3 ms·

It's interesting to me that "games" has become a synonym for "video games". I play board games instead of video games, so when I clicked the link, I went in thi

It's interesting to me that "games" has become a synonym for "video games". I play board games instead of video games, so when I clicked the link, I went in thinking it would be about board games. I suppose this is an example of majority rules. The majority play video games instead of card/board games, so "games" has defaulted to "video games".

badpun 3y ago
Going even further, just 50 years ago, "games" meant activities such as tag, dodgeball etc.
- irrational 3y ago
  I’m over 50. We had lots of card/board games 50 years ago. And we called them games.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  they still are
cableshaft 3y ago
I've worked on both. There's a lot of overlap. In fact I've seen quite a few board game designers tap out of the industry recently due to various frustrations and burnout. I haven't really made a name for myself yet in board games, but I also tapped out (and started focusing on making video games again) because there are a lot of frustrations in board games: - Convincing a publisher to sign your game takes a lot of marketing skill that an engineer like myself isn't used to, it can be harder than finding an audience of players, since you have to set up a meeting for each one person you're trying to convince to give your game a chance - Or your can go Kickstarter, but then you're committing to basically being a publisher yourself, and not designing/developing games - Board game publishers are also having a rough time since there's been so many issues and sudden surprises with shipping because of the pandemic. That's calmed down a bit but it's still putting publishers in a precarious state, and they tend to have fairly thin margins to begin with. - Board game designers also tend not to get paid very well unless they land on an evergreen title, like Dominion, Ticket to Ride, etc, and/or have a constant pipeline of games (which takes making great relationships with publishers and convincing them to sign a bunch of games you churn out) and people in the industry in general tend to get paid less (can be 50% less) than the already underpaid people in the video game industry. I keep looking at salaries in job postings and going "No way I could take that much of a pay cut, as much as I'd probably enjoy the work more" I know one guy that worked on a game for two years, made a game that was successful by the publisher's standards (it was in Barnes and Noble) and only received $9,000 in royalties ($18k split in half with a designer). He quit and started a marketing company and is a lot happier now. A few others I know are taking long breaks because they're just burnt out from the constant grind. That being said I did have a burst of motivation a few months ago and designed a few small games and tried pitching them at a board game convention this past weekend. One meeting (with the largest publisher, even) went pretty well, the others didn't. If nothing else, I can always code a web version of the games and release them without needing a publisher, eventually, or at least make Tabletop Simulator versions of the games.

badpun 3y ago

Going even further, just 50 years ago, "games" meant activities such as tag, dodgeball etc.

irrational 3y ago
I’m over 50. We had lots of card/board games 50 years ago. And we called them games.
xboxnolifes 3y ago
they still are

cableshaft 3y ago

I've worked on both. There's a lot of overlap. In fact I've seen quite a few board game designers tap out of the industry recently due to various frustrations and burnout. I haven't really made a name for myself yet in board games, but I also tapped out (and started focusing on making video games again) because there are a lot of frustrations in board games: - Convincing a publisher to sign your game takes a lot of marketing skill that an engineer like myself isn't used to, it can be harder than finding an audience of players, since you have to set up a meeting for each one person you're trying to convince to give your game a chance - Or your can go Kickstarter, but then you're committing to basically being a publisher yourself, and not designing/developing games - Board game publishers are also having a rough time since there's been so many issues and sudden surprises with shipping because of the pandemic. That's calmed down a bit but it's still putting publishers in a precarious state, and they tend to have fairly thin margins to begin with. - Board game designers also tend not to get paid very well unless they land on an evergreen title, like Dominion, Ticket to Ride, etc, and/or have a constant pipeline of games (which takes making great relationships with publishers and convincing them to sign a bunch of games you churn out) and people in the industry in general tend to get paid less (can be 50% less) than the already underpaid people in the video game industry. I keep looking at salaries in job postings and going "No way I could take that much of a pay cut, as much as I'd probably enjoy the work more" I know one guy that worked on a game for two years, made a game that was successful by the publisher's standards (it was in Barnes and Noble) and only received $9,000 in royalties ($18k split in half with a designer). He quit and started a marketing company and is a lot happier now. A few others I know are taking long breaks because they're just burnt out from the constant grind. That being said I did have a burst of motivation a few months ago and designed a few small games and tried pitching them at a board game convention this past weekend. One meeting (with the largest publisher, even) went pretty well, the others didn't. If nothing else, I can always code a web version of the games and release them without needing a publisher, eventually, or at least make Tabletop Simulator versions of the games.