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Michael Mindes
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." -Sun Tzu
If you decide to become a board game publisher, then I hope you do not have 1 game that you will release and "see how it does". That will just be the noise before defeat. Then again, if you go into publishing board games like the same way I did (with grand strategic plans), then you are on the slowest route to victory. Which in the world of creative works and economic realities might as well also be the slow route to defeat.
In a simplified version of war (like Chess or Go), you have one opponent. There are 3 end options... Win, Lose or Draw. A zero-sum game. In the world of board game publishing, you have multiple opponents and there is room for multiple winners and multiple losers. While you could sell a game at a profit, if you are not keeping up to speed with the best, then you will not have an ultimately successful company.
That is a road to being at best a 1 title flash in the pan.
So, what is the strategy?
For Tasty Minstrel Games, we have many strategies or strategic goals. The most prominent of which revolves around the branding of the company as a publisher which only produces great games. Thus far, I think our record is exemplary with a 7-0 success rate. Yes, I am biased, etc, but I believe there are fans that will agree.
Even that strategic goal is derivative of the primary 2 strategic goals:
1. To be able to publish games in a low-risk environment which we have created and utilize as a competitive advantage.
2. To be able to release multiple titles up to our quality standard in any given year to continually search for the black swan hit. Examples being The Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Dominion.
For a long time, we had developed complimentary strategies and a very small number of actual tactics for accomplishing this. For a long time, Tasty Minstrel Games had skated by on this alone.
And, what are the tactics?
The tactics are the use of an email list, online website/webstore, retailer deals/promotions, convention attendance/planning, box ads, paper catalogs in boxes, and so forth.
When TMG started, we just had the email list. Since then we have been actively adding more and more tactics for the purpose of accomplishing our strategic goals.
Our strategic goals stay the same, and as we think of or discover new potential tactics, then we test them, and see if we want to continue using those tactics. Thinking, testing, and measuring results are key to determining what tactics you should be using.
Start with your core strategy and desires. Build your tactics around that.
Knowing what your core strategic desires and goals are will fundamentally shape what your organization will look like. Since the core strategic goals of TMG are to reduce risk and produce lots of games without having their quality suffer, it is likely that I would devote more resources to game design, game development, and customer communication.
These are the places where I would be willing to invest time and money now for future dividends later. Any other aspect of the operation should be immediately profitable for us to do at all.
Conclusion
It is essential that you know where you want to go and what your ultimate strategic goals are. Without knowing this, if you start publishing, then you will blow in the wind with ongoing changes.
After that, figure out one tactic that you want to concentrate on at the beginning, and continually think, test, and analyze results for the adding of additional tactics.
As Tasty Minstrel Games becomes stronger as a publisher, I notice that the tactics that we implement work better and better. Or, maybe it is the other way around.
Anyways, cheers!
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