GAMA Programs and Benefits
Below are some of the benefits our members enjoy. If you have any questions about any of them, please contact our program manager, Trey Reilly, at Programs@GAMA.org. The list is organized loosely by category. At the top is just the name and at the bottom are the descriptions. You may click a name at top to be taken to it's section below, if you like.
Industry Business to Business Support
GAMA Trade Show
Industry Resource Lists
Industry Service Awards
Marketing Games to Consumers
Origins International Games Expo
Games in Education
National Advertising Campaign
Origins Awards
Industry Watch Committee
Retail Locator
What is Gaming? Web Site and Pamphlets
Member Benefits
Health Insurance
Credit Card Merchant Program
Retailer and Manufacturer Handbooks
Retail Mentorship Program
GAMA Store Decor Program
Booth Rebates
Advertising Discounts and Free Subscriptions
Retailer Badges
Trade Organization Survey
New GAMA Member Benefits and Programs for 2006
Industry Information Surveys
Convention Directory
Fixtures
Games to Troops
The Games Museum
Advertising Design Service
Mailings Through Distributors
Industry Business to Business Support
GAMA Trade Show brings together publishers, distributors, and retailers, and other industry professionals, offering them education on how they can run their businesses better and improving communications between all members of our industry. GTS is seen by retailers and distributors as the place to find new products for their stores and learn about important new releases from game publishers. Publishers and distributors use the show to find new customers for their products and support relationships with existing customers.
Industry Resource Lists: In addition to our Member Directory, GAMA started lists in 2005 of distributors and vendors on our Web site for members to access to help them in their businesses.
Industry Service Awards: Honoring those who have made significant, selfless contributions to the hobby game industry or GAMA
Marketing Games to Consumers
Origins International Games Expo is our consumer show. Here, game players from across the US and around the world come to play their favorite games, meet game designers, and buy the newest releases from publishers. Origins is the ultimate direct-to-consumer marketing experience for game publishers, a great opportunity for game retailers, and a solid venue for the strengthening and building of the game-playing community.
Games In Education: This program strives to teach educators how they can use games in their curricula. Anchored by the Teacher’s Hall Pass program at Origins and our Games in Education Booklets, our staff has also been attending educational conferences and reaching out to educational organizations. In addition to attending several teacher’s conferences, GAMA is on the cusp of another positive change with a program to offer lesson plan outlines and lists of matching standards in the next printing of our GiE Brochures. 2006 was also be the first year that the Teacher’s Hall Pass Program is officially open to Librarians and School Administrators, which will increase attendance and help get the word out about the positive and educational nature of many of our games.
National Advertising Campaign: To help our retail members spread the word about their stores and the fun of games, GAMA created three generic “Let’s play a game!” commercials that include time at the end for custom information (in TV parlance, to “tag” the ad with the store's info). The ads became available to free to all GAMA members starting on 2005. Each tape includes three ads (15, 30, and 60 seconds), and comes with instructions on buying ad time with your local cable company to target your customers either by geography or interest. The ads come on Betacam SP tapes, which is the format the TV industry prefers.
Origins Awards: Presented by GAMA’s Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design, the Origins Awards recognize the gaming industry’s top achievements and products released during the previous year. Now in its 32nd year, the Academy strives to create national recognition and prestige for these awards, and reward innovation and achievement in our industry.
Industry Watch Committee: Led by Michael Stackpole, the Industry Watch Committee helps stores and publishers deal with negative press about games. Luckily you don’t hear much about our work in this area as Mike’s done a great job handling issues.
Retail Locator: To assist in the sale of more games, GAMA offers a retail locator on our Web site for people looking for game stores to use. Our list of retailers is also available in one file for our members to use in their marketing efforts. New in 2005, we cleaned our retailer database for the first time in years, making the resource far more useful.
What is Gaming? Web Site and Pamphlets: We started this in 2005, and plan to expand the program for 2006. We have written pamphlets for all of the gaming genres to help in educating new players, parents, and so forth.
Turnoff Week: GAMA partnered with the Turnoff Network to promote game playing as a great activity during Turnoff Week 2006, April 24-30. Turnoff Week gives GAMA-member retailers a great opportunity to showcase the industry's products to a whole new audience while taking a positive stand in their communities.
Games to Troops: The troops overseas are never far from our minds and hearts. We are already working with the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation departments of each of four service branches, and will put together packages of games and gaming supplies (on a donation basis) to send overseas to the MWR centers of our servicemen and women.
