How to Stand Out in the Competitive Board Game Market

Jason Hsieh (00:42)
Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. Today we’re thrilled to have Zev, a legend in the tabletop gaming world. With nearly 30 years in the industry itself, Zev have founded Z-Men Games back in 1999. And after selling Z-Men Games, he worked with WizKids before launching Play To Z game in 2023. Today we’ll be talking about some of his background, his approach to publishing, sharing his wealth of knowledge within the tabletop gaming industry.

Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Zev Shlasinger (01:12)
Thank you for having me, Jason.

Jason Hsieh (01:14)
Yeah, so I know you have you have been in the industry for almost 30 years, but going back, like what was your origin story? How do you got into the industry?

Zev Shlasinger (01:23)
Well, I’ve always been a gamer, so there’s that. But I guess the start was I was very heavy into collectible card games. I was, you know, I played Magic the Gathering. And then I joined a crew where we demonstrated collectible card games. So for several years, we were probably one of the few groups at the time, and I think more came out of it, where we

We represented different collectible card games and this was in 1995, I think we started. that’s when CCGs came out and became big. Magic came out in 1993, got bigger in 1994 and then got really big in ’95 and then other CCGs came out around then. So we represented a bunch of them. I also was a Magic Pro Tour judge. I was the first Pro Tour, I was one of the judges.

in that first Pro Tour. But even though I played Magic, I leaned towards other games. I played Shadow Fist, which was my favorite game. I played Legend of the Five Rings. We played Dark Ages, Guardians. I tried pretty much most of them. So that’s how I got started. And that got me going to conventions because I was going to demonstrations. I was at the publisher booths demonstrating games. I worked with TSR a bit. I toured Blood Wars.

Dragon Dice and then I did get actually a paid job at Demon Blade Games. It was a miniature company. I was their promotional director because the guy saw that he really liked how I demonstrated games so I did a year of demonstrating his game Shock Force. And then from there went back to demonstrating other games in 1998. The job lasted about a year and I formed Z-Man in 1999.

Jason Hsieh (03:01)
What was the inspiration behind starting the Z-Man Games company?

Zev Shlasinger (03:05)
It was really to bring back my favorite game Shadow Fist. That was my number one collectible card game. I loved it. It’s the one I really gloved onto and I really pushed and tried to show it to everybody and get everyone to play. The company had gone bankrupt in think ’97. Even though I worked at conventions and I taught other games, I’d always have my Shadow Fist decks and I’d be with a friend of mine and we’d always play Shadow Fist in the evening.

every show we went to, people would come to us and say, hey, I didn’t know people were playing Shadow Fist. I would have brought my cards. So I turned to my friend and I said, you know, what if we can bring back Shadow Fist and get people playing and get cards? And that was the reason I started Z-Man Games.

Jason Hsieh (03:48)
I see. And looking back, what was the sound of the moment that you realized the company was really taking off and really growing?

Zev Shlasinger (03:54)
Well, that came a few years later, because again, I only planned to do Shadow Fist, right? That was my only thing. And then I got pitched a card game about a year later in 2001. And I really liked it. said, you know what, I’ll do it. Because I liked it. It was a B-movie-themed card game. And I said, you know, I really want to do this while I’m doing Shadow Fist. And that became Grave Robbers from Out of Space. And it became a really, big hit.

And then I realized, this is kind of nice because collectible card games require a lot of work, a lot of community effort, organized play, retailer support. It was just a lot. And I was doing Z-Man by myself. I had a lot of great volunteers, but I had to juggle them while doing Z-Man stuff. Plus I had a day job. So it really, I started slowly focusing on other things. I said, okay, you know what? I’ll still do Shadow Fist.

Jason Hsieh (04:36)
Mm-hmm.

Zev Shlasinger (04:43)
but also into other games. And I did other B-movie games. I got pitched other things. I did a Primordial Soup, which I think was my first board game. And that was ⁓ successful enough that I said, I got to keep doing this. And so really the next four or five years, I did a lot of board games and a lot of card games. I started bringing in games from other countries plus doing original stuff. And I think

I was already, I already had a name for myself and I was doing quite well, but 2008 was my biggest year because I I released Pandemic and Agricola here and that propelled me to another level.

Jason Hsieh (05:20)
How did you launch the product back then? Because I believe Kickstarter was launched in 2009. So that was before Kickstarter even existed.

