Game Merchandising is another publication from Boynton and Associates. It isn’t so much a catalog as it is a magazine for dealers. The totally un-game-related cover photo of the New York City skyline inspires a lot of confidence, I know. There are lots of ads for all sorts of games (unlike the GamesMaster Catalog, you can feel the dominance of wargames here) but also stuff businesses might be interested in, like software for tracking inventory. Thrilling!

The rest of the magazine is dedicated to articles about the industry, trend pieces trying to predict what consumers are going to want in the coming year. It is definitely less exciting than the catalog, but still manages to be interesting. The most interesting thing, though, is that I can’t find another one. Which, honestly, this is exactly the sort of thing that gets pitched in the trash, so the gap in the fossil record isn’t surprising, I guess. Still, the production value is high and the coupled with the catalog, it makes for a really muscular positioning in the games industry. I’d love to know why Boynton and Associates dove in with such enthusiasm and even more so I’d love to know what happened. Obviously, things didn’t go well.