How to turn a Rejected Game Into a Career

Jason Hsieh (00:42)
Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. I’m your host, Jason Hsieh Today we have a very special guest, Sean, a veteran game designer and publisher. He has been in the industry for more than 20 years. And this year he’s doing something different in the industry. And I will definitely let him talk a little bit more about that. But he has an extensive experience spending from designing under his own brand, Mr. B Games, since 2005. And now is he’s actually

Part of the core teams under Mayfair games and he has been involved in almost every single aspect in the industry as well. So I think he’s wealth of knowledge and he have a lot to share with our audience today. So thank you so much, Sean, for joining us on the podcast today.

Sean Brown (01:24)
Thanks for having me, Jason. This is crazy, right? It’s hard to sometimes think about I blinked and 20 years went by. And one day I was like, wow, I’m not gonna publish. And then I kind of got sad and said, Well, I got to keep doing something. So game design, sales, marketing was like a logical fit for me.

Jason Hsieh (01:40)
I see. So well, but going back to like 20 years ago, what initially drove you into this industry to begin with?

Sean Brown (01:47)
You know, I grew up on Red Box Dungeons and Dragons, 1978, ’79 I was very little. I had a brother a few years older than me, and we always played games in our family. We had board games, we had the old Game Master series games growing up. We had Can’t Stop Liar’s Dice, things like that. They really molded me. They were toys, but also kind of games. Yeah. And I loved the Toy Factor broadsides and boarding parties with those giant pirate ships.

And it just I always made my own games out of the leftover pieces whenever we bought a game and we were disappointed, right? it didn’t do what we thought it would. And for years I did it, and then one year I made Terraforming, my first ever game, and I worked on it for two, three years and maybe even longer. And it took in 2005, I borrowed a bunch of money from my mom and I flew to Gen Con and

I walked around and I visited over a hundred booths and I pitched it to everybody I could think of and I take a shot on me in my game. And as Fate would have it, Morgan Dontanville was with Mayfair Games at the time. Okay. He said, we’re not gonna look, we’re not looking, but I tell you what, I’m off at six, I’m gonna grab some food and I’m up here at this game court at seven, and I would sit down with you and play it and

Give you some tips on what might help you. And he did. Him and Ron Magin sat with me for an hour and a half and it was massively influential on me. All the Mayfair guys were just so nice to me. Yeah. And the following day I went to Eagle games and I pitched it to them and they turned me down politely. But four of their booth people didn’t show up.

It was you know Saturday at Gen Con. Crazy busy. And my oldest friend in this industry, Keith Bloom, was their marketing director and he threw me a shirt and said, Put this on, kid. Do you know how to teach Conquest of the Empire? And because I was a huge Game Master series fan, I was like, Yeah, I got you covered. And he goes, Great. And you could see the panic on his face because he doesn’t have enough people. Yeah. And I just

Jason Hsieh (03:22)
Okay.

Sean Brown (03:45)
Slipped in, yeah, worked the whole day, and on Sunday the owner, one of my longtime friends as well, Glenn Drover, came over, shook my hand, thanked me for coming and said, We’d like to have you on the team and then I was on their demo team and then I was helping them out with sales and then and literally it just took off from there. But ironically, nobody bought my game.

Jason Hsieh (04:01)
See, I see, I see.

Sean Brown (04:05)
I say I’m on like a 20 year detour as a game designer, right? Because I went in and then I just fell in love with the industry and all the things and making games and for a few years I tried once a year I made a little card game here and there. And at some point, you know, I was working full blown for Eagle, who then spun up Griffin games and then they became Eagle Griffin and with the advent of crowdfunding, honestly, 2011,

Kickstarter, I think, had just started in 2010. And I kickstarted my first board game with Clint Huron, fantastic, amazing designer. And we designed a game called Pirate Dice and it funded and it did really well. And we were super excited, and Eagle took it and then Eagle decided not to reprint it. And we were a little frustrated because we just had a massive

Kickstarter. We shipped all these units. We left them a 1,000 or 2,000 leftovers. They sold them out in like two weeks. Yeah. And then they said we’re just we’re not gonna reprint it or keep it in our catalog. And it was difficult, but you know, without that moment, a year later I left the company to resume publishing under Mr. B and I released Alien Uprising with Richard Launius and I have never looked back. So that was

Gosh, that was 13 years ago, 14 years ago. And then I you know, I would publish some people’s designs, my own designs, worked with other studios, lots of talented people over the years, amazing game designers, and just had an awesome run.

