Every day for the last 10 months, I’ve lived in fear that the executive branch of my own country would raise our import taxes to an extreme level that would significantly damage Stonemaier Games and the thousands of small businesses seeking to serve their US customers, retailers, and employees.

So when the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the tariff taxes and the way they were implemented were unconstitutional, I had a huge sense of relief. Relief that small businesses can no longer be used as pawns in a global game. Relief that the whim of one person can no longer effectively change the landed cost of our product from $10 to $25.

Yes, there are still legal ways for the executive branch to impose tariff taxes. They seem really passionate about making small businesses in the US pay more taxes. But these methods have limits: For example, the new tariff tax is 15% (that’s the max it can be), and it needs congressional approval to extend beyond 150 days.

In the immediate future, I don’t think we’ll see much of an impact on prices, as anything in stock in the US already had its tariff tax paid when it entered the country (if it was manufactured elsewhere). My perception is that many businesses avoided raising prices and instead just ate the extra costs (that’s what we did; we did not increase any prices).

There is also the possibility of tariff tax refunds. To date, Stonemaier Games has paid just under $300,000 in tariff taxes to the US government. I’m not counting on getting any of that back–it will be nice if we do, and I hope that other businesses do, but the level of uncertainty isn’t something for which we can plan.

My hope, as always, is that what happens next will help me best serve my coworkers, our independent contractors and partners, and our customers in the US and around the world (consumers, retailers, and distributors). I wish the same for all other small businesses.

How have the tariff taxes affected you, and what is your hope for the future of tariff taxes?

***

If you want to question the feasibility of manufacturing highly customized games in the US, the ethics of manufacturing in other countries, or the politics of opposing tariff taxes, please read this and this.

Previous articles:

• Questions, Answers, and More Questions About Tariffs
• How Can We Fix This Together?
• We’re Suing the President
• The Math of Tariffs
• The Darkest Timeline
• Tariff Update: Legality, Lobbying, and Local Stores
• The Tariff Offset Gift Card: An Unexpected Outcome

Other related resources:

• CNN appearance
• NY Times
• Spectrum News appearance
• Board All the Time podcast
• Five Games for Doomsday podcast (plus Frank West)
• The Secret Cabal (Justin Jacobson)
• NPR
• Board Game Wire
• Global Times
• Financial Times
• CNET
• SLU International Business Now
• NY Times (August 2025)
• I Tried to Make Something in America (The Smarter Scrubber Experiment) – Smarter Every Day
• Tariff Tax Update: September 2025
• Polygon (Feb 2026)

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.

For the last 10+ years, Stonemaier Games has invested a lot of up-front time, resources, and love into our products, completing production before we sell to customers on our 4 regional webstores (followed by shipping soon afterwards, then a retail release a few weeks after fulfillment is complete).

This method has proven to serve our customers incredibly well, with 3 circumstantial exceptions:

1. It’s a guessing game as to how many units we send to each of our fulfillment centers (US, Canada, Europe, and Australia/NZ/Asia), so sometimes we have sold out of a product in one region but not another. Customers then need to make a back-in-stock request and wait for the reprint (or buy from their local store, as many units are reserved for retail distribution).
2. Even with our extensive oversight process, mistakes can slip through to the first printing of a product.
3. Our launches primarily reach those who follow Stonemaier Games in some capacity, directly or indirectly.

With this in mind, I was both impressed and intrigued that Gamefound is introducing a new feature called Express Crowdfunding. In their words: “Instead of collecting pledges and waiting months or years to deliver, Express Crowdfunding allows creators to gather shipping details and begin fulfillment while the campaign is still live.” When the initial printing sells out, Express shifts into accepting preorders for a second printing.

I think this is fantastic, as it directly addresses what I believe is the biggest issue with modern crowdfunding: uncertainty. When a creator launches an unfinished product, they pass the burden of uncertainty onto their backers.

Express asks creators to finish and produce some quantity of their product before launching. Yes, there’s risk in that, and I understand why creators old and new have to choose how they mitigate that risk. That’s where Express shines (in principle–we won’t see it in action until Labyrinth Chronicles launches on Tuesday): You can make a smaller print run of the game up front so some customers can receive it within a few weeks of launch, then within the same campaign you can gather preorders from everyone else.

I confirmed with Marcin at Gamefound that the pre-produced games can have a variety of variants (different versions, languages, or quantities at fulfillment centers). A creator could offer a different price for a pre-produced version than a second printing if they wish, and backers can choose between the two. StretchPay doesn’t apply to the pre-produced games, and so Express may not work as well for games priced at $100+.

In my opinion, this is a strongly backer-focused option, and I’m curious which other creators will try it first. If you do, please let me know so we can talk about it.

Does this intrigue me for a future Stonemaier launch? Just a little bit, particularly for #3 on my above list. However, part of our method is that we not only get products to customers soon after launch, we also get them to retailers soon after launch fulfillment. In fact, we saw with Expeditions that it doesn’t serve retailers and their customers well when there’s a big gap between launch fulfillment and retail fulfillment.

Also, we’ve taught early adopter consumers over many years that our webstore is the place to go to get our games, and our Champion program is built around the Shopify platform. Our webstores sync up perfectly with our fulfillment centers, and we’ve invested heavily in the webstores with significant results ($5.3m in net consumer webstore sales in 2025).