Member Benefits
Health Insurance: A new program in 2005, GAMA offers health insurance benefits to its US-based members at rates or with benefits that large companies enjoy. The insurance comes through Assurant Affinity, a company specializing in health insurance solutions for non-profit trade organizations.
Credit Card Merchant Program: GAMA partnered with with Cynergy Data to offer discount credit card, gift card, and loyalty card processing services and systems to all GAMA-member companies.
Retailer and Manufacturer Handbooks: Mailed when someone first becomes a member, these handbooks have proven to be exceedingly useful resources to our members.
Retail Mentorship: The GAMA Retail Division sponsors a mentor program for retailers in the hobby games industry. This program is modeled after a small business counseling program called SCORE provided by the Small Business Administration. The program is aimed at helping new game stores to become successful businesses. The Mentor Program started in Spring 2000 and has been going strong ever since.
GAMA Store Decor Program: This new program gives retail members ready-to-print in-store signage. Retailers either print the signs themselves or have them printed at their local print shop. These signs include open and closed, product department signs, bathroom signs, and so forth. The signs feature artwork from several of our member game companies and are all in standardized sizes and formats so the retailer can use signs from several different companies and they all look good together. Watch for more information about this program soon!
Booth Rebates: GAMA Members receive a 10 percent rebate on their Exhibitor Booth fees with GAMA for the year (totaling both GTS and Origins), up to the full cost of their membership fee.
Surveys: Industry information is one of the chief things we want to be able to offer our members. As many of you know, gathering good information about sales trends to turn around to our members is quite a challenge. We’ve recently looked into online survey tools that will ensure individual privacy while encouraging information sharing. We’re close to having a solution for this, and look forward to putting several polls and surveys into the field for 2006.
Convention Directory: Working with a partner, GAMA is gathering comprehensive convention data for our members and our industry. This data includes not just the name, location, and dates of a conventions; but also the type of events run, number of events, annual attendance figures (and how those figures were calculated), years of operation, cost of exhibition, cost to advertise in the program book, prize support policies, and other valuable information.
Retailer Badges: GAMA retail members receive one free Buyers Badge for GTS, and two free Origins badges, to either use themselves or to give away at their store.
Trade Organization Survey: For the past few years GAMA has surveyed other trade organizations of our size to compare the programs we offer to theirs. GAMA looks very good in comparison, and we will continue to do the survey as one way to make sure we’re offering our members a more than the average benefits package.
Advertising Design Service: Many companies and stores don’t have the staff and/or resources for advertising design. We provide this service, mostly through templates, and will do more as our marketing department grows.
Mailings Through Distributors: In the past, GAMA sponsored mailings through distributors, where manufacturers would pay a small fee to include marketing information sent to retailers. We’ve arranged to start this program again.
Advertising Discounts and Free Subscriptions
Knucklebones Magazine -- 25% advertising discount
Patrick Lacke
Corporate Advertising Director
715-445-5000 x136
patl@jonespublishing.com
GAMA members get 25% off advertising in Knucklebones Magazine. Some restrictions apply.
Dragon and Dungeon Magazine -- 15% advertising discount
Joshua Frost
Advertising Director
425-289-1345
josh@paizo.com
GAMA members get 15% off the 12x placement rate for either Dragon or Dungeon magazine. This discount also stacks with the standard discount for advertising in both magazines.
GameBuyer -- 10% advertising discount for new advertisers
Aldo Ghiozzi
925-240-0862
Aldo@ImpressionsAdv.net
ImpressionsAdv.net
Member Benefits and Programs in Progress
Here’s a sample of the things the GAMA staff will be working on in the upcoming year:
Store Fixtures: There have been a few plans and ideas over the years regarding store fixtures – from discount plans to fixture sets with the “GAMA Retail Seal of Approval.” We’re looking into these ideas to see if any are feasible and desirable.
POS System: After hearing from retailers about their needs in a POS system, we've decided to find two or three that will each provide a type of service that you are looking for. We will work out discounts with the companies and give you the option of which POS system to go with.
The Game Museum: Our industry lacks a museum, and with it the opportunity to show off the rich traditions of our hobby as well as to inform about the educational and social benefits we provide to the world. We are actively searching for a site for this museum, and have begun the funding and planning process with the help of several folks, including Duke Seifried and Dr. Toy.
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