How Don’t Panic Games Brings Anime Licenses To Life

Toy Launch (00:42)
Welcome back to Toy Business Unboxed Podcast, the podcast where we go deep into the business of toys and games, the strategy, the deals, the hard lesson, and the win. I’m your host, Jason Hsieh, and today’s guest, he had one of the most unique career stories that I have ever come across in this industry. Cedric has spent over 35 years plus in the intersection of anime entertainment. He founded multiple companies, including Anime Land, one of France’s largest.

Anime magazine. He also built another anime distribution company that became Crunch Roll Europe. And then he also co-founded Anime Limited, which is now another company that he’s also running. But what we’ll be diving into today’s interview is his work with his own board game publishing company called Don’t Panic Games, where he also founded to bring a Japanese anime license to the tabletop industry. So thank you so much for joining us on the show today.

Cedric Littardi (01:36)
Well thank you for inviting me. Hi Jason, hello everyone.

Toy Launch (01:39)
So I know just like in the intro, you have been doing a lot of different businesses and you have kind of hands in all the different kind of aspects of entertainment. First, if you can walk us through your journey in the last like couple of decades in multiple different industries, like what even got you started into like doing what you do right now? So

Cedric Littardi (01:59)
That’s a great question. But I think that what started for me was passion, you know. I was a kid or at least a teenager and well as

Toy Launch (02:06)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:06)
A kid I grew discovering the first Japanese anime, but not only. I loved a lot of things, including gaming, including comic books, including movies, but anime was nothing back then or nearly nothing. No no one knew about it.

Toy Launch (02:21)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:23)
And you know, I discovered it. I actually traveled to Asia to Hong Kong to find out some stuff that was not available. And

Toy Launch (02:27)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Cedric Littardi (02:31)
You know, when I came back I just like was in France and how can I access this stuff?

Toy Launch (02:36)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:37)
So I found out a Japanese bookstore, a few people that were like me, you know, that had access and et cetera,

Toy Launch (02:42)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:42)
And we just we built an AnimeLand as a fanzine back then. But

Toy Launch (02:46)
Okay. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:47)
I guess that it was born from passion and necessity. It’s like,

Toy Launch (02:50)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:51)
We have to share what we do with other people. What should we do? And

Toy Launch (02:54)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (02:55)
Moving from thing to thing. So how do we share anime with the world? How do we give

Toy Launch (02:59)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (03:00)
Access to anime? Because you know it’s very nice to have a magazine, but if people can’t access it, what you know, how do they know what we’re talking about? you

Toy Launch (03:07)
Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (03:08)
Know, after it became how do you make the public

Opinion to change about anime because I’m sure

Toy Launch (03:13)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (03:13)
You all know that anime had a very bad reputation because mostly adults at the time did not understand it because they did not grow with it. So that’s what drove my journey. So from thing to thing I created Kazé which became the first anime label in France and

Toy Launch (03:28)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (03:29)
Kind of like animation in America

Toy Launch (03:32)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (03:32)
Starting with VHS because VHS you were able to sell to

Not the major stores because they didn’t believe in it, but like comic book stores, hobby stores, you know, these kind of people that started to see there was something there.

Toy Launch (03:43)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (03:44)
And then from there it was an Odyssey of you know, what is the necessity? You know, what

Do we need? So first we needed to make it available, then we need

Toy Launch (03:52)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (03:52)
To make it available more widely, then we need to make it available theatrically because you know, theatres is the noble genre the cinema. So, you know, you need

Toy Launch (04:00)
Mm,

Yes, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (04:00)
To convince

People that it’s good animation and not like this bad crap they think it is.

Toy Launch (04:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (04:08)
And so forth and so on.

Toy Launch (04:09)
Yeah, and personally I’m also a big anime fan. I do watch a lot of anime myself, because I also speak Japanese fluently. So it’s a great way for me to keep on learning the Japanese and learning make sure I’m kind of familiar with the cultures and I think a lot of some of the game you represent, including Attack of Titans, I watched the whole series myself. So yeah, very familiar with yeah.

Cedric Littardi (04:31)
Yeah, you as you should. As you should.

Toy Launch (04:33)
Yeah,

But I want to kind of first also dive in because of you have a very unique background in entertainment. Why board game? Why do you even guide into board game? Because that’s a totally different than anime. I mean, so yeah.

Cedric Littardi (04:45)
I

Told you what drives me is passion. Okay. So

Toy Launch (04:48)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (04:48)
I’ve always been a gamer, at least as far as I can remember.

Toy Launch (04:51)
Okay. Okay.

Cedric Littardi (04:52)
Board games, role playing games, the interactive, the thinking. I’ve always been a board gamer. Okay. So I didn’t

Toy Launch (04:58)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (04:58)
Go to board games and why did I go to anime? Because basically when I grew up,

Toy Launch (05:03)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (05:03)
The one thing that was not available was anime. So, you

Toy Launch (05:06)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (05:06)
Know, I kind of specialized in where something was needed.

Toy Launch (05:10)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (05:10)
But

You know, I think if I had been born like I don’t know, five years earlier or maybe I would have been into board games. I don’t know, because I wouldn’t have had access to anime and I would have lost something. So you know, I like to believe I’m a child at heart. People that know

Me will probably argue that I have a Peter Pan syndrome, which I cannot really argue with considering

Toy Launch (05:27)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (05:30)
The number of times I had my mom read me Peter Pan when I was not able to read.

Toy Launch (05:35)
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (05:36)
So I think I’m marked for life, but

When it came to okay, I’ve created Japanese anime, brought it, and you know, my company is now Japanese. What do I do now?

Toy Launch (05:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (05:48)
There was like two questions I wanted to answer. The first one is

Toy Launch (05:51)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (05:52)
What do I want to do like personally? what do I like to

Toy Launch (05:54)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (05:54)
Do? And the second thing is, what more can I do for the Japanese anime, for the Japanese IP?

