I recently read an interesting announcement on Board Game Wire that Scott Brady (co-designer of one of my favorite party games, Caution Signs, along with some others I really enjoy like Boop and Hues & Cues), is trying a new “proof-of-play” model of publishing through his company, A Game Studio. Their goal and methodology is to make a single, small print run of selected games “to generate real-world sales, player feedback, and retail validation before presentation to larger publishing partners.”

In the interview, Scott mentions a few problems he is trying to solve through this model:

• Publishers are passing on great games because they already have a full schedule for the next few years.
• Publishers are wary of taking on risk for a big print run without knowing how people will respond to the game.
• Mass-market games aren’t a good fit for crowdfunding.

I agree that those are all legitimate problems facing publishers (and designers). This certainly isn’t the only solution or approach, but I appreciate Scott for trying something different. He’s aiming for a single print run of these games at smaller quantities (1500-3000 units), then try to license the game to a studio that wants to invest in a bigger print run.

Of course, like any publisher, A Game Studio has limits as to how many games they can publish, so they may quickly run into the same issue that any publisher faces when they are inundated by submissions. Scott is starting with two games, and he says in the interview, “I am personally staking my reputation on the games I choose to help.”

I have some questions about the model, and I’m genuinely curious to see how it plays out.

• If a game does extremely well in the proof-of-play model, wouldn’t A Game Studio prefer to keep it in house?
• Are publishers actually looking for more games than they already have in their crowded release schedules?
• Is this actually similar to a publisher signing the worldwide rights to a game that’s currently only found in one language or that had a single successful crowdfunding campaign?
• Given the slim margins on selling games into distribution and retail, will publishers be willing to decrease their margins on these licenses? In this model, a publisher would pay both the designer and A Game Studio based on the sales they generate.

I 100% applaud Scott for trying to create a win-win-win situation for designers, publishers, and his studio, and I genuinely hope it works. I’m sorry I don’t have a link to his website or where publishers can submit to this process–I can’t find it on any of the articles, and web searches for “A Game Studio” aren’t providing accurate results.

What do you think? Will this approach work?

If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.