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Tim FerrissTim Ferriss

The Strategies and Tactics for Building a Bestseller from Nothing — Elan Lee of Exploding Kittens

This is a very special episode for me. COYOTE is a fast, casual card game I created with the amazing Elan Lee and the Exploding Kittens team. It has been my obsession for two years. It is available in ~8,000 locations worldwide, including Walmart, Target, Amazon, and many others. Learn more: https://coyotegame.com. This episode is brought to you by: Gamma AI design partner for effortless presentations, websites, social media posts, and more: https://gamma.app (Use code TIM at checkout for 30% off any plan.) Shopify global commerce platform, providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business: https://shopify.com/tim (one-dollar-per-month trial period) Wealthfront high-yield cash account: https://wealthfront.com/tim (Start earning 4.00% APY on your short-term cash until you’re ready to invest. And when new clients open an account today, you can get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more.) Terms apply. Tim Ferriss receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage, LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage. See full disclosures here: https://wealthfront.com/tim Elan Lee is the co-creator and chief executive officer of Exploding Kittens, a leading gaming and entertainment company. Under his leadership, Exploding Kittens has expanded its portfolio to nearly 30 different games with more than 60 million games sold in more than 50 countries since its founding in 2015. cc: @ExplodingKittensInc [00:00] Start. [00:26] Coyote: a game 47 years in the making. [03:46] Who is Elan Lee? [04:45] How our motivations behind game creation intersect. [07:54] The nutshell view of pitching a game to a retailer. [09:51] Salesmanship is a learnable skill, but Elan’s a natural. [11:06] Why I’ve always wanted to make my own game and how development began in earnest. [21:28] First contact with Elan and our fast-forged, fun-focused friendship. [26:44] The Hanabi and Rock, Paper, Scissors-inspired Toronto trip breakthrough. [34:15] Early prototyping and testing. [40:12] The Zero Effect. [42:18] Recommended game design rationales, resources, and reading. [47:49] The beginner’s mind approach to writing effective game instructions. [51:24] A simple fact: less complication = more fun. [52:51] Cooperative vs. competitive play. [53:26] Leveling the playing field with attack cards and sabotage mechanics. [56:46] Tricking people into cognitively bettering themselves by gaming. [01:03:30] Finding the sweet spot. [01:06:11] It takes a lot of work to make a game effortlessly fun. [01:09:12] How many games does Exploding Kittens publish per year? [01:10:18] Exploding Kittens’ number-one seller was designed by Elan’s four-year-old daughter. [01:14:11] Prototypes and pitching. [01:18:16] Improving on the industry’s fundamentally flawed testing procedure. [01:20:47] Analyzing passing/failure with play testers’ video and feedback. [01:24:29] Risks of internal testing. [01:27:41] Coyote’s first positive signs from the wild. [01:30:19] Online vs. physical store sales and tweaking variables to gauge market interest. [01:37:28] What a successful line review looks like. [01:39:58] Line review hoops through which lesser-proven companies have to hop. [01:44:15] Elan’s field-tested line review meeting strategies. [01:50:16] The importance of finding proper agent representation. [01:55:42] In modern marketing, social media (especially short-form video) is king. [02:00:50] The best and worst ways for an aspiring designer to sell a game. [02:09:12] Crowdfunding pros and cons, and Kickstarter alternatives. [02:16:08] Dealing with deal terms. [02:20:04] The Exploding Kittens attitude toward rare partnerships. [02:21:54] The types of games that capture Elan’s attention. [02:23:47] Common game design mistakes. [02:25:55] How we tried to avoid these mistakes when packaging Coyote. [02:30:00] Self-publishing vs. conventional publishing. [02:34:42] Business considerations and risks. [02:41:04] Parting thoughts and a tantalizing Hollywood-mansion-party offer

Elan LeeguestTim Ferrisshost
Aug 6, 20252h 52mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:26

    Start.

    1. EL

      Don't lock in your head, "I'm looking for this particular thing. I must find X. I must find X," 'cause the chances that you're gonna find that thing are almost nonexistent.

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    3. EL

      But if you can keep your brain open and say, "I'm just looking for something. I don't care what it is. Something, anything."

    4. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    5. EL

      "I'll tweak it later. I'll play with it later." As long as you're willing to make that leap, brainstorming becomes a pleasure.

  2. 0:26 – 3:46

    Coyote: a game 47 years in the making.

    1. TF

      Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls. This is another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. I am Tim Ferriss, and I'm sitting with a friend of mine who I brought to my podcast with a secret agenda-

    2. EL

      [laughs]

    3. TF

      ... that has ended up [laughs] two years later with a very, very not-so-secret-for-long outcome that we're gonna talk about. Elan Lee.

    4. EL

      Thanks.

    5. TF

      Nice to see you again.

