Saturday, February 25, 2012

OGRE 6th edition in 2012?

Image from Steve Jackson Games
Steve Jackson Games recently released its annual Stakeholders Report on the company's performance in the previous year and goals for this year.  No big surprise, the card game Munchkin, in all its incarnations, is driving the SJG bus (accounting for three-fourths of the game company's sales in 2011).  But I want to talk about the long-proposed sixth edition of OGRE.

As you all know, the new version of this venerable sci-fi tank combat game was put on hold last year.  Evil Stevie briefly mentions this in the report, under the Failures section listing "Things that didn't go as they should have..."  He notes the reason was a bandwidth problem--as in his own bandwidth--and promises to get the game out in 2012.  In fact, that's listed as #4 out of 5 in SJG's priorities for the current year: "Clean more out of the old pipeline.  Make Ogre 6th Edition happen."

Sure, we've heard it all before.  I'm not gonna hold my breath, but if OGRE 6E does show up on the game store shelf in 2012, I'm still gonna buy it.

8 comments:

Charlie Warren said...

I would snatch that up in a second! OGRE has always been my favorite of teh SJG microgames.

George said...

I loved that frickin' game back in the '70s. This may be the time to get back into it.

I also loved Chitin.

J Womack, Esq. said...

Dunno. I am not a huge fan of the punch card type minis.

Plastic Ogre minis I would buy in a heartbeat.

Oh, and Evil Stevie, thougha great guy (I have met him on several occassions, the first when I was about, oh 14) does have a habit of taking a while to release products. Or maybe it's that he advertises them too long before they are ready for release.

I remember giving him heck about the first edition of GURPS SPace being late when I saw him at Dallas Fantasy Fair in... 1980 something.

Anyway.

hentric tinkson

Sean Robson said...

While I do have fond memories of Ogre, I'm not too thrilled about the cardboard cut-out miniatures. For $100 I want plastic minis.

Now, if SJG were to re-release the original pocket-box version of the game, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

HoldFast said...

I've always liked the mini-game format. Why not continue with that and sell the minis as separate items? $100 for a game that used to fit in the same space as a paperback novel seems a bit much.

Jeffro said...

The price point and choice of materials is driven by two things: this is Steve Jackson doing up his favorite game the way *he* wants to do it [because Munchkin is successful enough that he *can*] and... the print run is pitifully small enough when compared to the other plastic-bits type games that it isn't feasible to go that route. SJG is still small enough that enough of these sitting in the warehouse gathering dust can be more than just a headache....

Anyways... I had the same reaction as Super Galactic Dreadnought: I want to believe this will come out this year, but I expect to be disappointed. Still... Steve seems to do fairly well on his priorities lately, so I'd say it's a good sign.

PS Your captcha security verication is a pain.

Aaron E. Steele said...

I'm with Sean. I want a boxed set with plastic minis. Hey, give us 4 mini colors and let us play a 4-player game!

THE HESSIAN said...

I pre-ordered my OGRE 6e for $79.99 plus free shipping at:

https://www.scifigenre.com