In Search Of…Essen ’07 Convention Previews

It’s July already, and the Pre-Essen net postings have started. Game publishers send their marketing spiel to games websites which announce the new games to be launched at Essen this year.

Boardgamenews.com (BGN) is the usual website where Essen news is first read by English-speaking gaming community. There has been a constant trickle of new Essen releases in BGN since June. These newsflashes are in the form of Previews and they have been quite helpful. The problem is, one has to read each Preview individually. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s time consuming. Usually the preamble URL just states the name of the game and, possibly, the publisher. One only gets the type of game being previewed only in the main article. In past years, what I found very useful were BGN’s ‘Convention Preview: Essen 2007—Publishers A-M’ and ‘Convention Preview: Essen 2007—Publishers N-Z’ pages, where the new games were listed in a table according to their publishers. I could just scroll down and scan the game title, designer, publisher and sometimes a brief description of the game. This year, I cannot see anything on these pages since BGN has decided to make their Essen 2007 Preview page available to members only. Membership to BGN costs $25 for 12 months. I am sure many gamers would gladly join BGN to get upfront news of Essen releases, but not I. Frankly, the $25 would better be spent on purchasing a game or miniatures.

Ah, well, maybe other gaming websites has Essen ‘07 news in English. So I went to GamingReport.com (GR). Their motto is ‘Where Gamers Get Their News’, but I could not find news about Essen 07 releases. I did a search for Essen, but I got ‘Prestige Class Creation Cookbook for D20’ posted by An Anonymous Reader as the first search result. The second result was ‘Green Ronin Plans a Hot July’. Maybe some spies had embedded code words into GR’s forum, or maybe this was a personal ad.

Then I went to Boardgamegeek.com (BGG). This website is my usual haunt. I sometimes decide what games to buy or try purely from the postings of BGG members. Not much info on Essen ‘07 games either. Maybe it’s too early. Maybe the trickle of info on games to be released has not reached a critical mass yet for gamers to talk about them.

I guess this year is the year that I will have to wait for the real Essen Buzz, if any (there wasn’t much last year). This is usually broadcast almost live on BGG during the actual event as members vie to be the first to post the excitement experienced in playing a great new game or the ‘Meh!’ feeling of a crappy new game. Since info is relatively scarce this year, I shall not be pre-ordering games from Essen ‘07. Also my Eurogames burnout is still with me, albeit in a milder form, as I can be occasionally be talked into playing the odd game of Caylus, or Scepter of Zavandor, or Domaine, or Emira, or Saboteur, or Goa, or Ingenious, or Busen Memo, or Pickomino.

Eurogames Burnout

I have Eurogames burnout.

This is the result of playing too many Eurogames last year. There was Caylus, Age of Steam, Santiago, Lost Cities, Bang!, Ys, Hacienda, etc, etc. I played a total of 266 games in 2006. Enjoyed them, I did, but the lack of direct confrontation in these games brought me to fell that enough is enough. Furthermore, the year 2006, I feel, may be the year the Eurogame craze started to decline: the ubiquitous 10-year cycle (1996-2006).

The treatment, at least for me, is Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). This is a complex game system about combat in World War II. It's been around for about 20 years, and, yes, I first bought it 20 years ago, but I had not played it until January 2007. Other wargames also are good for flushing away the burnout symptoms. I currently find the range of wargames by MMP really interesting, and I have since acquired ASL 2nd Edition rules as well as the core modules, A Victory Lost and Afrika from them. I have also pre-ordered some of their upcoming games.

Eurogames burnout-I'd never thought I could go off games, but I did.