Gamma Two Games

University with a BA in History (Honors) by 1971. As he enjoyed playing wargames, Dalgliesh decided that designing wargames would be equally enjoyable, and so he and two other partners (Lance Gutteridge and Steve Brewster) formed their own game company in 1972: Gamma Two Games. The company’s 1975 game releases, Airline, Klondike, and Team broke away from the wargame motif, and were done in a more traditional board game style. More games soon followed, with Supermoney, Bacchus: The Ancient Roman Game of Skill and Strategy, and the hilariously unique Smokers Wild in 1978; Maneuver and Foreign Exchange in 1979; Score! Soccer Game in 1980; and, capitalizing on the success of the first Wild 1978 release, Lovers Wild and Drinkers Wild in 1981. Clearly the decision to move away from wargames to traditional board games was a fiscally sound one for the young company. As Mr. Dalgliesh has stated elsewhere, Quebec 1759 sold around 20,000 units (which he attributed to being distributed in department stores), which was a success for a wargame (5,000 units being deemed a good seller with modern wargames). Klondike sold about 30,000 and Smokers Wild 80,000. So if Gamma Two Games was a niche player in the board game market that was having success, where did it go? The answer is quite straightforward: it just changed its name! In 1983, Gamma Two Games relocated to the United States, and the company became Columbia Games. The company returned to its roots, releasing a slate of well-received and well-reviewed wargames, such as Richard III: War of the Roses, Julius Caesar, Eastfront, and the epic Eurofront, as well as the Hârn roleplaying system. Columbia Games has since re-released its original wargames, Quebec 1759 and War of 1812, and were planning to release new editions of Last Spike and Klondike in late 2012 or 2013.