[DL] [OT Doomtown][Fwd: Fw: A Message From AEG President, John Zinser Regarding Doomtown]

[OgyJoe@netscape.net (Ogy Joe)]

Here was the anouncement.

----- Original Message -----
From: <Alderac@aol.com>
To: <Shadis2@aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 12:54 PM
Subject: A Message From AEG President, John Zinser Regarding Doomtown


> To Doomtown Players
>
>     I wanted to take the time to personally answer any questions or
concerns,
> and give you the complete run down of why we had to make the Doomtown
> announcement.  Let me start by saying that the everyone at AEG associated
> with Doomtown (Dave Williams, Patrick Kapera, Rob Vaux, myself and others)
> decided to pick up Doomtown from WOTC, because we loved the game and
thought
> that once it was at AEG it would again grow and flourish.
>     This did not happen.  I have read a number of posts where a few of
you,
> for good reason, would have liked for AEG to have spent more money and
time
> promoting Doomtown.  Let me start by saying that we always had plans to do
> this.  We put together a marketing plan which was going to pump almost all
of
> the profits from our Boothill and Ashes to Ashes sets back into the game.
> Unfortunately things did not go as we had planned.  Here is where the
> economics of a card game come into play.  Not only did we not have any
profit
> from the Boothill release, we lost a substantial amount of money.  We did
> distribute more than 10,000 demo decks and ran new events in as many
places
> as we could to coincide with this release in an attempt to increase sales.
>     I had to make the tough decision to let Doomtown stand on it's own.
We
> printed Ashes to Ashes and sold just under 200 cases (that is $90,000).
The
> print and art bill came to more than that before we ever looked at
salaries,
> promotions, and other costs associated with doing a CCG.  AEG has had a
> number of successes since we opened in 1993, and we consider Doomtown to
be
> one of those.  In this case, there is just not enough support, and we have
> not figured out a way to spend money in a smart way to grow it's customer
> base.
> My biggest fear is that now that we have tried and failed to save the
> Doomtown game, we will be left holding the smoking gun.  The game was
> finished as a profitable product long before it was passed on to us and we
> tried to raise it from the dead one more time.
> I hope that this final set along with the free booster box of cards shows
you
> not only how we feel about our fans, but the game itself.  As I stated in
the
> Do Unto Others press release, we will continue to support Doomtown with
> events through 2001. We hope that you realize that although we are not
> printing new cards for the game any longer, that it is still one of the
best
> CCG's ever and will be fun to play for many years to come.  Please realize
> how tough this decision is for all of the Doomtown design team; we will
> attempt to answer as many of your questions as we can before the holidays.
>
> Thank you for your support
>
> John Zinser
> AEG
>




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