Gamemaster (2020) - full transcript

When I was a kid, I remember finding this magazine

that my dad had laying around.

And I was thumbing through it,

and I came across this picture,
and I was...

I saw this guy in it,

he was wearing a business suit
and a tie.

Kinda looked like my dad
a little bit.

But there was like all this weird stuff in the...
In the picture.

There was like this weird
red bird in the background,

and there was this dude in a lab coat,
looked like a scientist.

And this weird large object
covered by a red sheet.



And I was trying to figure out
what was going on,

and so, I looked at the caption, and underneath it said,

Game Inventor.

And I was like, "Game Inventor?"

I didn't even think
that was a job.

So here's like kinda what we're
playing right now, section.

Scythe... Pretty... pretty awesome game,
one of my favorites of all time.

Um, and Rising Sun.

One of my favorite games
of all time, as well.

Also, best game.

But the most exciting thing for me is to
share a new game with someone else.

And when that game is mine,
it's like icing on the cake.

And nothing gives me more pleasure in,
on a board game night

than to see people playing my
game and laughing, you know,



hooting and hollering...
talking trash and throwing stuff.

If no one's standing on a chair,
if friendships are on the line.

I don't know, there's probably
some better games.

I did all the art
- Trekking.

I like to be a creator.

If I make a game,
I'm gonna put my name on it

because I would sign my name
to a work of art.

The first time you get to hold
something you make,

in your hands,
that's the best feeling.

It's fleeting, you don't get to enjoy it for very long,
but it's amazing.

Alright, so this is my, uh, bookshelf,
maybe a very messy bookshelf,

where I have all my sketchbooks,

and these are where I keep track
of my game ideas.

So, there's a whole bunch
of them there.

These are, uh,
"Scott's Book of Great Ideas."

Uh, and, I, uh, have them numbered.
This one is number twenty-eight.

I think I'm up
to about thirty now.

I carry a sketchbook with me
wherever I go.

We'll go to the movies.
I will have that sketchbook with me.

We go out to eat,
I bring a sketchbook with me.

I am always thinking
about games.

I always say that Walt Disney
didn't start out his career

with the intention
of creating the Disney store.

He started out making cartoons,
and he made really good cartoons.

So, I'm gonna start out making board games,
really good board games.

Growing up,
there was always the expectation that as a young Pakistani girl,

I would get married and have children by the time I'm twenty.

I knew it wasn't gonna be
in my future.

As a kid, just in England, I would go to the rag market,
pick up a bunch of games...

throw out the rules...

and then mix and match parts and try to create my own version of it.

So, I guess my experience of being a
game designer started when I was young.

I think everyone on Earth has played and
enjoyed some kind of tabletop game.

They're just so universal.
Whether they played them when they were younger,

whether it's something they learned to play when they're older,

whether it was something
that was within their family,

tabletop games are almost
just a universal phenomenon.

Some of my best memories
growing up

were playing games
with my brothers.

We used to sit around the table
and make up house rules for Uno,

or try to figure out how to play Monopoly and cheat without being caught.

Those were the games that really taught us how to play together,

and kinda defined interaction.

Later on, we started playing
more elaborate games,

like Eurogames, you know,
Settlers of Catan...

Puerto Rico... Carcassonne...

Those really opened up my eyes to what a board game could actually be.

And the people
who made those games

put their names right there
on the box.

They... They were famous,
you know, Klaus Teuber...

Reiner Knizia...
Andreas Seyfarth...

I was in awe of those guys.

Today, we're in the middle of...
a tabletop renaissance.

It's a three-billion-dollar industry,
and every year it grows.

There is conventions,
and awards,

and now,
independent designers can get into the action without game publishers

because of the invention
of things like crowdfunding.

And I looked at that
whole ecosystem,

and I thought,
"Oh, man, I wanna play, too."

I have, uh, a friend,
Shane Small who, uh, said

"What if we tried to build Russian Roulette out of cards,
and uh, how would that work?"

And what would it look like?

And we started tinkering with the idea over the course of a few weeks.

Um, and we created this game
called "Bomb Squad,"

which was literally
a deck of, uh, poker cards

that we took a Sharpie
and scribbled all over.

This card, if you draw this one,
you explode. It's the bomb.

We scribbled
all over these cards,

and we played it with a bunch of friends,
and it worked great.

Everyone became so addicted
to this game.

We got the game
to a really good place...

A place where everyone we showed it to really enjoyed playing.

And one of the people that we
showed it to, uh, was Matt Inman

who draws The Oatmeal,
creator of The Oatmeal.

And he looked at it,
and he said...

"Guys, this is...
This is amazing.

This is the most fun I've ever had playing a card game...
but it has no soul.

Um, what if, you, uh, let me partner with you guys,
and we'll make just two changes?

One, uh, you let me illustrate
all the cards.

Uh, and add a little bit
of that soul to it.

Uh, and, two, is we rename it
from "Bomb Squad"

to "Exploding Kittens"
because... the Internet."

And, uh, those were two really, really good decisions.
And Exploding Kittens was born.

The way that we approached
Kickstarter,

um, was very different
from the way most people do.

Originally,
our goal on Kickstarter was,

"Okay,
we got this cool game idea,

we'll put it up on Kickstarter,
let's try to raise $10,000...

that will allow us to print up
500 copies of the game.

That's all we need to do.
That's the minimum print run our manufacturer needs,

and it's a little
weekend project.

None of us are really taking
this seriously, so...

uh, we'll just,
that'll be our goal."

We hit that in seven minutes.

The game eventually went on
to surpass the $10,000 mark,

and, eventually made
$9 million on Kickstarter...

uh, breaking
every Kickstarter record.

Um, in fact, this game
had more backers on Kickstarter,

um, it more than doubled
the second place,

uh, number of backers on Kickstarter,
and I don't just mean in games,

I mean,
any project in Kickstarter history in any category.

We've already hit our goal
in just a few minutes,

so we don't care about funding anymore.
Let's work on crowd.

So,
we made our same stretch goals.

Look, we will also double
the number of cards,

and give you the fancy carrying case,
and upgrade the box,

and do all the normal
stretch goal stuff,

but we're not going to associate
that with money.

We don't care
about money anymore.

We don't want you
to give us any more money.

Instead, we're gonna throw a huge
Internet party and everybody is invited.

So, to get these stretch goals,
we want you to take twenty pictures of a real taco cat...

Taco cat is one
of the characters in our game,

show us what a real taco cat
looks like.

Or take pictures of you and fifty friends all wearing cat ears,

or do any kind of ridiculous,
hilarious... party-based thing.

And every time they got a
certain number of these things,

we made the game
a little bit better...

because we don't care
about money.

And, the result was we had more backers
on this project than any project in history.

The question we get all the time is, "Hey,
you made $9 million,

what are you gonna spend
all that money on?"

Um, the reality is, we don't make $9 million, right?
Kickstarter takes their share.

Uh, the credit card company
takes their share.

We have to print 700,000
decks of cards.

We have to pay taxes.
We have to hire a boatload of people.

Um, the end amount...
almost all of what we have left

goes into the production
of the cards

and the formation
of the company.

Nobody got rich
off of Kickstarter.

Um, what happens,
is you get the enormous privilege of starting a company,

and it's incredible because
you own hundred percent of it.

Um... it's unlike any start-up
I've ever run before

in that you get to hit
the ground running.

Kickstarter is actually
the perfect phrase.

That company
has been kickstarted.

I'm not saying that success like this will happen for everyone,

but there has never been a
better time to go make a game.

I have always created games.

Ever since I was a kid, I was
always working on something.

And I... I think back, uh when people ask me,
"Why do you create games?

Wh... When is the first game
you created?"

I never really thought about it.
It... It was like it was kinda like Dungeons and Dragons,

it was just... an effortless sort of,
uh... Effortless sort of drive.

It's just what I... What I would
do in my spare time.

My name is Jason Serrato and I'm the designer of Thug Life.

In the '70s, where I grew up
in the city, Pico Rivera...

it was the Angel Dust capital
of the world...

and uh, a lot of violence,
a lot of street violence.

And especially growing up
as a young nerd

at a time when being a nerd
was not cool at all.

When- when walking home the right way was...
Was critical

getting beat up
or just being harassed, right?

My house is probably
another half mile this way,

and uh, we would play D&D
at the library.

