BIG News!

We have big news, four specific items of news that we hope you'll be as excited about as we are. I'll present these as "bullet points," but if you want to get more of the in-depth story please watch our 10.22.26 "Big News" stream on the PLAAY Games YouTube Channel. Here we go...

• We are upgrading our print equipment. We are in the fifth and final year of our equipment lease with Konica Minolta. The BizHub C-659 office printer we currently have was purchased used in early 2022, an older floor model that was being retired from service. It has served us well, but with nearly a million impressions now it's on the verge of wearing out. It's also not going to be supported for parts and service, probably starting in 2028. Our KM rep presented us with a package back in March to replace this printer with an AccurioPrint production unit. It's the kind of printer you'd find in a real-life print shop, and will expand our printing capability significantly and at greater cost efficiency. The only rub is, the new equipment won't fit into our basement! That leads to our second item of news...

• Starting November 1st, PLAAY Games will have its own space. We're leasing space in an office park that's not too far from "the basement." It's just up the street from the PLAAY Dot CON convention hotel (Hilton Garden Inn Highlands Ranch). It's an amazing location and a wonderful combination of retail and production space. The back of the space is where the print production equipment will be housed and will also be where the assembly and order fulfillment will happen. The front of the space has a cozy "showroom" area where all of the PLAAY Games will be available for purchase and a generous game-playing space where we can hold community events. Here's a rendering of what the public-facing part of the space will look like...

As you can see, we will have a dedicated stream space behind the “PLAAY Space” in addition to the print and fulfillment areas in the back. There’s also a kitchenette directly behind the retail “showroom” for lunch breaks and snack service! Cool, huh? Here’s a photo of the office park, we’re the end unit…

It's an end unit, meaning there's windows the entire front and side of the space, lots of natural light and green space views. This makes the space feel quite peaceful and happy. We have some specific plans for in-person community activities in what we're calling (for now at least) "The PLAAY Space," which we will reveal in our "2027 Look-Ahead" stream early in January.

• Sam and Alex are moving from Pittsburgh to Denver to be part of this. This is (for me anyway) the most exciting part of the whole deal. I know I'm not alone in feeling that Sam's day-to-day involvement at PLAAY has been greatly missed. As if having Sam back isn't great enough, it's important to understand that we will benefit from Alex's impressive credentials as well, having guided her game-adjacent business (dice, accessories, etc.) for the past several years. We will be merging the Golden Light Games and Studio Sp1cy brands under the PLAAY Games corporate banner. Both Sam and Alex are, in my opinion, exactly what PLAAY Games needs moving forward to increase our foothold in the general board game hobby space. They are young, smart, attractive, energized and talented. Alex will be in charge of the printing, assembly and order fulfillment. Sam will be in charge of graphic design, website maintenance and tech. I will be the emissary for the sports game contingent of our community and the "father figure" (literally!) for this enterprise.

• The Return of PLAAY-Dot-CON. With more people-power, resources and bandwidth available, we are going to bring back our annual convention for 2027. It will be July 29-31 at the site of our previous conventions, the Hilton Garden Inn, Highlands Ranch. We've reserved the full ballroom for all three days, so this will literally be our biggest (and best!) convention ever. We'll be able to offer an amazing room rate and are excited that both the Yankees and Brewers will be at Coors Field to play the Rockies during the convention week! Tickets for PLAAY-Dot-CON 'XXVII will go on-sale during the holiday sale, we'll have our usual "early bird" rate that will be in effect until the first of the year.

Those are the main points. A couple of other things that bear mentioning here...

• We will be physically moving our operation from the old space to the new starting Thursday 10.29.26 and will be unable to print until at least Tuesday 11.03.26. We're going to leave the e-commerce active through the period (PDFs will be unaffected), but there may be a short shipping delay for printed orders received after Wednesday 10.28.26.

• We are expecting it to be a relatively smooth transition from the old print setup to the new, and we will have on-site and online help from several Konica Minolta teams to make this happen. Our goal is to be fully operational from the new space by Thursday 11.05.26. However, there's always the possibility of some unknown glitch that causes things to come to a standstill until it's resolved. IF this happens--and it should not, but still--we will keep the community posted. Any important updates will be posted here in the blog section of the site.

• I want to give a special thanks to our interim helper Aaron, who has been plugging the gap this entire year with printing and assembly help and production of our regular YouTube streams. He'll be helping manage our holiday sale, and will be around through at least the Holidays. Honestly, I'm unsure about what his role will be in 2027, but he's learned a lot about the "inner workings" of our little game company in the year he's been around and it would sure be great to keep him involved.

These are exciting times for PLAAY Games, and none of it would be possible without the incredible support and enthusiasm from our amazing community of board gamers. We pledge to make community a top priority as we move forward in this new space. We want to make great games, but even more we want to serve others. This is our core commitment, rooted in faith and expressed in action. Thank you for joining us on the journey!