Game design as a "Hobby"

Obviously A for me.
But then again, B would be awesome. Since that would mean I might finish the first idea. And start working on other idea's.

The sparse free time that I have is already consumed by many other things. And as result, things take so long with my own game. Others loose interest.

And ehm. So did I a bit for a time.

But not all is lost.
If I ever get the simulation working to see win chances of more complex armies. I might get a new list of missions done. Where I am sure of that they are doable and not to easy.

I am halfway between B and C now. I am making money but not enough to keep my standard of living if I quit my regular job.

I am involved in the game industry quite a bit but it took me many years to get where I am.

Game Designer with several published games
Occasional Playtester for Mayfair Games
Head demo person for Mayfair Games
Runs Protospiel.org and the original Protospiel in MI.
Member of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design
Jurist for the Origins Awards

I don’t think I would become a publisher myself as it takes away from my creative time and it the creation of games that I like the most.

Used to never take my designs past the playable prototypes. Never even considered publishing.

Currently I`m earning some $ for designing a boardgame, but nowhere near as much as from my full time job. Nor is there any guarantee regarding the future projects.

Therefore, if at some point in time, I`ll feel that the whole game design thing is 'stable' enough, I might reconsider my options.

But not at this point - we all have to eat something and pay bills. And one needs quite a portfolio to earn his living from game design.

My 2 cents.

I'd say I'm all 3.

Technically, this year I should make minimum wage for my board game work and there is additional potential for revenue that may or may not happen. That said, I'm stuck with a full time job because the money here isn't reliable.

I want few things more than being able to do this full time and still eat, but I don't have high hopes that design can accomplish this. If I'm not a publisher, the money is far too small for living and if I was a publisher my following is too small to actually make a profit.

Besides, it is nice sometimes to just be a hobbyist because you can explore mechanics rather than focusing on what's marketable.

Makes you wonder who here is truly C.

I believe there are some people here that are.

I think ideally, all of us would like to be C, but the reality is that not all of us can be. It's a huge risk to be C...even I don't want to be considered C because I believe I always need a backup plan, which is what being in the video game industry has taught me.

But being A, B, or C shouldn't matter in this forum. All of us are just trying to do what we love, and that's make games. Sure we disagree and some of us are a little...extreme. But in the end this should be a place where we share ideas, encourage the discouraged, help the willing, and celebrate our victories.

When I see people have successful crowdfunding, I'm happy. When I see them fail, it hurts me...regardless of what I say about crowdfunding (I just say it's not for me...right now).

There aren't many Cs in the industry as a whole.

I've spoken to some of the biggest name designers out there, and about a dozen publishers and honestly... some of them barely qualify. Games just aren't a profitable industry.

Most of the designers that do started in the old days where there wasn't much competition. It gave them a strong start both in money and notoriety. Despite worldwide recognition, awards and a massive fanbase... many still turned to self-publishing to make a living because design alone wasn't enough to pay the bills.

Otherwise, most designers need to work a day job to eat. It doesn't matter how popular your game is, board gamer's are a small market and publishers pay table scraps. The odds aren't good that you'll go full time.

Even most of publishers I've interacted are only a few people. They make a living, but they barely qualify as a company because it's supporting so few staff. Instead, they rely on Freelance and Outsourcing to keep costs low enough to have ANY profit.

Sure, there are a couple big guys like Fantasy Flight or Games Workshop but they are the exception, not the rule.

Say what!? Hobby game retailers have some of the worst margins and highest failure rates out of any retail market. Brick and mortar stores are in cut throat competition with deep discount online retailers, who are making as little as 10% for profit margins, and are sometimes undercut by the manufacturers of the very same products that they are stocking. Now, stores like Target are selling titles like Pandemic and Settlers, which even further marginalizes your typical FLGS, as these were the games that brought in non-hobbyists and paid the bills. Most of the "regulars" just come in to dirty up the place, loiter, spending a penny per hour while driving off potential customers, and then go buy their stuff cheaper online after using the store as a factory showroom. You have to work your ass off for very little return.

The most successful retail scheme I've witnessed was a lawyer in the $200k+ bracket who started a store to ensure that he'd have people to play Warhammer with. He wrote off the annual loss as a tax deduction. Second best was a by-appointment-only store in a $200/month retail space in a rundown, re-purposed high school that a few friends pitched in on so they'd have somewhere to store their crap and to get a discount on their own gaming stuff. They ended up fairly profitable, thanks to the low overhead, but for the first three years (wow, only three), it was just a tax write off for them as well. You can see where I'm going with this.

Successful stores that I've read about make most of their profit on something else, like used console games. Board games pay the bills far better than wargames or RPGs, as I understand it, but CCGs are a very steady revenue stream at about 25% of sales. One store that has been in business for at least 20 years in my area is organized with the board games in front so that the grandmothers and casual gamers aren't turned off by the Warhammer and D&D stuff at the center of the store. They actually moved their gaming tables to a different room on a different level of the building that they lease, which I expect helps a lot when it comes to gamer funk and cries of "Huzzah!" creeping out new customers.

