Major
Business Administration (General)
Minor(s)
Leadership Studies
Advisor
Scott, Asadorian
Advisor Department
Marketing
Date
4-2022
Keywords
tabletop game, game, startup, business,
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Abstract
Starting a new business is a tedious and challenging process especially when it comes to an original idea for a tabletop game. The original idea for the game must be put into written rules and physical gameplay components. These aspects must be confirmed to work and collecting feedback from others is often a major tool used in this stage. From this point, a game developer can go a few different directions such as attempting to sell the game to a larger company or trying to produce their own independent game.
Keeping the game independent is arguably the more difficult route as a developer accepts the responsibility of providing the initial starting funds, marketing strategies, branding, and other challenges. The recommendations for getting started as an independent game contradicts the fundamentals of business in many other industries and can be navigated in a variety of paths of which remain at the discretion of the developer. There truly is no one way to go when starting.
In my honors project, I along with a small team, will be navigating the challenging path from an original game idea to a sellable product named Draw 3. Our game is drawing based and has proved to be enjoyed by a wide variety of age groups. Heading into the project we constructed a business plan, performed playtesting, and have established as a limited liability company and filed for trademark. The remainder of this project will consist of navigating the challenges of marketing and performing a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund an initial order of 1,500 units to be sold. Starting any business is extremely challenging, but this project will provide insight on exactly how to do that and no matter the outcome, it will also provide valuable training on entrepreneurship.
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons, Sales and Merchandising Commons