Yesterday I announced that Stonemaier Games will soon release a completely new edition of a modern classic. Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest is a 1-6 player game (yes, there’s now a robust solo mode) in which players steer their pirate crews to islands filled with loot, simultaneously selecting 1 pirate to jockey for position as they activate abilities and try to collect their token of choice. The game is designed by Paolo Mori and illustrated by Lamaro Smith.
Our connection to Libertalia may be news to you, but that wasn’t the case for everyone. Last year, some internet sleuths noticed that Stonemaier Games had registered a trademark for the word “Libertalia.” This lead to BGG forums, Reddit threads, and even major gaming news outlets proclaiming that, “Stonemaier Games acquires Libertalia!”
This was interesting to see, because of course we hadn’t announced any such thing. It wasn’t entirely untrue, but it also wasn’t the full truth. Yes, we were in the process of registering a trademark for the word “Libertalia.” That’s the only full fact that anyone had access to. Everything else was speculation.
It was interesting to see the number and variety of people who contacted me to see if the news was true. In hindsight, I should probably appreciate that they came directly to the source to get the facts rather than continue to circulate speculation. But we hadn’t officially announced anything. Our general philosophy is that when there’s news for us to convey to you, we’ll tell you. Until then, we’re not going to say anything.
Spoilers and leaks aren’t new for us at Stonemaier Games. We’ve had localization partners accidentally reveal boxes for Tapestry and Wingspan expansions. The video editor who created the Red Rising teaser trailer put it on their channel weeks before we announced the game. And recently someone at our St. Louis fulfillment center shipped nearly 200 Rolling Realms promo packs for a realm that we hadn’t yet released (amazingly, every single one of those customers kept it a secret after we asked them nicely).
Overall, I’m grateful that people even care enough to want to know about our products before we announce them. I truly do not take that passion for granted.
Rather, here’s my concern with the sharing of spoilers: They’re always partial information, and partially incorrect information at that. And it’s often stated as a fact (“Stonemaier acquires Libertalia!”), which is pretty confusing to anyone who sees the headline and doesn’t know that the company hasn’t actually announced anything.
The last thing I want is to confuse my fellow gamers, and partial spoilers cause confusion.
So, you might ask, when spoilers arise, couldn’t a publisher just pop in and share the facts? Totally valid question, and I’m trying to find the politest possible way to say this: It isn’t a publisher’s duty–or anyone’s, really–to share information about themselves before they’re ready to share it.
Can that just be okay? Just as it’s okay for anyone to speculate and anticipate (making it clear to people that you’re guessing), it’s also okay for people and companies to reveal news at a time of their choosing.
I tried to do a little of both with Libertalia, and I think it was a mistake. Specifically, after seeing so much speculation stated as fact, I eventually chimed in to confirm that we had indeed registered for the word “Libertalia.” I added that we were not reprinting the game, as “reprint” was the word being circulated, and what we did with Libertalia is definitely not a reprint–we reworked every aspect of the game into a completely new edition (opposed to what we do when we need more Viticulture, Scythe, or Wingspan: we reprint them).
I think I probably should have taken my own advice and simply not said anything, though, especially since my intention is never to confuse, and I’ve learned now that some people interpret the word “reprint” differently than I do.
Also, I’m always trying to think about what’s best for the customer. An excited customer might want all of the information they could possibly have right now, and I think they’d have a fair case for that. But I think we can best serve that customer by revealing the information to everyone in a full and transparent manner…and importantly, not at the same time as other reveals. We’re talking about Libertalia today, so we’re not going to muddy the waters by also talking about upcoming expansions for Viticulture and Wingspan. When we’re ready to provide you with all the information you want about those products, we will.
Update: I forgot to mention that I tried something new with Libertalia in that I slipped a small reveal (the name) into Monday’s Champion newsletter (a few days before the official announcement). I mentioned that the information was secret, and I was genuinely curious to see (a) if people would notice it and (b) if those who noticed it would actually keep it a secret. Only two Champions revealed the secret, which is great, though it indicates to me that even if I want to reveal secret information to Champions, I shouldn’t do it more than a day or so before the official announcement.
I’m genuinely curious how other companies deal with spoilers, rumors, and leaks. If you were waiting to announce something in July and someone spoils part of it in May, do you change your schedule? Do you remain silent? Do you post a clarification?
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28 Comments on “We Don’t Talk About Spoilers (or Bruno)”
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Two comments:
1. Everything you reveal will raise further questions, making it more difficult to determine the optimal “information boundary” for a particular date.
2. In this trademark case, could Paolo have acquired the trademark, and the payment from SMG to Paolo adjusted accordingly?
I agree, and I think that may have been an option (a complicated option, but an option).
Interesting to hear about the spoilers from the “other side”.
It resonates a lot with a Game of Thrones fact that was spoiled using meta information: an actor was seen in some location, which can only mean that their character would goes to some specific realm place in the story.
Companies nowadays have to work around spoilers. In addition to NDAs they do tricks (without giving details for possible spoilers, they flew some famous actor to a place to film one movie and ended up filming scenes for TWO movies). Have you considered doing something like that?