We actually... I remember
they actually were crazy enough

h to buy Lord of the Rings books
and D&D manuals, and...

they may or may not
have found their way

into my poor friends' backpacks
on the way home.

Huzzah!

Um...

these are my pre-paid miniatures
for gaming.

That... That idea of...
Of being a gamer at that time,

as a refuge, right, uh, kinda
is like a nerd sanctuary...

didn't really land with me
'til... 'Til much later.

You know, I'm like, wow,
that kinda saved me, right.

You know, I'm like a fourteen,
fifteen-year-old kid

playing D&D with like some
fifty-year-old lady, you know...

or some sixty-year-old
crippled dude in a wheelchair...

or some really colorful characters of all shapes and sizes.

All sexes, all backgrounds,
all nationalities...

cause if it hadn't been
Dungeons & Dragons

or having been board games
and role-playing games, um...

I would've been running
on the streets

with a lot of other knuckleheads...
and that would've been...

I would've probably
had a very different life.

Thug Life is a miniature, combat, uh,
crime-simulation board game.

We take on the role of the boss,
and you control a gang of thugs in the streets...

uh, you're committing crimes,
doing drive-bys,

I like to say it's kinda fun
for the whole family sorta thing

that always gives people
a big chuckle.

And if I could just get a few kids off the
real streets to play in these phony streets,

I think that's a win,
in my book.

When you look at the game
on a table,

there's something about
that game, just looking at it.

Either the way people are
interacting with the pieces,

or the way the game
just stands on its own

that compels you to want to
take a second look at it, right?

Uh, take a new game
like Photosynthesis

which is one of the most beautiful productions I've seen in a long time.

That game has amazing
table presence.

You walk by a table, you,
from looking across the room...

your eyes are drawn to it,
and you are instantly curious,

and you kind of have an idea
of what this game is like...

just by looking at it because...
they're tabletop games.

Why on Earth would you not want
to have table presence?

So games have three pieces which are flavor, mechanics,
and data.

And so, flavor is the theme.

And mechanics is what you do
in the game.

The data is what information
is stored in the game.

Every time I am making a
decision when I'm making a game,

I'm trying to make
the game better,

I'm trying to make the game
play better,

especially the functionality,
what it is that you're doing.

Uh, my name is Charlie Bink,
and I am the creator of Trekking the National Parks.

I think the theme of Trekking is its initial pull for almost anyone

is they see, "Oh, it's a game
about the national parks."

You almost never see that
without it being like

"Quizzes for ages eight and up,"
you know?

I... I really wanted the box and just everything about it to say,

"Hey, this is a game,
it's about the national parks...

but don't worry, you know,
you're not opening a textbook."

You know it's...
It's a game, it's about that.

The way that the game
came about is, uh,

we've been playing family games
for a number of years.

He introduced us
to a game called Ticket to Ride.

And my wife
and I were on a mission

to visit all 59
of the country's parks.

Each time he'd visit one,
he would take photos of the different parks.

Then about halfway through it,
I think it was when I turned thirty...

he said, "Hey,
I'm gonna take you to whatever park you want to go to,

which one you want to go to?"

Uh, as long as it's the one I haven't been to.
So, so, I had to tick one off.

I said, "Let's go to Denali,
up in Alaska, which is awesome."

And so, we went up there,
and then sort of while we were there...

I think that was
when he had said,

"Why don't you make a game
kinda about the national parks?"

And I kinda was like... "God, it's a good idea,
wish I would have thought of it."

Charlie said,
"You know, Dad, I...

I love, I love the theme,
I hate your idea."

And he says,
"It's because it's just a blatant knock-off of Ticket."

So, we spent the next, oh, gosh,
twelve months just play

testing a whole bunch of different iterations of the game,

and came up with the game
that we have now...

The game has two components,
with the game itself

and then the guidebook
that comes with it.

And that was... Terry and my contribution to it...
because we'd been to the parks,

I took a bunch of photographs
of the... The different parks.

It's not just a standard,

here's the information that
you can get in any guidebook,

it's a personal endeavor
that we did.

So it's one thing to just
have an idea for a game...

but even just getting it to a final prototype...
that's a lot of work.

So the prototype process has
a... A bunch of different steps.

You... You start with the first
earliest prototype

which is, you know,
paper and dice and...

very, very simple things that you're using just so you can play-test it,

and get it to the point where it's good
enough to play-test with someone else.

And your prototype keeps getting better and closer to the final version,

the more people you play with
and the more feedback you get.

And then there's what I think
of as the real prototype

which is what you are going
to submit to the publisher.

One of the, uh,
best prototypes that, uh,

has been presented to us
is Rayguns and Rocketships.

Presented to me in a box...

That was... Was beautiful.
It was a well-done prototype.

Our initial reaction
when we, uh,

saw the game was this was a
great genre to make a game with.

Uh, it was not over-saturated in the sort-of pulpy sci-fi era...

uh, I can immediately tell
that the designer of that game

really had a love
for that genre.

I just... I love games.
I've always loved games.

I'm... I always like things
that are very toy-like...

My name is Scott Rogers,
and I have designed Rayguns and Rocketships.

When I was a kid
I really loved pirates,

and Flash Gordon is just
kinda like a pirate movie

and it's set
in a different genre,

so I really love the swashbuckley-ness of Flash Gordon,
in particular,

but I also love how Flash Gordon kinda treats
a big galaxy almost like a neighborhood

where here's the neighborhood
where the lizard people live;

and here's the neighborhood
where the lion people live;

and here's the neighborhood
where the hawk people live.

A really good friend of mine who is a game designer,
his name's Hardy,

we were sitting around one day
playing What If?

You know, "What if you could do this?
What if you could do that?"

And he said, "If you can make any game you want,
what would it be?"

And I'm a really
big Star Wars fan,

and I went,
"I wanna make a Star Wars game."

And Hardy said, "Pfft, forget Star Wars,
make your own damn Star Wars."

And I'm like, yeah, I... I could,
I could make my own damn Star Wars.

And so that's ultimately what
Rayguns and Rocketships is,

is me creating my own version
of that universe

'cause when I first saw
Star Wars,

it blew my mind like it did to everybody else my age and...
And younger.

Um, but, what it also did to us,

it introduced me to all the things that inspired George Lucas,

uh, these are, you know,
Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers

and so when it came time for me
to make my own damn Star Wars,

I thought about those things in context
of what were the things that I liked?

What were the things
that really got me excited?

And so, I tried to put all those
into Rayguns and Rocketships.

In late 2010, uh,

I caught what I thought
was a flu... A cold.

And I had, um, a fever,
and a cough, and night sweats.

My wife said, "Let's get you to the hospital."
So, thank goodness for my wife.

Ran some tests, and they said,

"Congratulations, you have stage 4 cancer Hodgkin's-Lymphoma."

Uh... took me out of action
for a good eight months

while I was getting
chemotherapy,

and another few months
after that

to just kinda recover mentally
from the situation.

Uh, my advice to everybody
out there, don't get cancer.

When you're that sick,
you really don't feel like doing anything.

I, then, was like, well, I need
to do something with this time.

I need something
to keep myself occupied.

The board game was something that I
had been kinda noodling with as an idea,

but hadn't really committed
towards moving forward.

And it was something that...
What's great about board games is it's...

You can make it yourself,
you don't need anyone else to make a board game.

I started with my sketchbook and I drew out all the components

that I thought I would need
for the game,

what, what parts I would need,
what cards, dice, miniatures, things like that.

Once I've got that created in my sketchbook,
then I built the components.

So, this is the original prototype for Rayguns and Rocketships,

with my hand-drawn,
half-painted cover art.

Uh, grab miniatures from other
games that I already had,

like I used Adam Strange figures
from HeroClix.

Cardboard and make cards
and write on 'em.

Then I play-tested it a lot,
and got feedback, and refined the rules,

refined the rules, refined the rules,
changed things, threw things out,

added things in,

and so now I have this
professional-looking thing.

Well, most of my designs really die in
the first hour and that's a good thing.

The first thing you can do
as a game designer

is fall in love
with one of your designs

which do not work, and you put
in more time and more time.

It's in the lost cost,
the sunk cost fallacy,

so I've put in so much effort
into it, it has to work.

There's tons of observation
going on there,

a lot of notetaking
and then you analyze your notes.

So, there's some analysis
that happens after play-testing.

