The good folks at Columbia Games, home of Wizard Kings, Hammer of the Scots and other games involving scads and scads of little wooden blocks, are floating the idea of Block Parties, wherein you (for a hypothetical value of “you”) host a game night in your home focused on Columbia’s block games, they help you promote the event, and you get a cut of any orders generated. I’m excited to see a marketing idea this good happen in an industry notoriously deaf to good marketing ideas, but it isn’t quite perfect, is it? I mean, with games like this, there’s kind of a PlayStation-in-the-ghetto factor: if your friend has one, you effectively have one. However, for CCGs and other games that benefit from each individual making an investment, this idea could be en fuego. These games already have in-store demo support programs, but in-home events seem meaningfully different to me, better able to get through people’s resistance by showing them what their real play environment can be like – tournaments don’t bring out the best in CCGs, in my opinion. Social Games, are you listening? And what say our readers?
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If gamers were good salesmen…
Insert your own punchline here:
Well, part of Wizard Kings (it’s my understanding) is buying add-on armies, so it’s possible that just because someone has a copy, someone else might want to buy the Undead army to play with, etc.
My purchase of the card game “Bang!” and introducing it to my friends resulted in two more purchases of the game amongst my friends. Just because you have a friend with a game doesn’t mean you can borrow it whenever you want to play it with other people.