Think Like A Game Designer - Stephan Brissaud — Industry Leadership, Game Development, and Retail Strategies (#67)

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

About Stephan BrissaudStephan Brissaud joins us today to explore his extensive career in navigating the gaming industry. With his roots beginning at Nintendo, Stephan has tackled roles from COO of Iello to President of the Game Manufacturers Association and Senior Director of Games at Funko. He’s not just a veteran; he’s a strategist and consultant who has mastered the art of bringing games from concept to consumer hands, navigating marketing strategies, distribution channels, and retail complexities. In today's episode, Stephan discusses how game design intertwines with marketing and expansion, sharing insights that creatives can't afford to ignore. Tune in to discover the depth of Stephan Brissaud’s impact on the games industry and the lessons from his journey that could redefine your approach to game design and creativity.Want to support the podcast and get more design lessons?Paying subscribers enjoy an abundance of extra game design content and an exclusive newsletter with new lessons, archive access, videos, and more! By opting for a free or paid subscription, you can get the latest articles delivered to your inbox and support this podcast! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. Thank you for making this show possible through your pledges, podcast reviews, and enthusiasm on social media. Without your help, this show would not have been possible, and it's incredible how our community has grown. If you'd like to support the show and get access to more exclusive content from me and my guests, I recommend checking out Justin Garydesigns.com, where I've got weekly articles on game design and creativity,

along with show notes, lessons from the podcast, and more exclusive insights to help you with your creative projects. In today's episode, I speak with Stefan Riso. Stefan is a game industry veteran, and he has been all over the business, marketing, and execution side of the games industry. He was the chief operating officer of Yellow. He was the president, as long as a lot of other roles at the Game Manufacturers Association, and he was a senior director of games at Funko. He continues to have a consulting business that supports people throughout the game industry and handles a lot of different logistics and challenges.

In fact, in the episode, he gives you a tip on how to be able to contact him directly to get some help and some free advice if you're interested, so listen in for that. And we dig into a lot. Stefan and I have been friends for a very long time, and he has been someone I've turned to for advice many times over the years. And so it's been great to actually get to dig in. And I learned a ton of things about him that I didn't know. He actually started his career at Nintendo.

And we learned about the kind of hardships and challenges that pushed him into that space and how he actually seeks out hard challenges, including becoming a manhunter. I'll let you hear about what that is and how it works for him and later on in the episode. But there's actually a ton of really great things here. So Stefan is not a game designer, but he talks about the process of design in terms of how you need to build things for marketing, how you need to build things for expandability, how you work with distribution and stores and how you get into mass market stores versus specialty retail stores and the entire pipeline of how you break through the noise, how you're able to get your game actually in the people's hands and turn into something that can be evergreen that people love. And so I think the sort of information is so important for people, even if you're just a designer, even if you don't want to be the one that's actually selling your games, understanding how you use.

sell your games from the beginning, understanding how you build the skills that allow you to push into this industry and get into different areas of the industry and try new things and be able to succeed at them when you're facing resistance. I talk about a core concept of my own that really resonated with Stefan and how it builds out with some of the stories and a lot of really fun, interesting stories that he tells. So there's a ton of great things going on here. A lot of great lessons. I took a ton of notes, kind of glancing at them even as I'm talking through this intro because I'm just fired up about it. So I really think you're going to of it, enjoy the many great stories, the many great insights of Stefan Brissot.

Hello and welcome. I am here with Stefan Brissot. Stefan, it's awesome to have you on the podcast finally. Hey, Justin, this is such an honor as I was showing with you. I'm a big fan of your podcast. I always find great tidbits and everything. So I'm very honored to be a guest on your podcast today. Well, I'm honored to have you here because honestly, your tiers of success, and particularly around the tabletop industry and the arenas around European markets and operations globally is stuff that I have kind of stumbled my way through. And I consider you to be kind of one of the sort of most interesting and successful people

across a wide variety of fields. And so I think a lot of people are going to get a lot of value out of this podcast. So I'm excited to just dig in because I think I first met you as CEO of Yellow and in that time zone. But I don't know your backstory. I don't know how you got into the game industry or what got you started. So why don't we just start there? This is a question I wanted to ask you. I figured I might as well record the answers.

Excellent, excellent. Well, yeah, I've been in the game industry for a long time. I'm very old. I started, obviously, I'm French. I started back in France. I dropped out of school. I got into Nintendo in France. And I got a job as the Internet didn't exist at the time.

And we had in France a little terminal called the Minitel. So it was like a BBS, you know, bullet and board system. But it was run by the U.S. telephone and postal service. And so every household in France had those little black and white. terminal called Minitel and you could connect to a phone line and connect to the precursor of the internet. And so I was hired by Nintendo France to run the customer service for Nintendo where people would log in and ask question about how to pass the level three on Super Mario Bros, things like that. So that's why I started in the industry. So I'm a coder by trade originally.

You're a code or by trade. So you learn to code and program, and that's what brought you, and that's what got you into the industry. And you just knew you wanted to join Nintendo? Did you just like, you just like applied on a web, or there were no websites, I guess. No. How did you get in? So what happened is I got a personal family, Keckoffold that, that shortened my, my

aspiration to become an engineer. And so I had to look for a job. And I took the newspaper and the two jobs. I found were Xerox copier technician or that Nintendo job. And so I didn't even apply to Xerox. I went to Nintendo. I talked to the guy who was in charge who was an autodidact. And I told him, listen, I don't know anything about Minitel,

but I can just show you on my own time in my basement. I have reversed my own modem and I have built my own server. And here is the thing. So I showed him. I had built that. And I was in the middle of finishing my degree in robotics. And so I said, I'm finishing in two weeks. I can come work for you.

I would work for free. You can see if you're interested. And the guy was living for, it was in July. And he was on August 1st. He was living for Miami for a month. And he wanted the employee that he would hire to look after the system while he was away. So I did that deal with him. After a week, he was happy with me.

So he left for him. Florida got me the job and that's how I started as a video text technician. So what I heard there, I mean, there's a lot of things you echoed that many guests have echoed here and I've tried to teach a lot, right, this ability of like doing things on your own, showing that you can do the job, being willing to work for free to get the job you actually want to get paid for. But what I heard you say there was a, there was sort of a family emergency or some crisis that got you off the track you actually wanted to be on.

Do you mind flushing that out a little bit? Well, sure. So actually, I've always been fascinated by computers, electronics. I was building stuff in my garage and everything. And then my mom really wanted me to be an engineer. I was never really interested in school. I was bored. It was not something.

I didn't understand the application of it. I love to build stuff. I got my degree in robotics by finishing. my exam two hours before anybody else. And then we were building a thing that was, we were replicating the system that read the Paris subway ticket, you know, the little yellow ticket for the Paris subway. So we had to build that.

And so I finished it. It was working. I even had some extra feature that he didn't ask. And then I give it to the examiner. I says, like, where are your calculation? Like, what do you mean? My calculation. I just built it.

It's in my head. And so he gave me 10 out of 20. because it was not a thing because I couldn't show the process that had led me to build the thing. The thing was working. So anyway, so that part was interesting me, but the academic aspect of school was really boring to me. So I didn't get grade and I wanted to pursue that engineer diploma in robotics. So my parents were divorced when I was very young and my mom was living in the south of France and my dad was living in the north.