Okay, ’cause I did the distribution,

Toy Launch (06:01)
Mm, okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (06:02)
Et cetera. And board game is that crossroads because when you create a board game, you actually expand on an IP. Because okay, you take an existing IP, but you have to create a system of rules, a system of interaction, etcetera. So and it so

Toy Launch (06:13)
Rules, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Cedric Littardi (06:16)
Happens that in Europe and in France, but also in Europe, we have very good board game designers. We’re renowned for that. And in Japan,

Toy Launch (06:22)
Cool. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (06:23)
Board game was it’s kind of better now, but a very small industry because it’s not so much in the culture.

Toy Launch (06:27)
Yeah, smaller, yes. Yeah, yes,

Yes, yes.

Cedric Littardi (06:29)
So I thought

Maybe I can bring, you know, my baggage of culture, my knowledge,

Toy Launch (06:33)
Hmm,

Cedric Littardi (06:34)
The level of trust I have achieved in the industry to

Toy Launch (06:36)
Yeah. I see.

Cedric Littardi (06:37)
Help Japanese IPs build around board games, you know. And

Toy Launch (06:41)
I see, I see, I see. And I know your company

Had been started for many years ago. What was some of the gap in the market when you first started that other board game company wasn’t fulfilling that you’re trying to fill?

Cedric Littardi (06:51)
So the people in gaming companies are like old geeky people like me. Okay. If you take my generation of people, okay, I’m over 50 now, unfortunately. No one really likes anime. I’m

Toy Launch (06:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (07:04)
Like the one of a kind because I took anime and brought it. So the people, my friends, the one my age, they don’t really care. Yeah, they care a little because they have to because otherwise you know, I will hit them, but they don’t really care.

Toy Launch (07:13)
Yeah, sure.

Cedric Littardi (07:15)
So the

Board game industry is kind of influenced by these people who it came from the Lord of the Rings from fantasy, it came from these

Toy Launch (07:23)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (07:23)
Old fantasy properties, which I love just as much as everyone else, but

Toy Launch (07:27)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (07:27)
It’s starting to become, you know, an old population, all the gamers. And I was kind of worried that the young ones don’t really respond to the Lord of the Rings as much as they

To attack on Titan, you know. So

Toy Launch (07:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. True, true, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (07:45)
Maybe it was a misplaced worry that you know gaming will become for older and older people and

Toy Launch (07:49)
Maybe.

Cedric Littardi (07:50)
You know it will not renew itself. I thought okay the other companies are not exploiting anime because they don’t know how to. I mean now it’s a little different because it’s a big craze. It’s also

Toy Launch (07:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (08:00)
Extremely difficult to do something good with the Japanese before because of their approval,

Toy Launch (08:05)
Yeah,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (08:06)
So

Let’s build gaming for younger audience with the IPs the younger audience likes and not the old Cthulhu / Dungeons and Dragons kind of audience, which I love personally,

Toy Launch (08:16)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (08:20)
But is more than covered, so there’s no need to go there.

Toy Launch (08:23)
Mm-hmm.

And I think that’s another thing I noticed. There’s a lot of other licensed board game companies out there that I feel like the board game they created, they just slapped the label onto the board game. They didn’t really respect the original story, like the source material of the characters, the story of the original anime. Like what is your philosophy on how to make sure the licensed anime character actually come to life in your boardgame?

Cedric Littardi (08:46)
That’s the biggest problem of licensed board games, not only for anime, is that people will take a license, it costs a lot, so they don’t really have to spend money on development. They’re gonna take a system and say, Okay, the license will make itself. The problem is yeah, people will buy it for the license. They will pay once, and if it’s not fun, they won’t play twice, even if they love it.

Toy Launch (09:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (09:10)
They will not. Okay. So the question

Is, what are you making? A consumer good for quick consumption and you know then to be discarded, or something people can repeatedly enjoy. And you

Toy Launch (09:21)
Enjoy, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (09:22)
Know, building around the IP because you have people that play the IP, they enter the world, they love the IP even more.

Toy Launch (09:28)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (09:29)
In Europe, people generally consider that licensed games are all bad. It’s actually our biggest problem.

Toy Launch (09:37)
Okay. I see.

Cedric Littardi (09:35)
Because you know they say even if they love Naruto, they it’s a licensed game. It’s not gonna be good, you know. In America

It’s kind of the case, but a little less, because America is more like, you know, mass market, consumer oriented, a little

Toy Launch (09:47)
Yeah. Yes.

Cedric Littardi (09:49)
Less picky about what they play. I’m not I’m not saying that as anything negative about the Americans, it’s just the the

Toy Launch (09:55)
Show it here.

Cedric Littardi (09:55)
Overall overall status of things.

Toy Launch (09:57)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (09:59)
It’s not so obvious, but it’s still there. Okay.

Toy Launch (10:01)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (10:02)
So a lot of people do and some IPs get ruined for gaming because of some very, very poor games. Okay. And

Toy Launch (10:06)
Hmm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (10:09)
To be honest with you,

Toy Launch (10:11)
Hm.

Cedric Littardi (10:12)
If I’m licensing the Lord of the Rings, I kind of know that you know what the game is and you know what kind of quality I need to achieve. But if

Toy Launch (10:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (10:19)
I’m like

Licensing agent for a new property and someone comes with board games, what do I know

Toy Launch (10:23)
No.

Cedric Littardi (10:24)
About board game? What do I know about what’s a good development, what isn’t? You know? So

Toy Launch (10:28)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (10:29)
But that’s the thing is a board game is not like a t-shirt. I mean I love t-shirts, but a t-shirt is about, you know, just a graphic design, putting an image. A board game is about the mechanic and how

Toy Launch (10:36)
Yeah, it’s just a look, yeah. Yes.

Cedric Littardi (10:40)
It marries with the IP. So

Toy Launch (10:42)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (10:43)
This having been said

You never know how good a game you developed is going to turn. So we spend lots

Toy Launch (10:47)
Mm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (10:48)
Of time. We work with some of the top board game designers in the world on some

Toy Launch (10:52)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (10:53)
Game concepts, trying to work within the framework of what we’re allowed to do with Japan, what we can, what we can’t, trying to find a game system adapted to the IP, because you know.

