Making Your Move ... Role Playing Games

Games Merchandising magazine, June 1982

     Over at the Acaeum, Gnat the Beggar posted some images from the June 1982 issue of Game Merchandising magazine, including this charming cover.

     Game Merchandising was a short-lived industry magazine for retailers/industry folks (see the "Not for Resale" on the cover) that existed from around 1981-1983, and earlier was a section of Model Retailer magazine. This time period that saw a boom in "gaming magazines", for example Ares (1980-1982, twelve issues), Adventure Gaming (edited by Tim Kask, 13 issues from 1981-1982) and Gameplay (edited by Jake Jaquet, another former Dragon magazine editor, 14 issues 1983-1984). The appearance of these were probably driven by the big sales of D&D during this time period. Another page from this same issue of GM puts the total units of D&D sold through 1982 at 2 million, and total units of AD&D sold at 1.5 million. The figure for D&D undoubtedly includes not only OD&D but also all of the Basic (Holmes and Moldvay) and Expert sets sold through mid-82.