Yesterday someone interested in designing a board game asked me about the board/card game industry. I had a lot to say. After about an hour of discussion and coming up with ideas for his board game (traitor game, but the players are in Dante's Inferno and one of them is the devil trying to lock down the pit before people escape. Slight shifts to what players can do depending on which layer of hell they're on at the time) he asked if he could do anything for me in return and I pointed him to my Kickstarter and asked that he spread the word.
I've been hiring artists like mad. I'm really pleased with the quality I've been getting (Have a look at www.gamenightproductions.com. It's seriously impressive.) but there's a part of me that cringes at the pace I'm blowing through money. I'm still used to the ascetic lifestyle I had early college, where I spent roughly five thousand dollars a year to cover every expense I had. Running a business is risky, and it seems it's mostly because running a business is mad expensive. If all 5,000 copies of my game sell out inside a year, our net earnings will be the most profitable year I've ever had - in fact it will be roughly five times the second runner up - but for right now it's terrifying. I feel like I really understand Pratchett's description of Madame Sharn and Pepe in Unseen Academicals, that absolutely necessary veneer of success and confidence to cover over the fact that you have little else until people trust you enough to let you make something on their dime, the fervent hope that this one shot will hit its mark because it may be the only shot you get. And that's how I am right now.
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After about an hour of discussion and coming up with ideas for his board game (traitor game, but the players are in Dante's Inferno and one of them is the devil trying to lock down the pit before people escape. Slight shifts to what players can do depending on which layer of hell they're on at the time) he asked if he could do anything for me in return and I pointed him to my Kickstarter and asked that he spread the word.
I've been hiring artists like mad. I'm really pleased with the quality I've been getting (Have a look at www.gamenightproductions.com. It's seriously impressive.) but there's a part of me that cringes at the pace I'm blowing through money. I'm still used to the ascetic lifestyle I had early college, where I spent roughly five thousand dollars a year to cover every expense I had. Running a business is risky, and it seems it's mostly because running a business is mad expensive.
If all 5,000 copies of my game sell out inside a year, our net earnings will be the most profitable year I've ever had - in fact it will be roughly five times the second runner up - but for right now it's terrifying. I feel like I really understand Pratchett's description of Madame Sharn and Pepe in Unseen Academicals, that absolutely necessary veneer of success and confidence to cover over the fact that you have little else until people trust you enough to let you make something on their dime, the fervent hope that this one shot will hit its mark because it may be the only shot you get.
And that's how I am right now.