Toy Launch (11:03)
Do you

Also require your designer to watch the whole anime so they actually understand the story and the character and you know, all the things they’re creating?

Cedric Littardi (11:11)
Well,

If it’s 500 episodes maybe not.

Toy Launch (11:16)
Yeah, some have a lot of episode. Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (11:18)
But to be honest

With you, it is very rare that we work with a designer that does not like the show he is working on. Okay?

Toy Launch (11:24)
Yeah, working on. Okay, okay, that makes sense, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (11:27)
If it happens there has to be a reason. If a designer

Toy Launch (11:29)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (11:30)
Tells me no, I don’t like that show or I don’t care about that show, I am never going to entrust him with the game.

Toy Launch (11:34)
Yeah, that’s true. They need to enjoy

The license themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (11:38)
So I’m not gonna say our games are all the best in the world, but at least when we do a game it’s well thought, it’s integrated with the license, and there’s a

Toy Launch (11:45)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (11:46)
Set of rules that, you know, works, is original, etcetera. Then, you know, whether you love it or not doesn’t matter. And I have to say there’s some games that are very well done and some less, but that’s that’s you

Toy Launch (11:56)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (11:58)
Know, the that’s not for IPs, that’s for games points, you know.

Toy Launch (12:01)
I

Think one thing your team does r extremely well is I think you created a lot of really good tabletop RPG games as adapted from your anime license. For example, when I was reviewing your website, you have a lot of really excellent like Naruto theme games, which is extremely hard to create because you really need to understand the character, the ability they have, the storyline, how do they interact with other characters in the anime series as well. So

Cedric Littardi (12:24)
The tabletop, I mean I

Wish we had a lot, but for the moment we don’t have a lot. But we’re working on a series of projects.

Toy Launch (12:30)
Yes,

Cedric Littardi (12:30)
But we’ve released Cowboy Bebop. We finished the crowdfunding for the Ghost in the Shell project.

Toy Launch (12:35)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (12:36)
Role-playing game is my holy grail. Okay. I’ve been playing

Toy Launch (12:38)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (12:40)
Role-playing games when I was a kid, and it

Toy Launch (12:42)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (12:43)
Is extremely difficult, as you said, because you have to work on the

Storyline, which is something that is forbidden in

Toy Launch (12:47)
Yes. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (12:50)
Japan. You know, you can’t touch the story because that’s the story. Okay.

Toy Launch (12:54)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (12:55)
So trying to make a game where people will be able to evolve in, interact with where the story was be created is extremely difficult. Not approved

Toy Launch (13:01)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (13:05)
By every licensor. I think it’s the hardest part of the game. So

Toy Launch (13:08)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (13:09)
When I say it’s my holy grail is that

I mean ten years ago I thought I was still thinking no, no will never be possible to do a tabletop role-playing game. I would love it, but okay,

Toy Launch (13:19)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (13:21)
Then you know, you know how things evolved. I saw things

Toy Launch (13:24)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (13:24)
Move. I said, okay, let’s find a property that is good, which is approvable,

Toy Launch (13:27)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (13:28)
Which we can touch, etc. And use it as a you know, start for something that basically doesn’t exist.

Toy Launch (13:34)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (13:35)
And the one that happened for various reasons is Cowboy Bebop.

Toy Launch (13:39)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (13:39)
This is Cowboy Bop role-playing game. So now I have published this role-playing game,

Toy Launch (13:41)
Okay. That one I haven’t watched that particular show yet.

Cedric Littardi (13:45)
I can die in peace. I did it. I have an IP, Japanese IP, into into a game. But you realize how much we have to write, how much has to be taken, how much we may have to translate into Japanese, all the concepts, all the terms,

Toy Launch (13:49)
Okay, okay, more nice. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot of writing. Yes. Yes, yes.

Cedric Littardi (14:00)
Etc.

Toy Launch (14:01)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (14:02)
But also

Role-playing game is an extremely important category because it brings something extremely meaningful to an IP. You know, first

Toy Launch (14:10)
Hm, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:11)
It allows people to co-create the stories, okay,

Toy Launch (14:14)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (14:15)
Which creates an active community, which creates

Toy Launch (14:17)
Hm, okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:18)
A long of content and people playing it every week, you know, the famous like role-playing game table you will see in Stranger Things and et cetera. And it can,

Toy Launch (14:26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:26)
It can extend the life of an IP for very, very long. I mean

Toy Launch (14:30)
Cool. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:31)
Cowboy Bebop

Is nearly 30 years old. And right now there are

Toy Launch (14:33)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:33)
People playing Cowboy Bebop at their table on a weekly or monthly basis, you know? So

Toy Launch (14:39)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (14:39)
It’s really something that gives value to an IP, creates a community. And like the case study on this is Star Wars. Actually in ’97

Toy Launch (14:47)
Mm okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:48)
There was the Star Wars role playing game by Western Games, and for that role playing

Toy Launch (14:51)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (14:52)
Game

They created a

Toy Launch (14:53)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (14:53)
Lot of material content that basically

Toy Launch (14:55)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (14:56)
Lucasfilm integrated into the the Star Wars universe and still some things in the Star Wars canon were built from a role playing game. Now go

Toy Launch (15:00)
Okay, okay. Yeah. I see.

Cedric Littardi (15:04)
And explain that to Japanese people that have never heard what about the role playing game in their entire lives.

Toy Launch (15:09)
That’s difficult, yes. Yes.

Cedric Littardi (15:11)
You know, go and go and explain

Them that you they’re gonna have to like look at a book that’s 200, 300 pages long and approve

Toy Launch (15:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (15:18)
It and you know, make sure that everyone is happy with it and etc.