It's a fundamentally like
integral part of the process.

So Protospiel is the...

For my money, is the best
convention in tabletop gaming.

And it's this weekend
where all these game designers

converge to share
their game prototypes,

and for me,
it's one of the more important events of the year

because it's a place
I can not only debut my games

but I also get play-testing from some really smart game designers.

And... And it's great to get
feedback from regular people,

but getting it from game designers,
they can very quickly focus in

on why the game is good or bad
and give very telling advice.

So, normally,
these would be the guys that you would be using in your game,

but I need to play-test
these new guys.

So, I have four new characters
that I want you to try out.

All these game designers have
come from all over California

and some from even
out of the state,

to show off
their newest creations.

But these are all games
that are still in,

uh, they're still
being worked on.

They're not quite ready
for prime-time yet.

So, we're trying to knock out
all the bugs and the problems

and having lots of cool people
come play our games for free,

and then we get to learn
from them and, oh, what...

What things can we do
to make our games better.

So this game is called
Who Farted?

And it's basically Go Fish meets Clue with fart noises added in.

I finished the art
like a week ago, I think.

This is fairly early
prototyping.

I have been working on this off
and on for a couple of months.

This is kinda first time with a lot of strangers and...
And non-sympathetic,

uh, players.

Things are gonna break.

Somebody's gonna come along and find a way
to play it that you haven't thought of before

but that's awesome because now
you can look and go, "Oh, crud,"

is this a critical thing that I need to fix or
is this an edge case that I can kinda go,

"Okay, well,
maybe a slight tweak at the rules will solve that problem."

So, in front of me is the very
first prototype of Thug Life

but it was meant to just be
a very quick sort of experience.

It's still pretty fast
right now,

but, you know, obviously,
chips give you certain luxuries of like,

"Alright, three guys
are gonna do the thing,

um, I'm gonna get a money, I'm
gonna get a gun, what have you."

And, um, this was the base game.

And um, there's no hoods,
there's no street board,

it was meant to be playable in
a small space by casual gamers,

but this is what we landed on before
we committed to the first Kickstarter,

like the miniatures
production line.

I love miniatures.

I think, personally,
I love miniatures

because of the representational aspect,
and how much fun that is.

The idea of like that's my character,
it looks like my character, it's...

It's what I imagine
my character might look like.

My first experience
with miniatures and...

And maybe the first several dozen experiences with miniatures

was all the same experiences.
I did and that experience was that I couldn't have any.

I couldn't afford miniatures when I was a kid.
They were expensive.

Some of my friends used bottle caps,
rocks, pebbles, pennies, paperclips,

whatever we had within,
you know, arm's reach.

Sometimes we'd fold a piece
of paper into a triangle

and tape a penny to the bottom,
draw a character on it, that was a thing.

We launched on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.
And we didn't get funding.

And uh, you know, we...
We plan to relaunch this year,

but it was a, um,
it was a difficult process, um,

but it was also a tremendous
learning experience.

We learned a ton, um, watching
our game not fund, right?

Watching our game
not be embraced, not be beloved,

not be a Cash Cab,
none of being...

It being none of those things.

It seemed like a doomed
space shuttle launch.

Like you just,
you knew that you were doomed from the beginning,

but you just, you...
You couldn't,

you're not gonna just let go of the steering wheel at that point, right?

You're gonna,
you have to keep trying.

For me, I think,
if I don't have some option

to include miniatures
with Thug Life, uh,

as part, as an option,
as least as an option to play that experience,

I think it's, um,
falling short of the original vision of the game.

And as someone
who loves miniatures so much,

I would never want to play
Thug Life

without the miniatures,
personally.

So when you're shopping
for a game,

the artwork and the name are more important than anything else, right?

You're competing for...
For shelf space.

The artwork in games
is unreasonably important to me.

Uh, there are really good games that I
won't play because the artwork's not good.

You're gonna make
a knee-jerk decision,

as to whether you want
to purchase a game.

Many times,
it's gonna be based on the art.

You actually have to restrain
yourself otherwise.

A... At least
that's how I feel about it.

You see a beautiful game and you want
to buy it just because it looks beautiful.

So it started off,
actually, as a class project

where initially,
my professor was like,

"Make something
that's important to you."

And the one thing that has bothered me
forever has been arranged marriages.

I have been, or tried,
like my parents have tried to make me a victim of it.

A lot of my friends have been in similar
situations and they haven't had a way out.

So, that was the topic.
I knew immediately that the topic was arranged marriage.

My name is Nashra Balagamwala.
I am the designer of Arranged!

Which is a board game about running away from arranged marriages.

It's a game that forces
participants

to confront the struggles
that South Asian girls face

when being forced
into an arranged marriage.

The game play, essentially,
involves three teenage girls and one Rishta Aunty

who, essentially,
translated means the "proposal lady" or the "matchmaker."

And this matchmaker is chasing
down the girls on the board

trying to get them married off to any and every one she can find.

The aunty draws cards
which will have an example

of something that happens
in South Asian culture

that would be considered bizarre
elsewhere.

Um, such as, "You see a girl who uses Fair and Lovely,"
which is a whitening cream,

and, therefore,
she seems more attractive

because she's fairer
and so you move closer to her.

However, the girls
are trying to do things

such as coming up with creative
ways to avoid this aunty,

so that they don't
get married off,

like they don't end up
in a loveless marriage.

So, they are doing things such as,
when they draw the cards, it will say something like,

"You photoshopped yourself
with alcohol to, you know,

get the aunty to move
away from you."

I have run away
from so many of these aunties.

I have done the most ridiculous
things to avoid them,

and so, I'm gonna create
a game about avoiding them.

I was around twelve,
in seventh grade,

where I learned about RISD,
and I researched it

and I was like, "Oh,
what is the Rhode Island School of Design?"

And I was like,
"This is where I want to go."

I want to get out of Pakistan because I
don't believe in these societal norms,

and so I started spending
pretty much every day

working on an art portfolio
so that I'd be able to leave.

It was extremely overwhelming.

There were several points where
I was ready to quit and leave.

It was... Like I spent days
crying freshman year,

and I was like, "This is...
This is too much for me to handle,"

but slowly, I had a really good
support system of friends

who helped me get through it,
get adjusted,

and now, I'm so thankful
that I didn't go back.

I'm on a work visa.
I've been in New York working for the past year.

However, it expires
in a couple of days,

at which point,
I'm returning back to Pakistan.

The money that I make off of it will initially
be used for just to fly back to America

and to be able to apply
for another visa

so I can come back and continue
my life of being a designer.

The day I land, I'm going
to my cousin's wedding.

After that, I'm gonna be dealing with proposals,
as always,

or maybe due to all this press
that I've recently gotten

and really speaking out about
avoiding an arranged marriage,

maybe I'm not gonna get any proposals,
and I'm hoping that's the case.

Maybe this time,
this was my way of avoiding it.

Rob Daviau, the designer of, um,
Pandemic Legacy and a bunch of other games.

He says that the best moment that a gamer has is opening a box.

You open the box, you're like "Wow,
this is so great, look at all this great stuff."

And the worst moment
is reading the rules.

There's an incredible discipline and there's
an incredible talent and skill and craft

that goes into writing
rule books.

And I am passable at it,
at best.

Always a struggle to be very,
very, very clear in the language

without being legalistically
confusing.

You're not an epic science writer or an epic fiction writer even

and it'd rather be boring and use the same expression three times,

rather than trying to be varied
and then confuse the people.

When you're a game designer,
what you really need to focus on

and what you really need
to be confident in

is that you can hand those instructions
to anybody who speaks the language,

and they should be able to play your game without any difficulty.

There are some really good
rulebooks out there, too.

Um, I... I would get
things like, um,

the little pamphlet that comes
with Exploding Kittens.

It's a really great
set of rules.

Our initial version of the instructions for Exploding Kittens,

uh, fit on one card.

It was so elegant.
It was so beautiful.

It was, literally,
like six sentences that explained the whole game,

and there was sort of
a recursive logic to it

that would point you
from one place to another.

I was so proud
of these instructions.

And we sent it out into the world,
we put it through play-testing,

and what we found is nobody can
figure out how to play the game.

Instructions require a massive
level of redundancy.

And they require
so much hand holding.

I would say we went through,
literally, no joke,

hundreds of versions
of Exploding Kittens.

