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Game Box Monthly - A Subscription Service for Tabletop Games

12 replies [Last post]
Mon, 09/29/2014 - 00:34
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014

Hi guys,

My name is Brian and I just started a subscription service for board games. Every month we send our subscribers a different card or board game in the mail. We're still pretty new - we're getting ready for our third month of shipment right now - and I'm looking to get as much feedback as I can from the most die hard board game players that I can find.

Our website is www.gameboxmonthly.com and I would love if you guys let me know what you thought: what questions you had, what did or didn't draw your interest, what kind of things you think would be cool moving into the future, anything really.

Like I said, we're still early on and so still figuring out exactly what directions we should go in and I'd love to get your thoughts on the topic.

And if you're interested, you can of course subscribe, which would be awesome. But you can also sign up to receive email updates at our website. Or you can email me personally at brian [at] gameboxmonthly [dot] com.

Thanks guys!

- Brian, Game Box Monthly

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 01:19
#1
KrisW
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Game-A-Month Club

Not a bad idea. You need more information on the web site and more networking opportunities for subscribers. More customer service – LOTS more.

Post the cost more prominently. I suspect some potential customers gave up before finding it. At the very least re-title the ‘Subscribe Now’ link as ‘Subscription Information’.

Start a forum specifically for new players of each game with errata, discussions of ambiguous rules and learning tips. Have a moderator who can make the players feel that they have a personal contact who can help them learn. Lock the forum to only those players who got the game that month so that players focus on shared discovery.

Develop a road map of sorts so that subscribers have some clue as to what may be coming up.

Instead of asking players to list what they have, Which is tedious to the point of crying, develop a list of potential items that players can check off as ‘Have’, ‘Want’, ‘Don’t Want’ and ‘Need More Info’.

Actively follow games through development and marketing and post updates on your web site. Get some anticipation going to drive discussions. Start working out deals for exclusives, early release and extras.

Look at other ‘Something-a-Month clubs’ to get an idea of what the successful ones do.

Best of luck!

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 10:00
#2
mulletsquirrel
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Joined: 08/14/2014
Trying or Buying?

I couldn't determine if this was a subscription where you got to keep the game or you had to return the game before you got a new one in the mail from your website. My assumption is that the subscriber gets to keep the game, but it should be explicitly stated in my opinion.

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 14:33
#3
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014
Hey Kris, Thanks for all the

Hey Kris,

Thanks for all the awesome feedback. I'm curious, by customer service are you prefacing the comments you go on to make or are you referring to something else? Right now, at this early stage, I'm working really hard to make sure I answer every email, inquiry, and the like as quickly as I can, which is how I would mainly define customer service (at least at this point). Is there something else (other than the rest of your post) that you mean with the term?

"Post the cost more prominently."

That's a great note, I will definitely do that.

"Start a forum specifically for new players of each game..."

Creating a community is definitely on the agenda. I firmly believe that for Game Box Monthly to succeed, it needs to feel like a community to the people in it and a forum will be part of that. I like your ideas, though some of them might be technically tricky to pull off (locked forums only open to people who received a specific game that month).

"Develop a road map of sorts..."

Could you go into more detail about what a roadmap would look like to you? The fact that you don't know what you're getting until you open the parcel is part of the idea, so I'm curious how to give some idea without just giving the secret away entirely.

"Instead of asking players to list what they have, Which is tedious to the point of crying, develop a list of potential items that players can check off as ‘Have’, ‘Want’, ‘Don’t Want’ and ‘Need More Info’."

Yeah, our way of getting this information now is low tech, ad hoc, and definitely temporary. We're building a better solution at the moment, though we weren't thinking of formatting it the way you suggested. I forwarded your comment to my partner to get his thoughts.

"Actively follow games through development and marketing and post updates on your web site. Get some anticipation going to drive discussions. Start working out deals for exclusives, early release and extras."

Yes, definitely as we get bigger and more experience, I want to be able to approach game makers still in development. It's a win-win-win. My customers get something new and maybe something extra than everyone else, the game maker gets help getting their game into the world, and I can send game I know for a fact none of subscribers already have.

"Look at other ‘Something-a-Month clubs’ to get an idea of what the successful ones do."

I'm lucky to be working with a partner that has experience with these kinds of businesses. He ran his own subscription service for awhile and now runs a shipping and fulfillment business that caters specifically to subscription services. His help and experience has been invaluable.

Thanks, Kris, for your great and in depth feedback. If anything else comes to yo, I'd love to hear it - you can also email me at brian@gameboxmonthly.com if you want to talk off forum.

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 14:34
#4
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014
Hi mulletsquirrel, Your not

Hi mulletsquirrel,

Your not the only person to have that question or make that comment, so note definitely taken. I've already added a question to the FAQ and will adjust the copy on the website and in all emails going forward.

Thanks!

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 15:44
#5
anonymousmagic
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Joined: 11/06/2013
You forgot to make the new

You forgot to make the new question (Do I have to send the games back? ) the same size as the others in the FAQ.

