German Games
Nov. 30th, 2004 12:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aNowadays, most of the best board & card games are first published in Germany. Ironically, it isn't always German designers that are getting published; American designers such as Alan Moon sometimes see their games published first (or even exclusively) in Germany rather than the U.S. (Why? Hard to say, other than the general statement that the culture is different, and more accepting of intellectual pursuits, like gaming, than TV zombifying.)
After the German publications, many of the games come out in the U.S. Some of the German publishers actually internationalize some of their games (though they're still pretty hard to get because they have bad U.S. distribution), but many sign deals with U.S. companies for simultaneous publication, and when that doesn't happen the authors will sometimes turn to U.S. companies for publication in new editions.
Rio Grande Games often simultaneously publishes the works of major German companies, while Mayfair Games often simulataneously publishes anything by Klaus Teuber. Fantasy Flight Games has meanwhile been doing lots of new (or even original) editions of German games, with Reiner Knizia being someone they have a special relationship with. Newcomer Uberplay, meanwhile, has been picking up some of the dregs, but also has published some new and worthwhile original games, and even managed to sign a deal with German publisher Queen Games for just long enough to get out their top-selling game. (Queen is notoriously hard to work with.)
Usually I'm patient enough to wait for the American edition of a German game. The German games, after all, are often twice as much money: $55 or $60 v. $25 or $30 for a relatively high-end game. And, I figure for the most part that if a game isn't brought over then it's probably not one of the top games that I'm going to want to keep forever.
I've had a few cases where that policy doesn't work out, however.
Exclusives are the most annoying, because they can often end up being really expensive. The Settlers of Nurnberg was one that I actually put out money for, when I was on a Catan kick the other year. Meanwhile I've ignored a four-tile German-exclusive expansion for Carcassonne, because I wasn't about to put out $10-15 for four tiles. (Actually, I was about to, but I restrained myself.)
Queen Games is the next troublesome anomoly, because they're apparently terrible to work with, and so the only U.S. editions of their games have been the result of that short-lived uberPlay deal, which resulted in one translation and a couple of their other games being imported in the German original on the cheap.
And finally there are card games. Here again, the best are imported, but it seems to be a much smaller percentage, with many very good card games never making it into English editions. Fortunately, even when imported, these German-original card games seem to remain very cheap.
The one place that I use to purchase German editions of games is funagain.com. They're an online retailer that stocks a lot of imports (though their stocking is very inconsistent).
For a bit I was using funagain for all my online game orders, but toward the end of last year, their shipping got worse and worse, to the point where I was no longer willing to open myself up to that frustration every time I placed an order. Since I've started using timewellspent.org, which has better customer service and much better prices, but almost no import stock. So I keep an eye on funagain for new imported items.
Last week, two events converged: money started coming in for eBay Magic sales; and the Essen game convention games came in to funagain. Thus, last Wednesday I placed a new order for games with funagain, my first in about a year.
Funagain has been sold since last I bought from them. Their shipping policies seem to have improved (I ordered on Wednesday, Thursday was a holiday, and my items appear to have shipped on Friday), but they also appear to have gotten rid of their price-matching guarantee. In any case, I'm pretty happy with timewellspent for continued orders.
My order arrived yesterday and includes three new German card games:
I'm pleased with what I got, though, and look forward to trying them out.
After the German publications, many of the games come out in the U.S. Some of the German publishers actually internationalize some of their games (though they're still pretty hard to get because they have bad U.S. distribution), but many sign deals with U.S. companies for simultaneous publication, and when that doesn't happen the authors will sometimes turn to U.S. companies for publication in new editions.
Rio Grande Games often simultaneously publishes the works of major German companies, while Mayfair Games often simulataneously publishes anything by Klaus Teuber. Fantasy Flight Games has meanwhile been doing lots of new (or even original) editions of German games, with Reiner Knizia being someone they have a special relationship with. Newcomer Uberplay, meanwhile, has been picking up some of the dregs, but also has published some new and worthwhile original games, and even managed to sign a deal with German publisher Queen Games for just long enough to get out their top-selling game. (Queen is notoriously hard to work with.)
Usually I'm patient enough to wait for the American edition of a German game. The German games, after all, are often twice as much money: $55 or $60 v. $25 or $30 for a relatively high-end game. And, I figure for the most part that if a game isn't brought over then it's probably not one of the top games that I'm going to want to keep forever.
I've had a few cases where that policy doesn't work out, however.
Exclusives are the most annoying, because they can often end up being really expensive. The Settlers of Nurnberg was one that I actually put out money for, when I was on a Catan kick the other year. Meanwhile I've ignored a four-tile German-exclusive expansion for Carcassonne, because I wasn't about to put out $10-15 for four tiles. (Actually, I was about to, but I restrained myself.)
Queen Games is the next troublesome anomoly, because they're apparently terrible to work with, and so the only U.S. editions of their games have been the result of that short-lived uberPlay deal, which resulted in one translation and a couple of their other games being imported in the German original on the cheap.
And finally there are card games. Here again, the best are imported, but it seems to be a much smaller percentage, with many very good card games never making it into English editions. Fortunately, even when imported, these German-original card games seem to remain very cheap.
The one place that I use to purchase German editions of games is funagain.com. They're an online retailer that stocks a lot of imports (though their stocking is very inconsistent).
For a bit I was using funagain for all my online game orders, but toward the end of last year, their shipping got worse and worse, to the point where I was no longer willing to open myself up to that frustration every time I placed an order. Since I've started using timewellspent.org, which has better customer service and much better prices, but almost no import stock. So I keep an eye on funagain for new imported items.
Last week, two events converged: money started coming in for eBay Magic sales; and the Essen game convention games came in to funagain. Thus, last Wednesday I placed a new order for games with funagain, my first in about a year.
Funagain has been sold since last I bought from them. Their shipping policies seem to have improved (I ordered on Wednesday, Thursday was a holiday, and my items appear to have shipped on Friday), but they also appear to have gotten rid of their price-matching guarantee. In any case, I'm pretty happy with timewellspent for continued orders.
My order arrived yesterday and includes three new German card games:
- Razzia. This is a new rethemed, card version of Reiner Knizia's great auction game, Ra. It's the primary reason I placed the order. Ra should be reprinted next year by uberPlay, by I figured with a different theme and a shorter play time, it was worth having this too, plus I'd have it 2-6 months earlier. Not bad for $16.
- Geschenkt. A cute and simple card game that's already made it onto Bruno Faidutti's ideal game library. You take cards (which are bad) or get rid of chips (which are good). It seemed like a nice simple add for early RPG gaming, where King's Breakfast, Coloretto, and 6 Nimmt! have been other hits.
- Im Auftrag des Königs. Adlung Spiele puts out surprisingly complex card games, which typically have 5 or 6 different types of cards and play something like board games. This is their newest. The art was not up to the quality I'd expected, but I hope the gameplay is good.
I'm pleased with what I got, though, and look forward to trying them out.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 12:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 01:23 pm (UTC)Re: tiles for carcassone
Date: 2004-12-03 12:51 pm (UTC)Re: tiles for carcassone
Date: 2004-12-12 11:41 pm (UTC)