Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Duhan.
Matthew, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Gozer was our pet chinchilla who became the mascot and trademark of my board game company, Gozer Games.
I have always enjoyed playing board games, card games, and puzzles. In college, I had a group of friends with whom I played games regularly. As we continued playing different games, we developed an interest in the structure of games and game theory. I started developing my own games, and one of them evolved into my first published board game from Gozer Games, Collateral Damage. It took a lot of trial and error, and adjustments to the game to have a finished product of which I am proud.
For many years after college, I would often pull out my hand-made prototype of Collateral Damage to play with friends. Several wanted copies themselves, and so I began to seriously start thinking about how to publish it. My options were to find a company to publish it, or to do it myself. Being a person with the entrepreneurial spirit, I decided to publish it myself. In 2006, I began researching what it would take to start my own board game publishing company. I had to find artists and manufacturers, handle shipping, warehousing, fulfillment, distribution, etc. Once I had made the game, I then had to get it into stores and find others interested in playing and purchasing it. As with any entrepreneurial endeavor, I had to learn as I went. I learned the ins and outs of the industry, talking with many others as I went along. Fortunately, the board game industry is a fairly open one, and publishers are often willing to share advice with each other.
After publishing several of my own games, many of which received awards, I began to start looking for other designers’ games to publish. I started attending designer’s nights and conventions with that goal in mind. It was at one of these conventions that I found Titans of Industry, the first game that I licensed and published that was designed by another person. I had to again learn that aspect of the business, and work together with the designer to get the game into the best form it could be to be published.
Today, I have several games published, and more in the pipeline. Our next upcoming game is an adult party game, Stab A Panda, which will be crowdfunded later this year. I have also started branching out into board game accessories. I have just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign for custom accessories for last years’ Game of the Year, raising over 300% of our original goal.
I try to give back to our community. I still attend a number of conventions, and am also an admin on the Tabletop Games Kickstarter Advice group online, helping other designers and publishers get their start. I have many plans for the future of Gozer Games, and I hope to achieve them soon.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As with any entrepreneurial endeavor, I had to learn as I went. There were some mistakes made along the way, early in the company’s history. At one convention, we overestimated how much we would sell, and wound up paying more than we needed to for shipping there and back. Every mistake has been a learning experience, though, and has helped me and the company grow and become stronger.
Gozer Games – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Gozer Games is a board and card game publisher. Our motto is “Because games should be funny as well as fun.” We specialize in light, humorous games, usually that have a tongue-in-cheek aspect to them. Several of our games have won awards, including the 2011 Gaming Genius Award and 2010 Toy Man Award of Excellence. We have a number of upcoming games planned. Our next game to be published is Stab A Panda, an adult “would you rather” style party game for 3 to 12 players.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I always feel proud when I see one of our games on the shelf at a store, or have a fan ask me to sign their game for them, or have people tell me they like playing my games. For me, the proudest moment for Gozer Games was early in the company’s history. It is typically difficult to get new games into distribution, especially for a new company with only one game. Our first year, we attended GTS, the GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas, which is a convention for publishers to show their games to retailers and distributors. Our game Collateral Damage was one of the few very popular games that resonated with retailers. We had several game store owners approach distributors and request them to carry our games, which in turn meant that the distributors came to us rather than the opposite. In short order we had secured distribution with several major outlets, right out of the gate. This is not common, and made me very proud, that a game I created was in such demand.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://gozergames.com
- Email: sales@gozergames.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GozerGames/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GozerGames
- Other: http://eepurl.com/c0MkrX
Image Credit:
Matthew Duhan
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