“I just want to design games.” I’ve heard this sentiment less and less since crowdfunding made self-publishing appear just as fun as the creation process, but my sense is that there are still plenty of game designers who just want to design.
That’s great. I’m happy for anyone who knows exactly what they enjoy (and what they’re good at) and pursues it. Running a publisher is quite different than solely focusing on game design.
As a publisher, I view it as entirely my responsibility (along with the Stonemaier Games team) to market our games. Designers don’t have any obligation to say a single word about their games.
However, I can say that it’s really nice when a designer is willing to talk about their creations. For example, a month or so before we reveal a new product, I reach out to the designer and ask if there are any stories from the design process that they’d like to share with me in writing.
Some designers don’t send anything in response, and that’s completely fine. Others, like Chris and Mike of Tapestry: Fantasies & Futures, send a comprehensive essay detailing every aspect of the new expansion. It’s really helpful to quote from such stories when I’m composing the design diaries. Morten and his team often contribute stories about the Automa solo modes too.
Their willingness to chat about the expansion may have helped me think to include them in a video I usually film alone, about “my favorite mechanism”. We hopped on Zoom with our advance copies and minimal prep, and we just chatted about some of our favorite new civs, tapestry cards, tech cards, and capital cities for 30 minutes. I posted the conversation on our YouTube channel yesterday:
Part of the reason I’m mentioning this is that I think a lot of people are uncomfortable with self-promotion and have no interest in marketing. But I think a better way to look at it is: Do you enjoy talking about your creations?
For some people, the answer may still be no–maybe you really do just want to design, nothing more. That’s still okay. But I would bet that most creators get at least a little excited by the chance to talk about their work.
The other part of the reason I’m mentioning this is because I think a designer’s willingness to talk about their game can increase the game’s chances of success. If, for example, you’re invited to chat about the game on a podcast that a few hundred people listen to, that’s a few hundred people who wouldn’t have heard about the game if you hadn’t said yes to the opportunity.
You can also take a more active role in talking about your creations (and/or the inspirations for your creations) by having some sort of home base, hub, or blog where people can follow your work. Chris has a website where he does exactly that, and you’re literally reading this post on our home base right now!
Overall, if you have the mindset of “I just want to design,” I hope you’re open to some self-reflection about whether that statement is fully true for you. Maybe it is…or maybe you actually do like talking about your creations (or their inspirations), and hopefully you can identify the forms of expression that work best for you.
Do you enjoy talking about your creations? Have you found that there are certain forms of media that work better for you than others (social media, blog, podcast, video, etc)?
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21 Comments on “Do You Enjoy Talking About Your Creations?”
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Jamey,
In short, I do love to talk about my creations, be they at the café, games I’m working on, or things from my professional life. It gives me an opportunity to talk to so many different people and I love feedback. I truly never understand people who recoil from feedback, because that’s sometimes the vey best information you can receive as a creative (I recently learned that word from my daughter who is a professional stage director).
At the café, we enjoy new items from the barista team or something that the chef has created. I absolutely love visiting the folks at Java Bean on the weekend and getting my fill of feedback. Owning the café brings me the same kind of joy as board game design and development. I can interact with people directly regarding something I’ve created…it’s personal. Food, like games, is art. And while one you eat and one you play (or if you’re a two year old, both), it’s such a wonderful media thru which I gain perspective from others.
It certainly helps being an extrovert, as I’m always ready to talk, but I’m also conscious to know that one learns nothing when they’re talking. So, yes, while I love to talk about my creations, I also love to listen.
Cheers,
Joe
Thanks for sharing, Joe! Your cafe sounds like a wonderful place.
Great article, Jamey!
To your last question—and, other creators/game designers may consider doing this, as well (especially, IF they are interested in sharing more of/about their creations)—but, I’ve found the layout and presentation of Instagram (with how pictures/feed posts are presented, along with stories/story highlights) to be particularly useful/valuable for this purpose.
Lately, it’s actually been my preferred social media platform to post/share on about my own game design efforts (although, Instagram can also be set up to, when you post there, it can also automatically post that same post to other social media platforms like Facebook—automating some of the posting process, which I’ve also found to be very useful/valuable).
I’m a ‘newbie’—with a bit of a learning curve trying to figure out what components/mechanics would work best, paired together—so what’s been ‘on display’ there has really been my thought process, thinking through and considering a lot of different things, working to create a game.
…Instagram is super simple to use, I believe, and intuitive—at least I’ve found it to be that way.
For those interested in sharing more intimate insights into their own game design process and progress—and, I’ve been doing this myself—it’s pretty great how you can write and capture pictures and text first in a feed post—but, then, ‘convert’ that feed post, sharing it as a ‘story’ (ie “Add Post to Story”).
