I am just curious like I mentioned if you can make a living at this or is it just a whole bunch of us hoping one of our games will catch the right eye and make us comfortable?
So is anyone doing this full time? and if so what games have you produced and how were you fortunate enough to sell enough to become a full timer.
I am sure this is a silly question, but unless you ask you will never know.
Wes
In the entire world, I doubt there are more than three or four people who can make a living purely from designing board games. Alan Moon is probably independently wealthy from the success of the Ticket to Ride series, and the same for Klaus Teuber and his Settlers of Catan series. Those games broke into the mainstream and have sold millions of copies.
Pretty much all other designer games sell fewer than 10,000 copies, and most sell fewer than 5,000. The designer typically gets (very roughly) a dollar per copy sold. You can therefore expect to make well under $10,000 from a single successful design.
Reiner Knizia makes his living exclusively from board game design. He does it by producing dozens of publishable games per year. He is exceptional: no one else I've ever heard of can match his output. Most "prolific" designers (other than Knizia) produce no more than two or three good games per year. And most of us are not "prolific."
A dollar per copy often sounds unfair to new designers, since the games often retail for $30 to $70 a copy and more. But it is the publisher who risks the money to turn a design into a product, paying for artwork, industrial design, rulebook writing and layout, materials, printing, assembly, warehousing, and shipping. And even the publisher does not get all that much return per copy, since the wholesale price is roughly half the suggested retail price (so, usually $15 to $35 per copy: and that's gross, not net). The rest goes to the store owners (whether internet or brick-and-mortar) who also have costs and overhead to pay.
There are quite a few people who publish their own designs, as well as the designs of others. That may be a reasonable way to make a living, provided you can come up with enough good designs, AND you have the head for business necessary to become a publisher, AND you have the time and talent to do both things at once. (Sometimes I wonder when those folks sleep.)
The bottom line is, if you're looking to get rich (or even "comfortable") you are better off playing the lottery. If you're going to design games, do it because you enjoy designing games.
But if you really do enjoy designing games, at least you've come to the right place. Welcome!
Disclaimer: all numbers are approximate, and vary according to circumstances.
If the goal is to generate enough income to just do game design full time, self publishing is the best chance at doing so.
Like anything else, it's a risk. There's numerous small to mid level companies though showing that it is doable.
I am also curious about financing these projects, would you say its 99% self and 1% investors? are there investors available for projects.
I suspect you're right: if you make more than you spend, you're at least doing okay. :-) My own goal is to get a game or two of my own published by an established publisher, and see them well-received by the gaming community. I would regard that as the proof that I've done a good job, and that's what I want: to design good games. (Good time for a disclaimer: I haven't yet had a design published. You may want to give more weight to the opinions of people who have been published, if any of them contribute to this thread.)
As for financing, there isn't any. As a designer, I probably spend a couple hundred dollars a year on things like paper and ink for my computer's printer, wood and plastic bits bought off the shelves of craft and education stores, cheap poker chips, card sleeves, and other staples for game prototyping. The rest is my own skull sweat: coming up with ideas, crafting prototypes, play-testing again and again to refine initial ideas into a playable game, and writing rules (again, and again, and again for the same game, as the design evolves). That part doesn't cost money, only time; and nobody pays us for it. We only get paid (roughly a buck a copy, as I said earlier) for a published game, and then only if we come up with a game we can talk somebody into publishing.
If you decide to go into the publishing business yourself, that's different. You might be able to get a small business loan or some sort of investment capital from somewhere; I wouldn't know anything about that. But if you're just a designer, you're on your own.
Another problem i face is advertising
Cheap effective advertising
Where?
Who?
I would think with the economy we would be getting baraged with offers and admittingly i have from some very unlikely and unusable sources.
What happened to Knucklebones?
Had a few write ups from them and of course sales shot up.
We need more of this .
Wes
Im curious: You say you’re a novice then next thing you’re telling us you were written up in a magazine and sales shot up.
Do you have a published game and if so why do you consider yourself a novice?
That is a valid question.
