If you’re a game designer, I highly recommend Pam Walls’ YouTube channel. I don’t know Pam personally, but I’ve gotten a lot of value from her channel both as a designer and as a publisher (so I can learn how to better serve designers).
This weekend Pam posted a great video titled “6 Truths About the Board Game Industry,” and today I’m going to add my thoughts about each of the points she mentions. The parts in bold are quotes from the video description.
- There is a culture of extreme consumerism and FOMO (fear of missing out) in the board game community. This point is mostly focused on the consumer, highlighting the increase in photos on social media of piles of games that people have purchased. Pam talks about her experience amassing games in the hopes that she would find the right game to share the hobby with her partner (until eventually deciding to limit her collection to 1 shelf), which I can relate to. We all have different motivations for buying and collecting games. As a publisher, I try my best not to feed into FOMO–we don’t do exclusives, we’re happy to print more of anything for which there’s demand, and I don’t even want people to buy something now that they’d rather buy later (it’s for this reason that we recently added a wishlist feature to our webstore).
- Designers kinda need to go to cons to meet and build relationships with publishers. I agree that there is value in attending conventions to connect face-to-face with publishers. We signed Between Two Cities, Wingspan, Pendulum, and Apiary as the result of meeting the designers at conventions (including our own Design Day). Who you are as a person is almost as important as the game you’ve created–as a publisher, I want to know how you communicate and how well you respond to constructive criticism. However, I also think there are benefits from the publishing side of separating your first impression of a game from the designer. This method can decrease subconscious biases and level the playing field. For me, most of my communication with designers is over email, so that’s where I need to see how they communicate, not verbally in person. Also, having the designer show you their game is an experience that–while awesome–is something that 0.0001% of the people who ever play that game will have (if it’s published)–you’ll get a more accurate impression of the game by playing it without the designer present. So while I completely agree that proactively forging relationships is great for designers (whether it’s at conventions, on social media, comments on websites, etc), as a publisher I’ve found it helpful for my first impression of a game to be on our submission form.
- Things move very slowly in this industry. I 100% agree, and I’m glad Pam highlighted this. If a publisher signs your game today, you’re likely entering a 6-12 month development process during which you’ll continue to improve the game with the help of the publisher. Then there’s the graphic design, proofreading, and pre-production process (another 2-3 months), then 4 months for production and 2 months for freight shipping. This might vary based on the game, whether or not the publisher uses crowdfunding (add even more time), and the publisher’s release schedule (Stonemaier Games, for example, plans and is booked around 3 years ahead), but at a minimum you’re looking at 15 months before the game is released.
- Signing a contract does NOT guarantee that your game will be made. This is a disheartening truth, but it does happen. I can only think of one example of this at Stonemaier Games, and it was a situation where we brought in some designers to create a game, and they eventually decided they no longer wanted to work on it–the risk can go both ways. As Pam mentions, this is one of the reasons why it’s really important for designers to get a non-refundable advance on royalties and to have an out-clause if the game hasn’t hit certain milestones by specific dates. Read about Stonemaier’s game design contracts here.
- Your game’s success relies heavily on the marketing efforts from the publisher. Absolutely. Pam says it perfectly here: “We don’t know about some of the best games that have ever existed simply because they weren’t promoted.” In my opinion, this is why it’s crucially important for designers to pay attention to publishers all the time to see how those publishers are marketing games–that way you can pitch your game to publishers who have a strong social media presence, regularly send games to reviewers, shine a prolonged spotlight on games instead of quickly moving on to the next thing, etc (see some of my favorite marketing methods). As publishers, this is a great reminder to only publish games that we love so much that we will do everything possible to find every single person who might love them on the same level.
- Even if a designer gets multiple games published, they will most likely still need a day job. Game design is a full-time job for very few people. You either need a major evergreen hit or several games that continually sell well. As an example of the math, say that a publisher sells 10,000 units of your game, earning an average of $20 in revenue from sales to distributors, retailers, consumers, and localization partners, paying you a 7% royalty on revenue. That’s $14,000 for you. I think the key here is just to manage expectations, whether you’re designing or self publishing (which comes with many, many other costs and risks). As I wrote 10 years ago, don’t quit your day job (instead, carve out time to pursue your creative passion).
Huge thanks to Pam for inspiring this article and adding value to other designers, and I hope this gave you some good food for thought from the publishing perspective. Let me know your thoughts or questions below, and I recommend checking out the full video:
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16 Comments on “My Thoughts on Pam Walls’ “6 Truths About the Board Game Industry” Video”
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All great points!
I also encourage people to remember that NOT EVERY GAME NEEDS TO BE COMMERCIALIZED. It can’t be said enough.
There’s a wonderful experience to creating a game and sharing it with friends (or UnPub-style conferences), even it never gets licensed or sold. I design lots of games that the general public never sees. Routinely doing this is all a part of becoming a better designer, of gifting experiences to other people, and of experiencing the joy of creating. Those are good things regardless of whether we ultimately seek a professional role in the industry.
