Phil Reed, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, published the company’s annual Report to the Stakeholders today. In it, the company revealed that they had a second year of decline from 2014’s high of $8.5 million to $6 million. The main reasons cited for the income slowdown were delays on planned releases of Car Wars Sixth Edition and the Munchkin Collectible Card Game. With the delay on Car Wars, Mr. Reed writes it was due to “an insistence on making the game exactly the way we want it. We would rather not ship the game than ship a game that doesn’t meet our standards.” They are also seeking to get the Munchkin CCG ready to print by the end of the year.

The company looks to have a difficult year ahead for it, with the Ogre Kickstarter campaign from 2012 still not completed. “We are still sinking time into the project,” he writes, even though “we’re seeing real progress; several outstanding pieces of the project are finally coming to a close. Whew.”

Issues with the GURPS line have been problematic for the company as well. Two hardcover books for the GURPS line, Discworld and Mars Attacks, were released but performed poorly at retail. “Today’s cluttered market, combined with our insistence on getting it right, made both books expensive experiments that tell us one thing: Do not produce more GURPS hardcovers until we have guaranteed that the sales are there.” Also tying up resources at the company is the Dungeon Fantasy GURPS introductory box set. Reed writes, “what would have been a profitable project is rapidly turning into a loss.”

But it isn’t all doom and gloom: Munchkin continues to do well with reprints, Guest Artist Editions, and expanding into Walgreens. In the top twenty products sold by dollar volume, all but three were Munchkin related. The company released five new games which appear to have done well at retail, and Zombie Dice had to go back to reprint due to “unexpected demand during the fourth quarter” of 2016. “A game from 2010 that keeps outselling our forecast is good and bad, but we’ll take this situation over the opposite problem any day.”

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Ascension VR (Steam, Rift, or Gear VR) allows play of the deck-building game in a three-dimensional virtual environment with avatars representing the moves (and head motions) of other players.

Indie Boards & Cards’ bluffing game, Coup, is now available for Android. It can be played online cross-platform or in practice mode against AI.

Czech Game Edition expects to release a digital version of Codenames this year with online play available at launch.

A PC version of Ogre is in development by Auroch Digital. Steve Jackson’s game of nuclear-powered, armored combat should hit Steam in late 2017. It’ll be a hex and turn-based adaptation.

Neverwinter, the free-to-play Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG, is now available on PlayStation 4.

Ubisoft has new Battleship and Risk games for XBox.

Ubisoft is also doing a version of Uno for XBox One, Playstation 4, and PC with voice and video chat.

The new The Game of Life 2016 Edition, available on iOS and Android, has full and fast-play modes.

Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy, already on iOS, will soon be available for Android and PC.

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Steve Jackson Games‘ Phil Reed was happy to tease us at the GAMA Trade Show with news of an upcoming Hellboy Board Game planned for the fourth quarter. No other details or images, though. Grrr!

So what else did he reveal?

Muertoons Mix-Up, a card game for tweens based on the the Mexican Day of the Dead book and cartoon series, is scheduled for a summer release at $13. It’s a redesign of SJG’s earlier game, Spooks.

Ogre Operation 218, a two player card game based on Battle for Hill 218 published by Your Move Games, will follow in the fall at $15.

GURPS Mars Attacks, a full-color, hard-cover RPG supplement, should hit retail in October at $25.

And on the Car Wars front, SJG isn’t yet ready for the promised new edition of the base game. However, the company is planning a Kickstarter project later this month for Car Wars Arenas, a package of five map sheets and an arena rule book. With stretch goals, the map sheets could be double-sided.

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Remember that HUGE $100 version of OGRE that weighed 18 pounds. Remember how you couldn’t afford it, and wept so hard you had to replaced the water-logged floorboards at your place?

Well now you can get in on OGRE Pocket Edition! For only $2.95 you can have it all like Steve Jackson originally released it, including his hand drawn maps. The best part (other than the price) is that you get everything you need to play all five of the “Ogre vs. Command Post” scenarios.

Think off all the fun you’ll have and all the money you’ll have saved. Think of all the money you’ll save by not having to replaced tear-soaked floorboards! Your tear ducts, and your wallet, will thank you.

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