Game Publishing

There are several great, beautiful games that unfortunately don’t find funding on Kickstarter because the company does not have the correct fan base in place. We have some marketing tips to make sure your games are successful.

Art is one of the most important parts of publishing a game. Artwork can make or break a game — it’s the first thing potential consumers see and if it doesn’t sell them they’ll never look further into your game.

Every year the board game industry grows and incorporates more and more dedicated players. The last few years have been termed the "board game renaissance," and in a lot of ways it truly is the best era in gaming thus far. By the time industry magazine ICv2 reports of the most recent figures (typically 10-20% annual growth since around 2008) a plethora of new board game publishers have already sprung up. With the growth of Kickstarter, starting a publishing company has become a lot more accessible for those that don't have the financial resources to afford printing thousands of copies of a game on their own.

We recently discovered an industry program to help publishers demo their games far and wide: Envoy by Double Exposure. Is it worthwhile?

Before starting Atheris Games I was not much of a gamer. I knew nothing of the plethora of amazing tabletop gaming products – I had never even heard of Catan or Ticket to Ride. I just simply had an idea for an automotive trading card game, Holeshot Heroes (which has not yet been released). As I began to try to immerse myself in the industry I was taken aback by the depth of products, but I was also incredibly intimidated by the seemingly complex games.

How do games differentiate themselves? How do they stand out? How do you get people to pay attention to your product? Breaking Games has answers.

I consider myself an “accidental inventor.” I’ve been a tinkerer all my life, and lately I had been creating family games, but I never considered myself an inventor. Not until those unforgettable three months in early 2014 when I won BigLeap’s “Games that Make Us Smarter” challenge, and went on to sign a license agreement for a game with FoxMind.

If crowdfunding were a spectator sport, Kickstarter would be the modern-day demolition derby for intellectual property disputes. It has never been easier for game publishers to get themselves into a head-on intellectual property pileup.

Publishing board games brings the risk of possible disputes over intellectual property. New companies often make mistakes — here are the top 3 most common intellectual property mistakes I have seen as an attorney at law.

Is it possible to start a game publishing company for under $1,000? Michael Mindes, our friend and founder of Tasty Minstrel Games, certainly believes so – and he intends to prove it by publicly and transparently starting up a new company, Paradise Game Labs, for $999. He intends to publish games through this label that, for one reason or another, are not a good fit for TMG. Of course, it goes without saying that the actual cost of printing the games will need to be raised on Kickstarter after the company is formed.