6 Truths about the Board Game Industry

I've been actively involved in the board game industry as an independent board game designer for the past 8 years and over that time I have learned some truths about this industry that I'm going to share with you in this video the first one is that in the board game Community there is a culture of extreme consumerism and fomo or fear of missing out let's start with the extreme consumerism now I understand that as a designer I am creating a product that I want a consumer to buy but it's more than that I see myself as someone cre creting experiences where friends families and strangers can connect with each other learn about each other and create memories one of the most amazing things about being a designer is seeing photos of people playing one of my games with big smiles on their faces it truly brings me so much joy and really is the reason I create games in the first place but there is an interesting dynamic in the board game Community where people will post photos of piles of games that they bought at conventions and share their hauls online for others to see I find this phenomenon fascinating these hul picks have become an inevitable occurrence after every major board game convention and I never want to judge or put down something that someone else enjoys but I do challenge the purpose of these photos and the culture of celebrating extreme acts of consumerism now I will share photos of a game that I bought that I'm excited to play but to share a photo of massive piles of games it almost becomes more about flexing the fact that someone bought so many games rather than the excitement of actually playing all of those games I remember a time where I was buying a lot of games and I had to stop and ask myself why am I buying so many games am I playing all of them or are they just Gathering dust on the Shelf is it more about sharing photos online about my growing board game collection or is it about actually playing those games and creating memories with other people I reflected on this and I realized that the main reason I was buying so many games was that I was trying to get my partner at the time as interested in board games as I was I remember thinking maybe this will be the game where my partner will start to love board games as much as I do and will want to play more board games with me so essentially I was hoping that by buying more games I would become closer with my partner and be able to play more games unfortunately that just never happened he just didn't like playing board games as much as I did and when I realized that I decided I needed to stop buying more games in an attempt to try to change that and understanding that buying more games does not necessarily correlate with playing more games I also realized I definitely got the Shoppers High whenever I bought a new game it was exciting but when I thought about what was exciting about it it was a thought about being able to play this game with others but then the game would just end up sitting on my shelf so I asked myself what do I want well I wanted to play more games and that does not necessarily mean buying more games so I looked for board game meetup groups near me and started to go to those and I have played so many any games through these groups I've also started playing more games online on tabletopia I actually stream on Friday nights if you want to join me and that joy that I was looking for when buying games I found in actually playing games so I have now capped myself at around 50 board games in my collection I have one long shelf for games and that's it if I want to buy another game one from my collection has to go Shifting the focus away from the act of buying games to actually playing games has been a healthy change for me so I challenge other Gamers to just ask why do I want to buy this game is the act of buying it possibly feeling some sort of void or emptiness inside with an armful of discount clothing I realized I could no longer discount my feelings or will I actually play it with others and create those special moments and memories or will I play it solo and truly enjoy myself which is absolutely possible I'm a huge Puzzler I love puzzles and puzzles are essentially a solo game they can be done with others but I have just as much fun doing a puzzle solo as I do with friends and there are some great games that play well with only one player if you are getting those games out and having a great night playing a solo game that is fantastic and I also acknowledge that some people are collectors and just knowing that they own certain things brings them a lot of joy and they don't necessarily need to play all their games to feel good and happy about it so at the end of the day as long as we are truly happy with how we are spending our money then that's all that matters but I think we need to ask ourselves why are we buying these games games and will spending my money in this way truly make me happy now for the fomo part of this it really is amazing that it is the consumers that are driving the extreme consumerism and fomo in this industry I'm sure that the board game companies love how much people post online of their hauls and photos of the latest board game release that they waited in line for hours to acquire many people will spend a lot of money to to attend board game conventions simply because they feel they don't want to miss out they want to be included and belong they'll see photos of people having so much fun at these cons and think I want to be that happy and have that much fun so they spend hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars to go to a