This is a Transcript of episode 116 of Brainwaves.
Direct Quotes are in italics
[Music]
Iain McAllister: Hello everyone, I’m Iain McAllister
Jamie Adams: and I’m Jamie Adams and this is Brainwaves Episode 116, bringing you the best in tabletop gaming news.
These are the headlines for the week of the 27th of February 2023
Wyrmwood gaming comes Under Fire
Holy Grail won’t be resurrected
and
Don’t Bank on Hasbro
All this and more on this episode of Brainwaves.
Iain: Just a little correction before we get to the main cast folks. At the top of our last episode 115, I issued a correction about episode 114 where Linda Codega and I said Ribani rather than Vistani when referring to the Romani allegory race in Castle Ravenloft. In doing so I used the wrong pronoun for Linda. I apologise for that error. We put out an apology immediately on Twitter the day the cast went out and I personally apologised to Linda that day.
We will make mistakes on this cast from time to time and believe it is important to own those mistakes and endeavor to do better in the future
[Music]
Iain: In a video posted to Twitter on the 19th of February 2023, Andrew Overbeck a former employee of Wyrmwood Gaming says that he reported a case of sexual assault that had taken place in January 2020 on the premises of that business.
Wyrmwood gaming are a maker of board game tables and gaming accessories.
Overbeck worked for Wyrmwood from August 2019 to January 2020 and in the tweet he explains that he reported the incident to supervisor Chris Gates at the time providing the names of those involved.
According to Overbeck the assault was perpetrated by a co-worker in one of the workshops out of business hours. Overbeck goes on to say that an hour after reporting the incident he was asked to meet with Wyrmwood CEO Douglas Costello who fired him for
Jamie: creating shop drama
Iain: Overbeck also alleges that colleagues who remained at the company were being threatened with immediate termination if any of them discussed what had happened to him and the incident itself. He went on to accuse Wyrmwood of profiting off one of his designs.
Wyrmwood gaming put out a response video in which they deny the allegations that they protected the accused and give their side of the story as to what happened. They claim that they were not made aware of the incident at the time. When they did find out about it they fired not only Overbeck for not going through the proper channels but also the accused perpetrator.
It is worth noting that the proper channels may have been difficult to discern as Wyrmwood CEO Douglas Costello says in some of his other videos that he does not think the company needs an HR department. That said they do seem to have someone who deals with HR who appears in the video.
Wyrmwood also claims that Overbeck has previously caused problems within the company and was responsible for a toxic environment at times. Wyrmwoods response video also features the company’s lawyer who backs up that the company has done nothing wrong in the circumstances and that putting out the video was the right thing to do.
Wyrmwood gaming have also put out a written statement on the matter. In the written statement the company lays out their own investigation of the matter, it runs to about three pages and then goes on to say
Jamie: In the course of this investigation, three years after the alleged incident, we discovered that the event had allegedly taken place on company grounds management was not aware of that fact at the time and we are following up with local authorities now.
Iain: they later added
Jamie: “Correction: After further investigation, the CEO did indeed receive an email a week following the incident (January 13th), which noted the event was on company property. The CEO missed that detail, and was incorrect in stating that we were not notified of the location until present day.”
Iain: Andrew Overbeck has responded to the Wyrmwood video with one of his own. The info on this video says it will likely be his last comments on the matter. In it he says that Wyrmwood lied and that he really didn’t want to make this video. He says he just wanted an acknowledgment from the company that they did wrong at the time.
He starts his comments by saying he loved working at the company. he says he tried to do things the right way. The victim told Andrew that they did not want to come forward and he says that the problems really began when employee A, the accused, noticed he was avoiding them as much as possible. This was because the victim had asked Andrew to maintain silence and pretend as if nothing had happened. Andrew tried to respect their wishes.
He goes on to detail the events as he remembers them refuting many of the statements in the Wyrmwood response video. He says the only disciplinary meeting he ever had was when he and some of the other employees were criticised for smoking too much.
He breaks down the reason he went to HR was because of the toxic work environment he felt he was experiencing now that the accused was aware he knew about the assault. It details a Discord message he sent to Gates, the HR manager at the time (or so he thought), to set up a meeting.