So I left the south and I moved in the north. with my dad because the only school that would accept me was in Paris. So I moved up there and then I was struggling, building motorcycles and doing other things that were more interesting than learning robotics. And I got into a fight with my mother-in-law. And she told me, you know, you little bleep, if you want to open your mouth, you better give yourself the mean. And I said, Roger that, I'm out of here.

and then I looked for a job. And so I got the job at Nintendo, called my mom. That was a funny thing, too. I called my mom. And I said, mom, I'm dropping out of school. She was like, oh, my God.

And then I said, but don't worry. I found a job. What is it? Well, it's with Nintendo. What? The video games? Oh, I can't study it. And then she hung off on me.

And then the next day, she called me back. And she said, so I ask my colleagues, Nintendo is good. I'm like, I know, mom. I know it's good. Yeah. No, that's great. I mean, I feel like I think that this, this iconoclast kind of mentality, right,

this idea that, like, you're not fitting into the mold that society wants to put you in, right, that your parents want to put you in into the schooling systems, right? It's a common, another common refrain from people that end up becoming very successful when you realize, look, I'm not going to play in the box that society gave me. I'm going to figure out my own way. And it's not easy, right? Like, you have to do a lot more hard work. You have to go, I'm sure it could not have been easy to leave and have to go find a job,

to be out on your own and drop out. That's not an easy path, but it ends up really building character and building a skill set that ends up becoming far more valuable. 100%, but at the same time, I don't feel it's hard. When I look back, I look at all the things I've done

and all my experience, yes, I've been through a lot of things that I didn't need to. I could have chosen much simpler and quieter path, but at the same time, I'm very excited by that. Like many time in my career, I made decision that led me, that many other people said, Ola, that's too risky.

But no, that's what excited me. I wanted to do the challenge. Like I moved from California to London to take a job. And they asked me three times, are you sure you want to leave Santa Barbara to move to London? I was like, yes, because the challenge you are giving me is exciting. And so that's really my motivation. I'm not motivated by money or anything like that. I want to live an exciting life and have fun and I want to.

I'm a gamer. So I look at work and job and mission as challenges and game that I need to solve. Yep. Yep. That's such a powerful thing. That's exactly the kind of stuff I'm working on, like, trying to write for my next book is this idea of like taking that gamer's mentality. And in a game, you look at challenges as fun, right?

you look at challenge, like the whole point of a game is that you're being challenged. If a game is too easy, you get bored and you move on. And if you can view your life that way, then a lot of things that turn other people off, right, make other people like, oh my God, I can't believe I have to do this or oh, wow, this is so hard. This isn't working out the way I thought it would. And change that from, oh, no, to, oh, boy, let me figure out a solution. The faster you can make that shift, it's such a powerful thing. And I mean, I've seen you do really hard things over the years. So we'll get into some of that stuff because there's definitely times where I'm like, what in the world is happening over here. So I want to get in. Let's let's, let's, let's, let's, let's,

Let's fast forward a little bit. So you're working at Nintendo on a bulletin board service, which for the youngsters out there really is like that old dial-up motives where you just had to hear the kshk-k-sh-ks-ch-s sounds calling into phone lines. That was the earliest internet. So we're both dating ourselves here. But then how does it progress from there? Because that doesn't sound like you're in the games industry,

but you're kind of adjacent to the stuff you've later did. So how did it progress from there? Yeah, so another fascinating, of serendipitous event. So when I was, let's go back a little bit, when I was in school, I actually, I taught myself English by translating with a dictionary

the Dungeon and Dragon rulebook that my dad brought me back from home one day. He's like, hey, check this out, it's cool. I'm like, it's in English. I don't speak English. I'm like, well, that sounds like a you problem. So I took a dictionary and then I started translating. So the funny thing is that when I started learning,

English in school, I could fluently write, not speak because I didn't listen to it, it was all on the book, I could fluently speak about medieval English like war horse and castle, but I didn't know how to say a plane, a phone or a television, because it was not in Dungeon and Dragons.

And my teacher was like, what did you learn English? I was like, pro-playing game, what's that? Yeah, forget it. You don't know. So, all my school years, I would organize Dungeon and Dragons session in my basement with my friends and I love that environment.

I love Lord of the Ring and all the Eric Fantasy. And, well, as many of us, when I started working in the active life, as they say, I moved away, I didn't have my group of friends, and I dropped entirely role-playing, and I missed it.

And a colleague of mine at Nintendo introduced me to Magic the Gathering. Richard had just launched that. It was the ice age. You know a thing or two about that card game, I think. Yes, a little bit, a little bit. A little bit.

And so I started as Ice Age and I was like, this is great. I can dig back into my beloved Eric Fantasy World. It plays in a minute and everything. And so every lunch we would play. I don't even know if you even did that, but I used to play magic by mail, by email. So I want to share that because I'm sure the, Your young audience will be baffled by that. So we would start a game with someone on the other side of the world via email.

And then we had a little DOS program where we were injecting in that DOS program the deck list of all the cards. And then the software was randomly generating a draw of all the cards. And we were sending each other the file. So I was sending you my file and you are sending me your file. and then you would give me your password and every turn I would hit Enter and the app would tell me what your next card

was so we will both see what the card were and then we had a pre-format of the email where we had a representation of the board with the card that were out and the live point and everything and so I was like I summon a spell and so I was sending to you and then you were reacting

it was late taking forever but I loved it so I was playing that I was playing at lunch with my colleague at Nintendo 2, and then one day, well, first I have to talk about something else. So I've done the Nintendo BBS thing. It's a brand new system. It's an IBM, IS-A-S-400 in a mirror-a-system,

two computers, replicating what they are doing for backups. Love the thing. Super geeky. Put it together, built a great site. And then I'm bored because it's running now. I don't have anything to do. The customer service people are answering the question. I'm just managing the thing.

And it's super boring. And Nintendo France is going to launch the super NES with Donkey Kong Jr. And they are building a giant joggernaut trailer with 72 game console, Game Boy, NES, Super NES that's going to travel all over France. And my mind is like, I want to be on that. thing forget the bbs i'm born i want to go drive around france playing game so i knocked on the door the guy was in charge of that department and i said you need help said what i'm actually yes i'm looking for an assistant i'm like me this is me so i went back to my bus at the minitel like a year not even a

year and a half after i was there and like uh yeah pia i'm sorry but i think i'm going to switch to uh the Super Tour. And then I got the job. Again, I didn't have any training in marketing or event or anything, but I knew I would do it and it was so, I so wanted to do it. And so I started doing that. And I did that for five years. And a head hunter came to look for me at Nintendo because they had a job for an American company who needed an event manager. It was DCI manager for France. they couldn't tell me the name of the game or the company. And I'm like, well, I know it's Magic the Gathering and it's Wizard of the Coast. I play every day.

So they were like, can we talk to you? And so that's how I switched to started working with Wizard of the Coast. That's all. That was my first deep into the board game world. Yeah, yeah. Okay, great. So this trend of you're just sort of following both your interests and challenge together is it kind of runs as a thread through its life.

