<div dir="ltr">Hello all,<br><br>These are all good points!<br><br>For me, it also raises the question of who the audience needs to be for tabletop games. Now that it is possible to publish games with limited runs and to be both funded and advertised through crowdsourcing platforms before the game is physically produced, I imagine there are possibilities to create games for very small and specific audiences. I’ve thought about this before with some of the tabletop games I’ve made using GameCrafter. Some of these games were used for psychology experiments (creating a game to teach children delay of gratification), or to explain complex financial instruments—both of which necessitated limited printings. It occurred to me that it would be possible to create one-of-a-kind tabletop games—perhaps using images that have a personal meaning to the intended players. This example does not conform well to a traditional tabletop publishing model, but could fit a fine art paradigm where galleries sell unique objects to collectors who are willing to pay higher prices specifically *because* the objects are unique. Which may not be that much of a stretch—as Brent pointed out, collecting is as much of a goal as playing games now for some people. Or, just as artists are often commissioned to create a portrait of an individual or artwork for a specific context, game designers could create tabletop games commissioned by a specific individuals or group. Some tabletop indie games are already produced in more limited runs than prints or photographs sold on the art market. I am by no means suggesting that this model should replace the current market for tabletop games, but rather that it could exist alongside it and allow for new types of experimentation in tabletop games. Many of the most experimental avant-garde artists were funded primarily by one or a few patrons, and I am wondering if this is a possibility for tabletop game designers.<span></span><div>
</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 7:14 PM Aaron Trammell <<a href="mailto:mobilestudios@gmail.com">mobilestudios@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>Yes to this!</div><div><br></div>I want to link your points here on sustainability to the conversations on the list last week. You're right! Modern board games are only being built for a crowdfunded splash and 1-2 actual plays at the moment. But the marketing is driven by a consumer lust for virtual or potential plays. What this means, though is more plastics, more trash, and more waste. <div><br></div><div>The crowdfunding revolution is big news, but it's full of upsides and downsides. I do think that the present moment of modern board games is perhaps more exciting for collectors than it is for players. But at the same time, space is being made for new and (sometimes) diverse voices in the space of design. I dunno. Should we be concerned about the waste modern board games are producing now while the industry is still relatively small?</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 10, 2020 at 1:15 PM Brent Povis <<a href="mailto:twolanternsgames@gmail.com" target="_blank">twolanternsgames@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:11pt">Thanks Alenda and fine folks of Empyre! It was fun following last week’s lines, which ran somewhat adjacent but were certainly relevant to board gaming as well. As a tabletop designer/publisher, hopefully I can dip into some industry perspective for this week’s Entmoot.</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">The first title from our publishing house, a tactical 2-player game called <font color="#000000"><span><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/122298/morels" target="_blank">Morels</a></span> (2012),</font> hit kitchen tables 17 years after <span><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/catan" target="_blank">Settlers of Catan</a></span> (1995) made the leap from Germany to revolutionize American board gaming. We entered the market when the creeping exponential upsweep of <span><a href="https://dvatvani.github.io/BGG-Analysis-Part-1.html" target="_blank">game releases over time</a></span> was just beginning to reach skyward. That acceleration has continued in earnest, <span style="font-size:11pt">such that more tabletop games have been released in the 21</span><sup>st</sup><span style="font-size:11pt"> century than in all of preceding human history.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Reasons for this are many and varied, from a crowdfunding-enabled publishing coup and corresponding entry of new and dedicated talent to the designer pool on the production side, to a growing interest in augmenting face-to-face time among family and friends on the consumer side. An additional catalyst, born at the intersection of these factors and the one I’d like to examine in this post in hopes of making the analog jump on the “Green Gaming” discussions of last week, is the “cult of the new” that has increasingly defined the board game hobby over the last 5-10 years.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">When I was a child in the mid 80’s, the shelves in a sunlit corner of my bedroom glittered with about 60 board games, a trove that bred awe among schoolmates and that ever-elusive “quality time” for our family, which I’m thankful to say happened on a near-nightly basis. I’d say 40 of those titles were seldom played, primarily due to a lack of substance, while the other 20 saw action ad infinitum. Perhaps this is why, when designing, the guiding principle at the core of my efforts is to build a system that will be as good (or better) on the 50<sup>th</sup> play as it was on the 5<sup>th</sup>. It’s a difficult bar to clear, but a useful metric that helps to create and identify tabletop games with staying power. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:11pt"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:11pt">Last year, I was discussing this approach with a friend and board game shop owner. He expressed some surprise and basically asked why, when most board games were now only being played 2-5 times before they were relegated in the face of new acquisitions. </span><span style="font-size:11pt">This struck me. It’s not to say that games aren’t being produced with replayability in mind, it’s more the notion that for a successful publishing house in today’s climate, they don’t need to be. For the consumer, the goal for many has shifted to collecting as much </span>as to playing<span style="font-size:11pt">, with plays per title decreasing while rate of acquisition reshapes home libraries to Alexandrian proportions that make my childhood collection of 60 look pedestrian.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">What to make of this shift as seen through the environmental lens? Many business models now have publishers selling 50-75% of a new release’s first printing, often the only printing, on the initial crowdfunded splash. The goal, then, is a 6- or 7-figure Kickstarter campaign rather than sustained retail sales. Design, art, development, manufacturing, marketing, and shipping are compactly wrapped in a cycle that is bending towards fewer and fewer months, with profitability optimized by number of new releases (this approach does not necessarily preclude quality, and many games from even the most prolific houses are excellent, but they are the subject of furious tides). On one hand, there is efficiency gained with direct publisher-customer shipping and manufacturing targeting total sales in one assertive swoop. On the other, the overwhelming volume of releases results in 25%-50% of copies for games that fail to gain traction beyond the initial splash stockpiling in warehouses (or basements) with darker fates awaiting, while those that do find a home stockpile in players’/collectors’ living rooms (or basements). I wonder, then, how footprints compare from the kitchen to the den, gears of labor and industry whirring at full tilt on material production and distribution of tabletop games while digital products streamline access to electronic platforms but with the support of Forster’s “Machine” in the background?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:16.8667px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Derek, love the game concept, and Aaron, digging the analog phylogeny. Poke received, thoughts on that will serve as intro to my next post.</p></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"> <br clear="all"></div><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div><font size="4" face="garamond,serif"><strong>Brent Povis</strong></font></div><div><font face="garamond,serif">Game Designer</font></div><div><font face="garamond,serif">Two Lanterns Games</font></div><div> <img src="https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1jaeJjoqG-ttsw3lwnmM2_qY752o7z0cA&revid=0BwwlM4UsYFbNNEhDangyWCtja2NwTC94VnJNUkkzNDF2MW04PQ" width="96" height="64"></div><div> </div><div><em><font size="4" face="garamond,serif"><br></font></em></div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Aaron Trammell<div>Assistant Professor</div><div>Department of Informatics</div><div>UC Irvine<br><div>732.673.3879</div><div><a href="mailto:trammell@uci.edu" target="_blank">trammell@uci.edu</a><br><br>My online resume/CV: <a href="http://www.aarontrammell.com" target="_blank">aarontrammell.com</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>Editor-in-Chief of <i><a href="http://analoggamestudies.org/" target="_blank">Analog Game Studies</a></i><br>Co-Founder and Multimedia Editor of <i><a href="http://www.soundstudiesblog.com" target="_blank">Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog</a></i></div><div>Editorial Board: <a href="http://www.sagepub.com/journals/Journal201757/boards#tabview=boards" target="_blank"><i>Games and Culture</i></a><br></div><div><br><br><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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