He also details his meeting with Costello the CEO, where he was fired and his response to that at the time which he admits himself does not put him in a good light but he was incredibly upset.
Towards the end of the video he reads out an email he sent shortly after being fired in which he expresses his disappointment of the way things were handled and specifically states the assault happened on the company property. This will be the email that is referred to in the correction that Jamie read out a little bit earlier on.
Now this story broke three days ago so we haven’t had a chance to reach out to Andrew or Wyrmwood Gaming for any kind of comment. Certainly Andrew seems to be in the position where he doesn’t really want to comment further on it so we’re unlikely to pursue that angle because we don’t want to harass the guy.
Jamie: and we will respect his wishes in that.
Iain: Absolutely. But we’re also not going to pursue for any details of the assault because as Andrew said in the video the victim never wanted details to come out about the assault that was very much firmly in in his mind.
Now I’ve watched the Wyrm.., Jamie hasn’t watched the videos, I’ve watched the Wyrmwood response video and I’ve watched both Andrew’s original tweet and his response video which is about 30 minutes long.
The Wyrmwood video is 14 minutes long and it’s 14 minutes of my life I will never get back. It’s filmed like their Wyrmlife videos. Now these are documentary sort of U.S office TV series style behind the scenes documentary, faux-documentary kind of style things. And I found when watching that I was constantly waiting for the joke on a video that’s meant to be a response to allegations of how you handle the sexual assault on your premises.
It’s incredibly overproduced and it has sound effects for the jump cuts. There’s no talking to camera, just a straight talking to camera of like you know here’s how we handle that kind of thing, it’s very over, it’s very dramatic is what I’m trying to get at.
Now we don’t know if the allegations are true. There’s a lot of sort of he said he said going on here obviously because one side saying this one side’s saying that. But even if they aren’t true the video response is the most shockingly tone-deaf thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It is just unreal. You don’t need to go and watch the whole thing just go watch the first couple of minutes. It is just astonishing.
They’ve, Wyrmwood gaming, have previously boasted about not having human resources and having a bad attitude in videos. These are all available on their YouTube channel you can go and watch them. There’s going to be a lot of like ‘who do you believe here?’ stuff coming out about this.
Personally I believe Andrew more. He seems sincerely upset about what happened. He does admit some fault in the way he responded to getting fired and various other things in the video, and he just seems incredibly sad about how the whole thing has come out really just once he just wanted an apology really and an acknowledgment that they should do better and what he got was this was quite frankly a bunch of clowns kind of shouting at each other.
I honestly don’t have words for it Jamie I honestly don’t. It’s just unreal. I woke, I woke up the day after watching it thinking wow that video was unhinged.
Jamie: it’s not a joking matter and it’s we take we’re taking these allegations seriously as much as we
Iain: absolutely
Jamie: are a news program uh we will keep an eye on this and if there’s any developments we will let you know listeners because allegations like this should always be taken seriously this is how we improve as an industry
Iain: absolutely
Jamie: French board game publisher Holy Grail games known for games such as Rallyman GT, Museum, and Dominions announced that after six years of making games it’ll cease trading with immediate effect. The statement explains that the closure is due to a number of reasons.
For one, production and other delays during the lockdowns in France in 2020 impacted the overall development and release schedule of games from the publisher. Additionally, increases in production costs of 10 to 20 percent and shipping prices of over 400 percent which were not passed on to customers left the company in a fragile position by 2022.
Additionally the games that were hoped to put the business on a stronger financial footing were delayed by many months due to large-scale logistical challenges. The company lays a lot of blame at the feet of their fulfilment partner who took months to send out stock, sent out incorrect stock to the wrong people, sometimes to people who hadn’t even backed the campaign, and did not seem willing to correct their mistakes.
That affected subsequent crowdfunding campaigns as backers had lost trust in the company’s ability to deliver within a reasonable time frame. Finally in January 2023 Holy Grail games financial situation worsened so much the company had no choice but to declare bankruptcy.