So while we likely won’t try Express, I applaud the innovation.

Quick notes on other crowdfunding innovations:

• Gamefound has also implemented Endgame, which lets backers extend a campaign as long as it continues to receive pledges. This can help with stretch goals and give more backers access to lower campaign pricing before late pledges begin. Marcin notes, “it is also just a fun experience for an engaged community,” which I can see.
• Kickstarter offers creators the option to provide “secret rewards” as a way of showing appreciation to certain backers. I learned about this from the creator of the Sugarworks project. I can see this as a nice way to offer a lower price to people for whom you’re particularly grateful.

What do you think about Express, Endgame, and secret rewards from a backer or creator perspective?

***

Also read:

• The Current State of Gamefound (2025)
• An Insider’s Perspective of Gamefound vs Kickstarter (2022)
• 10 Years Without Crowdfunding

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.

What do Senet, Backgammon, the Royal Game of Ur, Mancala, Go, Pong, archery, running, swimming, and boxing have in common? They are some of the world’s oldest games (tabletop, digital, and sports).

I realized recently that games wouldn’t have existed across the world for thousands of years if they weren’t solving an essential problem faced by humanity. Games let us feel something important that we rarely experience on a daily basis. We are able to work because of what we gain from playing.

Here’s a list I’ve compiled of essential feelings that games let us experience. Games enable us to feel:

• clever
• powerful
• creative
• lucky
• progress
• control
• safe
• joy
• adventurous
• discovery
• connection
• potential
• useful
• empathy
• masterful
• victorious
• acceptance
• complete
• unique
• purpose
• love

Think of a game you love and how it makes you feel. I put a photo of Tapestry here because it provides several of these essential feelings: I can feel clever when I eek out one more advance turn before a break for income. I can feel powerful when I expand my territory and ward off opponents. I can feel lucky when I roll the science die. I’m also consistently feeling a sense of progress (I’m always moving forward), control (full agency over the track I choose), and uniqueness (asymmetry).

Of course, the great thing is that no single game needs to provide all of these feelings. An adventurous or lucky game may not give me all that much control, just as a cooperative game that provides feelings of love and connection may not make me feel powerful or victorious.

Also, some of these feelings are provided by the act of gaming itself. I can feel complete in a game by maximizing a set collection mechanism, but I can also feel complete in the meta sense by collecting all expansions for a game I adore. I can feel useful by teaching a game, and I can feel masterful by honing my skills in a specific game over dozens of plays.

The more I thought about this topic, the more I realized two things:

1. These feelings are truly important in life. I need to sometimes feel lucky. I need to feel a sense of purpose. I need to feel like I’m making progress. Think about how essential (yet rare) these feelings are in our daily lives (work, family, school, etc). Life can be really hard, and there may be long spans of time when we don’t feel unique, discovery, or control. Games aren’t a replacement for those feelings in our daily lives, but they remind us that these feelings are possible.
2. We can create games with intention to evoke these feelings. On a purely theoretical level, I can look at any game we make and attribute at least a few of these feelings to it. I can also say that many of my games have an intended experience. But from now on, I plan to use these feelings as the foundation for every game’s design and development. Again, not every feeling for every game–some are contradictory–but I want our games to solve this problem with intention, not stumble into a solution.

I believe these are essential feelings to the human experience. While I truly hope that we all get to feel them in real life on a regular basis, I’m glad that games provide a consistent source of these feelings.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this concept. Am I missing any essential feelings? Do you consider these feelings essential to our humanity? What’s a game you played recently that provided a few of these?

***

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My journey to becoming a backer of the “Almighty” Kickstarter campaign began with an intriguing Space-Biff review, followed by a note to myself to write about the thematically whimsical-yet-informative project page, and finally a surprise message from creator Malachi Ray Rempen. I had a few questions for Mal that he graciously answered for today’s post.

1. I really like that the first image on the project page leads with the words, “Why we made Almighty” (with the reason focused on potential players: That they would “make a great god” and if they like a short list including ancient mythology, emergent narratives, and asymmetric area control). Can you talk a little about the decision to “lead with why” as the first image on the page?

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that this comes directly from Simon Sinek’s “Start with why” TED talk from back in the day. On my very first Kickstarter, Itchy Feet, I decided to take his advice literally; rather than start the campaign with the product or even the theme, the very valuable real estate at the top of the page is taken up almost entirely with a statement to answer “why” and a bit of art.

That campaign did WAY better than I ever dreamed, so in a way the why statement has become a good luck charm for me, and now I always do it. I can’t be sure that starting with why is what led to that campaign’s success, but I’m not about to test that by breaking with tradition now!

It is also a great way for me to focus the marketing message. If I can answer “why” in a single, bold, appealing statement, it’s like the center of gravity around which the rest of my messaging can turn. Without it, the marketing risks just becoming another flavor of “buy this thing now.”

[JAMEY] I really like the idea of starting with why in the messaging–it’s something I need to remember more often.

2. The game looks like Root and Oath had a baby…and you got a quote from the designer of those games, Cole Wehrle! How did you pull that off?

