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What Happened at Flatlined Games between Spiel 2011 and Spiel 2012?
Following the Spiel 2011 fair, Rumble in the House proved a success, with the 3,000 copies of the original print run selling out in less than three months. My French distributor IELLO did wonders with the game over the whole year and netted me a deal with Canadian distributor Le Valet d'Couer. Sales in UK, Holland and Belgium were dwarfed by theirs, but still added to the total, so things have been good.
My strategy is to print small runs, usually 3,000 copies, and reprint as needed. I could get a lower per unit cost by printing 5,000 or 10,000 copies at once, but at the cost of a higher financial risk and lesser flexibility for changes between reprints.
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My contacts with U.S. distributors at Spiel 2011 didn't result in a deal, but I kept looking for a solution for the U.S. market. I eventually heard about Game Salute, which looked promising, and signed a deal in August 2012 with them for all our products. Game Salute offers a platform of services that makes them somewhere between a distributor, a fulfilment and logistics company, a publisher and author agent, an actual publisher, and more. What they do for me is get my game shipments and warehouse them, then sell them to U.S. retailers with a margin, and promote them in the U.S. I shipped them the thousand EN/DE/ES Rumble in the House that were produced earlier as well as about five hundred copies of Dragon Rage, most of the remaining stock from the 1,500 copies printed. (I still had 144 in Brussels.)
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The Spiel 2012 Line-up
For Spiel 2012, I decided to put the focus on two games: Rumble in the Dungeon, a new release that is a standalone expansion to Rumble in the House, and the prototype of Twin Tin Bots, a game by Philippe Keyaerts that we launched on both Kickstarter and Ulule to fund.
Rumble in the Dungeon is pretty much the same game as Rumble in the House with two key differences: the dungeon setting, and a new rule for a treasure chest. Of course the two games can be combined, with the dungeon becoming the house's cellar, so that more people can participate.
Twin Tin Bots is a robot-programming game from Keyaerts, author of Vinci, Evo, Olympos, and Small World. It's a game of perfect information with no luck in which each player controls two robots and programs them to harvest gems on the board and bring them back to his base. The twist is that each robot has three programming slots but each turn only a single instruction on one of the two robots can be changed; the rest of the instructions must remain as is. Robots then dutifully perform their programmed instructions, in sequence, at the end of the player's turn. This limited control is what Philippe Keyarts wanted to experiment with in the game, and the result is an interesting brain burner that manages to stay fast-paced and has lots of player interaction.
The Budget
At the end of the summer, I ordered a print run of 6,000 Rumbles from Ludo Fact: 3,000 FR/NL Rumble in the House, 1,000 EN/DE/ES Rumble in the Dungeon, and 2,000 FR/NL Rumble in the Dungeon. Numbers add up real quick at that pace! The good news is that since the games are similar, they can be produced and priced as a single batch.
I then made a projection on royalty payments and tax payments that I would have to make at the end of the year, and it became obvious that I could afford to go to Essen, but could not print Twin Tin Bots right away. Twin Tin Bots is a game with 36 plastic miniatures and lots of components, which mean it's expensive to produce.
One of the reasons I was happy to make a deal with Game Salute for U.S. distribution is that they also sometimes agree to run a Kickstarter campaign for non-U.S. based publishers through their Springboard program. (Starting a project on Kickstarter requires that you have a U.S. address and a U.S.-based credit card for Amazon payments.) Philippe Keyaerts agreed to let me crowdfund the printing of his game, so I soldiered on to set up the campaign. The plan was to have it start just before the fair in order to get good media exposure.
The Preparations
As the days passed, bringing us nearer to Spiel 2012, I realized that I might have bitten a bit more than I could chew by working on the Kickstarter campaign and the fair preparations. Setting up a Kickstarter campaign takes a lot of work, and running it once started is even more work.
Pierre and Mark volunteered for a second tour of duty at Spiel, while Stéphane could not join us this year. I had met with Cedric and Stéphanie at the Paris est Ludique! fair in mid-2012, and while they usually volunteer for Cocktail Games at fairs and events, they told me they would be available to help us in the booth, meaning that Flatlined Team 2012 would be four volunteers plus me. I knew from last year that I needed more people, so this was perfect!