If it's too easy, you're not interested in anymore. And then you generally speaking, just find things that you're really excited about. And so much so that you're excited that you're willing to do, but sound like really painful things, like emailing your magic plays back and forth through a thing, or building modems from scratch or whatever, like these little minutiae,

these geeking out on these small details brings you a success. So let's feel like the kind of common thread recipes here. So you become, you get to this role as, as DCI manager, which for, again, for the kiddos out there, it was duelist convocation international, I believe, is what DCI said for it. It was a very nerdy expression for people that, you know, for running magic, organized play, tournaments and events.

And so now that you've now successfully made the jump from Nintendo to tabletop, so digital games to tabletop games, which a lot of people end up going the other way. But now what is that like? Because that's a totally different skill set than the one you had before. Right now you're man. managing people and organizing events and what's happening there in your life? Well, so much new things, but so much excitement. We are organizing the first pro tour outside of the USA in Paris,

in the Cirque d'Ir-Buglion, which is an old circus. It's gorgeous and it's full of challenge because it's super small, and we can't even feel the camera that are looking about the table. So that's a challenge. we need to run the organist play all of our friends, how are going to do that. So I started recruiting a judge and player to become like regional delegate. And at the time, we were able to compensate them with cards and stuff. And so I built that network of volunteers.

They are running all my region in France and we are doing all those tournaments. And the marketing manager is going in a maternity leave. and the wizard French team is very small and we have every Monday a meeting where everybody participate and we share all the stuff we are doing and the boss of the French office

notice that during the marketing meeting I'm always very vocal and I participate and I have an idea so he's like well you know what briso you always open your mouth so why don't you take the job of the marketing manager while she's getting on maternity leave and then we're going to hire or someone else to run the DCI.

And I'm like, a new challenge? Sure, let's do it. So there you go. I switch to marketing and go on drafting advertisement for Magic the Gathering in Lotus Noir. Got it. I love this story. Just this, you know, all right. I'm like, you know, just keep pushing.

As soon as you get even close to comfortable, you push yourself right onto the edge again and some new skill that you have to develop and learn. I want to linger. I want to linger for a minute before we move on, right? Because obviously the specific tactics are not going to be the same. But you had to take a game that fortunately was popular, Magic the Gathering at the time,

and build a community where there was not. And you didn't have a ton, you had to create. And this idea of building communities around games is more important than it ever has been, in my opinion, right? It's so critical and it's so difficult. And so let's not, you know, we can take ourselves a little bit out of the time capsule here and think about how do you think about building those kinds of communities today? Specifically when it comes to, you know,

collectible card games, but even for traditional tabletop games and communities, what are the, you know, tactics that you think about using and how would you approach that for a new game versus a game with, you know, IP without,

like, let's just flesh that out of it, because you've worked with the biggest IPs in the world in addition to, you know, unknown kind of games and games that you're launching. So how do you think about community building back then and today? Well, it's the biggest, it used to be easier before because the market was less saturated.

And the problem is that you can't look at this question isolated. It's a general big picture marketing strategy. And for, in order to successfully build a gaming community around the product, you need to think from the moment you start designing, designing the game to the moment you are selling it. And every action that you are putting in that process must be serving the greater purpose, which is to build that community.

Because the game market is oversaturated. We are competing with similar products that are targeting the same target audience. So why are they going to play Lorcana versus Pokemon versus Magic versus Ascension? it's still the same players. They are the same interest. They like the same aspect in the game.

And so if you just build a strong community with a strong organized play, but you don't have the distribution network behind and the product is not accessible, then it's going to fail because you're going to create excitement with the gamer, but the supply service is not going to be there. If your game is everywhere,

but it's highly discounted online or for whatever reason or anything, you cannot get the specialty retailer interested and motivated, they are not going to be wanting to push and build those communities. And so it's a very, it's the biggest challenge of our industry, I would say. And it's require pushing your pawns in many different directions in order to be successful. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you said a lot of things there.

So I want to unpack it at a level because some of these are, I think, some jargon words, people might not know. But let's start at the beginning. When you say from design, from the beginning, you have to think about community. What kinds of design choices do you mean? Can you give me some specific examples where you or somebody that you've worked with has changed their design choices because, oh, this choice was made because this is going to make this more successful in community or not, or this design choice will lead to a different type

of community building than another? Well, I don't have specific example, but I would think like, you know, One of the challenge of our industry is if we are a car manufacturer, we are trying to, we have benchmark that we are measuring ourselves against. We want a car that is faster, that need less gas, that is more aerodynamic, more quiet, whatever. We know what we are getting against. When you sit down in front of your table to design a new game, you can't make another

trivial pursuit, you can't make another magic together. It's already done. You're not going to interest people in playing another version of that same game. you need to add something different in there. So that's when I mean where the choice is, is number one, building a community on a standalone game with no expansion ability, it's more challenging because you are lacking the refreshment and excitement

that will lead the player to go back into their store and to try new stuff. That's why the TCG and all this kind of product are successful at building community because there is always something new coming out, and I'm a magic player, and I want to know the new technique. And so I'm going to go back and go to the pre-release

because I want to see that. So this is the kind of design that you need to take in account when you are building the community. Okay. Yeah, so I heard two things there. I'll just reflect them back to make sure that. So one, and these are things I agree with, so hopefully I'm getting it right here.

So one is when you're designing something, if not great, that's better to know that way. When you're designing a game, You want to make sure that you are aware of what is out there, right? And make sure that you have a unique selling point, that you can say to somebody who's a fan of, say, magic or Lorcana or Ascension or whatever and say, okay, yeah, you like that game. This is like that, but this, right? Oh, maybe, you know, there's some pain point, right? So, for example, when I made Ascension, right, Dominion had come out and that was the first deck building game.

That was a box deck building game. And I was like, man, I like this game a lot, but I don't like that the board is fixed from the beginning. and it just takes forever to set it up and tear down. So this is way faster and you get much more variety. And otherwise, if you like Dominion, you're going to like this. If you like magic, you're going to like this. Right. And so that's kind of where I sold dissension.

So something like that where you're saying, okay, what is out there? And how do I sell it? And I agree as a designer, it is so important from the very beginning. That's why I always tell designers, like, work on your elevator pitch, right? Work on your sales pitch from the beginning, not because you're going to use that sales pitch at the end, but it helps as you're thinking about your design. If you can't come up with a good way to sell what you're designing, then it's not a design, right? You have to be able to sell it very quickly in the concept. So that's one piece.

And then the other piece I heard you say was, you know, about expansion ability. And that's not, and that's actually a really important and subtle point, not just that a game, whether it be a collectible game or an expandable game or whatever, but that in order for a sale, for a store, to care, to push the product, it takes just as much effort to build a community around a game you're going to sell once versus one that you can sell over and over and over again. So I might as well put one that I'm going to sell over and over again if I'm going to put that effort in. So as you're building these games that you want to be very big, having that at least capability

of expanding it, even if it's not kind of pre-collectable, is really important. Does that get that right? 100%. You exactly paraphrase what I meant. And also, I want to add on the expandability. People tend to look at the expandability

as, okay, making an expansion of the same thing that add more to the game. But we can approach it in the design in the way of building a line or a collection. Like, for example, when we're at Funko, we were specialized in doing movies, like Ety, Goonies and all this kind of thing. So our game were standalone, but they all were appealing to the same nostalgia, memorabilia, and we knew that the ITI game, the people who bought the IT game would be interested in the Back to the Future and into the Goonies and the Indiana Jones, because they were all to, together, they made sense as a universe.