Zev Shlasinger (05:26)
There was no kickstarter. There was nothing like that. I don’t know when kickstarter started. don’t even know

Jason Hsieh (05:31)
2009 they launched in 2009. Yeah

Zev Shlasinger (05:34)
We would go to conventions, we’d go to you know like the GAMA Trade Show also, I would talk to distributors, I would get their opinions, whatever we tell as I knew, I would ask them their opinions, but basically it was a guessing game.

you know, many units do I do? So I had to do it on my own, figure out what do I think I could sell? You know, what’s popular? What are the selling points of this game that will allow me to, you know, maybe raise my initial run? But yeah, it all had to be, you know, just working behind the scenes and trying to get whatever information I can get to make an informed decision.

Jason Hsieh (06:12)
I see. But based on your experience, what are some of the criteria that you’re looking for to make sure you choose the game, the right game to bring to the market that will have the traction?

Zev Shlasinger (06:21)
Yeah, you look for games that ⁓ have hype or you try to get hype for them. Especially if I brought games in from a foreign publisher, that at least I would know because there’d be some hype already for a particular game. So that would help me inform, yeah, I got to go after that game. There were some that I just took a guess on and said, okay, you know, this company is known or the designer is known. I’m just going to take a risk and bring that game in.

made things a little easier. It was the original games that were the tough call. It’s like, how do I know if this is the game that is going to be the thing that people will be interested in?

Jason Hsieh (06:55)
I see. Yeah, that’s true. If you don’t have any other track record from other countries, I’m glad to know. So and now with the new company that you launched a few years ago with Play To Z, is it a different direction with different type of game compared to the previous company?

Zev Shlasinger (07:10)
So really it’s the same methodology and the same criteria. I’m always looking for fun, unique, engaging games, that wow me, games that I think should be worth being in the marketplace. The only thing, that change is one, I’m not doing as many games a year as I did as Z-man. I’m doing some crowdfunding on games, not all the games are crowdfunded, some of them are.

And yeah, just my filter is a little more choosing. Not just saying, yeah, this is good, this is good. I really have to think about, okay, is this really good? Or is this a game I could crowdfund? Or is this a game that I could sell without crowdfunding? So my filter is very narrow now compared to what I did before. I gotta be careful.

Jason Hsieh (07:40)
too- what’s easier?

So for example, for 2025, how many games are you planning to launch this year?

Zev Shlasinger (08:03)
I would say no more than 10 is my goal. We might be up to eight. one fulfilled in December 24. I’m sort of not counting that. So I would say it’s probably, eight to 10 is what I’m looking at. But in Z-Man, was doing 25, 30, know, sometime one year I did 34.

Oh, well, the high 20s was my normal thing.

Jason Hsieh (08:26)
But 34, that’s almost three a month. Yeah, yeah.

Zev Shlasinger (08:30)
But again, this was also during a period where maybe there were 500 new games a year, right? Or 600 new games a year. Not now, which is 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 new games a year. So very different marketplace. And of course, it’s a larger marketplace and so on. But it’s also bandwidth, right? It’s how much time I can…

devote to each game, a time to market each game and so on. So those are the things I’m trying to take care of.

Jason Hsieh (08:58)
I see. And based on your experience being in the industry for so long, what has some of the scene that you noticed that has been changing compared to when you first started?

Zev Shlasinger (09:07)
Yeah, I mean crowdfunding obviously was the biggest change, right? That’s the biggest thing that has impacted the industry. I mean, there’s still a three tier industry, right? You have the publisher, distributor, retailer. That’s similar, but I think ordering patterns are different. A lot of just in time type stuff. Same opportunities going to conventions and stuff. I think it’s harder to get a game noticed.

So that’s something that you have to deal with. Even though I think the player base has increased. But again, the competition is there, right? More publishers, more games vying for that. yeah, it’s kind of similar but different issues, but still got to deal with it.

Jason Hsieh (09:44)
And what are some of the biggest challenges that you still face with your company, within the board game industry today?

Zev Shlasinger (09:51)
⁓ I think it getting noticed. I think that’s probably the biggest thing for the reasons I said before again, it’s just more competition you just you know, what What can I do to get my game in front of people? then hopefully they like the game and then buy it and then you reach critical mass And then become a big success have an evergreen title Or several if you’re lucky or have that one massive hit right that one massive evergreen title

⁓ So really, I think that’s still the challenge, getting it in front of people, getting people to notice your game, and then hoping they’ll like it, and it reaches a point where it becomes a success.

Jason Hsieh (10:28)
I see. And I know you have some product with you in the room. So would you mind share some of the new project you’re coming up with.