convention that is usually based around spending more money on games I definitely feel the poll to attend more conventions because I see so many of my friends going and I'll see their photos online and be sad that I missed out now can ventions truly can be so much fun and being around so many other nerds and Gamers is a cool atmosphere but I just want to emphasize that you are part of the board game Community whether or not you attend these events and I don't want anyone to feel bad if they can't afford to go or can't attend for health reasons or family responsibilities and so on because at its core this industry feeds off of people wanting to feel included so I think we should question that and really ask ourselves why are we spending our money in this way way and does it truly bring me joy and connection with others now my next truths will be focused more on designers specifically rather than gamers in general so my second truth might seem somewhat contradictory to my first but it is designers kind of need to go to cons to meet and build relationships with Publishers it is definitely possible to get your game published without attending conventions there are online speed pitch opportunities and more and more online events where you can meet with Publishers but there is something about meeting someone in person that is more impactful than meeting over video this is unfortunate as like I've mentioned attending conventions can be very expensive and many people aren't able to attend so this one is an unfortunate truth it is much easier to make connections with Publishers in person at conventions when I look back at my games they were almost all picked up at conventions two were picked up at a play testing convention I used to run called prototo one connection I made with a publisher at the New York Toy Fair turned into them picking up one of my games and I'm currently working with a publisher I met at Gen Con this past summer about possibly publishing another one of my games now blob party was picked up from an online speed pitch event so it's definitely possible but like I said going to certain conventions to meet Publishers in person will make your journey as a designer much easier the conventions that I recommend attending if you're a designer and want to network and meet Publishers are Gen Con which happens in early August in Indiana New York Toy Fair which used to take place in February but has now moved to the end of September and Origins which happens in June in Columbus Ohio now there are ways to attend these events without breaking the bank you can work at a booth which usually includes a free badge to attend the con and possibly accommodation if you are able to schedule meetings with Publishers in advance that is ideal some Publishers will post their booking schedule online for anyone to book with them others will only share that link with designers they already know if you aren't able to book meetings in advance I would definitely recommend introducing yourself at the Publishers Booth write out a list of Publishers you want to meet who you think would be interested in the types of games that you make I would then find their booth and say hi my name is Pam I'm a board game designer and I was wondering if I could speak with someone from your adventure relations team this is usually what I say some companies don't use the term inventure relations but most do and that will usually get you talking to the right person once you're speaking with a person who takes pictures for the company you can say hi I just wanted to introduce myself I'm a board game designer and I'm currently working on some games that I think you might be interested in if you have some time now I can quickly pitch them to you or we could schedule a meeting to chat about them later I know this can be a very uncomfortable and scary thing to do but putting yourself out there like this will absolutely increase your chances of getting a game published the third truth is that things move very slowly in this industry Publishers in general take a long time to reply to emails and to make a decision of whether or not they want to move forward with your game if they decide they do want to move forward with your your game first of all congratulations but just know that you won't be able to hold the finished game in your hands for at least a year if not two or more because first of all there are the contract negotiations the publisher will send you a contract outlining that you the lenser will be licensing your game to the company the license e you aren't selling the game idea to them you will always own that you are licensing the game idea to them and once the contract period ends or if it's terminated you will get the rights back to the game and can then pay the game to other Publishers or self-publish or just leave it you will review the contract the publisher sends you and you might want to have a lawyer look over it as well and there will be some back and forth until it gets to a place where you're comfortable signing it once the contract is signed the publisher will then do their publisher thing which includes handling the art graphic design manufacturing shipping and distribution this all takes a very long time some Publishers will include you or keep you updated in this process and some will go completely silent during this time once your game comes out and starts getting stocked in stores you will start to earn royalties you should have received an advance when you sign the contract now any royalties you earn which are usually about 5% on the wholesale price so the price the publisher sells the game to Distributors who then