So I see that as expandability also. Oh, that's great. That's a great subtlety to the point, right? So when you worked at Funko, which you haven't gotten to that part of your story yet, where you're working with a company that's all about pop culture, that the people who like pop culture, you don't necessarily have to have even the same game mechanics

or the same specific IP. It's going to appeal to the same audience. So once I've captured your attention and saying, hey, I made a great game for you, you're going to pay attention to this other game of mine because it follows directly, even if you're not expanding in the traditional sense. So that's actually a great point.

Exactly. Yeah. Okay. All right, great. So that's now, you know, for the game designers listening, this is why I bring on guests like you, right? Because it's so,

understanding the entire chain of existence from a concept all the way down to how you get this into stores and how you build communities around. It is so important. People just do not, you know, they underestimate it. It's actually the hardest part of my job running a company is not the games.

The games are the easy part. I can make great games in my sleep and it's super fun. But the ability to make one that I can actually sell, that I can actually build community around, that I can support that community is so much hard work. So, all right. So we got now this kind of starting from the beginning and how you build games that are sort of built to sell in a sense. Then you mentioned the distribution network and you mentioned specialty retailers. And I think that might be not, that might not, people might not know what that means.

So what do you mean when you say distribution network? Let's talk about distribution as a concept and how we sell into a distribution network. And then we'll talk about specialty retailers and other retailers and kind of how you get to stores for tabletop games. Okay. Well, one of the specificity of our universe, which I would say is that we have different tiers

of professional in the industry. So I use the distribution world as general as just selling product out in the world. But more specifically, specifically, you have companies that are wholesale distribution that are specialized in inventoring lots of games from all of us manufacturers and then dispatching them to retailers. And so they call those retailers every week. And then they say, hey, there is the new game from Justin and there is the new game from Stefan and all that. And here is the marketing that they have behind it and you should carry it in your store and all that. So that's the first level. In terms of retailers, there is all sorts of retailer.

We have Amazon, online, the big stores, Walmart, all those things which we call the mass. Those people are interested in a game when it has already proven to the market that it's valuable because in order for them to be successful and justify the space on the shelf, it's need to have a fast rotation. And many board games that are more of a confidential diffusion will never really reach that type of velocity and therefore the big mass seller will not be interested.

But more important than anything and the challenge for a publisher is the specialty retailers. The specialty retailers are game store who sell magic, the gathering, Warhammer,

role-paying games, board games, all those type of games. So there are a subcategory of toy stores. They don't carry ride-ons and playmobiles and Lego. Some of them do. but most of them are more specialized in tabletop games. They will not represent a major part of the income of a publisher, far from that. But they are essential because they are influencer, they are leading the trend,

and they communicate a lot amongst them, and if they like your product, they're going to help, again, build that way. that awareness. And also, they are the place where those community are going to build. I'm not going to build a community around my new game at Target or Best Buy. They don't have the space or the time or the resources. It's just shopping. But the local game store, the Little Shop of Magic or Games of Berkeley,

they have tables and space and community and they bring the people in there. and then they're going to allow us to see if even also us as a game. I'm not a game designer, but I release game as game publisher. If the product bites, if it has interest, because we put something out there. We have no idea. You've said it. I've heard you say it in your podcast many times. You come up with a great idea.

You think it's awesome. Everybody you showed it to tell you it's awesome. You put it out there. And then for some reason that nobody can comprehend, it doesn't start. And then on the other hand, you start something, and you're like, oh, I think it's interesting. And it's a huge success. And nobody can figure out that equation. Yes.

Well, yeah, that is unfortunately correct. But I do believe that there are principles that make it more likely. And that's what I'm trying to figure out from here. And it changes, right? It obviously, as you said, not only does what designs are going to be successful change based on what's in the market, what sales and what channels are going to work best for your change based on what's happening. right so obviously when we're you know uh selling nowadays the ability to have your game on streams and the ability to have influencers that kind of like it and promote it and let it's it's more fun to watch

um is more way more important than it used to be um and i find now so distribution networks i i find this sort of stuff fascinating because it used to be you know back when i was first doing you know even first launching ascension right i could sell i could show the game off and i showed it off at gamma this is in 2010 and we're going to talk a lot about gamma because you've got obviously a lot of history there, but we'll get to that. And then the distributors would really love the product. They would pick the product up for me. Their sales representatives would sell it to the specialty stores and sell it to the

small stores. The stores would pick that up. And then they would take it to their, and then those stores would take those games that were sold to them by the distributors. And they would sell it to their customers. And they're like, oh, this is amazing. And in theory, that's still what happens today. But it's not nearly the same as it used to be.

Because as you mentioned, the market is so saturated, I find distributors. don't seem to have as much attention or capability or even, frankly, interest in promoting the new thing as because so many of the things they have just sell automatically. They can sell X units of magic or Lorcana or Star Wars or whatever. And so they won't necessarily take a chance or even if they take in some product. They won't really push it in the same way. And so using distribution as a sales tool used to be, I think, a bigger part of the equation. It doesn't feel like it is anymore. Do you feel the same way or how do you feel about how distribution works in terms of like these?

kind of mid-tier people that's the middleman, if you will, between you and the store. They are indispensable still, but I agree with you. The dynamic has changed. It was much easier, as you said, before you were just putting a great game, putting it out there, doing all the upfront, giving it to distribution, and then just sit and wait for them their replenishing order, and everything was happy than me. This is not the case anymore. again, mostly due to saturation and also trend.

You know, like we're talking about the game design. We go to trend. You are mentioning Dominion. When Dominion came out, everybody was doing deck builders. And then you came up with a new version of deck builders, which was super exciting because, yes, I love Dominion, but I got tired of the closed system. And it was becoming very mechanical.

And so those trends, but also. We were mentioning Lorkana, which is one of the recent success. That's another challenge. Sometimes your timing is unfortunate because if you release the board game when Ravinsberger were releasing Lorkana this year, it sucks to be you because the retailer had no money to invest in your product because they had something that was sought and so on demand that they had sure success.

So am I going to trust that new? game that nobody knows about or that huge Disney license that it's going to be amazing. So timing is important and all that. Yeah, that's one of those things that's very hard to control. And for people that don't know, like Lokana is a Disney themed trading card game that's recently released and gotten a lot of buzz. But it's like it's just, yeah, that's one of those aspects is like right time, right place.

