How did you get started?

[lokiwanderer]

I'm currently in production of a small board game and was just curious if the administrators here or anyone else for that matter had any advice in where to start and potholes to lookout for along the way. We've been big fans of Munchkin for years now and really look to Steve Jackson Games as an inspiration. We have the game, rules and even some of the artwork done but the goal will be to get it published without letting go of creative control or profits from a publishing company. Any thoughts or recommendations would be considered a huge help. Thank you in advance.

Nixx

[Palmer]

Your best resource for these questions is the Design forum on BoardGameGeek.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/2...rd-game-design

A lot of threads like this come up there, so I'm going to summarize some of the most common responses. Bear in mind that none of these are absolutes, bu they are common.

Originally Posted by lokiwanderer

We have the game, rules and even some of the artwork done but the goal will be to get it published without letting go of creative control or profits from a publishing company.

The most common answer you will get is "good luck with that, don't count on it".

The realities of board game publishing are such that if you're going through an established publisher, you will NOT retain creative control.
You may have INPUT, but no actual control. After licensing your design, the publisher can, and most likely will, make some huge changes to your game.
Don't sink much (if any) money into art, the publisher will replace it all with their house artists for consistency anyways.
There's a very good chance your game will look nothing like you imagined. A publisher changing the entire THEME is quite common.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklis...lisher/page/1?
Notice that the first game on the list, changed from Medieval Japanese War... to Aborigine Hunter-Gathering. Pretty huge. #24 is another one... changed from racing greyhounds into art auctions.

As for profit? If you're looking to make money, board games is the WRONG industry. Depending on the game and publisher, you may be offered a flat one-time licensing fee (a couple thousand bucks if you're lucky), or a royalty, typically about 5% of wholesale (which is 35%-40% of retail).
This means that for a $50 game, your royalty would be ONE dollar per copy.
A lot of games never sell over 2-3000 copies. 5000 is considered "respectable success" and 10k is "GREAT!". These are LIFETIME sales.

So basically, if you go with a publisher, you're looking at losing most, if not all creative control, and earning a small (but fair) royalty.

THAT BEING SAID

You can have creative control of the whole process AND the profits... if you go into self-publishing. You can also lose your shirt, and pants, and the closet they're in, and the rest of the house in the process.

Publishing is expensive. You need to drop $40-$100 thousand dollars to do a print run of a game, and if it doesn't sell, YOU are out the money. This is why the royalty seems so small with a traditional publisher. They're keeping more of the profits... but they're also taking ALL of the risk.

If you want to self-publish, understand that it's HARD, and changes what you do from "making a game" to "running a complex business". It's no longer about the game when you go this route...

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/8920089 is a great guide on the experience that one person had when self-publishing his game, and will give you a good idea of what you're signing up for (hint: it's a LOT)

Yes, there's always Kickstarter, but that's not a silver bullet. It adds on ANOTHER layer of business, with it's own unrelated-to-the-above skills needed (shipping and logistics).

It can be done, but it's hard as hell, and there's a very high chance you'll lose a lot of money in the process.