Yes I have a few published games (Self Published) and since i am still on the quest to figure out what makes a game developer successful I believe that makes me a novice.
The quandry still remains because I do on one hand sell games I have yet to make 1 more penny than i have spent!
so should i consider that success or am i still struggling?
I am also kicking around the idea of taking on new products and selling them through my website in kind of a developer of the month thing trying to help those who do not already have an established client base.
I love games and people who love them, so if i can in some small way help someone then i feel like that may be the success i am looking for.
We need more of this .
You may also want to contact board game reviewers at RPG.net. There are a few very good ones (they write coherent, fair reviews). Although my work has never been reviewed by them (they only revew commercial games), I suspect you'll see good traffic from them too.
Also consider board gamers with high-readership webcomics (Penny Arcade, Sluggy Freelance, Schlock Mercenary, Real Life). Free product may earn you a mention (or not – who knows?). Even so, it's worth a shot. You're looking for inexpensive advertising, and a copy of the game is relatively inexpensive given the potential return, right?
Obviously, there are lots of contact options at BoardGameGeek. I'll leave figuring that out as an exercise for the reader.
Best of luck!
I make a living designing and selling games as does my partner in GOB Publishing. I have about 60 titles to my name, if you count supplements and such, but my two most prolific have been The War to End All Wars, Grunt Fantasy Miniatures Battles, Button Wars and the 1483 board game series. Of them The War to End All Wars is the top seller with about 8,500 units sold over 3 editions and 4 overal packaged versions. Its unit sales increase a bit more each year. As the bulk of our sales are direct, the overall WWI series game line is good for about $45K a year in sales and about $39,500 or so in gross profit.
The reason we can eak out a living at this is we built up a catalog of a LOT of products and we diversified our revenue streams. There are a variety of ways to make money from games and printed matter packaged for hard goods sales are just one of them.
About a year and a half ago I ceased working full time at GOB Publishing because I wanted to start a retail chain and get into the POD production, packaging and eventual distribution of games. So we started GOB Retail. I still do some game design for GOB Publishing and poke my finger in things from time to time to try and make sure I am happy about the way the company is being run though.
I think it is unique difficult to make a living off of just one or a handful of game designs. Very few people can do that. It is possible to make a living of a lot of game designs, but unless you can build up your own publishing company, its always going to be challenging to get enough publishers to take on your designs to keep a steady and healthy fiscal lifestyle going as a designer.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
I really am enjoying all the feedback on this subject.
It seems the best way to make $ is to self publish but of course that is an uphill battle.
Opening up aretail shop seems like a pretty good idea that way you have an outlet for your own titles.
So would everybody agree that advertising and self publishing is far more lucrative than selling to apublisher or is it 6 of one half dozen of the other?
Wes
It's more POTENTIALLY lucrative, but you might also lose your shirt. Just like with any business venture -- you can either do it all yourself, and reap all the benefits, or pay someone to take the risks on themselves.
Opening a retail shop isn't something I would tell anyone to do unless they already had a passion and desire for that. On the other hand, if you really want to own a boardgame or comics store, and feel like you could do that, then yeah, it would probably be a great way to push your own designs, as well. But you might find that your time and energy are consumed by setting shift schedules, coordinating delivery times, and washing windows rather than designing games.
So would everybody agree that advertising and self publishing is far more lucrative than selling to apublisher or is it 6 of one half dozen of the other?
I think that the best way to make *any* money is to design a game and license or sell it to a publisher for cash up front. That's not the most lucrative way to make money, but it's the most likely to make money and it requires little to no expenditure on your part. If you can get a large (Upper Deck, Mattel, Hasbro, etc.) company to buy an idea off of you outright, I've heard that you can get ~$50K. Two sales like that per year and you're doing well, right?
I think that the most likely way to make a lot of money is to start your own publishing company and produce games. This is also the most likely way to lose a lot of money. Just getting wholesalers to carry a small-press game is non-trivial.
I started, co-owned, and co-managed a game store for four years. It takes a lot of energy. If you can open a store, run it, and still publish commercially viable games, you have reserves of energy that I can only dream of. I would not open a store with those expectations.