Sometimes you can see something coming and move your release dates. But oftentimes it's just like, all right, you know, you have the right time, right place or you had the wrong time, wrong place. And it is a, it's a, that's part of what you just, you know, you do your best, you put your work out there, you don't stay, try not to be too attached to the results. But to go back on your question about distribution, so the way that's changed now is, again, there is so much offering and it goes so fast. And there is also what we call the cult of the new, even though they are a product that we call

Evergreen, and Evergreen Game is a product that is selling year over year with no specific marketing push or relaunch. But it has such a great reputation. like Catan or Ticket to ride, and that it sells your arboria. So this is all our dream to have as many ever-win as we can. But the nature of the beast is that when a sales representative of a distributor is calling a retail store,

they have 30 games this week to pitch to them. And so how are you going to make sure that your new little memory game that you just released is going to have even some exposure? because there is a new Pokemon expansion and there is a new Dungeon and Dragons book and there is a new this and that and then in the middle of all that

lost there is your little card game and so the challenge we face as a publisher nowadays is how do you create the buzz? How do you get some space in the general noise to even exist?

I have an experiment I did when I was running the yellow a U.S. branch. I had built a community of retailer and we had a private Facebook group and we were communicating with retail. There was no distributor in there.

There was no, it was only retailers and we could say anything we could as long as it was respectful. And so I was using that as a laboratory to communicate with my retailer. And what I used to do was send a little survey when I was launching a new game. So we have a new King of Tokyo expansion.

coming out. It's coming next week. So they would get a newsletter, or they would get an email, they would get communication in the book. And then the day of the release, I would send a little survey in the group and say, okay, today is the release of the game.

So reply to my little survey. I got the game. It's great. I didn't get it because I forgot to order it or my distributor didn't ship me or it was free form. They could feel it. And then there was one option at the bottom.

What the heck is that game? which again, let's remind, it's a product that I've told to them at least 20 times on 16 different mediums. And I give you a guess. What was the percentage of what the heck is that game that you are? So I try to guess. Yeah, I'm going to guess it's over a third of people.

It was 40%. Yeah, there you go. 40% of, yeah, exactly. Even a little more than what I said. But so, but that's, that's, that's a very, very important fact. It's those retailer that are essential for the survival or the continuation of publisher, they are so much bombarded by information all over the place that

no matter how efficient you try to be in your communication, 40% of your message is lost, almost half of it. And so you need to keep that in mind. And then, again, as a gamer are approaching, a problem to solve, how do you resolve that? What tricks are you going to use? What are you going to do differently from what you were doing before and from the other guys are doing so that there are more people who know that today is the release of the King of Tokyo

Extension? Yeah, yeah. So I think that's just I want to underscore that point because we have learned that lesson as well. As well, it's over third, I was pretty close to where your guess is because we've had the exact same thing. We have retailer groups, we have player groups. We send out weekly updates. We send out bigger monthly updates.

We have communication channels. I talk about my games on the podcast and we have tens of thousands of followers every month. We know that there are people that are listening but they don't hear it, right? They'll just because there's so much going on in life. People are busy. People get distracted. People don't necessarily pay attention and then it goes in one ear and then one out the other. So not, you know, having compassion for the audience that, look, there's just a lot of noise.

So they're not going to pay attention to everything. having compassion for yourself because man oh man does it hurt when you drop something new and it just falls on crickets and how could you not know about this i said it 20 times this is the coolest thing in the world why aren't you listening to me um so so just being aware that even the people who've been doing this for as long as you have as long as i have as long as you know it's still a problem doesn't change um so that's important but but let's see can we give any more things either concrete tips of what how you think about this problem today or some examples of things that worked for you to help build those communities and help really kind of build buzz.

Again, we know it's not 100% predictable. We know what worked yesterday won't necessarily work tomorrow. But just give some, I want to give some more color to the types of things that do work or any principles that come to mind so that when people are thinking about this problem, they have some more tools in the tool belt to solve it. Well, it's where your marketing skills come into play. You really need to think. And again, we are going back to my original statement that you can't look at an isolated

issue like, okay, I just want to build the community and the focus on that. It's part of the general communication because, again, since we know there is so much depredition and noise, you need to make sure that you communicate at all level. You need to make sure you send the information to your distributor way ahead of time. You need to make sure that you send the information to the retailer in a cascading event, not at the same time you send to the retailer to the distributor, but just after. But so you are creating a push-pull dynamic. And then you need to make sure that the consumer are aware. And all those marketing companies,

and you don't speak to the distributor, the same way you speak to the publisher, to the retailer and the way you speak to the consumer. There are different messages, target and everything. And so you need to include that. If you do the best direct-to-consumer communication, but you have neglected all the upfront work,

it's worthless. And so that is the challenge, because those are very different skills and very different way of communicating. And you need to build all that. And again, from the moment you are designing your game, you need to already vision who is that game for, which player, but also which network.

Am I going to sell it in bookstore mostly or in hardcore hobby stores? What is, is it a family audience? Is it an hardcore gamer audience? You need to integrate all that from the beginning because it's going to impact how you communicate. down the line. Yeah.

No, I think that's, I think it's really important. And this idea of this push-pull dynamic, right, where it's like, no, I want, I want, I want customers asking stores. I want stores asking distribution. I want distribution being able to sell down to stores. I want stores being able to promote it to their customers. And I have to attack every piece of that in order to have a chance of success, right? You don't know which of those puzzle pieces is going to be the one that really takes off,

but you want to kind of be a full frontal attack when you're launching something new because there's so much noise you really want. every opportunity to get the word out and to have there be that some magical step that happens that it creates a flywheel effect and now the buzz is happening, right? And that's the thing you can't, you know, this sort of going viral is a modern term for it, but this idea that suddenly everyone's kind of talking about it and now it breaks through the noise and now you can have a real chance at something that's a big success or an evergreen, that you can't control it, but you can manipulate it. So let's let's dig into all of that.

because there's a lot of pieces there. I think now it's probably a good time to talk about Gamma, right? Game Manufacturers Association. Sure. You had leadership roles all the way up to president over the course of, what, seven years, six, seven years, something like that, maybe more. Yeah, something like that too. So a lot of people don't know what Gamma is.

So let's start from the kind of ground up, and why should people care if they want to make hobby games and be in the game industry? So we'll start there, and then we can dig into some details. All right, so Gamma is the Game Manufacturer Association. It was created a whole, I don't remember, a long time ago, by a group of wargamer who wanted to do the, it was to create the origin game fair. They wanted to do a game convention where they could meet and play a war game.

And so they needed a structure to be able to run the convention and charge tickets and rent the space and everything. So they created a non-profit association. But the goal was really to run Origins, end of conversation. And then Origin became successful. And then they realized, oh, well, we have that structure now that exists. And we could do like origin is a consumer convention. It's a gamer convention.

We could do an industry, B2B, business to business event where publisher can meet with retailer and the industry profession can meet. And so they started to do the Gamma Expo in Las Vegas. And so that's where the association become more of a trade association because now it was organizing a trade convention. But I think it's important to mention that it was not spawned to a bunch of publishers sitting together and said, We need to create an association together to help our industry. They didn't think about that.