Unfortunately another company has bitten the dust and seems like they did all they could for their customers just money started getting too tight.
Iain: Back in cast 111, we reported that Hasbro had been criticized by the Bank of America for its recent performance. At the time an analyst at the bank had criticized Hasbro for overprinting Magic the Gathering and exploiting fans.
Well the bank is at it again this time saying that
Jamie: “Within its Wizards segment, Hasbro continues to destroy customer goodwill by trying to over-monetize its brands.”
Iain: the bank went so far as to issue a warning to investors. It said,
Jamie: “We remain especially cautious on Hasbro’s Wizards segment given its over-monetization of Magic. Wizards recently tried a similar tactic with D&D-proposing changes to its licensing agreement which led to substantial pushback from the community including calls to boycott the D&D movie.”
Iain: Now sticking with Hasbro for a little bit. On February 16th there was a Hasbro earnings call that was held by CEO Chris Cox. These are regular calls a company like Hasbro holds with interested parties to update on the state of the business.
Jamie: I know we’ve covered earnings calls several times before on this podcast
Iain: Indeed we have.
During the call he revealed that Magic Arena, which is the online version of Magic the Gathering, D&D Beyond which is the current Dungeons and Dragons online portal, Hasbro Pulse, which is their own crowdfunding platform where things like Heroquest were funded through, and Magic Secret Lair which the particular version of some of the Magic: The Gathering properties which have very sort of special cards and special tie-ups with various franchises, were all up over 15% in 2022
That Wizards in general and their digital gaming segment in Hasbro grew five percent.
That D&D Beyond delivered user growth in excess of 20% and he also mentions later in the chat that revenue growth was similar for this part of the company.
He also says that Magic is their first billion dollar brand.
On some of the issues facing the company he said
Jamie: We navigated significant supply chain disruptions that, while resolved for 2023, compressed our set release schedules in 2022, particularly in Q4. We were too aggressive in some of our pricing assumptions, notably, our 30th anniversary edition of Magic, and pulled back on available supply, impacting Q4 results. Lastly, on D&D, we misfired on updating our open game license, a key vehicle for creators to share or commercialize their D&D-inspired content.“
Iain: This was picked upper later on on the call by Merrill Lynch, an analyst from Bank of America Merrill said
Jamie: And then you mentioned that — I think you described it as a misfiring on some of the proposed changes to OGL. Was there any sort of financial impact to that in the first quarter?
Iain: to which Chris Cox responded
Jamie: Yeah, I mean, we had some — we had some subscription cancellations, but they were comparatively minor in the totality of both the D&D Profit & Loss and the Wizards Profit & Loss. You know, of course, we take anything like that seriously. We’re in contact with the people who canceled. And, you know, in general, what we’re finding is a lot of them are very open to restarting their subscriptions.”
Iain: One final thing from the world of Wizards of the Coast. They have fired all their Latin America team best we can tell and we’ve seen some of the team posting on Twitter that they’re looking for jobs and they have also apparently closed the Brazilian HQ, though we have not been able to find absolute confirmation of that there’s nothing on Wizards main site or their sort of Twitter feeds for that part of the company
So I mean this is a lot of sort of like relatively bad news for Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast though Wizards of the Coast is the best performing part of Hasbro we’ve known that for some time. The last few times we’ve reported on Hasbro earnings Wizards and Dungeons and Dragons has always performed well, and it does seem like although there was obviously a big boycott when the new OGL was announced and a lot of people cancelled their D&D Beyond subscriptions that the actual Financial impact of that was fairly minor as far as Hasbro is concerned. Though the community backlash definitely led them to changing their minds about all the ogl stuff and we’ve reported that on that in episodes 115 and 114 quite extensively and you can go back and listen to those.
Any thoughts on this Jamie?
Jamie: I think it’s a misfire to call it a misfire
Iain: definitely a bit underplaying it really isn’t it?
Jamie: again I’m not trying to be pithy
Iain: no
Jamie: but it was, it’s a very business way of going well it was a slight misfire. Having the community pretty much almost literally up in arms about this is more than a misfire
Iain: yeah and you totally reversed course and put D&D out into the creative commons you did a lot of the things that you weren’t planning to do.
