Designing Fun, Publishing Games, and Living Life: Part I

Steve Rawlings, the owner of Against the Odds magazine, gave a presentation on starting a board game company last weekend.  I wish I could have been there, but our booth at the convention was busy, and I couldn't break away.

I found it interesting nonetheless. Recently my thoughts have turned to the same subject. In the short seven years since I founded Lock 'n Load Publishing I've seen several companies come and go, and others just go. Some of these companies’ lack of success is due to a struggling economy (more on that in a minute), but I feel many of their trial and tribulations could have been avoided if they had been better prepared. There’s no doubt that I would have a few less white hairs if I had known what I know now when I starting the company in the summer of 2006.

First a few words on the struggling economy. Worry about it pointless, consideration isn’t.

I started with Eisenbach Gap. Seven years later I'm here.

Accept this: the economy isn’t as strong as it was in the 1990s, and it isn’t coming back. A recent poll on City Data revealed that 62% of Americans feel that the country peaked in 2000, and what we have now is what we will live with for the foreseeable future. That isn’t as gloomy as it initially appears. First, although the middle class has less disposable income, there are indications that they are restructuring how they spend it. A family game night is a logical, fun, and cheap substitution for dinner and movie for five.

Second, many game customers are not middle income. The figures vary, but $61,000 is a good number to define middle income. Most gamers, at least older gamers, are college graduates, averaging over $70,000 a year, and many have a professional degree (doctors, lawyers, etc), who average $99,000 per annum. Hence, gamers tend to have a bit more disposable income than the typical American. Nevertheless, the economy is what it is. There is very little we can do to change it. Nor is it the key factor in the initial stage of planning.

Wow, that sounds crazy doesn’t it?  Not so much, although establishing a business plan, allocating resources, assembling necessary funding, and projecting costs are critical to turning your game company dream into a reality, they are not the single most important consideration. They are not what keep the doors open when the profits dwindle, they are not what keep your eyes open when you proof a rules manual at 4 AM, or what inspire you to give up a Saturdays at the beach to test a scenario one last time. Only one thing does that, and it is the key to starting a game company. That thing is passion.

Drop by tomorrow and I’ll talk about it.