AH General Jan/Feb 1981 Letter to the Editor. Computer War Games.

[rkr1958]

I was reading through one of my issues of the AH, "The General" (Vol18, #5, Jan/Feb 1982) and came across this letter to the editor which I thought I'd share. This was almost 41-years ago. Good grief I'm getting old!

[Centuur]

Well: we all know what happened to Avalon Hill. But realistically speaking: in the early 1980's was there anybody around who thought that we would be having the technology we have now? I didn't at that point...

[Courtenay]

Well, Neuromancer was published in 1984. Don't know if that counts as "early" '80s.

[rkr1958]

What's sobering is that we're as far removed in time from that issue of, "The General" as that issue is removed from the actual start of World War II.

[Zovs]

And yet board war gaming is not dead and the article in the General is a false prophecy.

Consider, GDW continued (and almost finished) the Europa series in the 1980s. GRD was birthed and the Europa series was expanded and again almost finished by the late 1990s. So while both GDW and GRD went out of business, the Europa line is still played today.

Consider, SPI, the reigning champions of all board war game producers, they reigned from 1969 to 1982, and although they went out of business many of their games are still sought out on eBay (WIE goes for $250 to $600), and S&T was sold off to Decision Games.

Consider DG, after they purchased S&T they have still produced the magazine with a game since the early / mid 1980s to present. DG has also created two other magazine games (WW2 and Modern) and has resurrected many of the old SPI titles and reproduced those.

Consider The Gamers, they started off in the late 1980s and ran until the early 2000s an then went out of business but sold their rights to Multi-Man Productions.

MMP not only acquired the rights from Hasbro to preproduce and continue the ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) line of products, but they also produced many of their own games and have also reproduced the Gamers catalog and have continued the Gamers line of products currently. Arguably ASL is the biggest and most successful board war game of all time.

Consider GMT, these fellows have been going strong since the 1990s and continue on today, many of the designers of their games have come from Avalon Hill itself and also from SPI.

Consider Compass Games, these new kids on the block have not only produced their own set of games, but have attracted many of the the old board war game designers from the 1970s, 80s and 90s to reproduced some of their titles such as Afrika Korps, The Third World War and The Russian Campaign).

So board war game are still going strong and are far from dead, and I did not even mention all the smaller independent publishers.

[Courtenay]

And yet board war gaming is not dead and the article in the General is a false prophecy.

Consider, GDW continued (and almost finished) the Europa series in the 1980s. GRD was birthed and the Europa series was expanded and again almost finished by the late 1990s. So while both GDW and GRD went out of business, the Europa line is still played today.

I still miss GDW. The reason it went out of business was that Winston Hamilton died, with no provision for what would happen to the company, and it was total chaos for at least six months. Even after that, new owners got out Wavell's War. What really irks me is that playtest versions of Bloody Eagles and third edition of Scorched Earth were done (I saw the first and played the second), but were never released. Sigh.