GaryMrMets
07-14-2004, 01:09 AM
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/9139546.htm
Posted on Tue, Jul. 13, 2004
Topps tries new approach to baseball's bored games
Once upon a time, in a Summerland when time seemed endless, you'd assemble a lineup of player cards printed with eye-crossing arrays of numbers, roll a fistful of dice, and consult the charts to see whether Bobby Tolan got a bunt single off Tom Seaver.
Baseball strategy board games once ruled. Then computer fantasy leagues, and thumb-blistering video games that let you fire a Curt Schilling fastball toward a real-looking Sammy Sosa, pretty much killed them off.
Now Topps, the baseball card company, is trying to revive the baseball board game, complete with dice and charts and the unhurried thrill of triangulating batting results manually. This season Topps introduced MLB SportsClix, its first-ever set of collectible figurines, which can be used to play a (sort of) realistic nine-inning game.
A SportsClix starter set comes with nine players (each not much taller than an inch), five dice, a fold-out board and other paraphernalia, for about $18. "Booster" boxes containing three random players (you can't see if you'll get stars or scrubs) are available for about $7.
"Our whole goal is to make interactive games where two people can sit down and play in about an hour," said Mike Mulvihill, the game's designer.
In recent years Topps has watched many young collectors spurn sports in favor of non-sports cards that can be used in elaborate strategy games. Topps rival Upper Deck can't print enough Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Wizards of the Coast, owner of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, has made a fortune on Pokemon and Magic: the Gathering cards and pushed into sports with a baseball game, MLB Showdown. In 1999, toy giant Hasbro bought Wizards for around $325 million.
Topps, whose sales have been flat lately, needed to play in that fantasy world, too, so last summer it bought a company with a similar name and heritage, WizKids Entertainment, for a reported $29.5 million. WizKids in 2000 had created Mage Knight, a game played with figurines of characters such as Darkwing Zombie and Dwarven Mechanic. It followed that with Mech Warrior, then HeroClix, based on Marvel and DC Comics characters. The games all combine strategy - within the base of each figure is a clicking, rotating "combat wheel" that encodes performance characteristics - with collecting.
In February, Topps rolled out the first series of MLB SportsClix - 209 pieces featuring 167 different players, some in "rare" variations. The likenesses aren't bad, considering their size. In September the company will deliver a 104-piece "Extra Bases" series that includes rookies and properly puts Roger Clemens on the Astros and Schilling on the Red Sox.
The game takes some learning but does a fine job bridging the realms of the fantasy gamer and the baseball-stats nerd. Adapting the "combat wheel" from characters like Dwarven Mechanic to America's pastime was the biggest challenge, says Mulvihill.
"When you're designing an elf, you can just make stuff up, and no one's really going to question it," he says. "But if Kerry Wood doesn't perform like Kerry Wood, you're going to hear about it."
Pay to play. So-called "jock taxes" - when states and cities collect income taxes from visiting professional athletes - are spreading, and they must be stopped, says a new study by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation in Washington.
Twenty of the 24 states that have major professional sports teams target visiting athletes specifically in their tax codes or selectively enforce collection of nonresident income taxes from jocks, the report says.
"Since the athletes make the most money, and their schedules are so obvious, and their salaries are so obvious, they're easy targets," said David Hoffman, the report's author.
A growing number of cities, including Philadelphia, are going after a cut, too. In 2002 Cincinnati lawmakers enacted a tax aimed at what one councilman called "closing the jock loophole." The tax, on athletes and entertainers, brought in nearly $1 million its first year.
What's wrong with taxing rich athletes? Hoffman said the laws also usually snare team staff members, including scouts and trainers, who aren't rich. Also, the tax codes are needlessly complex, forcing athletes to file multiple returns. Philadelphia is one jurisdiction that doesn't give local athletes credits for jock taxes paid in other states.
And there's the slippery slope.
"It's spreading to more occupations. They're starting to find more and more people who are traveling," Hoffman said.
