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| German-Dutch Bestseller
With 750.000 copies sold since October 2000 has the Dutch publisher Jumbo a winner on their hands with their German version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" - Wer wird millionär? | |
| 31. March 2001: spielbox-online |  |
| Chicken-shit Sells!
The chicken race game Zicke Zacke Hühnerkacke ( "Zoot Zitt Chickenshit") has been a big hit for the Zoch Verlag: 200.000 copies sold in Germany and 50.000 in Scandinavia. Even in USA has the game been a hit with 500.000 copies sold in 6 months - under the title Dragon Tales. Hasbro expects to sell another million this year. | |
| 30. March 2001: spielbox-online | |
| German TOY NEWS in English
The German publisher Nostheide (spielbox) is now doing an English version of their tradeletter (Internet version). Visit www.toyscene.de/ and click on the tiny flag. | |
| 29. March 2001: spielbox-online | |
| Cartagena wins As d'Or
Congratulations to Leo Colovini who has won the French "Golden Ace" for the best strategy game for his game Cartagena (Winning Moves). | |
| 27. March 2001: spielbox-online | |
| Hippodice Winners 2001
The 13th Hippodice Design Competition has declared Martin Schlegel as the winner for his game DinXX. The finalists, which includes several household names, can be found in my award-section. | |
| 26. March 2001: spielbox-online | |
Adam Spielt catalogue 13 has arrived
 There are many good mailorder gameshops, and which to prefer is a matter of personal taste. But no one can match the exellent mailorder catalogue published once a year by Germany's largest mailorder company Adam spielt. Volume 13 has just been mailed free of charge to all their customers and it is a valuable tool for anyone interested in german games. With over 200 pages (A4) and detailed descriptions and b/w pictures of 1000 games, it is a wonderful reference tool of current games. Althought the catalogue can be ordered separately this is not adviceable as the cost (DM5+pp) is too high, but you will receive the catalogue free of charge with your first order. | |
| 22. March 2001 | |
| European Championship Boardgames for Teams 2001
What used to be known as the Intergame is once again held in Dutch surroundings.  This year there will be room for 24 teams comming from all over Europe. Each team should have exactly 4 players, and in some countries they are chosen through national championships (check your local game news). If your country does not have a qualifying round you may ask for a registration form by mailing the Organizer. When? The event will take place on Saturday 3. November 2001 and will last the whole day. Where? During the Dutch gamecon Spellenspetakel X (2-4 November) held by 999 Games in Beursgebouw Eindhoven in Eindhoven, Holland. Cost? There is an registration fee of EUR 75,- per team, for which they will receive 2x4 games to be played in the tournament in return, free entrance to the convention and a day to remember. It is still too early to say which games will be played as this pretty much is determined upon the sponsors. | |
| 20. March 2001: Ronald van Lent/Third Millennium Gamers | |
| Reorganisation of the SdJ-board
Uwe Petersen and Dorothea Hess have been appointed by interim in the positions as 2nd Chairman and Secretary for the remaining term of office (until February 2002). | |
| 14. March 2001: Harald Schrapers | |
| Hasbro's Name Game
In Essen at Spiel ´00 were many of us confused as no less than two new games were called Online, but the confusion didn't last long as Hasbro, Germany had secured the rights to the name. So despite the print on the box is the small franjos game now sold under the name Offline. With a bizarre stroke of nemesis has Hasbro, Germany discovered that they hadn't secured the name for their other Essen-game Traumfabrik, and the second edition of the Knizia game has therefore been published with a new title: Fabrik der Träume... | |
| 2. March 2001: Die Pöppel-Revue | |
New Scoreboard for Carcasonne
 This game from Hans im Glück is one of the best games in the current season (and is my favorite for this year's Spiel des Jahres-award), but it is a pain to keep accurate score on the supplied track. The problem has been partly solved in the second edition - and those of us who has already bought the game can download the new board as a zipped JPEG file from the HiG website. Unfortunately is the track still snaking in opposite directions, but a great wall separates the sections much better than before. | |
| 14. February 2001: Hans im Glück | |
| 3 members leaves SdJ-Jury!
Michael Knopf, Andreas Mutschke and Edwin Ruschizka have left the jury Spiel des Jahres after disagreements with chairmen Bernhard Thole and Synes Ernst. Knopf and Ruschizka withdrew themselves from the excutive commitee earlier this year in protest against the way many decisions were taken by Thole/Ernst without their involvement. The were also unhappy with the close financial relationship between the SdJ and the Marburger Spielearchiv, where they felt that a more professional distance between management were needed. Together with the loss of Helmuth Wresnik last year this must be seen as a major loss to all hobby gamers as they all were people who's opinions were close to ours. | |
| 8. February 2001: Harald Schrapers | |
| Noris Spiele to be bought by Simba
The German Toy giant Simba, who also owns Goldsieber, have announced that they are buying Noris Spiele. They will continue to use the label for their line of family games. | |
| 6. February 2001: spielbox-online | |
| The Gaming Dumpster is closing down!