I credit Root with making it possible for serious strategy games to present as fun and cartoony, and for that I owe it a huge debt. With the exception of Itchy Feet, all my games are mechanically more serious than they first look, and thanks to Root nobody thinks twice about that. I took a lot of inspiration from Oath, both visually and mechanically, as it’s a highly strategic game that also revolves tightly around a shared central tableau.

Almighty is lighter than either of those games, but I do consider myself something of a student of Cole’s art direction and what you might call his sense of unified aesthetic, or how every single aspect of a board game contributes to its experience…even the parts that only exist in your mind!

As for the quote, that’s from a Bluesky post that he put up totally unprompted by me, it was a complete surprise! He’s the best though, he’s a model exception to the rule that you should never meet your heroes.

[JAMEY] I’ll add that I think it’s incredible that you are a designer, developer, publisher, and artist!

3. I must admit that when a game highlights that it can be played both competitively and cooperatively, it makes me wonder which is the “correct” or “best” way to play. In other words, to me it’s more of a marketing detriment than an asset. Of course, that’s a highly subjective take. Was Almighty designed from the beginning as either a competitive or cooperative game? What’s your instinct when you (as someone who plays games) sees a game advertised with multiple modes of play?

Almighty was built initially as a competitive game. There is certainly wisdom in the idea that a game should only present its best foot forward and not dabble in different modes of play, for the sake of clarity and elegance, and I am sympathetic to that view.

But for me personally, as a publisher of a kind of games that you are unlikely to find elsewhere, it’s a question of accessibility. I know there are people who prefer or only play solo or cooperatively, and if there is a chance that I can offer those people a way to play with the worlds, stories, art, components and puzzles in my games, then I want to try to do that for them. I also enjoy the design challenge, and looking at the amazing work by solo designers like Ricky Royal it’s getting harder and harder these days to argue that it’s not possible.

As for my own personal instinct, I don’t mind if a game has multiple modes of play, as long as they preserve what makes that game unique and interesting.

[JAMEY] I love the focus on accessibility, though I can see it working the other way too–if a game isn’t super clear about its intentions (should I play this competitively or cooperatively), that can impede accessibility. I’ve also seen rulebooks where the competitive and cooperative rules intermingle in a way that can be confusing. That said, I view solo play as a necessity; even though it’s technically a different mode, you’re still experiencing the core gameplay.

4. You have a really unique and fun take on stretch goals in the “God of Upgrades”. It’s much less rigid and far more thematic than most stretch goal systems I’ve seen, and I like the inclusion of “Backers that show kindness and support for one another” on the like list and both “Speaking to the creators of this game as though THEY were deities (we are but humble mortal vessels)” and “Backers that are rude and/or combative with each other” on the dislike list. How has the response been to this approach so far?

The result of this pretty last-minute idea is that I now have the funniest and most delightful comments section of any Kickstarter campaign I’ve ever seen. It’s full of jokes, board game themed psalms, comical appeals for forgiveness, and one person even posted a photo on BGG of their cats having “built a temple” to this “god of board game upgrades” that I created for the campaign.

It’s also practical, as it lets me gauge what backers actually want upgraded or added, which is a big downside to a traditional stretch goal system. It’s interactive, it’s thematic, it’s fun, it promotes good vibes, and maybe most importantly of all, it’s optional! So everyone who has been taking part has been making it that much more fun for everyone else. I’m delighted by the response so far.

[JAMEY] I hadn’t thought of the flexibility this method gives you to serve backers base on what they really want. You’ve basically provided the perfect method for them to express their highest hopes for the game, and you accomplish this by setting a fun (not demanding) tone for the backers.

5. Is there anything else you want to highlight in regards to the fun vibe exuded by the project page?

I’m glad you think there are fun vibes, that’s certainly the goal! It’s my belief that crowdfunding campaigns have a magic circle, too, not unlike the one we’re familiar with around the tabletop; for a limited window of time, you and other like-minded people gather together and participate in the creation of something that did not exist before and cannot exist without you. That is a wonderful, rare thing in this day and age, and worth protecting. I am a little saddened when I see campaigns that are not much more than a dolled up preorder system. To me it’s more like I’m lighting a bonfire, inviting you to join, and after our festivities you’ll get to take a burning log back home with you to light your own hearth. I dunno, maybe that’s a totally overwrought metaphor, but it’s how I feel!

[JAMEY] Thank you so much, Mal, and I’m excited to play Almighty around this time next year. If you (dear reader) have any thoughts on this conversation, feel free to share in the comments!

***

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I recently talked to a publisher friend about something they had never encountered before: They were completely caught up at work. In fact, they were well ahead of schedule but their coworkers were not, so they wanted to resist their instinct to simply create another game, at least for a while.

Being completely caught up at work is a luxury that some of us may never experience, but perhaps you can relate to brief times when you’ve completed all time-sensitive tasks. After filling every spare moment with Vantage for nearly 8 years, I had that feeling when it was complete. I suddenly went from feeling perpetually behind to having an ample amount of time.

So today I thought I’d brainstorm a few ways to spend extra hours or even days when you’re caught up on work, particularly in creative roles. I’d love to hear what you do in these rare situations.

