By the Staff of GMT Games:
Hi guys!
I hope the New Year is off to a great start for all of you!
Here at GMT, it’s been a BUSY holiday season and first couple weeks of 2016. We have been shipping the various Kickstarter Twilight Struggle Rewards throughout the holidays (should be finished with the last of that next week) and this week we started shipping our first three new games of 2016 – Liberty or Death, Talon, and Consim Press’Silent Victory. In a couple weeks, we’ll start shipping another long-awaited game, Operation Dauntless.
So January is hopping around the warehouse. We’re going to slow down the ops tempo a bit through February, and take some time to get the warehouse cleaned up and re-organized. I’m also going to use February for my yearly “how can we get better?” evaluation and “To Do” creation, so if you have thoughts or feedback, feel free to drop me a note. (Although if your feedback is something along the lines of “you guys suck at Kickstarter” you don’t need to send me a note – I’ve been made painfully aware of that already, thank you. 🙂 )
In today’s update, we introduce two new P500 games, a new Project Updates Section, and a variety of general news, as well as the usual Production Updates.
Just a note about the two new P500 games. If you have any interest in 20th and 21st century warfare, check these out. Mitch is taking the Next War series to Poland, giving us a look at a scary but all-too-possible near-future conflict in Eastern Europe. And Jerry White and Mark Aasted have created a solitaire air game – Skies Above the Reich – that is just really cool. I haven’t been this excited about a solitaire air game since those days over 25 years ago when I was onboard an aircraft carrier hanging out with naval aviators and dreaming of the game that would become Hornet Leader. These are both terrific additions to the P500 list. Check them out below and on our website!
But before we get to any of that, Rodger has just released C3i Magazine issue Nr. 29, and I told him that I would let you guys all know details and point you to how to get it, so I want to do that first.
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C3i Magazine Nr. 29 Available Now from RBM Studio
As most of you know, C3i Magazine has been a solely RBM publication for a while now, and we have just been facilitating the order taking, some promotion, and all the office work and fulfillment side of things for Rodger (similar in a way to what we do for John Kranz at Consim Press).
It’s been Rodger’s desire for the past couple years to move all of his C3i Magazine operations to a central location near him in Los Angeles and to take a different direction with the fulfillment side of things that GMT has been doing in the past. Beginning with this issue, that is all happening and GMT will no longer have any role in the ordering, tracking, or fulfillment of C3i orders. All that will be handled by Rodger and the venues he designates.
So, here are a few details on what’s happening:
- as of about a week ago, C3i 29 is available toorder C3i Nr 29 through Rodger via amazon.com. He’s also said that the magazine will be available through distributors and stores down the road, but that may take a while to get totally set up.
- The issue features a complete new game, Mark Herman’s Plan Orange, which uses the Empire of the Sun system. It’s a keeper! Get it!
- There will no longer be a C3immortal auto-order capability through GMT. You guys who have been in the auto order program will need to order the new issue directly through Rodger via amazon. Don’t let our website confuse you – it still has the C3i auto order options up as of now. I’ll be deleting that and reworking our C3i pages on our website next week.
For the record, although I’ve seen some speculation about this change representing drama and conflict between GMT and RBM online for the past week, we are completely fine with this transfer. It’s Rodger’s magazine, and he can do what he wants with it. We were just trying to help him in the past, and are perfectly happy to not have to be responsible for the sales, shipping, and support of C3i (you might have noticed that we’re juggling quite a few balls already with our game projects). And we’re also happy to help and support Rodger as he makes these changes. He’s one of our “GMT Guys.” He’s not the enemy, a competitor, or somehow trying to hurt GMT with this move, as some have surmised online. Hey, his magazine focuses on and supports primarily OUR GAMES, so we like C3i and want it to continue to do well! I just wanted you to hear that straight from me so that there is no confusion and no drama.
I encourage those of you who want to continue to get a terrific magazine to head over to Amazon to order the new issue or contact Rodger at
rbmstudio@yahoo.com
If you have any questions. I also encourage you to interact with Rodger just like you do with us: tell him when you think he could improve something, tell him what he did really well, and do your best to be patient with him while he continually improves both the magazine and his order and support processes.
I probably don’t need to write this, but just in case anyone has misunderstood any of the above: Please DO NOT contact our office ladies about C3i 29 or your old C3immortal auto orders. They don’t know anything about this new issue or Rodger’s new processes. Please contact Rodger for anything relating to this issue.
For more information on what’s happening with C3i, visit Rodger’s C3iOpsCenter.
To order C3i Nr 29, Visit the C3i Nr. 29 Amazon.com order page.
Project Updates
First off, I’m going to add a Project Update section to the monthly customer update that gives you info directly from the designer, developer, project lead, etc – whoever is in charge of the project at that point – on a few of our game projects each month . I’ll start this officially next month in the February update with it’s own section, although I do have a few for you below this time.
I want to focus especially on those games that have been on the P500 list for a while, or those that are delayed on the production schedule, or that you haven’t heard news about in a while, so you guys at least have some idea of where the project stands.
So I will be contacting designers and developers this month (designers/developers, feel free to just email me an update anytime atgmtgames@aol.com) and asking them for a brief update for you guys. I hope you will find this new addition to the monthly newsletter helpful.
For now, I have some updates that have been sent to me or posted recently online, just to make sure you all get to see them:
Space Empires: The Replicators Update
Many of you have asked about why this expansion for Space Empires is still sitting on the P500 list in spite of really strong P500 orders. Recently, on BGG, designer Jim Krohn gave us an update:
The delay has nothing to do with GMT in this case. It all stems from the Replicators. The tiles, resource cards, new units parts of the expansion….all have worked great, but the Replicators caused some problems during development and I basically redesigned them twice. The last time being about a year ago – which is what delayed the expansion. The good news is that they have held the test of time so far. All that is left on them is final tweaking.
Won by the Sword Update
As I mentioned last time, Mark Simonitch has taken over the final stages of the Update Kit. Mark posted the following Status Update on CSW earlier this week:
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FAB: Golan ’73 Update
This was posted this week on CSW by FAB Series Developer John Foley:
I would note here, guys, that we could still use some order help on this one. We’re printing regardless, but if you’re at all interested in the Fast Action Battles series, we’d appreciate your pre-order. Personally, I think this is the most interesting of the FAB games to be created thus far and look forward to seeing it on my game table. |
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Fields of Fire 1 and 2 Update
I just received this update from Ricky Gray, FoF Series Developer:
Despite the silence, work on the two Fields of Fire games continues at an increasingly rapid pace. As this is written, the rules are going through a final scrub by another fresh set of eyes (the last of many, many scrubs). Also, Mark Simonitch has created initial counter mockups that are being inspected and revised on a daily basis. Maybe the best news of all is that Charlie Kibler has been tapped for art and layout. Charlie is working feverishly right now (literally) to layout a rules proof, working in close concert with the developer. While this is going on, the non-rules documentation is being tackled. Once it is fully scrubbed and edited, it, too, will be proofed in preparation of production. This one is coming together quickly.
I (Gene again) will note that I know that both Mark Simonitch and Charlie Kibler are working on final art and layout for the Reprint of Volume 1 right now, so this is getting close to going to the printers. Much of that material (rules, player aids) will be used for both Volume 1 and Volume 2. But Volume 1 will publish first because Mark and Charlie will still have to work up art and graphics for cards and counters and the Scenario Book for Volume 2, and that will take at least several months once the Volume 1 Reprint is finished (and they have a bunch of other games to work on, as well).
