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 talks about Mayfair, TableTop and Max Protection at the Alliance Open House.

I find it interesting that, despite some complaints from retailers (Star Trek Catan and the recent exclusivity arrangement with Alliance) Mayfair Games has taken quite a leadership role within the gaming industry, first with their Minimum Advertised Price policy and more recently with their co-sponsorship of both this year's Origins and Gen Con, followed by their announcement  at the Open House of a strong push with TV advertising in the Chicago market (third largest television market in the nation, according to stationindex.com), including an extended appearance by Mayfair Games newsrams Bob and Angus on the Chicago broadcast of the Today Show.  This, coupled with their offering of professionally produced commercials to qualified retailers, is far ahead of anything any other manufacturer (with the exception of Wizards of the Coast) has developed to grow the market.  Wizards of the Coast's relaunch/push of Kaijudo, Fantasy Flight Games, and Paizo Publishing all do a good job within the industry of supporting and growing their various games, FFG especially through the Media Center and Organized Play and Paizo through the Pathfinder Society, but neither is reaching outside the adventure/hobby/specialty game industry.

Boyan Radakovich, associate producer of TableTop on the Geek and Sundry Website, talked about the effect the show is having on game sales, with stores and distributors reporting huge increases in sales of games featured on the show.  Whether Google/YouTube commits to a second season for the show depends heavily on the number of subscribers the channel gets and the number of shares, not likes, a show gets, so, if you would like a second season of TableTop, be sure to subscribe and share each episode.

Radakovich addressed some of the concerns that retailers had about TableTop first directing interested buyers to Amazon to buy the games featured on the show, pointing out that no one currently maintains a comprehensive online retailer locater; most viewers were familiar with Amazon; and Amazon had all of the games played on TableTop readily available, should viewers wish to purchase.  Regarding the more recent agreement to promote ableTop featured games in Target, Radakovich pointed out that Target only promoted those games it already stocked and would help drive interest in expansions, such as those for Catan, and other products from the same publisher that Target did not stock. (Not that this is generalizable throughout the chain, but I took a walk through our local Target this afternoon.  No games from participating publishers had the Geek & Sundry sticker on them and the G&S cardboard display featured Scrabble Catch Phrase, which, if I recall correctly, has not appeared on any episode of TableTop.)  In addition, Radakovich showed off G&S TableTop posters, hopefully arriving in stores in November, and discussed a possible lighted G&S sign for in-store use, as well as a national G&S TableTop Games Day, tentatively scheduled for next spring.  Lots of good stuff here, assuming it comes to fruition.

Max Protection, from whom I haven't heard much from in the past year or so, showed off a line of new, tougher sleeves.  Among our customers, Max Protection has acquired a reputation for attractive sleeves that do not hold up to repeated shuffling, tearing and peeling after only a few uses, so our more active players avoided them.  This new line appears to have dealt with the tearing problem. At least, I was able to pull fairly hard on the sides of the sleeve before the sides separated under the pressure.  I have always liked Max Protection's price point and selection so hope these sleeves perform as advertised.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflct the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.