From there, you can make it into a ‘story highlight’ that can be ‘assigned’ (Edit Highlight) to a permanently discoverable “Story Highlight” section—with ideal placement/real estate, that can be clicked on and viewed (quickly, at that), near the top (at least above the feed post grid area) of one’s Instagram profile page.
…Story stickers—like POLLS—can also be applied to foster/encourage engagement there, in stories. For those interested in sharing, and perhaps even involving people in their own game design process, polls could be leveraged/used (with care) to solicit input/feedback on certain aspects and elements of a game’s design (should a designer be open to that).
While there’s likely no substitute for one having their own online presence that they actually own and control themselves, like their own website—something I’m still planning to do/on my ‘to do’ list—Instagram has been pretty great for sharing in this manner.
Thanks Howie! You mentioned a few areas of Instagram that I need to experiment more with (the story highlights of my own posts and the polls).
I’ve started reading these blogs more and more as I’ve began to explore the realm of board game design. I spent a lot of my time chasing a goal that never truly resonated with me like making board games. I’ve been making games (unofficially of course) for at least a decade, and I’m finally starting a big project that I develop in my free time while working full time.
People often say I sound my most passionate when I’m talking about my board game work. As a solo dev as well, I’m currently on an uphill battle with a big learning curve. It’s a direction I’d love to take my life in.
I’ve been following your games since Scythe, and I own almost every single one of them and have never had a bad experience with a single one. That’s what I want to be to others, I want people to see my name on a game and trust it’s going to be quality. I’ve looked up to you since I played my first round of Scythe, so I’d like to ask: what advice would you give to a board game developer just starting out? Links to other blog posts would be great as well if you’ve discussed this before!
Thanks for sharing this about yourself, Ryan! I hope you’re having fun with the design process. As you can probably guess, the advice I have is indeed all in articles and videos, with perhaps the initial advice being to play lots of games and view them through the lens of a designer. :) Then consume all of this content: https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter/how-to-design-a-tabletop-game/
This article really resonated with me, because this is exactly how my buddy and I started the game design process.. in fact, we didn’t want to even look into “How to design a game”. We wanted to explore “what makes games intrinsically fun”… we started with the most classic games.. like tag, HORSE, rock paper scissors, and tried to think what makes them “timeless”, and go from there. .. almost a “first principles” method.
After two years, we actually have a working prototype that we’ve been able to share with family and friends. As you mentioned, there were a bunch of learnings and stories from the process. Since we’ve received so many questions like “what made you start?”, we’ve started to use the journey for our initial blog posts. Love talking about the process, because it was fun!
Thank you for your posts, Jamey! And all the inspiration. I really enjoyed your book and all of the information you put into the universe. Cheers!
I’m impressed with your patient approach to exploring game design, Eric! In case you haven’t seen it, I actually recently posted a video about intrinsic motivations in games: https://youtu.be/BW0I8IUf_Dw
I think this is a necessary skill that goes beyond just game design and really applies to most things in life.
Success (in anything—profession, relationships, etc) is largely a result of putting yourself out there. Engaging with the population. Having the confidence to present yourself or your creation as worthy of someone else’s time, attention, money and prioritization. People gravitate to that.
I can only speak for myself, but I’ll freely admit there’s a part of me that wants to be “sold to”. It’s a fine line, but I respect and appreciate when I can tell a creator is trying to win my favor, that they’re putting real effort into connecting with me and letting me in on a process. It feels less rote and transactional, and reminds me I’m participating in something created by another human being rather than merely exchanging money for an abstract material good.
We often say “the work should speak for itself”, but having worked in a creative field my whole life, you quickly realize that’s a half-truth. The work should be good enough to stand up to scrutiny and not necessarily require a personality to defend it, but the only way that work is going to get out there and proliferate is through the efforts of its creators and the relationships that they build.
“All Truly Great Thoughts Are Conceived While Walking” – Friedrich Nietzsche
My partner is kind enough to allow me to brainstorm design ideas with her, while we go for long walks. It helps me to see things from another person’s perspective… rather than falling into the trap of falling too in love with my own ideas.
P.S. I spotted a difference in the latest Stonemaier Champion Update newsletter, “One lucky Champion will win the product they nominate (random drawing on April 1).”
Even more value added to an already great value membership :)
Good eye! It came to me as I was composing this month’s message. We’ll give it a try. :)
This is something that is a little outside my comfort zone that I have been trying to get better about.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be working with a publishers, but it’s had the unfortunate side effect reducing the desire to post publicly. Partially because I can to some degree just go heads down and work, and partially because I can’t be specific about anything I’m working on.
I’m currently starting up a project to get myself making games that do not have the primary goal of getting published. A bit of this is to see if I can grow a Patreon, but a lot is just to get myself more active online.
