Adamant Entertainment is trying out a new business model for their recently published and well-received Mars setting for Savage Worlds. It’s sort of a cross between subscription and preorder. Pay now the discounted price and you’ll receive monthly (June-December) PDF supplements containing adventures and all the other standard stuff. Then, when the series is complete and a print product is assembled, you get that at no extra cost.

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Games Day Baltimore has come and gone and pictures and news from the event are starting to trickle out. Not much new was revealed about GW products, but the fine folks at Bell of Lost Souls did manage to snap a few pics of this cake from Charm City Cakes – a giant squig devouring a snotling (much higher res versions are available at BoLS and at Josh Drescher’s Picasa site). Absolutely amazing. Before you run out to order your own version from Charm City Cakes (best known for their Food Network show, Ace of Cakes), check your wallet – CCK has a minimum cost of $1000US for orders.

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Wizards is already starting on teasers for next year’s core set, the first to be named after the year rather than the version.

Since almost half the cards will be new cards, it will be rolled out like an expansion release. Can’t say I would be too happy to receive a booster with almost no new cards versus one with mostly new ones.

And how do you randomly select one in three cards, anyway? Three card monty?

(source)

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Parker, CO: 12th grader wins Igniting Creative Energy challenge with a board game “EcoQuest”. (source)

Pittsford, NY: 7th grader starts company “The Alert Mind” to publish math board game “Greed Grid”, with help from the Young Entrepreneurs Academy. (source)

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Hasbro and Mattel’s Q1 info is here.

4Kids: Net revenues down a third from last year’s Q1 ($10M vs $15M). Net loss of $2M. Monster Jam, Cabbage Patch, and Yu-Gi-Oh were top earners. Chaotic sales were a huge drag on the revenue, earning only $437K vs  $2.4M in Q1 2008. However, they’ve just begun a massive rollout of Chaotic products in the UK, and they’re coming out with Chaotic TV shows and video games later in the year. (source)

Jakks Pacific: Performed worse than expected, losing $10.8M compared to a profit of $877K in Q1 2008. Revenue was $108M, compared to $131M. (source)

Leapfrog: Sales drop 49% to $30M, losses of $27M (same as last year). (source)

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard posted revenues of $981M and profits of $189M.

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Fuzzy Heroes is a game for miniatures-style combat and roleplaying using stuffed animals, dolls, action figures, blocks, or anything else that your child wants to throw in to the mix. The second edition is 96 pages long with new ideas for adventure, but just a few of those are actually needed to get started. As the game is (obviously) designed for family play with young children, it is death and gore free. Instead, fighting tires out characters until they fall asleep. If carefully put away, though, they will eventually be able to rejoin the group.

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