    6. EL

      It's nice to see you, too. That was a secret agenda. That was a two-year-in-the-making secret agenda.

    7. TF

      Two years in the making. So what we're gonna do in this conversation, and I just hijacked his bio 'cause I've had too much caffeine, so I'm gonna let him do the self-intro in a second. But we're gonna give you a peek behind the curtain, under the hood, open the kimono, choose your metaphor. We're gonna talk about the creative process, the development process, thinking about distribution, retail, all of these things which I have not heard discussed anywhere else in depth.

    8. EL

      You buried the lede. All of that stuff of-

    9. TF

      Of a game that we created that from the very beginning was something I've wanted to do my whole life, which is create a game. I was raised, protected in some ways [laughs] by Dungeons & Dragons as a kid. It was my refuge from bullying and also just the straight boredom of most of my schooling at the time.

    10. EL

      [laughs]

    11. TF

      And that immersive experience, the ability to get lost in a world of imagination, and fun, and laughter, and emotion was so incredibly important, it was so formative for me, that the seed was planted really early. And I think you know this, 'cause I probably sent you a photograph of this at one point. I still have all of my modules.

    12. EL

      [laughs]

    13. TF

      I have the Player's Handbook First Edition, Dungeon Master's Guide, all of the dice, everything from when I was a kid. I've kept it to this day.

    14. EL

      I love this.

    15. TF

      [laughs]

    16. EL

      I love this. But hold on.

    17. TF

      Yeah.

    18. EL

      If you're not gonna say it, I'm gonna say it.

    19. TF

      Yeah.

    20. EL

      Tim Ferriss made a game.

    21. TF

      [laughs] I did.

    22. EL

      That's amazing.

    23. TF

      It took me 47 years, but-

    24. EL

      That's huge

    25. TF

      ... here we are. So the game, I'll just show it to camera for people who want a visual who are not watching this. If you're listening, you can go to tim.blog/coyote, so I'm giving a bit of what you might call foreshadowing in the biz.

    26. EL

      [laughs]

    27. TF

      This is the game. It is a card game. It's called Coyote. That name did not come easily. We went through about 573 different names and lots of testing, and we'll talk about some of that. But this is the game, and it's effectively... I'd like to hear your pitch-

    28. EL

      Yeah

    29. TF

      ... because we have slightly different approaches.

    30. EL

      Yeah.

  3. 3:46 – 4:45

    Who is Elan Lee?

    1. TF

      We never got to your bio. Who the hell are you?

    2. EL

      Oh. [laughs]

    3. TF

      [laughs]

    4. EL

      That's the least interesting part of this whole thing.

    5. TF

      No, I know, but it puts it in perspective.

    6. EL

      Okay.

    7. TF

      And just ex-

    8. EL

      All right

    9. TF

      ... explain the company a bit, the scope of it, et cetera.

    10. EL

      I love talking about games. I hate talking about myself. So I will try-

    11. TF

      That's why it takes someone like me to force you to do it.

    12. EL

      Yeah, okay, here we go. My name's Elan Lee. I am the co-creator and CEO of Exploding Kittens. I believe we're the number one independent game studio in the world, something like that.

    13. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. EL

      I don't know. We've sold a whole bunch of games. We've sold 60 million games at this point. Been running that company for 10 years now, and, uh, before that I was the chief design officer at the Xbox, and before that I worked at a pet store.

    15. TF

      [laughs] And for people who want the full journey, including-

    16. EL

      Mm-hmm

    17. TF

      ... the sort of magical tinderbox that was Kickstarter way back in the day, how this whole adventure started-

    18. EL

      Yeah

    19. TF

      ... 10, 10-plus years ago-

    20. EL

      Yeah

    21. TF

      ... listen to the first conversation that I did with Elan.

  4. 4:45 – 7:54

    How our motivations behind game creation intersect.

    1. TF

      I had wanted to make a game, and quickly realized that a, an RPG, something like Dungeons & Dragons, right, role-playing game-

    2. EL

      Mm-hmm

    3. TF

      ... was going to be too complicated for me and my friends as adults to play. It would be too hard for me to recruit my friends, where you have, let's just say a full day, then you have dinner, maybe you have a few drinks, and then you have an hour before people split.

    4. EL

      [laughs]

    5. TF

      There's no way I'm gonna get someone to build, for instance, you know, like a chaotic good [laughs] gray elf and like-

    6. EL

      Yeah

    7. TF

      ... w- which is, sort of was my orientation-

    8. EL

      Yeah

    9. TF

      ... and work from there. It's just not gonna happen.

    10. EL

      Yeah.

    11. TF

      And meanwhile, about maybe it was a year or two years before I invited you on the podcast, I found this game, Poetry for Neanderthals.

    12. EL

      Yeah.

