SYDNEY, N.S. — If you’re looking for something that says Sydney like nothing else on the market, Jean Paul Teskey may have just what you want.
But you will have to hurry to get it.
The senior vice-president at Outset Media says a recently introduced game about Sydney, Sydney-Opoly, a game done in the Monopoly style, is poised to become a local bestseller if past sales in Moncton are any indication.
“We did one for Moncton and a newspaper there in Moncton contacted me,” said Teskey. “Moncton sold out in less than a week.”
Other locations getting their own games include Halifax, St. John’s and Charlottetown and all are being sold exclusively at each community’s local Walmart stores.
The idea came when Outset Media, run by Teskey’s boss David Manga, met with the American company Late For The Sky and the American company mentioned the popularity of Monopoly-style games based on smaller communities.
“They were shocked at how well it did,” said Teskey. “They were saying towns like Louisville or even Buffalo were outselling the big cities and we said wouldn’t it be great if we could do a program … here in Canada.”
So far, just Atlantic Canadian places have been chosen but he expects other parts of Canada will be represented next year.
“We’re still working on that list,” said Teskey. “We want to focus on smaller communities, popular, proud with a great sense of community, places people like to visit so it’s a nice momento for people to take home and nice for people in the community to enjoy.
Sydney-Opoly celebrates uniquely Cape Breton things like the Big Fiddle, donair pizza, meat darts and Wentworth Park. It’s presently only available at the two Sydney Walmart stores where it’s already selling quickly.
“It’s actually doing quite well,” said Teskey. “The other week we sold 22 games in one week which is pretty good considering that’s two stores which means they’re selling 10 pieces in each store — that would put it on par with Walmart’s best-selling game in stores right now. It’s unheard of to sell 10 pieces in one store in a week although Moncton sold all of them, 140 pieces in one week.
“We’ve got 16 games that Walmart carries nationally — if we’re selling on average a half a game per store per week at this time of the year, it’s pretty good. Selling 10 games per week per store? That’s unheard of. It’s great.”
While the company normally produces 10,000 games at a time in China, the Sydney-Opoly game was produced in much smaller quantities in Canada, resulting in a much greater cost per game. It presently retails for $29.93 at Walmart, making it a premium game.
“We’re not making a lot of money on these — we just want to see how they’ll do,” said Teskey.
In fact, once they’re gone, that could be it.
“We did print extras on all the down east games but once we get through this, that will be it for this year — there’s few hundred pieces — It depends on what Walmart want to do but we might never run it again. It’s a very limited edition. We have a few hundred of each and we should make it through Christmas.”
Outset Media is a privately held Canadian manufacturer and distributor of toys, games, and puzzles based out of Victoria, B.C. which was founded in 1996. Since then, Outset Media has produced high quality games and puzzles that promote learning, fun, and family time.