Posted on Tue, Jul. 13, 2004
Topps tries new approach to baseball's bored games
Once upon a time, in a Summerland when time seemed endless, you'd assemble a lineup of player cards printed with eye-crossing arrays of numbers, roll a fistful of dice, and consult the charts to see whether Bobby Tolan got a bunt single off Tom Seaver.
Baseball strategy board games once ruled. Then computer fantasy leagues, and thumb-blistering video games that let you fire a Curt Schilling fastball toward a real-looking Sammy Sosa, pretty much killed them off.
Now Topps, the baseball card company, is trying to revive the baseball board game, complete with dice and charts and the unhurried thrill of triangulating batting results manually. This season Topps introduced MLB SportsClix, its first-ever set of collectible figurines, which can be used to play a (sort of) realistic nine-inning game.
A SportsClix starter set comes with nine players (each not much taller than an inch), five dice, a fold-out board and other paraphernalia, for about $18. "Booster" boxes containing three random players (you can't see if you'll get stars or scrubs) are available for about $7.
"Our whole goal is to make interactive games where two people can sit down and play in about an hour," said Mike Mulvihill, the game's designer.
In recent years Topps has watched many young collectors spurn sports in favor of non-sports cards that can be used in elaborate strategy games. Topps rival Upper Deck can't print enough Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Wizards of the Coast, owner of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, has made a fortune on Pokemon and Magic: the Gathering cards and pushed into sports with a baseball game, MLB Showdown. In 1999, toy giant Hasbro bought Wizards for around $325 million.
Topps, whose sales have been flat lately, needed to play in that fantasy world, too, so last summer it bought a company with a similar name and heritage, WizKids Entertainment, for a reported $29.5 million. WizKids in 2000 had created Mage Knight, a game played with figurines of characters such as Darkwing Zombie and Dwarven Mechanic. It followed that with Mech Warrior, then HeroClix, based on Marvel and DC Comics characters. The games all combine strategy - within the base of each figure is a clicking, rotating "combat wheel" that encodes performance characteristics - with collecting.
In February, Topps rolled out the first series of MLB SportsClix - 209 pieces featuring 167 different players, some in "rare" variations. The likenesses aren't bad, considering their size. In September the company will deliver a 104-piece "Extra Bases" series that includes rookies and properly puts Roger Clemens on the Astros and Schilling on the Red Sox.
The game takes some learning but does a fine job bridging the realms of the fantasy gamer and the baseball-stats nerd. Adapting the "combat wheel" from characters like Dwarven Mechanic to America's pastime was the biggest challenge, says Mulvihill.
"When you're designing an elf, you can just make stuff up, and no one's really going to question it," he says. "But if Kerry Wood doesn't perform like Kerry Wood, you're going to hear about it."
Pay to play. So-called "jock taxes" - when states and cities collect income taxes from visiting professional athletes - are spreading, and they must be stopped, says a new study by the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation in Washington.
Twenty of the 24 states that have major professional sports teams target visiting athletes specifically in their tax codes or selectively enforce collection of nonresident income taxes from jocks, the report says.
"Since the athletes make the most money, and their schedules are so obvious, and their salaries are so obvious, they're easy targets," said David Hoffman, the report's author.
A growing number of cities, including Philadelphia, are going after a cut, too. In 2002 Cincinnati lawmakers enacted a tax aimed at what one councilman called "closing the jock loophole." The tax, on athletes and entertainers, brought in nearly $1 million its first year.
What's wrong with taxing rich athletes? Hoffman said the laws also usually snare team staff members, including scouts and trainers, who aren't rich. Also, the tax codes are needlessly complex, forcing athletes to file multiple returns. Philadelphia is one jurisdiction that doesn't give local athletes credits for jock taxes paid in other states.
And there's the slippery slope.
"It's spreading to more occupations. They're starting to find more and more people who are traveling," Hoffman said.