There’s a lot to be excited for with our Nut Hunt campaign. We funded in < 24 hours, and just unlocked our first stretch goal. But, we also made some miss-steps and have room to improve. We take a look at a couple of areas we’re focused on doing better - to take our campaign to the next level.

Nut Hunt is live on Kickstarter! We hope you’ll check it out!!

67% of US adults are unfamiliar with - the most ubiquitous hobby board game - Catan. What can we learn from the demographics of potential hobby board gamers?

It can be hard to manage a multi-hub global fulfillment process, and there is a lot that can go wrong, from getting delayed in customs, to missing documentation, to price volatility in freight costs. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface in terms of figuring out the most effective ways to get your games into customer hands - how many hubs to use, where, and when to split shipments.

We take a closer look at freight, VAT, GST, local hubs, and global fulfillment for board games.

I was recently asked about our outreach, and the various platforms and methods we use to engage with our community. It’s an interesting question, because all of our channels are interconnected and serve different purposes. Whether it’s the blog, paid advertising, or a Facebook group, we take a closer look at the strengths and weaknesses of our outreach.

There are a lot of ways to think through variance in games, and many games have mechanisms to mitigate variance, whether it’s dice manipulation, re-rolls, or ignoring bad results. But, there’s side to the same principle - that is games that reward playing the odds. Rather than mitigate variance after an event, the core of the gameplay is positioning around probabilistic distributions.

Whenever I see a publisher choosing a course that is less usual, I like to try and think through their decision making process. I think it can give is good insights into how different publishers approach the same problems, and better understand their behavior and motivations. Which brings us to first print run expansions - are they a good idea?

Unit economics are a powerful tool for estimating break evens, evaluating investment decisions, and understanding business sensitivities and risks. We take a step by step look at how to solve for your unit economics, including estimating freight, manufacture, and fulfillment costs.

We take a look at Kickstarter red flags.

With global supply chain volatility Kickstarter creators have shifted some of the risk of freight and fulfillment onto backers. But, this creates an ecosystem with moral hazard. How can we and should we approach shipping in good faith?

A lot of advice on prototyping game is tailored to the common denominator. And, sometimes we do a little bit of a disservice in not being more nuanced. That is that there is a range of what it means to prototype, and our prototype needs evolve as our projects mature.

We dig into the economics behind our second monthly giveaway… this time for $100 to your LGS. With updated messaging, and side by side ad campaigns we saw pretty substantial improvement in our cost per lead generation.

A lot has changed in the past year - this blog went from 0 to 25,000 articles read. I’ve made amazing friendships, learned a lot, and took a couple of bumps along the way. As I look back on our successes and struggles in the past year of writing this blog, I have high hopes for how it will continue to evolve.

I keep a list of board game and publishing topics for our blog. Some of them are just a little too short to warrant a full article. So, here are a couple of thoughts on board games, self publishing, and entrepreneurialism that don't really have a home, but I want to talk about.

A brief look at some of the board game focused non-profits, and ways that we can give back.

I believe a key to the long-term success of our games, beyond a single crowdfunding event, is buy in from and representation in local game stores. We breakdown our direct to retail plan and look at what retailers are saying they want in a Kickstarter.

Designing board games is hard - especially without guiding principles and inspiration. We scoured the internet to come up with the most definitive list of the top tenants of game design that you’ll find anywhere.

I’ve been asked a few times recently whether someone should self-publish their design, or look to license it to an established publisher. I think a lot of the indecision comes from a lack of framing of goals, and a lack of understanding of what it takes to publish a game, and what publishers bring to the table. I hope that by better framing the ecosystem, the decision will be a little easier.

Knowing the whether you are ready to launch a Kickstarter is a challenge. How many e-mail subscribers, Facebook followers, and what kind of reviews do you need to hit your funding goal? We look at some data from successful Kickstarters to better understand what targets we need before launching our campaign.

A breakdown of the economics behind our first monthly giveaway. Congratulations to the winner who won $50 in store credit to their local game store - Blue Bridge Games in Grand Rapids, MI.