It’s true. I found out from Mark Simmons himself last week. The official release is below.

It’s a crying shame. Mark’s been one of the industry’s biggest boosters, even from before he started the Games Quarterly Catalog 16 years ago. He turned around the Origins Awards before handing them over to Charles Ryan and then went on to rescue GAMA in the aftermath of the quiet doom that was the Miami GTS.

Matthews Simmons Marketing, which ran Games Quarterly Catalog, Games Quarterly Magazine, National Games Week, and the ill-fated Games Expo 2007 died because of the horrible contraction the tabletop games industry has suffered through the past couple years. MSM runs on ad money, essentially, and when companies hit hard times they cut their ad budgets—and sometimes don’t bother to pay their bills.

Still, it’s good to see that the two Richards (Hartnett and Martin Leep) will pick up GQC’s torch and continue along Mark’s path. I wish them luck.

For me, this means I successfully wrote an article for every issue of Games Quarterly Magazine. I just wish it had been a longer streak. The magazine had the best pay rate in the entire industry. Still, as I told Mark, I’d have written for him for free if he’d asked.

Here’s to Mark and his crew. I hope they all land on their feet and that we see them again soon. They contributed so much to tabletop games, and I can only hope that MSM’s demise doesn’t prove to be the canary in the industry’s coal mine.
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Sadly, I won’t be able to make it to Games Expo 2007, much as I wanted to. A rash of illness running through the house has put me behind on my deadlines, so it’s staying home, shackled to my computer instead. (Thankfully, it’s a laptop.)

It kills me not to be able to join my friends behind Games Quarterly for their inaugural show, but deadlines come first. I still plan to make it to Adepticon at the end of the month and GTS in April though. I hope to see some of you there!

I just received a copy of Games Quarterly #12 in the mail. Among other wonderful things, it features an interview I conducted with actor Billy Campbell. I really enjoyed talking with Billy, and I think you’ll enjoy reading the results. The magazine also comes with articles by Jeff Tidball, Mike Selinker, and Mur Lafferty, plus an interview with Will Shortz, the puzzle master for the New York Times. Cap that off with short fiction by Ed Greenwood and a Settlers of Catan expansion called Fishermen of Catan, and you’ve got great value for your US $4.95.

The latest issue (#11) of Games Quarterly Magazine just showed up in my mailbox. This issue features my interview with Anthony Zuiker, the creator of CSI. A Las Vegas latchkey kid, Anthony created over 500 tabletop games as a kid, and his first published effort hit shelves this fall: CSI: Senses. Be sure to check it out.

Last week, I conducted the third in my series of celebrity gamer interviews for Games Quarterly Magazine. This time around, I talked with Billy Campbell of The Rocketeer, Once & Again, The O.C., and The 4400 fame. He’s a true gentleman and a great fan of games, and he made my job a breeze.

I found out years ago that Billy was a gamer. Back when I developed the second edition of Silent Death, the guys at ICE used to tell me how much he loved Rolemaster. Billy grew up in Charlottesville and once in a while came by to visit ICE’s HQ there.

When I talked with Billy, he hadn’t been home for a year and a half, having spent much of that time on a boat sailing around the world. Despite that, he still made time for a pleasant chat. Look for the article in this winter’s issue of Games Quarterly Magazine.

I just transcribed and submitted my interview with Anthony Zuiker to Games Quarterly Magazine. Anthony made for a fantastic subject. My favorite quote from the whole thing:

My sights were set so if I could just one time walk in and buy a game that had my name on it, I could’ve just died there.

My interview with Wil Wheaton appears in the latest issue of Games Quarterly Magazine. They had copies to hand out at Gen Con, and I found more waiting for me when I got home, so it should be in stores soon. Wil is a true gamer and a wonderful guy as well—as you’ll see when you read the article.

After many near misses, I finally managed to interview Wil Wheaton for Games Quarterly Magazine’s summer issue. I had a great time with the conversation. Wil is human, funny, and loves games of all kinds, which made him the perfect first subject for this series.

Special thanks to Wil’s pal and mine, John Kovalic, for helping us reach each other.

I’m amassing a list of celebrity gamers—that is, famous people who play tabletop games. Games Quarterly Magazine has asked me to interview such personages for their pages, and I’d like to know just how large my potential pool of interview targets happens to be.

See after the break for a full list of what I’ve come up with so far. Names with asterisks after them are ones I’m pretty sure I can confirm. If you know of any others or can give better details about the ones I have, I’d appreciate it.

The next question, of course, is who on the list would you most like to see interviewed?
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In my first few articles for Games Quarterly Magazine, I pushed some of my favorite games. I wrote an article about Lunch Money from Atlas Games for issue #2, but the editors decided that the game’s subject matter might be a bit too edgy for the family-friendly magazine they wanted to produce.

I just remembered the other day that this piece was still collected stray ions on my hard drive. Rather than let it languish further, I thought I’d share it with the world. Written in 2004, it’s a bit dated, but everything I wrote about Lunch Money is still true. It’s a great game.

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