Historical Document Archive

Press Release Column 1975 – 1977

The articles in the Historical Documents Archive are PDF files or files that cover approximately a 20 year span and are articles and reviews that I wrote between 1975 and 1995. These articles cover both the Gaming Industry and the Computer Industry.   First,  for a little background information. In the early years of the Boardgaming, Wargaming, and the Collectors Military Miniatures hobbies it was more of a “closet hobby” in the U.S. than a real hobby. It was not recognized by the “Hobby Industry Association” nor was it covered in any of the trade publications of the day. Also, while The Avalon Hill game company did have some retail exposure, none of the other companies products were available in retail stores. Finally, during that time, nobody would admit that they played games of war or played with little toy soldiers. As I surveyed the landscape of the hobby in 1975 there was a tremendous number of new products being designed and only a handful of people who would take the time to review the new products. It was around July of 1975 when I came up with the idea of a “syndicated column” that I would distribute to magazines across the U.S.. The idea behind the column was that I would create an excess of material and the magazine editors could pick and choose what they wanted to use from the material I sent them. When I called the publishers and editors of the magazines across the U.S., I found that there were 10or 12 publications that were interested in picking up my column. Some of the magazines that used the material published in this column were Wargamers Digest, World War II Digest, The Dragon, Wargamers Newsletter, Military Modeling, Wargaming, The Strategic Review, The Space Gamer, Model Retailer, and Craft Model and Hobby. The last two magazines were widely distributed and well respected trade publications.  A trade publication was a magazine that was distributed to retail stores from which the retailers would purchase products for their store or stores.  These magazines were extremely influential in the success or failure of publishers and manufacturers because without retail sales it was difficult for the manufacturers and game publishers to succeed and expand.  A majority of the other magazines were published by a wide variety of gaming publishers. After the first few months, I provided the magazines that subscribed to my Press Release column about 40 typewritten pages (this was before personal computers) of reviews and 50 to 100 photographs a month. The PDF copies of these early reviews (including grammatical and spelling errors) and other articles I have written are on the Historical Document pages.

There were typically 4 sections of the “Press Release Column” and they were;

• Boardgame Reviews
• Miniature Rule Book Reviews
• Book Reviews
• Military Miniatures New Release Photographs

I wrote and distributed these columns to all the magazines and others from September 1975 through April 1977. and you can read all of these columns in the sections below by clicking on the links below.  I have divided the sections into years for easier access.

• Press Release Column 1975

• Press Release Column 1976

• Press Release Column 1977