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I actually started BGG's Spiel 2015 Preview before Spiel 2014 even opened. One publisher let me know that a game had been moved back a calendar year, and rather than attempt to remember that small detail for twelve months, I opened a GeekList and made it the first entry. So far I'm up to eighty entries without trying too hard, and I've just sent out a Spiel 2015 request email to roughly one hundred publishers that featured wares at Spiel 2014. Their responses will be incorporated into the Spiel 2015 Preview along with whatever other information I ran across in the next four weeks, and it will go live on Monday, August 3, 2015 — the day after the lights go off at Gen Con 2015. One con at a time, boys and girls...
If you're a designer or publisher that plans to sell or demo one or more games at Spiel 2015 and you haven't heard from me, please check out the form letter below and respond to me by email at the address in the BGG News header. Here's the pitch:
•••
I'm assembling a Spiel 2015 Preview on BoardGameGeek that will debut on August 3, 2015, and I want to include your company on this list! To do that, I need to know:
• Your booth number at Spiel 2015 (e.g., 2-M112)
• Games that you will debut at that show
• Other games released in the months prior to Spiel 2015 that will be available there
• Games that you will preview at Spiel 2015 ahead of a future release date (along with the anticipated release dates of those games)
• Prices (and discounted convention prices if any) for the games you will sell
Please respond by Monday, July 27, 2015 if you want your games to be included in the Spiel 2015 Preview when it first goes live. (If you don't have information and images ready by that date, please send that material to me whenever you do have it. I'll be adding titles to the Spiel 2015 Preview through Sept. 30. Flat cover images work best in the BGG database; an image of all of the game components is also useful.)
If your games aren't already listed on BGG, details on how to submit them, designers and publishers to the BGG database are here. If the games aren't listed in the BGG database, I can't link to them in the Spiel 2015 Preview — and if you're not listed in the Preview, then we can't schedule time with you in the BGG booth to broadcast and record demonstrations of your games!
For reference as to how the game listings will look, you can check out BGG's Spiel 2014 Preview.
In addition to creating the Spiel 2015 Preview, I also edit and do most of the writing for BGG News, which includes a section of written and video-recorded game previews. If you're interested in having games featured in BGG News (and on BGG's Twitter feed) prior to Spiel 2015, you can ask me about my publication schedule.
I also publish designer diaries about forthcoming games on BGG News. These diaries are a great way to share a game's origin story, and I typically hear from many designers and publishers with stories to tell prior to Spiel. If you're interested in scheduling the publication of a diary on BGG News, please let me know, and the sooner, the better because I won't have space for everyone!
These diaries should present the personal story of a game or designer, not just the marketing highlights of the title in question. Here's one great example of such a diary, paired with my video overview of the game in question.
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Even if you're not a designer or publisher, I'd love for you to help assemble this big mess of information into a coherent form. Thus, I ask that you subscribe to this GeekList — Add These Games to the BGG Database! — and help in one of two ways:
1. If you run across a designer or publisher who states that a game will appear at Spiel 2015 — and that company is new in 2015 or not a Spiel 2014 attendee — drop a note on that GeekList with a link to wherever you saw that information and I'll follow up on it. (If you're not sure whether the publisher is new or the information unknown, drop it on the GeekList anyway. Better that I see something a few times than not see it at all.
2. Some publishers — e.g. KOSMOS, Ravensburger, and AMIGO — reveal lots of Spiel 2015 information all at once, and while I'd love to be able to get everything in the BGG database myself, time doesn't allow it. When I run across such data dumps, I might post an overview of the situation on that GeekList and see whether someone else wants to take charge of inputting that information. If so, you'll receive my gratitude and a GeekGold bounty.
I'm steeling myself for this three month marathon — with Gen Con 2015 taking place in the middle of it, of course! — and hope that I can put together all of the game details that you want to know about.
In closing, I present a picture of a cat in a box:
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