    13. TF

      And holy shit, had so much fun with that with my friends. I thought, "Okay, I think I wanna tilt my game dreams," which at that point had no real direction, towards something more casual.

    14. EL

      Yeah.

    15. TF

      Uh, but in the meantime, I'd also been listening to all sorts of podcasts and, uh, so on that we'll get to. But you've explained your background.

    16. EL

      Well, well, well hold on.

    17. TF

      Yeah.

    18. EL

      So what you just described-

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm

    20. EL

      ... is exactly why I started Exploding Kittens because I- Also, okay, a little bit different. Unlike you-

    21. TF

      Mm-hmm

    22. EL

      ... I, when I encounter those crazy two and four and six-hour games, I am immediately turned off. Like, I can't focus for that long. I can't understand the rules. If, if it takes longer than five minutes to explain a game, I am gone.

    23. TF

      [laughs]

    24. EL

      Like, I have no ability to play that game. And so the whole reason I started this company, and I think the whole reason that you made the pivot from-

    25. TF

      Mm-hmm

    26. EL

      ... giant role-playing games to being interested in the creation of casual fast party games, is, like, this golden rule of, like, two minutes to learn, 15 minutes to play.

    27. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    28. EL

      Because nothing's at stake there, right?

    29. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    30. EL

      You're gonna learn it. You're either gonna love the game or you're gonna hate it, but whatever, you committed five minutes total to that thing.

  5. 7:54 – 9:51

    The nutshell view of pitching a game to a retailer.

    1. EL

      Well, you went through a journey. And I- I'm excited, like, looking at that journey through your eyes of, "I don't even know what I wanna build, but I know I want to build a fun experience that I would enjoy, that my friends would enjoy," all the way through to this thing is at every Walmart and Target in North America. That journey is incredible, and you got to see it for the first time.

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    3. EL

      Like, you absolutely drank from the fire hose here. This was fun for me because I had to walk you through this, right? You've never sold a game before, so walking through the process of how you make a game and how you sell a game, it doesn't work the way people think. So retailers have a buyer per category. So if anybody wants to sell something to a retailer, you want something in Target or Walmart or Amazon or Barnes & Noble, the way it works is you have to convince the buyer for your category to take your thing, right?

    4. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    5. EL

      They have limited shelf space. It's very precious real estate, so y- you have to convince them that your thing is better than anybody else's thing. And twice a year, they have these things called line reviews. The buyers have to buy games for next year, right? They need to put stuff on the shelf. There's only a certain number of meetings they can physically have in a period of time because it's usually one or two or maybe three people. So they take as many meetings as they can. It's usually a dozen, maybe two dozen.

    6. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    7. EL

      And in those meetings-

    8. TF

      Mm-hmm, in your case with different game-

    9. EL

      Yeah

    10. TF

      ... manufacturer, different studios.

    11. EL

      E- e- exactly. So they'll take a meeting with Hasbro, and they'll take a meeting with Mattel, and they'll take a me- you know, all, all the big guys. And in those meetings, 20, 30, 50 games are pitched to them in every single one of those meetings, and then they'll make a decision on which ones they're gonna purchase and stock for the next year. So that's line review. The tricky parts for line review is, one, you gotta do a great job, but even before that, you gotta get that meeting, right?

    12. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    13. EL

      They only have time for a certain number of meetings, so you have to put yourself in a position where you can get in that

  6. 9:51 – 11:06

    Salesmanship is a learnable skill, but Elan’s a natural.

    1. EL

      room.

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm. All right, so we're gonna talk strategy and tactics for line review in a minute because [laughs] you are, and take this as a compliment, you're one of the best in-person salespeople I've ever seen.

    3. EL

      [laughs] That could also be an insult, but I'll take it.

    4. TF

      No, it's not an insult.

    5. EL

      I'll take it. I'll take it.

    6. TF

      No, no, it's not an insult. Everybody's in sales whether they like to admit it or not, whether you're selling ideas, you're selling a position, a perspective. If you wanna call it deal-making. This is what I used to say in my class, my guest lecture that I taught for 10 years once or twice a year in high-tech entrepreneurship. I would start off by saying like, "Who here wants to be in sales?" No hands would go up.

    7. EL

      [laughs]

    8. TF

      And I've got... And I would say, "Well, I've got some good news and I got some bad news."

    9. EL

      Yeah.

    10. TF

      Bad news is you're all in sales.

    11. EL

      Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

    12. TF

      Let me explain why. If you wanna call it deal-making, fine. You're gonna have to negotiate.

    13. EL

      Yeah.

    14. TF

      Like, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

    15. EL

      Well said.

    16. TF

      And you get what you can present in a very persuasive way. I was like, "Good news is you can learn it."

    17. EL

      Awesome.