The pretext was to have a structure to run the origin game fair, and then there was, oh, no, we can do a B2B. But for the longest time, that was what Gamma was. So it was by definition of trade association, but in terms of what they were doing for the industry in general was not really of substance. And so when I moved to USA, I was a member of the Gamma Association because in order to exhibit to Gamma Expo,

if you were a member, you were getting a discount on your booth. So many members were just signing to be a member for the discount. And I saw on the program that there was a board meeting of the association, and it was open to the public. So being the curious one that I'm always, because again, that's one of the thing I meant to say, I think I like challenge. I like to challenge myself and I wanted new stuff,

but I think my biggest quality is curiosity. And I can tell you so many anecdotes in my life that I showed up in a place where I was not expected just because like, hey, what's happening here? And then great things happen after that. So I see on the grammar program that there is a board meeting. And so I go in there and I like what it is. And I see imminence of the industry, you know, the Larry Rosse, now from Mayfair and

all those guys sitting and talking about what happened this year, the budget, and there was money in the bank and lots of cash. It was great. The origin was successful and GammaX was successful. And I'm like, oh, okay, well then we can do things for the industry.

We can help. And I have a little bit of the syndrome of the Sam Bernar. I always want to help. I'm always really with my screwdriver to fix what problem you have. And so I was like, oh, I could join. And so I like, what do I need to do to join the board as a volunteer?

I said, well, you just stand up and say, hey, I would like to be part of it. And I got elected as a board member. And then at the time, I, there was one of, I think my biggest quality, if I may say, is my curiosity because I can tell so many instances of where I showed up in somewhere where I was not supposed to be or just out of curiosity. I'm like, hey, what's happening here? And it led to great collaboration or change

in my life. And so I think curiosity is a very good quality that people should foster and they should follow. It's a great human quality. I agree with you. I think I serve with this on one other podcast, but this is a new concept I've been working on teaching. Let me see

if it resonates with you since you're a Dungeons and Dragons player, as you mentioned this. So in Dungeons and Dragons, you know, you have the core traits, right? You have like your strength, your dexterity, wisdom. So I have this concept of core traits in life. And so C-O-R-E core traits, curiosity, obsession, resilience, and empathy. And so this idea that you, curiosity is how you find the things out there that are going to light you up. And then you have to become so obsessed with it that you're willing to go into the minute details and just spend the time and spend the hours and do the grind and just really get into it,

which you've already demonstrated. Resilience, because life's going to punch you in the face. things are not going to work, and you have to be able to take that and be one that learns from it. And then the last one, which I learned much more later in life, but it's really important is that empathy of being able to know how you're impacting others, right? How you being able to build things that are going to have a positive impact on others and being able to communicate in a way that can enroll others and bring them to your vision, right? Otherwise, you're not just going to be a lone designer. I think those traits together are like how you kind of build a path to success. I don't know if that resonates with you, but it sounds like a lot of the things you've already talked about. so much so much you just thank you thank you you you are you formulated something that i believe in

my core pun intended uh yeah it's i'm gonna use it i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna quote you it's uh 100% it's uh i i i subscribe to everything you just said okay great great so i'll i'll be i'm gonna be flushing those ideas out more for people that are just paying attention but that's something i've i've been learning and and trying to to to make more clear. We all do these things unconsciously that we get to success in some form of our lives. And I really trying to find ways to just say it so that other people can learn a little bit easier and it can like kind of bring it to mind a little bit easier. So all right, thanks for the feedback there. Let's get back to your story. So so you're curious about Gamma and you're curious,

oh, there's a board meeting. Why not? Go to a board meeting. Let's see what's up. And you, and I already know that you're not going to be able to help yourself, but start giving your opinion. But so talk to me about that moment. How does that board meeting go? Well, I went to that board meeting and they were doing an industry review of what's happening and they were rattling the financial result of the association, which, by the way, I have a lot of money in the bank that we were doing nothing with. And I was like, could we maybe do something with that cash to help the industry?

And so I was like, hey, how do I join? Oh, I want to help because I suffer of the syndrome. of the Steam burner. You can always count on me to show up with my screwdriver to try to fix your table that is broken or whatever. I can't help myself. I'm pretty busy, but for six years, I was with the search and rescue team in Santa Barbara, and my beeper was going off in the middle of the night, and I would go rescue people in the

mountain. So it's just, I can't help myself. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, okay, I know we're talking about game industry, but I can't just let that slide. You were part of the search and rescue team in Santa Barbara? I'm, okay, this is like, I've got to take a detour, folks. We'll get back to Gamma. But I need to hear about this.

I didn't know anything about this. So how did you join Search and Rescue? What's like, tell me a story. Like, this is the ultimate of like you love hard work and challenges. But come on. Like, give me more. Give me more. Well, I love outdoor.

I love camping. I love the nature. I'm more of an outdoor person than a city person. And at some point in my life, I am living in Vegas. I have a house in Santa Barbara, but I work for a company who is based in Las Vegas, with a little classic game distributor called Worldwide Import. And I live in Vegas, and I go back to Santa Barbara every weekend. It's a six-hour drive, so sometimes I stay in Vegas.

And I don't really care for Vegas. I never go to the street. I don't gamble. I mean, I'm a gamer, but I don't gamble because I know. The house is always really. And then I'm bored, and I'm starting to join meetup group about hiking and biking and mountaineering and things like that. And something to know,

the adventure meetup of Las Vegas is the biggest meetup in the world. There are like 3,000 people on it. And so every weekend I meet with people. And I start learning canyon earring, which is a discipline where I call it mountaineering for the lazy, because you rappel down the mountaine down the mountain into, water, rivers, and things. So you don't have to climb.

You do the easy job of going down. Opposite of climbing. It's opposite climbing. Opposite, yeah. But it requires some specific skill. There is lots of rope work and carabineering and harnessing and everything. It's a dangerous sport. You can get hurt.

You can get taken by a flash rod and everything. But I become, again, curiosity obsession. I become obsessed. I got the certification. We can drive two hours north to Zion National Park. It's a maker of canyoneering. I've done all the canyon in there. I'm becoming certified guide and everything.

And then one weekend, I'm dangling on a rope on a 60 plus foot rappel. And I'm looking down and there is a little puddle of water. And I'm like, oh, if I fall, that's going to be something. And then I'm like, okay, I have all those skills, very technical rope skills and mountaineering skills that I don't use. And also, when I was working for Wizard of the Coast in Seattle, I climb Montranier also. So I've always been attracted by

Montenaring and everything. And so I'm like, okay, I'm sure my skills that I'm using for having fun on the weekend could be used for a greater cause. So I start looking into search and rescue. And Las Vegas has a magnificent search and rescue team. You wouldn't think, but with the Red Rock Canyon

and all that kind of things, there are lots of people who get lost and injured in the weekend. And so there are three helicopters, there is a base. It's awesome. So I apply because it's a volunteer thing. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I actually know I have a friend who's a firefighter in Las Vegas

and he has told me stories. There's an incredible amount of work to do out there. So yeah, that's great. So I go to one of their meeting to apply for the Las Vegas Sartran Esq. But I remember, I'm a California resident. And so they are like, yeah, well, we don't really want to. because in order to join a search and rescue team, they have to teach you a ton of very specific skills.

And so they invest not money, but time on you. And so they don't want you to learn your skill and go get it somewhere else. So they say, it's not going to work. We only accept Las Vegas residents. So I'm like, oh, I'm so disappointed.

