GMT Games
GMT Games is a California-based wargaming publisher founded in 1990. The current management and creative team includes Tony Curtis, Rodger MacGowan, Mark Simonitch, and Andy Lewis. The company has become well known for graphically attractive games that range from "monster games", of many maps and counters, to quite simple games suitable for introducing new players to wargaming. They also produce card games and family games. The Washington Post called GMT "the modern hobby's highest-profile wargame publisher".[1]
GMT's name comes from the first name initials of founders Gene Billingsley, Mike Crane, and Terry Shrum. However, Crane and Shrum soon split acrimoniously with GMT, and founded their own company, the Fresno Gaming Association.
Project 500
After the downsizing of the game distribution network in the mid-late 1990s, the company decided they needed a new way to fund the production of new games. This prompted them to introduce the "Project 500" system, which allows customers to vote via pre-order for the games they most want to see produced. Production of a new game does not start until there are a minimum number pre-orders for a particular game (originally about 500, but now more realistically about 750). Pre-orders are offered at a discount to encourage people to commit to a game with the understanding that sufficient numbers of orders are needed before the game is produced. This commitment does not involve a financial payment until the game has made the needed number of orders and is about to be produced. This system has since been adopted by other wargame publishers such as Multi-Man Publishing for some of their games.
Games
Some of the better-known games produced by GMT Games include:
- Andean Abyss
- Barbarossa to Berlin
- Blackbeard
- Chandragupta
- Combat Commander
- Commands & Colors: Ancients - a block game with card-driven action, based upon tactical combat in the Classical Period.
- Cuba Libre
- A Distant Plain
- Dominant Species
- Down in Flames - a card driven game of WW2 air combat
- Europe Engulfed
- Great Battles of History (series)
- Great Battles of the American Civil War (series)
- Fields of Fire
- For The People 2
- Here I Stand
- Invasion: Sicily
- Ivanhoe
- June 6th
- Kutuzov
- "Labyrinth"
- Napoleonic Wars, The
- Navajo Wars
- Paths of Glory
- Pursuit of Glory
- Reds!
- Roads to Leningrad
- Sword of Rome
- SPQR
- Space Empires 4x and its expansion Space Empires: Close Encounters
- Twilight Struggle
- Wellington[2]
- Wilderness War - a game set in the French and Indian War
- A World At War
References
- ↑ Jason Albert (January 10, 2014). "In the world of war games, Volko Ruhnke has become a hero". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 17, 2014.
- ↑ GMT GAMES: Wellington