Only someone with a passion for gaming is going to look at that sort of market and think, "Great idea! I totally want to invest my life savings/inheritance in a money sink rather than a CD or a mutual fund!" The thing is, for most people that is a blind passion that defies all common sense and logic. I've seen way too many gaming stores crash and burn in a matter of months because the owner had a vision that didn't reflect the realities of their market.

And 50% markup? Not quite. Margins range between 40 and 50% depending on the distributor, product, and the retailer's sales volume. A mildly successful retailer is probably getting a 40% break on WotC products, 45% on the bulk of their stock, and maybe price matching a few of the games sold at the local big box retailer as a loss leader. Even at 50%, selling a $50 board game equates to about $5 of actual profit once you've accounted for all of the expenses associated with that sale.

So, yeah, direct sales are the way to go. If Fantasy Flight sells a game to a distributor, it'll be for 30% or less of the MSRP versus the 100% gross profit from selling directly to the consumer via their webstore. The problem with most crowdfunding attempts these days is that a) gamers are notoriously bad at business and b) the myopic attitude of orienting the business around a single, limited product release instead of using the initial offering as a platform for launching a sustainable business.

For example, GGG launches its first KS for a licensed Golden Girls board game in which players enjoy postmenopausal dating scenarios. They net a profit. Hooray! End of story. In true '80s reference, Dragon's Lair cartoon or Clue movie style, that's what could have happened, but what they actually did was reinvest the gains on their capital and launch phase two of their business plan. That doesn't necessarily mean launching their second title, an Arthur 2: On the Rocks CCG. Rather, having established a retail presence, distribution network, and so forth, they are positioned to expand the scope of their business. You can see that with FFG. They sell games, but they also sell card sleeves, wooden blocks, and other components. Do other people sell card sleeves? Sure, cheaper even, but FFG cross-promotes their products so that when you buy a game, the rulebook instructs that the cards are compatible with X size FFG sleeves. They up-sell. As I see it, the bulk of these ineptly managed, one-shot-wonder, low production value crowdfund projects are just torpedo boats blindly punching holes in the waterlines of the established companies. It's bad for the market overall.

So, your argument, as I understand it, is that James Brunot losing money on the 2,400 sets of Scrabble that he made in 1948 is just as desirable of an outcome for any gamer as Selchow and Righter selling four million sets in 1953? In either case, the game got into the hands of gamers, so Mission Accomplished!

Brunot's initial offering totally equates to the modern day Kickstarter, but getting a game out there to a broader audience is synonymous with sustainable business practices. Even the best games aren't going to stay in print if you aren't growing your business and keeping the product line relevant in an evolving marketplace. Sadly, yes, Kickstarter has turned into a delayed gratification version of Etsy, but the original intent was for it to be an alternative to venture capitalism, a means for entrepreneurs to fund the groundwork for healthy, growing business ventures.

Crowdfunding isn't even good for personal gains, because a lot of people are, in fact, losing money on it. They build their infrastructure, suffer their setbacks and loses, build name recognition, learn their lessons, and then abandon what should have been viable groundwork for a company because . . . Mission Accomplished! It's like opening an underfunded retail venture, going through all of that trouble, and then shuttering your doors a month before all of your hard work was about to pay off.

The exception isn't the rule. I think many people make that fatal mistake.

Truth is, KS is far more of a commitment than people think. It's planning, thinking ahead, preparation, marketing, and (most of all) developing. It's been seen as a veritable "easy button" when looking for funding because some people aren't wiling to do the footwork to actually go through legitimate channels...and I'm not talking about IF the idea is worth the funding or not. It's a blessing and a curse.

Crowd funding is great...under the right circumstances.

Unfortunately, most don't know this...which is why there are so many failed campaigns.

Here are the campaigns that got 0 money: http://kickended.com/archive?page=1

There are thousands more that started but never completed.

All I'm saying is that you need to have a real look at Kickstarter before going through all the effort in doing so, or else you're just running your gears and going nowhere.

What I'm saying is that you can go gung-ho and just do it, or you can be smart, get the help you need, realize what you're getting yourself into, and then decide with all the information possible. I see so many people (not saying you're one of them) just jump into Kickstarter without knowing the consequences...there's your "100500999" failed projects.

But why go through all those projects when you can take a step back, plan your move, be smart about your strategy and do it once?

It's what I did with my game. While I'm really proud that my game is taking off, I've had my share of failures in pitching. With the mistakes I made with previous game pitches, I simply stepped back, planned a lot more, prepared my move, then came back and passed the pitch table the first time I presented Conquest at Kismet.

Not saying KS is bad, I'm just saying be smart.

Without being notified I have been taken off the OA jury and am no longer a member of the the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design do to it.

Shouldn't they have someone like ehm... a leader?