Tim Van Dusen makes no apologies for his job.
At age 32, he's got the official-sounding title of hobby promotions manager for Games Workshop. The Baltimore-area company produces and markets Warhammer, a line of games that pits science fiction or fantasy armies against each other across tabletop battlefields. It's a job that demands he travel the country, attending sci-fi and games conventions and teaching the masses the gospel according to Warhammer.
In other words, he's paid to play with toys.
It would be hard to imagine a more fitting product rep. His company targets Warhammer at what Van Dusen calls the "14-year-olds forever" -- post-adolescent males reluctant to discard days of capricious youth. Men exactly like Van Dusen, whose 6-year-old son, Cole, knows not to touch "Daddy's toys."
Like many of his colleagues, Van Dusen joined the Games Workshop team because he had a love of the game. In fact, he swears the company's liberal employee discount is the reason half the staff works there at all.
Their Glen Burnie offices, housed in an industrial park, are largely informal. Gaming tables covered with faux craggy rock, paper forts and plastic trees fill various rooms, often making the space difficult to navigate. Workers, including the company's 33-year-old CEO, Chris Prentice, sport faded jeans and colorful T-shirts bearing the Games Workshop logo. Forget about a softball team -- these guys play in a hotly competitive Warhammer league.
Still, Van Dusen admits the job's not all fun and -- well, you know.
"It's kind of hard because I play games for a living, that's what I do," he says, pushing a limp lock of brown hair off his forehead. "There are a lot of times I've quit [playing] because it would have been too much like work."
But not today. Today, Van Dusen and his co-workers will trek to the Baltimore Convention Center for the company's 5th Annual Games Day, a two-day affair of gaming tournaments, demonstrations and artistry competitions. It's Van Dusen's responsibility to plan and execute the event, and he watches over operations like an expectant father.
A guy thing
Roughly 2,000 enthusiasts are expected to attend, almost all male, ranging in age from 14 to 44. Females are a decided minority on the Warhammer scene; Games Day will create legions of Warhammer widows. The women that do play, however, tend to pop up at the big conventions.
Beyond gender, though, there are few common denominators linking Warhammer warriors. A typical group of players might include a 19-year-old English major who uses the game to bond with an old pal from high school, a young newlywed for whom watching "Star Wars" for the first time was a seminal experience, or a father of five who as a child helped his father create elaborate model train exhibits.
That broad consumer spectrum has played a big part of the multi-faceted game's phenomenal success. Created in England nearly two decades ago, Warhammer entered the U.S. market in the early 1980s. Business surged; 10 years ago, Games Workshop established a North American headquarters on Key Street in Baltimore. Operations, which include on-site production and shipping, a mail-order department and a company store, have grown so quickly that the company has had to upgrade to larger facilities every few years.
The value of the publicly owned company also has risen remarkably. At the close of its fiscal year in May, Games Workshop revenues were $300 million. Sales increased 40 percent over the previous year; U.S. sales alone topped $120 million.
Low-tech fun
In a world of high-tech CD-ROMs, virtual reality arcade games and visually assaulting blockbusters dominating the silver screen, how has something as low-key as Warhammer become so popular? What is it about the recipe -- one part model-building, two parts toy soldiers, with a handful of dice tossed in for good measure -- that attracts players in the age of Atari, Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64?
For one thing, there's camaraderie that a computer can't offer.
"When you play a computer game, it's just you and a computer," says longtime gamer Donald "Doc" Thornton. "But with Warhammer, it's you and your buddies having a good time."
Thornton, 27, is the assistant manager of Legends, a store in Towson Town Center that sells Games Workshop products. He discovered the game in 1985, when he wandered into another Legends store with a game room in the back and watched his first bloodthirsty Warhammer match.
The Warhammer series follows in the tradition of fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, with one key exception: Players don't take on any one role. Instead, they man armies of quarter-inch to 3-inch-high miniatures, planning attacks and rolling dice to determine the outcome of their actions. Thornton, a veteran of games like D&D, finds this aspect attractive.
"It's like acting, like being on a stage," he says of gaming. "Only you're not."
Timonium resident Reider "Dar" Bennett-White, a regular at the Legends store, also enjoys the game's escapism.