Yeah who knows how that will actually affect the new D&D when it comes out next year.
Now we have just had a little update posted in our Discord, which I sort of keep an eye on when we are recording just in case anything comes up and it seems that Wyrmwood Studios who we reported on at the top of the cast have pulled down their video that we referred to oh so unfortunately you’re not going to be able to go and look at that trust me it was absolutely unhinged but they have put up a new statement which I’m going to read right now. This is literally breaking news in the last few minutes as we record at half eight on the 24th of February. Let me just pull this up and I will just read from this.
Jamie So when you’re listening to this this will be old news for you because it came out on Friday as we’re recording this this is literally breaking news.
Iain: We are pulling down the video we posted. We reacted viscerally out of anger and disbelief at the false allegations that were spreading online and we did what we always do post a video addressing it to defend ourselves. However, many of our partners and customers have contacted us and have explained that the video was tone deaf and harmful. We agree with them and apologise. This is not about us, the victim of this incident should be the focus and they may wish to have privacy.
To that end we have taken down the video. For the purposes of transparency we were leaving our original written statements below for anyone who wishes to read them.
Wwe take any allegation of inappropriate conduct, including, but not limited to, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and safety issues very seriously. We consider the safety and well-being of our employees as top priority. To that end we’ve made very significant investments in HR and safety and will continue to do so.
As a result of the situation and the subsequent response under advisement of council the company will have no further public comment at this time.
Wyrmwood will continue to advocate for its employees and good citizenry. As always, Wyrmwood thanks those that support it and look forward to focusing on its core business, providing top-quality furniture and wooden accessories while working to revitalize American Manufacturing.
In closing to emphasise Wyrmwood’s commitment to the importance of these issues we will be making a donation to a charity that focuses on these issues and we will be inviting our partners to do the same.
Signed Douglas Costello CEO
It is worth noting that Andrew in his response video to the Wyrmwood video mentioned that they should donate to a charity like RAINN in in the states.
Jamie: Now onto the rest of the news
Iain: It’s our sad duty to inform you that Chris Baylis passed away recently. Chris was a big figure on the UK gaming scene for many years and was behind such Ventures as games Gazette and was heavily involved in the convention scene across the country. I met Chris on several occasions and he was always a lovely chap who had a positive influence on all those around him. The thoughts of the entire team are with his friends and family at this difficult time.
Jamie: Chess Grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez is under investigation by the United States Chess organization and the Saint Louis chess club for sexual misconduct.
On the 15th of February Jennifer Shahade, a Woman’s Grandmaster, posted this statement on Twitter:
Iain: Currently there are multiple investigations underway on Alejandro Ramirez and sexual misconduct, including a series of alleged incidents involving a minor. I was assaulted by him twice, 9 and 10 years ago. I’d moved on until the past couple years, when multiple women, independent of each other and with no knowledge of my own experience, approached me with their own stories of alleged abuse. These accounts were from much younger alleged victims. I saw alarming evidence, including texts that admitted abuse of a minor while he was coaching her, as well as a text to an alleged victim about being an underage “temptress.”
The road to investigation and potential consequences has been a very stressful process. You may have noticed I’ve taken a major step back from commentary as this plays out. I’ve filled the time with poker, writing, and promoting girls in chess. And yet a lot of that work to make chess more inclusive is futile if we cannot make crystal clear that the safety of women, girls, and children is of the highest priority. And that’s why I’m speaking out now. Thanks for your support and patience for more details.
Jamie: Shahade told chess.com that the misconduct was formally reported in Fall of 2022 Both U.S chess and the Saint Louis chess club have said they cannot comment further at this time.