I also changed hotels in 2012 as last year's hotel was cheap, which is good, but felt very cheap, which isn't. The accommodation budget nearly doubled due to the hotel change and more staff, but after a hard day's work at the fair, the least I can offer my volunteers is a good night's rest.
For the booth, I opted again for a "standard" 5x2 meter corner booth, again in hall 4. This time, however, I ordered carpet along with the booth as last year we spent way too much time laying, then removing the chequered vinyl flooring for not much added value to the booth. The custom wooden table for Rumble in the House was there again, as were the two shelves and the TV. I added a couple of folding tables and a set of garden chairs as I wanted visitors to be able to sit down for a demo this year. And I kept the vinyl banners, the pinewood structure, and the lamps from 2011.
Last year, I had my games stored in Brussels and we trucked them to Essen for the fair. This year was different: Rumble in the House was sold out, and I was waiting for the reprint and the Rumble in the Dungeon print from Ludo Fact. I received confirmation that they would indeed be able to produce the games in time for the fair only a few weeks before Spiel 2012. This meant the games would be delivered on the fair premises. I arranged for Ludo Fact to deliver the 1000 EN/DE/ES Rumble in the Dungeon to the fair, as well as 300 each of FR/NL Rumble in the House and Rumble in the Dungeon, which I would then bring back to my Belgian distributor.
I can tell you that no matter how much you trust your supplier, as long as you haven't seen the pallets actually delivered, you keep expecting the worst to happen. In 2011, many publishers were not supplied in time for the fair, and to a lesser extent, every year some publishers miss the deadline. Many issues can crop up: production delays, logistics errors or problems, customs withholding the goods for clearance, etc.
I also made some changes to our in-booth stationary supplies and workflow in order to be able to create invoices on the fairground, as it proved inconvenient last year to generate and send invoices to customers who needed one after the show. I kept it all paper-based, however, as having no computer and printer in the booth means fewer set-up hassles, less opportunity for devices to fail, and less worry about having them stolen. Low-tech stuff like a self-copying invoice book works wonders in such a setting. The same went for sales: Each staffer had a pen and notepad, and manually tracked daily sales. At the end of each day we did a short staff meeting and summed up the sales so we could track how we were doing. It also built some emulation as everyone wanted to have the most sales for the day...
So we were to go to Essen with a mostly empty truck and come back with some remaining product. (And possibly a huge stack of new games to play!)
I also printed rules sheets for Rumble in the House in German and English as all copies we would have in the booth would be FR/NL, which isn't a big deal as the game is totally language independent and the rules are very short.
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I also ordered 3D-printed playing pieces and assembled three working prototypes of Twin Tin Bots that are very close to what the finished game will be – a very important prop for the fair!
While preparing all of this, I was working my day job as consultant, and preparing the Kickstarter for Twin Tin Bots. There's only so long you can go on sleeping five hours a night before your work quality starts to suffer, so eventually I had to pace things down a bit. The victim was communication as I couldn't devote as much time and energy to promoting the Kickstarter before the fair as I would have liked. This would end up affecting the campaign as the early days are very important. Well, another lesson learned: Don't try to do too much at once. Make bold plans, but not too bold.
Spiel 2012
Tuesday
In 2011, we all met in Brussels and drove together: two in the truck and two in my car. This year, it was not possible to all arrive at the same time in Essen. Mark joined me on Tuesday in Brussels, and we loaded the furniture for the booth in the truck and drove to Essen. The only games I picked up were 72 copies of Dragon Rage and a measly five copies of Rumble in the House I had left – at least I would be able to run demos in the booth. Cedric and Stéphanie live in France and were to join us in Essen by train on Wednesday afternoon. Pierre wasn't able to join us before Friday noon as he had work obligations during the week.
I set up the booth with Mark on Tuesday afternoon, but we couldn't set up the press display as the games were not there yet. I got news from Ludo Fact that they'd be delivered Wednesday in the morning, and that they would have a few copies available early on Wednesday morning in order to be able to set up the press display. Again, the wonders of German efficiency at work...
We had no car this year and the truck was parked within the fair walls, so we had to commute by the Metro to go to the hotel. After a good meal, we went to rest – that is, I spent a few hours checking on the Kickstarter and answering emails before crashing on my bed, as I would do every night during the fair. Mark had already picked up a few preorders and already had some rules reading to do.