Jason Hsieh (05:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you have done almost every single role that you can do in the industry, correct?

Sean Brown (05:41)
You know,

My mother used to always tell me I was a jack of all trades and a master of none. And my whole life, from the time I was a kid, I rebuilt a go-kart engine at age six because I wanted to drive a go-kart. And you know, it blew up and smoked because I didn’t know what I was doing, but you know, I we got it to run. And so my whole life has been that hey, we can get the game made for you, we can make the vision and the dream happen.

And if it’s good and it has legs, you can take it to some pros and you know, they’ll push you over or get you to the next level. And that’s kind of how I ran my business and my own designs for a little over 20 years.

Jason Hsieh (06:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously you’ve been on the both side of the aisle of like doing self publishing and also try to do like pitching your idea to other bigger publishers as well. Like over the years, what are some of the trends or like scenes that you notice in the industry that had changed since ever since you got started?

Sean Brown (06:31)
You know, early on, like in 2005 or ’06 the barrier to entry was very difficult. So it was very hard to even make a card game back then. You had to invest, you know, 15 grand and with all the resources and art and everything. And so for a lot of people, you know, for a hobby to do it, you really need a publisher, right? you need somebody that believes in your idea. And if I could have done it all over again, I don’t know that I would have started a publishing company to make my own games.

I wish I would have just maybe spent two or three years going to what eventually became the Proto Spiels and networking with other designers because I would have learned how to be a better designer and a better pitcher. And then maybe I could have, you know, gone to a publisher instead of saying, These publishers are all crazy here at Gen Con. They don’t see the greatest card game of all time. You know, and I always tell the story of when I made my game.

The first ever review I got, and I was so excited, and it was a one on Board Game Geek, the lowest rating you can get. And it was some from someone who said my game pills in comparison to Carcassonne, and I was so happy. Because somebody mentioned that I made a game on caliber with Carcassonne, but it’s not as good. And I went, I’m okay with that.

Jason Hsieh (07:39)
Hm, okay, okay, okay, okay. I see. I mean you need to start out somewhere as a designer too, right? So

Sean Brown (07:45)
Absolutely. We all started somewhere, right? And you know, we made the second game or I made it solo. It was called Stoplights and it was a take on like Connect Five with cards and it had some cool little moments and gotchas just super light easy. And we actually got multiple language print partners on that game and I sold it all over the world. And it was one print run and done. And I, you know, I was with the company I was working with, and I just said,

Hey, we got this in and we sold it all out in a month. And should we do more? And it was no, we should move on to the next game. And as I slowly worked through my career, every time I would have a success or a collaboration with someone, I kept finding that I couldn’t get anyone to invest in the future print run. So again, when Kickstarter hit, I just said, if I

I do this, then I can always invest in me and my games in the future. And and I for me I just had to have that. You know, my whole career well, the early part of my career, first ten years, first eight years, I couldn’t get that belief. I could make the design, I could show we could move it and sell it, but I couldn’t get the long term belief. And so I left and went on my own because I knew long term I’d believe in me. And sometimes that’s what you got to do, right? Is you got to just take it into your own hands. But

Honestly, by the time we hit 2025 you know, this industry’s grown massively. It’s changed so much. Toys have almost gone hand in hand now with board games and card games, and the industries are merging and these giant companies are coming in, and it’s just so hard for a one man person like me to just keep going and I really needed help. Yeah. And I didn’t have it, and I didn’t have the money to hire.

A bunch of people and staff up. And so when the opportunity came for me to sell my publishing rights and my business to my childhood favorite company from the time I was a little kid, that gave me my breaks in the industry, the whole nine yards. I had to do it. It was like one of those life goal things unlocked, you know, in a video game in a weird way.