Toy Launch (15:22)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (15:22)
So because I was successful, I was able to start new projects, but to be honest with you, each

Toy Launch (15:25)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (15:28)
One of them is like styled to an extent, but for different reasons. You know, it’s not like

Toy Launch (15:31)
Mm-hmm. Okay, okay, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (15:35)
This is no.

This guy has a problem with this, this is a problem with this. So I

Toy Launch (15:38)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (15:39)
Don’t know, and understanding what is the problem and solving it is the maybe the hardest time task in in approving

Stuff.

Toy Launch (15:46)
For sure,

For sure, for sure. And that’s actually a perfect segue to my next question because personally I used to work in Japan. I work for like Toshiba, one of the oldest companies you can think of in Japan.

Cedric Littardi (15:56)
I’m very sorry for you,

Toy Launch (15:58)
Yeah, me too. Japanese companies are known for being highly controlled and they are very, very detail oriented. Almost in the Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (16:04)
You noticed? wow.

Toy Launch (16:07)
So when especially when you come to approval process, how do you navigate this process with your Japanese partner to make sure

You can build a game the way you think of and your vision and still make their corporate like company g approve of your design. That’s I think that’s a di very difficult process as well.

Cedric Littardi (16:25)
Well, the first thing you have to know is I wake up in the morning, go to my mailer wondering, okay, now what is gonna come out from strange demand? It’s gonna come out in my mailer and from where? Because 35 years after starting to work with Japan, I’m still like confused by some of the

Toy Launch (16:44)
You don’t know what to expect,

What they’re gonna say, yeah. Uhhuh.

Cedric Littardi (16:47)
But

Other than that, other than the fact that

Toy Launch (16:48)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (16:49)
Sometimes I want to strangle Japanese people, but they’re also among the nicest people in the world, so for some reason I keep wanting to work with them.

Toy Launch (16:53)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (16:55)
The biggest issue is understanding why. You know, when they

Toy Launch (16:58)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (16:58)
Ask something, why are they asking for it? Okay.

Toy Launch (17:01)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (17:01)
In Japan, the final control is given to the creator.

Toy Launch (17:05)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (17:05)
So it could

Be the manga artist, it could be the director, it could

Toy Launch (17:09)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (17:09)
Be, but you know, there’s a creator, and this creator is extremely protected. What you need to know

Toy Launch (17:13)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (17:14)
Is that the Japan rights law is based not on the American copyright law, but on the French author law. So it’s extremely protective. Yeah, it’s extremely protective

Toy Launch (17:25)
Really. I didn’t know that.

Cedric Littardi (17:27)
Of the people more than the corporation as in America. Okay. So

Toy Launch (17:31)
I see. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Cedric Littardi (17:32)
If you’re a Japanese company and you’re someone in charge of approval, your first task is to make sure that whoever is the creator is never upset.

Toy Launch (17:42)
Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (17:43)
Well they can’t approve everything, but

If I’m Shueisha and Oda is upset with something that happened the other end of the world with One Piece, I’m very, very worried considering the amount

Toy Launch (17:53)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (17:55)
Of money he makes when he draws every week. Okay. So

Toy Launch (17:57)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (17:59)
And that’s the difficulty is you have people at the approval level that have to apply rules which may not apply in this case.

And they will give you the rules without necessarily explaining them. Okay, so you have

Toy Launch (18:09)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (18:11)
To try to understand what is behind them, if they are being applied for the right reason, if they have the right understanding, and then spend

Toy Launch (18:17)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (18:18)
Lots of time explaining and asking and doing things. So

Toy Launch (18:23)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (18:24)
Right now it’s already announced we’re going to launch a crowdfunding for a Naruto miniature game with Naruto miniatures.

Toy Launch (18:30)
Congratulation.

Okay.

Cedric Littardi (18:32)
The page is already on game found but it

Toy Launch (18:34)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (18:34)
Took one year and a half in explaining how the crowdfunding works, how it’s marketing, how etc. You know, one year but with very precise questions, you know. So after a while you get the

Toy Launch (18:41)
I see. Man. Man, a lot of work.

Cedric Littardi (18:45)
Questions and you kind of understand why they’re asking the questions. It’s not like you know they

Toy Launch (18:48)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (18:48)
They wanna waste everyone’s time. They want to understand. But the

Toy Launch (18:51)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (18:52)
Understanding is not the same level as yours because there’s a whole lot of you know cultural difference.

Toy Launch (18:56)
Cultural differences, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (18:59)
So for me the key to getting things done in Japan is one this understanding why and two the relationship. Okay.

Toy Launch (19:05)
Yeah. Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (19:08)
Of course, with the number of years I have been working with Japanese people, that affords me at least the fact that I’m listened to. You know,

When I say something, it’s not like just another guy that’s you know complaining. Well, maybe because I’m French and I complain all the time, but

Toy Launch (19:19)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (19:23)
But it’s you know, okay. If I’m trying to explain something, if I’m trying to understand, normally people listen and I also have a level of trust. I have

Toy Launch (19:31)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (19:31)
Worked with the companies for repeated years. I know a lot of creators, at least directors. I mean, it’s never as easy as when

Toy Launch (19:36)
I see. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (19:38)
You know the director, he knows what you’re doing and he has the final approval. You know. I have to

Toy Launch (19:42)
Mm, true, true, true.

Cedric Littardi (19:44)
I have to thank Aramaki Shinji san, the director of Apple Seed, because you know, once he came, you know, for the promotion,

Toy Launch (19:48)
Okay, yeah,

Cedric Littardi (19:50)
Saw what we done, etc.

Toy Launch (19:52)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (19:52)
Was like, you guys are passionate, you love what you do, etc.

Toy Launch (19:56)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (19:56)
You know, I’m gonna provide you with all the help you need.

Toy Launch (19:59)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (19:59)
These are great satisfaction because in the end, I’m working for the creator. You know, I’m trying to expand his IP or do product that he is happy with that he can share with people, even if it’s not the anime itself. That’s

Toy Launch (20:03)
Mm. Yeah. Make them happy, yeah. Yeah. Happy with, Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (20:14)
What we’re trying to achieve. And of course we have

Toy Launch (20:15)
Got it. Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (20:17)
To respect them.

