Our dear friends in HeidelBÄR Games wrote to us how is current situation in Germany:

Covid19 caused a similar dramatic situation in Germany, as in many other countries. As a freshly restored publisher, the situation is challenging for us, too. But being a smaller and more flexible company has its benefits in this situation. Miltenberg, where we are located, is close to Frankfurt/Main, but in Bavaria. It is a beautiful small city, which is very quiet now. No tourists and the shops are closed. A small part of our team comes into the office every day, limiting the contact. The rest works from home – which is a major change for us. Teamwork is our strength, and it is different not to discuss at the same table while playtesting. Technology allows the basic work with file sharing, but direct contact is missing. This is a change in company culture, but we believe we are doing okay, others have it worse. Our sales got slow – no surprise – and we feel the pressure on our business. We went into so-called short-work (like a lot of other businesses in Germany), which allows German companies to reduce working hours for its employees under special circumstances. The government then compensates for a significant part of this for the employees.

Acceptance for the active restrictions (shops closed, no contact with others, etc.) in Germany is still surprisingly high. A step-by-step lockdown exit strategy for May is upcoming. Of course, we have our share of issues, complainers, stupid politicians, etc. Stability seems to work best, as it seems. Considering that we have a federal system, the different states have managed okay, but the rules vary from state to state. For now, Covid19 deaths seem to be in control, at least. Of course, nothing is safe, and more is to come upon us. Nothing will be as it was before. Everybody’s life has changed, easy to see when buying food at a grocery store: wearing gloves and face mask, using disinfection, blenders for the cashiers, and more.

After many weeks, retailers are reopening these days again, though under restrictions. Bavaria is the most strict, so we will not open before May. Face masks could become mandatory, the distance will be required. We are very happy with our retailers. Stationary German game retailers suffered a lot, and they are the backbone of our strong gaming market. We hope … players/customers will come back, too.

HeidelBÄR Games tried to support our beloved hobby as well in the last difficult weeks, similar to others, with downloads for playing at home, etc. We sent hundreds of free word games to teachers. Their hardest time is about to come, as we fear. We don’t do face masks after all!

In the motherland of the SPIEL, where Germans appear to be grumpy, our spirit as HeidelBÄR’s is not broken. We are even more dedicated to overcome the obstacle of this global crisis and try to make the best for everyone wherever and whenever possible. Gaming is a great social experience, and the last weeks have told us how important it is for all of us. Game on!

Our friends from Kaissa sent us how the situation in Greece is:

The situation in Greece seems a little bit better than the situation in Western Europe. Our government was really cautious from the beginning, afraid that our weak medical system wouldn’t be able to accommodate enough ill people. It took some early and harsh measures to stop the virus from spreading fast, like closing the schools and most of the shops, which aren’t selling food or medicine.

For the last 4 weeks, all citizens have to stay in their homes unless they send SMS to the government with the reason why they need to leave their homes. That can be either go to work, supermarket, pharmacy, or to take a short walk outside.

Right now, since most of the shops in Greece are closed, our company is only able to sell to online shops and Supermarkets. Even though we have fewer selling points, the demand for board games is high; therefore, we haven’t been affected as much as other companies in Greece. Our

Our number 1 income-producing industry in Greece is tourism. We are hoping that the situation with the virus will be much better by June, not only in Greece but also in all countries. Otherwise, the effect on our economy will be big.

I still have a backlog of reports from our partners from last week. So without further ado, here is today’s dose of COVID stories around the board gaming world. This time from our partner Rebel.pl from Poland:

It is probably more or less similar to Czech. In essence, schools and shopping malls are closed for 3 weeks, a lot of our customers are not operating at all or operating 20-30% regular turnover. On the other hand, online stores are very, very active right now, and they have more audiences than ever. So overall our sales were quite similar to sales last year (however channels are different).
Of course, in shopping malls, our stock is not rotating, so we don’t expect any orders from them in the nearest future.
We change our marketing powers from events (obviously) to online, and this is something already with some effects.

For now, our situation is not bad. If it does not stay too long (ends in the nearest 4-8 weeks), we assume our sales will be similar to last year. If it will get worse, who knows? It can crush the whole economy of the country, and this is something challenging to plan.

Over the last several weeks, we were working on many things that might help people to survive social distancing more enjoyably. Most of them are still being worked on, but I am glad that we have the first one ready. Tony Gullotti, our PR manager for North America, prepared a video showing how to play Codenames with friends over the internet.

He is showing some neat set up with Skype and cool Codenames Gadget app (iOS, Android). Pieces of information in this video can be used for other board games as well. But he will not stop there, and he will prepare instructions for more of our games with another videoconferencing software.

Spain is one of the worst-hit countries in Europe. But the board gaming market is not that bad, as our partner Devir wrote:

Things in the Spanish market were going extremely well. The sales were booming so much that even the lockout issued by the Spanish government on the 12th of March did not affect the growth of the turnover for that month. Then everything stopped, but online sales.

Curiously enough, Spanish game publishers were able to confine the online below the red line of a 25% market share. Nowadays, it’s 100%, and thanks to the gods of trade, almost doubled its sales. Family games are being continuously played all over the Spanish geography.

The consequences of the confination and the lockout of all the brick and mortar stores can be devastating for the distribution. In Devir, we are working on setting up the best conditions for our clients and friends to recover as fast as possible. This is going to be our priority, together with the planning of a safe OP System.

The situation in the country is very Spanish. A combination of heroic behavior of our medical and health professionals, unprepared politicians acting like apes handling a shotgun, military personnel addressing patriotic, overacted motivational coaching as spokesmen of the government (!), and the highest rate of deaths per capita in all the world.

People take this situation as the Spanish normally take this kind of situation: a combination of fatality acceptance, banalization through humor, and harmless revolutionary domestic rage.

It seems that the impact of the crisis is going to be enormous. Tourism is vital for the Spanish economy, and this will not be over for months, affecting income, unemployment, families, politics, and trade. Maybe someone will think it would be a good idea to produce something valuable instead of selling sun and sangria.

I do not see any purpose of amendment from the country ruling elite, and the EU is missing in action, as usual. The future looks dark, but somehow, the people will get over it, as it always did in the past with sacrifice and finding strange ways to justify its misfortune. Help!

The good part is, as always, our people. Just listen to these guys from my home town Barcelona! Stay home! And enjoy this confination!