I'm not focusing on the money really. I'm focusing on getting published. I have two games coming out, and have good prospects for a third. I've set a goal of getting 20 games published. Mostly, that's because I like getting published. A small part of this is to see if I can create a viable revenue stream by getting a lot of games out there. You could say that I'm adopting a slow, low risk strategy to try to make a living off of board games. Really, I'm doing this to get what I've created in front of an audience. Any profit is a nice (and welcome) benefit.
>>I started, co-owned, and co-managed a game store for four years. It takes a lot of energy. If you can open a store, run it, and still publish commercially viable games, you have reserves of energy that I can only dream of. I would not open a store with those expectations.<<
Agreed. While there is some nice synergy in having your own store to promote your own games, they are two separate business and trying t start both at the same time is, well, like trying to run two start up businesses at the same time. NO ONE in the world has that kind of energy. Both would simply be 10 times more likely to fail.
Further, one store can only sell so much of an item or game line. GOB Publishing has over 100 SKUs and we stock them all here at the GOB Retail store, but its still only a small portion of our overall revenue. Magic The Gathering couldn't come close to supporting the store by itself, neither could D&D. So, yes, a single retail store might be able to offer a nice little addition to a product or product line, but it can in no way offer enough support to make designing and publishing a game worth it.
Now, build yourself a chain of store and...
By in large, anyone looking to get into self publishing CAN do it. There are some risks, but frankly, in todays age, the risks can be vastly minimized by working within certain design and publishing restraints. The largest risk of loss will be the loss of a great deal of your time if you should fail to build the company beyond a very small press size. But money at risk should NEVER be more than $500 for someone publishing for the first time. If you are thinking of starting grand and investing tens of thousands, my advice is, DON'T. Start small and figure out what you are doing first. Get some experience under your belt and get to thuroughly understand the business. If you understand it well enough to be successful with a big project, it will only be because you first learned enough to be successful with smaller projects.
If you MUST design big, expensive games and have no self publishing experience, then I suggest seeking a publisher for said designs.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
Ryan is so right in this post it almost hurts. I wish I would have had someone telling me this very same advice 10 years ago when I first started making games.
On my first game publishing project I spent $8,000 just on production. Granted over the years I was lucky enough to recoup that investment, but it took 10 years to do so. Since then I've published dozens of small run games, and though my profit per game is less, I've been so much more successful financially.
So if you're a first time self-publisher, or even a second or third time, figure out some economics that will allow you to spend a small amount of money to get started. You can always print more games if you sell out. You can't get your money back if you over-extend.
I am really getting great feedback and love hearing everyones success story.
But what about investors?
Has anyone had any luck in that arena?
If not , Why? Too risky? everybodys broke?
also I notice a plethora of rpg's is that because there is such a demand for them? They are easy to make? (i can't say anything to that one i have never tried) Most games only sell to comic book stores and therefor catering to an audience?
Tag you it
Wes
What happened to Knucklebones?
Had a few write ups from them and of course sales shot up.
We need more of this .
Wes
Knucklebones ceased publication. The publisher pulled the plug last year. It never quite found a large enough market - your experience to the contrary!
Your best bet for cheap advertising is going to be to get a good retailer list from GAMA or ASTRA. There are several web sites for game news, etc., which I'm sure you know about, but direct contact with the retailers is going to be your best/cheapest option to increase sales. We talked a little bit about this on the last Paper Money podcast (#2) and Rett also recommended a demo program if at all possible.
>>But what about investors?
Has anyone had any luck in that arena?<<
Investors like to invest "big". Meaning funding your 10,000 print run for a board game is small potatoes for any investor looking to make any real money from an investment opportunity. And anyone looking to invest series capital for a game capable of selling a good deal more is NOT going to invest that kind of money with someone with no industry experience and no prior track record.
There is always Mom and Dad, siblings, Grandma, friends, etc. But the conventional wisdom is, its a pretty bad idea to barrow from said folks. For two reasons. If those are the only people willing to open their pocket books, there is a good reason for that. You should not ignore that fact. Second is, should they invest and should you go bust with the venture, failing to pay back family and friends tends to strain relations there.