Toy Launch (20:17)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (20:18)
But, you know, between the creator and us there’s a lot of layers of people and administration. That’s where you have to understand, you know, what is

Toy Launch (20:25)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (20:26)
Important, what is less so, what they have

Toy Launch (20:28)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (20:28)
Understood, etcetera.

Toy Launch (20:29)
I see. Thank you so much for sharing that. The next transition I want to kind of get some of your feedback on is I know for Don’t Panic Games, you just opened a new US office fairly recently in California.

Cedric Littardi (20:41)
Yeah, because we didn’t

Have enough work, so we said, let’s open a new one.

Toy Launch (20:45)
So well walk us through like what are some of the most challenging part? Because we have a lot of audience that’s also listening. They have a company in Europe or overseas. They want to get into the United States, one of the biggest markets for board games. What are some of the challenges and lesson learned that so far for you and for your business, trying to bring your business into the state side?

Cedric Littardi (21:04)
Everything. But you know what it is?

Toy Launch (21:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (21:07)
Okay, I told you I created a magazine and then I started doing anime, etc. But when I started,

Toy Launch (21:11)
Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (21:12)
I was 16 years old. Okay.

Toy Launch (21:14)
Okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (21:15)
I didn’t know shit about anything. Okay. But

Toy Launch (21:17)
Yeah, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (21:19)
You know, I said, okay, let’s find out and let’s find out and let’s try. To be honest with you, if I had known the mountain in front of me, probably I would have never started.

Toy Launch (21:28)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (21:28)
So in the case of the US, the

Market for board game is quite messy right now. The tariffs like but even

Toy Launch (21:35)
Okay. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (21:37)
Before that there was a lot of you know

Toy Launch (21:39)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (21:40)
Hobby market issues, Amazon issues, etc.

Toy Launch (21:42)
Yes. Yes, yes, yes,

Cedric Littardi (21:44)
And basically it was not absorbing games as it should from foreign publishers. Maybe there’s too much production. So we had to find a solution, especially

The way we

Toy Launch (21:54)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (21:55)
Design games and our personal feelings make them very often better suited for American market than from some European markets. Yeah, kind of you know, the graphic designs, etc. People often

Toy Launch (22:04)
Okay. Hmm. I

Cedric Littardi (22:06)
Tell us, yeah, your games are very suitable for this, but we weren’t finding any customers capable of doing it. So we

Toy Launch (22:12)
I see.

Cedric Littardi (22:13)
Said, okay, well, let’s try to do it ourselves, step by step. Okay. So

Toy Launch (22:16)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (22:18)
First step.

How do we navigate the administration? How do we create a company? What are the obligations? Et cetera,

Toy Launch (22:22)
Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (22:24)
Which is a real mess to understand when you’ve never been in the States. I mean, I understand for someone

Toy Launch (22:27)
Yes, yes, yes, sure.

Cedric Littardi (22:29)
That’s lives out of France, if he wants to do that in France, it’s gonna be a mess. Well, it is the same the other way around. Then you

Toy Launch (22:32)
Yeah. True, true, true. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (22:36)
Have to find the setup, how do you handle logistics, how do you send the stuff, how do you

Toy Launch (22:39)
Yes, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (22:40)
So who are the partners, you know, what are the costs? you don’t really know anything about it.

Toy Launch (22:42)
Yeah. Because that’s a big decision.

I think yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (22:45)
So you go around asking people and meeting with people and trying to find out.

Then you need to find out who’s gonna do it, you know, because you need someone in America at least to help. So you know, who’s available and all this is a long discussion because you don’t know nothing about anything. So

Toy Launch (22:53)
Yeah. Yes. Yes. It is it’s a very long discussion. And I have a follow-up question on that for you because a lot

Of other European based publisher I have interviewed on my show, sometimes they just give up and they just find a distributor in US and let the distributor handle the entire US market without creating a business entity like what you just did in US. What make you make that final decision on okay,

Cedric Littardi (23:19)
Yeah.

Toy Launch (23:21)
Instead of going to a distributor?

I’m gonna create my own entity in US and do it myself. So

Cedric Littardi (23:25)
Well,

Actually there’s two things. The first thing is we do have a distributor for most of our licensed games. So that’s but

Toy Launch (23:30)
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (23:31)
The unlicensed games no. But we are a non common publisher, okay? Most publishers,

Toy Launch (23:35)
Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (23:37)
At least here in Europe, they do, I don’t know, one or three games a year. One, two, you know. We do more. Or we do five, six. So no distributor

Toy Launch (23:41)
Yeah, mm, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (23:49)
Wants to absorb… We’re kind of in the middle.

Toy Launch (23:51)
I see. I see.

Cedric Littardi (23:51)
Where we’re not

Really big enough to distribute ourselves and

Toy Launch (23:54)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (23:55)
We’re too big for the normal distributor that wants to have like a studio that gives him one or two games. We have the same problem in France. I mean, even

Toy Launch (23:57)
Smaller distributor, yeah, I see, I see. Okay.

Cedric Littardi (24:04)
More so because we also translate games into French. So,

Toy Launch (24:06)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (24:07)
You know, we’re that in-between. If I was publishing one game a year, I could never do this.

Toy Launch (24:12)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (24:12)
But because we have more production, we’re like, etc.,

Toy Launch (24:14)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (24:15)
We never found someone really willing to do it.

Toy Launch (24:18)
I see.

Cedric Littardi (24:18)
Maybe also

Because we arrived late. Most of the setup was done in the eighties. And

Toy Launch (24:22)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (24:23)
So people had their partners, et cetera. Or early

Toy Launch (24:25)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (24:26)
90S, you know, when then Asmode started buying everyone and becoming a giant company, et cetera. So

Toy Launch (24:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (24:33)
The setup was done. We weren’t able to break in.

