[Sent via email to our subscribers]

Greetings from Fine Games. This is a quickie Update concerning our current & future Clearance Sales, as well as other matters of urgent import.

Topics in this issue:

1. Clearance Sale schedule for the 2008 holiday season.
2. Boxed Game Clearance now available expires after Halloween, this Friday.
3. Operational Studies Group (OSG) going out of business with a month.
4. Highway to the Reich 3rd (DecGms) now available and recommended!
5. UPS to increase ground rates by 6% in 2009.
6. Please check the contact info we have for you.

Note: Many of our previous emails were delivered with HTML markup showing and thus largely unreadable. We apologize for this inconvenience.

1. 2008 Clearance Sale Schedule: Fine Games traditionally offers two distinct Clearance Offers during the Holiday season each year. This year, we added a third, preliminary offer focused on bulkier, boxed games (for more on more on this, see #2 below). For those of you that like to anticipate such things, we plan to publish our most popular Clearance, our "Buy Some Games, Get Some Games Free" offer, in early November to last until the end of November.

Then, in early December and thru our last business day of the year (23 Dec.), we will offer simple, Clearance pricing on close to 1,000 games. Stay tuned, !*FirstName*!.

2. Current Boxed Game Clearance Offer Expires on Friday, 31 Oct.: Our ongoing Clearance offers nearly 200 boxed games at sweet prices. And we have added many additional games and dropped some prices still further since announcing this sale early this month.

We have attached an 11pg Acrobat PDF Clearance Catalog which you can also view online.

Remember than in addition to great prices on this clearance, we will also waive our normal surcharge on Large Boxed (LB) or heavy (3#+) games after the first on orders shipped domestically. In other words, you pay a maximum of one such $1.50 surcharge no matter how many heavy games you might purchase, and no matter how much your order weighs. This is another way to save on this offer.

3. Operational Studies Group (OSG) Going Out of Business: An email from Kevin Zucker, the long-time principal of OSG in both its early & current incarnations, announced that it will end operations in late November, liquidating all its existing inventory. Kevin has been responsible over his lengthy career in game design for the extensive and detailed series of games on Napoleon's various campaigns in Europe. In fact, he was within shouting distance of actually finishing the series originally planned in the late 1970s. Fine Games regrets the loss of yet another notable wargame publisher, tho OSG refused to sell its games thru Fine Games for several years as we are, in Kevin's words, "internet discounters." Here is an excerpt from OSG's brief email:

...Oct. 24, 2008...OSG's BIGGEST SALE EVER! 50%-off Going Out-of-Business Sale...After over ten years in business, OSG is closing the doors forever at the end of November 2008. If there are any items that you want to complete your collection, better order them soon. All merchandise that is still on the premises on November 24th will be sold into distribution channels....There will be no OSG customer service or replacement parts service after November 30th, 2008....We've had a great run, we have accomplished a lot in moving the state of the art forward, and almost completed a survey of all the Napoleonic campaigns. I sincerely hope you will continue to enjoy the games we have produced. It has been my great pleasure to serve you and an honor to be your guide. Fare well friends ...-Kevin Zucker

4. Decision Games' Highway to the Reich 3rd Release: This venerable classic of company level combat during Operation Market-Garden reappears in a more colorized, updated & hopefully better version, and is available in stock as this is written. The game mechanics have been altered for this edition, but the game was a personal favorite, highly suitable for team play, and always provided nail-biting action thruout.

Fine Games' price is $115 ($160 retail) plus shipping. This game is recommended subject to player feedback.

5. UPS Raises 2009 Rates by 6%: UPS adds insult to injury by increasing its ground shipping rates by twice the rate of inflation (again) for 2009. Average ground rates will increase 5.9% (subject to an additional fuel surcharge currently at 10.5% plus as-yet unstated fee increases). What that means to us is that the average package shipped via UPS will cost us more than $0.78 more. Ouch! Regretfully, we will likely pass on at least $0.50 of this increase to our customers.

6. Here is the contact info we currently have for you: Please review your address info as it appears in our files, updating anything that is not current and correct.. If you have additional phone#s (work or a cell), or a backup email should your primary email go bad, we welcome that info as it helps us stay in contact with you.

Thanks again, we look forward to helping you soon.

Michael Dean
Fine Games for Players & Collectors