Real Life Rip Van Winkle by Alice Brentwood
I have heard some say that the Beatles killed music; referring to the industry wanting to copy the success by producing only artists or song that fit the formula. Many great artists and songs did not get promoted because they did not fit the formula. Similarly, Trivial Pursuit, by its great success may have forced the board game industry into “formulaic” by having to sort through the sheer volume of submissions by those wanting to produce the next big success story. (Milton Bradley alone, was receiving 10,000 board game submissions a year.) A difficult economy, changing demographics, holding to formulaic new products and this emerging computer game industry all did not favour the board game industry. By the turn of the millennia, the board game industry more or less died. Larger screen TV’s shifted the entertainment focus from the kitchen to the living room. Priorities shifted to income; longer retail hours, shift work, and smaller families made it more difficult to assemble a group to play a board game. Tough economic times led the major board game companies to rely on tried and true long lived products. The innovation tap was turned off. People wanted new and only the computer game industry was offering that.
Enter Rip Van Winkle(AKA AamirQuraishi). In the early 90’s Aamir was shopping for distribution for his first board game Arcana®( based on an ancient Babylonian game). He went to the New York Toy Fair to present his game. It met with favorable results and was put into review by Parker Brothers, Mattel, Milton Bradley and Hasbro. Even though they were taken by the game, the companies felt that that it would not garner enough sales to cover the pipeline(500,000 units). He ended up getting Canadian distribution with Whitman-Golden(Little Golden Books), just as the recession hit. Stellar sales but economic conditions forced a cutback on promotions and there were few reorders. For the next few years Aamir continued to develop and test prototypes of new games in the hopes that the board game market would come back some day.
Five years ago an urge to re-enter the games market began to grow. In 2008 Aamir ” wanted to see what all the fuss is about with these new computer games” and got himself to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco ( an annual international electronic game industry conference - 20,000 attendees and 450 seminars ). From the moment of stepping on the plane , extending through the week long conference and likely still holding till today he felt “like Rip Van Winkle”, waking up from a long sleep. The creative buzz was almost deafening. He was in a realm where old and new dreams were suddenly and slowly coming alive. Emerging technologies were compatible with and driving new and old game ideas. Emerging markets were looking for products like his. In his mind it was a no brainer to commit to this happiness. He revived his company, Rocky Mountain Gameworks; bright eyed and bushy tailed he set about making products for this amazing new market space.
2009, recession. Funding had dried up but Aamir(Van Winkle) had packaged one of his games in DVD form and went again to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to shop for distribution. There was interest in the game by a company that specialized in game/film combinations. It was a late night at the hotel room preparing a one page treatment for a film that would fit the game and to
present the next day. Initial comments were favorable but some weeks into discussions, the highly successful company fell victim to rampant uncontrolled growth and had to shut down to save itself. At this time the Apple App Store was 8 months old. RIM(Blackberry) and Nokia were on the hunt for apps to populate their upcoming app stores and Aamir was asked to present his ideas for apps. He had not thought of any of his product as apps so it was another long night at the hotel figuring out how the products might work on a small touch screen.
There was enough interest from both RIM and Nokia to convince Aamir to focus on developing for the apps market. “ The business model fits a smaller independent producer, there is a strong market for the game types to be offered and emerging technologies are playing into future products.”
2010 was spent organizing, developing, tweaking the product line, researching tech and market space.
In 2011 Aamir(Van Winkle) has teamed up with local app developer Grow Wireless to develop and produce the original word game Vowels Gone Wild!. It is now available on iTunes App Store for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
“ Thanks to the Grow Wireless team, the game turned out far better than expected. What we started out with and where we ended up, it’s really cool. There is much greater depth yet it remains easy to play – too easy maybe. Now the work starts, telling the world so that they will have the opportunity to make up their own mind. As soon as sales can support it there are going to be some wild improvements in store, Vowels Gone Wild! is going to be Vowels Gone Wilder!!!”
Aamir(Van Winkle) has two more releases planned for 2012 and promises they will be “interesting”. For now check out Vowels Gone Wild!. It’s a reasonably polished first effort and plays very well. It’s fun too.
See Vowels Gone Wild! at the iTunes App Store and vowelsgonewild.com
(928 words)
PRESS RELEASE
SUBJECT: App Store Vowels have Gone Wild!
So much challenge in such an easy game! ( - spells addictive )
Vowels Gone Wild has only been out for 4 months and it is getting great review after great review. With players sharing their experience, the community is growing. Want in? Get on board for just 99 cents! Check out this game and see how far you can run up the leaderboards. While you’re at it, we’d love for you to write a review of the great time you had. Every great review moves Vowels Gone Wild up the ladder and gives you more people to compete against. Let’s make Vowels Gone Wild a success and fuel the adding of new features to bring us even more challenges and fun. Who knows? You could be part of something big!
Feel free to post or forward this message to your viral network of choice.
A parade of champions might achieve a tipping point!