Toy Launch (24:36)
Hmm. See.

Cedric Littardi (24:37)
We’re not the only ones, so we said, okay, well, we need to give a chance to our games.

Toy Launch (24:41)
I see.

Cedric Littardi (24:41)
So, you know,

We may not have a customer that will take like 2,000 copies at first, etc. But let’s do it step by step. Okay, that’s what

Toy Launch (24:46)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (24:49)
Determined it. For years I tried to find a distributor, and honestly, yeah, I wasn’t able to. So then I said we took the decision, let’s try ourselves. We were

Toy Launch (24:52)
You did, okay. But you couldn’t find a good one. Okay. Hmm. Okay.

Cedric Littardi (24:58)
Going to do it a year before, but then the tariff thing stuck, so we said maybe we’re gonna wait a

Toy Launch (25:02)
Yes. Last year has been.

Cedric Littardi (25:03)
Little because we don’t know how to navigate this right now.

Toy Launch (25:06)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. That’s correct.

Cedric Littardi (25:08)
And now we’re launching, but honestly, you know, it’s not ready. I mean it’s ready. It’s we’ve started, we started delivering, we have some key accounts,

Toy Launch (25:15)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (25:15)
We have like promotion teams demoing our games on conventions. I went to GAMA, this is where we met.

Toy Launch (25:19)
Okay, okay. Yes, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (25:23)
You know, but it’s step by step because it takes a long time. The distributors

Toy Launch (25:27)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (25:28)
Say, Yeah, we’re gonna open your account, but it takes months.

Toy Launch (25:31)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (25:32)
You know, the people don’t know our brand.

Toy Launch (25:34)
Yes, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (25:34)
Normally so we need to push

The push the title. It’s a big problem

Toy Launch (25:38)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (25:38)
Because when your game is not published in English or not distributed,

Toy Launch (25:42)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (25:42)
It doesn’t get any visibility on the internet from that side. And it’s a problem for all the other countries. Because you know if you don’t have your board game geek or your etc,

Toy Launch (25:45)
Yeah, true. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (25:53)
It’s basically a big problem. So it’s like your game doesn’t exist on an international level, but even locally you suffer from it.

Toy Launch (25:55)
Yeah it’s invisible. Yeah. Yeah on the internet, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (26:01)
Okay. So basically that’s it. You know, so our next big step is the Gen Con.

Toy Launch (26:07)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (26:07)
At the end of July in Indianapolis, where we have a small booth, we have nine tables, we’ll demo

Toy Launch (26:10)
I see. I see.

Cedric Littardi (26:12)
A lot of games, some that we’re putting on the market, some that are coming to crowdfunding, etc. And

Toy Launch (26:14)
Yeah, I see. I see.

Cedric Littardi (26:18)
You know, we’ll meet with people, we’d be happy to. Maybe

Toy Launch (26:20)
Mm-hmm. I see.

Cedric Littardi (26:22)
We’ll get some, you know, content creators to, you know, pick up our games.

Toy Launch (26:25)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (26:26)
You

Have to be present. In the end, toy is a huge market, but board games, at least the ones we do, is kind of

Toy Launch (26:32)
It is

Cedric Littardi (26:32)
Small one. So you have to, you know, learn to know the people, relate to them, see what they want, see how they react to the game. And very strangely, well not so strangely, but we’ve kind of noticed that the people don’t really stop on the same games. In

Toy Launch (26:46)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (26:47)
France, in Germany, in the UK.

UK and America are kind of alike, but you know they have different taste when they see the visual game. So

Toy Launch (26:54)
Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (26:58)
So yeah, so you know, so right now our games are available, we have some accounts, some people

Toy Launch (27:04)
Thank you.

Cedric Littardi (27:04)
And shops are still struggling to get it. Amazon

Toy Launch (27:06)
I see.

Cedric Littardi (27:07)
Is kind of set up, but I don’t know whenever Amazon is really set up because Amazon it’s

Toy Launch (27:12)
Amazon is a whole different

Piece. You require a whole team just to manage Amazon.

Cedric Littardi (27:19)
Yeah, exactly. You require your whole team just to manage Amazon. That’s the whole problem.

Toy Launch (27:22)
Yes.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. We have a lot of people that we allocated just for Amazon too, including like SEO specialists, BPC specialists, catalog specialists, graphic designer just for Amazon because it’s so much work and dealing with all their rules. And recently, actually earlier this year, they updated their compliance rule. Now you need to get it recertified every single year. It’s like what that’s

Cedric Littardi (27:44)
Yeah, it’s horrible.

Toy Launch (27:45)
That’s horrible. I agree because

That’s not a US law. Amazon just made up that rules, like out of nowhere. So

Cedric Littardi (27:49)
No. No no. But

If it can make you feel any better, it’s the same

Toy Launch (27:54)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (27:54)
In Europe. They apply the same rule.

Toy Launch (27:56)
Yeah, okay.

Cedric Littardi (27:59)
I’m not sure it made

You feel better, but at least you feel less alone.

Toy Launch (28:02)
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. So as far as marketing, besides demoing the product, what other strategy are you trying to expand in the US market? Like do you do any other digital marketing, like working with influencer maybe, or what are some of the strategies working?

Cedric Littardi (28:16)
We’re we’re trying

To learn our way to working with influencer. We launch our Facebook

Toy Launch (28:19)
I see.

Cedric Littardi (28:20)
And Instagram page for international.

Toy Launch (28:22)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (28:23)
We’re counting a lot on our crowdfunding campaigns which are already American oriented, so they can give visibility to what we’re doing.

Toy Launch (28:30)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (28:31)
But to be honest with you, we can’t do too much because if we do too much and products are not available from the main wholesalers, you

Toy Launch (28:38)
True, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (28:39)
Know, our account with ACD is not set up, for example. We’re with Alliance.

