Producing a Board Game 0-100 (Product dev, Crowd sourcing, Ecommerce, Ads)

[Isaac Oh]

Loving this journey you're taking... I'll probably hire you as a consultant or a partner to make my own next year!

Awesome! I'm all for that

Are you making this game locally? 30-40 sounds like what most games retail for..

If I were you, not that I'm like some gaming expert but found some success in my own niche (I make my own products) just ditch the idea of making money upfront and spend the 30-40 bucks on creating the game get a few copies of it and SELL it ASAP. Verify people will actually pay for it.

While I personally love this idea and would most likely buy it myself, our self bias's can be damaging in the long term, maybe YOU believe you have a great game (and you probably do)

The market place is the only thing that matters, people that are total strangers giving you their money in exchange for the game, sell it as a beta or ''rough copy'' and maybe even accept a loss on it, but if you can sell a few hundred of these it's possible you've got a winning product, just get it out there!

Worry about making a profit later when you can get the game made overseas for a few bucks.

Do you currently have a mailing list of pre-orders?/interest, even if you aren't getting paid having thousaunds of people expressing interest in the game is kind of a soft proof of concept, focus on building that.

Thanks again sparechange I take your advice with a lot of weight.

Here's what I'm hearing from you:
1. Get my product out for sale as soon as possible, (regardless of how happy I am with quality?)
2. Focus on building proof of concept

The 30-40 was the cost per unit. I'd love to get it out asap but this is what's holding me back. Maybe you can help me find any blind spots I'm having:
- I personally don't feel like the game is ready, yet
- I feel like I can't build leads without a website. I can't build a website without artwork & gameplay I'm happy with.
- The biggest struggle when I met with the developer was deciding when to take his advice or when to "break the rules". Everything I've done so far was by gut. No prior experience with developing a board game.

On the other hand, I do think it's possible to start building interest with an unfinished product. I'll make a marketing plan around this.

 

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[sparechange]

Awesome! I'm all for that


Thanks again sparechange I take your advice with a lot of weight.

Here's what I'm hearing from you:
1. Get my product out for sale as soon as possible, (regardless of how happy I am with quality?)
2. Focus on building proof of concept

The 30-40 was the cost per unit. I'd love to get it out asap but this is what's holding me back. Maybe you can help me find any blind spots I'm having:
- I personally don't feel like the game is ready, yet
- I feel like I can't build leads without a website. I can't build a website without artwork & gameplay I'm happy with.
- The biggest struggle when I met with the developer was deciding when to take his advice or when to "break the rules". Everything I've done so far was by gut. No prior experience with developing a board game.

On the other hand, I do think it's possible to start building interest with an unfinished product. I'll make a marketing plan around this.

You can market it as a beta testing phase, get people involved and excited about the project to confirm demand. You'd be surprised at how people will help you along the way, I offered my products as a tester and earned my second customer that way, they even went out of their way to offer me feedback, things I should do etc, I was pretty shocked at how someone was offering me so many inputs (after I made the sale) Blew my mind. It's important to get strangers behind your game and become disciples for this game.

You definitely don't want to spend the next few months developing a game, having a perfectionist mindset and then finding out after more months of time investment and money noone wants to buy it, it's possible to get money back you've lost but time is not.

In the gaming world as an example, Half Life & Counter-strike the makers released beta versions for people to test, can you believe it? Not only are they getting feedback from the market place & getting them to do the work in exchange for a free game, they create a sense of loyalty and pride/discipleship, making the testers proud they were involved. You should do something similar, getting people behind your project.

As for a website, there's probably some cheap options out there although I think shopify at 40 bucks a month is pretty good, I'm a total moron and built a decent looking shop, so most likely you could to.

And like I mentioned before, no marketing plan is needed. Get proof of concept first, head to the local liquor store and buy a few 24 packs of beer & goto some local college & university campus's and engage with the marketplace directly. Get emails, phone numbers, ask them to like your FB page. If you can get a few hundred people wanting to play your game then you can focus on making a profit after the fact. Break some rules if needed, think outside the box..

 

[Hadrian]

You can market it as a beta testing phase, get people involved and excited about the project to confirm demand. You'd be surprised at how people will help you along the way, I offered my products as a tester and earned my second customer that way, they even went out of their way to offer me feedback, things I should do etc, I was pretty shocked at how someone was offering me so many inputs (after I made the sale) Blew my mind. It's important to get strangers behind your game and become disciples for this game.

You definitely don't want to spend the next few months developing a game, having a perfectionist mindset and then finding out after more months of time investment and money noone wants to buy it, it's possible to get money back you've lost but time is not.

In the gaming world as an example, Half Life & Counter-strike the makers released beta versions for people to test, can you believe it? Not only are they getting feedback from the market place & getting them to do the work in exchange for a free game, they create a sense of loyalty and pride/discipleship, making the testers proud they were involved. You should do something similar, getting people behind your project.

As for a website, there's probably some cheap options out there although I think shopify at 40 bucks a month is pretty good, I'm a total moron and built a decent looking shop, so most likely you could to.

And like I mentioned before, no marketing plan is needed. Get proof of concept first, head to the local liquor store and buy a few 24 packs of beer & goto some local college & university campus's and engage with the marketplace directly. Get emails, phone numbers, ask them to like your FB page. If you can get a few hundred people wanting to play your game then you can focus on making a profit after the fact. Break some rules if needed, think outside the box..

Also try Meetup.com. Here in Dublin we have meetups for Board games and one for New Board games....

Check this out... Inspiring or what?!?!

