Convention Discoveries
So PAX East was a few weeks ago. Was able to see a good number of friends, run some games, and sell a bunch of games. The Goosepoop Games booth actually did really well, compared to last year and my goals. I went from $4,500 to about $7,500! I’m just a small creator, but that’s definitely positive growth, and almost reached my sales from PAX Unplugged the previous year (PAX East has both video games and tabletop, while Unplugged is solely tabletop). This couldn’t have happened if I didn’t start doing consignment. My friends make great games, and being able to show them off at the booth I was able to sell out of some of them. Actually I sold out of a lot. What was curious is what the biggest seller was (which is what this blog post is about).
Honk Daddy.
Did that get your attention? It got the attention of most people as they passed by the booth. It was the game that sold out, even though I had over 50 copies. Why did it sell out, though?
What’s in a name?
People tell you not to do it, but most of my games I come up with the name first. Honk Daddy started because someone stopped by my booth, pointed at the goose on my big wall banner, and said “That’s one big Honk Daddy.” Once they said it, I knew right away it needed to be a game. I wonder if it’s a mix of a silly word “Honk” mixed with a sexualized term “Daddy.” The juxtaposition of the two makes you stop to wonder: “Wait, what is this?”
What’s in a game?
Okay, I had the gold-plated name. I could literally do anything I want with the game, but I think if I created a haphazard or lazy theme (yadda, yadda, you play as knights on a large quest to save the princess to please the king, Arch Duke Bishop Honkafellor Daddy, yadda, yadda), then it would either bring mixed emotions or disinterest. The name is weird. It’s gotta be weird. How weird is too weird, though? No one is going to sympathize with a made up world/universe if they can’t picture or relate to it. To pull off weird, you gotta have a known touchstone people can relate to. If we change around the synonyms of Honk Daddy, we loosely get Goose Father. Instantly I knew it was a mafia. A goose mafia. Everyone likes the Sopranos, or at least knows about it. That’s an easy touchstone for people to imagine playing in, even if it’s a little wacky.
Pitch Hit
The first couple of seconds someone is at the booth is the most important time you have. If you are an unknown creator, you have to sell someone on your products within the first few sentences. If your pitch takes more than a couple sentences, you may have lost a customer as you over-explain your game to justify why it’s cool. The formula I have with my game pitches goes as follows:
Goal/thing you’re doing + Cool action players do
It’s a two part sentence that sells games fairly well. For Honk Daddy it’s “Play in the goose mafia, using real bread to bribe people.” Some people laugh at the first part, some laugh at the second part, some laugh at just the name. I haven’t done an in-depth study, but those who enjoy the first part (about being in the mafia), love the game even more when I mention you use real bread.
Why it sells
Honestly, I’m not a scientist. No one knows exactly why humans do the crazy things we do. But we can make hypotheses and test variables. So I guess I’m a game scientist. Listening to “Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life” on the way home from PAX East, it clicked why Honk Daddy did well. It’s the weird. That fringe territory where people are familiar with the concept, but something has been skewed in a way they didn’t think was possible. You never thought you could use food as part of a game, or play as a group of geese. But, if you think hard enough, no one has ever said you couldn’t play as geese and rip apart bread. Honk Daddy is testing what’s possible in a game without getting too woo-woo about it.
Going Forward
So yeah, I’m gonna keep making weird stuff. But not cliche weird, there’s a difference. I’m not going to be obnoxious, explosive, and crazy. It’s just asking, “Hey, you know the soup you’re eating? What if that was your dice roll?” I do worry that if Honk Daddy does really well, people will become numb to the strange content I create. If people are used to the weird, then I stop sitting in that fringe territory. The challenge isn’t to keep out-doing myself (because I’d go crazy), but to keep searching for new themes that tilt your head when you hear them. Trust me, Quack Mommy will not be making an appearance any time soon (or will it?).