sell the game to retailers will go against the advance that you already received if the game sells enough for you to recoup that Advance then you will start to receive royalty checks which are usually sent out every quarter so four times a year or every 6 months so you likely won't get a royalty check until 1 and a half or two or more years after you sign the initial contract speaking of contracts let's move on to truth number four signing a contract does not guarantee that your game will be made the publisher can decide to terminate the contract at any time so I never believe that one of my games will actually be made until I'm physically holding the product in my hands this is why a cash advance is a non-negotiable for me so if the publisher decides to end the contract at least I walk away with something thankfully this has not happened to me but several of my friends have signed contract with Publishers who then ultimately decided to terminate the contract there was one publisher who said they wanted to publish one of my games but would take months to respond to my emails or not respond at all and they would make excuses as to why they hadn't sent the contract yet finally after 2 years of trying to get an official contract from them I asked them to return my prototype to me as I'm no longer interested in moving forward with them they didn't respond to that email either but my prototype eventually was delivered back to me now let's say your game does get published the fifth truth is that your game success relies heavily on the marketing efforts from the publisher if the publisher decides to put their money and marketing behind other games besides yours your game will quickly Fade Into the background we don't know about some of the best games that have ever existed simply because they weren't promoted the marketing and promotion of a game is possibly the most important determinant of whether or not a game will be successful so when you are negotiating your licensing contract with the publisher be sure to ask them about their marketing plan and try to get that included in the contract but a big factor in all of this is that Publishers can't always guarantee that your game will be stocked at specific stores most Publishers have to pitch their games to Big retailers like Walmart Target and Barnes & Noble and it's up to them if they want to stock the game or not and not all Publishers even have access to be able to pitch to these big retailers but if you can get the publisher to outline which retailers they will pitch your game to in your contract that will be a big help it is then ultimately up to these big stores if they want to stock your game and that could be decided merely on the look of the game box it is unfortunate but those big retailers possibly have the most power of anyone in the entire chain but let's say you get several Games published again congratulations the sixth truth is that even if a designer gets multiple Games published they will most likely still need a day job when I got the call from Hasbro in 2016 that they wanted to publish one of my games I immediately started drafting my resignation letter for my day job I imagine the commercials that Hasbro would make for my game I imagined it being stocked at all of the major stores and I imagined it selling millions of copies unfortunately none of those things happened I can't go into specific details but I was absolutely nowhere near being able to quit my day job then when I got another game picked up I thought maybe this would be it but again I was not earning anywhere close to enough to be able to quit my day job then my third game just came out this past summer but I still have to wait another 4 months before getting my first royalty check that's assuming I'm able to recoup my advance so I'm sorry to say this but it is very very difficult to earn enough money to support yourself as an independent board game designer it is not impossible though I made a whole video about different different ways you can design games fulltime so be sure to check that out and there is definitely the possibility of making significant amounts of money as an independent board game designer you just need to make a great game and sign with a publisher who will promote it and Pitch it to Big retailers who will pick it up so you need to have a few things line up but it is possible well I hope this video wasn't too much of a bummer that wasn't my intention these are just some things that I've noticed and reflected on for the past 8 years in the industry and hopefully they've made reflect on some things too and maybe see things a bit differently so if you enjoyed this video please be sure to like And subscribe I also just launched memberships so if you click on the join button below you can join as a member for as little as 99 cents a month all members get access to a monthly members only live stream they get first access to play games with me on stream on Fridays discount codes on merch and shoutouts and videos like this thank you so much to the first members of my membership program Travis bu and Kristen celindas thank you so much so thanks again for watching be sure to follow me on social media at pamels game design and I'll see you in the next [Music] video

Channel: Pam Walls Game Design

Views: 6,701

Keywords: board games, party games, Toronto, ProtoTO, Hasbro, Hold That Face, playtesting, Pam Walls, Vancouver, SpinMaster, Ravensburger, pitching, prototype, gaming, design, designer, tabletop, video games, Act Fast, board game design, playtest

Id: WpL8W863TDQ

Length: 15min 25sec (925 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2023