1. Serve customers: When in doubt, I ask myself, “What could I do right now to serve our customers?” This can be private or public. For example, I could email some of our most frequent customers to thank them for their support. I could hang out in any online community for our games, or search for our games on Instagram to comment on the posts instead of just liking them. Or I could make a video (recorded or live) to help people learn one of our games.
2. Research and learn: There’s more knowledge in the world than I can ever possibly know. I can spend extra time studying game design (from books, podcasts, articles, YouTube, etc) or even playing games (tabletop and digital). In fact, I so rarely play digital games because I always feel like I should be working, but I learn something about game design every time I do.
3. Support existing products: As fun as it is to release something new, most of the games we sell are reprints. Among many different ways of supporting existing products is to share special challenges or variants (like Vantage’s recent Valentine’s-themed custom cards). I can even revisit older rulebooks with a fresh, unrushed perspective. Also, even if I’m ahead of schedule, it never hurts to playtest a prototype again.
4. Create content: If there’s a topic on my mind that might add value to people or start a conversation, I can write an article about it, record a podcast, or film a video. It doesn’t need to be a commitment to creating regular content–it’s perfectly fine to create a singular post on a topic.
5. Attend an event: I rarely travel to conventions or even attend events at local game stores/cafes. Perhaps that’s just my introversion, but part of it is the other work I always feel I should be doing. But if I have extra time, there are plenty of places I could go–near and far–to play games and meet people outside of my social circle.
6. Make something just for fun: Sometimes I give myself permission to brainstorm a game (and even prototype it) just for fun, and I’m almost always glad I did. The lack of pressure to create something publishable is incredibly freeing.
7. Help someone else: I’ve heard that one of the best things for our mental health is to help someone else. Whether it’s a coworker, a friend in the industry, or a new creator, there’s always someone out there who might be looking for a little time, feedback, or words of encouragement.
8. Connect with someone locally: I typically take a 30-minute lunch break at my home office, then it’s back to work! I hardly ever go out to lunch, but there are lots of people–friends and peers–in the area that I could be more intentional about sharing lunch with from time to time.
9. Be good to yourself: There’s no rule saying that an absence of work needs to instantly be filled by more work. I can go for a walk, take care of a personal task I’ve delayed, treat myself to a movie, etc.
10. Start the next project: I’m putting this last because despite my inclination to always be creating something new, we don’t always need to make more games. Especially when we already have plenty of games in the pipeline and when adding something new could put a burden on already-busy coworkers. That said, it’s nice to start on a new game without any time pressure.

What do you do when you have extra time at work?

***

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Years ago I was wrong about pledge managers, and I’m still learning the full scope of my short-sightedness about them.

For the way we sell new products there’s only a few weeks at most between the launch date and shipping, so we don’t use pledge managers. But I noticed a surprising data point after the recent 5-day launch period for Wingspan Americas and Viticulture: Bordeaux.

Both products sold well on our webstore during that time: 20,260 copies of Wingspan Americas and 6,353 copies of Viticulture: Bordeaux. However, in terms of the 5-day revenue, these products comprised of only half of of webstore sales. The other half of revenue came from older products.

You read that correctly. Nearly for every dollar of a sparkly new product, customers spent another dollar on an older product. Perhaps this is to consolidate shipping (we offer $10 flat-rate shipping)? Or the new products provided a nice excuse to browse the webstore?

This is what I underestimated and misunderstood about pledge managers years ago when Backerkit originally created this extension of the campaign. My backer mentality was that I’m there for the new product–if I wanted a company’s older products, I would have already purchased them, right?

But that’s not the case. The pledge manager is just an optional, non-pushy service to customers. After all, everything is shipping from the same fulfillment centers. It’s an opportunity for discovery and shipping consolidation. And, in some cases, it’s a chance for a publisher to try to move slower-selling products.

This was also a reminder to me that having related products in stock (i.e., Wingspan and Viticulture products for the recent launch) is really important, and that requires planning at least 6 months in advance.

What do you think about this? Do you ever add products to your cart in pledge managers that you weren’t planning to buy? Are you typically happy with that choice?

***

Also check out Jet Bridge, a Shopify extension that can act similarly to a pledge manager for crowdfunders who use Shopify for ongoing sales. Ben Harkins at Floodgate shared this with me after I posted this article.

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.

Last year around this time, a coworker shared that they would feel valued by a Stonemaier company retreat. After asking other coworkers about the idea and hearing that they were supportive of it, I started the year-long process of planning the trip, which culminated in roughly 3 days in Phoenix last week.

The main feature of the retreat was that it was the first time all 8 of us have ever been in the same place at the same time, as we all work well from home in Missouri, Oregon, Florida, Nevada, and Minnesota. My happy place is at my desk at work, but I was happy to serve my coworkers by arranging and participating in this trip.

Details about exactly how the trip worked are in the article I wrote in June. Basically, I found a location (Phoenix) that met the environmental preferences of all coworkers and was within a direct flight for almost all of us, and I found a rental property where we could all have our own rooms to meet privacy, introversion, and sleeping needs. The trip was only for Stonemaier employees, and the focus was on each other and Stonemaier Games (opposed to nearly everything else we do, which is focused on our customers). The trip was during the week, as it was a work trip–I wanted everyone to be able to return home for a weekend with their families and friends.