And um,
every time we'd test it out

and find another three things
that we messed up.

When I was doing Trekking,
my thinking was like,

"I'm gonna make this game to the point
where if grandma understands it quickly,

then I've... I've hit it."

You know, a lot of people go, "Well,
will kids be able to understand it?"

Don't worry about them.

A five-year-old will understand
a game faster and easier

than an eighty-year-old
will understand it.

There's definitely benefits
as a small publisher.

If you're publishing your own game,
you can make more that way.

It's possible. There's way more risk,
but there can be more reward.

On one hand, it's amazing
the world we live in,

'cause, you know,
you want something,

you order it on Amazon,
it's at your house.

But then you just expect that
that's just how the world works,

and you don't realize
that when you're Walmart

and someone in Beijing wants to order something from you,
that's no problem.

They have steep discounts and...
But then when you're just like one dude trying to make a game

and you go, "Yeah, I can ship my game to you,
it's gonna cost sixty dollars,"

then people want to bite your head off
'cause they think you're robbing them.

You're like, "I'm not! I promise.
I just... It's that expensive to do this."

We store
all our inventory in a U-Haul

that's not too far down
the street from us.

Uh, boxes stacked
all the way to the ceiling.

Each case holds about
five games, um,

and, yeah, we just keep
the bulk of them there.

Maybe keep about twenty at the house that
we can ship out whenever we need to.

I've worked for other
publishers before.

I've seen what they do,
and you know, I...

I guess there is a little part of me that goes "Ah,
I can do that, you know?"

Now that I've done it, I'm like "Oh,
my God." That's so much work, you know.

It's so much harder.
There's so much more to it than I thought.

Any business requires a team and we have developed a team of,
with different talents.

Again, like I said,
Charlie's the creative.

Uh, Terry's pretty much
the operations,

and then you have to have somebody that helps sell it.
So that's been my role.

I know when I order
something online

or order something
from a website,

I wanna know exactly
when it's coming.

So, when we get an order
on a daily basis,

I've got it packaged
and ready to go,

and it's shipped out
the same day.

It's very involving.

She's the best at shipping.

My parents are older.
They're retired.

They... They've worked,
they're ready to, you know,

be retired
and enjoy their legacy.

And then sort of just,
wow, at the same time,

their legacy is sort of manifested into a physical product.

This is great.

I mean if I'm gonna be
really honest, uh,

running the business
with my parents,

running it with them
has been hugely turbulent.

Hugely turbulent.

I can't say it's brought us
closer together.

It's changed how we interact
with each other.

It's not the same relationship
as it was before the game.

I think if you ask them,
they would say a lot has changed because of it.

I think there's a difference between an artist and a designer.

I think an artist is somebody who's creating
something that they personally love

and they don't give a darn what
anybody else thinks about it,

and they don't have to 'cause they're creating it for their own...

Their own enjoyment.
And that can be, it can be a composer,

a game designer, a writer,
whatever it is.

When you're an artist,
you're doing it,

and you might, you might like
other people to like it,

but all that matters is that
you like it.

A vast majority, if not all,
of our negative reactions have been on social media.

I think a lot of people
see the game,

they judge the game based on, uh,
its cultural, its cultural look.

And it's kind of subversive,
you know, name and tone.

In Thug Life, there's characters
called homies.

They're unique signature
individuals.

Many of which are based
on actual people.

Uncles, and friends,
and neighbors, right?

The one comment
we would always have was like,

"Hey, why can't it be Vikings, or,
you know, ninjas, or that sort of thing?'

And sure, but my attitude was
always if I'm going to go ahead

and do that game,
games I've already done before, why even bother?

Rather than just re-skin it,
I would just do a completely different game.

Why is it not okay for this game to exist,
when other games just like it,

actually games
much more irresponsible,

that actually feature graphic sex,
graphic violence, graphic depictions of drug use,

and you know, crime,
why this pushback to this theme right now?

In any kind of business venture,
if you're going to compromise your effort

based on a really small amount
of public opinion,

you're not going to really do anything that's honest or worthwhile.

The number one reason we didn't get our
funding was our price point was too high

for the community that would
have wanted to buy our game.

Most of the game friends that are in my immediate circle are,

you know, white gamers, I love these guys,
I love playing games with them.

And I don't mean to have like this extensive
conversation about color in gaming,

but with Thug Life,
it's got black kids in it,

it's got, you know, brown kids in it,
it's got yellow kids in it.

You know, Black, Asian,
you know, Hispanic kids,

they're too poor
to buy Thug Life.

When I was a kid,
I loved games of all sorts,

I mean,
I think I started playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was eight.

I'd have to drive five,
six cities away

before I could even find
a game store.

And the bummer of those drives
were often the fact

that when we'd arrive,
we couldn't afford anything at the store.

So, here I am as an adult,
who's really into the miniatures hobby, and I love that,

creating games that I would've priced myself out as...
As a kid.

Even if Thug Life
cost thirty dollars.

Even if it cost twenty dollars
when I was a kid,

there's no way I would have
been able to afford this game.

Something I wasn't really
aware of as a child

was that how actually white
the board game industry was.

It wasn't actually
'til many years later

when I put Thug Life out into space that I realized it wasn't just,

you know, white people
playing board games.

It was American and European white
culture that were defining the games.

As amazing as the gaming
renaissance has been,

I have never been more aware
of not being a white person

than this journey that kind
of Thug Life took me on.

Yeah, yeah, we have a diversity
problem in tabletop games.

A puzzling diversity problem because there's
no real like deep-seeded cultural bias

or like weird made-up
cultural tradition

around masculinity
and game design.

People might be more interested
in them

if they felt that they were
reflected in them.

I don't think the characters
are that diverse

in a lot of strategy
board games.

Like my daughters,
I have many daughters and I got a kids' game one time,

and there was four
boy characters and one girl.

And my girls said, "Why is there
only one girl character?"

And I said, "I don't know,
a lot of my games are like that."

Say, take Clue, for example,
all the characters are white.

In fact,
there's a Mrs. White in there.

When you open up
a box of miniatures

and all you have
is white characters,

you're basically telling
a lot of people

that you're not part
of this experience.

Seeing Star Trek as a kid,
I thought it was neat that there was like, you know,

a black chick on the spaceship,
there was an Asian guy on the spaceship.

You know,
but always in my brain,

and the running joke
with me and my friends

was like I guess Mexicans
never made it to space.

'Cause as inclusive as that is
and as cool as it was,

Star Trek's one of my favorite shows of all time,
you can't ever do it all, right?

There's someone saying, "Hey,
how come there's no Portuguese guy on that ship?" Right?

We're better at it
than we even were one year ago

and I think, next year,
we'll be better to a greater degree than we are this year.

And that's coming
from people being...

People in publishing,
like myself and my peers,

and people who care about growing the
market beyond our segment right now.

Another thing that we are doing,
and what I hope to do,

is that we're just hiring,
naturally,

hiring more people
of greater demographics

so that it is becoming
a little bit more natural

and not part
of our implicit bias.

If people aren't actively
looking for new designers

who maybe represent
different points of view,

different classes,
different ethnicities,

different languages,
different regions of the world

that are not known
for making games,

we have to be curious
about finding new voices.

So, I get asked a lot
about Kickstarter.

It closed the divide
between creator and fan,

in a way that no other medium
has before, right?

As, in my opinion,
as profound as the democratization of like music tools, right?

For people to be able
to make like homemade,

home studio recordings
and put it on YouTube.

It's almost that much
of a seismic shift.

Crowdfunding enables
the actual market to decide.

It allows anybody
to try their hand at a game,

and the good ones succeed
and the bad ones fail,

but we get so many more
out the door.

It's not,
"Here's a thousand, pick two."

It's, "Here's a thousand,
pick a thousand."

Kickstarter operates really well in terms of outsiders or independents

or people who are taking a risk.

You know people who are outside of
the kinda normal chain of distribution

or manufacturing or publishing that can come here,
to Kickstarter, and say,

"You know what,
I think I have a good idea

and, you know, I think I know
who would like it."

You now have this outlet of Kickstarter that
you can go out and you can enter your game,

which is fine,
you will sell, you know,

a good game that's well marketed will probably sell,
you know, 800 to 1200 copies,

and almost to a person that's
gonna be the end of that game.

