Links: A Disappearing Pandemic and Opportunities for Game Designers

Links: A Disappearing Pandemic and Opportunities for Game Designers
Board Game: Pandemic
• In mid-January 2022, Game Rant published an article from Daniel Deangelo titled "Pandemic Digital Board Game Removed", with the article drawing mostly on a Reddit post that quotes an Asmodee Digital auto-reply that notes that the digital version of Pandemic had been removed from Steam, Google Play, and the App Store. Phew, what a chain!

To quote that Asmodee Digital response:
Quote:
First of all, we want to thank you and all the Pandemic players for your loyalty and support over time. Unfortunately, we are taking the Pandemic app off the stores. We have worked hard over 4 years on Pandemic and withdrawing it from the stores has not been an easy choice. This decision was made with a heavy heart for a multitude of reasons that we cannot disclose.

For now, only PC, App Store & Google Play has been removed. Microsoft version will follow Jan 31th 2022 and then Nintendo Switch by the end of July 2022.
Deangelo speculates on a few reasons why these versions might be removed — "One possibility is that Asmodee is trying to show sensitivity regarding the COVID-19 pandemic" — but the most obvious reason isn't mentioned: Pandemic was added to Board Game Arena in June 2021 following Asmodee's purchase of BGA in February 2021. Why share that cow when you can have it all to yourself?

From gallery of W Eric Martin

• On March 11-12, 2022, German publisher Ravensburger will host its fourth "Game Inventor Days", an online event in which designers can pitch up to two game ideas that have already been vetted beforehand. On its website, Ravensburger details (in English, French, and German) what it does and doesn't want to see. Applications opened on February 11, 2022 and close on March 3 or whenever the available time slots have been booked.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

• German publisher Pegasus Spiele is thinking along the same lines, with its "Designer Days" event taking place March 10-12, 2022. You can register on its website through February 27, 2022.

• Italian publisher dV Giochi and the Lucca Comics & Games fair have announced the 35th edition of the Giochi Inedito — a themed competition for best new card game — and the theme for 2022 is hieroglyphs, with submissions being due by the end of February 2022.

From gallery of W Eric Martin

•••

Board Game: Superfight
While strolling through the BGG News queue, I ran across two items that I wrote for a links round-up in 2015...then never got back to finishing. I typically have 6-12 posts in the works at any point, in addition to a couple of dozen browser tabs open to things I might want to cover, not to mention all the emails I send myself, and sometimes things get left behind.

Anyway, here are those items:

• What accounts for seven of the top ten best-selling games in Markus King's retail store Troll and Toad? The Cards Against Humanity base game and expansions, along with two Superfight titles. What's different about those titles compared to almost everything else he carries? He can't purchase them from distributors. In this 2015 ICv2 column, he ruminates on how this affects his business and what it might mean for the future.

• In late June 2015, a prototype for a Snakes and Ladders-style game that featured Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein was auctioned for $500. The description states that this game was "covertly designed for the CIA by Donald Levine (the creator of the iconic G.I. Joe doll) in 2005 for an 'influence operation', intended to strategically distribute scary or perhaps comical depictions of Bin Laden and Hussein to children, ideally to dissuade them from joining a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda."

From gallery of W Eric Martin

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