Two things that evolved after I wrote that article in June are as follows:

• Food: I heard some good advice about food planning–make it easy for everyone–that I took to heart. For breakfast, we picked up a few basic items from the grocery store on the first day. For lunch, I researched nearby restaurants from which we could order delivery or pickup. For dinner, I made reservations at a few local places that met everyone’s dietary preferences.
• Schedule: I heard some other good advice about having some sort of structure to each day, shared in advance so everyone has a clear vision and can plan accordingly. Here’s how it looked:
  • casual breakfast individually at the house
  • mornings are free time to do anything you want in and out of the house: work, sightsee, meet outside the house with local friends, relax, etc.
  • order in together for lunch
  • stay at the house for the afternoon (not necessarily for anything in particular, but just to create the potential of working together if there are things to playtest, discuss, or just play for fun)
  • go out together for dinner
  • play games together, hang out at night, and/or have quiet time

The only last-minute changes involved (a) those of us in St. Louis getting a huge snowstorm just before the trip, resulting in a longer flight and a much later arrival than planned on Tuesday and (b) we rented an 8-passenger van rather than taking rideshares around the city.

Before the trip, I printed/assembled a bunch of prototypes and packed them along with a submission and some pre-production copies. We spent the majority of the two afternoons (plus one evening) playtesting and discussing these games.

My coworkers shared a wealth of feedback for me to consider and implement, which was as helpful as it was exhausting (if you’ve ever run a playtest of one game for a few hours, you know how much mental and emotional energy it requires–this was six games over a total of at least fifteen hours). This resulted in me returning from the trip with a staggering amount of work. Their feedback was great, though, so I’m navigating how to better include coworkers in the playtesting and product design process in a more spaced-out, remote, and independent way.

I think my favorite couple of hours during the retreat happened on the last night after the final playtest session. We were tired enough to go to bed, but instead we drifted one by one into the living room and talked. Just 8 people hanging out, joking, sharing, opining, etc. It was really nice to have that idle time with such delightful folks.

I’m sharing all this partially to close the loop I opened in June’s article and partially to offer an alternative template to traditional corporate conferences filled with speeches and teambuilding activities and intense meetings. We essentially just got together in a nice place and worked/playtested for a few days.

Would I do it again? I’m not sure. I’m definitely not looking to add another job to my job, and this was no small effort for me to plan, coordinate, and execute; I also returned with far more work than when I arrived. I think we work well remotely (in fact, in many ways this was a reminder of why I prefer to work from home, especially as an introvert), and much of the product design discussions can happen virtually on a rolling basis. Three of my coworkers are here in St. Louis and already participate in playtesting (though I could do a better job of inviting them more often). The idle time was intangibly important, though, so every few years I think it would be nice to get together for that purpose, even if it’s just a quiet evening before Design Day when most people are in St. Louis anyway.

I’m curious to hear your reactions, thoughts, and questions to this style of work retreat–feel free to share in the comments!

***

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Over the weekend I was printing and cutting some game prototypes, and I put the latest season finale of Welcome to Wrexham on in the background. I didn’t expect the confluence of those two activities to bring me to tears.

In this episode, the Wrexham football team is preparing for a game at the end of the season that will decide whether they are promoted to the second-highest level of English football. The team’s co-owner, Rob McElhenney, gives a speech inspired by a text conversation he had with some unnamed, highly successful athletes.

Here’s most of McElhenney’s speech, almost verbatim (thanks to this transcript). Also, if you have Hulu, I highly recommend watching the speech, as it’s brilliantly edited in a way that splices footage of the final game with the players during their childhood days.

“I want you to picture a time in your life. Maybe you’re eight, maybe you’re nine, maybe you’re ten, maybe you’re six, maybe you’re 12, but you’re out there and you’re playing football. You’re just kicking the ball around. You’re playing with your friends, your dad, your mom, your sisters, your brothers, your buddies. You’re just playing football.

And it’s fun. And you fell in love with that feeling.

Of course you’re grateful for the support that you’ve had along the way, your family, your friends, and everyone, but you’ve already honored that. From this point, the only person you owe something to is that ten-year-old kid who fell in love with football, who could not wait to be in the position that you’re in right now!

The point is, there is a moment or a series of moments in which you were in love with this game, and that is all that matters. I want you to go out there and play like you’re ten years old and have the time of your lives because I promise you that is the only thing you will remember.”

I’m watching this speech unfold while cutting and sorting prototype cards, something I also did as a 10-year-old. I played and created games then purely for the fun of it. Now I’m very fortunate to run a tabletop publishing company as my job, but sometimes I need the reminder that I do this for the love of games.

I also played soccer as my primary sport from a young age up until college, and I still occasionally play pickup games. Even though I never played at a high level, there was definitely a tonal difference between playing for fun with my friends and starting for my high school team. To practice for hours every day can feel like work, even though it’s a game.

So as I listened to McElhenney’s rousing speech, I found myself in tears. I was transported back to those days when there was no marketing and metrics and planning and budgeting and customer service and project management and proofreading. It was just me sitting on the floor in my bedroom, drawing maps, cutting cards, and writing rules. It was just me juggling the soccer ball outside at sunset with my late father.

This isn’t to bemoan any of the business aspects of my job. I genuinely enjoy them, and I appreciate the variety they offer. I like that game design is only a small part of my job.

But with all the complications we make for ourselves and that come with being adults, the speech was a helpful reminder that there is a child in all of us who once did it for the love of the game. It’s worth honoring that child by seeking and spreading joy.