Since the accusations Ramirez’s lawyer, Albert Watkins, has said the investigation is being mishandled. He says that his client was interviewed on the 12th by Council for US chess who said they would share their findings with Mr Ramirez. Since no information has been forthcoming Watkins said it was a
Iain: Compromise in the evidentiary integrity associated with the investigation
Jamie: and that his client
Iain: has been compelled to endure the damaging folly associated with social media leaks relating to the erroneous allegations
Jamie: U.S chess said in response
Iain: As an organization we are committed to due process and for dealing with sensitive matters in a respectful and confidential manner. At the conclusion of any process related to formal complaint both complainants and respondents are notified about this position of the matter along with any sanctions that are imposed.
Jamie: It’s good these investigations are finally coming to light, though it does sound like some of these should have been dealt with a long time ago however if we’re going to start going these things should have been dealt with a long time ago what about other things and there’s not a good reason these things were hidden.
Iain: No.
Jamie: It was fear it was demonization it was social pressure. The fact these are coming to light now good.
Iain: I’d like to say to some some of the places that reported this um can we please stop referring to these things as ‘me too’ moments for a particular whatever it is chess or whatever. These are sexual assault allegations, calling them me too moment sounds kind of belittling. They’re horrible things happening to people that need reported on. Stop trying to lump them into some something else just I don’t know it just feels belittling and weird.
Jamie: we’ll keep you updated if anything more appears on this story.
Iain: the As d’Or, or Golden Ace awards, were awarded recently at the FIJ the Cannes International games Festival. These are awarded for games that according to filbert.com
Jamie: “for which the members of the jury have been seduced by an innovative mechanics, an approach from the designer, publisher, the beauty of the material, the depth of the subject, the intelligence of the product and quite simply their own pleasure.”
Iain: The winner of the kids category was Flashback: zombie kids from Le Scorpion Masque designed by Bautista Ray and Mark Antoine Dion. The initiated category was won by Challengers by Johannes krenner Marcus slavicek from One More Time games who published um Riftforce that we are great fans of. The Expert category was won by Ark Nova by Matthias Vega from Capstone games and the Game of the Year was Akropolis by Julia Massoud from Gigamic.
Congratulations to all the winners.
Jamie Games Workshop makers of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40 000 amongst many other Warhammer associated things have reported less than Stellar sales in North America recently.
Despite adding 119 stores in the six months up to the end of the 27th of November 2022 sales for the company in the region were slowing and flattening. Games Workshop have attributed this to slow ordering rates from third-party trade customers and flat sales in its own stores. Now it’s worth noting these sales are being compared to large sales during covid-19 lockdowns and the company are expecting better weather ahead.
The flat sales in North America were not far off the worldwide trend with the company reported a 3.4 percent increase in sales.
Now Games Workshop have announced recently that they are raising their prices this is alongside the cost of living because although it is expensive Games Workshop gotta eat as well. I think they’re stil,l I think they’re still going to do well not as well as the covid-19 pandemic.
Iain: No
Jamie: but and when I say the Covid-19 pandemic I meant the lockdown not the pandemic you know what I mean.
Iain: There’s going to be a lot of company results looking a bit weird because of those years and I know some companies in the bike industry who basically, because I work in a bike shop part uh as my job uh, who have basically done forward orders based on their sales during the pandemic years. That’s not going to go well for them because that’s going to be some massive over ordering. Yeah it’s going to have a knock-on effect for a good few years I would think.
At the start of February publisher Andrews McNeil announced it would no longer be publishing RPGs. This company had published the well-known RPG Zweihander amongst others and the announcement came as a shock to companies that were looking to the company to publish their games.
The writers of the Into the Motherlands RPG that was due to be published by Andrew McNeil said this in an update posted on February the 1st.
Jamie: We come bearing some disappointing news for you all.
Despite keeping up our end of the bargain and doing all of our work in good faith to get AMU a final manuscript by their deadline; they informed us they are no longer publishing RPG’s despite having a contract with us; and terminated it during a meeting to inform us of shutting down the RPG division. We’ve been searching for a new publisher, and have another meeting this Thursday.
Pending the outcome of that meeting we will either have an announcement soon or we may have to turn to self-publishing. It’s unclear what this means for delivery of the printed books, but a PDF should be in hand before the end of the year.
Iain: At this time we do not know if the “Into the Motherlands” RPG has found another publisher to go with.
