Remember The Spoils? Love it or hate it (I personally loved it) it made a big but brief splash on a TCG scene. The company that published it was called Tenacious Games and they seemed to have a knack for mixing truly awesome, innovative ideas with some truly bad moves.
They did lots of cool stuff – such as a rock band bus touring the country with models demoing and judging Spoils at various locations, giving away large amounts of money in tournament prizes. However, the money dried up and many players never got paid. Spoils promised winners of its qualifier tournaments a great experience – an all-expense-paid cruise with a chance to play for hundreds of thousands of dollars Maverick style. Those of us (myself included) who won invitations to this cruise were truly disappointed when the company failed to secure the funding they needed to continue operating and was forced to fold.
Still, Spoils was a great game. It wasn’t for everyone – its complex game engine that favored a better player was closer to chess than an average TCG. Exactly the kind of thing I enjoyed.
So I was very happy to learn just now that Spoils will be making a comeback. Arcane Tinmen – a company from Denmark best known in United States as manufacturer of a popular DragonShields line of card sleeves – has purchased all rights to The Spoils. This was announced on the official Spoils website on January 20th. According to Michael Nielsen of Arcane Tinmen, the company is going to “hit the ground running” in bringing Spoils back onto the market. Josh Lytle, who is largely responsible for the Spoils game engine, will continue to work in R&D. Arcane Tinmen also turned to the loyal Spoils community for “both assistance and inspiration.”
They will need both as it is notoriously difficult to bring a defunct game back to life. Still, I am excited at the prospect of playing Spoils again personally, and if there are enough fans like me out there, they just might succeed. The very first step Arcane Tinmen took is already very cool. Together with Gamer Adventures they brought back the Spoils Cruise – sort of. Players will have to pony up $350+ for a five day cruise – no free rides. Those who won invitations with Tenacious Games are entitled to a $25 discount and the big tournament prize at the cruise will be the opportunity to win your $350 back.
It ain’t a boatload of money Tenacious promised, but it is a solid and legitimate new start.
Link to the Spoils Cruise (the one on TheSpoils.com is wrong)
Kings Games Blog 