Jason Hsieh (09:32)
I see, I see. Thank you for sharing your journey. And also over the year I think you have started a lot of Kickstarter campaign, more than 30, I believe, right?

Sean Brown (09:41)
Yeah, you

Know, our 70th campaign is is is delivering. It’s actually already started to deliver and it’s wild. We were looking at it and you know, I have one of the oldest Kickstarter accounts as an individual. And it’s just mine. It’s just under my name, Sean Brown, and it’s always been there. And you know, I always had a little picture of the Mr. B just so people would remember, I have a game company. But

You know, as time comes on, I just I’ve had these opportunities to work with some amazing talented people over the years and collaborate on Kickstarter. So some of them I ran for people and then didn’t publish. We just, you know, helped them get the get the project, or I developed it or co-designed. And so that’s why the project counts really high. On the Mr. B side itself, I think we’ve done 41 or 42 campaigns.

And then we’ve done about 22 or 23 with studio partners that we’ve helped over the years.

Jason Hsieh (10:31)
Mm yeah. What are some of the things that you notice that changes in the Kickstarter platform and just like the way you’re doing cloud funding in general?

Sean Brown (10:39)
You know, early the biggest challenge was VAT. You know, we’re an American based company, right? So we put our project up and we didn’t know what it was gonna cost and do to ship to the EU. And we’d never, you know, we didn’t hear of VAT. We don’t have that in the United States. We didn’t have import taxes, none of that stuff. So it was learning that, and that was the biggest hurdle.

Jason Hsieh (10:43)
Mm.

Sean Brown (11:00)
And then also the you know, our international backers would just say, Why is it so much more expensive over there? And we would go, We don’t know. Right, because we you gotta ship it and do all this extra stuff. And over the years it was great and we got better and we found better partners and then our rates came down and then all that stuff. But that was the earliest challenges I saw. And then later on it almost became a flood of

Every week there would be ten board games releasing. Whereas when I first started, there would be one a month.

Jason Hsieh (11:28)
Mm, that’s very different, yeah.

Sean Brown (11:30)
Right. And you know, when I released Alien Uprising, we were one of only ten projects to ever go over a hundred thousand dollars on Kickstarter as a board game. And the highest and we did a hundred and I don’t know, three, four thousand, something like that. The highest game ever at that point in time was Zombicide at $250,000.

Jason Hsieh (11:47)
Okay, okay, okay, yeah.

Sean Brown (11:49)
So we didn’t have these two and a half, three, four, five million dollar Kickstarters in that.

Jason Hsieh (11:54)
Yeah

Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Sean Brown (11:56)
So everything just increased by a zero. They got bigger and the teams got bigger and all the people involved and the logistics. And then you had to just start building a network and farming stuff out. And as a jack of all trades guy my whole life, I just pivoted and I made do and we got it all done. And at some point, the business just started right after the pandemic, honestly, the business started getting so big and we started selling more units and the demand that I just I couldn’t keep up. And

You know, at some point you just go, Hey, if you can’t beat join right.

Jason Hsieh (12:24)
How big was your team back then? Do you have like a few employees back then? Okay.

Sean Brown (12:33)
Me and my good pal Chris Taylor, that was it. I mean, 2005 to 2011, it was just me. And from ’12 to 2020 that was me and Chris. And part-time help from my family, of course, friends of mine that would loan me a warehouse to do fulfillment or hey, you wanna use my FedEx truck or yeah, whatever, right? I mean,

Highly do not recommend starting your own game publishing company because there’s so many things they don’t tell you about when you think this’ll be awesome. You know, I don’t regret the path I took, but looking back on it and kind of thinking about it in retrospect, I wish I would have stuck with design a little longer. But hey, there’s no time like the present, right? So now I’ve got a bunch of new designs and I’m ready to go out there and

Jason Hsieh (13:10)
Ha ha.

Sean Brown (13:17)
Maybe this time couple of publishers will listen to me and maybe I’ll get a game sign this year.