This may not resonate with your career compared to your childhood passions, but perhaps you can still relate to the concept of doing something purely for the love of it you first discovered when you were young. What does this speech make you think about?

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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.

Yesterday was our biggest launch day since Wyrmspan (just barely edging out Vantage’s first 24 hours), and the combination of Wingspan Americas and Viticulture: Bordeaux will soon start to ship to customers worldwide. The webstore launch discounts are available through Sunday.

Across our 5 webstores (US, Canada, Europe, Australia/NZ/Asia, and US retail), we’ve sold 14,692 copies of Wingspan Americas (along with 618 sets of vision-friendly cards) and 4,794 copies of Viticulture: Bordeaux in the last 24 hours, and our fulfillment centers are ready to ship them to Champions starting early next week.

One of the reasons I share these numbers is because they’re a good reminder that early adopters–whom we greatly appreciate–can be just the tip of the iceberg. Our forecasts for the first printing of these expansions (numbers determined from past data and distributor estimates) resulted in us making 100,000 Wingspan Americas and 25,000 Viticulture: Bordeaux to cover demand in the first half of 2026.

Ultimately, it isn’t sales numbers that determine the success of a Stonemaier game or expansion: All that matters to us is that we make something that brings joy to your tabletop. I love what designer Elizabeth Hargrave created with the new hummingbird mechanism in Americas, and I had so much fun reimagining the Viticulture board in Bordeaux with an “expert” upgrade for each action across 4 seasons of worker placement.

I truly hope you have fun with these expansions, whether you order from our webstore to receive them over the next few weeks or if you pick up a copy from your favorite retailer in early March!

The slides shown in the following infographics are also found individually (larger text) on Instagram.

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I write these articles and create videos in the hopes of adding value to readers, creators, designers, gamers, and entrepreneurs, so as we begin 2026, I thought it might be a good time to check in with you to see if I’m accomplishing those goals and how I can do better.

Stonemaier Games is a tabletop game publisher, first and foremost. We create (and reprint) games in the hopes of bringing joy to your tabletop. But I believe that the power of games extends beyond the tabletop. That’s community, and that’s why I devote some time to these articles and videos each week.

Plus, one of the amazing things about community is that it’s an opportunity for me to learn from you. Each of these articles and videos is a forum for discussion, and I appreciate you for joining the conversation. I also really appreciate the Champions whose annual $15 contribution directly supports the creation of 100+ articles per year and 300+ videos.

Website

I write 2 articles per week (Monday and Thursday), with the actual writing happening almost always on the same day that I post. Over the last few years my articles have focused primarily on the marketing and entrepreneurship of tabletop games, highlighting examples from Stonemaier Games and other publishers. I occasionally feature guest posts and interviews if someone has insights that I haven’t previously shared. Also, after most articles I record an audio version for those who prefer listening over reading.

These articles aren’t about game design (I reserve that topic for videos), and they’re less about crowdfunding than 10 years ago (I still pay attention to crowdfunding through the lens of a backer and creator, but my last project as a creator was in 2015). I’d also like to do a better job of linking new articles in relevant groups (e.g., on the Entrepreneurship & Marketing page) to help someone who wants to learn about a specific topic.

Revenue: There are no ads on the website, though this is the Stonemaier Games website, so it is a discovery tool for our games. Shopify’s analytics indicate that $1.6 million of our webstore sales over the last 12 months are attributed to this website, though not necessarily related to the blog.

Stats: While my motivation for writing these articles isn’t likes and views, I wouldn’t keep writing if people stopped reading. Views per article seem to vary widely from 300 or so to 15,000+, with most of the conversation happening on the Facebook page crossposts.

YouTube

I record on average 6 videos per week, with most of the actual filming happening on Tuesday using StreamYard, a Blue Yeti mic, and a Logitech Brio 4K webcam. The most consistent YouTube videos I film are “my favorite mechanism” about a game I recently played, top 10 lists, the weekly livecast, and the Positively Board Gaming podcast. Most videos are unedited; my coworker Joe adds a quick bumper at the beginning and text on the top 10 videos.

I also sometimes talk about expansions, digital games, the design process, games I’m excited to play again, and insights about Stonemaier game/product design. Every month I stream a Rolling Realms playthrough, and now each week I also feature a sponsored playthrough by another content creator. While it’s mostly me talking at the camera, I include other perspectives in the form of panelists on top 10 videos and lots of audience participation on the livecast.

Some notable updates to the channel in 2025/2026 were me adding relevant end-screen links and using premiere links a little more often for livecasts. I generally don’t like the premiere feature–if I see a video in my feed, I want the option to watch it now–but I think it works well for the participatory nature of livecasts.

I’m not a reviewer, so I do not accept free review copies of games. I’m always working on being more precise, eloquent, and succinct in my videos, including examples and inviting conversation.

Revenue: Prior to 2025, I had turned off all monetization options on our channel. However, after the channel was briefly hacked last year, I heard the advice that YouTube might be more responsive to situations like that if they had some vested interest in the form of paid advertising. So I turned on monetization, adding an ad at the beginning of top 10 videos and sometimes linking to our webstore on relevant videos. After doing this for 6 months, we’ve received just over $1,000 in ad revenue (total).

