Jobs have been on my mind a lot lately. A few weeks ago I posted about Joe Slack’s new book on jobs and careers in the game industry. Just last Thursday I wrote about the latest update to our proofreading process. And over the last few days, multiple people have asked me about job openings […]
A few weeks ago, Matthew Melissa Makak of Room 51 posted a video about representation and inclusion in reference to the game Everdell. Given that June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month, I wanted to share this incredibly important video and a comment I made on the video. Let’s start with the video itself: After watching the […]
“How did they possibly miss this?” If you’ve ever played a tabletop game, you’ve probably found a typo, glitch, inconsistency, or usability issue. When you identified it, you may have wondered, “Did they proofread this at all?” or thought, “They should have used more proofreaders.” In all likelihood, however, at least several people did proofread […]
Over the last 9 years, I’ve written over 900 articles on this blog to share my thoughts, observations, mistakes, and insights with my fellow creators. That’s a lot of content to go back and read for someone who is navigating the crowdfunding process for the first time, so in this series I continue to revisit […]
So, you crowdfunded a game, and you need to ship it to 1200 backers. You made 2000 total copies of the game, and you need a place to store the extra copies. Also, you’d really like to sell those extra copies to retailers and distributors. I was in this predicament myself after my Kickstarter campaign […]
While walking around the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market this weekend, I noticed something interesting to me: There are quite a few stands that specialize in one specific type of item. For example, there’s a mushroom stand. That’s all they sell: mushrooms. All shapes, sizes, and colors. There’s another stand that just sells pickled things. Another […]
While I haven’t used Kickstarter as a creator since 2015, I still learn so much by watching the techniques, methods, and strategies employed by crowdfunders. Here are a few inspiring concepts from recent projects. Planting Trees (Canopy) Over the last few years I’ve seen several creators–among them, Thundergryph and our manufacturer, Panda–seeking to plant trees […]
In February, we were wrapping up the design to the second Tapestry expansion, and I decided to send the files to a cultural consultant. There was no particular reason I did this for Tapestry, as it’s a civ game where you create your own history–it’s not tied to real-world places, events, or people. Cultural awareness […]
During a recent road trip, we discovered and listened to a number of episodes of the excellent How to Save a Planet podcast. I’d highly recommend it–it’s just as entertaining as it is informative. On many episodes of the podcast, co-hosts Ayana and Alex address a question that any listener might wonder: What should I […]
Usually when I see a business in another industry do something interesting, I try to apply it to crowdfunding or tabletop entrepreneurship. Today, however, I have no idea how to apply these examples to either of those categories. I think they’re intriguing anyway, though, so I’ll share them, and if you have any ideas, feel […]
This weekend I was talking to my dad about a new watch he bought to monitor his heart rate and blood pressure. It was on sale at Best Buy, so he was happy to get a good deal. A few days later, however, he saw Best Buy advertising the same watch at an even lower […]
Over the last 9 years, I’ve written over 900 articles on this blog to share my thoughts, observations, mistakes, and insights with my fellow creators. That’s a lot of content to go back and read for someone who is navigating the crowdfunding process for the first time, so in this series I continue to revisit […]
I am very fortunate to have a full-time job in the tabletop game industry as the president, lead designer, and developer at Stonemaier Games. I’m 40 years old, and this is both my third career and my longest career to date. I’m particularly grateful for my job because I know how rare it is to […]
The excellent game Roll Player entered my collection a few days ago. I’ve played the game at conventions and game nights over the last few years, and I really love it…but for some reason I didn’t actually buy it until last week. What changed? Nothing remarkable–it wasn’t some big event or advertisement. Rather, I’ve seen […]
Over the last few weeks, multiple people have mentioned to me how much they appreciate the customer service provided by Dan Hallagan at Kayenta Publishing, publisher of the game Obsession. I reached out to Dan, and he’s going to join us for a guest post when Obsession is back in stock this summer. Today, though, […]
On a whim, I posed this question to Stonemaier Ambassadors (our volunteer program) in a recent update. It wasn’t a job offer or even necessarily a request for feedback; rather, it was a wide-open invitation for some of our biggest fans–people who believe in our mission, root for our success, and know us quite well–to […]
“Wait, you’re telling me that some creators actually want to book their own freight?” This was my response when Brandon at Fulfillrite approached me about a guest post. I was baffled both because I’ve always used a freight broker (the excellent OTX) to get our games from Panda to the various fulfillment centers and direct-ship […]
Last Monday, halfway across the country in Virginia, my dad went into surgery. Without going into the gory details, it wasn’t exactly a “routine” surgery–it was cancer related–but my dad is very healthy, and the doctors expected him to return to normal within a few days. The surgery went really well, and the first full […]
Over the last few years, inspired by Steve Jackson Games, I’ve released stakeholder reports for Stonemaier Games. With our taxes now complete, it’s time for the 2020 report. A “stakeholder” in Stonemaier Games is anyone who has an impact on our company and a stake in our success, whether it’s employees, contractors, customers, Champions, Ambassadors, […]
Over the last few weeks, a handful of people have generously reached out to me with invitations to Clubhouse. I wasn’t sure what Clubhouse even was, so I looked into it…and decided not to join. Clubhouse is an app that allows you to host and join audio-only conversations with other users (see more details here, […]
I made this game.