Links: Spiel 2012 Previews, Game Design for Korea & Hidden Costs for Game Store Owners

Six years ago, Michael Schmitt agreed to help me bring a little bit of Spiel back from Essen and celebrate in his Spielwiese cafe with all the great new games released there – many of them from Berlin designers.

The photo galleries on my After Essen Party page show some of the fun from the past five years. As you can see, it has been a great mix of games and guests from around the world, and we can even claim that Spiel des Jahres (German Game of the Year) award winner Qwirkle was discovered here!

As always, the 6th Annual After Essen Party is open to the public, athough space is limited and it is best to come early. Visiting designers are welcome to show their newly released games as well (please, no prototypes, however). Feel free to contact me or Michael at the Spielwiese in advance (especially if you are a game designer or publisher). The party is on the Tuesday after Spiel (Oct. 23, 2012), beginning at 7 p.m. Hope to see you at Spiel and at the party in Berlin afterwards!

Everybody knows about shrinkage, but few have experienced just how pernicious it can be. Shrinkage is particularly bad in hobby gaming retail, where too many store owners use a "dumb" cash register and manage inventory by pencil and paper and the vagaries of proprietor memory. A game store cannot protect what it cannot measure, and it cannot measure what it cannot track. The necessity for a proper point-of-sale software infrastructure cannot be emphasized enough.