Money is not a measure of meaning in most areas of our lives. Money doesn’t need to be a measure of meaning in game design.
I like your sentiment and agree that it can, and should, apply to many people that have boardgame design as their hobby.
But I would like to stress that earning money is a measure of sustainability for many people. It would be great, and I think we should strife for, a reality where more good and great designers that hone their craft and put in many hours every week, don’t need to do so mostly in their free time.
Thank you for these valuable insights. From the moment we started designing Fluttr we saw it as a chance to channel the creative power of a hyperactive team that needed an output. After we had designed and produced the game out of our own pocket we stopped, looked at each other and said, “wine what?”
Today, three months later we’re visualizing that path towards success and constantly thinking of ways to move forward. It has been a tough realization, that the game was not going to just sell by itself, even with thoughtful and continuous marketing efforts. We are literally building the plane as we fly it, and we’ve gone a lot less far than we thought we’d be by now. It’s humbling. But it’s wonderful to read your perspective and learn from other creators in the industry. Knowing that we’re not alone is priceless although it also shows how naive we were, getting into an industry that we knew nothing about. I hope to continue to stay in touch and maybe meet you and other industry rebels (I mean it in the most respectful way, since we’re growing in the shadows of the giants Mattel, Hasbro, etc.) Articles like this and videos like Pam’s renew our faith in the fight.
Sorry, I meant “NOW WHAT”.
Thanks, Danilo! You are absolutely not alone (even in terms of repeat creators). I hope you continue to enjoy the process!
#1 strikes home the most for me. When I got into this hobby in the late 2000s, I found it difficult to deal with the consumerism mindset.
And with the embracing of crowdfunding, FOMO is sadly being used (whether intentionally or not) to drive sales.
These are great points!
Can you expand on #3?
Are things slow intentionally, or maybe because the iterative process takes that long, or because of other reasons (for instance: designers having day jobs as mentioned in #6)?
It just takes a while for a game to go from good to great–it doesn’t happen overnight. :)
Yeah. This is all spot on. As a designer, I can personally attest to points 2 through 6.
3. Sometimes you also need to add a long time between when you submit a game and when you hear back from the publisher. Publishers are busy and don’t always play prototypes as fast as designers would like. My experience is that the process from submission to publication can take 2 to 4 years.
4. Yes. And this can also add to the amount of time that you as a designer are sitting on a design you’re really proud of. And it means that when you do eventually get your rights back, you need to find a new home for it, which personally is my least favorite part of designing games. I have a game that was originally signed in 2019 with a publisher that went out of business a year or two after signing. Thankfully, I found a new home for it, but it’s still in pre-development with the new publisher, so 4 years later, that design is still just a prototype.
5. It’s also worth noting here that even a publisher with strong media presence will market some games more than others, especially publishers with a bigger portfolio of games. From a business perspective, they will promote the games that they see as the most important for their portfolio, and unfortunately for designers, your game may not be the one they decide to sell hard. Sometimes that means a good game doesn’t get much love.
6. If you want to be in game design, do it because you love doing it. Don’t calculate your hourly pay from game design. Some designers capture lightning in a jar and a game takes off. But most of the time, the rewards from game design are not primarily monetary.
Adam: That’s a good point about the submission process. If we get to the stage with a designer where we have a prototype, we try to play it within a month, but that doesn’t always happen. And I love your point about doing it for the love! That’s a great motivation to do anything. :)
Sorry for(mostly) repeating my post from further up.
I also like the sentiment doing it out of love to the hobby and don’t think that one should start designing otherwise. Also it’s obviously it’s great to further realistic expectations.
But I would like to stress that earning money is a measure of sustainability for many people. It would be great, and I think we should strife for, a reality where more good and great designers that hone their craft and put in many hours every week, don’t need to do so mostly in their free time.
Good stuff Jamie! I met Pam at Gen Con and played Blob party with her. She was even kind enough to talk to me about game design. Great person! Thanks for highlighting her.
That’s wonderful!
I haven’t watched this video, but thank you summarizing it. These all seem like good observations and your points make sense, too. Thank you for what you do to minimize point 1 in our lives :)
6 is a good point too and is applicable to so many other creative fields, too. Back when I worked in retail, I had a lot of co-workers who had contracts with indie record labels and sometimes even toured nationally, but didn’t make nearly enough to do it full-time. I know people who’ve sold low six figures of books they’ve written and still have to work a day job. At least creative gigs are more enjoyable side hustles than some other things you could do, I guess.
One last point is that even that $14000 you mention sounds like more than it often ends up being. Since royalties are self-employment income, the average designer probably ends up with significantly less due to taxes, and this can catch a lot of people off guard the first time.
Thanks Niles! I agree about many creative gigs. And you’re right that $14,000 is definitely less after taxes, and it’s potentially capped at that amount unless the game is successfully reprinted.