retailers and we would not be able to make the sales necessary for the revamp ing. coste. However, there may our growth where, fro standpoint alone we coul ime point in a mail-order make money (on a redesign of these titles. That point could be five or ten years away. We ‘would then be doing the redesign strict ly for the hobbyist, but we would have to wait until that group is large enough for it to be profitable for us to do 60. Right nov, mail order sales are nowhere near large enough to show a profit and we must depend — 90% — on sales in bulk to wholesalers for distribution to the stores WAGNER: About how many games does Avalon Hill sell and how does this compare with, say, Parker Bros. or Mil: ton Bradley? SHAW: Milton Bradley will sell more copies of CANDYLAND than Avalon Hill will sell of its entire kine, This is mainly because AH games are aimed at specific group, and that is why we come cout with non-battle titles like Shakes- Word Power, and the sports The non-battle titles broaden four distribution bs vantage of coming out with the battle sames is that you will not only sell one game, but ultimately you wall ell che entire line, So we're not speaking of a $6 sale, we're speaking of a $60 or $70 sale While the battle games do not they do pro: vide the funds to experiment with che ronbattle titles collectively. We do this because all we would need would be one hit with a non-battle game and we would be in a much better postio get larger and into the Bros./Milton Bradley league. ‘Once in their league, you can advertise However, the ad make the sales individual financially Parker the more advertising, the more battle games, the more battle games the greater the demand...it feeds on itself from that point WAGNER: As most of S@T's readers know, Avalon Hill publishes a magazine dealing with AH games called THE GENERAL. You often infer the Gen: ‘eral is a losing proposition. Is it? Why does it cast so much? SHAW sure. Each issue of the General could reach a total circulation of 15,000 if you include individual sales, However, the subecription rate is much lower than that You can answer this one I'm Tt is not offered for sale on the news- stands and that, as you know, is where the bulk of magazine sales take place in profitable operation. It loses money because it is printed on high speed, offset presses at Monarch Services. This pro- ‘cess is geared to runs of 50 to 100 thou: sand copies, and therefore it is unprofit: able to use it for 15,000. But we do it because Monarch is a member of the omerate owning Avalon Hill. We sell no advertising, and mailing costs for a small run such as the General incur a low profit mar While in itself it is losing venture, in the long run the General makes moa ey for AH because it i an advertising and promotional vehicle for Avalon Hills products. But because it deals strclly with AH products and is pri: marily written by those who own the games, it appeals. only to wargamers owning Avalon Hill games, obviously. Appeal to more people by dealing with more wargaming subjects would, of course, inereaze the marketability of the General, but we do not have the editorial wwherewithall to do chat. WAGNER: The General is often exit ined for its low quality of material, and the competence of ite authors, how do you feel about that? SHAW: We get letters pro and con, but we agree that the editorial quality could be vastly improved. However, most of the articles are writen by the game nuts themselves and while you ean try to ac cept the better written articles only, you cannot please everyone, We try t0 have as broad a spectrum as possible, and since the magazine deals only with AH games, we can assume the readers want to read about them and find out what other players have to aay. After all we are game publishers, not ‘magazine publishers. We simply do not hhave competent magazine people here now. If our growth is such that we cean afford a sub-division devoted to the magazine, then we will certainly have it at that time. For the moment, we will leave editorial know-how to Strategy @ Tactics, obviously the best in the field today. WAGNER: Thanks! Your question answering service has also come under fire for being contradictory and slow. How come? SHAW: Much of the slowness is due to the fact that the questions are often involved and very lengthy in themselves Secondly, there is always a turn-over in personnel. One group of people will answer for a while, then another group wall come in with’ different interpreta- tions. This has gotten to the point where we have completely sub-contrac- ted most of this work to people who we fee! are more qualified than those we have had in the past, and I think that some of the game fanatics have already witnessed the improvement in this serv- Stil, a lot of slowness is due to the people asking the questions. If one does not include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, this indicates to us that that person i not too interested in getting his answer quickly and we give that let- ter a lower priority than one which ‘does come in with the self-addressed envelope Then too, there are many people who write over, and over, and cover again. This really cuts into the profit picture. We are the only game company that gets this mach mail and answers it. Milton Bradley and Parker Bros. games are simpler and do not re quire this sort of detailed interpretation of the rules. T could give you a list of from 250 to 300 names of people who corzespond with us each and every week ‘Wee feel we owe them an answer, but ehe time and materials we must devote to answering this mail means that all the mail is slowed down Say, today we receive a letter which asks 36 questions, many of ‘them about ‘where we got our research data, why or hhow we designed the games, etc. To answer this letter takes time, investiga tion and manpower. Sometimes we have to send the letter to the design people we've sub-contracted the game to in or der to get a complete answer. This one letter may hold up twenty or thirty let ters asking one or two simple questions Multiply this by several hundred a month and you can see the problem. WAGNER: But many of the questions asked of AH are probably valid ones in that there are some