The 5-Year Plan for Stonemaier Games – Stonemaier Games

The 5-Year Plan for Stonemaier Games

It’s rare that I spend much time thinking about the big picture at Stonemaier Games. Day to day, I’m focused on what’s important right now, even if that’s something that most people won’t see for another 8 months (I typically plan projects/releases for the next 2-3 years).

But on occasion I think it’s helpful to look at where we’re headed and and where we want to go. That’s what today’s post is all about.

Core Plan

The core plan is simple: Bring joy to tabletops worldwide, doing so as described in the mission statement (see below). Tangibly this entails a focus on releasing 1-2 new games each year and 1-2 expansions, remaining small and nimble (small team, low overhead) in the process. Our goal is for every game to be our most successful game, which includes supporting our older games on an ongoing basis.

Along the way, we know that we have a lot to learn from the past, present, and future. We will face challenges we can’t even imagine today, and hopefully we’ll encounter some delightful surprises that create new opportunities too. The plan is fluid.

Mission Statement

For every second of every day over the next 5 years, I want to ensure that everything we do is in line with our mission (in both words and actions):

We strive to bring joy to tabletops worldwide through memorable, beautiful, fun games. Our games seek to capture the imaginations of all types of people, as our goal is to build games and communities that include experienced gamers, new gamers, solo gamers, partners, larger groups, people of all ethnicities, genders, creeds, cultures, nations, sexualities, abilities, and ages. Through various content we try to add value to our fellow creators in a way that extends beyond board games by sharing our entrepreneurial successes, mistakes, and insights, as well as our love for a wide variety of games. We also believe in constantly evaluating and improving our creation process to improve the environmental sustainability and accessibility of our games.

Efforts to Continually Improve

I went deep into a number of these efforts in this post a few weeks ago, but here are a few key initiatives that we’ve been working on and always want to strive to improve:

  • Hire and highlight amazing people, especially those who are underrepresented and marginalized. We only have 3 full-timers at Stonemaier Games, but it takes many people to create and sell a game–“hiring” includes any time we pay someone for their time and talent.
  • Make all of our products as eco-friendly and environmentally sustainable as possible while retaining a high level of quality. This process takes time, but you’ll start to see some big changes later in 2022.
  • Ensure that our games are accessible to anyone who wants to play them.
  • Create the best possible version of every product starting with the first print run. This includes initiatives we already have in motion, like detailed data analysis of playtester reports and full-scope proofreading and oversight.
  • Improve relationships with our 30+ localization partners to full accomplish the “worldwide” portion of our mission statement. This also includes how we fulfill orders from our webstore (currently from warehouses in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia).
  • Collaborate and engage with fans, whether it’s designing a product from scratch (Wingspan Nesting Box), offering interactive experiences (Red Rising house quiz), or little teasers on Instagram and YouTube.
  • Offer full-AI digital versions of all Stonemaier games. Currently we have a bunch of different digital partners, and it would be great to have a few steadfast digital developers that we can consistently rely on.
  • Support a variety of retailers, game cafes, and libraries by helping them carry our games. If you’re in any of those categories and you’re having trouble getting our products, please contact susannah@stonemaier.com. This efforts will likely include more focused distribution that gives us more agency and a switch from MSRP to the more flexible net pricing method.
  • Add value to people every day by sharing thoughts about crowdfunding/entrepreneurship on this blog and about game design on YouTube and Instagram.
  • For those who prefer to buy Stonemaier products directly from us, we want to continue to offer, expand, and improve our Champion program, including packaging that makes sense for selling direct (i.e., if we have an expansion for which the box will immediately be recycled upon receipt, package it securely and sustainably without the box for direct orders).
  • Last but not least, we want to continue to have fun! Sometimes we do things simply because they’re fun, like our April Fool’s products. I like to experiment and try different things–particularly if they’re low-stakes–to see what works.