Stats: As I mentioned above, my motivation for any video isn’t likes or views; it’s to create something I enjoy making and is true to me while hopefully adding value to you. Views vary widely depending on the type of video; the least-viewed videos are watched around 400 times, while the most-watched videos might have upwards of 20,000 views. Overall, the channel currently has around 56,000 subscribers.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts about what you’d like me to keep doing in these articles and on the videos, along with anything you’d like to me improve or try. I make this content for you, so your feedback really is important to me.

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Also read/watch:

• 4 Impactful YouTube Experiments
• State of the Channel 2023
• 3 Takeaways from the Most-Watched Tabletop Game Videos
• How Tabletop Creators Pay the Bills (2025)

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.

Our mission is to bring joy to tabletops worldwide. Approximately 20% of the world speaks English, so if Stonemaier Games only published products in that language, we would miss out on serving on 80% of potential tabletops. We currently work with 40+ other publishers around the world to accomplish that goal, amounting to around 13% of our annual revenue.

Specifically, my coworker, Susannah, coordinates with those publishers (aka localization partners). For example, when the Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion English files were approved by our manufacturer in mid-2025, Susannah shared the source files for translation and the  price per unit at different quantities with our localization partners. For any who decided to participate, Susannah kept them (and me) up to date with any potential revisions found during the translation process.

Important: Every localization partner is a publisher, completely independent from Stonemaier Games. Any information about localized games is for localization partners to share when they’re ready. You’re always welcome to express interest in any Stonemaier product with our localization partner for your preferred language.

I last wrote in detail about localization in 2016. The original article is still relevant, hence why I haven’t updated it, but today I’ll outline the process we’ve refined over the years. This is not the only way to coordinate localization; it’s just what we’ve found works well for Stonemaier Games and our partners. This is roughly in chronological order:

1. I don’t try to make our games language independent (i.e., all icons), as I find that a complex mesh of icons almost always impedes accessibility, limits the scope of creative abilities, and decreases thematic flavor. I greatly prefer a mix of icons and text. As an unintended side effect, some amount of language dependence increases the appeal for localization partners.
2. Late in the development process, Susannah pitches the product to localization partners in confidentiality so they can discuss if they want to join the first printing. Sometimes they ask to see prototype files, which I provide. We typically work with the same partners for each language to build trust and communication through consistency; it’s only if a partner continually doesn’t serve us or their customers that we look for someone new.
3. When the English first printing is in production, we get a quote from Panda for a batch of smaller quantities (1000-4000 units) to calculate localization partner prices. Typically they amount to a roughly 70% discount on MSRP (enough for us to cover manufacturing costs and make a small profit).
4. To ensure that partners receive the most printer-ready versions of the product, we wait until Panda has created the digital proofs and we’ve approved them before sending the source files for translation to partners. Each localization partner handles their own translation and proofreading. They typically have 2-3 months to provide printer-ready files (PDFs created from the InDesign source files) to join the first localized print run. Sometimes translators find mistakes that we missed, typically in time for us to update the English files; Susannah communicates those revisions to all active translators and I answer rule questions.
5. Each partner uploads their final files to Panda’s file management system and goes through Panda’s pre-press checks. If they don’t finalize and approve the files by the deadline provided, they must wait for the next printing.
6. Localization partners pay us 50% before production begins; they pay us the other 50% when their products are ready to ship from Panda a few months later. Each localization partner coordinates and pays for their own freight shipping, which may include language-independent add-ons like upgraded tokens. It’s very rare that a partner doesn’t make the second payment; if that happens, we don’t release the products to them. We rarely have written contracts with localization partners.
7. We provide an announcement schedule and marketing materials to localization partners (including photos of the English version). If we commission a teaser trailer video, we provide a version to partners without a voiceover so they can post it in their language. Some partners tell us it’s okay to list their name on the product page for our website upon the initial announcement; others wait until later.

Again, this is just one way to do things. If you’re a newer publisher who is starting to hear from potential localization partners, I recommend looking at their portfolio of other localized games. Ask for data, talk to their customers, and do your research–their work is a reflection of you. You can also consider working with companies that publish in multiple languages (e.g., Publishing Technology Solutions).

Likewise, if a publisher contacts you to consider localization of their game, feel free to ask anything you want. Request the rules, playtest files, and any available data (e.g., crowdfunding results). Keep a close eye on any early red flags in communication.

I invite any other publishers to share their localization methods in the comments–I like hearing different perspectives. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments as well.

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Bordeaux will be available on the Stonemaier Games webstores in English along with Wingspan Americas on Wednesday, January 21, with shipping throughout February. You can sign up for a notification here: https://stonemaiergames.com/games/viticulture/newsletter/

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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.

I just spent a delightful weekend at Geekway Mini here in St. Louis playing tabletop games–including several play-and-win games–with a variety of wonderful people. Among some new-to-me favorites, I also taught and played Origin Story, Viticulture with the new expansion board (subscribe here for more info), and an epic 7-player game of Scythe on a friend’s stunning custom board.

With many game conventions big and small happening around the world in 2026, I thought this might be a good opportunity to shine the spotlight on the amazing play-and-win system that originated with Geekway many years ago. Also, tickets for the bigger version of Geekway will be available starting this Friday–I’d love to play a game there with you in May if you decide to attend!

