Getting publishers to request a prototype ...

I don't like to disagree with you, since in the field of computer games you are broadly correct - the finance required to produce a game these days is so huge that you can't afford it to be a failure.
But that doesn't mean that there isn't a very professional "hobbyist" arena too - and some of those have developed into pretty sophisticated products. Having said that, locating these "hobbyist" designs is actually surprisingly hard, even in these webbed up age.

Whereas we have an advantage, in that "our" market has a bunch of specialist shops - and, importantly, the better games are being sold alongside the classics and the tie-ins in those shops. No, we're never going to find new players through the superchains but the market is growing through those specialist shops.

And, of course, there is an in-built advantage here in that Germany is a large market already, and many games have made it into those very same chains. Don't think that Germany is some magic world in which everyone plays the SdJ winner everynight, but even a market ten times larger than that of the (current) US one is huge.

I think we're right on the edge of a tipping point myself. I don't think that TGOO* are ever going to be mainstream, but there does seem to be considerable evidence that even a semi-decent game can sell more than enough copies for an independent company to make a decent amount of money, if not instant fortunes. And as hobbyists** I'm fairly sure most of us would actually settle for that :-)

-- David

*These Games Of Ours... not a great description but it'll do
**I guess you could count the number of professional game designers in this field on the fingers of a very few hands ;-)

Anye,

Thanks for your recent flurry of very interesting and very helpful posts, and hope you'll be around here more often!

I have to say that as a designer, being told "we're not accepting submissions" is somewhat frustrating. I think this is in part because it puts a game in a state of limbo; being told "no, we're not interested in this game" would give a finality that is really all I personally am asking for. But it also just seems counter-productive. I can understand that budgets are finite and a company can only publish so many games, and those schedules do fill up. But what I, personally, would say to designers, were I a publisher in such a situation would be something more like this: "We are always accepting submissions, but since we are currently have a full production schedule, the filter for acceptance is *much* higher than usual, and the delay between acceptance and publishing will be longer than usual even if we do pick up your game".

This is advantageous to you, because it gives you a better chance of getting that one great superlative game that someone might submit. And speaking as a designer, I feel that a company that says "we'll accept your game, but it will take an extra year to publish" is more desirable than one that says "don't even bother submitting in the first place -- we won't look at new games for another year." In both cases, the game might come out in print at the same time, but the latter company is more likely to lose the chance at the game while I take it to someone who will make a decision more quickly.

Of course, I'm speaking quite hypothetically since I think that most games get rejected anyway. I think what I'm trying to express is that most of us don't care about money or fame so much as to just know whether our games are being taken seriously by companies. I recognize that it's time-consuming to playtest a lot of submissions, but just looking at rulebooks might not be so bad, and it would be a win-win; it would let the publisher have a look at games that might be great for their brand, and would let designers feel like their designs were being looked at and decisions (in whatever direction) were being reached.

Regardless, I agree with all of your other points and thank you for posting them!

-Jeff