Wednesday
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I heaved a big sigh of relief when I saw the pallets; as I mentioned before, no matter how much you trust your supplier, you have no peace of mind as long as the product is not in hand. The added tables and chairs in the booth meant we would have less storage space, so we moved most of the games to the truck. I noticed a production error in Rumble in the Dungeon, and my heart missed a couple of pulses. Thankfully it was a minor problem: The game was supposed to have the stackable plastic scoring pegs in different colors than Rumble in the House to make it easy to play with up to twelve players when using both games. Since each game has a scoring track, it was still possible to combine two boxes and use the two tracks together, so it's really a minor annoyance – yet it needed to be addressed. I quickly notified my contact at Ludo Fact, and he told me that they would send replacement parts at their expense to all customers affected. That's the kind of great service you get from a reputable company. (Affected customers can request a replacement set of counters from our website through the end of January 2013.)
We finished setting up early and had some time to greet friendly faces from last year, and fellow publishers from all around the world. We wanted to leave early on Wednesday to be able to greet Cédric and Stéphanie on arrival in Essen, and also because there was something special planned for the evening:
Essen Warm-up Day
I had learned about the Warm-up Day on Facebook, and it seemed a promising and intriguing idea. SpieleGilde, a "gaming industry association", was organizing through the concerted efforts of Roland Weiniger from Germany's Game Engineers and Kim Fjeld from Norway an event called "Essen Warm-up Day" and inviting players who were coming to visit the Spiel fair to gather the day before the fair and play from 10:00 to 22:00.
The event was held at the Unperfekt Haus, an interesting local place to Essen with a small theater, several conference rooms, and lots of arts and crafts workplaces in the upper floors (knitting, LEGO-building, painting, local maker-space, computer lab, ...). Obviously a focus point for the local cultural events. Entrance was not free, but it included access to an all-you-can-eat buffet and free soft drinks, so the €23/person cost was not all that bad.
I saw the Warm-up Day as an interesting opportunity: First, it would obviously attract keen gamers willing to discover and play a lot of new games. That is a perfect opportunity to showcase our games before the fair and maybe generate some pre-buzz. Second, as Cédric and Stéphanie live in France and joined us only just before the event, they had not had the time yet to learn the rules of Twin Tin Bots. This would be a perfect opportunity for quality team-building while making sure they could learn the game that they would demo in the booth during the fair.
It was also there that I fully realized the extent of the stress and hard work that had preceded that moment, and I could eventually start to relax: The booth was set up, the games had arrived, the press display was okay, and most of the team was up and running. Time for a pat on the back. So we first treated ourselves to the excellent cooking of the Unperfekt Haus' buffet, then we set up on a free table and quickly found players to join us.
I ran the rules explanation for the first demo, and the team picked up from there and ran several demos during the evening. Needing to relax, I wandered around after the first game in order to schmooze with the people in attendance and visit the place. We were not the only ones who noticed the interest and potential of the Warm-up Day. Around 80 players were present, and some notable publishers, too: Uwe Eickert was demoing Conflict of Heroes, and Ted Alspach was running Suburbia and Mutuant Meeples demos. Also present were Piotr Burzykowski from LocWorks and designer Frederic Moyersoen, who I had notified of the event. Piotr was demoing Alien Frontiers, and Frederic was making a last-minute playtest of some variants for the prototype he would pitch to publishers during the fair.
I also took the time to thank Roland Weiniger for organizing the event, which was a great way to start the fair! I'm sure next year they will have to limit attendance as the capacity is 170 persons.
Tuesday to Sunday – The Fair!
Pierre eventually joined us Friday morning, so the team could now turn at full speed – and yet each one of us could spare some time to actually visit the fair. He had already played all our games before and had been in the booth last year, so he could hit the ground running, so to speak.
In 2012, I had lots of meeting planned before the fair. Most of them would be in our booth, which was convenient. I once again used foldable chairs to meet my appointees near the booth, in the galleria, away from the constant flux of visitors and somewhat shielded from the noise of the demos. Spiel is a great opportunity to meet other professionals who would otherwise be reachable only through phone, Skype or email.
This year was great as I could finally meet the staff from my Canadian distributor, Le Valet d'Coeur. They told me that Rumble in the House (which is called "Chicane dans la Cabane" in Canada) just won the award of the country's main consumer association, "Protégez-vous". It actually made the front page of the biggest Canadian-French language paper! They had big expectations for Rumble in the Dungeon and wanted to see what Twin Tin Bot was like, ahead of it being produced. This also meant that between their needs – two thousand Rumble in the House to be flown to Canada right after the fair so they would be available for end-of-year sales – and the ongoing strong sales in France, the new print run would sell out before the end of the year. That'll be about 11,000 copies of Rumble in the House – who would have thought?
