What’s going on with the non-Munchkin product lines?
Reed: Car Wars Classic (see "Car Wars Classic,' 'Revolution! Anarchy,' 'Tile Chess'"). We had the reprint in October and sold through the entire print run in four days. The reprint showed up March 2 and as of March 12 we had sold through 90% of that run. We’re working on a reprint of that and on March 31 we’re launching a Kickstarter project for Car Wars Arenas which is a Classic expansion.
Have you done any other Kickstarters since Ogre (see "'Ogre' Print Run Will Be Over 10,000")?
Reed: Not yet. This will be very different. This will be the same sized box as Car Wars Classic, so a small, reasonable-sized box, $19.95 retail price point. The other significant difference between this and Ogre, Ogre was a game we were making no matter what. Car Wars Arena, since we don’t know what the demand is for that Classic-type product, is a real Kickstarter. If it doesn’t make the goal, we’re not going to make it.
You say it’s a Classic product. That was in the original Car Wars line?
Reed: This product was never in the original product line, but its contents were. The way Car Wars used to be, there were very few actual printed arenas at full map scale. Most of them were little bitty drawings in the book and you had to get some graph paper and pen and ruler and draw it yourself full size. This is a chance to take some of those old little arenas that were never printed at games-play size and actually release them as full sized maps.
The Kickstarter starts March 31st. When is the trade release?
Reed: Well, if it doesn’t succeed, it never goes into the hobby. If it succeeds we still have to look at when we would put that into the hobby. It would either be very late this year or first quarter next year.
Is there a retailer level in the Kickstarter?
There are two levels. One is a $60 level which will get the retailer six copies of this $20 expansion, and the $120 level, which gets them six copies of the expansion, plus six copies of Car Wars Classic. Since it keeps selling through so quickly we had some retailers say ‘well, I couldn’t get it.’
Hackard: We have the Car Wars Card Game coming back late this year in a new edition. The last two editions were each 110 cards, this one is 150 cards because there’s 40 cards in a set.
What is that release date and price point?
Hackard: That should August or September. $24.95.
SJG also announced a new mash-up of Ogre and Operation 218 at the show (see "Steve Jackson Games Announces 'Ogre: Operation 218'").
