Talking to the TroopsChaosium has a new communication policy aimed at the retail stores that sell our products on the front lines of our industry. We began a while ago and I am glad we are not caught flat-footed in this volatile adventure game market. I just finished writing a piece of promotional fluff for GAMA. GAMA is our industry's trade association, and my piece is cleverly titled "What Is Adventure Gaming?" Here's what I didn't include. We discussed whether computer games are, in fact, a part of the adventure game hobby. I said not really, and part of my argument was because computer games are basically a solitaire experience, and thus contrary to the adventure game market idea.
From the start of roleplaying I have been ranting about RPG's being a new entertainment medium. Chaosium has tried to design and produce games that would provide entertainment for the GM's and players alike. The art, or craft, of the RPG is that everyone cooperates in their own manner to cocreate the story. RP games rely on the premise that they will have real people sitting around and playing them. People to People.
As you Mythos fans know, Chaosium has lately survived an impact with Big Biz. I mean CCG's, of course. My one-word reaction: Yikes! The costs of production simply can't allow small investments. For the promise of milllions of dollars Chaosium has undertaken huge risks which can exterminate a company with a single bad print run. We have already seen companies go down as a result of this: Just look around. Where are your favorite companies these days? After that quite impersonal bout with Big Biz, we at Chaosium sat down to reconsider what we really want, need, and can do to keep doing what we are doing.
As I write this the CCG market has just been devoured by WotC's voracious acquisition program. TSR was Course One. Five Rings Publishing was the second course. It had appeared to many of us that Five Rings Publishing had a neat program going, and that it was going to be the alternative CCG company. Now it is part of WotC. Perhaps FASA soon will be as well. We've all heard the rumors.
WotC has opened its first retail shop in Seattle, as part of its Game Center. They have plans to make many more, and to sell their cards in discount stores. Great news for M:TG (if it lasts). Not so great for Chaosium (and SJG, WEG, ICE, etc.)
About a year ago the obvious solution occured to me: We need to talk to the retail stores more regularly. First of all, as a business we need to know what our product is doing on the front line. They know. Philosophically, it is an extension of the face-to-face policy.
We here at Chaosium are still not motivated by profit to exist. However, we need to meet certain severe economic realities, or disappear. But we are still really gamers here, as well as businesspersons. We want to find like-minded people on the front line and do what a manufacturer can do to help them out. We are looking for our Steadfast Allies. We need them. In the past we have relied upon distributors to communicate about, and our print advertising to sell, our product. We have enhanced that now, with an active telephone service for the retail stores. And newsletters, and posters, and other cool Chaosium stuff. We want to talk to you, the store owner. If you want to get some free stuff, and find the nearest Chaosium demonstration team, then don't wait, but call us: 1-800-213-1489.
Chaosium Manifestations
Here is one great example of how an RPG affects the real world.
Serpent Man of the Month
We thank Suzanne Courteau (wife of Greg Stafford) for this photo and sharing of the memorable event. The Serpent Man tattoo shown here depicts a famous Lovecraftian race, and the original was drawn by Mark Ferrari as part of a Call of Cthulhu supplement, S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands.
This is a photo of the torso of Steve Cotton. Suzanne met him in Hawaii, where she had stopped in at Steve's Hilo tattoo studio to get a nene goose tattoo. If you are on the Big Island and wish to get one yourself, we recommed Steve without reservaton.
This article was drawn from Starry Wisdom V1 #3, Summer 1997.