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• Repos Production is inviting suggestions for the "Semiramis" card that will appear in 7 Wonders: Cities. To participate in the contest, which runs through Feb. 29, participants must like Repos' Facebook page, then suggest the Semiramis power in a comment in either English or French. Each participant can make only one suggestion. The winner gets his power on the card, while that person and the second and third place winners receive a copy of the expansion signed by designer Antoine Bauza.
• The U.S. retailer Marbles: The Brain Store is hosting a game design contest with a deadline of March 16, 2012. Here's an excerpt from the contest guidelines:Quote:1) Design a game with the following criteria in mind:
• brain beneficial
• takes seconds to learn, years to master
• enjoyable for all ages
• unique
• of heirloom quality
• and of course – fun!
Oh, is that all? The winner receives $2,000 in exchange for the rights to the game design.
• Popular Science magazine highlights "[n]early 100 years of questionable games in the pages of PopSci" in a photo gallery titled "Board Games Weren't Always Fun". (HT: Dale Yu)• In a New York Toy Fair 2012 post about items coming from Steve Jackson Games over the next 6-9 months, some readers speculated over the health of the publisher, which has had its ups-and-downs over the years as game lines surge in popularity, then recede to the level of evergreen. Turns out there's no need to worry – or no chance to crow, depending on your point of view. SJG owner Steve Jackson has released his annual "Report to the Stakeholders" and here's the bottom line:
Quote:2011 was another really good year. That's five in a row. We were profitable in 2011, on the highest gross ever: just over $4.5 million, a million-dollar increase over 2010! Reasons:
• We kept our core Munchkin sets in print almost all the time, despite high (and sometimes spiking) sales.
• We released two new Munchkin core sets, and both were popular.
• Sales of the new dice games stayed strong, accounting for about 5% of total sales. Zombie Dice was our #4 item ranked by dollars.
• We continued to offer RPG support, mostly in PDF form.
We shipped 54 different items (one more than last year): 26 new, 28 reprints.
The Munchkin line, including the Munchkin Quest boardgame, accounted for about 75% of our sales. Munchkin is now available in 15 languages, with one more licensed.• At Cannes 2012, Antoine Bauza's Takenoko was announced as the 2012 As d'Or – France's Game of the Year – following his win of the Special Jury Award in 2011 for 7 Wonders. For 2012 the Jury Award went to Ystari Games' new version of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. Marco Teubner's Zwerg Riese won the award for best children's game, while Philippe Keyaerts' Olympos (another Ystari release) won the new-for-2012 Grand Prix.
• Monopoly: World of Warcraft and Risk: StarCraft are both due out later in 2012 from USAopoly and Blizzard Entertainment.
• Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner called Magic: The Gathering "...the largest game brand in the U.S.", as noted on ICv2, with revenue of more than $200 million in 2011, more than double the amount earned from items related to the seminal collectible card game in 2008.
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