Wings for the Baron - GMT

[ArizonaTank]

Very good news!!

GMT is picking up Wings for the Baron. A strategic aircraft production game set in WWI Germany.

This game under its previous publisher has been very popular and very hard to get.

https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1083-wings-for-the-baron-deluxe-gmt-edition.aspx

[bobarossa]

Haven't bought a boardgame in a long time but this is REALLY tempting.  Do you know how long P500 has been up?  Just under halfway there.

edit: well I am #225

[bobarossa]

Well Wings for the Baron hit 500 orders a week or so ago.  Unfortunately there is no timetable for when it will actually get mailed as they have to schedule a team to complete the game.  They referenced a hard date is usually announced when it hits around 700 orders.  That could take years.  The last hundred orders have taken months.

[ArizonaTank]

Well Wings for the Baron hit 500 orders a week or so ago.  Unfortunately there is no timetable for when it will actually get mailed as they have to schedule a team to complete the game.  They referenced a hard date is usually announced when it hits around 700 orders.  That could take years.  The last hundred orders have taken months.

As a casual observer of GMT's timelines, they just seem opaque and not consistent. I have seen games take years to get to P500, then hit the printer relatively quickly. Other times, it takes years (as you said) to get from P500, to game in your hands.

In my very, very limited exposure to the industry, I just wonder if it is because at the end of the day, most of those working wargames mostly have a day job. Game dev teams seem to sometimes be a stop-and-start affair. Good, experienced game developers are at a premium, and mostly have day jobs. I don't get the sense that many in the industry are actually able to make good money from designing / developing one, or just a few games. Of course, there are probably some prolific designers with hit games in their portfolio who do OK. 

I recently watched a long interview of Mark Herman who was talking about SPI and Victory Games. Most of the staff in those days were full-time, and making enough to work the job full-time. They would come into the office, and test, develop and help design each other's games. There was a pretty quick cycle time. That is why their output was prodigious by today's standards. They could get away with it because the number of games they were selling was much higher than today's volumes.

But even Mark Herman, who was one of the founders of Victory Games, ultimately went off to work in defense consulting.

BTW, not to derail the thread, but here is that fascinating interview with Mark Herman: