Should I Self-Publish?

It’s a question I’ve been asked a few times recently - which is flattering considering we haven’t finished self-publishing our first game. And, while the topic has been covered elsewhere before - the takes I could find felt incomplete.

They highlighted things like creative control, and royalties - and, while important, those kinds of considerations really miss the mark for how I would approach the problem.

Distilled - a lovely small batch self-publication

The core of the issue is two fold, first there is a vast range of outcomes for what it means to be published, and a vast range of inputs that inform the probability of those outcomes - so it can be difficult for aspiring published designers to appropriately frame their goals. Second, from an outside perspective, it’s difficult to understand what goes into publishing a game.

I wanted this to be a bit of a primer to formalize how I would approach the problem and give some real context around what it takes to publish a game. As well as how hard it is to get someone else to publish your game (neither route is easy).

Whether or not to self publish comes down to the interplay between two driving forces:

1. What are your goals (creative vision, reach, and monetary)?

2. What is your capacity (skillset, time, and capital)?

Realistic Goals & Your Ability to Execute on Them

When we talk about self-publishing vs licensing your game to a publisher, we first need to understand that a published board game isn’t a single outcome.

There is a spectrum of what published means which ranges from 50 handmade games that are sold at a farmers’ market, to a 1,000-unit Kickstarter, to a hobby game with retail distribution and a strong BGG rating, to a mass market game with millions of copies sold at Target and Walmart.

These are all published games, and depending on how they came to market, could be self-published. Of course, the outcomes are massively disparate.

And, the range of outcomes do not exist in a vacuum. Sure, a small initial print run game could get super popular and sell 100k units – but it is less likely than a game with a large investment from an established publisher.  

That is Asmodee is more likely to sell a million copies of their next game than I am.

Just some literal diamonds Asmodee is manufacturing with Splendor

 What Does it Take to Publish a Game?

I think the core to the overall question of whether to self-publish comes down to understanding what goes into publishing a board game – in terms of actual tasks and investment. And, deciding if that is a road you want to travel.

There is a lot, and as a young company (our first Kickstarter is slated for June) – I am sure that there are tasks, and skills that I likely haven’t thought of. That said, I want to try and break down some of the larger tasks that a publisher should take on and highlight some areas that require an investment.

Depending on your self-publishing goals – a lot of these items will be scaled down, or, in some cases, ignored. But, for the most part I hope that this helps frame the process of bringing a game to market and managing ongoing sales, manufacture and fulfillment.

I like to think about the process of bringing a game to market in a couple of buckets:

Business Development & Operations: If you go the self-publishing route, you’ll need some level of business development – corporate branding, a landing page, form an LLC, set up bank accounts, manage bookkeeping and all that other fun stuff. You’ll need to budget for your game and get the funds to launch it. If your game is successful, you may grow into needing to manage employees (payroll and benefits), manage corporate PR, and do all kinds of other business operations work.

Game development: This is the process of getting a game from a prototype to a publishable product. It involves the creative direction, gameplay tuning, illustration, branding, and component and graphic design. A lot of designers will probably feel pretty comfortable with the gameplay side of the equation, as well as finding a creative direction that they like, but let’s talk about some of the skills and investment necessary to develop a game.

• Playtesting & gameplay development: There are some services that offer blind playtesting, or game tuning. I haven’t tried any – in my experience this is mostly a time investment, elbow grease and iteration. Whether you self-publish or license a game – you’ll have done a lot of work on this front, but there are a few things that an outside set of eyes (or a publisher) might catch like streamlining, UX, and optimizing the game to a target type of gamer (psychographic).
  You’ll also need to iterate your rules, clean up the copy, and either hire out for, or develop in house templating and graphics.

• Managing the Creative Process: Finding and interfacing with creative professionals takes time. You also need to make sure your contracts are written appropriately, that your needs are communicated, and that you acquire the appropriate rights to any work or assets you’re using. Beyond that – you need a strong creative vision, an eye for how it will translate to a brand, and how it will resonate with consumers. These are skills you can develop, or be thoughtful around – but, a good publisher should have in house expertise.

• Illustration: Royalty free artwork for a small game could cost a few hundred dollars. Fully rendered commissioned work for a medium weight game can easily cost north of $10k. There are games that do well without spending much on illustration – but great illustration can help sell a game, and so you need to be realistic in your expectations and how those compare to the level of illustration you pay for.

• Graphic & Component Design: Depending on the level of professional experience (which correlates with quality of work), a graphic designer could cost $40-$100 an hour. A mid-weight game could cost in the $8k range.

Marketing: After you have a great product the next focus is marketing. In my limited experience marketing is really hard, and your ambition around marketing scales with your expectations. You could spend anywhere from zero dollars to mid five-figures in Facebook ads alone. There are dozens of channels you can market to and each necessitates varied skill sets and investment.

• Landing Page: There are plenty of affordable website services to build your own landing page. Professional quality work can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on the ask. Depending on how you are going to market, you may need a Kickstarter landing page in addition to a regular website.
  If you’re a savvy marketer (or have a budget), then you might also allocate resources to search engine optimization (SEO).

• Organic Marketing: This is a pretty broad catchall term – but it’s pretty much all the non-advertisement content you create, the conversations you have on forums and at conventions, posting to social media, the playtesting sessions, and really all the free ways you promote your business or game.
  A major benefit of established publishers is their built-in audience. They’ve built trust with their customers through repeated successes and have an established fan base who they can show off their new games to.

• Media Outreach: Whether it’s interviews on podcasts, blog posts, or articles in old fashioned papers – someone is behind managing a media outreach campaign.  

• (P)review Campaign: Board games are heavily reliant on word of mouth, and review content. It is how games transcend from niche products for the cognoscenti to products with more mass-market appeal (see this article on broadening customer types).

• Paid advertising: There are plenty of places to pay for advertising, from BGG banner ads, Facebook group ads, podcast sponsorship, and every social media platform. Managing an ad campaign and creating exciting assets for it is a challenging task.

• Marketing Assets: However, you plan on marketing your game, you’ll need plenty of assets. This includes promo-videos, 3d renders, banner ads, etc. You’ll need to be thoughtful around your skill-set and which assets you hire out for – and as always cognizant that the quality of the assets you pull together will impact the chances of achieving your goals.

Sales Channels: Now that you have a great game, and have built an audience for it, you need to sell it. Many self-publishers choose crowdfunding as their to market platform, and don’t have serious aspirations for ongoing sales beyond that funding round. Most publishers have ongoing sales channels.

• Crowdfunding: Most self-publishers will go the crowdfunding route. While many publishers also use crowdfunding, it won’t be as ubiquitous.

• Direct to Consumer: Setting up e-commerce platforms are pretty straightforward, although you need to tie them in with your fulfillment providers and manage inventory and returns.

• Direct to Retail & Distributor: A large benefit of working with established publishers is their existing relationships with distributors and retailers. Friendly local game stores can be strong allies for your game – but it can be a challenge to sell to them or to distributors on early projects. This is a part of the food chain that we are still figuring out.

Supply Chain Management: None of this is possible without a properly managed supply chain, from querying manufactures, organizing freight, paying tariffs, managing fulfilment partners, warehousing and returns. Getting games to consumers is the name of the game.

The process of publishing can be daunting. There is a lot to manage – and the volume of tasks scales with your aspirations. Managing a one off Kickstarter with one round of fulfillment has fewer moving parts than a multiple release schedule, with expansions and on-going sales.

Your appetite for taking on and understanding the diverse tasks involved in publishing (along with your capacity and appetite to do so) will be a driving force behind your ultimate decision.

Let’s Talk Money

Launching a game comes down to skillset, time, and capital. If you lack the skillset for a specific problem, you can hire out someone to do it for you – or you can spend time learning and applying those skills.

This means that there is a broad range of investment to successfully launch a game – and that your expectations for units sold, and reach should reflect the overall investment.

I go into depth on a couple of business models with vastly different investments in this post: Making Board Games Your Business.

A hoard of metal coins from Scythe

It’s hard to put numbers as to whether self-publishing or licensing your design makes more sense from an economic standpoint – but at the very least it’s helpful to understand your own capacity, and the kind of expertise and capital investment a publisher brings to the table.

If you did want to make your decision on a purely monetary basis, and were comfortable making some massive assumptions – I’d build a model like this (the ex-finance dork in me is showing).

For more information on standard contract terms see these Cardboard Edison reports, and my breakdown of contract terms.

The Challenging Road to Licensing a Design

I’ve never submitted a design to a publisher, but sitting on the other side of the table I can tell you that getting your game picked up is not an easy process.

Before signing our first game we looked at well over 100 game submissions (we currently have large backlog so are temporarily not accepting non-solicited submissions). That’s over 100 submissions as a new company without a proven track record.

And, submissions weren’t just from new designers. We saw a number of games from designers with multiple published titles under their belts and tens of thousands of units in sales.

I am not an expert in how to get your game licensed (I’d recommend asking around in forums to hear from more experienced designers), but I guarantee you that it is a lot of leg work.

You’ll need to tackle all the development tasks to get your game to a great place, you’ll need a solid sell sheet, a polished prototype, and a how to play or promo video is a bonus. You’ll probably want to get involved in game design competitions, and learn to market yourself and your games.

Essentially, in marketing your design, you’ll be taking the first steps down the path of self-publishing.

Intangible Trade Offs

Beyond understanding what goes into publishing a game, and the investment that you or a publisher can make are all the intangible trade-offs.

In licensing your design you are tapping into substantial resources and expertise, but sacrificing substantial control.

While a publisher will likely want your input (and take it seriously), they’re the last say on every decision. It’s their capital on the line, a slot in their release schedule, their reputation, and their investment of time.

If you decide to self-publish you retain control, but you lose access to the expertise, operations, and capital of publisher. Everything is on your shoulders. But you also get to take a pretty rewarding journey, learn new skills, and are forced to be thoughtful and interact with whole communities who you might otherwise never meet.

Putting it All Together

Licensing our games was never something we seriously considered. I was burnt out in finance and looking for my next career. Publishing Nut Hunt (on Kickstarter this June) , and the next games in our catalogue (like SIGIL coming 1Q23) is my path to a more fulfilling life.

That won’t be the case for everyone – and you will need to seriously weigh your goals against what a publisher brings to the table and against your own capacity to successfully bring a game to market.

It takes some soul searching.

But, here’s the good news. Board games are awesome, designing board games is awesome, publishing board games is awesome, and the community around all those activities is awesome.

If you’re really on the fence, make a list of your skills and resources and see if they can carry you to where you want to be. And, start playtesting, start prototyping, and become more a part of the community. Those activities will help you either way.

Why did you decide to self-publish or license your game?