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| Frank Branham has announced that his popular website is being closed as nasty intruders has been hiding files on his server. The rules translations are not lost though, as www.boardgamegeek.com will house them in the future. | |
| 5. February 2001: rec.games.board | |
| Increasing Sales of German Games
2000 was a good year for German games with an increase in trade of about 13% for classic games (without CCG's) and 23% for childrens games (still without CCG's). No less than 4 games found their way into the Top 10 list of toys, but unfortunately haven't I been able to find out which they were - with two exceptions: Die Siedler von Catan (Kosmos) were once again the best selling game in volume, and Wer wird Millionär? (Jumbo) had the largest turnover value. Since they have sold 450.000 copies of that, the Settlers game most have been be close to half a million last year. Another top-seller was Monopoly which sold 500.000 copies in various editions - of which Pokémon Monopoly ensured at least half the sales. Not everybody had a good year though: Ravensburger Spieleverlag lost 9.6% (to DM 436.5 mio.) despite winning the Spiel des Jahres with Torres (FX Spiele), but that game didn't fell in the public's taste. | |
| 30. January 2001 | |
| Deutsches Spiele-Archiv has moved
The German Game Archive, who is the organisation behind the German game award Spiel des Jahres has moved its museum to bigger facilities close to the old place in Marburg. The museum and archive contains ca. 28.000 games and more than 3.000 volumes in the collection of books and periodicals. With the main focus on servicing scolars, teachers and social workers the place is also open to the general public Monday-Friday from 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM. Contact: Geschäftsstelle Spiel des Jahres Deutsches Spiele-Archiv Barfüßer Str.2 a, 35037 Marburg Tel: 06421/62728 Fax: 06421/62720 Email: spiel-des-jahres@t-online.de or spiele-archiv@t-online.de Homepage: www.spiel-des-jahres.org | |
| 26. January 2001: Deutsches Spiele-Archiv | |
| News from the Wiener Spiele Academie
The de Cassan-family is at the front of quite a large group of gaming activities in Austria, and Philipp has given their websites a new common look. All of them are worth a visit even if you don't understand German. You can reach the other websites from the links at the bottom of the frontpage, the one covered in these news is www.spieleakademie.at/. Games People Play is a German/English language database, with about 900 entries. You can search for 67 different categories as well as for age (3-12+) and number of players (2-10+). Spielregelshow is a series of pictorial explanations of how to play the games. So far are the 12 best games of 2000 covered. While you cannot learn how to play the games, this is great way to learn a little more about a game you haven't bought yet! Die besten Spiele has the text and b/w photo of the best games of the year (2000) taken from their large publication: Österreichisches SPIELEHANDBUCH which features all games published in the German countries - including several I've never seen before. The older editions (1997-2000) can be downloaded as PDF-files. | |
| 23. January 2001: spielbox-online | |
| Founder of the modern German game scene is dead
Walter Luc Haas, Switzerland, died January 10th after long times serius illness. In the 70's when the German games market didn't offer much besides children's games, began Walter Luc Haas to import American strategy games. The games was sold from his home in Basel through the mail order catalogue Cheesehole-News, and the fanzine Europa carried extensive anysis of all available wargames, and with Bumm did he introduce the first PBM-zine in Germany. With Joker he published the first German gaming magazine. Walter Luc Haas has been a member of the Spiel des Jahres-Jury, he was a reviewer for spielbox in its first years, and he was responsible for getting Sid Sackson's games published in Germany. | |
| 14. January 2001: spielbox-online | |
| New German forum for game designers
In his spielbox-online editorial today writes Knut-Michael Wolf about the many gamers who complain about the lack of new ideas in new games, and of the growing problems many gamers face: lots of new games which are more or less "re-runs" of previously published games. The German website has therefore startet a new webforum (in German) for discussion of design. It can be found at Spielbox Forum 3. | |
| 11. January: spielbox-online | |
| Carta Mundi takes over ASS
The Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkarten (ASS) factory has been sold to the famous Belgian printers, who needs all the facilities they can get to follow with the succes of the Pokémon craze. The old German card printer was formed in 1765 but was bought by the large Blatz corporation after bancrupcy in 1996. | |
| 10. January 2001: spielbox-online | |
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| 9. January 2001: Ravensburger | | |||
| The designer of Memory is dead
William Hunter, father of the popular Memory game, died in his home in Switzerland 88 years old. In 1958 did offered he a game to which he and his father had created in 1946 and which had become very popular within the family, where they made the game by cutting pictures out of catalogues and glue them onto cardboard pieces. The head of Ravensburger immediately liked it, and the game were presented at the Nürnberg Toy Fair in 1959 where the first thousand copies didn't last long. During the next 40 years proved the game to be their most succesful title ever and it has to date sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. | |
| 8. January 2001 spielbox-online | |
| News from Ravensburger
The famous Blue Triangle will use the small FX/Alea-style bookcase boxes for a new line of special Männerspiel ("Games for Men"). I guess Torres will be one of the titles. Their card brand Berliner Spielkarten has strangely enough been chosen as the label for their Classic titles. And finally will they release a new book by Reiner Knizia. The subject is Card Chess and a deck of cards will accompany the book. | |
| 6. January 2001: KMW+Arno Miller | |
| © Mik Svellov 1997-2004 | editor@brettboard.dk | 12. maj 2003 |