Ket: Thank you for sharing this personal challenge, and I look forward to seeing what you do with the designs you make without intending to publish them.
If you had asked me to talk about the expansion, I would not have enjoyed doing so nearly as much as I enjoyed *conversing* about the expansion with you and with Mike. Interactive, relational communication is so much more emotionally satisfying than lecturing like a professor.
Since reading your post here, I spent a couple of hours really thinking deeply about why I’m drawn to conversing more than talking — and what it means for how I should be as a person, and what my business should be like. (So good job on creating a very thought-provoking blog post!)
The act of creating is deeply satisfying to me. I routinely advocate for people to feel free to create something as a way of experiencing that satisfaction, as well as developing opportunities for personal growth. Creating can be intrinsically rewarding, and it’s particularly emotionally rewarding to me, personally, regardless of whether I share the result.
The act of conversing about my creations provides feedback about how others experience those creations. It’s not promotion. Talking is a necessary step that sets the stage for listening, which provides information to me. This enables me, among all the different ways and things that I could be creating, to steer in the direction of creating things that are rewarding to other people as well as myself.
I conclude that the two acts, in combination, ensure that I’m not experiencing life for my sole benefit (in which case I’d feel sinful), nor for the sole benefit of others (in which case I’d feel used). I find myself creating within a community, of which I’m a small yet meaningful part.
That conclusion is not a statement about marketing or product development. It’s a statement about the kind of person that I aim to be both now and in the future — and a statement about the role of my company in promoting my development as an ethical being, beyond simply meeting the needs of a market.
In your Kickstarter posts and book, you’ve celebrated the fact that publishing games has created opportunities for relationships with other people. Am I right in thinking that you, too, derive much more enjoyment from conversing about your games than from talking about your games? In what ways does creating and publishing games tie into how you perceive and shape your own development as a person?
Chris: This is really interesting, and I appreciate your introspection about the act of conversing (rather than just sharing your thoughts). That’s one of the reasons that the comments sections are so important to me. Sure, I’m the one writing this article or filming a video, but it’s the resulting conversation in the comments that really motivates me.
Personally I enjoy it and in my opinion if you’re comfortable doing it, it has a great many benefits to you and your product beyond the promotion/marketing angle.
Having to articulate your design and explain the rationale behind it and why you make certain decisions makes you, as a designer, have to look at your design in a different light. Having to explain and even defend certain decisions can, in my experience, often highlight issues you might have been blind to—or even raise new ideas you hadn’t thought about that could be useful on this project or another one.
I personally think of this process as an opportunity to further test your design—and to make you, as a designer, simply better at what you do. Much of design is fundamentally the process of translation. A need to a solution; an idea to sketch; a prototype to a final product. The ability to translate what you’ve done into a conversation or presentation (or whatever the format), is a great exercise in reframing and reevaluating what you’ve done (or are trying to do).
“Having to articulate your design and explain the rationale behind it and why you make certain decisions makes you, as a designer, have to look at your design in a different light.”
I like this, Mike. It’s always very helpful for me to try to explain succinctly what our products are.
Ah. It’s satisfying to know my ability to talk is useful.
(But seriously this is so important for people to keep in mind when marketing. Part of a driver of purchase is PEOPLE. If people know of a designer, like their personality, etc, it can help. Not as much as traditional marketing, but help is help)
Well said, Mike. I completely agree!
I have a lot of hobbies that involve creating something. Painting miniatures, writing stories, creating and DMing RPG campaigns, drawing, playing guitar/drums/bass/piano, I’ve done some work on the UnrealEngine, I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point lol HELL, i’d even throw in deck building for games likt YuGiOh in here if I still did that.
Anyways, I’ve never wanted to *be* on stage for any of these things. My highbschool grades suffered bc instead of doing homework I’d play guitar. Every. Day. But I never wanted to be a “rock star.” I turned down the chance to be in jazz band even though the whole band coordinated in trying to convince me join bc their guitarist was annoying and they all knew me and I *liked* jazz. And i still said no.
I like creating. I don’t like attention.
But this really got me thinking. Because I *love* talking about my passions. And these are it. I love sitting down and talking to people about a story premise or new cmapaign villain idea that came to mind and how it happened. I never really saw the connection between that and promotion (and I listen to enough podcasts that i immediately made the connection when you mentioned zoom that That’s basically what theyre doing lol).
Idk lots of stuff to think about here. I mean, I don’t do this for a living so Idk that I’ll ever need to promote something I create. But definitely some self-reflection is incoming.
Thanks for sharing this, Eduardo. I’m glad this got you thinking about how you love talking about your passions despite not wanting the spotlight on you.