Zev Shlasinger (10:35)
⁓ Absolutely. So we got a couple of games. We got three games that were nominated for the Origins Award. So this one is Lynx. Lynx is a it’s in the light strategy category. So economic game with an ecological theme. You’re trapping hare, trapping Lynx, you’re selling Lynx belts, but you got to watch out. You don’t want to over trap the hare because it could crash the Lynx population. So it’s sort of a stock market.

Jason Hsieh (10:41)
⁓ Congratulations.

Zev Shlasinger (11:02)
field but with this whole ecological theme. In the gateway category we have Yro This is actually a license from an Italian publisher so this was my first localization into ⁓ the English language. Great game you’re making a three by three grid and you’re recruiting characters and they trigger off where you place them and what you do you go through six phases simultaneously and the characters can trigger during the different phases.

Combat, income, production, victory point and so on. Plays in about 15 minutes. So it’s up for best gateway game. We got a really big game. Again, this shows the different catalog styles I have. I don’t focus on one type of game. I have many different games. So this is a nominee in the heavy category, best heavy strategy. Ascending Empires, it’s a 4X game. Yeah. A lot of plastic. I’ve been really good. This is actually a game I did

as Z-Man games back in 2011. So it was ported back in an updated format with lots of changes to it, but the gameplay is similar to what it was in 2011. And a couple of small games that we have here. So again, showing the variety, we have a word game, Better Letters. A game where you’re trying to follow the rule cards when you make a word and you’re trying to…

Jason Hsieh (12:16)
Oh okay

Zev Shlasinger (12:20)
get a score as many those rule cards as possible. then the final thing, we just fulfilled it and we’re gonna release it, I think April 16th is is the street date. And this is 23 knives, which we call a social manipulation game set in the time of Rome, where you’re either trying to kill Caesar or save Caesar. We call it social manipulation because you can sway people

Jason Hsieh (12:40)
Hahaha

Zev Shlasinger (12:45)
to your side or you could be swayed to someone’s side. even though you may start out as trying to save Caesar, you might get turned to trying to kill Caesar and then you got to change your way of playing that. So really fun game, three day players, takes about an hour or so. So really, really fun, a different type of game.

Jason Hsieh (13:05)
I see, how many total game in the catalog right now?

Zev Shlasinger (13:08)
Well, right now we have seven. Yes, have seven come in about two weeks. The seventh one will be out unless you count fulfillment, of course. then in the upcoming months, we have about three or four immediate starting like in July. So we have, think, June, July for one, July, August for another one. So we have like twisted trumpets in June, July. Tales of the Arabian Nights, the 40th anniversary edition.

Jason Hsieh (13:10)
I’ll set it.

Zev Shlasinger (13:33)
probably July, August. We have a small game called The Brain, which might come out around August or so, and Soothe Stairs, and then Animal Rescue Team for around September. And then to round out, have Dogs of War and Xenology. So those are going to be the releases through end of 25.

Jason Hsieh (13:50)
I see, I see. And with so many different games, what kind of marketing strategy are you currently doing to get the game out there to the potential buyers?

Zev Shlasinger (13:59)
So each game requires, I think, little bit different, but the tools are pretty much the same. So first you have to separate the games on crowdfunding versus not crowdfunding. So Tales of the Rabian Nights, we had it on GameFound, we crowdfunded,

Jason Hsieh (14:13)
Quick follow up question on that. How do you decide which one to call found and which one don’t?

Zev Shlasinger (14:17)
I learned this and I’m probably still learning it’s what games I can add to make it appealing to crowdfunding right so what are the things right people look for you know stretch goals add-ons a deluxe edition versus this edition and so on so I think it’s things that can make it appealing to someone crowdfunding because we also release into the retail

You wanna make it, I guess, appealing where people say, yeah, I’ll crowdfund it now rather than wait for it to come in retail. And that was a thing. So in Ascending Empires, all we did was we dropped the price, I think, $30. Because at the time, it was my first crowdfund and I didn’t know, I thought I could just do it like that. And then I learned, well, people want different things. So we did like a $30 price drop. For 23 knives, we had some stretch goals that opened up that became part of the game.

a wood ⁓ punch board that got turned into wood, that screen printing on the wood, then we did an add-on of metal coins. And then the last thing was Tales of Arabian Nights where we just offered a deluxe edition. So it’s the same game, but updated, upgraded components, acrylic standees, wooden story tokens, wooden Destiny markers, wooden Wealth track marker, some Spot UV coatings and things like that.