Jason Hsieh (13:21)
Of course. And I know because crowdfunding is such a key part of your journey. In your experience, what is the most important element for all the successful campaign that you have done?

Sean Brown (13:31)
You know, from our standpoint, I would say I always treated every Kickstarter I ever ran like everybody there was my friend. You know, they were backers. They weren’t buying from me in a store, right? they weren’t coming to a game convention and buying from me from a booth. They were hanging out with me in this chat room where we could talk about the game and I was sharing pictures of this development that we did in this

Image that I had in my head of what I wanted to make when we printed it. And it’s so cool. I love the energy, you know, when people are coming on your page and going, This is amazing, and I love the way you did the dice, and they see the little fine details we put in. And every once in a while somebody’ll say something in the comments and I’ll read it and go, we could do this. Like they have a really good idea and we could incorporate this and this and this, and it’s inspiring. And so for me,

I have always done well in a groupthink. And that’s how I’ve treated Kickstarters here’s my presentation of the best project that I can make based on this design. And I’m excited about it. And I want to show it out to a bunch of my friends because your friends shoot you straight and they tell you this is good or this is bad. And if I could get three, 400 friends to back a project, then we made a game. And every once in a while, we’d put that out there and we’d get 1,000 or 2,000 or

One time we got 10,000 people and I went, my God, this is amazing. Right. And the more people you got, the more you went, Maybe this idea really does have some legs to breed, you know? Yeah. So

Jason Hsieh (14:54)
How much pre-launch activity do you usually do in in advance of the actual campaign?

Sean Brown (14:59)
You know, in the early days, there was no pre-marketing, right? It was just you made it and you put it up there. For us, it was a little later. And you know, we would do things like put it on our website and tell, you know, put out a launch date, like a movie trailer. And the first time we actually started doing that was in 2016 with Post Human. And this game we made this cool little video of just

Like somebody reading a journal who was out on the road and been surviving in a apocalypse. And it was real short, but kind of dark for the time. Okay. And it just resonated with people. And that was one of our biggest Kickstarters. It just exploded. And that was kind of the light bulb moment of wow, pre-marketing matters, right? getting people on board early, spreading the word, resources like Board Game Geek, you know, going on to the geek and

Making sure your game’s listed and people know when it’s coming out and all the information’s correct. You know, those are just really important things. And you know, going to the professional trade shows, toy fairs and the GAMAs and stuff like that. Just really is important if you want to get that awareness. And then over the years it changed because our audience changed and then you had to do a little more direct to consumer marketing. Yeah. And

You know well as anybody, when that starts happening, the bar just keeps starting to raise, raise, raise. Yeah, you and

Jason Hsieh (16:13)
You get more complex, more complexities and just a lot more moving pieces.

Sean Brown (16:17)
And a lot more money. Right. And so when you’re a dumbass from Pueblo, Colorado like me, and you grew up poor, you don’t have a lot of money and you don’t have retirement or rich parents to help you. So you got to go out and fight for every dollar and you got to really work hard. And I feel like I never worked hard in my career because I always did something that I loved and I believed in and I made cool things. And I was fortunate enough that we live in a time where a platform

You can share your cool ideas and your friends can say, heck yeah, I’ll support that and send me your reward when it’s done. It looks cool. And I’ll tell you, the last couple of years, mostly post-pandemic, I felt the third shift in Kickstarter. And that was I feel like people stopped coming to our campaign pages to be a part of the energy and the excitement in the making of the game, and they started coming to pre-order it like a store.

And with a pre-order comes a sense of customer goes, Where’s my thing? Why is it late? When’s it coming? And as opposed to in the early days of Kickstarter, it was, this is so cool. You’re making this thing. Yeah. I don’t care when I get it. As long as when I get it, it’s done right and it’s great. And that’s my biggest shift is I think we’ve now moved a deadline, right? So I run a campaign and I tell people, we’ll have it to you in a year, and we work our tail off to hit that date.

And if you’re a week late or a month late or two months late, it used to be no problem and now it’s become hey, you really need to be professional. You got to hit that deadline. And if you miss it, you need to own it and you need to tell people. And in all my projects, I’ve missed my deadline twice. Once was during the pandemic. Yeah. I had no control.

