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Episode 42: Yo! Hemp Chicken
| 42: Yo! Hemp Chicken Release Date: November 12, 2007 Running Time: 101 min. Listen Now: Download: Enhanced Version - MP3 Version Subscribe via iTunes: Enhanced - MP3 See sidebar for other subscription options |  |
Baby needs a new pair of shoes. We build a casino empire in Vegas Showdown and climb the long ladder from Hemp Chicken to Dragon in the modern card classic Tichu.
News & Notes: Mayfair Games Price Floor, Kingsburg
The List: Tichu, Vegas Showdown
Name That Game: Win Archaeology from Adventureland Games & Vegas Showdown from Time Well Spent
Backshelf Spotlight: Pueblo, Craps
Truckloads of Goober: Klondike
Game Sommelier: Five games for a library to get people interested in games
Mail Bag: Sommelier response, Nomic, game length, Das Spiel for Dave
Complete Show Notes continue after the break.
Game News & Notes
Mayfair Games Price Floor Spiel Forum | BGG Forum
Emboldened by a Supreme Court decision handed down earlier this year, Mayfair Games, publisher of Settlers of Catan and many others, has informed its distributors and retailers that it will no longer allow businesses to sell its games for less than 20% below MSRP. We have a small discussion here on our forums but there is a wider (and meaner) roundtable over at Board Game Geek.
Kingsburg BGG Entry | Official Site (in Spanish)
In Kingsburg players are Lords sent from the King to administrate frontier territories. The game takes place over five years, a total of 20 turns. In every year there are 3 production seasons for collecting resources, building structures, and training troops. Every fourth turn is the winter, in which all the players must fight an invading army. Each player must face the invaders, so this is not a cooperative game.
The List
Tichu BGG entry | Official Site (in German)
Tichu is a partnership game where the primary goal is to get rid of all the cards in your hand faster than your opponents. Tricks are played using the ladder style mechanic made popular by the classic Chinese game Zheng Shangyou, and Zheng Fen and reinterpreted by many Western variants inlcluding Big Two, Great Dalmuti, Frank's Zoo, Asshole, Gang of Four and many others.
Vegas Showdown BGG entry | Official Site
You and a few of your millionaire friends have invested in a plot of land in the heart of Las Vegas. Each of you has one year to plan and build a luxury hotel/casino on the site. Just to make things interesting, you've put a little wager on your venture -- when the doors open, the builder of the most famous hotel/casino wins ownership of the entire block!
Backshelf Spotlight
Mystery Connection Contest
Can you find a connection between these two games? We find a mystery connection each episode and challenge you, the listener, to hunt for it! Post your guesses to the Forum . Find the connection and you could win a pair of coveted custom Spiel Dice!
Congratulations to RedV our winner for episode 41!
Pueblo BGG Entry
Pueblo - the ultimate building challenge! Work with the other players to create a mighty home for the Chieftain, stone by stone. You are a craftsman but you can not let the Chieftain see your trademark stones, or you will be penalised. The longer you play, the more difficult this task becomes! Take on your opponents and become the Chieftain's Master Builder.
A game popular in casinos, back alleys, and military barracks all over the world. A player rolls two dice. On this first roll, the "come-out roll", they win on a 7 or 11, or lose on a 2, 3, or 12. If they roll another number, it becomes their "point"; they continue to roll until they either roll that number again (in which case they win) or roll a 7 (in which case they lose). The wagering system varies depending on where you play and whether you have a casino-style layout.
Truckloads of Goober
Klondike BGG Entry
Pan for gold... LITERALLY with your plate and wooden nuggets, plus a wooden raccoon!
Game Sommelier
The Challenge: (submitted by Heyoka James) Find five games for a library to display and demonstrate to get others interested in games
Dave's List | Stephen's Vote |
| Tamsk | Thumbs Up |
| Khet | Thumbs Up |
| Blokus | Thumbs Up |
| Niagara | Thumb Sideways |
| Winner's Circle | Thumbs Up |
| Heroscape | Thumbs Up |
Next Challenge: Find five game expansions that make the basic game better PLUS find 2 expansions that ruin the original
Mail Bag
Davebo (David Gullet) responds with his thumbs to Stephen's Halloween games for a David and his kids.
Jeremy German wanted us to know about Nomic , a family of games that also share the open ended rules mechanics like Fluxx.
Wallace Freidel II sent in some great thoughts about Twilight Imperium and some more general musings on game length. I hope he'll post them to the forums soon!
Christof von Zadel loved the Halloween intros and found the perfect gift for Dave: Das Spiel .
Errata
Michael Leibig caught an error in my (Stephen's) rundown of the rules for craps. That's what I get for trying to distill the rules down to three or four sentences! Thanks Michael. Here's the correction:
Once a person establishes a point, then he must roll that number before he rolls a 7 in order to win. However, if he rolls that number before rolling a seven, then his original bet is paid off and then the puck flips back over to the "Off" and the rules for the "Off" state are in force. If the puck is in the "On" state, and he rolls something other than his point number and a seven, then the bet is unresolved. He must keep rolling until he makes his point or rolls a seven.
I'm sure there are some other goofs in there somewhere. Let us know if (when?) you find one!
I agree. It doesn't make much sense to cut Mayfair out of your business if you are an online retailer. On paper, Mayfair seems to want to make the case that their survival depends almost solely on brick and mortar stores and this move is meant to somehow bolster them. But as you said, this move actually increases the profit margins of those online businesses that adhere to their price floor.
