Post #5- Designing Hobby Games vs Mass Market Games
Until a few months ago, I didn’t even know there were these two types of games. To me, a game was a game. We own probably six different versions of Monopoly. Star Wars, Air Force and Lord of the Rings just to name a few. We have two versions of Catan. They both belong to my son. I think he forgot they’re at our house.
Many hobby gamers buy and own more games than they can play in a year. Even if they have three game nights a week they can’t play all their games. Most of these people don’t own Monopoly, Sorry or Uno. Titles like Ticket to Ride, Twilight Imperium and Terraforming Mars dominate their collections. Some of these games have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Most hobby game sales are much lower than that. Games like Uno and Sorry have been around for decades. They’ve sold millions of copies. They are advertised a lot on television especially during the holidays.
So, is there a difference in their design process? Yes and no.
A game idea is a game idea. From my point of view I don’t know which game would have mass market appeal at the idea stage. Of course everyone would like to sell 1 million copies of their game. Unfortunately that isn’t how the real world works. So at the idea stage you may not have a real direction for the marketing of your game. And honestly if it gets picked up by a publisher that will be their decision. So I would say from my limited knowledge that the first steps in game design will probably be the same no matter what market you’re looking at. Of course there are some games that you know right in the idea stage this is going to be a hobby game. A 3 1/2 hour Eurogame is not likely to have mass market appeal. On the other hand a colorful children’s game that can be learned in five minutes and plays in 10 probably won’t make it onto too many hobby shelves. But between those two extremes there’s a lot of room.
Personally, I don’t take a game‘s market into consideration when I’m designing it. I have an idea, and I simply start throwing pieces and mechanics together and see if it works.
If your ultimate goal is to get published by a big company then looking at mass market games would make sense. Trust me, I would love for Hasbro to pick up One Letter Better and give us a 5% royalty on sales. There’s a good chance I could retire on a deal like that (from my day job, not from game designing). I’m smart enough to know that deals like that are few and far between. If we’re really lucky, a small publisher might pick us up. If our luck is the same as about everyone else‘s, then we will likely be doing a Kickstarter sometime next year and trying to make it happen on our own. Those options however have little or nothing to do with our design process. We’re still play testing and making changes when the “fun factor“ isn’t where we want it to be.
One of my favorite parts of the process is creating high-quality prototypes. I know most people would say why waste so much time in the early stages.? For one thing, I get a lot of enjoyment out of physically making things. I have a nice hobby room with a great collection of equipment that allows me to make prototypes at a level most people wouldn’t be able to do on their own. The materials, mostly card stock and laminating pouches are fairly inexpensive. Compared to a lot of other hobbies, game design for me is pretty cheap. There’s also my perception that people will take a game more seriously if it looks a little better. And, prototypes I make the hold up to rigorous and frequent gameplay. This is one of the keys to getting a lot of play testing done. If the game falls apart, no one will play it.
Speaking of play testing, this may be another area where mass market games and hobby games take different paths. If your goal is to market your game in big box retail (As opposed to FLGS) then you’re probably looking at one of a few narrow demographic groups. Do you have games for kids, games for families or games for adults? Is it a game targeted at serious “gamers “? If so, you’ll need to find folks in this demographic which is less oriented at age and more at skill level. There’s also another factor to consider when designing a hobby game, and that’s how easy is it for a newbie to learn? There’s a term called “barrier to entry“ that talks about reasons inexperienced players don’t get involved in the gaming hobby. A game like Gloomhaven in a 30 pound box with 82 pages of rules is a little intimidating to someone who isn’t used to the gaming hobby. Note: that little fact didn’t seem to prevent them from having incredible success on Kickstarter.
If you’re designing the next version of Candyland, then you’ll need to be able to play test with a group of young children guided by an adult to explain the rules. If it’s a family game then you’ll need to find a mixed group of adults and kids where the kids’ ages are within your target range. And of course, if it’s an adult game like Cards Against Humanity, then you’ll need a group of grown-ups to do the play testing. This is where we find ourselves right now with our game 3 Somes which is definitely a party game. Only way to test it? Throw a party. So we are.(Insert shameless self plug here) we’re having a Game-A-Palooza next weekend here in Southern California. We plan to have groups testing One Letter Better and then splitting the entire collection of folks who show up into teams to test 3 Somes. And it’s a good excuse to have a party. BTW, 3 Somes is a party game but not what you’re thinking.
Either one of these games could easily become mass-market games. Both games are simply decks of cards, in a box with the rules. No boards, no miniatures, not even dice. They would also fit nicely in a FLGS on the counter next to the cash register promoting impulse buying. We don’t know where these games are headed but that isn’t changing our process at all. We design, we play test, we make changes. Like the shampoo bottle says, lather, rinse, repeat. We are also taking One Letter Better to Strategicon Gateway on Labor Day weekend (Friday and Saturday, noon to 4pm.) If you happen to be in Los Angeles, feel free to stop by and say hi or even give the game a play test. We’ll be giving away all sorts of goodies as incentives for folks to join the Cruise Monkey Crew. Who knows what the future will bring, we may get discovered by a publisher or we may be one of the 8 million games on Kickstarter next year. Either way, we’ll keep moving forward and throwing parties, if that’s what it takes. It’s a sacrifice, but somebody’s got to make it. Thanks for reading and go out and make someone smile.