Game of the month?

I think it's a very interesting idea... it basically amounts to buying games from people on the forum for $20.

I don't know if that's a good deal if you compare it to commercial games which are professionally made, but when you consider that it's helping to grow the community then it might not be too bad.

I think if we tried to 'publish' a game a month we'd probably run out of games way too quickly. Maybe a better idea would be to have a smaller monthly donation ($5-$10) and have that money go into a fund. Then when a game is ready the fund could cover some or all of the production costs (probably up to a certain number).

Another problem though is the fact that very few of the games that get desinged here are in any shape to produce, with the only ones that might be close being Hpox's Micropul, Zaiga's Gheos, and from what I hear maybe jwarrend's 12 Disciples. I guess I could add Scurra's All For One as well ;)

So what does that mean? What about the people that would like to publish a game that hasn't been talked about on these boards? What happens when 6 months down the road someone joins, pays 1 time, and then wants BGDF to publish their game while the rest of us have put in $60 each?

I think it's a noble effort, but I think it won't be doable without a lot of legal hassle. The only way to approximate it might be to simply start a donation based fund in the care of the BGDF, and then have BGDF award acholarship type gifts from that fund. So when Zaiga decides not to wait for Hans Im Gluck to publish Gheos he can solicit the BGDF and the community could decide weather or not to sponser him with money from the fund to self publish.

Should this or anything like it come to pass I would personally suggest that such monies be awarded to people who have developed and discussed their game here on the BGDF- in Journals, GAme Design Workshop, followup posts and playtest reports, rather than simply a member who has a game they never talk about.

Furthermore, if we were to do this, it might be a good idea (and even if we don't it might be a good idea) to Incorporate, and we could even become a non-profit organization. Perhaps that would get us better deals on prototype parts and it might be possible to find a sponser (whocould deduct any sponsorship from their taxes).

Another, entirely different way to do a Game of the Month club might be like Oprah does with her Book of the Month club. We could pick a commercial game each month, and play that game a lot. We could discuss the game, the experience, the mechanics, and what we like and don't like about it. Any comments on this implimentation?

- Seth

The idea sounds nice, but despite having 1500 registered memebers, there's less than 100 with over 20 posts, so I think it's very unlikely that 750 people would chip in $20. Only 540 members have ever posted.

If bgdf members pay the entire cost of a production run, it does create legal issues too. Does the designer get the extra copies or maybe just a handful of copies and we try to sell the rest to build up a fund to develop future boardgames? Who takes care of getting the game made? Do we give a huge pile of cash to the designer who has no idea how to go about self-publishing a game or do we have the already over-worked site admins do it?

I've brought up this idea before in context of a game developed as a collaborative effort by members of the forum, so I do like the idea if it can be made to work.

One solution might be a "100" club like some game companies out there.
The way I see it working is, as the designer I would figure out how much it would cost to produce the product. I would then figure out how much to charge per game (if I sold a certain number) to break even or close to it.

I would post on the "100" club part of this site (there isn't one yet): the rules, components (graphics), price, and number of copies needed to go to press. The members of the site would then check out the offerings, and sign up to buy the games they would like. If the "would be buyer" total reaches your
target then off to press you go.

Once the games come in, the members who signed up pay (hopefully) for their game.

One thing to add is that I think there should be a time limit on sign up obligation. for example, If someone signs up to buy a game and it's not produced for 3 years. Maybe a 6 month window would be fair.

This is a cute idea, and I hate to be a naysayer, but...as initially described, this just isn't going to happen. There's just no way you're going to get 700 members from the site to participate in a monthly program like this. I think the realistic number of people you could get interested would probably more like 10, and I'd be impressed if you could get 20. Unfortunately, this would crank up the per person cost so much that some of those interested 20 would probably drop out as well.

I might propose a somewhat different model of implementing this. I don't think it would work, either, because the implementation will be very difficult, but as an idea, it's how I think something like this would have to work. The idea would be to set up a not-for-profit that gave you a grant to publish your game. The deal on your end would be that a huge percentage of the profits from your game would go back into the foundation. (Maybe you'd keep 5%, like a standard licensing agreement).

This arrangement, then, would be for people who just want to see their game get published, and not so much for people who want to make money. Of course, it would have its own problems; how much effort would you really expend to sell a game in which you had relatively little financial stake? etc, etc. Still, I think that something like this, where you kick a majority of your profits back into the foundation, would be the only way to give the idea legs to go past the first game or two. Unfortunately, it doesn't say how those first couple of games will be paid for, and I'm not sure the answer to that.

It's a noble idea, but I think even setting aside the logistical challenges (of which there will be many, perhaps insurmountably many), a better model of generating the capital is needed. My idea above might be one way to do that.

Good luck,

Jeff

Is anyone else in on this? I guess it hinges on weather Oracle is in on this.

I'm would be quite happy to help set up something like that. Except for the referral plan, it sounds quite similar to the original gamestore idea. Coincidently, I just (a week ago) wrote a fairly basic referral system for a contest I'm having on my profquotes site, so I have a good idea how to set this up. In the past, there's been a lot of apathy about the idea, so it will be interesting to see how much response there is now.

Jason