2020 Behind-the-Scenes Stakeholder Report for Stonemaier Games – Stonemaier Games

2020 Behind-the-Scenes Stakeholder Report for Stonemaier Games

Over the last few years, inspired by Steve Jackson Games, I’ve released stakeholder reports for Stonemaier Games. With our taxes now complete, it’s time for the 2020 report.

A “stakeholder” in Stonemaier Games is anyone who has an impact on our company and a stake in our success, whether it’s employees, contractors, customers, Champions, Ambassadors, retailers, distributors, artists, designers, backers, readers, etc. So if you’re reading this, the report is for you.

Most importantly, I’m filled with so much gratitude for you. 2020 was a difficult year to navigate as we tried our best to bring joy to tabletops worldwide. Joy is always our goal–we don’t measure success by money, units sold, rankings, followers, or awards. Those are just metrics. So all of the data aside, I truly hope we were able to create some joy for you in the last year.

For a month-by-month breakdown on major events and initiatives in 2020, please see the year-in-review post.

2020 Revenue and Personnel

We use the accrual method for accounting (expenses and revenue count in the year when we ship the products to the customer). Last year, 82% of our revenue was from distributors, localization partners, and digital games versus 18% directly from consumers.

  • Revenue: $17.9 million
  • Full-time employees: 3
  • Number of cats (between Jamey, Joe, Alan, Morten, Alex, and Christine): 9
  • New games: 1
  • New expansions: 3
  • New accessories: 2
  • Kickstarter campaigns: 0
  • Preorder campaigns: 5
  • Shareholders: 19

For comparison, revenue was $12.8 million in 2019. While I’m not comfortable discussion profit (arguably the most important number), I will say that it was significantly less than revenue. We consistently reprint almost all of our games, so the majority of our profits are reinvested into reprints.

We have no debt, nor did we take any loans in 2020. As usual, cash flow was tight at certain times of the year due to the gap between when we need to pay Panda (our manufacturer) and when distributors pay us, but we made it work.

The biggest changes last year were personnel-related, as two other full-time employees joined me for the first time. Joe started his position as Director of Communications on January 1, and Alex joined him in September as our Director of Sales. I feel incredibly fortunate to work with such talented, driven, and resourceful people.

We continue to contract Greater Than Games (a fellow St. Louis company) to provide warehousing and fulfillment for our products, though Alex now handles distribution brokerage. I still run Stonemaier Games out of my home office, and both Joe and Alex work from home as well.

Morten works part time from his home in Denmark (he focuses on solo play), Alan continues to handle submissions and health care, and Christine is our wonderful graphic designer. We also work very closely with Shannon (or production project manager at Panda) and Dave (our web developer). Here’s a longer list of everyone who has an impact on Stonemaier Games.

The ongoing discussions with our shareholders has been very fruitful, especially in terms of their insights and unique perspectives regarding some big decisions. 26% of shareholders are women and 21% of shareholders are minorities; I hope to continue to expand this diversity.

Games in Print

Our core products are 10 games (11 with the release of Red Rising). The quantities below are the lifetime units in circulation for each game (just the game, not expansions, accessories, or promos) in all languages released in 2020 or before, and the BGG rankings are as of today.

  • Viticulture: 134,826 units (BGG rank: 23)
  • Euphoria: 41,000 units (BGG rank: 409)
  • Between Two Cities: 42,900 units (BGG rank: 592)
  • Scythe: 382,102 units (BGG rank: 14)
  • Charterstone: 87,500 units (BGG rank: 310)
  • My Little Scythe: 53,500 units (BGG rank: 607)
  • Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig: 43,000 units (BGG rank: 577)
  • Wingspan: 746,991 units (BGG rank: 20)
  • Tapestry: 72,650 units (BGG rank: 234)
  • Pendulum: 35,600 (BGG rank: 2888)

The new products we introduced in 2020 were My Little Scythe: Pie in the Sky, Wingspan neoprene playmats, Pendulum, the Scythe Complete Rulebook, Tapestry: Plans & Ploys, and the Wingspan Oceania Expansion. As usual, we’ve tried to keep our release schedule streamlined and focused so we can shine a big spotlight on everything we make.

Social Media and Other Metrics

This data is as of April 1.