Friends of VGW
Download at iTunes App Store
Video demo at vowelsgonewild.com
I have heard some say that the Beatles killed music; referring to the industry wanting to copy the success by producing only artists or song that fit the formula. Many great artists and songs did not get promoted because they did not fit the formula. Similarly, Trivial Pursuit, by its great success may have forced the board game industry into “formulaic” by having to sort through the sheer volume of submissions by those wanting to produce the next big success story. (Milton Bradley alone, was receiving 10,000 board game submissions a year.) A difficult economy, changing demographics, holding to formulaic new products and this emerging computer game industry all did not favour the board game industry. By the turn of the millennia, the board game industry more or less died. Larger screen TV’s shifted the entertainment focus from the kitchen to the living room. Priorities shifted to income; longer retail hours, shift work, and smaller families made it more difficult to assemble a group to play a board game. Tough economic times led the major board game companies to rely on tried and true long lived products. The innovation tap was turned off. People wanted new and only the computer game industry was offering that.
Enter Rip Van Winkle(AKA AamirQuraishi). In the early 90’s Aamir was shopping for distribution for his first board game Arcana®( based on an ancient Babylonian game). He went to the New York Toy Fair to present his game. It met with favorable results and was put into review by Parker Brothers, Mattel, Milton Bradley and Hasbro. Even though they were taken by the game, the companies felt that that it would not garner enough sales to cover the pipeline(500,000 units). He ended up getting Canadian distribution with Whitman-Golden(Little Golden Books), just as the recession hit. Stellar sales but economic conditions forced a cutback on promotions and there were few reorders. For the next few years Aamir continued to develop and test prototypes of new games in the hopes that the board game market would come back some day.
Five years ago an urge to re-enter the games market began to grow. In 2008 Aamir ” wanted to see what all the fuss is about with these new computer games” and got himself to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco ( an annual international electronic game industry conference - 20,000 attendees and 450 seminars ). From the moment of stepping on the plane , extending through the week long conference and likely still holding till today he felt “like Rip Van Winkle”, waking up from a long sleep. The creative buzz was almost deafening. He was in a realm where old and new dreams were suddenly and slowly coming alive. Emerging technologies were compatible with and driving new and old game ideas. Emerging markets were looking for products like his. In his mind it was a no brainer to commit to this happiness. He revived his company, Rocky Mountain Gameworks; bright eyed and bushy tailed he set about making products for this amazing new market space.
2009, recession. Funding had dried up but Aamir(Van Winkle) had packaged one of his games in DVD form and went again to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to shop for distribution. There was interest in the game by a company that specialized in game/film combinations. It was a late night at the hotel room preparing a one page treatment for a film that would fit the game and to
present the next day. Initial comments were favorable but some weeks into discussions, the highly successful company fell victim to rampant uncontrolled growth and had to shut down to save itself. At this time the Apple App Store was 8 months old. RIM(Blackberry) and Nokia were on the hunt for apps to populate their upcoming app stores and Aamir was asked to present his ideas for apps. He had not thought of any of his product as apps so it was another long night at the hotel figuring out how the products might work on a small touch screen.
There was enough interest from both RIM and Nokia to convince Aamir to focus on developing for the apps market. “ The business model fits a smaller independent producer, there is a strong market for the game types to be offered and emerging technologies are playing into future products.”
2010 was spent organizing, developing, tweaking the product line, researching tech and market space.
In 2011 Aamir(Van Winkle) has teamed up with local app developer Grow Wireless to develop and produce the original word game Vowels Gone Wild!. It is now available on iTunes App Store for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
“ Thanks to the Grow Wireless team, the game turned out far better than expected. What we started out with and where we ended up, it’s really cool. There is much greater depth yet it remains easy to play – too easy maybe. Now the work starts, telling the world so that they will have the opportunity to make up their own mind. As soon as sales can support it there are going to be some wild improvements in store, Vowels Gone Wild! is going to be Vowels Gone Wilder!!!”
Aamir(Van Winkle) has two more releases planned for 2012 and promises they will be “interesting”. For now check out Vowels Gone Wild!. It’s a reasonably polished first effort and plays very well. It’s fun too.
See Vowels Gone Wild! at the iTunes App Store and vowelsgonewild.com
(928 words)
PRESS RELEASE
SUBJECT: App Store Vowels have Gone Wild!
So much challenge in such an easy game! ( - spells addictive )
Vowels Gone Wild has only been out for 4 months and it is getting great review after great review. With players sharing their experience, the community is growing. Want in? Get on board for just 99 cents! Check out this game and see how far you can run up the leaderboards. While you’re at it, we’d love for you to write a review of the great time you had. Every great review moves Vowels Gone Wild up the ladder and gives you more people to compete against. Let’s make Vowels Gone Wild a success and fuel the adding of new features to bring us even more challenges and fun. Who knows? You could be part of something big!
Feel free to post or forward this message to your viral network of choice.
A parade of champions might achieve a tipping point!
Friends of VGW
Download at iTunes App Store
Video demo at vowelsgonewild.com
#14 Grow This Game
This ain’t no ordinary poem I’ll have you know.
From right here there are live links, interesting places to go.
Like Vowels Gone Wild to help the game and community grow.
This addictive game, already has five stars in the iTunes App Store.
At vowelsgonewild.com there are demo videos for one to explore.
Hope you enjoy the game experience and writing a review helps even more.
Emo Longberry
This ain’t no ordinary poem I’ll have you know.
From right here there are live links, interesting places to go.
Like Vowels Gone Wild to help the game and community grow.
This addictive game, already has five stars in the iTunes App Store.
At vowelsgonewild.com there are demo videos for one to explore.
Hope you enjoy the game experience and writing a review helps even more.
Emo Longberry