Another important meeting was with Dan Yarrington from Game Salute, who was attending Spiel for the first time in order to develop business opportunities with European publishers. Since we had started working together only a couple of months ago, it was a good opportunity to meet face-to-face and discuss our business, and I also made sure to put him in touch with the publishers I knew who would be interested in Game Salute's services. We met several times during the fair and had a great time. I also met with several authors, artists, distributors, store owners, and (most importantly) journalists and bloggers from all around the planet.
Pre-production version of Twin Tin Robots at Spiel 2012 (Image: Ann Therle)
Journalists and bloggers were especially important this year as we were demoing Twin Tin Bots and trying to get a lot of coverage of the Kickstarter campaign to fund it. We had one table running demos of Rumble in the Dungeon and two running demos of Twin Tin Bots. I also had signs in the booth with QR codes leading to the project page on Kickstarter, and we regularly saw visitors pointing their smartphone to scan these codes. I gave several podcast interviews, while the team had a few video crews stopping by to film demos of Twin Tin Bots.
This year was quite different from 2011. Having found a distribution solution for France, Belgium, Holland, UK, and now the U.S., I could afford to have lower sales at the booth and put the focus on Twin Tin Bots. As a result, this year the fair actually cost me money, but I knew I would make it up in distribution sales afterwards, so I could accept that expense.
My goals for the fair were to first demo and promote Twin Tin Bots, then launch Rumble in the Dungeon, and then if possible find new distribution deals for areas where I was not yet present. Another goal was to understand what happened last year with an Asian distributor that was interested in Rumble in the House and bought several copies to test it on their market – after which I received no feedback whatsoever. I arranged a meeting with them at the fair this year and we discussed the matter. It was quite constructive, and I expect will lead to a distribution deal later on.
As in 2011, Saturday and Sunday were slower, with more families and casual visitors. Sunday was again the day of last-minute decisions for some buyers, and the day in which retailers and distributors bought some boxes.
Work Hard, Play Hard
Another interesting aspect of the fair is the events that happen around it. We couldn't attend Ludo Fact's booth party, but we were able to attend Repos Production's, which was a hoot.
The evenings were also full of opportunities, like joining the big crowd at the Hotel Ibis in Essen center to test new games in the evenings, the "French evening" at the Atlantic hotel just next to the fairgrounds, and the various meals with friends. The weather was exceptionally nice this year; one evening we even sat for an outside drink on a terrace at 10:00 p.m. – not something you usually do in October in Germany.
All these evening activities were of course followed by a quick Internet session to catch up on the Kickstarter before crashing on the bed.
Wrap-Up
On Sunday evening, there is a bell sound and an announcement on the P.A. at the end of the fair asking visitors to kindly leave the premises. It's spontaneously followed by a big "Hurray!" and cheers by all the fair exhibitors – it's over!
We dismantled the press display and booth on Sunday evening and packed everything in the truck. I had arranged with Ludo Packt to leave a pallet of unsold games (850 EN/DE/ES) that they would pick up and send to Game Salute in the U.S. right after the fair. Many publishers who receive their games at the fair and don't sell out arrange for the leftover games to be picked up and warehoused at Ludo Packt; it seems most of the profession somehow works with them. The service is usually excellent, so it's no wonder they are so pervasive. I heard 1,500 pallets were picked up after the fair – that's no small logistics feat.
Dismantling was faster than last year, thanks to the carpet decision. That meant more time left for a final meal with the team on Sunday evening. We all left on Monday after a good night's rest.
Once back in Belgium, the couple of weeks after the fair are of course very busy, too, getting back in touch with most contacts from the fair, making sure the logistics follow as the bulk of the new print run is delivered to my distributors, and of course tending to the Kickstarter campaign by posting updates and videos from the fair.
Eric Hanuise
To be continued in 2013...
Eric Hanuise and Philippe Keyaerts present Twin Tin Bots at the BGG stand during Spiel 2012
Eric Hanuise goes solo to talk about Rumble in the Dungeon at the BGG stand
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