And the second time is the project we’re currently fulfilling right now because the containers took way longer to bring over because we introduced tariffs in the United States and much like VAT in the EU, we didn’t know. There no there was nobody to guide us. There’s not a company out there to say, here’s how to handle your VAT

Jason Hsieh (18:09)
Even the administration know themselves.

Sean Brown (18:12)
No,

No. And so now we have in the US we have tariffs, which work very similarly to VAT in Europe. And it’s hard, right? Because now as a longtime crowdfunder, you go out and you try to explain to these friends that have been watching our company and buying our things for years, and you try to explain to them that, hey, we’re just trying to minimize the damages here. We’re splitting them with you. We

You know, we don’t know what the rate’s gonna be from month to month, so we can’t give you a quote. Yeah. And well, you know, but it ruffled some feathers, right? There’s some people that think the tariffs are great and there’s some people that think they aren’t. And we couldn’t win because both sides, you know. Just whatever. So, you know, what I did is I I always came with every project as if I were a backer, how would I want to be treated? And for us, we just said, you know what,

Jason Hsieh (18:40)
Difficult, yeah.

Sean Brown (18:58)
When we launched this project that’s now late, there weren’t tariffs. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We launched it in October of 2024. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we went to print in, you know, February, something like that. And our games were completely ready, packed up on a boat and ready to sail. And we had tariffs and a 254% bill. And what do you do?

You can’t pass that on to people. So we delayed. We delayed the you know, bringing it over until we knew what the price was. And then there was a pause. You know, there was a the administration said, Hey, you’re right, everybody, everybody need a little time. We’re gonna pause it at a you know, a modest 54% instead of 254%. And so we jumped on it and we just brought our stuff over, figuring, we’ll take the gift, you know.

250 Would have put me out of business and 54 just hurt a lot. Yeah.

Jason Hsieh (19:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. And I I tariff is definitely a big problem for the entire industry and including my own company, we did have a pretty negative impact by it last year as well with the tariff. So

Sean Brown (20:01)
You know, it is and again, just like the VAT in Europe, now that we all know how to handle it and that it’s here to stay, it looks like, you can build it in, right? ‘Cause now you can understand it and you can at least account for it. And get back to crowdfunding with it. And it you know, so it’s a pivotal moment. It’s a huge moment in Kickstarter’s history. And you know, they’ve just launched some new tools where you can do like

Your own pledge manager tools inside of the tools. And they’re really on top of it. So they actually do break out, you know, what’s your tariff, what’s your taxes, and what’s your shipping, which is great. It’s just fantastic.

Jason Hsieh (20:34)
That definitely helps. So now looking ahead, I know you’re you know, original company just recently merged with Mayfair game. What is your vision with the portfolio of the game that you still have? Now you’re part of a bigger, bigger kind of entity now.

Sean Brown (20:49)
Yeah, so in May 27th of 2025, I was working for Mayfair Games and I stepped down and I sold them my IP, my back catalog, things like that. And that actually I thought was the end of my journey. I didn’t actually think I would be back with Mayfair.

And so I was just kind of in an advisory role of, you know, they might ask, hey, where’d you print this or what were the sales like on this game? We’re thinking of relaunching it or and that was just kind of part of the transition. And we did that through the end of the year and I thought that would be the end. And I started my sales and consulting, you know. My company just basically sold its publishing arm, essentially.

And so I kept sales and marketing and you know, new year, new calendar year, and I got a call and it was the new ownership at Mayfair and they said we’d sure like to hire you on as a sales and consulting expert. And I said, yeah, cool. I’ve got some openings on the schedule and I just do some contract part-time work here and there and I actually haven’t actually started, so you’ll be able to break that news first for me. I’ll be basically starting

At GAMA this year. So that’s when I’ll be coming on board to help out with marketing and sales and stuff. So I’m really excited.

Jason Hsieh (22:00)
I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely looking forward to also see you in GAMA I will be there. I’ll be speaking. I’m one of the speaker at GAMA this year as well.

