Besides the mass market and hobby market games industry, here in The Netherlands we have a B2B games industry. I design boardgames for big companies to solve complex problems, for recruitment, to simulate future projects and some other. I'm a "in house" designer, but this is also done freelance. All things concerning money are much more clear in this part of the industry. For the record, in the hobby market I have 1 published game in the last 10 years. In the B2B market I have over 50.
Long story short: somewhere about 15 years ago, the company I work for developped a boardgame to simulate the future. Because there was no time and no money to have a computer simulation build. The boardgame was a success, so I offered to help with the next. End of story: I'm lead designer in a full time job.
Fantastic video, Matthew! Thank you for your transparency and for talking about these issues. I fully support everything you said and hope things continue moving in the direction of more fair treatment and payment to indie designers. Looking forward to the next video 🙌
Thought provoking. Thanks for your thoughts. A royalty upon printing makes a lot of sense. Terms that adjust the royalty amount based on the number of copies printed to date would be interesting. Could work for both publisher and designer. Lower royalty to reduce risk as the product is launched and an increasing royalty with a growing demand.
Thanks for sharing your experience! This is a discussion that needs to be addressed more and more. I'm new to board game design and this specific topic has made me think once or twice about it exactly because of the pile of designer saying you can't make a living. it's demotivating especially for a non-privileged father of 2 😅 I'm sure there are more factors that tip profitability to the direction of publishers and not designers but can't quite put my finger on it. Anyways it seems that self-publishing through crowdfunding is the way to go if one really wants to keep creating games while making an income, although that brings a lot of extra non-game design work to the mix. In other fields there are guilds, memberships, subscriptions and different ways of getting a product straight to your audience - so it seems we have much to learn.
Your point about self-publishing is spot on - while it can give you more control over your income, you have to devote extra work to running the business, time spent away from designing.
Thanks for the video Matthew 😊. It strikes me that one financial upside of game design you didn't touch on (maybe fodder for another video?) is that, like other creative endeavours with royalty payment structures, you have some small chance with each design of designing a "hit", and the return 100x-ing your expectations. Obviously not something to bank on, but it's potential upside you don't get working for a salary. Thoughts?
Yes, absolutely that is an important factor (and upside!). Basically the ability to earn money that isn't tied to how much time you spent on work, in the best instance lets you escape the 'cap' on the money your time can earn. I guess the problem is that it is such a small chance to get a hit, let alone a hit that sells for many years, so its hard to depend on this.
This is fantastic and deserves to have a lot more views!
love your games. keep it up
easiest subscribe, such a valuable video
Besides the mass market and hobby market games industry, here in The Netherlands we have a B2B games industry. I design boardgames for big companies to solve complex problems, for recruitment, to simulate future projects and some other. I'm a "in house" designer, but this is also done freelance. All things concerning money are much more clear in this part of the industry.
For the record, in the hobby market I have 1 published game in the last 10 years. In the B2B market I have over 50.
That's a really good point! How did you get into that part of the industry in the first place?
Long story short: somewhere about 15 years ago, the company I work for developped a boardgame to simulate the future. Because there was no time and no money to have a computer simulation build. The boardgame was a success, so I offered to help with the next. End of story: I'm lead designer in a full time job.
Fantastic video, Matthew! Thank you for your transparency and for talking about these issues. I fully support everything you said and hope things continue moving in the direction of more fair treatment and payment to indie designers. Looking forward to the next video 🙌
Lots of interesting insights into the game design industry, thanks Matthew!
Great insights! Thanks, Matthew. This give's hope to small publishers like us
Great discussion as always. Good to get shout outs for SAZ and TTGDA, both of which are doing great work in professionalising the industry.
Great video! 60 games is impressive! I'm up to 10 published games myself!
That's over 12 years of releasing games, and primarily with co-designers, which certainly helps!
This was great! Thanks Matthew
Thought provoking. Thanks for your thoughts. A royalty upon printing makes a lot of sense. Terms that adjust the royalty amount based on the number of copies printed to date would be interesting. Could work for both publisher and designer. Lower royalty to reduce risk as the product is launched and an increasing royalty with a growing demand.
Thanks for sharing your experience! This is a discussion that needs to be addressed more and more.
I'm new to board game design and this specific topic has made me think once or twice about it exactly because of the pile of designer saying you can't make a living. it's demotivating especially for a non-privileged father of 2 😅
I'm sure there are more factors that tip profitability to the direction of publishers and not designers but can't quite put my finger on it.
Anyways it seems that self-publishing through crowdfunding is the way to go if one really wants to keep creating games while making an income, although that brings a lot of extra non-game design work to the mix.
In other fields there are guilds, memberships, subscriptions and different ways of getting a product straight to your audience - so it seems we have much to learn.
Your point about self-publishing is spot on - while it can give you more control over your income, you have to devote extra work to running the business, time spent away from designing.
Also, would love to talk to you more about enforcement of contracts in the game design space 🤓
Thanks for the video Matthew 😊. It strikes me that one financial upside of game design you didn't touch on (maybe fodder for another video?) is that, like other creative endeavours with royalty payment structures, you have some small chance with each design of designing a "hit", and the return 100x-ing your expectations. Obviously not something to bank on, but it's potential upside you don't get working for a salary. Thoughts?
Yes, absolutely that is an important factor (and upside!). Basically the ability to earn money that isn't tied to how much time you spent on work, in the best instance lets you escape the 'cap' on the money your time can earn. I guess the problem is that it is such a small chance to get a hit, let alone a hit that sells for many years, so its hard to depend on this.