Happy Birthday!

Happy 1st Birthday, CHC!

I launched the Canadian Heritage Collection in September of last year and, as I compile the 2011 Master Catalogue of Canadian Games, I'm excited to see the project taking on a life of its own.

The 2011 catalogue contains another 50% more games than last year and lots of new and updated trivia about the designers, publishers, games, companies, organizations, and awards that make the Canadian specialty game market such a fascinating topic. We're currently tracking games from 25 Canadian publishers and almost 50 individual Canadian designers. Barring any last minute additions, the content is now largely complete and the advertising continues to come in. For those of you who've already spoken to me or who remain on the fence, a gentle reminder that the deadline for advertising assets and payment is the end of September as the 2011 catalogue will be releasing early in October.  Contact me if you have any questions.


Thanks to the Collection, I've had all manner of wonderful discussions with retailers, publishers, and fellow designers and I'm looking forward to seeing their response to the new catalogue when it comes out. Along the way, I've built some solid relationships with organizations like the Game Artisans of Canada (of which I'm a member), the Canadian Game Design Awards, and the Great Canadian Board Game Blitz. Meanwhile, the Canadian Gamer blog continues to grow - we've been picked up by BoardGameGeek News and Purple Pawn, among others, and these posts are beginning to cross 250 views on a fairly consistent basis.

As for our Canadian Made, Canadian Played newsletter, we currently have around 40 subscribers, half of which I've confirmed as Canadian specialty game retailers. If you're interested in receiving the occasional bit of news about the Canadian game market in your inbox, please subscribe. Just as important, please talk to your local game retailer about us and encourage them to subscribe as well - they're ultimately the ones who the Canadian Heritage Collection was designed to reach. Here's a list of the Canadian game retailers currently on our subscriber list - if you live in the neighbourhood, be sure to visit them and ask them about their own collection of Canadian-designed and -published games!

British Columbia
Starlit Citadel
Drexoll Games
Comic Encounters
Your Go Games
The Connection Games & Comics

Alberta
Boardgames 4 Us
Games People Play
Gracie & Gruff Fine Toys
Mission: Fun & Games

Saskatchewan
ComicReaders
Dragon's Den Games

Ontario
Toys on Fire
Worlds Away
Planet X
The Game Shop.ca
Mastermind Toys
Paradise Comics
Game and Hobby Zone
Hobby Centre / Cave Comics

Quebec
Il Etait Une Fois
Anneaux du Temps
Imaginaire
L'Entre-Jeux

Prince Edward Island
Abegweit Books

Of course, with all these retailers, publishers, designers, and organizations, let alone the new catalogue, it's becoming clear that I'll need to re-organize the site a little bit to better reflect how the Canadian Heritage Collection is evolving. With a little luck, I'll have everything how I want it again before the Christmas break. In the meantime, bear with me.

In Other News...

In other news, I've been invited to contribute some guest analysis to Richard Gottlieb's Global Toy News blog about the video and board game industries. The result is a series called When Games Explode, examining the similar histories of the two industries and what that suggests about where the board and card game industry, in particular, is headed. Part I was posted today with the other two posts in the series to follow at a later date. The series will get more controversial with each instalment and I make some pretty bold and measurable predictions in the conclusion. Head on over and fire up the discussion - I'll be answering questions there. Who knows: if they like me, they might even invite me back.

Oh, and about that Famous Games Company that I mention in the blog post... Well, more on that later. ;o)