Andrews McMeell has yet to release a statement but has shut down its RPG focused Twitter. However there are still RPGs been advertised for sale on its main site.
I mean maybe it’s just not worth it for them anymore they’re a big book publisher that I didn’t know of until the story mainly but they seem to have a large wave of books other than RPGs and the RPG Market is I guess it is a crowded Marketplace these days. It is growing but as it grows more, and more publishers are going to get in there more and more companies maybe it’s just not worth their time maybe. Unfortunate but uh that’s how business goes sometimes.
Jamie: Steeped Games the independent publisher of games such as Chai have been struggling to get the latest Kickstarter project Chai: Tea for Two delivered to backers. The game’s pledge manager page on game found still promises that all orders would be fulfilled in May 2022, yet UK customers are still waiting.
According to a comment made on the 17th of February 2023 on the game’s Kickstarter Page by a backer named Peter Steeped Games’ customer services representative Brian last name unavailable posted an update about the game on the company’s Discord server on the 5th of February 2023.
In the update Brian accuses Dan Kazmaier co-owner of steeped games and director of creativity of
Iain: “negligence to pay warehouses and fulfilment partners. Every update Dan gave […] was a lie to keep people at bay so he never had to take responsibility. […] He continued to sell copies on the website that were out of stock with no timeline to produce more.”
Jamie: Brian also says there was a time when he was unable to reach Kazmaier at all and therefore was only able to tell customers that there was no further information. It sounds like Brian has since left the company.
Now we don’t have any further information about steeped games’s financial situation and there’s no statement from the company about its future plans.
I have not played Chai. I remember being very interested and I almost backed it either I did and then I
Iain: I remember it being a sort of big Indie darling kind of thing when it hit Kickstarter for sure.
Jamie I think either I didn’t back it or I did back it and then went maybe I don’t need a game at this time.
Iain: it sounds up your street
Jamie: yeah exactly I like my tea. I was drinking a little milky oolong which is very nice tonight. That’s what it was called it’s called milky oolong anyway um with the success of two-player versions of of board games
Iain: 7 Wonders duel for instance
Jamie: thank you sorry my brain’s going a bit it’s you know I’m not surprised they expected tea for two to do just as well if not better. However something has clearly gone wrong
Iain: yeah indeed we’ll bring you updates if we hear them and hopefully the company can get itself out of trouble but as we’ve said in the last few casts we’ve reported a few times now companies are running into trouble with all sorts of Kickstarter problems right now fulfillment being what it is. Hopefully they can get themselves out of that situation though and get copies to backers.
[Music]
Iain: Now a few sort of jobs, opportunities and events for you.
Obviously the world was shocked by the terrible earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria if you would like to donate to Charities helping there you can do so in many many ways but also you can go to DrivethruRPG that have got an RPG charity bundle up. There’s about 600 dollars worth of games there for about 35 dollars so that’s a good way to give and get a little something back if you want.
There is an interesting documentary called Session Zero currently funding on Kickstart. It’s from a Glaswegian based filmmaker and the premise from the kickstarter is this.
Once a week the realities of adolescents are replaced with fantasy and escapism as a group of young boys meet to play Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeon Master Thomas’ dedication to the game is unwavering but over three years the group are pulled in different directions as they come of age.
The film will only have a couple of more days to fund on Kickstarter when this cast goes live so do go and check that one out.
And upcoming is Airecon that’s the 9th to 12th of March. I’m going to be there all four days I’ll be there on the Thursday from about three to the Sunday and I’m really looking forward to meeting folk, playing loads of games. If you see me around do come and say hello and invite me to your game or I’ll invite you to a game you know we’ll meet each other it’ll be good lots of games yay.
Christopher Eggett who has been on this cast before uh who is the current editor of tabletop Games magazine is leaving that role and that company is looking for a replacement so if you are of an editorial band go and check that job listing out.
I would just like to give a quick shout out to all our patrons and we’d also like to give a very quick shout out to our Discord member Corey who dropped in that Wyrmwood gaming update we gave you early on thanks very much Corey for dropping that in uh we have reported on that for you and uh yeah thanks very much for keeping on top of that story for us very much appreciated, and to all our Discord members who help us out with gathering the news for the cast all very much appreciated.
