Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne looks at the TableTop IndieGoGo campaign and AEG's new microgames.
 
Well, I see the TableTop IndieGoGo campaign brought in the $500,000 needed to fund a third season of the series in a little over 2 days, though momentum has slowed significantly on the way towards hitting the $750,000 point for 20 episodes and $1 million for the RPG series.  Still, with another 25+ days left in the campaign, it should reach both, especially if Geek & Sundry adds additional perks to the campaign.  Over 60 people have already signed up for the "Challenge Coin" added after the start of the campaign, so I imagine adding more perks would generate even more interest.
 
I would have liked to see some form of retailer perk added, wherein a supporting store gets listed on the TableTop website.  If $60 gets "your name in lights" on the TableTop set, $75 ought to get you listed as a supporting store on the website.  I backed the campaign at a somewhat higher level, since I have asked for DVDs of the series for quite some time and see they are offered as perks at $100.
 
International TableTop Day kicked off a full quarter of events designed to drive/draw customers into stores.  Next month, we have Free Comic Book Day, which has gotten more important to game stores as more game stores have started adding in comics as a means of diversification.  I will leave discussion of FCBD to others, though, and move onto Free RPG Day which takes place June 21.  Posters for the event should arrive in stores that signed up by the end of April, allowing retailers to have them in place by the first week of May, just in time to point FCBD attendees at those stores selling comic books toward Free RPG Day.  Otherwise, having the poster and other promotional materials in hand that early gives stores a good month and a half to promote Free RPG Day to their customers, a much longer time period than the typical two weeks many companies think long enough to run a successful promotional campaign (Free Comic Book Day a notable exception).  That's good promotional thinking, that is.

This week also heralded the return of the microgame, in a way we have not seen since the heyday of Cheapass Games, as AEG released a very nice cardboard display stand containing not one, not two, but three variants of Love Letter, plus 5 other games, playable in less than 30 minutes and retailing for about $10 each.  Apparently Japan and Korea are the new Europe (much like Orange is the New Black) as most of the designers for AEG's microgames line come from those countries.  Love Letter, of course, hit the shelves last year and did quite well, but AEG showed off most of the others at the GAMA Trade Show last month, impressing most retailers with whom I spoke with both packaging and gameplay.
 
AEG really launched its micrograme line impressively too, not only with the aforementioned cardboard display stand, but also by including bonus copies of Love Letter and Trains.  I swear, I have seen AEG give away so many demo copies of Trains, also from a Japanese designer, that I wonder sometimes if AEG has actually sold any copies of the game.  Be that as it may, these additions make the AEG microgames an even better deal and one that I hope leads to a resurgence in microgames.
 
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.