I understand that SMG does not have the budget of a film company, but maybe you can trademark 20 names with the intention of only following up on one? Or delay the trademark registration until the game has been announced?
You’re not allowed to pursue a trademark that you don’t actually intend to use. We could, however, wait until much closer to an announcement to start the trademark process.
Registering later seems a must do from now on. You have devout fans hawking every move ;)
Still, I would see this as a success. Playtesters, Champions and even 200 customers knew about the game…yet there was little buzz about that. I would guess that “normal” games without a following cult will have way less of an issue in the future.
>”So, you might ask, when spoilers arise, couldn’t a publisher just pop in and share the facts? Totally valid question, and I’m trying to find the politest possible way to say this: It isn’t a publisher’s duty–or anyone’s, really–to share information about themselves before they’re ready to share it.
Can that just be okay? Just as it’s okay for anyone to speculate and anticipate (making it clear to people that you’re guessing), it’s also okay for people and companies to reveal news at a time of their choosing”
Sure, but isn’t that lack of transparency a detriment to the idea of open development? I’m running my own game dev startup and I’m trying to be as open and transparent as possible. I just had some random person contact me asking about our game and I gave them basically all the info we have. I usually include the disclaimer that game dev is an iterative process and things are subject to change — but we’ll give reasons for the changes when we do.
There is an argument against this in that people might not understand that changes sometimes happen or that they expect one thing and it changes. However, my target market and general audience is full of mature and intelligent people that can understand the ideas and concepts behind game development. Will some people be confused or maybe misled? Maybe. But I think the overall gains will be much more useful. It is one reason why I enjoyed following the early development of League of Legends. At the time Riot Games was super transparent about their game development process compared to basically any other company. Now they are so big that they have to be secretive for “competitive advantage” over the competition, but I don’t think designer board games have that issue due to the long production cycle, relatively niche community, smaller profit margins, and so on.
I’ve learned so much from other people who practice this and create dev blogs / dev diaries, both for things they are working on and once they are published that I feel it is my responsibility to give back in the same way.
One issue with sharing information openly all the time is the timescales involved. If a consumer comes across information that, say, a new Charterstone is in development, what do they do with that knowledge? Do they pre-order something that could easily be a couple of years out (assuming it doesn’t get delayed or abandoned) or do they make a note in their calendar to check back in, say, 18 months’ time, or do they check back daily or weekly for the next couple of years for very occasional tidbits?
Something Jamey has mentioned is that one reason he’s stopped doing Kickstarters is in order to avoid having that long gap between when people find out about the game and throw money at it, and when they actually get their hands on the game. And Stonemaier’s pre-order policy is to only open pre-orders once they have the product in their fulfillment centers, again, so people who are excited about a game can get the game in their hands in a week or two rather than a month or two (or much longer) for more conventional pre-orders, or a year or two for Kickstarters.
The question of how and when to announce upcoming products is one without an easy and obvious answer – early announcements allow people to make (tentative) plans and potentially interact with the development process, while late announcements allow people to get their hands on the product almost immediately and minimises the potential for delays and changes. There’s a trade-off, and it depends on which benefits you prefer which side you’ll incline toward.
Teasing information can be fun for the customer, guessing, but you also need to find balance and understanding when you tease as it seems like a double edged sword created by the teaser. Don’t let it upset you, as it’s to be expected when teasing info.
Some publishers get upset when a customer asks a question about information not yet revealed. I think potential customers asking a polite question is a good thing 9 times out of 10 for a company, even though you don’t want to reveal the answer yet and you wished they’d never asked, the customer still has good intentions in showing interest. It’s normal behavior on the part of the customer with most products. I think just understanding that not all customers would have followed every piece of information that exists about a new product can change the impact. They probably don’t know all of the information of the 10% or 50% already revealed. Casual followers don’t know that the answer to their simple question hasn’t been discussed yet. Even ardent followers could have missed a bit of information revealed, or mistakenly think their question is not a big deal reveal. Most likely they don’t know their normal nice question is currently an off-limit question that would be very well received tomorrow. :)
P.S. It is very strange how Stonemaier games gets so much negative comments about new games. Yesterday I had to defend Libertalia a few times from erroneous mean posts.
Libertalia is game which bring myself to this hobby, that is a first game I bought and still this is my favorite 4 player game. I adore every aspect of the game including artwork and game mechanics so I can be only worried if someone changing anything…but if somebody ask me which person is best for doing this I would say Stonemaier for sure…. I’m not be so much exited for a long time about some new game. This work can’t be bad for sure… this gonna be hit for sure in next period and only hard core libertalia fans, where I belong, can say that maybe they missing something from last edition but I hope that gonna be only nostalgic aspect. I wish you all the luck with this!
I see lots of entitled compliments on bgg forums that express some sort of frustration that if they had known these details ahead of time, they wouldn’t have purchased an overpriced copy of the out of print version, and I just am flabbergasted that an individual consumer believes a publisher OWES them anything, let alone private advanced information about an un-announced product. It’s the consumers job to make the best decisions for themselves at the appropriate time. None of that responsibility falls on the publisher.