One of the biggest differences this year is that fostering all of these communities isn’t solely on me anymore, particularly with Joe as our Director of Communications, but also with Alex (distributors, retailers, and localization partners). Joe provides a second set of eyes for every newsletter, and he also enhances my my long-form game design YouTube videos with visuals and labels. All of this is ideally in better service of you.

Biggest Changes, Observations, and Mistakes

  • Digital Games: After years of trying to get full-AI digital versions of our games with little to show of it (just Scythe and Between Two Castles prior to last year), 2020 brought the release of Charterstone, Viticulture, and Wingspan.
  • Retailer Relationships: Largely thanks to the early efforts of Joe and then Alex later in the year, we’ve tried to improve relationships with retailers–particularly those in the US–by selling directly to a small number of retailers whenever they aren’t able to get our products from distributors. I think that’s been a point of frustration for a while. We definitely view it as a partnership, and we look for retailers who see it that way too.
  • Distributors Involvement: Alex has already taken huge strides in taking distributor partnerships to the next level. He’s in constant contact with them, and he’s gotten many of them on board with the concept of letting us know what they want us to make so we can guarantee quantities to them–no more guesswork and allocations. This has also allowed us to ship directly from China to the distributors instead of routing them through the St. Louis warehouse, which is more cost- and time-effective.
  • Coronavirus: I did a deep-dive analysis into how the virus was (and wasn’t) impacting Stonemaier Games and the broader industry. I’ve continued to add to this article from time to time.
  • BIPOC Statement and Declaration of Action: We at Stonemaier Games stand against racial injustice, and the responsibility is on us to improve the gaming community (and hopefully the world) but actively elevating marginalized and underrepresented voices. The original statement was the first step in a crucially important journey (both personally and professionally) that has resulted so far in conversations and fruitful relationships with nearly 100 members of the gaming community who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and over $42,000 in direct support and games in 2020. This statement was followed a few weeks later by a powerful guest post from Elizabeth Hargrave about inclusivity, diversity, and representation.
  • Reviewer Dialogue: We send out thousands of review copies each year from our fulfillment centers around the world, and I have the utmost appreciation for the time and effort reviewers put into their content. I try to respect a diverse array of reviewers (including, most notably, by the fact that I don’t read/watch reviewers of Stonemaier products, as I want reviewers to know they have complete freedom to share their true opinions without worrying about if I’ll send them another free game in the future after a negative review). However, I made a few missteps this year regarding reviewers, and my actions directly contradicted my appreciation and respect; since then I’ve tried to listen and learn so I don’t make those mistakes again in the future.
  • Proofreading and Data Analysis: It’s bizarre to me that no matter how talented people are and how many eyes we put on our products before going to print, mistakes still happen. I’ll continue to seek to improve this process, as I never want something we miss to get in the way of potential joy it provides you.

Looking Ahead to 2021

  • Webstore: One of our big projects that started last year was to divide our webstore into 4 segments, 1 per fulfillment center. Our web dev, Dave, continues to work on this. The reason for the change is that right now if you’re in, say, Australia, you might go to our webstore and see that Scythe is in stock, but the webstore doesn’t actually know if Scythe is in stock in all 4 fulfillment centers. Instead, we’ll soon have 4 identical webstores (aside from the currencies) that know the inventory for each fulfillment center so you can order with confidence.
  • Champion Change: In preparation for the separate webstores, we realized that the Stonemaier Champion discount would work better if it was a percentage instead of a flat discount. So we changed the Champion discount to 25% off every order on our webstore, including shipping. We also made the discount visible on the webstore. So far the change seems to have been received well.
  • Bookkeeping: Joe, Alex, and I all realized that we shared a common dislike of bookkeeping, so I recently removed that pain point by contracting a bookkeeper. Stephanie has been absolutely wonderful, and I’ll share my full thoughts in a full article soon.
  • Packaging Machine: Our overhead is very low thanks to our partnerships with fulfillment centers, especially GTG here in St. Louis. To help with the efficiency at GTG, we recently bought them a machine that can significantly expedite the fulfillment process. It will particularly be helpful during preorder shipouts.
  • Red Rising: We’ve already announced Red Rising, accepted preorders, and fulfilled them in Australia/NZ and Europe, but as a 2021 release, I wanted to briefly mention it here. It’s a big deal for us to make a game based on an intellectual property–especially one that I’m really passionate about–and I look forward to seeing how the retail version does throughout this year.
  • Board Game Arena: The pandemic year really opened my eyes to the value of player-dependent digital platforms, with Board Game Arena at the top of that list. This year we should have several games appearing on their platform.
  • New Products: Our lineup for 2021 will likely include 2 new games (Red Rising and Rolling Realms), expansions for 2 different games (Between Two Castles and Tapestry), and hopefully the Wingspan box/organizer. We have a pretty good idea of our 2022 and 2023 lineups as well.

