> 1.The State of your area (not only for the Decipher game you represent
> but for other games, and CCG/TCG's in general: rumors you might have
> picked up,relationships with retailers, sales information, tournament
> and event attendance stuff like that)

2E is still struggling in my area.  I have a theory as to why:

-The Big Picture:  I think people are starting to “wake up” to what’s going on in the world.  When CCGs were on the rise, so was the economy.  The economy was rising on a huge bubble of dot-coms, etc. and people had lots of money to spend.  Also, culturally speaking we were in a carefree time.  Then that bubble burst.  The economy stopped going up-up-up, 9/11 happened, and the economy really went down and people started to realize that we were not in a care-free world.  I know for me, the biggest thing getting in the way of having good 2E attendance is “real life” events taking precedence.  It seems that right now people are far more interested in watching CNN than getting outside the house. 

This is true even for myself.  If I have an exam, or my girlfriend is in town, then I won’t schedule a 2E event, and I will skip Decipher Thurs night.  Plus, my dad lost his job post-9/11, and since then I have had to pay a lot of my own bills.  I no longer have enough money to buy a bunch of new cards 3 times a year.  If I were not getting cards from Decipher I would have had to quit already.

-SW:CCG/1E Fallout:  I think a lot of people were very disillusioned by the death of these two prominent games.  You can go onto any internet site and find cards from these games dirt cheap compared to when they were in action.  The death of those two games proved that CCG cards value only goes down from the time of release on.  Also, the death of SWCCG showed how quickly and easily the rug can be pulled out from underneath “loyal customers.”  There were a lot of rumors that the expansions immediately preceding the demise of each game were simply last ditch efforts to get as much money out of the franchise as possible before shutting it down.

Maybe I am naïve, but I played and bought SWCCG cards with the reasoning of “one day when I am tired of playing, I can sell my cards and make most of the money back.”  Clearly this is false thinking, and I know buy product with the realization that what I am buying is short term entertainment, not long-term investment.

Franchise burnout: I have noticed that Star Trek in general is a very “like it or not” kind of thing.  You are either a Star Trek fanatic (complete with Vulcan ears and a toy phaser) or you don’t really like star trek at all.  Nemesis got beat at the box office by JLo.  Enterprise is only on the air because its UPN and it is the best show they have (that’s not saying too much).  If it were one of the big three, it’d be gone by now.  Franchises like LotR, Matrix, and X-Men are/would be much more popular and easy to market (IMO).

As for myself, I am a Star Trek fanatic (no Vulcan ears, but defiantly a toy phaser).  I play the card game because I think it is a good way to “be” in the Star Trek world and make my own events.

Overwhelmed market:  I think that there are so many CCGs out there, that people are sick of them.  They have the ones they like and are not willing to get heavily involved in a new one (for the reasons listed above).  I have to give credit to Decipher for one thing though.  Race to Mount Doom has been pretty successful in my area.  So much so that I have had difficulty getting them to try out ST because they spent so much time playing LotR.

I believe that all these factors put together, as well as other minor area-specific nuances, make getting new players an uphill battle.

Anyways, that’s the end of my ill-informed analysis.  I do have hope for the future.  Once Baghdad falls along with oil prices, I hope the economy will improve, my dad will start paying my bills again, and people will turn off their TVs, go outside, blink in the sunlight, and say “let’s play some STCCG 2E!”

> 2. What have you done "For Love Of The Game" in the past month?: demos,
> new retailer contacts, new avenues explored, TD recruitment and
> coordination, events held, tournaments run,....

not a lot.  I was in Yurop for half the month, and the rest of the month was a lot of preparation for that trip.

> 3, What new target (store, gaming clubs, special event) are you planning
> to establish contact with in the next month, to promote Decipher Games?

There is a Toy Fair in Greensboro that I am supposed to help with.  However I seemed to have lost contact with the people in charge.  I don’t really know, I’ve been really busy.

>  4.What have you got planned to promote the Decipher game you represent
> in the next month(s)?

I am planning a tourney or two.

> 5. Retailer Store(s) or venues you have run your demos/tournaments:

-Skirmishes
-Heroes Aren't Hard to Find
-Papa G's Collectables

Morgan Tysor
Ambassador to Charlotte, NC
AKA: The Disco Dancing Vulcan
“da mihi dialectica, libertas, disconem”