You have a calling card that you can use and say, "Hey,
I did this game,"

but all you've done
is put another game

that will now be an orphan
into the marketplace

and there's no plan for you to continue to market that game

for a couple of more years.

No plan for you to reprint
that game on your own

with the profits that you've made off the first round of the game.

There's a ton more games
that exist, of course,

because the vetting process
of publishers,

the gatekeeping of the traditional
publisher model can be circumvented now,

and has been proven financially viable for many creators.

Of course, the absence
of that vetting process

means that it's a little bit more risky for the player,
for the consumer, right?

I don't know if this game's
been play-tested.

I don't know if it's been put through its development paces.
I'm taking a chance.

Bink Inc. Is... I don't know,
I mean, I'm selling the games.

I'd like to continue it.
I have no idea where I'm at right now.

There was definitely a moment where
I just realized I needed to get a job.

The selling games thing
wasn't paying all the bills,

so I needed to get back
in the working world,

make some money, so I can
continue to sell the games.

There was a time when a very
prestigious game company

was flat out going to buy Trekking.
It wasn't a question.

All I had to do was say yes.

And there was a big family
disagreement about it.

I was the only one
that wanted to do it.

My parents were very much
against it.

He did have an offer, but the
game is still pretty young.

And we felt that it still had a lot more potential,
and why sell it now?

Let's see what happens with it.

I need this
to be a source of income.

I need it to grow like faster
is always better.

Um, I think their perspective
is, you know,

we need to maintain the legacy and we need to not sell the farm.

Well, it would be like
selling off your child.

I mean, we gave birth
to this thing as a family,

and then just to hand the game to somebody else who really is more...

Would be more into it from
a monetary standpoint than...

I mean, we're emotionally
attached to it.

I definitely tell people now...

Really think about it before you start a
family business 'cause it's not something...

It's not like a normal business.

I like the discovery
of new games.

I like when we find an opportunity,
whether it is a person

who has given us a game
that is very rough

and we can try to work with that vision to see it to the end,

and then,
to add in the graphic design

and the artwork
and how it all fits in a box.

That whole process,
I absolutely am just fanatic about.

I love that part
of the business.

Working with publishers
might seem frustrating

because especially
when you're starting,

you're young, you're impulsive,
you're excitable,

you feel like
you know everything.

You've learned all the lessons
you need to know.

Um... and you've got this brilliant thing that you gotta put out

and publisher is kinda standing in the way of your unbridled genius.

We really ask that, uh,
that when we see new games that come in that are pitched to us,

are we dealing with people
who are being flexible or not?

I think every new designer should get their ass kicked by a publisher.

I'm put in the unenviable
position

of basically people coming to me and saying,
"This is my grandchild."

And I say, "Well, let me
tell you about your grandchild."

That their brilliant design
is crap...

Eyebrows are a little funny...

That their ideas are not nearly as brilliant as they think they are...

Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with the way the nose is bent...

In two seconds,
somebody with experience

can show you the problem
you've been working on for years

is actually a problem rather than the
solution you've sort of glommed onto.

And I'm not sure that arms gonna give,
you know, it's kinda frustrating,

but ultimately, my job
is to be as critical as I can,

to make sure that out of the probably four to five hundred designs

that we see
over the course of a year,

the four that we intend
to move forward on and publish,

which, of course, includes all
of our professional designers

and all of the people
that we've worked with before,

you know, we find absolutely
the best fit for game

and for audience and for
marketing purposes that we can.

Publishers don't have
the weaknesses of an individual

trying to bring their game
to the marketplace.

They're not gonna be an expert in finance, legal,
graphic design,

editing, artwork,
sales management, warehousing, logistics.

I would never take the publishing experience away from a new designer

because it feels like a crucible
you have to go to... Go through.

I think that not every designer
needs a publisher,

but they won't find that out until you've gone through the test.

Catan is a board game
with global appeal.

Introduced in 1995, it sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide

and has been translated
in over 40 languages.

What is the game
you're nuts about?

Settlers of Catan!

- Settlers of Catan!
- That's a good one.

I think my first experience

with Settlers of Catan
was in 1995 at Gen Con.

My first time playing Catan,
um, was glorious.

It kind of opened
my eyes to like,

"Oh, this is what
I've been looking for."

I played a lot of games
prior that, really,

I just kind of found
disappointing.

It didn't really scratch the itch in the same way that Catan did.

It was a phenomenon.
It was a sensation when it came over.

So, Catan is this iconic
brand, right?

It's a foundational game,
and by that,

I mean, it's something
that has really.

It's at the core root of the
tabletop game experience.

It's always been
a very successful game,

but over especially like maybe
the last five to eight years,

you've seen this kind
of new momentum.

My dad was always
inspired by stories.

That was always the foundation
for game design,

and so at a very early age,
like he always read stories to us.

And like he would, you know,
sit on a train ride

and he would sort of
look out of the window

and he's probably thinking
about, you know, some story.

And with Catan particularly,
it was Vikings.

He just immersed himself
in that kind of fantasy

and that kind of story,
and that gave birth to the game.

That was the foundation
of the Catan game.

Klaus always put a magazine,

like a comic, next to my place,
when we tested games.

And he realized that I didn't like the game,
when I was grabbing

for the magazine and started
reading during play.

And that never happened
with Catan.

My dad, before he started doing game development,
he ran his father's business.

He was a dental technician.

They had a dental lab,
and it was a tough job running that business.

It wasn't his passion.

He liked that work,
but like it wasn't his passion,

and so like as a way to take
refuge and to do something,

like have a creative outlet,
he started game design.

And so, that hobby grew
more seriously,

and then at some point, like,
he started to win some awards,

and that encouraged him
to keep on going

and, eventually, turn
into a full-time profession.

He didn't expect it to catch on
to that extent because it was...

We figured it would be successful,
but not like to that scale.

It's been really amazing
like my dad like is in Germany,

and he's doing a lot
of the development.

And like I... early on, I worked
with our publisher here,

and then my brother Benjamin
is... He can do both,

he does the development
and also the business part.

So, the three of us
really complement each other,

and like we have a really great
working relationship.

And it's family and business.
It's all really one, and so we're very...

I feel very blessed
to have that setup.

The more exciting part of the job is now
developing games together with Klaus.

For two or three years,

we're like developing
the new products together.

I would never have approached
both of them

if I didn't think that we would get along,
so that was the basis.

And now working together
with them

even made our relationship
stronger.

To have something, like,
every morning when you get up

and then you know
you're working on something

that you're passionate about
with your family...

It's really, um,
we feel extremely grateful

and lucky
to be in that situation.

So, Haunted Mansion is a very special place in our household.

It's my favorite and my wife's favorite attraction at Disneyland Park.

It was the place
that I proposed to my wife.

I wanted to do it in a place that I knew wouldn't get torn down

after a whole bunch of years, so I said, oh,
Haunted Mansion is a place we both like.

We both like going
to Disneyland.

We've both been many,
many, many times,

and so,
I decided I was going to propose to her in the Haunted Mansion.

I'm sure my wife feels
I have too many games.

She likes that I like
to play them.

She's always very good about letting
me go off and play games with friends.

Now my son is a little more
game to play board games.

Now he's more of a video gamer
than a board gamer,

but he will go with me sometimes to some of the local conventions,

Strategicon, and, um,
we'll play games like Munchkin or X-Wing or things like that.

I have tried for many years to get my
daughter to play board games with me.

A few years ago, she told me she doesn't play board games.
She doesn't like them.

Although she recently had a birthday,
and what did they do? They played card games.

They played Uno; they played
Cards Against Humanity;

they played one
of my prototypes,

so maybe she's coming around,
I don't know.

We play a lot of games, I guess.
A lot of pretty good variety, I guess.

I shouldn't complain.
But they won't play Star Wars games with me.

No... they're boring!

They take six hours.

There's nothing wrong
with a good six-hour game.

So, when Evelyn
was like four years old,

she came up to me
with a drawing, and I said,

"Oh, it's a lovely drawing,
Evelyn."

And she said, "It's not a
drawing, Dad, it's a game."

And I said, "Alright, well,
what kind of game is this."

And she said, "Well,
it was a picture of a castle

and there was a princess
in like one of the windows,

and she says,
"Well you're a prince

and you climb up the castle and then you go
save the princess and you give her a kiss."

And I'm like, "It's not
a bad idea for a game."

