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Michael Mindes
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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It is well documented that sales in creative industries are dominated by hits. You will either have low sales or huge sales. While a commodity based industry's sales are driven by total costs, error tolerances, and relationships. For example, sales in the music industry are dominated by Elvis, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson. While, nobody cares about a ball bearing as long as it does what is required of it.
Being a financially successful publisher/producer in a creative industry requires some hits. The hits might not be to the level of a top tier, but you certainly need products that are better than most. In the board game industry, flagship titles could be, Ticket to Ride, The Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Magic: The Gathering, Legend of the Five Rings or even Eminent Domain.
Recognizing this when starting Tasty Minstrel Games and wanting to build a profitable and systemized board game publishing company, I decided that I needed to do 2 things:
1. Reduce the financial risk on every title released.
2. Produce every game with all of the elements possible to increase the chance of becoming a hit.
Reducing Risk
This is important for the cycling through of cash flow (more later), reduced capital requirements, and the general well being of the financial status of any business. Going into the world of a creative business, in particular I was looking for a devoted fan base, powerful branding, low initial print runs, and ways to contact fans any time I wanted.
Fan Base - Going into build the Tasty Minstrel Games fan base, I did not do an extensive analysis of my target audience. I figured I would just throw it out there, get email subscriptions, and build from there. If I were to do the analysis today, I would have the following bulleted list of attributes of an optimal fan:
*BGG community activist
*Local game group host / Alpha gamer
*More analytical than the average person
*Technically minded and internet savvy
*Interested in how thing work, even if they do not want to do it
*Desires involvement with the production process or emotional ownership of a product
*Values generosity
*Desires special treatment as a fan
*Board games is their #1 purchasing vice
*Likely to be in favor of open source values
A person that has these attributes is an optimal fan for TMG. A person like this will be more like myself, and I believe more likely to actively spread the word about quality games in general. In particular, they are more likely to try and spread the word about quality games produced by companies/people that they like.
Given that gaming is an inherently viral (more on this later) activity, in reducing risk, it becomes essential to have the thought leaders on your side. Over decades, Steve Jobs managed to get every tech thought leader interested in Apple products. This was leveraged to bring Apple from a decent company in early 2000 to the premier company of the world today. They have done this with only 3 new physical products, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
You have probably heard about the "1,000 true fans". In some case you do not even need 1,000. Martin Wallace has perfected this in the hobby board game industry. He creates a handful of new titles in a given year, releases a very small print run, sells out, and then another publisher might decide to license the game from him. He sells enough to cover his costs and likely profits sufficiently to live off of for the next year. Then he collects royalties for past successful games.
Powerful Branding - When I started Tasty Minstrel Games there were a handful of powerful brands in the hobby gaming space within the United States. On the top of my personal list were 3 companies, Fantasy Flight Games, Rio Grande Games, and Days of Wonder. With Mayfair Games coming in on the strength of The Settlers of Catan alone.
I thought about why each company had a powerful brand with me, and I planned to bring each of the best elements of each company into the future brand image of Tasty Minstrel Games. I desired the following:
*The production and art quality of FFG
*The availability, catalog, scope, and distribution of RGG
*The devotion to quality gameplay and rulebooks of DoW
*The power of having a blockbuster hit of Mayfair
I desired to create a publisher and system that would embrace the best of these top brands without bringing in problems of each. We would have enough problems of our own to deal with! (more on this later)
Low Initial Print Runs - This keeps the initial outlay of cash low, which is key to being about to search for hits. It is better to produce 1,000-2,000 games and earn less profit per copy than to print 5,000 copies and be wrong.
With a small print run that does not sell well, you will not destroy your company. With a large print run that does not go well, things like this can happen.
Contacting Fans At Will - what is the point of having a fan base if you cannot contact the at will? Almost everybody has email, and with an optimal fan being Internet savvy, email was the answer. Since the beginning I have used 3 different bulk email service providers, aWeber, InfusionSoft, and Mailchimp.
By far and away, Mailchimp is the best. On top of that, it is now free with up to 2,000 subscribers!
Producing For A Hit!
Currently, this is a qualitative process which depends highly on gut instinct. Which, I believe is another way to say that this is something that I do not sufficiently understand to codify and talk about it. Although, here are some generalizations about positive influences on being a potential hit:
*Playable by 2 players and multiple players
*Shorter games
*Integrated theme
*Outstanding artwork
*Innovative game play
*Fun game play
*Filling an unknown void
*Targeting a small and influential thought leader block
*Gateway potentials
Dominion did a great job of the last 3. In particular it filled a void of former Magic: The Gathering players who as a group are a small and influential block of thought leaders. When I first played Dominion, I felt a need to play more often than humanly possible. We described it as competitive deck building in my group.
This in and of itself would have lead to lots of sales, but it is also very easy to learn and execute mechanically. Which allows Dominion to be a gateway game.
Conclusion
If you want to build a financially successful publishing company, you will need to find ways to reduce your financial risk on any given game that you publish, which in turn will allow you to publish more titles in search of the needed hits.
Once you find yourself in a position where this is working, you must tread carefully to remain true to the principles that brought you there. do not squander you efforts of building a fan base and brand in order to make a quick buck or two. As most children learn, you shouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
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consider yourself one more fan in your 1000 true fan bas 