***

Thanks for joining Stonemaier Games on this journey, and if there’s anything we can do to add joy to your tabletop experiences, please let us know.

Do you have any thoughts, observations, or questions about this report? I want to continue to learn from mistakes and successes, experiment, and listen to our stakeholders in 2021.

Also read:

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content!

65 Comments on “2020 Behind-the-Scenes Stakeholder Report for Stonemaier Games”

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  1. […] 2020 Stakeholder Report […]

    Reply

  2. Dear Jamey,

    I am a huge fan of your works. I know it’s been a while since the posting of this report but I would love to learn about investing too if it isn’t too late.

    Even if it is, I would love to hear a reply from you.

    Regards, Acorn

    Reply

    1. Thanks Acorn! I really appreciate you saying that, and I’ll let you know if we’re open to outside investments in the future.

      Reply

  3. […] 2020 Stakeholder Report […]

    Reply

  4. Hi Jamey,

    My wife and I are huge fans of your company and games. Would love to learn more about investing if it isn’t too late.

    Thanks,
    Patrick

    Reply

  7. Hi Jamey, if possible I would like the information about investing in Stonemaier Games even if i read this post so late. Thanks in advance.
    Giacomo.

    Reply

  8. Hi Jamey, thank you for the thorough update. In “joining the chorus” I’d also be very interested in learning more about investing in Stonemaier as well.

    Reply

  9. Thank you for sharing Jamey. Fantastic numbers. Also, I would love to learn more about investing in Stone Maier game if it is not too late. Again, congrats on your achievement.

    Reply

  10. Hi Jamie,

    I have just read this post and the comments, and got really curious about the possibility of investing in Stonemaier Games. I would love to learn more about it, if I am not late to be taken into consideration. Many thanks, and congratulations for another impressive year!

    Reply

  11. HI Jamey, I love what you’re doing, and am interested in investing. I’ve worked in tech on ecommerce, and would be thrilled to bring my skills to the table.

    Reply

  12. Hi Jamey, thanks for the report and congratulations on your success. Forgive my ignorance, but could you clarify what “units in circulation” means? Games sold? Games printed? Games sold plus games games sold to retailers but not yet to retail customers? Or maybe something else entirely. Thanks very much.

    Reply

    1. Geoff: That’s the number of units we’ve made and that are (or, in most cases, were) available to buy. While I’d love to know the exact number of games actually sold to consumers, we don’t have access to that data. We just know the number of games that have been purchased directly from us by customers, distributors, localization partners, and some retailers who buy directly.

      Reply

  13. Hey Jamey, I’d be keen to learn more about investing if you can share details by email that would be appreciated. Loved Red Rising btw awesome collaboration. :)

    Reply
  15. Wingspan has offered virtually 750okay Copies Based on Stonemeier Video games • New Of Games says:

    […] train of transparency, the board recreation writer Stonemeier Video games formally revealed their annual earnings report on their official web site. General, the indicators level to constructive […]

    Reply

  18. This is a really great report. Always look forward to these annually. I would be interested in receiving information on new investor opportunities as well!

    Reply

  19. Thank you for sharing, Jamey!
    One question- You mention wanting to leverage BGA more for your game catalog, but are there any concerns of it being owned by Asmodee, a rival games publisher? Just thinking about how recommendation algorithms on BGA would tilt toward Asmodee games and other potential pitfalls

    Reply

    1. Miles: Nope, I don’t have any concerns. Asmodee is also a major distributor of our games in Europe and they co-publish the digital version of Scythe–it benefits them when our games are exposed to more people on BGA.