You should keep announcing what you want, and when. Any false rumors, unless they completely blow up and are so egregiously false, are still just rumors and your silence on those topics can’t be construed as confirmation. If people believe rumors, that blame doesn’t come back on you.
Very cool blog entry. Thanks for sharing what you can when you can.
Looking forward to some sky-pirate action!
For what it’s worth, I think your confirmation of the trademark and on not reprinting Libertalia was a fair statement a good way to comment on the subject without revealing too much that you didn’t want to. You shared the least amount of information you had to without lying and I feel that quelled a lot of the discussion on it until you were later ready to give the full context.
You mention that many of these spoilers are leaked without full story, so it makes me wonder: are there some similarities here with how you reveal information about a new product slowly over the course of a couple weeks? For every new game/expansion announcement that is essentially just a short description and box cover, I always see wild speculation on forums like BGG about what the game is and isn’t with no other information. For Libertalia especially, I’ve already seen many claims like the “art is unfinished” or the “theme is too light-hearted” or “the game won’t be mean enough” all while knowing very little information about the contents of the final product. Surely a lot of this could be chalked up to the nature of the internet and how people tend to be quick to judge (and may not have the patience to wait a few days), but for some reason it seems like there is more negativity around Stonemaier reveals compared to other game reveals that are nothing more than a box cover and title. I’m curious if you think this “negative press” needs to be avoided, or could be avoided if your strategy was just to release all the information at once. (And I’m not advocating for that; I love the drip-feed reveals for your new products, but I was curious on your thoughts or if the system could use any tweaking.)
Mac: You make some great observations here, and it’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit over the last 24 hours. I think in the future I might reveal something a bit more substantial than just the top of the box on the first day so people get a pretty good feel of the game, theme, setting, art, and core mechanisms. And then I’ll dive deep into them on the days that follow.
I think that’s a great idea. I mentioned the game to a friend of mine after you announced it and he was very confused to find almost no details when he visited the Stonemaier Games website. I had to explain the whole process. I’d prefer to see all the basic game information released right away, but certainly something more substantial would help.
Hey Jamey. Will you sell Pirate Themed Metal coins for Libertalia? That would be awesome.
That’s a great example of a spoiler question of something we haven’t addressed yet, Christoph. :) You’ll have all information about our Libertalia by the end of next week.
I was one of those that received the Rolling Realms Realm on accident. We were incredibly impressed by how it was handled and taken care of so quickly! (It was hard not to share the excitement that we got to try a new realm a little early!)
We can’t wait for Libertalia. I have not played the original, but Stonemaier Games have been such a hit time and time again in our household. Our family will be looking forward to March!
Thank you for keeping that a secret, Christopher!
So, was this the “old world/new world” clue?
Personally, I don’t want to know right now. But it would be very cool if Jamey would do a post in December to revisit all clues from that January newsletter, explaining every one of them.
I was one of those customers that received an early copy of the Rolling Realms Realm and the first thing I felt when I saw the email letting me know of the mistake, was a sense of panic. I hate when something is spoiled for myself and others, and I immediately thought about the stress that Stonemaier Games was probably going through. I hated the thought that there could be someone out there ready to spill the beans and ruin it for everyone else.
Hi Jamey, I follow your news and videos on facebook, and I regularly read your blog. Your company makes games that I most consistently like, and you have a large trust bonus with me as a customer, if you bring out a game I will be interested to at least try it. I also consider myself an avid board gamer, I consume content on a daily basis. However, I don’t do it to the degree of trying to find out every single details about something that hasn’t even been announced yet, in fact, I had never heard of Libertalia or the rumors around this being the game behind “sails”, and you not communicating at large scale about these rumors meant it stayed a complete surprise for me, which I actually appreciated.
I 100% agree that you as an individual and a company have the right to decide when you are announcing something like this. I also don’t think it can be reasonably expected of you as part of a relatively small company (in terms of staff) to be aware of and comment on or dispel any rumor or false information that is out there, and I think you rather should not, unless the information out there has the potential to hurt or damage someone. I could go on an on about the internet as the new public space, but I think I made my point.
Excited about your new game, and no, I don’t know anything about it yet, expect that it is about pirates. :-)
Thank you, Dirk! I agree with the important caveat you mentioned here: “unless the information out there has the potential to hurt or damage someone.”
This was going to be my exact question in next week’s live cast. As I’d heard the rumours but didn’t know what the source was. This must be frustrating as with a new game their isn’t the same expectation in comparison with a product based on an existing title. I guess there is no true way to combat this?
Spoilers can create hype which at least increases discourse and acts like free advertisement. It helps people who are interested stay interested so more power to those who do the sleuthing. I don’t mind spoilers for release of games; it’s not like spoilers for movies.
We dont talk about bruno no no no.
It was my weddding day
No clouds aloud in the sky!
(Sorey couldnt help it)