So that was going to be for the game found version and the retail version is just going to be the same game, just not those upgraded components. But the other thing we offered, which we’re not going to offer in retail is if you already had the game, the changes only. So any changes that we did, you could buy that separately. If you have the game and you’re interested in our solo component, you could just buy the solo stuff.

So we make things that you could buy separately without buying the whole game because we didn’t fundamentally change the game. We did add new paragraphs and stuff. And that’s why it might be appealing if you already have the game, just by the changes and by the solo or whatnot. Really when I look for crowdfunding, I look for what can I do to make it exciting and interesting for someone to say, yeah, let’s back that now. I don’t want to wait for the retail or whatnot.

Jason Hsieh (16:22)
I see. Thank you for sharing. And back to my original question on the, croud funding is a big marketing tool and a platform, but besides cloud funding, what other marketing strategy has been working well for your company?

Zev Shlasinger (16:35)
Yeah, I mean I did articles in GTM magazine. So that’s a distributor magazine I’ve done some articles for some of the games even the ones not crowdfunded. We’ve been getting articles in there I went to the GAMA trade show and I did the game night So I was showing off my games there. I’m going to distributor open houses So I’ll be showing games for retailers there.

Jason Hsieh (16:55)
How about digital marketing? What type of digital marketing are you?

Zev Shlasinger (16:58)
Digital,

I don’t know what can be done. I tried to do some podcast advertising where the host mentioned our game and stuff like that. that kind of thing. We’ve done some Facebook marketing. That’s pretty much the scope of what we’ve done. And we probably should do more. A lot of it, again, is on me.

I really don’t know that much. try to hire someone say, Hey, can you help me with, you know, let’s do a few social media things. I’m not a great social media person. So, you know, I try to get help in that respect.

Jason Hsieh (17:30)
Amazon side, I believe you partner with a distributor to handle your Amazon.

Zev Shlasinger (17:34)
Yes, we have a consolidator they’re called and they sell the distributors but they also they sell the Barnes and Noble. They sell to Amazon and so on. yeah, whatever presence I have there is probably due is due to them.

Jason Hsieh (17:45)
I see, I see, I see. Got it, got it. Well, so as well wrapping up today’s interview, if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s getting started in the tabletop board game industry, what would that be?

Zev Shlasinger (17:57)
Do the games you like. I mean, obviously know what you want to get out of it. Research the industry, know what’s out there. So you don’t follow, try to be different. You know, I always say try to swim in blue ocean, not red ocean. People don’t know, right? Red ocean is, yeah, I’m following the trend and everybody’s there and you got the frenzy, the shark frenzy. Blood, blood, blood, you know, it’s red.

Blue ocean is like trying to be a leader, trying to do things differently. And maybe it’s harder, the success could be really powerful if you’re the first thing to start a trend or whatnot. So I would say, but I would say do what you like, do what you know, just know what’s out there and know what tools are available to you, what conventions you should go to, listen to podcasts about the industry.

And definitely go to shows, go to a GAMA Trade show, go to an Origins, go to a Gen Con or whatever, and just see what people are doing there. Learn, learn from what you see there. And I’ve always noticed that the people in the industry, most of them are quite friendly. If you strike up friendships or stuff like that and ask for advice, you’ll almost always get somebody to help you out in that respect.

Jason Hsieh (19:03)
Got it. Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. And where can our audience find you online?

Zev Shlasinger (19:07)
Well, my website is http://www.playtozgames.com with “t o” not the number two. You’ll find some of our games on BoardGameGeek. So if you want to learn some of those, but playtozgames.com is probably the best thing. And more, find me at a convention. I’m at a lot of the major conventions.

Jason Hsieh (19:24)
Yeah, I’d love to see you in one of the upcoming trade shows.

Zev Shlasinger (19:27)
UKGE, I’ll be at Origins. GenCon, I don’t have a booth, but I’ll be walking around. I’ll be at PAX Unplugged. So yeah, I’ll be at several of the conventions this year.

Jason Hsieh (19:37)
Sounds good. And for our listener audience, thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today’s conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you have heard, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate your support. We’d love it if you can leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend and colleague. For more resource tips and the latest update within the toy’s end game industry, visit our website at toy-launch.com.

Join the conversation and connect with us on social media using #toybusinessunboxed. We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestion for future episode. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing joys to toys. This is Jason Hsieh signing off on the Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, everyone.