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My favorite way to market our products is to facilitate and encourage them to get to the table more often. Your table, my table, the tables of reviewers, ambassadors, etc–any table will do. The more our products get to the table, the more they’re exposed to people, and hopefully the more fun people can have with them.

This is a big part of the reason why we support our products with reprints, expansions, and ongoing reviews, as well as focusing on accessibility (Watch It Played videos, ability to teach to new players on the fly instead of frontloading rules, etc). Our goal is to bring joy to tabletops worldwide, but a key element is that our games must actually get to the table.

One of my favorite ways to accomplish this goal is through play-and-win donations for game conventions and 100+ person events.

Play-and-win is a convention concept where people can check out a game, play it, and then enter their name in a lottery to win that specific game at the end of the convention. If I donate a play-and-win game to a convention, it can be experienced by dozens and dozens of people in a short amount of time. Only one of those people will win it, so if other people liked the game, they’re now informed in their decision to purchase it later.

I’ve been talking about play-and-win on this blog for a while after discovering it at St. Louis’ own Geekway to the West (which I’m attending again this year–I highly recommend it), and I’ll post those links at the bottom of this entry. Stonemaier Games sends dozens of games each month to support conventions around the world.

Today I’m going to focus on the play-and-win Google Doc that I created and maintain, as well as my current approaches to maximizing the potential of play-and-win for publishers, conventions, and gamers.

Publishers

If you’re a publisher who likes the play-and-win system, but you don’t like getting solicitations from hundreds of conventions, the Google Doc is for you. You can simply enter your information on this tab, which communicates to the participating conventions that you’re in the know and don’t need to be contacted individually.

As a publisher myself, my process for sending out play-and-win games is that I have a calendar alert late each month to remind me to check the Google Doc for conventions happening 2-3 months in the future. For example, today (mid-January) I’m looking at conventions happening in March and April. Conventions have told me that this advance notice is really helpful, particularly so the coordinators can tell vendors which games are coming in time for them to stock up via distributors.

The number of games I send to a convention depends on the size of the event. Sometimes the play-and-win coordinators enter their information on the Google Doc and forget about it, so I help to remind them of what the package is by including the words “play-and-win” as part of the address label.

I try to keep our ambassadors informed about the various conventions that feature our play-and-win games. If any of them attend those conventions, they can make sure to drop by from time to time to see if players have questions. Otherwise, you don’t need to be worried about having teachers present–people who use play-and-win are usually comfortable to learn the game from the rulebook, and random fans of the game often stop by to help out.

Last, while we donate our games to play-and-win sections for free, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to offer a convention a discount instead of a free game. This can actually be helpful to the convention, as it lets them buy exactly what they think will be the most exciting for their attendees (instead of letting you choose).

Conventions

If you’re completely new to play-and-win, read this blog entry about the core details (or these instructions on the Geekway website). Then take note of the following:

• Please enter your convention on the Google Doc (use open rows at the bottom of each month or insert a new row). In doing so, you’re committing to use any contributed games for play-and-win, and you’re committing to actually having a play-and-win section with at least a dozen total games (even if it means allocating part of your convention budget towards buying games specifically for this purpose). You can now indicate if you prefer different games or multiple copies of the same game.
• In filling out the Google Doc, there’s no need to contact publishers–particularly publishers on this tab–to solicit donations. You will either receive games 30-45 days before your event…or you won’t, in which case you have plenty of time to purchase games to fill your play-and-win section.
• At least several weeks before the convention, tell vendors which games were donated for play-and-win so they can stock those games at the event. The play-and-win section should close (and winners announced) before the vendors close their booths.
• When you receive the games, prepare them to be played (i.e., punch the punchboards, open shrinkwrapped decks of cards, sort tokens, etc). This serves the attendees hoping to show up and start playing.
• It never hurts to follow up with a publisher after a convention to let them know how their games did in the play-and-win section (number of plays and ratings from participants). I understand that this is extra work, and I won’t ever hold it against a convention for not doing so, but it’s really nice when conventions do this.
• I recommend only letting each person win at most 1 game for the entire event–that way you spread out the prizes among the most people. Also, instead of interrupting the event to announce the winners, simply post them at a few key places around the convention hall or on an online forum designated for attendees to check.

There are other tips from specific conventions on this tab of the play-and-win Google Doc.

Gamers

If you like the idea of play-and-win, feel free to check out the conventions listed on the Google Doc. You might discover a nearby game convention that you haven’t heard of.

If you’re new to game conventions, you might be pleasantly surprised by them–especially the type of convention where you just play lots of games for a few days. I’m an introvert who does not get excited about big events, but my experience at Geekway is consistently amazing. I really appreciate people who have invited me to join their game or when someone teaches a new-to-me game, and I’ve tried to be just as welcoming to others. If you attend Geekway in May and you see me, please say hi–I’d love to play a game with you!

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What are your thoughts on play-and-win?

Also see:

• a developer has created some proprietary play-and-win software
• An Open Letter to Small Game Conventions from a Tiny Publishing Company
• The New Play-and-Win System
• The Hard Data Behind Play-and-Win
• The Magic of Play-and-Win: Data from Geekway 2015
• 5 Google Spreadsheets That Can Help Every Tabletop Game Creator

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.