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 16:49
#6
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014
Why anonymousmagic, I'm

Why anonymousmagic, I'm certain I have no idea at all what you mean...

*whistles nonchalantly*

Thanks! :)

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Mon, 09/29/2014 - 22:35
#7
KrisW
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Game-A-Month Club

Game Box Monthly wrote:
I'm curious, by customer service are you prefacing the comments you go on to make or are you referring to something else?

Yes, I was prefacing the comments I made.

Game Box Monthly wrote:
"Develop a road map of sorts..."

Could you go into more detail about what a roadmap would look like to you? The fact that you don't know what you're getting until you open the parcel is part of the idea, so I'm curious how to give some idea without just giving the secret away entirely.

A list of future possibilities is enough for me. Your list of past games felt to me like a list of what I will not get. Just not enough examples yet.

The surprise idea relies on a level of trust that you have had no opportunity to build yet with new customers.

Best of luck,
- Kris

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Thu, 10/02/2014 - 15:03
#8
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014
Cool, that's an excellent

Cool, that's an excellent suggestion and the route we may end up going. We're going to have to experiment to find the right amount of mystery and the right amount of knowledge. This month's experiment will probably be telling people via email what the game will be once they've been shipped.

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Thu, 10/02/2014 - 16:31
#9
Nooteboom
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Joined: 09/27/2014
Duplicate games logistics.

You state that if you already own a game, you will never be sent a duplicate. So hypothetically if the game of that month was Pandemic, and I already own pandemic, what would I receive for that month?

Would I receive a substitute game?
If so:
-Will it be a random game, or will it be one you have already sent out in the past?
-Will it be of equal monetary value to the game that other subscribers will receive, if not how will you make it "fair" across all subscribers?

Or would I not receive any game at all
If so:
- Would I get my money back for that month?
- Would my missed month add on to the end of my current subscription?

Those were just a few questions that I immediately had when overviewing your service.
Overall, it sounds like a great service and I look forward to seeing how it grows.

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Fri, 10/03/2014 - 22:51
#10
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014
Hi Peter, Sorry I didn't see

Hi Peter,

Sorry I didn't see your reply in here until now, but I've replied to your email. For anybody else curious about the answers to his questions, I've copied and pasted my email response below:

To answer your first question, if we were sending out a game that you had indicated to us you already had, we would likely do one of two things: (1) Send you expansion(s) for that game or (2) send you a different game possibly (but not necessarily) from the same publisher or distributor.

We've done both of these already. The first month we sent out Castle Panic by Fireside Games. But some of our subscribers already had it, so we sent them a sister game, Dead Panic, in its place. This month, quite a few of our subscribers have the base game we're planning to send out, but it has several expansions to it, so we'll be sending them one or two of those instead. Also, because we order retailer quantities, we'll be accruing small amounts of surplus games over time, which we'll hold onto for whenever we have a random hole in the subscriber list to fill (we consider that the Plan C option).

At no point, under any circumstances or conditions, would we charge you money and not provide something of equal or greater value in return.

Moreover, we are committed to providing at least as much value as you could find on your own. We will never send you one $10 game and charge you $25. We strive to find $30+ games or at the very least, send games that retail as close to $25 as we can find. If and when we send a $10 game, that value will be included in some other way - either as extras like dice and mats, expansions, or a second game.

We know it will be difficult to find games that nobody already has - especially the true board game lovers that would sign up for a service like ours in the first place. So we don't expect to get away with sending just one game very often. Everybody getting the same thing every month is likely to be a very rare occurrence, at least until we have enough clout as a retailer that we can start offering exclusive content and games not yet available through retail.

To answer your shipping question, there will be some variation from month to month. It can depend on how long it takes for suppliers to respond and supply us, how long it takes for their shipment to reach our shipping facility, and where our subscribers are in relation to our shipping facility. We charge on the 1st and the range we aim to deliver is 2-3 weeks. Of course, barring extenuating circumstances, games will always be delivered before the 1st of the following month. For this month and possibly the next few months, we'll be closer to 3 weeks than 2, because we're pushing hard to add as many customers as we can and want to be able to include them in the current month as late as possible.

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Wed, 10/08/2014 - 08:22
#11
Lawrencelot
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Joined: 03/06/2014
shipping

When I filled in the shipping form as a test, I noticed it indicated that shipping was free after I typed my address. I live in the Netherlands and am used to most board game services being USA-based, so I wonder if this is really true or if this is just a bug.

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Thu, 10/09/2014 - 00:37
#12
Game Box Monthly
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Joined: 09/28/2014
Hi Lawrencelot, Yes, it is a

Hi Lawrencelot,

Yes, it is a bug in the sense that there's a surcharge for international shipping and it's not being displaying until (I believe) the very end of the checkout process. Shipping is free inside the United States, which is probably why it's displaying that to you.

This is something I have to bring to the attention of the website that handles our backend functionality.

If you're still interested in signing up, I'd actually be very grateful if you recorded your process (screenshots of each page would be fine) so I could get a better sense of what the experience is like for international subscribers and how to make it better. You can email me directly at brian@gameboxmonthly.com.

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