ambiguities and prob: Jems with the rules. SHAW: Truc, but a large share of the ‘Blame must be layed to the complex na- ture of the games themselves. Then too, the game players must be responsible for some of the confusion when, through their own lack of patience or mental ability, they cannot or will not reason ‘out what the game was meant to be like For example, in our early runs of Stalin« ‘grad there was an error in the Russian troop counters: the 35ch Corpe was re: peated by mistake. We found it and corrected further runs, making one of the 35th Corps the 36th Corps. A man ‘wrote us asking why there were two 85th Corps, and we answered that it was an error and one of them should be the 36th, I should have been waiting for it, but he surprised me when he wrote back asking which one should be the 36th, WAGNER: How about faulty research? Your Battle of the Bulge Order-of Bat tle, for example? SHAW: During that period in history, many changes in unit designation and much reorganization occured due to the fluid nature of the battle itself. We re ceived our information concerning or: er-of-batte from the Office of the Chief of Military History in Washington, ‘Therefore, the errors attributed to AH are the errors of OCMH — if they are errors. ‘We have, of course, received a tremendous number of “corrections” to the Bulge OB, but we have yet to re ceive two that agree with one another. WAGNER: We have all noticed the Peeudo-Nazi approach some of the gam: ers take to your games. We have also noticed the movement to de-emphasize war toys this past Christmas. Do you there is any relationship between the games and real war? SHAW: This is the subject of much controversy. Wargames are, as a staff fffcer once told me, a method of exer cising military responsibilty and au- thority of leading troops across a battle- field without the accompanying blood: shed and loss of life. Now, I could be called to task for this, but I feel that man’s basic nature is warlike and highly competitive. This is part of the reason ‘wargaming is popular, but I do not feel that AH games have either broadened orf t N lesened man’s interest in war or his | ability to wage it. WAGNER: Then how realistic do you feel the games are? Do the basics, at least, of tactics and strategy apply to the games as well as the real situation? SHAW: Yes they do. However, there is one thing that keeps our games from being 100% reflective of the real situa tion. That is the fact that all units are visible to both parties; you can see ev exything your opponent i doing. WAGNER: Unlimited intelligence SHAW: Yes. In real war, you do not hhave this degree of intelligence informa- tion. Then too, we have consecutive movement. Absolute accuracy would involve simultaneous moving. WAGNER: That would seem to ex plain why the most popular variants 0 your games involve limited intelligence and simultaneous movement. Wargam ing has, while ic ia still small, grown tr rmendously both here and overseas in the last two or three years. To what do you attribute this? 8 SHAW: General population growth for ‘one thing. Another is our increasing ability to promote and advertise the games. We think there is a tremendous, untapped market out there somewhere and we are slowly getting ourselves known. Our greatest source of new business remains, however, the individual ‘game enthusiasts — word of mouth ad- vertising. They each can sell 10, 50 or even 100 games over a period of time. For every one game we sell through advertising, we probably sell 10 or 20 through this “spread effect”. WAGNER: Why does Avalon Hill now produce only one new wargame per year? SHAW: Our line is already very ex tensive. If we put out too many games at one time, the retailer cannot handle the quantity. Then too, it takes a while for people to master our games and we have found that it takes six months to a year before the sheen ia worn off a new title. The fact that Guadalcanal did so poorly is, we feel, due to the fact that it came 2% soon on the heels of Blitz: Ikrieg. The game fanatics were still highly interested in Blitzkrieg and were not interested in the new title at that particular time. There is also the tre- mendous initial investment involved in nnot afford too a new game, and we many losers. WAGNER: The obvious question: what is the title of the next AH game, and when do you expect to have it out? SHAW: Anzio, It will be available in the spring of 1969. We hope to intro- duce the game at the annual hobby and toy fairs in February and March — this is the time of year when new games and toys are shown to the wholesalers, jobbers, and buyers We will also be introducing several new non-battle titles. One will be based on the C8%O/BEO railroads and will re: place Dispatcher. The game is based on the actual timetables of these lines, it will be a historical game and we feel this will appeal to our history-oriented cus- tomers as well as the growing number of model railroad enthusiasts, Ie will e, unlike Dispatcher, a very competi tive game. There is also another, very interesting non-battle game on the fire, but we have no projections for when that game will be released — probably sometime in mid-1969. All in all, 1969 looks like a very good year indeed! OPINION: J. F. Dunnigan WHO PLAYS THE GAMES? WHY? This article isthe fist of 2 new series which will appear oceasonally in. S&T. Under the “Opinion” flag, we intend to ask people having the most to do with the direction wargaming is taking as 2 hobby to unburden themselves concern- ing, not any specific game or method, but wargaming at a phenomenon, a na tional and international hobby. | Who plays the games? Why? What is “good” or a “bad” game? Who designs and devises rules? What is needed to further the growth of the hobby? We suk that the authors and the readers di: rect themselves to these questions here. SSWT believes that there is a perman- cent, stable furure for wargaming as a hobby. As uch, the interest in complex games has grown amazingly over the last few years until we are now on the brink of emerging a widely recognized group of hobbyists, as opposed to an in rnocuous, widely scattered bunch of, “game nuts". The whole spectrum of warguming is experiencing growing pains. In Great Britain, new