Tabletop game makers promote tournaments
By Dave Gerardi -- Playthings, 5/15/2002
Miniature games makers WizKids and Games Workshop are prepping major retail programs for this summer.To promote its new Warhammer Skirmish tabletop wargame (this variant on Warhammer supports scenario-driven small-scale combat as opposed to the ranks of infantry involved in its counterpart), Games Workshop is sending gaming tables (complete with painted scenery and miniatures) to its top 100 trade accounts this month. The company's Web site will publish 100 scenarios during the summer to support retailers (and, of course, consumers) interested in running games in their stores.
Ernie Baker, chief operating officer, told Playthings that Games Workshop is focusing on helping retailers "develop clubs to increase sales presence (of the products), get the word out and to get people together to play the games." An important facet of this will be the company's new club support program. The club kit will include league play sheets, dice and a poster to facilitate the formation of gaming groups around the United States. In addition to Games Workshop's online store locator, the Web site will add a club locator system to help players and customers find the nearest retailer.
Elsewhere in the miniature games market, Seattle-based WizKids will launch its new Approved Play Program in July to aid retailers in hosting tournaments for Mage Knight players. WizKids has culled six months worth of feedback to the original Approved Play promotion. The resulting program is "easier for retailers to use, more exciting for players and designed to increase product sales even more," says company founder and CEO Jordan Weisman. Monthly battle results submitted to the Web site will now affect the overall Mage Knight story line. The Campaign Kit continues to include awards for tournament winners but also will feature prizes for all participants. Most importantly, online event registration is streamlined: Retailers peruse a complete list of the events offered that month and have only to mark the ones they wish to run and the dates.
Such programs, says Games Workshop's Baker, generate interest among consumers and get them into the stores to play and shop. In fact, the main reason the company pursued Lord of the Rings as the first license in its 25-plus year history was to bring in new blood. The strategy is working. "Forty to 60 percent of the customers (of the LOTR tabletop products) are new to tabletop battle gaming and most are sticking with it."
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