by bwolfheart
Nello, A little insight in this forum thread.http://arimaa.com/arimaa/forum/cgi/YaBB.cgi?board=talk;actio...
It didn't sell as well as they had hoped. Maybe it was a minimum (10,000) they had to produce? It is a success as a game from those who discover it. It just had sub par marketing and promotion on many different fronts from word of mouth to store level advertising to online promotion. It did seem to do some promotion at game cons and what not, but at game cons it may have been overlooked as "chess with just different pieces". I mean sadly they do look like staunton chess pieces. They did rescue all the ones that were going to be trashed. And there are still some out in circulation ready to be bought.
I own two copies(one at my place and one at my parents). I keep trying to rescue them whenever I see them to give as gifts to family and friends that like abstract games.
Arimaa really needs to try a second production, maybe through Kickstarter. It just needs a new thematic looking playing board and new far less looking staunton chess animal pieces. I would love to see new resin pieces much like you see in the second edition of the Game of Thrones game.
[ImageID=http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1246260/a-game-of-thrones-the...]
And maybe even full bodied pieces kinda like the lion treasure from Forbidden Island
[ImageID=http://boardgamegeek.com/image/847152/forbidden-island]
Even this is quite impressive. Animals on little pedastals.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1446234/chess