New Initiatives and Possibilities

Here are some of the things we (core team, shareholders, and ambassadors) ponder as we look at the next 5 years:

  • We’ll probably make another game based on an IP (intellectual property) at some point. Red Rising was our first big foray into this world. While there isn’t another IP that scratches as many different itches as Red Rising, if the right opportunity arises for an IP we love, we have an open mind.
  • We’ll also probably make two versions of the same game again in the future, just like Red Rising: one for our webstore, and one for retailers. This entails the right combination of factors (e.g., if we’re just adding, say, metal coins, it’s better to just sell them as an accessory).
  • We’d like to expand where we can ship products from our webstore. There are certain countries that we currently can’t reach because of extremely low delivery rates, and there are also entire regions (e.g., Asia) that we can’t reach affordably because of the lack of reliable, communicative fulfillment centers.
  • I love our long-time manufacturing partner, Panda. Panda is a Canadian company with their main facility in Shenzhen, and I’d like to work with them to offer more manufacturing/assembly options that are much closer to the majority of customers for our products.
  • We’ll probably lean more into what works without redundancy. I think the Azul series of games has done a great job of this–each game is unique but also familiar. I’d love to revisit the 1920+ world of Scythe someday with Jakub Rozalski, and Wingspan would be fun to explore in new ways as well with Elizabeth Hargrave.

I think it’s notable that there are a lot of things we’re not looking to do. We’re not looking to increase our overhead–there are huge advantages in having a small core staff and outsourcing things like warehousing, fulfillment, and digital implementations. We’re not looking to become anything other than a tabletop game company. We don’t do exclusives (we seek to include, not exclude). We seek to uplift, elevate, and love, not the opposite (i.e., even when we take a strong stance against a person or company, we do so behind the scenes with our actions, not on social media). And we’re not looking to be acquired–our top priority is always to serve our customers.

5 years is a long time, and I’m sure I missed some things here–I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments about what you’d like to see from Stonemaier Games over that span.

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30 Comments on “The 5-Year Plan for Stonemaier Games

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  1. […] bird game based on what we have seen with Scythe and Expeditions. One year ago, Jamey posted The 5-Year Plan For Stonemaier Games. In this article is one of the occasions where he stated that he would like to explore the world of […]

  2. Just a few thoughts:
    5 years will go by faster than you think so hold on.
    The company size, mission statement and your (Jamey) transparency are what I love about Stonemaier Games.
    I would really like to see Wingspan minus birds and adding spiders or some reptile like snakes (45,000 and 9,000 known species respectively).
    Yes, revisit Scythe (still one of my favorites); May a western reskin.
    Stay the course! your loyal followers will remain by your side.

  3. […] was recently inspired by Jamey Stegmaier’s recent post: “The 5-Year Plan for Stonemaier Games” and thought something similar would be a fitting topic for the first post on our new […]

  4. Such an inspiring mission statement! Cheers to your success and to make the boardgame community more inclusive.

  5. I know some people never got interested in the TtR expansions/standalones but I LOVE being able to play the same game but slightly differently. Soo PLEASE continue to look into next steps for Wingspan beyond the already planned expansions. Maybe something about producing baby birds.

    I look forward to more of red rising if that is in the plans. I can also say I very much appreciate your stance of inclusivity. If I share a game with anyone, it’s stonemaier games simply because they can get it for themselves down the road. Even for myself, I really want to get Tapestry etc and Euphoria etc but I appreciate knowing I don’t have to break my back to buy it all now or have fear of not being able to get everything at a decent price or when I’m good n’ready.

  6. Yes! More Sycthe! And your right about the “Azul” games. I have them all and they are all great in different but the same ways

  7. I love your vision, and I’m excited about what is coming down the road! And I’m sure that i speak for a lot of people who, like myself, were introduced to this company through Scythe, when I say that I definitely would like you to one day revisit that world.

  8. I love the overall plan (especially the parts about equality and sustainability!). Tapestry is one of my all time favourite games, Wingspan is another that will never leave my collection. Scythe, Viticulture, and Between Two Cities all get regular plays, and my kids still love My Little Scythe! So you’ve definitely met your goals in my household :)

    So many IPs have been done to death, but I’d still love to see takes on some more out there options. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy could be lots of fun. I think something super creative could be made from the Apprentice Adept book series (two different boards – one for the Sci-Fi world and ‘The Game’s – and one for the fantasy world as wizards). Finally, I still haven’t found a really good medical game (possibly inspired by something like ER or House) – although maybe that’s because it is a domain that is too hard to capture in a game.