Toy Launch (28:43)
Okay,

Cedric Littardi (28:43)
And ACD they have their own issues, like you know, they said they will, et cetera, but it takes a lot of time. And people change and et cetera. So people can order from us directly, people can order

Toy Launch (28:43)
Not yet, okay. Yeah. I see, I see, I see. Sorry. I see. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (28:53)
From Alliance, but you know, it’s gonna take time before they take the habit and they they identify

Toy Launch (28:57)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (28:58)
Our games and et cetera. And we have to show our faces. Once

This is set up, we will be able maybe to elaborate more marketing

Toy Launch (29:05)
I see.

Cedric Littardi (29:05)
Campaigns. We’re working with a team called

Envoy double exposure for those who know them. So they’re like we’re sending people to conventions to show our games. On some releases

Toy Launch (29:15)
Okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (29:16)
Where they have a splash where they show people. But you know,

Toy Launch (29:18)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (29:19)
Our games are also adapted for not only for hobby, we have to you know speak to the bookstores or the specialty. You know,

Toy Launch (29:24)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (29:27)
We’ve honestly got some stuff like Nobi Nobi, Nobi Nobi is a tiny

Toy Launch (29:31)
Nobi Nobi,

Yes. I know there’s like a hobby store they sell a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (29:33)
Selling very, very well in France. In UK

Games Expo, people were picking it. Like it sells really well, but

Toy Launch (29:38)
Okay. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (29:41)
But for some reason the distributors don’t really order it a lot. So we have to be present, we have to push it, we have to you

Toy Launch (29:46)
That’s weird.

Cedric Littardi (29:49)
Know, and some people we were in UK Games Expo. I know it’s not in America, but and

Toy Launch (29:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (29:54)
People were there, yeah Nobi Nobi, it’s great. We had the free thing in the free RPG game day, etc.

Toy Launch (29:59)
Mm.

Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (30:00)
And

It’s one of the rare games. I have

Toy Launch (30:02)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (30:02)
Never seen a demo without at least one person leaving and buying the game. Like never, ever. So you know, we have these

Toy Launch (30:07)
Okay, okay, okay.

Cedric Littardi (30:09)
Nice games, but you know, right now we need support from the distribution before we

Toy Launch (30:13)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (30:13)
Can upscale the marketing, I think.

Toy Launch (30:15)
Marketing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does take a little bit of time to to

Set up.

Cedric Littardi (30:19)
Yeah. We’re stumbling around. Like, okay,

What what do we do? What can we do? Can we get this?

Toy Launch (30:25)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (30:25)
I’m hoping by GAMA we start having an idea by next GAMA and you know, for the year after we will have a real like strategy set up and things going.

Toy Launch (30:34)
Strategy set up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think

You enter in a good timing. There is definitely an anime boom in the US. When I go to shopping mall, there’s always like new anime shop that’s coming, like popping up because I think that’s a lot of people trying to find and buy anime related goods. You can see it in the supermarket, sometimes outside. So like a few years ago, when I first moved to United States, which is like over 15 years ago, it’s nowhere like you can find it in the store. There’s no anime anywhere.

In US, but now it’s like almost everywhere. It’s like at the every corners. So

Cedric Littardi (31:06)
For me, this is the phase where know people go crazy and start buying everything and anything. Okay.

Toy Launch (31:11)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (31:11)
And after that, there’s a phase of maturity. It’s like, okay,

Toy Launch (31:14)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (31:15)
Let’s not just buy anything or anything. Like let’s choose,

Toy Launch (31:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (31:19)
You know, let’s do, you know, the lifestyle items we like, let’s do board games as we like board games, let’s okay. And America has to well, is little by little has to enter

Toy Launch (31:28)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (31:29)
That phase. And it’s a question of timing, you know.

Toy Launch (31:32)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (31:32)
It’s different. The

Main difference between France and America is that France has had anime consistently on TV since 1978 So you’ve got a generation of people, people that are a little younger than me, that grew with some anime. Okay, maybe not all, but some anime. In

Toy Launch (31:40)
Really? I didn’t know that. Okay, okay. Wow, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (31:49)
America, there was nearly nothing until Adult Swim came. There was a

Toy Launch (31:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (31:54)
Few things. There was Robotech, there was Battle of the Planets, there they were removed,

Toy Launch (31:57)
Not a lot, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (31:58)
But

But until you know Adult Swim came, there wasn’t really any consistent presence over television, which is also why we were able to develop the companies like Kaze Fanimation, because we were providing people with VHS of something they could not get elsewhere. But you

Toy Launch (32:12)
I was wearing yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:13)
Can’t do that with kids because kids just watch what you give them, you know.

Toy Launch (32:17)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:17)
But once they become teenagers and they start saying, Hey, you know, we wanna see the stuff we like,

Toy Launch (32:23)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:24)
This is like the big

Breakthrough of anime. Okay. America,

Toy Launch (32:27)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (32:28)
Well French make French Europeans make animation just for young kids. Okay? I mean

Toy Launch (32:32)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:33)
TV animation. I’m not talking about the movies. Okay.

Toy Launch (32:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:36)
America makes only for kids with the exception of humor. You know, The Simpsons, etc. You know but if it’s not for kids, there’s

Toy Launch (32:43)
Okay, okay, okay, yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:46)
Nearly nothing, of course it changes little nowadays, nearly nothing. Action, etc. That there’s nothing. So

Toy Launch (32:49)
Yeah. Yeah, there’s no

Other genre, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (32:52)
An anime

It was kind of the only way to fill this niche for

Toy Launch (32:56)
Mm.

Cedric Littardi (32:56)
You know, people that grew with animation, love animation, are teenagers and have nothing to, you know, fill up their their love for animation. And I’m

Toy Launch (33:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (33:05)
Not gonna argue that you know, the qualities of animation and that it’s very different from live action and that people just

Toy Launch (33:10)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (33:11)
Don’t graduate from animation to live action because these are two very different genres with their own

You know, qualities and artistic necessities and et cetera. So, you know,

Toy Launch (33:21)
Course. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (33:22)
Without arguing that, that’s one of the big things of anime. And because I’m a kid teenager still, I still love anime.

