Gamer’s Paradise in Chicago is liquidating $1 million dollars of toys and games, including Hasbro games, Avalon Hill, Webkinz, Yu-Gi-Oh, and many more.

The sales are at Water Tower Place in Chicago, Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, and Yorktown Center in Lombard.

(source)

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Hasbro’s earnings are up beyond Wall Street expectations, with Iron Man and Indiana Jones showing strong profits and Monopoly boosting board games and puzzles by 12%. Prices are going up, however.

Mattel also made a profit, less than last year but slightly more than expectations, on American Girl sales. If Mattel’s IP win against Bratz ever becomes solidified, they stand to earn a whole lot more.

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West End Games, one time publishers of Paranoia and The Star Wars RPG, and current publishers of the Junta board game and the d6 RPG system, is up for sale.

West End Games was doing well with its Paranoia and Star Wars RPG system into the early nineties, but an excess of other licenses and inability to turn these into profitable lines caused the company to go bankrupt in the late nineties.

Eric Gibson bought the company in 2004, and turned out Junta and the d6 line of products, Unfortunately, these did not result in sufficient sales, and the company was hemorrhaging money. The latest project, an RPG project called Septimus by Bill Coffin, took in some preorders, but in March had to be cancelled, as the 400 page book was going to be too expensive to produce.

Eric now claims to be in such a bad financial situation that he can’t yet offer refunds to those who preordered Septimus, and can’t even ship alternate products to those who said they were willing to accept them as he couldn’t even afford the postage. This is rather a strange claim, as several people have indicated that they would be willing to pay for the postage themselves.

What seems to bother most people is the lack of communication. On the RPG.net forums and on the West End forums, customers have been remarkably patient, with a few on RPG.net being rather less so, but the responses from Eric are generally rather infrequent and less than satisfyingly complete.

Yesterday, he finally said he had enough of the belligerence and difficulty and is offering the company for sale. In fact, he has already turned down some offer for sale from some parties, calling them insufficient, and is now offering the company for sale to the general public. The future of the company is not certain.

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Anki Toner has, and lists, an awesome collection of cycling board and card games at his cycling board game site.

It includes cover art, a long and thorough article of what is and isn’t a cycling game, videos, and links.

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The Norwich Bulletin has another fine article up on the joys of family Euro gaming, with a mention of the upcoming World Board Gaming Championships.

The Wick’s are mentioned as having a “massive collection of 70 games, including Settlers of Catan and Ave Caesar.

(source)

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Garibaldi: La Trafila, a board game from Italian company Nexus Editrice, is now available in the United States with distribution through Fantasy Flight Games. The game depicts the flight of Italian unification leader Giuseppe Garibaldi from Austrian forces in 1849. One player controls fleeing Garibaldi, while the other players must work together to stop him from escaping. Designed for two to six players to play in about an hour, Garibaldi is primarily a deduction and bluffing game for families.

(game info in English)

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Crafty Games has released One Man Army, the first in its new Agent X series of toolkits for the Spycraft roleplaying game. The Agent X series presents new class and supporting character options, while this specific supplement presents the “indomitable, two-fisted force of nature, the ultimate action hero designed to plow through all opposition with blood on his hands and a satisfied grin across his face.”

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