So, this is the art of the game
that she's working on.

So, she's doing these different illustrations, and,
you know, based on my design,

but she's got a really
great style, I think.

And it's also, I just think
it's fun that she's...

My daughter's contributing
the art.

Mm-Hm.

$750.

Well, actually,
he has the family discount

because I'm charging him $10 for each colored picture,
but my actual rate is $30, so...

- Getting a heck of a deal.
- Mm-Hm.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

I assume your rate will go up
with the next project.

It could.

So my parents have played the game and they really like it.

They've had a good time,
and they think it's a funny game about things

that have actually happened.

They can relate to some
of those cards themselves.

I knew what arranged marriages were when I was four or five years old

because every single person around me had an arranged marriage.

However, watching any movies,
which were Western movies, I was like,

"Wait, but those guys met
each other, they went on a date.

Mom, Dad, you didn't do that.

You didn't even meet each other 'til the day of your engagement."

I was a very stubborn child.

I am still very stubborn,
and also a hopeless romantic.

And I was like,
"Nope, not happening.

I'm going to do whatever it takes to fight my way out of it."

So, initially,
I just wanted it to be a way to get my frustration out

and to write it all down.

You know, write out
all the points that anger me.

And then as I started to make it,
when I was play-testing it,

some of my Western friends started to play it,
and found the examples so funny.

Someone was on the floor
in fits of laughter,

like,
"Oh, my God, this is unreal.

And I'm like, "No, that's actually based off of something that,
you know, happens."

And he couldn't believe that,
which is what got him

to start thinking and talking to me more about what the society is like.

And then I realized
how powerful it could be

that it could really serve
as a platform

for people to be able
to discuss this issue.

I am making it
for all the women in Pakistan

that have been forced
into an arranged marriage.

For the women that believe
that they don't have a choice

because this was very difficult for me
to publish it and get it out to the world.

It's been very controversial.
I have received messages from people like,

"Oh, enjoy your fame
while it lasts

because when you come home,
you're gonna be dealing with the consequences of it,"

and it's gonna be difficult.

I've spoken out
about a lot of things

that people
don't want to discuss,

but I am hoping
that with this game,

someone else will be inspired to be like, "No,
I can break free, too."

And even if it affects
one person,

that's good,
that's still one life.

That's why I'm always trying
to create work

that can change the way people
think about things

or talk about issues
that are present.

Because as corny as it sounds,
I do want to make the world a better place.

And I think that art
is very powerful

and, even though,
everyone says, you know,

"I want to use my work
to make a difference,"

does everyone really do that?

And if you're presented with the opportunity to do it,
you should jump on it.

Costs of the materials for your game will affect or should affect

choices you make
in designing a game.

There's not a lot of money
to be made in tabletop gaming.

Um, you know,
it's that old saying,

how do you take a big fortune
and make it a small one?

You know,
go into tabletop gaming.

Between the sizes that you
choose for your components

or the weight
of your overall game

you're going to make
a lot of choices, um,

about the game and even the game design to keep your costs down,

so that you can make something that actually can generate some money.

The biggest challenges that you
have with board game production

is if you source from twenty different
suppliers' components for one game.

It starts with printed sheets,
goes over the instruction sheet,

wooden pieces, plastic components,
whatever's in the game.

You need to have everything in place
at the right time and the right quantity.

For this game,
we definitely have more than ten suppliers

for the different components.

Start with the box,
you have a printed sheet and you have the board itself.

So, it's already two suppliers.

You have the board
of the playing cards,

you have the printable
playing cards,

cello-wrapping of the playing cards,
which is three suppliers.

The plastic components in this game are coming from one supplier.

The wooden pieces are coming
from a different supplier.

The vacuum tray,
the instruction sheet,

the game board
that we produce in-house.

The board itself,
different supplier

than the other board
that we use for the boxes.

We have the tape that we put on the board,
and we have the printed sheets.

For a game like that,
if we go through every component in detail,

we, for sure, have at least
fifteen different suppliers.

I'm back in Pakistan and I'm dealing with the production of the game.

I wanted to get the game
made in Pakistan

because I want to support
the local economy,

however, it's made it
a lot more difficult.

Customs clearance has also
become a lot more difficult

because, now,
they're looking for drugs

inside my game for some reason.

So, the rule book which is made out of double layers of paper

was ripped apart.

And, you know,
they were poking holes in it just to find the drugs.

It's so sad to see
all my efforts ripped apart.

When I got back to Pakistan,
I went to my cousin's wedding,

and these aunties that normally loved me,
hugged me, wanted me to marry their sons

were now rolling their eyes at me,
kind of sitting in a corner

and whispering
every time I walked by.

And it was a very hostile
environment,

and they would come up
and be like,

"Oh, Beta,
we heard about your game."

And it was just the most
disapproving look,

but I just smiled politely
and walked away

because I did not have
the energy to deal with them.

And, quite frankly,
I'm relieved that they no longer want me to marry their sons.

I have been working on my O-1 Visa full time,
and I really hope I get it.

I'm just...
My fingers are crossed.

Everyone's hoping and praying for me,
and if, hopefully, I do get it,

I do want to move back
to New York.

In the second Kickstarter launch,
we made the game cheaper.

We've learned a lot more about
what gamers do and don't want.

We created a different sort of
approach to the components.

We're using these really
well-produced standees.

The fact that the people's hands that
we really wanted to put the game in

couldn't afford it and...

And that was a very sobering
sort of conversation

because it stood contrary
to a lot of the things

that we initially
sought out to do in the game.

Yes, I would love to have created a
miniatures experience for a lot of these kids.

At the end of the day,

I think the gateway that the game is creating now is way better.

There's almost no version
of this where we don't fund.

I'm not a marketing person
or a business person,

so I just thought, you know,
this game is about national parks,

it needs to be made in America.

Making anything
in America is very expensive,

and so it made that first print run,
which did sell out,

it made it hard to make
any money off of.

I had to make a decision,
once I was sort of running out of the first print run,

am I going to continue
making this game?

And if I do, do I actually want to,
you know, buy some groceries with it?

I have to go
to a Chinese manufacturer.

Since I did my second print run
with China,

I am making about a little more than three times as much per copy.

So, it's significant.

Being able to get
the unit price per game low,

obviously,
it helps me selling the game

or it helps, you know,
the publisher selling the game,

but it actually helps
the consumer also.

You know a game that would maybe cost $60 suddenly costs $40,

and those tiers make a huge difference for people's buying habits,

which, of course, then also,
get them to play the game which lets them enjoy the game.

It gets it out there more.

I was very worried
the first time around

that if the game
wasn't made in America

that customers
would not like that.

So, um... But I've been
selling it a lot ever since,

and actually, only one time ever,
this one lady came up to me.

Now, this was before
the second printing.

This was when I was still
selling the American edition,

and she came up,
she looked at the game,

and she sort of eyed me suspiciously and said,
"Where was this made?"

I said,
"It was made in America."

She goes, "Oh, okay."
Then she just walked away.

She didn't buy the game.

There's a convention season
and then there's a con circuit,

but conventions, especially
pop culture conventions

where you see
a hundred thousand people

and it looks, "Oh,
look how exciting that looks,"

that is a real expensive way
to make money.

We take the game
to conferences all the time,

and the problem with conferences is it's really hard to stand out.

In previous years
what we've done is

we've printed out
giant decks of cards,

like six-foot tall versions of cards that take four people to lift,

uh, so that we can play
with people

and stand out in the noise
of a conference.

This is it.

This could be
the end of the game.

This year for conference season,

uh, we are building a giant Exploding Kittens vending machine

that we call
the Exploding Kittens dispenser.

It's huge and the trick to this

is it's absolutely
human powered.

We had to register
as a grocery store,

in order to get
all this wholesale produce.

Watermelons and potatoes
and onions and pineapples

and all kinds of insane things
to spit out the machine,

when you push
that random button.

Yeah, we actually tried.

Really?
- The problem is, we're not allowed

to bring live animals
on to the conference floor.

So, we thought it would be hilarious to give out real kittens,

and take them back 'cause we don't want to stick people

with essentially,
adopting a cat,

uh, but they won't even let them
into the conference.

Uh, when I was eight years old,
I read Dragon Magazine,

and in the back
of Dragon Magazine

there was an ad
for a conference called Gen Con.

