I asked a number of industry professionals to join me for an informal chat about board games. We talked about a number of things, from the apparent strength of the current board game market to ways all levels of the industry can help each other bring more games to more customers.
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Hans Isaacson: President of Uncle’s Inc, with five retail locations (Uncle’s Games, Puzzles and More!) in Washington State. He started out in the industry in 1990 as a retail clerk (the store’s “game guy”) for the former parent company of Uncle’s (Book and Game Co.) and worked his way into a partnership position when the two founding owners parted ways in 1999. The “Game” in “Book and Game Co.” became Uncle’s Games. He is partnered with Shannon Ahern (founder of Book and Game Co.) and Karen Stephens.
Scott Nicholson: Host of Board Games with Scott, a video podcast about board games, and participant on the On Board Games program. An associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, Scott researches gaming in libraries as the director of the Library Game Lab of Syracuse. His upcoming board game, Tulipmania 1637, is due out from JKLM in 2009.
* Twitter: @snicholson
Jeff Tidball: Independent writer and game designer, and a co-founder of Gameplaywright. He has served as Vice President of Product Development at Fantasy Flight Games, worked on staff at Atlas Games and Decipher, and done freelance writing and design for a cast of thousands.
* Personal Home Page: jefftidball.com
* Twitter: @jefftidball
* Facebook: Jeff L. Tidball
Mike Selinker: President of the game and event studio Lone Shark Games. Some of his recent games include Pirates of the Spanish Main, Key Largo, Unspeakable Words, Link 26, and Stonehenge. Before that, he was a creative director and game designer at Wizards of the Coast, helping to relaunch Dungeons & Dragons and Axis & Allies, and writing such games as Risk Godstorm and the Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game.
* LiveJournal: The Most Beautiful Things
* Facebook: Mike Selinker
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Tags: board games, FLGS, game design, marketing, publishing