    Keep up the great work Jamey and team!

  9. Next week I would get my 12th SM game and I can say that you have succeeded in spades in your mission statement in my house!

    It’s incredible that you care so much about being more inclusive and eco friendly and also your partners and co workers. It’s very inspiring to see a company giving high priority to these kind of things.

    As a fan it sounds really exciting the idea of new games in familiar worlds, new IP’s and deluxe versions of your games! The next 5 years would be awesome!

  10. If you are considering looking at the Wingspan game in another light I know Dinosaurs would be a huge hit. It fits in a strange way now where there is speculation that birds are descendants of the dinosaur.

      1. Agreed. Ironic as it sounds, any strategic roadmap that does not include dinosaurs is all but dooming your company to eventual extinction.

  11. Not sure if you were looking for IP suggestions, but this is mine:
    the video game “No Man’s Sky”, an open world space exploration video game; https://www.nomanssky.com/

    It is an amazing game with so many different ways to play: explore, base build, upgrade, mine resources and trade, fight in space battles, go on missions, etc. The video game is so huge, it has potential for regular expansion releases (new star systems to explore, new ships, new missions, etc.)

    How to make this all into a board game? Well, that’s up to you. :)

  12. Love the sound of you revisiting 1920+. As someone finally dipping my toes into that world, I’m impressed and enthralled by the dedicated community that continues to produce interesting additions to the game. The top of my list of wishes from your company would then be to just visit the BGG forums and work with the people there that have created some AMAZING factions. To have official versions of them, with their own mechs in the correct colors? It would feel a lot like those UnMatched hero boxes.

    1. I agree–I love fan creations! We’ve officially stopped making new Scythe content, but the game lives on in fan content.

  13. While staying small and avoiding being too corporate is admirable I hope this isn’t at the cost of job security in your hires. 3 people full-time sounds like a very small operation considering how amazing your games are. Please consider if any of your part-time employees, freelance hires or project limited hires could be worthy of a full-time position. It could benefit both you and the employee and there is a long way from 3 people to losing touch.

    Great games and vision though.

    1. I definitely put the health and work-life balance of Joe and Alex at the forefront, but I don’t see how adding more full-time employees solves anything. Rather, if/when Joe or Alex are working more than 40 hours per week, what we’ve done is identify the specific portion of their job we can spin off to an independent contractor whose talents connect with that specific responsibility.

  14. Among the non-gamers I know, all of whom are potential gamers, the big barrier is entry difficulty. For some games, might it be possible to:
    * Provide rules option for simplified versions (including setup)? * Add notes specifically to newbies with helpful tips about advancing from that simplified entry level to regular level
    * “Take Away Tips” to help reinforce mastery so that it would be like they had you/the game designer sitting on their shoulder guiding them in the new-to-them gamer world

    1. Thank you for sharing, Dorothy. I love the idea of “take-away tips”. We typically have some “designer’s notes” in rulebooks, but adding tips too is a great idea.

  15. You’re doing an excellent job!

    I agree with the idealogy of making your latest release your greatest. When people ask me where they should start with my books and which is my favorite, well, the latest is what I’m most proud of as I always strive to improve.

    Stonemaier has a great variety. Something for everyone. I’m excited to see what IP you may work with next! Collector’s Editions are nice. Having upgrade packs like you did for Red Rising helps. You don’t do exclusives where people feel like they’re missing out, and that’s admirable.

    Limiting how many releases you put out each year allows you to give them proper attention. Keep up the good work!

    1. Thanks Tim! I though I should clarify that it’s the goal for “every” game, not just the “latest” game. In that way, we’re just as focused on the success of our first game (Viticulture) as we are on our newest game (Rolling Realms). Just a slight turn of phrase, but an important one. :)

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