My dream is crushed. So I'm like, well, maybe there is a search and rescue in Santa Barbara, but Santa Barbara is a small city. Well, boy, was I wrong? because I did search, I did look, and there is a very, there is a Central Barra Search and Rescue team. And actually the people who founded it,

they are the owners of the company that is the worldwide leader in urban search and rescue material in Santa Barbara. And so the team is amazing. It's one of the best qualified team in Alpine Search and Rescue, which is a paradox for a coastal town. But every four year, we are part of the Alpine search and rescue team. And then we go and we, this is a friendly competition where we have to do fake rescue and things like that.

And we are so competitive. The Santarva team always win that trophy every four year old. So anyway, I happen to be able to join the team. And then I had a blast. It's very demanding. It's a lot of your time. You need to certify yourself all the time. And as I said, you have a pager and it's beeping in.

the middle of the night and I would tell my wife, I'll be back in 48 hour. I don't know. We're going to save someone. And so I've done that for many years. So you literally are out there saving lives using the exact same strategies and techniques that you have before, right? Taking things you're curious about and passionate about going to the hard work, going to the things that are difficult and then just searching and finding and doing things for free,

that now I have a pretty meaningful, real impact. Okay, I love it. Thanks for taking the detour with me. I did not know that about you. It's one of the reasons I love doing these kinds of podcasts with friends. So we can bring ourselves back to Gamow or if you got more, go ahead. I want to add one more things that is interesting anecdote. I'm a certified man-tracker of the California Man-Traking Association.

So my skill is a little rusted, but you can, you can drive your car in the middle of the forest, close the car, walk away, and I'll find you, like, hunting style, you know, like... I don't know whether to be impressed or scared right now, but I will make sure never to piss you off, that's for sure. I will only find you if you need help. Okay, thank you. All right, well, you're an even better friend to have than I realized. Amazing. Okay, great.

I love exploring this side. I, and I love how just as another tangent on this, right, that even in this, like, pure, like, being outdoors in nature, helping people, like, you know, saving lives, you still find a way to make a competitive game out of it and go compete to, like, be the best, I'm going to be the best rescuer. So I love that. I love that, I love that too. Competition is, the competitive drive driven correctly is such a powerful thing here. So that's, that's great. Okay. Let's get, let's get back.

So let's steer this one back into the realm of gaming. So you're at the board meeting. You realize that they've got a ton of money laying around. They're not doing things the way that you would do them. And you're like, wait a minute, how do I get in on this? Once again, not a paid position, not something that necessarily has any specific fruit that it's going to bear for you. That's one of the reasons I've always, I've been curious about.

I'm grateful for the people that are on the gamma board and do this work. But it's a not, it's a non, it's a lot of work. You don't get paid, and often you draw a lot of hate, right? Because everybody's got opinions and they're not happy, right? So that's my vision from the outside. Is that what it's like on the inside too? That's, I hate to admit, but yeah, I'm well at selling it very well. For people who would be interested in helping.

But yeah, it's a vocation, for sure. Well, yeah, so I mean, but it's really powerful and important, right? I mean, to sell on the other side. Again, I would not, I as a small independent, starting my own company, I brought ascension to the gamma trade show first. I had no marketing budget, really. I had no like, you know, I had been, I had done some things in the game industry before. Some people knew me, but that was about it. And by putting a booth there and being able to interact directly with distributors and retailers and, like,

show them what I had and get them excited and make those connections, that was the beginning of the kind of rocket chip to success for me. So it's a big deal. It really does matter to be able to. find people and drive and bring them together like that. And there's other tools that Gamma does that maybe people don't know as much about or things that you were helped building. So you can pick any parts of this you want. It's not easy, but it has yielded fruit.

And I assume it also helped build you far deeper connections in the industry, of course, than just somebody that attends or is a member. 100%. So one thing I want to say for sure is the Gamma Expo show is, even if Gamma was only doing that, this is the most important thing for industry professional, as you describe. It's the best networking opportunity that exists, and it's the fastest way to get exposure and build those relationships.

And actually, I want to do a segue on networking because I believe, again, one of the things that drove me to participate in the gamma board was to help, but also that networking opportunity. I believe that networking is crucial. if you don't have a LinkedIn profile and if you don't foster that network and if you don't keep in touch with people, you are missing something. And again, going back to the curiosity, I will never turn down anybody. Like, people can find my information online very easily.

I got contacted by people out of the blue that I don't know all the time who has come my help. And I talk to them because I believe that we are on earth to better ourselves and help people and pass along our knowledge, but also in a more self-serving vision, that unknown person would just reach out to me and ask for my opinion. I don't know where they will be in 10 years. I might bump into them again and do business with them, or I might need them for something, or we might, again, so many times in my life, this kind of circle connection happen. So networking is key. So that's that was one of my driver. But again, my

obviously as I described, my, yeah, let's linger. Let's linger on, let's linger on networking then because it's a good detour and it's an important thing that doesn't get talked about enough, right? Networking often pulls this image for people of like the, you know, schmooze in and trying to get something from people, right? And, and what you've described is what I also found is like the opposite, right? Networking is all about what can you give. to people, right? Find people that you genuinely, you know, have curiosity about, help in whatever way you can. And then that will come back to you in ways that are, you can't predict, but that will, it is a hundred percent the case. And one of the things I love about the gaming industry in general is

a lot of people are very much like you. I mean, I had no clue what I was doing when I was getting started, but I could talk to just people like Peter Ackison and Jordan Weissman and you and others who were like, you've been around the block. You have so no reason to care to talk to me, but you were so open. Everybody was so open with their advice and their insights. And it really felt like, even though in some cases we're technically competitors, that there's this value of just helping each other. And that has just proven to be the case. Everybody, whatever career job you're at you're doing, it's just merry a round of people. And you know the people that are there to help. You know the people that are good. Those are the ones that stay in the industry of the long term.

So I think that's very, very powerful. And I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit then because You said that anybody can reach out to you and ask for help. We have a lot of people in our audience that are looking for that exact sort of thing. What's the best way if they want to reach out to you and ask more about any of the things we've talked about or learn more from you? My email is Stefan at WorldWise Imports, UsenS.com. Great. Okay. We'll include it in the show notes.

And it is, you know, it's one of those things where maybe you'll regret making this offer on the podcast, but we'll see. I think it's a lot. No, I mean, I think it's just, it's a great thing that we continue to do and put out there. It's why I do the podcast in the first place. I want to help people. And it's a, it comes back. You never know how, but it comes back. Oh, so much.

And again, I hope I am inundated with request and I will try to address all of them. Because again, I never know who is the next person I'm going to, I'm going to meet. Like, I have another. I'm sorry. I have a lot of little. any anecdotes in my in my career but so this one is quite unique too it's it's going to be an entertaining i think uh so i work for nintendo um i'm running that super two on nintendo truck that is going around the the the city and then for some reason the department is defunded there is no

more cash so it was a multi-million dollar budget and there is no more money so no i'm like they let go of the person who was running the thing and i has the number two i'm kind of stuck there to kind of hold the door, you know? There is, I have, my office is on top of the warehouse where the car, the truck is parked. I go to the office every day. I have nothing to do. I play games on my computer. And I could have done that for it, but I, I'm bored. I don't like to do that. So, I'm like, okay, how can I find financing to move the truck? So I start reaching out to the Paris for the Paris, which is the Paris County Fair, and other event. And I'm like, hey, I'm Nintendo. I have a truck.