And for years,
I dreamt about going to Gen Con.

I never went.
It took me a long time to get there.

What I love most about Gen Con is, honestly,
the spectacle.

It's a great convention floor.

You go to enough Comic Cons and you go,
"This is just a flea market."

But what I love about game cons is
people are there to actually do things.

They're there
to actually play games.

And I've met friends
that I stay in touch with

just because I met them
at a table at a game con,

and that's never happened
to me at a Comic Con.

What am I looking forward
to most at Gen Con?

Well, seeing the fans.

Meeting a lot of friends
that I know from past years,

meeting a lot of people
for the first time

who are really excited
to play our games.

- This is our first year.
- Yeah.

- So, I'm kinda excited.
- Yeah.

Games just always bring
the family together.

They make us laugh
and that's just one thing

that we've instilled in our
family's lives is game night.

It's actually better.
Like it's more than I thought.

- It's a lot of fun.
- Yeah, it's amazing.

The thing about Gen Con is really that makes it so interesting

is the level of excitement.

It's the biggest game convention in the world for tabletop gaming.

There's more people who come
here than anywhere else.

This year, they sold out,

and it's just every game publisher of any note comes here.

There's designers,
there's people,

all over the place
just so much going on.

So that's at hype level.
The biggest games of the year are often released here.

It is the event of the summer.
It's Christmas in August.

Once I started getting into tabletop gaming and I did some research

about where was the best place to meet publishers,
I always heard Gen Con.

If you have a game you want to sell,
go to Gen Con.

And I sent you the rules...

Uh, yep, I read the rules
and everything, too, yeah.

So it's a very simple card game,
but horror-themed.

I'm a big fan of like
The Haunted Mansion and Disney,

so I wanted to create something
that was scary

but not blood and gore
and anything like that.

I like the puzzle aspect.

I like the fact that you play cooperatively, competitively,
and solo.

Yeah, this would be something I'd love
to take back and test with my group.

Well then, thank you very much.

- I appreciate you taking the time.
- My pleasure.

So this was,
this game was kind of derived

from my love for The Haunted
Mansion at Disneyland.

The ghosts are going to float in,
so as we play around,

we're going to get a hand
of three cards.

Actually, I have one other
really simple card game.

All the art is done
by me and my daughter.

I think it went really well.
The fact that they were willing to spend that much time with me

is a really good sign.

The fact that they wanted to see
everything that I had

was amazing experience

because I brought a lot of diverse games with me to the show,

and I went in there expecting to only pitch maybe one or two games.

And the fact that they wanted to see everything,
was a really nice surprise.

So a lot of his stuff is relatively original,
which is good.

Um, I like the fact
that he has a little story

behind the games
that he's pitching.

You know, I don't have
any signed contract.

I'm not going away with any
sort of handshake or guarantee,

but right now, I'm feeling
really positive about this show.

Gen Con is the largest
convention in North America,

but Essen Spiel is the largest
convention for Europe.

We've seen a lot of games come over from Europe because I think,
you know,

the gaming community in Europe
was much stronger than the U.S.

Um, and I think Europe really showed people in
North America how innovative a game could be,

and not just the standard fare that's been out,
you know, year over year.

The Spiel in Essen,
this convention is very special

because it brings a lot of people,
around 150,000, together.

It's amazing to see people
from all across Europe,

all across the world coming
together to play tabletop games.

And these are not just the gamers who play games every day,

these are families, these are school classes,
and it brings joy together,

in a big, big forum
of seeing so many people playing

that there are so many other
people who are interested.

Uh, it's huge and it's full of board games,
and just go with a random stranger, play a game,

and have big fun with it.

The great thing
about Essen is that

it's a convention for everyone,
I would say.

Families... Grandparents,
gamers, geeks, casual gamers,

uh, beginners,
everyone gathers here.

And there is a game
for everyone.

We are really looking forward,
each year, to come here to Essen

because as you can see around,
it's full, it's packed.

Board games is a big thing,
since ages here in Germany,

and the whole fair
reflects this.

If you're arriving at Spiel and you haven't been here before then,
for me,

it's some of the biggest conference halls I've been in ever.

And you walk in and you almost can't see the end of the hall.

It's really key
for us to be here

and to get the latest trends,
reactions on our games here.

It also brings a focus
for the press.

It brings a focus
for the journalists,

and that means the message
of "we are playing games"

gets really carried out into
the world, into the country,

and that's good
for the culture of gaming.

And that's also a very special
part of this convention.

If the world doesn't play games,
then we don't need any game designers anymore,

and the world would be certainly
a much sadder place.

There's a local store,
Game Empire,

uh, run by this great dude
named Chuck.

He's been running...
has been in the game for a hundred years.

And he was talking to me about there's only two awards that matter,
on your box.

There's Spiel des Jahres and there's also, um,
the Mensa award. Right?

Um, and if it's not one of those two awards it doesn't matter.
Keep it off your box.

I think the award is great because it
gets people really focused on quality,

and, uh, I don't know...

When you see that seal on
the box, it's something special.

I saw it on Settlers of Catan,
you know,

and that was a big moment for me
when I started playing that.

Welcome everybody.

The Spiel des Jahres
in Germany is one of the most,

if not the most important awards you can get in the gaming industry.

There are three selected
every year.

One is for the children and one is now more for the gamers.

One is for the families
and there is a list of nominees.

Three and then,
like for the Oscars, you go there,

and if you're lucky,
you are one of the better three,

one of the luckier three,

and you win
the Game of the Year.

The criteria is mostly the experience that the game can create,

of course, also, hardware,
the design, the rules are important,

but, mostly,
it's just the, uh, experiences.

The Game of the Year is actually decided by a jury of journalists

who are very knowledgeable about games,
who write a lot about games,

and who then sit together
until the white smoke comes up

and they have decided which one
is the Game of the Year.

There's people who say we're like the Oscars of the board games.

It's very important
in Europe, in Germany.

It's just something
that's been put in front of me.

And it's been so close that it's just sort
of this fun thing to kind of aspire to

So, I think it gets a certain amount of recognition,
and you get sales,

and then you get
this wooden popple,

which looks like
it'd be fun to hold.

I haven't touched it
because I don't want to ruin it.

So, when I won the Spiel
des Jahres with Hanabi,

I was a little confused
because it was the first time

they gave it
to a very small game,

so I was like, "Oh, did they really give it to us?
Okay, oh, that's nice."

It was one of the stressful
moments of my life

and I have three kids,
I know stress.

And, uh, yeah, it was...
It's indescribable.

I... just remember
grinning a lot

and being really happy
and amazed.

Scary. Then it was, like, really surprised,
and then you're really glad,

and then it was amazing.

The success was huge,
and I quit my day job.

I was a schoolteacher by then, so I liked it,
but I wanted to design games full time.

The feeling was spectacular because we
had a lot of financial problems at this time.

And um, this was a big help.

The feeling was, of course,
very nice.

I wasn't present
at the awards ceremony

because I, at that time,
was in America and stuck in a little snowstorm.

And I was thinking whether
I should next time not go there

because maybe that's a better luck than going there all the time

and not getting
the Game of the Year.

I would like to segue to Reiner Knizia to say that everybody knows

he's unbelievably prolific.

He invented many of the mechanics that a lot of designers use.

He was one of the first guys that made a career out of business.

He's the consummate businessman.

Of course,
he's a great game designer,

but he built a business out of being nothing but a creative designer,

in a time when nobody's
even heard of that.

Nobody made a living doing this.

He just made game after game
after game after game.

The quality was amazing
and excellent.

The industry changes.
The games we are designing today are different from the games

we decided to design
in the '90s.

What is relevant
to people is different,

therefore,
what excites them is different.

And I think one of the bigger challenges
in a long career is to remain relevant

and not just stay
with your old tools.

And I think
one of the indicators

if you're still relevant is being nominated or winning awards.

It's crazy to be nominated.
It's very big.

It's what I dreamt of
all the time, so yeah...

King Domino!

He's done so much for this industry.
He's always on every fair.

He's always working,
explaining his games to other people,

so I think it's really important
for the industry,

so I was very happy that at last he gets this award.
Yeah.

People say, uh, you sell a lot
of games after you win.

I mean, uh, we are not allowed
to talk about numbers,

but we can say it's at least 200,00 that you
will make in the next Christmas selling.