Sean Brown (22:07)
Yo,

I’m gonna have to go listen because your seminars are fantastic. And honestly, if anybody watching at home is going or has been to any of these shows and you see Jason on a seminar, his talks are amazing. He’s always got really cool stuff to show and I learn from you as much as you know any time we’re chatting. So this is awesome.

Jason Hsieh (22:24)
Okay, thank you so much for sharing that. So I guess as we’re kind of wrapping up today’s interview, I just have a few final questions I want to ask. Looking back to your own journey, like doing all the different roles in the industry, if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s also getting started in the toys and game industry, what would that be?

Sean Brown (22:43)
I would say honestly, go to your local events first, go to like your proto spiels or your game conventions where you can be around other designers that make prototypes because you will learn so much from these guys about like how to present or how to make a pitch sheet, or even just cadence when you’re talking so you don’t get overly excited. And it happens. I’m an animated guy, you’re an animated guy.

We love our ideas and our passions, but sometimes you have to present the game and let the company that’s looking ask you those questions because they’re looking for a specific type of game or they’re looking to take your idea that they’re excited by. You know, they’re sitting with you at the table. If they weren’t interested, you know, they wouldn’t have sat down with you at the table. And I tell new designers all the time, when I ran Mr. B games, we’d get

10 To 12 emails a week from people, unsolicited, and they would send a sell sheet like of their game, like a pitch. And sometimes they would send a little one or two minute video of here’s my game, does it look cool? Yeah. Those were the best because I might not be at a show to see you and then you show it and yeah, you know, I might see 10 of a week and we might only contact one or two, but Yeah.

From those one or two, every once in a while one or two get signed. So you know, and then at the shows, if you can make it to a big show like an Origins or a Gen Con or a PAX, a lot of publishers are there and a lot of times you can meet that contact. You can go to the booth and say, I’m an aspiring game designer and I’ve had a couple of things published. Are you guys looking for designs? And who could I reach out to? they love that, right? We’re at the shows because we’re trying to meet people and look for games and

So that would be my advice is do that local network early, you know, work with those other local designers. Exchange your time for other designers’ time so that you can help them develop and work on their game. They can help you. That’s the best part of the community, those proto spiels and unpubs and stuff, they’re great for that stuff. I would have done that first, and then I would have gone to the main shows and maybe done the publisher speed datings that like Gen Con and Origins and PAX have.

They’re just phenomenal because you can do your pitch 10 times in a row to 10 different publishers in two hours, you know?

Jason Hsieh (24:47)
So that’s a really good piece of advice. I think definitely networking and getting know other people in the industry that might be already been there and done that a little bit of what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s definitely a very good way to kind of get get your foot into the door for the to understand the industry to begin with. So

Sean Brown (25:03)
Yeah. And then, you know, and then after that, if you if you go the self published route, I would go to an event like a gamma and I would go talk to all the service providers, go find the people that can help you sell it on the back end or do the marketing or get you into distribution or help you with your tariffs or help you print your game or whatever, because they’re all there, right? The printers are all there. Everybody’s there that can help you. And I recommend you do that first.

Take in all that knowledge and then ask yourself really, really truthfully, do I really want to do all of this work to publish my design or do I wanna just find somebody to do it myself? don’t be a B.

Jason Hsieh (25:39)
Yeah, I think that’s a very good piece of advice because sometimes before you start, people don’t realize how much actual work it is involved to to actually run your own publishing business. Because now you’re running an actual business. It’s not just designing. You need to do the business, the tax, the marketing, the operation, everything when you come to operating a publishing company versus just focusing on the design. So that’s a very, very good piece of advice for sure.

Sean Brown (26:07)
Absolutely. And I do think it’s very important because I don’t want to say it’s a mistake. I love the 20 years I got to spend in the industry publishing. But I started in the industry to be a game designer and took a 20 year detour publishing games. So what the hell do I know? Right. But maybe it’ll make me a better designer now that I’m old and gray and retired, right? So we’ll see.