I HIGHLY advocate, if you want to venture into publishing, that you start small and work within your means. If your current designs call for big expensive games to produce, shelve the design and refine it over time and start publishing with something more fiscally managable (and safe). Turn something small profitable first. Then do it again. And then again. Then, maybe, shoot for something a bit larger. If you have one design that is interesting and sellable, then as a designer, you should be able to make others. Design products that are a fit for your current position as a publisher and that are doable comfortably within your current financial means.
Its really easy to design a game for yourself or a small number of friends and get rave reviews. Its somewhat easy to design the "perfect" game when you work under the assumption that those producing it have unlimited resources. But in the publishing world, be it Hasbro or some tiny small press, they DO have limited resources and production cost targets that have to be met and thus they need games that can fit well within those limits. If, as a designer, you can show your ability to design a range of games that are suited to fit your own needs as a self publisher, you will also have shown your ability to design within limits and that is something the mid sized and larger companies are also apt to appreciate. And if you never sell a design to an outside company, you will have paved a smooth path towards growing your own experience and your own business and will someday be suitably ready to risk larger chunks of capital on larger and more grandious projects.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
What is the deal with all these rpg's
are they really hot?
selling like crazy etc.
>>What is the deal with all these rpg's
are they really hot?
selling like crazy etc.<<
Most RPGs sell precious few copies actually. But there are so many of then because print on demand technology has been around for books since about 1997. Its largely taken the risk out of publishing as an indie designer/publisher. So since that time the independent publishers of role playing games have grown significantly in number, though most have had to work within the indie community to promote and sell their games and few have "broken out" into the broader industry.
I expect you will see the same as POD for card games and board games matures.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
RPG's are easy to print or digitally transfer, but that is also why they have lost much in the way of revenue. People can just go to a pirate site and get everything they need for free. I wouldn't make RPG's for anything but passion at this point.
I think D&D shifted into partially digital to help fight the piracy aspect.
I spoke to someone from Days of Wonder earlier this year about the business and generally what job prospects would be like for a designer. He told me, among other things, that the DoW main office is 4 guys (here in California at least, the French office is bigger), and that there were maybe 15 people in the United States that were able to design games full-time for a living.
When you get down to it, that's not a lot. You might have your Knizias and Moons out there, but there are also the designers that focus on licensed games and things that might not be as desirable as the stuff that we are doing here. Also, there's design "teams," especially at Wizards of the Coast, so that one designer gets a lot of credit for what a lot of people are doing.
>>People can just go to a pirate site and get everything they need for free. I wouldn't make RPG's for anything but passion at this point.<<
We've just launched a new venture that has an aim to eventually see an RPG (and other gaming product) given free to every household in America. Its a lofty goal and realistically, we are starting small and locally with distribution of just 10,000 and 20,000 print runs and building from there. But the first game tobe distributed thusly is an RPG and through this process, once the model has fully matured, its going to making a significant amount of money and employing a fair number of people.
Role Playing is a game type. Its a media format. The concept is not dead. The media types used to deliver it are diversifying. What is just about dead is the traditional business model built around selling RPGs. Use an out dated business model and yeah, you ca expect pretty poor results.
Often in business (and game design) you have to do something _different_ in order to be successful.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
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Of course I have never had dreams of being rich from boardgames
( thats what pimpin is for....LOL) I was more curious about success stories and what makes a success. I once heard to be a proffesional you have to make 1 penny more than you have spent.
I am also curious about financing these projects, would you say its 99% self and 1% investors? are there investors available for projects.
I know this is a hodgepodge of ?s but I believe this could be a great community of people helping people.
We are all up against the same walls.
1. Competing with video games
2. Competing with the Non- traditonal family settings
3. If it doesn't talk it can't be any fun.
I am also curious why there isnt more recriprocal links on everyones websites i think it would be a big shot in the arm to have multiple avenues for hits.
I am sure i sound like a novice and it's because i am.
I love this site and the people seem really great i wonder how i can help others and of course myself at the same time.
Wes