If a game wins the Spiel des Jahres,
that Christmas in Germany,

it sells two-or-three hundred
thousand copies.

And then, you expect it has
some kind of a life after that.

A lot of people,
they buy games as gifts at Christmas time

and they don't know about which games are the good ones.

And so over the years,
they trusted this association as much

that they just go into the
stores and buy the game.

So you asked me,
what can a game designer expect

when they publish one, two,
or three games,

and how financially sound
is that going to be?

My answer is,
if that's the question you want to ask,

don't be a game designer.

The average royalty rate
in our industry

is between three
and ten percent.

So, what happens is if you license a game to a publisher,

let's say you get a 5 % royalty 'cause that's just easy to figure out.

And your game's gonna sell for $20, again,
'cause it's easy math.

So, I go to the store
and I buy your game for $20.

How much money do you get?

Well, the store gets $10 'cause that's their profit on it,

and the publisher gets $10.

And they are going to give you
5 % of that $10,

so they're going to give you
50 cents for a $20 game.

You just can't expect that there's going to be a lot of money initially.

It's gonna grow as the game grows,
but it's gonna start very small.

I think if you do it
for the money,

you will not become
a successful game designer

and you will not become a
successful author.

You need to be prepared
to put a lot of energy in,

and you need to be intrinsically motivated because you want to do it.

You want to hold the box. You want to say,
"I made this, I made this..."

I hate to even say the word "product,"
I think that lessens it,

but like I made this kind of piece of art that everyone can enjoy.

One has to be a realistic.
Not every game is a highflier.

Everybody knows
it's like in the movie industry.

They say you make ten movies
and eight of them lose money

and one just earns
what it costs,

and the tenth
has to earn it all.

The problem is you never know
which one is the tenth,

and it's the same
with the games.

Uh, I've been looking forward to this moment, um,
for a long time.

Um, all I really wanted is this game to be real,
and here it is.

It's real, it's on the shelf,
it exists as a thing for people to buy,

and, uh, it's really cool.

I, um, I really, um,
I'm really proud that it's here

amongst all these other games
that I really like playing.

And now other people can come
and play it and buy it.

So, the story goes that George
Lucas went to King Features,

the guys who own Flash Gordon,
and said,

"Hey, I'd love to make a movie
of Flash Gordon,"

and they said,
"Nope, you can't do that."

And so, George says, "Alright,
I'm going to make my own damn Flash Gordon,"

and he went off
and made Star Wars.

And... I wouldn't be lying if that didn't inspire me in the long run

to make my own damn Star Wars,

and that's Rayguns
and Rocketships.

So, you know, who knows,
if anybody wants to make a movie of Rayguns and Rocketships,

give me a call.

'Cause then they'll make their own damn thing.
No, I want... I want...

I can see Rayguns and Rocketships existing as a movie, right?

I have big plans
for Rayguns and Rocketships.

The question is...

...will people buy it and will
they be enthusiastic about it?

And if they are, then great,
then we're off and running,

and it means, hopefully,
expansions and all types of good stuff.

And then, hopefully,
it will grow.

Hopefully, it will grow
into bigger and better

and more interesting versions
of the game

and of the story
and of the universe

because that's what got me
really excited

about making Rayguns
and Rocketships is I got to...

I'm making a universe,
a galaxy from scratch, and it's a lot of fun.

Once we were
almost out of the first edition,

I was personally feeling like I didn't want to reprint the game,
unless I did a nice update,

clean up some of the stuff
I wasn't happy with,

cut out all the extra fat
and make it exactly the game

that will make my customer
the happiest.

Basically, I wanted
to make a second edition.

My parents, they were happy
with the pace it was selling.

It was running out, but this isn't sustainable,
ordering another run of the game

the way we're doing it now
isn't going to fix anything.

Something needs to change big,
if it's worth continuing to do this

is to try to make
a business out of it.

Months and months later,
an opportunity kind of presented itself

where I could do a second edition with another company.

I was working another job
for a while,

and then I, just sort of by happenstance,
met the partner that I have now.

He's an Amazon seller.

He's been in the game industry
for a while,

and he wanted to start
publishing.

And so, we decided, we kind of met up and decided,
let's start Underdog Games.

And our first product is the
second edition of Trekking.

It just seemed like
the perfect time

to just rekindle it
right then and there.

Second Edition,

Sort of investing more in web sales and advertising online,

and the reactions have been
night and day different.

We've been selling
a ton of them.

We did an initial print run of 9000 copies
- Second Edition

and within three months
it was all out.

We had to reprint again,
so there's already a second printing of the Second Edition,

and we've just been trying to get it out to more and more people.

And, hopefully, next year,
we'll actually get into retail stores.

I think my parents' reaction had I sold the game,
they might've been disappointed,

but I, honestly, think they are
looking for my best interests

and they have a longer view
than I have.

Um, and, uh,
I have to thank them for that.

There are some things that I think I see way more clearly than they do,

and, um, I have to say that
the decision not to sell

was something they saw
a lot more clearly than I did.

I'm happy that I did it
as a family

because I did not have the tools
or the resources to do it alone.

The main thing that I want
is to be in this industry.

I want this to be...

I want it to be my resumé
that I am in the game industry.

"Oh, Charlie Bink?"
"Yeah, he's in the game industry."

And so, wherever I end up
or whatever I end up doing,

I wanted to be
in this industry, so...

I think I'm on my way.

I think I'm crawling
in that direction.

We funded!

So, we just finished
the Kickstarter,

and, uh, it was kind
of a crazy ride.

Had a really interesting time.

I mean,
there was a lot of results that we were expecting

and there was definitely
a lot of surprises.

A bittersweet journey throughout,
but at the end of the day,

it was extremely positive and we actually were able to connect

with a pretty excited crew
of backers.

So, by making our game more affordable and by using standees,

our goal was to make it
accessible to the audience

that the game was,
not necessarily originally intended for,

but that we wanted to bring
into the gaming space.

You know,
it's kind of like a kind of love letter to the streets,

now they can have it, too.

We'd always asked ourselves
many, many times,

"Is this too much?
Is this too far?"

And in every case,
after listening to critics

and after really thinking
about what we are doing,

our answer was always, "No,
really this isn't far enough."

We're going right to the edge,
looking down,

and it's awesome like we really
like the view here.

We didn't want to do something that had
already been done in the space before.

We didn't want to do anything that was untrue to our artistic vision,

to our design vision,
and to the kind of thematic core of the game.

The name itself says it all.

If you're not trying to create this sort of street life experience,

the game is called Thug Life.
Why even bother?

I'm back in New York.

For the past year,
I have been traveling,

speaking at places such as human rights conventions,
game design conferences,

women's empowerment events,

and I've gotten the opportunity to do all of this because of my game.

I've also come back to America

because the visa that I got
was based off of this game.

And now I am pursuing my career.

I'm living the lovely
freelance life

doing whatever it is
I want to do,

and it's all 'cause of Arranged!

So now that I finally don't have this pressure,
I don't have this timeline

that has been provided to me
by society,

I am pursuing my career
and I'm at my own pace.

I'm doing it if and when
it feels right for me,

and I'm not rushed by this deadline of
turning 26 and having to get married.

After I released this game,
all the proposals stopped.

And my dad even said,
"You wanted to make sure you wouldn't get married

and now you've done that."

A lot of girls from India
have reached out to me

to thank me for releasing
the game

because it has given them
a platform

to discuss this topic
with their parents.

They have either played it
with their parents

or even just shown them articles
and been like,

"Look, here is this girl who's out there pursuing her career

and doing all these
great things,

why won't you let us do
the same?"

So, it's definitely been
an amazing feeling

to know that I have helped
change people's lives.

What's most important in any creative endeavor is creation.

You actually have
to build the things.

You actually have to try
the experiments.

You actually have to talk
to the people

and get as much creative output as you can out there into the world.

99 % of them are going to suck.

Probably in your first try,
a 100 % of them are going to suck,

but there's always little nuggets that you learn from,
that you can grab from,

that you can pull from various
things that you've tried,

bolt them together in a new way,
and try a hundred more things.

And those are all going
to fail, too,

but you'll continue
to run through that process

over and over
and over again, um,

until something good comes out

and that something good
is the result

of the entirety
of your creative output.

And that's exactly what you should be presenting to the world,

and that's what you should be striving
to present to the world every single day.