We’d especially like to thank our executive producers James Naylor and Sean Newman for being our executive producer donators and you can now also reach us through Ko-fi or coffee however you want to call that site. uh we’ve I’ve got that all set up properly now so you can do one-off donations to us or a recurring donation should you wish to Ko-fi and very much that big thanks to Chris priscott whose game Zuli I reviewed in the not too distant past who gave us a little bit of money recently towards the running site and cast.
You can join all those folks on our patreon as well that’s https://www.patreon.com/thegiantbrain and there’s various ways to support us on the site do go and check those out you get some nice dice from Metallic dice games or T-shirts from sir meeple
But Jamie this is your last cast for a while!
Jamie: yes I’m going away, I was about to say I’m going holiday, I’m not going on holiday I’m going out on tour. I’m not looking after children anymore. I’m going to do science workshops and shows with children in primary schools so a bit of a busman’s holiday, but I thought I wouldn’t leave you without you know some Monopoly to tide you over.
And way back in episode 73 we talked about I think it was me definitely talked about the plans for a life-size version of Monopoly that was coming to London. Well since then oh boy it’s arrived and it is a winning big at awards.
Defining the game Monopoly life-sized David Hutchison the CEO of path group who have brought the game to life said
Monopoly life-sized is at its simplest an immersive physical version of the world’s favorite family game brand played on a 15 meter by 15 meter life-size Monopoly board. Players compete in one-of-a-kind challenges for a chance to buy properties try to Stage a heist in Mayfair, compete against a clock to build some of London’s iconic buildings and work to solve a murder mystery or enter the mysterious world of code breakers
The attraction won best location-based entertainment award at the licensing International excellence awards.
Well done to Monopoly life-sized as I say again and again although we have Monopoly at the end and it is something of a joke, if you love Monopoly, fantastic. If you don’t like Monopoly that’s fine keep it to yourself and don’t berate other people for liking Monopoly. Got it? Good!
And if you’ve been please let us know
Iain: yeah there is a someone who looking to play a monopoly Puerto Rico at Airecon it’s on the game listing right now.
And there is another piece of Monopoly News Jamie, there is two in one another piece of Monopoly news I’m going to do it as a tribute to you before you leave for a few casts. It’s a treat for Jamie and our listeners a whole second piece of Monopoly news
The British cartographic Society recently tweeted on February 6th that
On this day in 1935 the board game Monopoly first went on sale @OrdananceSurvey tasked themselves with working out where GO actually is using open data and GO is centered on Lambeth North Tube Station.
So there you go
Jamie: so there you go if you go to Lambeth North Tube Station you should get 200 pounds every time you go through it or not don’t quote me on this because. Well you could quote me on this I’m not going to be here for a while I’m going to be going around Scotland in a van.
Iain: The Giant Brain cannot be held responsible for your lack of money when you go to Lambeth North Tube Station or something.
Anyway thank you very much for listening folks if you like what you’ve listened to then the best way to help us out is to share the podcast and drop us a review and rating on iTunes you can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook we’re mostly on Twitter these days at the giant brain.
You can come and join us in our Discord and look at all our news stories and come join us for games tonight and uh you you can also go to our website https://giantbrain.co.uk/ which is where we post all our reviews and criticism and you can email us about anything that show or if you’ve got a story you’d like us to feature on the show or response to any of our news articles then please do email us at [email protected]
I’d like to thank Jamie for all his work over the last few years and he’ll no doubt be back once he’s stopped at touring around Scotland
Jamie: I’m not dying I’m just I’m just going away for a wee bit I’m just having a wee holiday
Iain: we’ll just start each class with ‘Jamie is no longer with us’
Jamie: I am
Iain: with us in Spirit.
Oliver will be back on the next cast they are just feeling a little bit under the weather tonight so they’ll be back along with me for a few casts until Jaime rejoins us when we will be three once more
Iain: all best for now bye
Jamie: later bye-bye
[Music]
