10 Steps to Create a Tabletop Game Company

Do you want to start a board game publishing company?

I grew up playing and designing games. In 2011, I combined my fascination with Kickstarter with my love of games and started working on Viticulture, a game I would eventually crowdfund in September 2012 and deliver to backers in May 2013. Ten years later, Stonemaier Games is still publishing Viticulture–among more than a dozen other games, including Wingspan, Scythe, and Red Rising–as we try to bring joy to tabletops worldwide.

This blog is all about entrepreneurship and crowdfunding, and today I’m going to try to condense the multi-step, multi-faceted process of starting a tabletop game company down to 10 steps. Two quick questions to ponder before I delve into the list:

What’s a tabletop game company?

A tabletop game company is a company that publishes games that are played on the tabletop (including but not limited to games featuring boards, cards, tiles, and a variety of tokens). The company handles the creation of digital files for the game (after either designing the game in house or signing the rights to a game designed by someone else) before sending those files to a manufacturer. When the game is printed, the company coordinates shipping, sales, marketing, customer service, etc.

Most tabletop game companies are very small in terms of personnel, number of products, and revenue. Even well-established game publishers with dozens of products may only have 1 or 2 full-time employees.

Should I start a tabletop game company?

If this is a question you’re asking yourself–probably because you’re designing a game or have partnered with a friend who is designing a game–please first consider the tradeoffs between the responsibility of running a company vs pitching to an existing publisher.

After considering that, there are a few other elements to think about before moving forwards:

• Don’t quit your day job (read more)
• Intentionally define your version of success based on metrics you can control (opposed to elements out of your control, like revenue)
• Be prepared to make it about others, not you (this may be your goal or dream, but you’re publishing games so other people–complete strangers–can have fun. It’s about serving them)

10 Steps to Create a Tabletop Game Company

1. Research

• Play a lot of games and learn about the games you don’t play (reviews, playthroughs, design discussions)
• Research and back at least 5 crowdfunding campaigns to learn from them (read more)
• Actively participate in the tabletop game community (BoardGameGeek is a good starting place, but there are many thriving groups on Facebook and Discord too)
• Attend one small convention (e.g., a local event where you mostly play games; read more) and one big convention (e.g., a major exhibition like Gen Con, Essen Spiel, and PAX Unplugged)

2. Find the First Game

• Design the game yourself
  • Fully design, playtest, and iterate the game from start to finish (game design is much more than an idea)
  • Set the first game aside, then design another game (your first attempt at game design is absolutely worth your time but is unlikely to resonate with thousands of people worldwide)
  • Watch this video about the game design process and read this series of articles
• Sign the rights to publish a game designed by someone else (read more)

3. Set the Legal and Financial Groundwork

• Brainstorm, trademark search, and register a compelling company name (read more; I recommend Scot Duvall at Stites & Harbison)
• Register your company, most likely as a sole proprietorship or limited liability partnership (I recommend Zachary Strebeck for contracts)
• Establish good accounting practices, including separating your personal bank/PayPal accounts from your business accounts (read more; I recommend Justin Marty and Leigh Reiter at Anders CPA)

4. Build a Crowd

• Make an email address with the company name as the tail (we use Google Workspace)
• Create a few home bases where people can find you and connect with you (WordPress website, Facebook page, and Discord server. You can later upgrade the website with the help of a web designer; I recommend Dave Hewer)
• Open social media accounts under the company name, regularly posting quick content that showcases the personality of the company, features products from other companies that inspire you, and displays what you’re working on. I prefer Instagram.
• Create a prelaunch landing page on your crowdfunding platform of choice (read more)
• Play around with longer-form content that adds value to others until you find the format that works best for you (YouTube, blog, podcast, etc), then post there consistently. This will help you hone your communication skills (read more)
• Write an enewsletter once every 1-3 months (I use Mailchimp; read more)

5. Identify Talent

• Find a business partner whose strengths complement your weaknesses (read more)
• Identify amazing playtesters (read more)
• Create a proofreading and oversight process (read more)
• Hire a great graphic designer who knows visual design and print-file preparation (read more)
• Select an amazing artist (check out this list and consider this contract format)
• Read more about the many different people who will have an impact on your business and how a significant part of your job will be project management. Also, please pay independent contractors on the same day they invoice you–they deserve that.

6. Select a Printer

• Get quotes from a few different manufacturers and select your favorite based on price, communication, integrity, and quality (I highly, highly recommend Panda Game Manufacturing)
• Register a SKU and figure out barcodes, UPCs, etc (read more)
• Consider these manufacturing tips

7. Launch a Crowdfunding Project 

• Crowdfunding isn’t the only way to bring a new product to life while starting a new company, but I think it’s the best way to learn how to run a company in a microcosm. Crowdfunding is a great way to build community, gauge demand, raise funds, improve the product, generate awareness, and create direct relationships with your most passionate customers (read more)
• Kickstarter and Gamefound are currently the biggest players in this space.
• Plan for the preparation of the campaign to take several months. I highly recommend that you do not launch until every aspect of the game–or everything about the game except for any art for which you are reliant on funding–is completely finished. There are so many elements of uncertainty that can happen during product design, so take care of them first before you put the risk on backers.
• Talk to retailers about how you can include them in the campaign in a way that is mutually beneficial. The groundwork you lay here can make a big difference later.

8. Foster Community After the Campaign

• Nurture your growing community with steady communication via project updates (good and bad news)
• Recognize, formalize, and celebrate volunteers (see our Ambassador Program)
• Stay focused on the project and how you will support it for years to come (read more)

9. Deliver the Game

• Determine the fulfillment centers from which the game will ship to backers and then to customers on an ongoing basis (read more)
• Coordinate with a freight shipping broker to get the game from the manufacturer to the fulfillment centers (I recommend Justin Bergeron at ARC Global)
• Create a system for sending replacement parts worldwide (read more)

10. Expand and Grow

• Open an online store where people and retailers can buy directly from you (we use Shopify).
• Sell the game at a convention. The goal is to break even while catching the eye of retailers and distributors. You’ll also learn if selling at conventions is something that invigorates or exhausts you, which may inform future marketing strategies.
• Contact a variety of reviewers to see if you can send them a free copy of the game (read more). Again, this is to potentially catch the eye of retailers and distributors, though even beyond that it’s a great way to get more eyes on your game. Here are other marketing techniques I’ve used and still use.
• After doing the above, share the most compelling metrics with a distribution broker (i.e., PSI) or worldwide distributors (we primarily work with GTS and Flat River Group in the US, Universal in Canada, Asmodee in Europe, and Let’s Play Games/VR Distribution/Pixelpark in Oceania. Read more about the tabletop game supply chain.
• Partner with publishing companies in other countries to print the game in other languages. There are many such publishers you can reach out to; see the full credits on popular games on BoardGameGeek (e.g., Wingspan). Learn more here.
• Consider licensing your game to a well-established developer like Monster Couch, Acram Digital, or Digidiced (read more)
• If your game is selling well and you need to make more copies, reprint it.

Follow those 10 steps, and you have a tabletop game company–congratulations!

Of course, this is just my perspective, not the definitive model. I’d love to hear what other publishers would add to or change about this list.

If you’re thinking about starting a game company, I’d also like to hear from you. From this list, what are you most excited or concerned about?

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Bonus: I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Gabe Barrett about starting and growing a business on his podcast (video version here).

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.

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