I think the average game buyer doesn't see this epic struggle between brick and mortar and online stores. Each business has a niche that can be filled and each business can do things differently to serve their market. I don't keep a ledger and split my dollars 50-50 between brick and mortar or online shops, but I do spend money in both kinds of businesses. Local game stores have more pressure to become part of the community and foster game players closer to home. Their locale is more limited so they have a vested interest in bringing people physically into the store. Online businesses have a similar kind of pressure because they are one among many and can easily get lost in an ocean of choices available across the web. In a way, they must find a way to bring people through their virtual doors and they differ only in the methods use to acheive this same goal.
I enjoy local game stores and certainly do not want to see them disappear on the whole, but I also know there are many of ways to promote the hobby and this means things are changing for everyone. Some businesses will adapt and some won't. But I see these changes as a huge positive not a threat to end gaming as we know it.
Gaming has never been more popular than it is now. There are more companies making games and more people playing than ever. I think there are enough slices of the pie to go around for online and local stores to survive and thrive. That doesn't guarantee success for anyone, to be sure. Seems like Mayfair tried to create Store Wars and then establish peace for everyone in our time. In the end, I think the greater game buying/making market will have its say and businesses in both categories will continue to trundle along.
Interesting commentary, but I'll respectfully disagree.
1. I don't think Mayfair's move makes local game stores more competitive with online businesses even if you have a local game store nearby. As Dave pointed out, if a consumer can buy the same game online for 20% off with free shipping and full price in a local store, there really is no added incentive provided by Mayfair to buy from the local store. I think online retailers and game related web sites have helped grow the game biz in ways that far outstrip the influence of local game stores. Mayfair's attempt to "level the playing field" and regulate how others sell their products seems to ignore this. The playing field has changed fundamentally with the rise of internet commerce. Local game stores must find new ways of doing business to compete and survive. They can offer services and experiences that online ones cannot. Price floors on a few select titles won't make local game stores compete better with online merchants in this manner.
2. Some can call it being cheap; i'll call it being a savvy consumer, but with the amazing number of games available today, if I'm eyeing two games and I'm equally excited about both of them, I'll choose in many cases to make my game dollar go as far as it can. On a single title, that $8 might not seem like a lot but over 2,3,4 games that adds up to another whole game I might have. And with so many great small press games coming into the market, the space for attention and play time is even greater than before. I don't see Mayfair's brand name being so poweful that players will automatically buy their games at higher prices, especially when others (especially small presses) won't adopt the same strategy. I might give a small press game or two a shot when I know I can buy an extra title with the savings over time from chosing games that aren't Mayfair's. I certainly don't always look at the price as the determining factor when deciding which games to purchase, but Mayfair has put this issue front and center by saying literally you must value our games more than others. If that is the benchmark they wish to be judged by, they are well within their rights, but I also reserve the right to decide whether or not the game is worth the additional investment.
3. Value is something that is negotiated between the producer, the retailer, and the consumer. In this case, Mayfair is trying to dictate those terms in a way that doesn't allow retailers and consumers a full seat at the table. You either agree with Mayfair's value under these new terms or you're out of the game. I'll stress again, they are well within their rights to do this. Retailers and consumers, though, are well within their rights to place a different value on their products. Each decision to purchase or not to purchase is an exercise in this kind of negotiation and evaluation. Put simply, I don't think the publisher of a game is the sole factor behind determining a game's value. And I do not think a retailer or consumer who wants a say in this process values the game less than the publisher. They simply have a diffferent set of factors that help them arrive at a value they consider worthwhile. I guess what I am saying is value cannot be dictated; it must be negotiated.
Much of this comes back to the concepts behind MSRP, I think. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price is a suggested retail price. At least here in the States, most businesses sell for prices considerably under MSRP because MSRP is set at a rate high enough to allow discounts determined by the sellers, not dictated by the producer. Mayfair is going to make the same amount from the sale whether the retailer can negotiate with his/her customers a price they both consider fair. And I do not beleive this dance that retailers and consumers play threatens to destroy the game industry. Mayfair can set new rules and claim they are in the best interest of the hobby as a whole, but I don't buy the logic behind those statements. Personally, I don't think all the consequences of this decision will turn out to their benefit.
Thanks, Robin.
I always manage to forget something. This week, it was the episode list. Thanks for catching the goof! The list is now up to date.
Interesting question about how and what influences us to buy games. Vive la difference! I try not to let a game's ratings or rep greatly influence my decision. I'll read flavor text and short breakdowns of the rules, and sneak a peak at the components to get a sense of the game. If this excites me, I'll put it somewhere on my mental "List" If the idea of the game is particularly compelling to me, then I'll probably take the leap at some point for sure. So many games, though, fall in the muddy middle and that's where price becomes a factor to me. I'd rather cast my net wide and stetch my game dollar even at the risk of ignoring conventional wisdom on some titles. If I was guided solely by ratings and advance reputation I would have passed up many games I now enjoy.
Well said, Bruno.
Even if there is some fallout in the marketplace, fun certainly can't be held hostage by any of this business junk!
Really does feel like this is a golden era for games of all sorts. So many great choices and I'm glad to see even more new publishers coming into the mix next year.
I have removed the offending links. Thanks.
I think its cool that game nuts like us have so many great ways to help support and grow the hobby, including great local stores like yours, scooter.
Welcome aboard, Samuraicat! And thanks for setting us straight.
I think this issue actually came up when we were playing, too.
Don't you just love it when the examples in the rules make the situation more confusing? I'm struggling to think of a specific title off the top of my head, but it is not uncommon for an example to fly in the face of the printed rules. Happens more often than it should.
Spiel on!
Stephen
You arguments are compelling, David, but short of blunt force trauma and a closed head wound, I'm not sure reason alone will get me back to the table any time soon. Give me a decade, then we can talk. :)
Thanks for your thoughts on Mayfair, too. As I said in the episode, I think their decision will push the market (ie the game buying public) to look at other titles from other publishers. That doesn't have to be hostile or active opposition, just consumers voting with their wallets.