Retail Gross Margin themed game

Have you looked at Fantasy Business - one of the Eurogames Blue Box designs?

That has some neat mechanics for "price setting" in which players try to establish the best price for a good by negotiation (or, as it's normally known, lying :))

There's an interesting issue of theme, mechanics, and target audiences here...

Speaking for myself: I'm not crazy about the theme. Perhaps it's just me, but unless the mechanic is completely breathtaking, or if there is a healthy injection of humor (silly store names, promotions, etc.), I just wouldn't be pulled into playing it; mall management, retail store management, and dealing with loss leaders and markups, etc. is not a subject that pulls me in.

I'm not saying no one will like it. I know quite a few people who would, in fact. There are probably many gamers who would enjoy the profit strategies in the design, and others who would ignore the theme completele to focus on a game's mechanics instead.

This is a lot like the plight of games like Bohnanza and Bean Trader. I've never played them, and (again, speaking for myself here), they don't have the pull of a game with a stronger theme. I'm sure that if I played them, I'd enjoy them; but I'd have to love the mechanic in order to buy a game with such a dry theme.

On the other hand, one of my favorite games is Chrononauts, by Looney Labs. It's hardly a deep game, and the winner sometimes seems arbitrarily decided. But I love the idea of time travel, and it's so well-implemented in the game that it never fails to put a huge grin on my face.

Note that I am an American, and as trivial as it sounds, Americans tend to pay more attention to theme than mechanics. There's a great Knizia interview where he talks about this difference...

Take Schotten-Totten in Germany, which became Battle Line in America. The base game is the same except for the latter's tactical cards, which gave more of a wargame flavor and more possibilities to plunge into the theme. In Schotten-Totten the game is relatively abstract. That was very nice for the German market but I felt we needed more for the American market. Graphical presentation also makes a difference.

I had an experience which really brought that home to me and I think it's very useful to illustrate this point. Some years ago I took a game to one of the fairs and showed it to an American publisher and it had an Egyptian theme. I took out the game and the publisher's reaction right away was that it was not right for them because they already had something in the Egyptian category. I tried to implore them to have a look at the game first but they were adamant that they did not need that game. By seeing the theme they already saw the game.

A few weeks later I was with a large publisher in Germany and I took out the same game. The publisher's reaction was that the theme wasn't so good because they already had a theme in that category. Of course they were still very keen to look at the game because the theme could be easily changed later. Two very different approaches about how different people define a game or how they compare games.

Note: paragraph breaks inserted for easier readability. :)

Please don't misunderstand; I'm not saying your idea is boring, or that it's never going to work because the theme is too dry. Obviously, it's gotten an enthusiastic response from several people here, so the theme does "connect." I can easily see a very playable game coming from this idea.

Also, and this should go without saying, just because I'm describing a difference between German and American tastes doesn't necessarily mean that Americans won't be interested in your game. Plenty of Americans prefer mechanics over theme, especially in gamers' circles.

But be aware that there's an aesthetic variable you're dealing with, and you may encounter a good percentage of gamers who may opt for something a little more exotic.

As a result, this is a huge opportunity to mold your game in the conceptual stage to its best audience. For this game, you may want to point the design in a "Eurogames" direction, because you might have the most success with that audience, should you ever get to the publishing stage.

This would mean limiting the number of ways players can directly interfere with each other's status in the game; instead, they all would compete for a finite number of resources (space in the mall, limited amount of funds and customers). Random factors would be minimal; games will be decided by the interaction of the players' choices, rather than a die roll or a flip of the top card of the draw pile. Rather than being a rip-roaring, bloodthirsty card game, this might have more success as a moderately-paced strategic board game.

I hope this helps; let me know what you think...

That's cool. Again, I'm not telling you that this isn't an excellent idea, and I'm not telling you to not go forth with it. I'm not trying to get in your way. I simply want to be honest, because I know that if I'm sharing an idea with someone else, the worst thing I can hear is, "Meh, it's okay."