Toy Launch (33:28)
Mm-hmm.

Same here. I still watch a lot of anime on my time.

Cedric Littardi (33:33)
Yeah, but you know,

You spoke Japanese, so you were able to see it. You know, I was

Toy Launch (33:35)
Yes, yes.

Cedric Littardi (33:37)
I had to create a company so people would translate it for me so I would be able to see it properly, you know, that’s the difference.

Toy Launch (33:40)
So you can watch it.

That’s true. That’s true. So you can understand it. So yes, yes, yes, for sure, for sure, for sure. So as we’re kind of wrapping up today’s conversation, if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone else that’s also getting started within the toys and game industry, based on your experience, what would that be?

Cedric Littardi (34:01)
I would tell them to keep a child within them alive because otherwise don’t go to this industry.

Toy Launch (34:05)
Hmm, okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (34:09)
Keep passionate about what you do, because otherwise

Toy Launch (34:11)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (34:12)
There’s much easier places to go than here. You

Toy Launch (34:15)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (34:16)
Know, why bother? If you’re not passionate about this, why bother? And the third thing, but that’s not really for animation, that’s my way

To do things for everyone is if you want to build something,

Toy Launch (34:25)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (34:28)
You know, break it into pieces and overcome the pieces one by one or together, because you know,

Toy Launch (34:32)
Hmm.

Cedric Littardi (34:33)
If you look at it without the perspective of doing that, it’s gonna seem too big, too huge, and too difficult. You know, which is

Toy Launch (34:39)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (34:39)
What going to America seemed to me when I started the board game business. You know, it would be too complicated,

Toy Launch (34:43)
Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Cedric Littardi (34:46)
I need a distributor. Well, I didn’t find the distributor, so what next? Okay. Well.

Toy Launch (34:50)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (34:50)
You know, break it to pieces, understand them. And

Toy Launch (34:53)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (34:54)
You know, now we’re there. I’m not saying we’re super good yet. I’m sure we will be there, but now

Toy Launch (34:57)
Well atleast you started. Yeah. So

Cedric Littardi (34:59)
We’re there, we’re available, we have a presence, we can answer people, we can build things with people, we can make them available. You know.

Toy Launch (35:04)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I see. I see. I see.

Yeah, but thank you so much for sharing all that. For our audience that would love to learn a little bit more about you, your business, where is the best place for people to find you online?

Cedric Littardi (35:16)
Well, they can go to our site, which is dontpanicgames.com. Very, very, you know, strange address, you know, dontpanicgames.com. And people don’t usually

Toy Launch (35:23)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (35:24)
Write the name of their company dot com.

Toy Launch (35:26)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (35:26)
In English, we opened Facebook page called Don’t Panic Game Studio, but that’s only for

Toy Launch (35:30)
Okay.

Cedric Littardi (35:31)
All people that still use Facebook. I’m not sure if any of them still listen to your show. And but I’m sure they have search engines, but you know.

Toy Launch (35:35)
They still use Facebook. Yeah. Of course.

Cedric Littardi (35:42)
Go to go

Toy Launch (35:42)
Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (35:43)
To our website, find out,

Toy Launch (35:44)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (35:45)
Check out crowdfunding campaigns if you’re interested.

Toy Launch (35:48)
Of course.

Cedric Littardi (35:48)
You know, there are lots of ways to reach out nowadays. So please

Toy Launch (35:51)
Of course. Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (35:52)
Come. And also on Amazon,

Toy Launch (35:55)
Mm-hmm.

Cedric Littardi (35:55)
You know, randomly we have some of our stuff available. We never know how when they take

Toy Launch (35:58)
Red the

Cedric Littardi (36:00)
Out the sell sheet or when they block it for some reason, or you know, it’s

Toy Launch (36:02)
Yeah. Yes, yes, yes.

Cedric Littardi (36:04)
Like, you know, and

Honestly, if someone has a master plan and explanation scientific for this, I will take it because I haven’t figured it out. But if you can find some stuff.

Toy Launch (36:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure. Well, thank you so much and being on our show and sharing your experience and decades of knowledge with our audience. And I really enjoy having conversation about the anime, which I’m also very passionate of about myself. So Yeah.

Cedric Littardi (36:27)
Another anime fan. Well thank you for inviting me, you know. Once upon

A time we were rare. You know, we would like, we’re

Toy Launch (36:33)
Ha ha ha.

Cedric Littardi (36:34)
True anime fans in the middle of enemies, but now we’re just like the new big thing. Like we’re hype. We’re hype now. I used

Toy Launch (36:39)
Yeah. We’re in demand.

Cedric Littardi (36:41)
To think of myself as a geeky kid that read books and played games

Toy Launch (36:44)
Yeah, yeah.

Cedric Littardi (36:46)
At school like during the pause and now it’s like

Toy Launch (36:48)
Yes.

Cedric Littardi (36:49)
The thing to be. So what do you know about anything?

Toy Launch (36:51)
Of course, of course. So and thank you for our audience for tuning in to this episode of Toy Business Unbox Podcast. I hope today’s conversation gives you some practical insight and fresh inspiration for growing your own Toys for Game brands. This podcast is sponsored by Toy Launch, a leading marketing and growth partner for Toys and Game Company. At Toy Launch we help brands scale on Amazon and beyond through full service account management, advertising, SEO, creative, influencer marketing, and more.

If you are looking for a proven team that understands both the toys and game industry and the e-commerce marketing for over 10 years, we are here to help. If you’d like a personalized breakdown of your brand, your opportunity, your best next marketing step, you can schedule a free consultation session with us. Just visit our homepage, toy-launch.com, for more information. If you want to connect with other toys and game founders, feel free to join our free communities called Toys and Game Launchpad, which is a free group that we’re also launching right now.

To connect with other founders and meet other people in the industry. For more resources and updates and industry insight, feel free to follow us on social media. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joys through toys. This is Jason Hsieh signing off on the Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a good one.