Not every new game goes beep in the night

Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - May 18, 2007

by M. Sharon Baker — Makers of computer games aren't the only ones turning the Puget Sound area into a center of the game world. The region also makes an impact with hit games played with old-fashioned tools like boards and cards.

Two such entrants -- Platypus Games and the Matter Group -- have launched their initial games in the past year with high hopes of joining the leagues of Seattle's major nontech game companies Cranium Inc., Screen Life and Wizards of the Coast.

The new companies were founded by people with no prior experience in the gaming industry. Both have made extensive distribution agreements with independent toy retailers, landed national awards and incorporated education into their games.

For each of these small companies, 2007 may be a make it or break it year.

About 500 new games are introduced a year, said Tim Walsh, the Florida-based creator of TriBond and Blurt, and only some 5 percent are around a year later.

"It's a game of whether you can survive beyond one or two years," Walsh said. "It takes a lot more patience to launch a game now."

And bigger budgets.

Richard Gottlieb, a New York City-based consultant who has brought several games to market, including Pretty Princess, Outburst and Tripoley, said to survive, new game companies must create a product with great game play and "impactful" packaging.

"Packaging is so important," he said. "It has to communicate your message in one-sixteenth of a second."

Platypus

Julie and Karl Archer love to play board games and were always telling parents and friends how they could make games better. When Karl's mother challenged them to invent their own game, Platypus Games and Evolution were born.

This year, you'll find Evolution, a board game in which players have to answer challenges to "evolve," nationwide in Nordstrom, Discovery Toys, independent toy stores and soon, a major bookseller, said Julie Archer, who has more than a decade of teaching experience. The game has landed eight national awards.

"Last year, we sold out of our first 5,000 games and we've since done a second production run," she said. "We're hoping to sell tens of thousands of units this year."

The two funded the Kirkland company through family and friends and forged creative and manufacturing relationships after attending Toy Fair in New York City last year. They plan to continue working full time while conservatively growing the business, Julie Archer said.

Platypus will have an expansion pack for Evolution out later this year as well as a second game.

"We have multiple ideas in the hopper," said Julie Archer. "We're never short of ideas, and all of them revolve around our philosophy of 'never lose your audience.'"

Matter Group

Taking a page from Wizards of the Coast, Amy Tucker and Sonny Spearman launched the Matter Group's first trading cards game, Xeko (pronounced ZEE-koh) last year. The trading card games teach kids about endangered animals, the principles of biodiversity and our planet's species-rich hot spots.

"I wanted to do something that made a positive difference out in the world," said Tucker, who left the interactive publishing industry and is very interested in the green and sustainability movement. Seattle-based Matter Group LLC has pledged 4 percent of net game sales to Conservation International, and prints its cards with soy-based ink on 100 percent recycled paper.

"We had a great Christmas," she said. "The response was overwhelming."

Later this year, a third Xeko trading pack, Mission: Indonesia, and several plush toys based upon animals from the first two games will make their debut, Tucker said. In addition, Tucker and Spearman are creating an online comic to tell the mythology behind Xeko. A television cartoon is also in the works.

"Xeko is really a multiplatform property," Tucker said. "While we've created a traditional trading card game, kids spend time online, and so we're extending the property to places where it's accessible."

Matter Group's investors include Cleveland Cavaliers owner and Quicken Loan founder Dan Gilbert, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard and the Behnke family, among others. Tucker said the company plans another round of funding later this year.