Today, I will be answering my first reader question on the blog. It is one that I imagine many readers may be asking themselves, so here goes:
How would an amateur game inventor go about establishing a relationship with a company like Tasty Minstrel Games? How did the Alex Rockwells and Seth Jaffees of the world get to the point of being able to have Tasty Minstrel Games take on their projects? Or perhaps a better question would be, what does the average company like Tasty Minstrel Games look for in a new game idea? How do they go about exposing themselves to new potential games?
An excellent question with a difficult answer. I would like to touch upon several possibilities.
Inspire An Entrepreneurial Friend To Start A Publishing Company
I have know Seth Jaffee since I was 5 years old. He was friends with my older brother. Despite the 6 years difference Seth and I became extremely good friends as a result of the common interest of gaming. Seth had been hard at work improving, testing, and developing games for more than 6 years when I decided to publish Terra Prime and Homesteaders. In particular he had worked on Terra Prime for over 4 years which now means he has played it over 80 times and he had done some development work on Homesteaders amounting in 36 plays.
I knew they were good games, and I had confidence that if I decided to publish them that I would not lose too much money. I made a comparison of a game publishing investment to investment in stocks. The risk/reward profile of publishing games looked very appealing to me. This is partially due to the fact that I had a desire for over 4 years to be publishing games.
Get Out There And Meet People
Sen-Foong Lim and Jay Cormier are the 2 game designers responsible for Belfort and Train of Thought. Tasty Minstrel Games is currently working on both of these games for 2010 release. Jay Cormier went to the GAMA Trade Show in 2009 to make attempts at placing the myriad of games designed by Jay and Sen with various publishers. Jay was very successful at getting their games looked at by many different publishers.
Since the GAMA Trade Show was only a little after I decided to start Tasty Minstrel, we only had prototypes of our games despite the fact that they would be published in short order. We attended the trade show looking to raise awareness of Tasty Minstrel and our products. As for building relationships with retailers there, I would say we failed. We did however meet 3 people/companies which would turn out to be very important to Tasty Minstrel. Those are PSI, Panda Game Manufacturing (who we will be using going forward for manufacturing), and Jay Cormier. Jay took an opportunity to play Homesteaders and followed it up with giving us an opportunity to play Belfort.
He then followed up the playing of Belfort with spending time with us, chatting, helping us, etc. He did all of this without being overbearing. We quickly became friends, my wife, Seth, Jay, and me which of course helped things along.
Present Finished And Polished Prototypes
Unless you have a previous relationship with a publisher or somebody working closely with a publisher, do not show them incomplete prototypes. This is the most important thing covered in this interview with Seth Jaffee. At this point in time, we receive many proposals for games to publish. Make sure you find out and follow the submission guidelines for each individual publisher that you approach. Everybody has a different methodology they like to operate under. In addition, if you do get the opportunity to present a game, follow Seth’s advice from the interview:
The main thing I’d like to impress upon designers – the first thing that comes to mind anyway – is to be FINISHED with your game when you take it to a publisher. The last minute development on Terra Prime was interesting and fun, but much of it was stuff I should have had done already. When you submit a game to a publisher, it should be totally ready to go, you should be completely happy with it being released as-is (rules-wise). That said, yes – publishers may well want to change things. everyone has they’re own opinion about that. But if the game isn’t ready to go when the publisher first sees it, then it’s unlikely they’re going to want to commit to doing the work to fix what’s wrong. Do the work ahead of time – put in the time and effort to tune your game and play it – a lot – and finalize the rules. Then once you’ve done that, go over them and make sure you haven’t overcomplicated something. There could be a simpler way to accomplish some aspect of your game, and you are so used to the way you’ve been doing it that you don’t notice. – Seth Jaffee
I would like to emphasize the rules editing and finalization. This is the first place where games get easily rejected. Remember, you will not be available to explain the game (which is the same for a published game). You need to have a pristine rulebook. Also, illustrations in a rulebook help significantly. Don’t worry about not being an artist or graphic designer and get some examples in there. A first impression may be the only one you get a chance to make!
Related posts:
- Reader Questions: Why $39.95 for Homesteaders and Terra Prime?
- Advantages Of Attending Conventions For Publishers
- Overwhelmed By The Board Game Geek Response
- How I Started Publishing Board Games – Learn How To Make Your Own Board Game
- Fact or Fiction… Publishing Board Games Is Good Finance?
- Co-Op Publishing – Thinking Out Loud – Please Comment!
- Do You Have Beer Goggles For Your Own Games?
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