Do you think that other classic American board games could benefit from revision and updating to incorporate some of the new design ‘technology’ that has mostly been developed under the auspices of hobby gaming?

We have been! Life: Twist and Turns last year added more choices to the game and a flexible time length. We have our line of Express Games that allows for 20 minute experiences of classic games. These are mostly flying under the radar of the hobby crowd.

If you could rehabilitate another classic American board game, what would it be?

Clue. Oh, wait, I did. The new Clue comes out this year. Although, really, I wouldn’t call it “rehabilitate” as that sets a notion that it needs to be fixed. It was more of a polishing than a fixing.

That’s awesome. I loved Clue when I was growing up. Can you elaborate on any details?

I don’t know. Let’s just say that it’s more than a graphic refresh. Perhaps not as much changed as with Risk but still, some new twists.

What does it take to sell a game to a hobby market and how does that differ from selling a game to a more mainstream audience?

I don’t really know for two reasons: I’m very far from sales and marketing and my division (Milton Bradley/Parker Brothers) doesn’t focus on the hobby market.

How would you characterize MB/Parker Brothers’ awareness of the hobby market? I’m of the mind that it’s barely a blip on the radar in business terms- we’re talking about one sector that deals in millions and another in thousands.

I don’t really get into the numbers but everyone here is aware, to various degrees, of games published in a wide range of markets.

Getting back to Risk, the new edition plays smoother, faster, and has distinct victory conditions other than the classic “take over the world” idea. In this new edition, there are more concrete short-term objectives- such as taking over territories with cities, claiming capitals, and pursuing Minor and Major objectives. Do you think that introducing these kinds of on-the-board objectives makes for a more interesting game than one that has an overarching, all-encompassing goal?

Well, first off, you can still play the whole World Conquest version in the new game – it was important that we didn’t take that away. But the objective-based version of Risk was designed to distill the Risk experience, to somehow make it play faster without sacrificing strategic and tactical decisions. We’re finding that most mainstream game players aren’t going to set aside three or four hours to play a game but will set aside 60 or 90 minutes.

What were some of the influences on the Risk redevelopment team? Having played Black Ops several times, I definitely get a sense that Nexus Ops was on the minds of the developers with those short-term, variable rewards. I’m also thinking that Twilight Imperium’s objective system may have been an influence. Am I on target here or am I projecting?

You’re projecting. I’ve played Nexus Ops once but couldn’t tell you how it played. Sadly I’ve never played Twilight Imperium (I know, I know…). The idea was to explore a variety of Risk-Reward options and levels of difficulty. Taking a territory is a small risk and you get a small reward: a card. Taking someone out of the game is a much bigger risk but you get the larger reward of eliminating an opponent and getting their cards. Holding a territory is somewhere in the middle. Thinking of this design goal, we eventually thought of having objectives that offered a variety of risks and offered a variety of rewards. That became the basis for the new game.

One actual influence was Fischer Random Chess. Risk can suffer the same fate as the early game of chess – a lot of expected moves played by people who know how to play the beginning. We wondered how we could jump to the mid-game in a sense. The addition of randomized cities and randomized objectives hopefully make people have to question their habits and assumptions before a single piece goes on the board. This makes people start from unusual places and have to re-think how to win at Risk from game to game.

Ha! That’s really interesting, a lot of more hobby-minded folks would likely reference either of those games in describing the new edition and I think when it comes out we’re going to hear Nexus Ops referenced a lot in particular as a comparison point. I find it really ironic that Fischer Random Chess was more of an influence- and that may very well point out the need for designers to really look beyond the hobby bubble for influence.

I really should play Nexus Ops again, it appears.