The Game Inventor's Guidebook [Paperback]

Brian Tinsman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2003

For aspiring game inventors, avid players and game enthusiasts, this reference book has no equal. This practical how-to guide explains the step-by-step process inventors follow to publish role-playing games, collectible card games, miniature games and board games. The author presents helpful tips to aid in game invention and design and business advice on selling, manufacturing, distributing, retailing, marketing and self-publishing games. Other unique reference features include successful game inventor interviews; frequently asked questions; publisher, distributor and broker contacts; trade show information; and sample documents.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brian Tinsman is the concept acquisitions lead for Wizards of the Coast, the world's largest hobby game company, for which he reviews about 150 game submissions a year. As a professional game inventor Tinsman has also designed or contributed to more than 20 published products, including role-playing games, family games, strategy games and trading card games. Throughout his career, he has spoken with hundreds of inventors and dozens of publishers about the challenges involved in getting a game to market.

Product Details

• Paperback: 167 pages
• Publisher: kp books; illustrated edition edition (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873495527
• ISBN-13: 978-0873495523
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,145,357 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Entertaining and Educational Look Non-Computer Games, March 16, 2003

By 

David Michael "DavidRM" (Tulsa, OK USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Game Inventor's Guidebook (Paperback)

According to its subtitle, The Game Inventor's Guidebook covers: "How to Invent and Sell Board Games, Card Games, Role-player Games, and Everything in Between!" In other words, the book covers the modern, *non*-computer game industry.

The book opens with short descriptions of some of the success stories of the past couple decades:
* Trivial Pursuit
* Magic: the Gathering
* Dungeons & Dragons
* The Pokemon Trading Card Game

If you're not familiar with the stories behind these games, they make very interesting reading, especially for indies. With the exception of the Pokemon TCG, these are stories of dedicated individuals pursuing a dream and not giving up when things get tough.

After that, the book describes how the game publishing industry works, and provides summaries of the companies and games that a would-be "game inventor" should be aware of.

More useful than the birds-eye view of how the industry works are the frequent interviews with publishers and game designers. These are probably the best part of the book. Such modern "name" game designers like Reiner Knizia (Lord of the Rings, Tigris & Euphrates & many, many more), Brian Hersch (Outburst, Taboo), Mike Fitzgerald (Mystery Rummy, Wyvern), and more, discuss how they got started and how they approach game design. Equally informative were the interviews with publishers such as Mike Gray of Hasbro, Peggy Brown of Patch, Mike Osterhaus of Out of the Box, and others.

Because of the costs associated with games of this nature, the book several times cautions against self-publishing your game ideas, recommending that the would-be game inventor go through a publisher. Despite this advice, the book also points out that such major successes as Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, and even the perennial Monopoly were created and made successful by determined self-publishers before a major publishing company picked them up.

The book does provide 4 chapters discussing what's involved with self-publishing games. Like most of the book, though, the chapters are at a very high level, providing more of a broadbrush overview than details. Still, the chapters cover the topic quite well.

One point that the book stresses over and over is that all game design should begin by first deciding on your audience. If you don't care about the marketability of your game, then you can start where you wish and enjoy creating and playing your game. But if you want to appeal to a segment of the population bigger than "You and People Just Like You", you have to pick who you want to appeal to. Once you know who you're making the game for, you can adjust and refine to better appeal to those people.

All in all, The Game Inventor's Guidebook provides an entertaining and educational look at the non-computer game industry and its current markets. If you are serious about game design, and want to learn about all aspects of game design, and not just within the computer industry, this book provides a good place to start.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid advice for aspiring game inventors, February 28, 2003

By 

William R. Schmadeka (Shoreline, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Game Inventor's Guidebook (Paperback)

If anyone wants to understand how game companies make decisions on what they publish, who to contact in the industry with ideas, or wants a solid helping hand in getting their ideas together and heard, this is a book you need to have. It starts out slow (the first few chapters aren't as pertinent as the latter ones), but it's written concisely and is a quick and easy read, essential to books like this which are all about getting usable information to the end user. The inside stories on companies and publishers is entertaining and partinent, and the contacts list for publishers and agents is invaluable. In short, a very good book at doing what it set out to do.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay for general interest., November 15, 2004

By 

Guy L. Gonzalez "Malcontent" (Bloomfield, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Game Inventor's Guidebook (Paperback)

"The Game Inventor's Guidebook" is a bit of a misleading title as there's very little here to guide an aspiring inventor in getting into the industry beyond the obvious advice to get a broker if you want a shot at penetrating the big companies; and don't sink your life savings into producing a game yourself thinking you're going to strike it rich. Tinsman has put together a respectable, if somewhat lightweight, overview of the industry with brief glimpses at the backstories of some of the more successful games and their inventors that's most appropriate for the gaming aficionado.

NOTE: If you're interested in video game design, look elsewhere.