by bwolfheart
JohnnyDollar wrote:
Thanks for the updated info. I'm glad he was able to rescue 7000+ copies from getting trashed, that would've been a tragedy.
(If Z-Man were at the point of dumpstering them couldn't they just donate them all to a local school system or something?! For a nice tax write-off too. I don't understand that "trashing" policy.)
Personally I really like the look of the Z-man edition, it's very stylish and different from Chess (I would have a hard time playing Chess with these pieces). Honestly even with different pieces and a rethemed board I don't think that would make much difference in sales... abstracts are just too hard a sell, too much of a niche. Maybe more of a marketing strategy would help, or maybe try to pitch it towards the educational system, like have high school or middle school promotional activities.
Then again, DVONN was published around the same time and has 6X as many owners on BGG despite having a similar average rating, and it's an abstract, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. :D Although DVONN does have more publishers than Arimaa, so maybe that reflects more of an international sales vs. domestic thing...
(If Z-Man were at the point of dumpstering them couldn't they just donate them all to a local school system or something?! For a nice tax write-off too. I don't understand that "trashing" policy.)
Personally I really like the look of the Z-man edition, it's very stylish and different from Chess (I would have a hard time playing Chess with these pieces). Honestly even with different pieces and a rethemed board I don't think that would make much difference in sales... abstracts are just too hard a sell, too much of a niche. Maybe more of a marketing strategy would help, or maybe try to pitch it towards the educational system, like have high school or middle school promotional activities.
Then again, DVONN was published around the same time and has 6X as many owners on BGG despite having a similar average rating, and it's an abstract, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. :D Although DVONN does have more publishers than Arimaa, so maybe that reflects more of an international sales vs. domestic thing...
Don't know if Zman had thought of that. Would have been wise for a fan to contact them about that when they were going to trash them. Omar could still give them to schools in USA and everywhere else still.
It is classy. But not all that different than chess pieces. Just animal heads on staunton chess pieces. You would be surprised what quite different looking pieces (to disassociate from chess as much as possible) can do for people to catch notice. And theme...all you have to do is look around BGG to notice THEME is quite important to players its integral to drawing attention. Lets be honest chess has run its gamut. And when making a game that looks like chess. It's very important to make it as different in look than chess as possible. I've talked to a few game designers and when they head to publishers they get "It looks to much like chess". They then have to either self publish or get lucky with a publisher thats willing to take a chance. Abstracts that have a great theme...sell better. Just look at 'Hive', 'Hey, That's my fish', 'Torres', 'Cathedral' and 'Through the desert' as examples.
The Abstract niche is growing. With the economic downturn families are turning toward cheaper and more intellectually challenging forms of family entertainment that cost nothing after the initial purchase. Any form of promotion helps. The animal choice was great to attract a younger demographic too.