I can bring my truck, but you have to pay me. So not only you're going to give me a free booth, a 300 square foot booth to put my freaking giant truck in the middle of your fare, but you're going to pay me, and I'm going to bring some contest and do stuff and everything. And guess what? It worked. So now I'm managing to sell the things. But the reason why I was bringing that is that most of the time I was unoccupied doing nothing.

And I love Macintosh. I love Mac stuff. And at the time, Mac was doing Mac Expo. And so I'm the events manager for Nintendo France. I am in charge of running the Super Tour. I don't really have any business reason to go to Mac Expo besides the fact that I like Mac. And curiosity, we never know what you can find there.

And it's important. So I get my ticket. We are in the suburb of Paris. And I get on my motorcycle and I go to La DeFrance to Mac Expo. And then at the time, I think it was Toshiba was featuring their first giant flat screen TV. And so they had a block of four giant flat screen retro projector TVs that were displayed on the Toshiba booth at Mac Expo. And I'm here and I'm thinking, okay, we are about to repaint the super truck to, for Super Nintendo, for a Donkey Kong Jr.

That's going to come on Super NES. And if I could display the video game on that screen at La Fuer de Paris that I just negotiated with them to put my truck, that would create such an happening. So the latest technology, Toshiba, Nintendo and everything. And so I give my business card to the Toshiba people and the Toshiba friends people, they know nothing about that thing. There are only two of those walls in the world, one in London and one in Tokyo, and they just brought the Tokyo one here. And they brought a Japanese technician who doesn't speak English nor French, and he's the only one who knows about it.

So here am I. I'm 22-year-old with my Nintendo Business Card. I speak very little English, my Dungeon and Dragon English. And then I am trying to explain to him how can we make happen that Toshiba, rent or loan the screen so we can put it on the Nintendo truck at the fair. And I hope he understood me.

We shake hand, we do the Japanese bow and we go our merry way. And then I forget about it. And then two months later, the director of marketing of Nintendo France summoned me in his office and like, so what did you do?

I'm like, what? What's happening? Well, I just got a call from the CEO of Nintendo Japan asking him why the CEO of Tochiba Japan asked them why they needed their help and I'm like

oh yeah I know let me tell you so it went all the way to the top again you know like I was not supposed to go to Mike Expo but anyway so yeah long story short they said sure we can do it

but this is so special and so rare you need to pay for the travel of the technician from Japan to France, he's going to stay with you, you pay for everything. And so, okay, we do it. And so I go pick him up at the airport. It's the same dude I speak at the show. And his name was Takenori Shimidu. I used to call him Takesan. I know it's disrespectful, but he was okay with it. And we communicate with drawing and little sign because we don't, we can't speak. And so I made it happen. But again, my story is that I had not been curious to go to Mac Expo for whatever reason, this would have never happened.

And so many times in my life, I had things like that happening. I love that. I love that. I think that's a great, it's a great story. And it's a great, you know, it's a thing that's hard to encapsulate. You just don't know. Like, people want this formula of like, do this, do this, do this, do this. And you're going to be successful. You're going to have a thing.

It just doesn't work that way. But when you do follow your curiosity, things are going to happen. Doors will open for you. You don't know what they are. until you get there, but they will happen. And I found that to be true. And that's a great story and narrative for it. And stay open and don't limit yourself.

Because again, I'm like, I could have said, no, Toshiba. I'm nobody even admitted. No, but ask the worst thing they will say no, but they can say yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's such an important part of this, right? People are so afraid to ask for things. they're so afraid.

And I don't, I fortunately that that's just not in my DNA and I don't know, I don't understand it really, but it's like this idea that they're just afraid, whereas the worst thing that could happen is somebody says no and you're in exactly the same situation you would be if you didn't ask. Exactly the same. It's just psychologically people don't push past that boundary. It's amazing how much you can get from just saying, hey, what do we want to know? Like, again, same sort of thing, right?

You offered like somebody could ask you an important question about that they have. They can ask me questions. I always give people, you can message me on Twitter. Justin underscore Gary. I'm down there. I answer everybody's questions. It sends stuff to me. So it's like these things where people are just afraid to take that leap. I even put my phone number in the first printing of my book. Anybody could just call me and ask. And like maybe a dozen people did out of 5,000 books sold. Right. It was like it was crazy. So it's a it's one of those things where if you're out there and if you take anything away from this conversation, that ability,

just like push past that discomfort. Like follow your curiosity, be open, take chances, take a few risks. These are risks that are not real. Nothing bad is going to happen to you when you take this risk. It just feels that way. It feels like emotionally very challenging. Okay, well, we're almost out of time. So we got a good part of the gamma story in, but we don't necessarily need to come back to it.

Are there other things that come to mind because you've jumped in with so many great little tidbit stories, insights? Is there other things that you want to cover or things that maybe are some things that would be used? if you wanted to tell someone that was kind of starting out in the industry today or trying to put a new game together today that we didn't already cover? I think one of the core value you were promoting is resilience. I mean, persistence, like don't give up.

I've seen so many times where people had a good idea or had a good project and then one of the two sides didn't follow up and then it felt totally, the leeway. And even, it's never too late. Even if you go into your mailbox, your email box, and then you find something and you're,

oh, geez, I remember that exchange I had with Justin, like, two months, six months ago, we talked about that thing that would be a great thing to do. Wow, it's too late now.

No, it's not too late. Maybe it's not. So you replied to Justin and said, hey, you know, sorry I dropped the ball, but I'm still interested in that. And then you know what? I'm still interested. And again, we're back to square one.

You never know. I could have said, I think our biggest enemy is us founding excuses for not doing the thing that can be good for us. And so I think that's what it is. So persistence, don't give up,

be driven. But also, I think the advice I would give to people who are are looking to succeed in an industry. Number one is it's a small industry. And if you are here, if you are here for the money, you might not be in the right industry.

Some people make a lot of money in there, but it's not the best way to guarantee that you can make money. I would direct you to real estate or trading or anything like that or even building gizmos that it's more guarantees. is. So it's a labor of love. I think gaming is a labor of love. We have the unique opportunity to work in a leisure industry and we play as a work. So it's awesome. But you need to ask yourself, is it really what I want to do? And that's the key. And I think we are on Earth for a limited time. And don't do something that you're not passionate about. Don't do something that you want to do

because someone else tell you you should do it or, now ask yourself deep inside. Is this what you want to do? Because the other thing, going to work, will never feel like going to work if you are working your passion. Well, I could not have said that any better than you did. So I think that's a perfect place to end it. Stefan, thank you so much for doing this.

We've been talking about it for so long. This was so much fun. I learned a ton about you. I did not know. And this is a great, a lot of valuable lessons and fun stories. So thanks so much. And I'll look forward to seeing. you, I guess, at Gamma, if not sooner.

For sure. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Justin. It was a great conversation. And I learned some stuff too. So always, every time I listen to your podcast, I always take away something. So thanks for continuing that work. I appreciate you for that. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platforms, such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listen to reviews and shares with a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry and

compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast, Think Like a Game Designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at Think Like at Game Designer.com or wherever find books or something.