Ground Zero Games news update (holiday special started now)

[Chief Lackey Rich]

So, a rare update on the Ground Zero Games site.  Could be better news, could be worse, but apparently Jon won't be attending many shows as a dealer any time soon.  He'd already cancelled on 2021 but it sounds like 2022 won't be seeing much of him either.  On the plus side, the mail order business is doing okay and there's a bunch of new releases queued up, some of which should be out before Xmas.  Sounds like it's mostly 15mm Stargrunt as usual but I'm holding out hopes for some Full Thrust.  He was talking about replacing most/all of the FT fighter sculpts a while back, and there's always room for more starships.

Oh, and he's changed his physical mailing address too, but since he was getting less than a dozen letters per year at the old PO Box I doubt that matters much.

Quoted from the site:

NOVEMBER 2021: ABOUT SHOWS, OFFERS, NEW RELEASES AND A GENERAL UPDATE ON WHAT’S GOING ON…
First, can I please say a VERY big thank-you to all my customers, regular and new, who have kept ordering throughout this year despite the lack of any new releases for a long while - your orders have kept things going for me through some difficult months, for which I’m extremely grateful.

2021 has been a complicated and challenging year for me in many ways, with a number of family and health related problems to deal with - nothing that is especially serious or life-changing, thankfully, but enough to make me have to re-think how I operate some aspects of GZG; the biggest change is that I’ve realised that, for the moment at least, I’m not able to keep up with the demands of attending the shows, hence having to cancel my attendance at SELWG, SALUTE and WARFARE for this year.  While I can still comfortably deal with the production of castings to fulfil mail-orders, right now I simply can’t handle the vast amount of stock production required before a show, added to the pressures of maintaining and updating all the stand displays and other materials, plus of course the physical stresses of loading, unloading, long drives etc etc. So, rather than pushing myself until something breaks, I took the decision to drop the shows for this year.

I’m not sure at the moment what will happen in 2022 - if things go well then I might be able to think about returning to the show circuit in some capacity, or I may just continue to rely 100% on mail-order - but whatever happens, I’ll keep you all posted.
I will miss doing the shows A LOT, and particularly miss seeing and chatting to all my regular customers and friends on both sides of the tables - although I might actually be able to attend a few as just a regular punter and really get to see and enjoy everything without the stress, for the first time in thirty-odd years!

So, having got all that off my chest - what’s the good news? Well, of course all the mail-order side of things (which has always accounted for 90% of the business anyway) will continue exactly as normal, and I should very soon be able to get back to some new releases on a regular basis - there are a LOT of new items either ready or almost ready to go, and they will start coming out in time for the usual Christmas Offers which I will be announcing soon.

SPECIAL NOTE: a few of the coming NEW ITEMS are actually ready to go, I just haven’t got them photographed and up on the store yet. Specifically, these are the new versions of V15-46A, 69A, 69B, 84A and 84B - the walker drones, the small wheeled drones and the ever-popular “spider” drones. In each case the NEW versions are to the same overall design as the originals but produced from new 3D masters with greatly improved detail. Any of these codes ordered from today (10th Nov) onwards will be supplied with the NEW VERSIONS, unless you specifically ask for the old original types (perhaps if you want to match some older examples in existing units).

[Chief Lackey Rich]

The annual holiday special has started now, although it's very different from previous years - freebie bags with each order but no discount vouchers for early 2022 based on how much you ordered.  Instead there's going to be some kind of deal that anyone can participate in in January, the details of which will be announced after Jon gets back from his holiday break.

Still no new listings on the store, but it's a while till XMas yet.