Building a Niche Board Games Business Through a Million-Dollar Crowdfunding Campaign - Shopify

When Dan Blacklock saw that there wasn’t a convenient way to store board games, he began prototyping shelves. After successfully crowdfunding over $1 million, Dan built BoxThrone as the go-to business for board games storage. In this episode of Shopify Masters, we chat with Dan about building a...

www.shopify.com

 

[GatsbyMag]

@Isaac Oh Nice progress thread

Are you full-time committed to this now? Or still partly focused on your web design biz?

 

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[Isaac Oh]

You can market it as a beta testing phase, get people involved and excited about the project to confirm demand. You'd be surprised at how people will help you along the way, I offered my products as a tester and earned my second customer that way, they even went out of their way to offer me feedback, things I should do etc, I was pretty shocked at how someone was offering me so many inputs (after I made the sale) Blew my mind. It's important to get strangers behind your game and become disciples for this game.

You definitely don't want to spend the next few months developing a game, having a perfectionist mindset and then finding out after more months of time investment and money noone wants to buy it, it's possible to get money back you've lost but time is not.

In the gaming world as an example, Half Life & Counter-strike the makers released beta versions for people to test, can you believe it? Not only are they getting feedback from the market place & getting them to do the work in exchange for a free game, they create a sense of loyalty and pride/discipleship, making the testers proud they were involved. You should do something similar, getting people behind your project.

As for a website, there's probably some cheap options out there although I think shopify at 40 bucks a month is pretty good, I'm a total moron and built a decent looking shop, so most likely you could to.

And like I mentioned before, no marketing plan is needed. Get proof of concept first, head to the local liquor store and buy a few 24 packs of beer & goto some local college & university campus's and engage with the marketplace directly. Get emails, phone numbers, ask them to like your FB page. If you can get a few hundred people wanting to play your game then you can focus on making a profit after the fact. Break some rules if needed, think outside the box..

Roger that @sparechange . I totally agree. I'll start up an email list and hit up as many people on social media and my network today. Got a full schedule today so I'll be able to set up the email list and at least get the word out to a few people

Also try Meetup.com. Here in Dublin we have meetups for Board games and one for New Board games....

Check this out... Inspiring or what?!?!

Building a Niche Board Games Business Through a Million-Dollar Crowdfunding Campaign - Shopify

When Dan Blacklock saw that there wasn’t a convenient way to store board games, he began prototyping shelves. After successfully crowdfunding over $1 million, Dan built BoxThrone as the go-to business for board games storage. In this episode of Shopify Masters, we chat with Dan about building a...

www.shopify.com

Thanks @Hadrian ! I'm in the US so COVID but I think I can create something virtually. Great idea for playtesting!

@Isaac Oh Nice progress thread

Are you full-time committed to this now? Or still partly focused on your web design biz?

Thanks @GatsbyMag . I'm going full time onto this now!

 

[df1992]

@Isaac Oh .. I saw a podcast on my stream that might be right up your street Episode: "Building A Niche Board Games Business by Crowdfunding a Million Dollars" on the podcast Shopify Masters... Haven't listened to it but thought of your thread when I saw it!

 

[Isaac Oh]

@Isaac Oh .. I saw a podcast on my stream that might be right up your street Episode: "Building A Niche Board Games Business by Crowdfunding a Million Dollars" on the podcast Shopify Masters... Haven't listened to it but thought of your thread when I saw it!

Thanks @df1992 ! @Hadrian also posted the link so I checked it out. I took away a good amount from it. Appreciate it from both of you!

 

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[Isaac Oh]

Quick Updates:
- The board game developer I'm working with just had his game finish kickstarter... and raised $919,831. More importantly, it's getting rave reviews among the board game community which is what I'm looking to do, really create something that starts selling itself.
- He's constantly insisting a cost of production of under $6 and his game is retailing for $60 (the goal for my game), that's with an early access discount.
- I've made significant overhauls of the game with his help. It's ready for playtesting, again, but with a much more solid foundation.
- I've been using more of TTS to help with development. It's much more effective for me because being able to visualize and interact with the game makes creativity flow.
- About $5k of my investment has gone to waste. It was from hiring before I had a strong foundation and jumping the gun.
- Playtesting should take a few months. The game has to be tested a few dozen times, then back to the drawing board. Then tested about a hundred times, then back. Then, another few hundred times before it's properly bulletproof ready for release.

Biggest takeaway so far: Get expert advice as soon as possible.

If you're making a board game, chances are, you're going to be doing some major overhauls. Because the identity of the game can change so much, hold off on spending for the surface-level stuff like artwork, logos, etc. Even the name I had originally is probably going to change.

 

[Kid]

Good to hear you're going in right direction.

The game has to be tested a few dozen times, then back to the drawing board. Then tested about a hundred times, then back. Then, another few hundred times before it's properly bulletproof ready for release.

That's how great things are

 

[Strm]

Great thread, good luck with the process!

I am also starting from scratch to work on a game to play indoors, so I'm keeping an eye on this as well!

 

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[Isaac Oh]

Doubts that this is all stupid and won't work out. No one will want it and it'll be a massive waste of time and energy.

Okay, back to working on it

 

[Strm]

Doubts that this is all stupid and won't work out. No one will want it and it'll be a massive waste of time and energy.

Okay, back to working on it

That's how it goes!

 

[OwenD]

Doubts that this is all stupid and won't work out. No one will want it and it'll be a massive waste of time and energy.

Okay, back to working on it

Keep at it man! I’ve been lurking on this thread the progress you’ve made is inspiring.

you got this!

 

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[df1992]

Doubts that this is all stupid and won't work out. No one will want it and it'll be a massive waste of time and energy.

Okay, back to working on it

I've found it hard battling with this self-doubt too, the voice in your head can get very loud. Two things that helped me:

1. Tony Robbins - awaken the giant within audiobook
2. Seth Godin - the dip