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¿Question #4761?
eganaden: Why don't European publishers respond and cater to the clamor and obvious yearnings by those here in the U.S. of A for some well regarded but unavailable games such as "Chinatown", "Antiquity" and "Die Macher"? Don't they want the business? Or is it evidence of plain snobbery and anti-sentiment?

Woelf: Perhaps there are legal issues. Or those games weren't actually as popular as their fans think.
BruceBrown: I am sure they do, but can they get a publisher to make it hear? can they get into the stores? does the cost of sending the material to the US outweigh the price point?
Bonehead: The truth lies somewhere in between
goldenboat: I don't agree that the clamor is obvious or even a clamor. A bunch of geeks blasting off on BGG don't automatically equate to sales.
DHEK: Publishers need to sell at least a certain amount of games to make it worth the trouble and investment. If all they can sell are just a few hundred copies (at regular prices), they'd be losing money!
jcarvin: They do respond if the demand is there, they have the rights to the game, and can reprint it at a reasonable cost and profit.
Chris Page: How many really want Chinatown? It was in print for quite a long while, and there's a smaller market for the reprint as there are already N-thousand copies in existence.
eduart: the latter
tdyck: Its their way of showing who is in control
mpw182: they prefer snobbery over profit aparently
Geosmores: No market
Mixo: Business is estimated not profitable, new markets (the english spoken one in particular) are targeted via new "multi-language" editions (Metro, Carcassone) where one does not have to translate/reprint cards'n'stuff
SisyphusX: Obvious clamoring amounts to probably 2K to 3K units. Probably not worth their time.
Igloo cool: whoa, settle down dude
kaiserfiume: i wish they never respond
Gizensha: It's probably shipping cost/not enough demand to justify it related.
Helenoftroy: It may cost too much to open to the American market with such little fans if these games.
Jim_P: Economies of scale.
shawn_low: Erm, I suspect the amount of people with 'obvious yearnings' for these games are actually small in number...
skrutsch: I certainly don't think it's the latter. There's probably non enough money in it to make it worthwhile.
tipigi: great question
Loquutus: If they're not American, they're probably not as driven to do anything for money.
POvidiusNaso: As far as I know, most Euro companies don't sell to the US market. They let folks like Rio Grande pick up the costs for production and distribution.
ValJor: No, it's just a way to force more people to learn German
puffinge: would it be good business?
ssmooth: None of those games represents enough "business" to be worth the trouble of reprinting.
Domokun: It's probably more of a desire to move on to new things
chaddyboy_2000: It's probably not a wise business decision for them.
CDRodeffer: It's about economy of scale and mass production. They might sell 100 extra copies, but not the 5000 they'd have to print.
SteveK2: There are thousands of copies of these games for sale in USA. The evil Europeans just keep moving them round between stores so that you Americans can't find them. This makes the games even more fun!
jttm: Yup, the second one
Lord_Prussian: I'd guess there is not a sufficient profit in it for them
CortexBomb: Probably because there isn't enough money in it? Let's go down the line: Chinatown, a game which was not picked up by RGG despite Ra's earlier publishing. Why? Well, I would assume it was because Jay didn't think the game was solid enough, a viewpoint I agree with. The game sold decently in Germany, but IMO it's one of the weaker alea big box games (well, weaker earlier alea big box games at least) and I don't think it would be that coveted if it had been printed in the States. Antiquity is a small publisher game, Splotter is basically a two man operation, and they don't make much money doing what they're doing. Their game designs cost so much to produce and thus sell that no US publisher seems to be willing to work with them, and they have a very small potential audience in the States as well. I mean, they do try to ship some across the pond to the big retailers, but I don't think they're losing out on boatloads of money either, as if they were a US publisher would have picked it up. Macher is the most far out there example, this game is finally becoming hard to find in Germany, now, almost 9 years after its last print run! The 2nd printing of Macher nearly put Hans im Glueck out of business because it sold so poorly, and despite the fact some, very specialized US hobbyists love it (myself included) I don't think it would be worthwhile doing a print of this now either, especially given the fact that the publisher would have to go it alone, as I'm quite sure HiG is thrilled to finally be rid of their seemingly endless stock.
Spielfreak: Ah, the vocal minority once again gets vocal. Simply put, although there is SOME demand for these titles, there isn't enough to warrant the expenses of another printing.
heli: US market is like the tail trying to wag the dog.
skelebone: I think it's more an issue of publishing rights, plus sellability. Sure Chinatown is highly sought after now, but what happens when you make a print run of 3,000? Will all 3,000 be bought up, or just languish on the shelves, losing money?