groups have sprung up to challenge the leader ship of the miniature games field (the seat of which has always been there), and the Realism fist vs, Playabiity ist ‘war continues to rage. In the US. there are large numbers of board gamers be- ing introduced to games with miniatures, there are the old-school. tablesoppers, and the quickly emerging group interest ed in all types of battle games. We have ‘our own realism vs. playability fights too. So what direction should we — and the game companies and miniature manu facturers — take? Maybe thie series and readers comments will aid; at least there will be general and open discussion, ‘Articles marked “Opinion” in this and future issues will represent, primarily, the views of the author only. S&T vail present authors of many different views: the only requirements will be (1) au- thority, and (2) willingness to express ‘oneself on the subject. In the fret article of this type, Mr. Dunnigan (designer of Jutland, 1914, historical authenticator for Battle of Britain, ST Technical Editor, ete) holds forth on the current ‘Avalon Hill design situation and the prospects for their next game. ‘Thus far I mentioned only the me chanical aspects of design, There. is much more involved in wargame design than mere physical collation of the gamé itself. ‘This other aspect involves an at- tempt to discover why people play these games, What do they want most out of them? Just who is it who plays? Te was with reluctance that I designed a game Gotland) without any answers to the above questions. With its completion, Twas able to answer some of the ques: tions. myself. Why do people play the games? For cover half of them it was a combination ‘of mental stimulation and participation in an historical event. The frst reason was the predominant one. Most of the remainder played just to pass the time of for sundry other reasons. What do peo- ple want out of the games? First, most want 2 game which is true to life but rot, say most, at the expense of playabi ity. Still, historical authenticity and real- iam come fist. They overwhelmingly pre- fer a complex game of the magnitude of Blitzkrieg, yet it was later discovered that most of the same gamers actually preferred to play such “simple” games as Afrika Korps, Batle of the Bulge, and Stalingrad most of the time Who plays the games? Agewise, (60.7% fall betwen the ages of 15 and 21. Occupationally, 73.6% are atudents Educationally, for the group aged 18 and over (all the rest are still in high school) 43.89% have completed college, 419% of these have also completed gradu ate or professional school, while a fur- ther 27% are cither stil in graduate school or did not complete it. Thirty eight percent of the total 18+ group are still undergraduates. Most people ‘who have the games certainly didn’t have to go into hock to buy them. The Short Complex Game The people who play the games are obviously alert and active. They are also busy, and this brings me to another point. All the data collected thus far pints to the fact that the market wants 2 game that won't insule their intelligence ‘hut also won't consume too much of their already spoken for time. A short, com- plex game would then be ideal Well now why doesn't Avalon Hill or somebody else simply come out with 4 short complex game? There are two busic reasons. The first is the fault, to an extent, of the company. Avafon Hill believes, and T'n inclined to agree with them, that a bad game with a good tile will sell better than a good game with a tad tite. Thus the number of possible titles is quite restricted, particularly when you realize that more than once they deliberately picked what was con- sidered the hotest title around only to see it fail to sell well. Thus a company will be somewhat conservative when choosing title. Automatically, cis pre- vents the choice of a title for its poten- tial asa good short-complex game only. The second dificulty in designing a 00d short-complex game is the design of the game itself. Since the design of a game must include historical authenticity and realism you soon find that a simple version will be simple in the sense of chess. Now, we all know that chess can be played by an eight year old. But ie isa far diferent game when played by Bobby Fischer. This, of course, may be just what we are locking for. Tm not sure. In developing some recent game 1 have found this simpler-complex. game to be quite a hard nut to crack. No One Asked For The Games To Be Any Longer In the meantime, Avalon Hill has de- cided to go ahead and try for another solution to che problem. AH has al- ready been fascinated by the success of such games as Afrika Korps in the face of such a never-ending agitation — by the very same people who enjoy playing AK — for increased historical authen- ticity, realism and COMPLEXITY in 10 10 the games. The key here, as I see it, was that no one auked for the games to be any longer. As AHL saw it, the key was in the design of the tres most played games: Afrika Korpe, Bulge, and Stalingrad. But they were faced wath that same old problem: one could not pick a title which would easily lend i fe to the desigo of the type of game they wanted. Afrika Korps, for ex ample, is ideal for a simple game. It wat a amall campaign and relatively un affected by outside events. Stalingrad wat a mutch larger campaign and never was succesfully tummed into a simple game according to the eaer AH for tat, Infact, the game may have sufer- dasa result ofthe attempt to simphfv the huge campaign. We found that 87% of active AH game players would glad ly purchase a redesigned Sealingrad. The resi of allthis is that AH is serouly Considering taking the tie they conser the current “hottest” tile and designing from the top, a game along the lines of ‘Afra Korps. As one of AH's man agement pu it “we want another Stalin. ed” T wish I could say that I could do something to mitigate the extent of this disaster (which is what I consider it). T cannot.” AH has a number of obec: tives it wants achieved. The game must emphasize simplicity. Again, the title is being picked mainly for sles potential (0 sles = no proft = no company = no games). This means that the new

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