A New Game Company. My Ideas
I think about games quite a bit. When I’m not plotting the
next scene in Retribution, designing the next scenario in Night of Man, or
playing the latest hot game on BoardGameGeek (at least the latest
conflict-based game on BoardGameGeek), I’m thinking about how I would handle
and develop a new company. I want to share my ideas for a new company here, and
I’d love to hear your opinions.
1. Passion. When possible the people involved should be avid
gamers. This isn’t always possible. Janice (my wife) was a KEY element in the
Walker-owned LNLP and she is only a casual gamer, but she is a passionate
humanist, and I think that came across well to everyone she dealt with.
2. Honesty. Game companies should be honest. I’m not perfect
in this respect, but I found that
3. Know your strengths. For example, I’m a game designer.
I’m also very good at marketing (It’s easy… I love people, I love games.), and
promoting the business. I’m not good at proofing stuff. Period. Any future Mark
Walker-led game company will pay strong proofers. People like Tyler Roush and
Jim Snyder.
4. Embrace the smallness. Don’t waste time or money
attempting to look bigger than you are. If it’s you, your wife, and a teenager,
so be it. Avoid the pompous “we” pronoun. Say it plain, be yourself, be proud
of the basement.
5. Go with what works. I made this mistake with LNLP. ATZ
was our biggest title; I should have published a horde of expansions. That
doesn’t mean that World at War and Lock ‘n Load didn’t work. They did, they
worked quite well, but I almost ignored the ATZ success, and that hurt the
company.
6. Flashy is bad. Flashy websites impress folks. Some folks.
More folks are impressed by a clean look that is easy to navigate.
7. Use Statistics. This ties in with #5. My heart tells me
that a game like Night of Man would sell better, but the blog page views seem
to indicate that there is more interest in Hills of Stanley. Interesting.
8. Keep the money simple. Janice and I took credit cards,
and then charged them manually. This works fine if you take a credit card in
January and charge it in February, but some of our P500 games went on for three
years. Come time to charge the cards, many had expired. The easy solution is
Kickstarter, but that really only supports one game at a time, and that won’t
support a company. Not completely sure what the solution is. Certainly
Kickstarter is part of it.
Those are my quick ideas. What are yours? Please comment
below.
Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver, he is the designer of the Lock 'n Load, World at War, and Nations at War series of games in addition to many others. Sign up for his newsletter to get design insights, game updates, and stuff.
Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver, he is the designer of the Lock 'n Load, World at War, and Nations at War series of games in addition to many others. Sign up for his newsletter to get design insights, game updates, and stuff.
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Comments
(1) Yes and know. Key phrase you use being "when possible". Games are one domain, business is another. The business of games is not precisely a hybrid -- one provides constraints and opportunities for the other. It's great to find people who can navigate that distinction, but they're relatively rare.
(2-3) Absolutely. Sounds like small business 101, if there was ever such a thing.
(4) Also absolutely, however: You've remarked before on the tenuous connection between online water-carrying (Twitter, blogs, BGG curation, etc.) and sales. I'm no expert, but the designers visible engagement is a positive element to me. The actual, tangible products (even very few of them) matter more, but the former definitely helps me take the leap to the latter. Can't quantify that better, sorry.
(5) Good observations, but "yes and no" again. Keeping LnL and WaW going makes the company a better game maker via the challenge of their diversity and, most especially, they keep the designer engaged. Tough call to what degree that dictates priority, however: I would have been happier with fewer, larger releases of LnL and WaW, even if it was a *very* few and I had to wait longer to get them. Line of Fire (as an aside) is interesting swag but doesn't float my boat.
The thing that's had me on needles for two years, for example, had been America Conquered and still is Heroes of the Pacific. I bought most of the others to partially slake that lust but, honestly, in hopes it would accelerate what I really wanted. If that's how it has to be, that's how it hast to be, but if that shift in emphasis had (for example) enabled those ATZ expansions and *therefore* accelerated those large releases...
This extends to reprints, somewhat. It's possible some reprints didn't have to happen in the scheme of things, as spectacular as the results are (e.g., Forgotten Heroes, Nuklear Winter).
(6) Sure, but there are standards. Websites at a certain level of polish separate sketchy kickstarters from businesses I'd want to buy from or (more importantly) follow. Your "clean look that is easy to navigate" sounds good.
(7) Yes and no. I was drawn to the Hills of Stanley post because of its personal narrative and the hand-done graphics. That's cool stuff. I signed up for the Ring of Hills campaign a while ago, but it doesn't trump a number of other titles in the lineup.
(8) Yeah, the prepayment thing is a tough one. I wouldn't mind paying up front of the escrow arrangement was obvious and trustworthy and/or the company had a long track record (MMP charges right away, IIRC). No slam-dunk answers there, though the "one game at a time" suggestion might be the key. Fewer, more comprehensive titles might mesh with that.
Although I do reference the work I did as both the owner and designer of LNLP, keep in mind that I sold that company in March of 2013.
I can see how #1 and #5 would come into conflict. I love the breadth and variety of LnL titles, and I'm glad to have a bunch of them on my shelves, but I sometimes wonder how you manage to recoup all of the time and money you invest in development. I have also been frustrated at times when I tried to recruit new players, only to discover that the key modules were out of print (not unlike the problem that MMP has with ASL.)
I am really pleased with Heroes of Stalingrad, and would love to see more of your games go digital (preferably mobile, too.) Even if that means skipping the dead tree phase and going straight to the apps.
I imagine the upfront development cost for a computer game must be at least 10x the cost of a print run, with perhaps 2-3x lead time.
I'll also say that play testing can be one of the most tedious chores, even when you enjoy the design. Good testers are difficult to find. So many take a game, any game, as a competition, and that ruins play testing.