Jason Hsieh (26:27)
Yeah, it does require a little bit of a different skill set because running a publishing company pretty it’s an entrepreneurial adventure. There’s like so many different things you need to learn than just designing the game itself. So yeah.

Sean Brown (26:39)
You know, I use the analogy one time of since we all play role playing games and board games with stats and characters, I said, Imagine playing a video game or a board game where your character, you know, on your little character card has, you know, five proficient skills and maybe they know ten total. And me I might know 50 skills, but I’m maxed out at like 50% cap limit. You know what I mean? So I know a lot of skills, but like, you know, and then

At some point you start looking at your skill set and you go, Well, there’s probably four or five things that I do know at 80 or 90 percent, but the majority of them, right? and then you start looking over the years and you go, boy, I used to use the analogy you can punch out of your weight class or whatever. And you know, people for years saying, What are you talking about? You’ve been making all these cool games and stuff. But I got to tell you, you know, there are years when you put out your four or five game lineup.

And they don’t sell as well as you’d hoped. And you just go, no. Right. But you get through and then next year you have a killer lineup and you got five games and all of them go to reprint and you’re like, amazing. And the that’s the industry. It’s you’re gonna have your ups and you’re gonna have your downs and you Will Niebling told me once, the best way to survive long term in this industry is just be there. Just show up, be there at work.

Go to the shows, go to Gen Con, go to the toy fairs, go to the GAMAs go to the pubs. Yeah. Because you know, people say, you got lucky or something like that and luck is not real. Luck is you need to be at the right You bring your own luck. But you also in in whole right place at the right time is also not true. You put yourself in the right places so that you can have the opportunities, not the luck. Right. And that’s it. That’s

Jason Hsieh (28:00)
Luck, you need to

Sean Brown (28:13)
If I could leave anybody’s advice is plan a little. Think about what lane you want to be in. Do you want to create? Do you want to design? Do you want an entrepreneur? maybe you love logistics on the back end because you’re a crazy maniac like me. I don’t know. But find, you know, find your lane and don’t be afraid to specialize in the thing you do. Unless you’re a weirdo that is a jack of all trades and then dive right into publishing. It’s great.

Jason Hsieh (28:36)
For sure, that’s a wonderful piece of advice. And for our audience that would love to learn a little bit more about you and the company you are with now, what where is the best place for people to find you online?

Sean Brown (28:44)
Well, so I still have the mrbgames.com website and we still help several of our friends. And you know, anytime they don’t have distribution or regular channels, we pop up there on mrb.com for people to find you know.

And then of course, if you’re into really cool remakes and some really nice stuff, you know, we’ve been helping mayfair.com and they’re great.

Jason Hsieh (29:08)
I see. Okay. Sounds good. I’ll make sure I put that all in the show notes. And thank you so much for your time today, sharing your journey, your experience and you know the wonderful

20 Year journey that you have in the industry so far.

Sean Brown (29:19)
Thanks, Jason. I you know, and I on a personal note, I really appreciate you reaching out and scheduling this with me. You’re the first person that I’ve talked to, you know, kind of post retirement in this kind of a capacity. And so, you know, it was a little nerve-wracking for me, right? Cause I just thought, well, gee, I don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up. And here I am, not only grown up, but I’m old and retired. So yeah, this is awesome. And thank you so much for having me on and letting me

Talk a little about the journey.

Jason Hsieh (29:46)
Of course, yeah. Thank you so much for being on. And thank you so much for our audience for tuning in to this episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. We hope today’s conversation gives you some practical insight and fresh inspiration for growing your own toys or game companies. This podcast is proudly brought to you 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, catalog optimization, influencer marketing, and more.

If you’re looking for a proven team that both understands the toys and game industry and the e-commerce marketing, we’re here to help. If you’d like a personalized breakdown of your brand opportunities and marketing step, you can schedule a free consultation session with us. Just visit toy-launch.com/schedule to book a time. If you want to connect with other toys and game founders, feel free to join our free community Toys and Game Launchpad at toy-launch.com/group. And for more resources,

Updates and industry insight. Visit us at any time at toy-launch.com. 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’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much everyone.