      Reply

      1. Please count me in on those that would love to know more about how they can invest in Stonemaier Games. You can reach me at the email in this comment.

        Reply

          1. Hi Jamey, I would also be interested in receiving info on investing in Stonemaier Games if possible! Thank you.

  23. Jamie- Are you willing to share why Stonemaier would consider bringing in new investors at this point? It doesn’t seem like you’d need the additional capital.

    Reply

    1. Mat: That’s a great question. All 1000 shares of Stonemaier Games are owned by shareholders, so any new investors would be buying shares from current shareholders. Basically, it’s not the money we’re looking for as a company; rather, it’s the value added by having people who are invested in the company (and the value Stonemaier can offer them via annual dividends).

      Reply

  24. I put your lifetime units in circulation into bar graph form to visualize it: https://share.getcloudapp.com/5zuB1xNE

    Really shows off the power law dynamics of our industry. Publishers who are focused more on quantity over quality than you will have even steeper curves. I’m surprised you reprint the ones at the bottom of the curve. I’d probably drop them and shift the money to marketing Wingspan and Scythe.

    Reply

      1. Actually, we were just talking about that today, inspired by your report. That answer is a very firm maybe!

        Reply

  25. I love reading these. They’re fascinating at the purely nerdy level, but I also love your transparency. Thanks for sharing and congrats on another great year!

    (also: my wife read all 5 Red Rising books in 14 days. We hadn’t even heard of the series before you launched the game. I’m lagging behind a bit on book 3, but loving it.)

    Reply

  27. Hi Jamey…. Thx for an excellent report it really gives us a good understanding of how you guys at Stonemaier Games are growing an already great brand in boardgaming community.

    It is also really nice to see how many games of each copy currently is in circulation as well as their respective BGG rank….Like Daniel Thomas Wilson said, you’ve just combined some of my favorite interests… Numbers and boardgames… Thx for that😊

    Reply

  28. I love this level of transparency. I may have missed it in the past, but have you ever talked at length about your current marketing strategies? For example, since Red Rising is based on an intellectual property (books, specifically), I’m curious if you approach marketing different than say, for Pendulum. Perhaps getting the game onto Barnes and Noble shelves, potentially nearby the Red Rising books? Or what if you could offer some kind of coupon in the board game that could give you a 10% discount on the books if bought through amazon?

    Keep up the awesome work!

    Reply

    1. Thanks, Joshua! I talk about our marketing techniques all the time in these blog posts. :) As for Red Rising, we did indeed target Barnes & Noble for the crossover potential.

      Reply

  30. Thanks for sharing Jamey. Looks like things are going really well. You mentioned in the report that you might be interested in more investors, and I would love more information about that. I would also be happy to volunteer to proofread for you. Have done it for many organizations I have been associated with for newsletters, flyers, and other promotional materials. Never a rule book, but I would be willing to give it a try.

    Reply

    1. Thanks Mary! I appreciate both of those offers. I’m happy to send you more information about investors–I’ll send it to the email you used to make this comment.

      Reply

      1. I would like the additional information about investors as well :) my email address is attached to this comment.

        Reply

  31. Thanks for sharing this Jamey, it’s always interesting to see the units sold of each game and I wish more publishers shared the data. Congratulations on growing from $3.5m to $17.9 in the last 5 years, such an amazing level of growth and good luck on hitting $25m in 2021!

    Reply

    1. Thanks Frank! Do you make a stakeholder post with these types of numbers? If so, I’d love to read it!

      Reply

      1. I intend to start releasing them this year once my accounts have been completed (likely July). It didn’t seem to make much sense when I only had the 1 game, but now that has changed I want to be as open with others as possible. I’ll be happy to let you know once it’s live.

        Reply

      2. Hey Jamey,

        It’s about a year later than I had hoped and not quite a stakeholder report but I have finally been able to share my data in the blog section of my website and thought I’d let you know!

        Reply

  32. Ahh, my 2 favourite things combined. Board games and numbers. Thank you Jamey for this amazing peek into your company. It is just further proof of the quality of the people who make SM such a great company to deal with.

    Reply

  33. Excellent report. I am very happy to see that Stonemaier Games continues to be one of the best companies around. Looking forward to many more years of enjoying your games.

    Reply

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