    18. TF

      This is a coachable, learnable skill, which I completely still believe. There's some people who may have a little bit of extroversion, charismatic, reality distortion field advantage, but you can become excellent-

    19. EL

      Yeah

    20. TF

      ... even if you start with zero raw materials.

  7. 11:06 – 21:28

    Why I’ve always wanted to make my own game and how development began in earnest.

    1. EL

      Yeah.

    2. TF

      Okay, so the journey, wanted to make a game my whole life, okay? But it was, it was this vague, "Maybe someday, God, wouldn't it be nice?" It-

    3. EL

      Can I... Let me just poke at that for a second.

    4. TF

      Yeah, sure.

    5. EL

      Why?

    6. TF

      The why is I wanted to imbue someone else's experience with the magic I felt playing-

    7. EL

      Mm

    8. TF

      ... D&D.

    9. EL

      Well said.

    10. TF

      That's it.

    11. EL

      Yeah.

    12. TF

      Or much easier games, right? I used to play [laughs] such a simple game. I used to play Sorry! and Monopoly.

    13. EL

      Yeah.

    14. TF

      And as a young kid, I just thought Sorry! was the most hilarious thing.

    15. EL

      Yeah.

    16. TF

      When you could look someone in the eyes and go, "Sorry,"

    17. EL

      [laughs]

    18. TF

      ... and knock their stuff off the board. Didn't always respond well when it happened to me.

    19. EL

      Yeah.

    20. TF

      But it doesn't have to be the incredibly immersive, complex game that D&D is.

    21. EL

      Yeah.

    22. TF

      Although I still think that is just like Gary Gygax and the team way back in the day, holy cow.

    23. EL

      Yeah.

    24. TF

      Also, by the way, for people who don't know, Gen Con, huge convention.

    25. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    26. TF

      Started out around Lake Geneva-

    27. EL

      Yeah

    28. TF

      ... and was, is I believe, created by the, the TSR guys-

    29. EL

      I believe that's right

    30. TF

      ... way back in the day.

  8. 21:28 – 26:44

    First contact with Elan and our fast-forged, fun-focused friendship.

    1. EL

      Yeah.

    2. TF

      I mean, there are some amazing solo game designers. Not to say there aren't, but I was like, "You know what? I wanna try to be more social in my creativity and collaborate with creatives and do sprints."

    3. EL

      Love it.

    4. TF

      Now, sometimes those sprints turn into [laughs] longer things.

    5. EL

      [laughs]

    6. TF

      But those have been sort of my two guiding lights for the last few years, which is what then gave me the ability to build up the courage... It sounds so ridiculous to say, but to actually reach-

    7. EL

      [laughs]

    8. TF

      ... out to you and be like, "Hey, do you wanna actually just bat around-

    9. EL

      Yeah. Well-

    10. TF

      ... the possibility of something?"

    11. EL

      So from my perspective-

    12. TF

      Yeah

    13. EL

      ... that conversation, like, I got very excited to work with you on something, one, because it turns out you're just a lovely human being and so much fun to hang out with.

    14. TF

      Thank you.

    15. EL

      But two, I asked you that very fundamental question. You said, "Hey, do you wanna build a game?" And I said, "Why do you wanna build a game?" And your answer was almost identical to what you just relayed, right? You, you talked about your past experiences. You talked about childhood memories of games. You talked about what you like, what you don't like. And what became very clear to me was there's something special going on here.

    16. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    17. EL

      Tim, Tim wants to treat his friends and his audience to something extraordinary. And we get approached all the time by people who wanna make games. Big celebrities and singers and actors, all, all of them wanna make a game. And whenever I ask them the question why, the answer is invariably, " 'Cause my agent told me to" or, "Because I think I can make money," or, you know, really very superficial. Often they're not game players at all. They have no connection to the experience of game design. And when I spoke to you, none of that was present.

    18. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    19. EL

      Instead, it was, "This is a very personal thing to me, and ultimately, I want to give a gift." And that's when my brain started lighting up. It's like, "Oh, this is gonna be fun."

    20. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    21. EL

      Like, he is in this for all the reasons I'm in this, and that means we can make something very special together.

    22. TF

      Yeah.

    23. EL

      And I think we have.

    24. TF

      Yeah. Yeah, we definitely have. And a- and another question that is, is sometimes a little tricky to apply but that has been in my mind for a while, since Seth Godin, very well-known author, thinker, just incredibly sage and awesome human being, he reframed for me, which is the reframing of the question: What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail, right?

    25. EL

      Yeah.

    26. TF

      That's, that's a good question. Like, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? All right, that's freeing. But the way he tweaks that is he said, [laughs] "What would you do if you knew you would fail?" In other words, what would you do for which the process alone would make it worth it?

    27. EL

      Mm.

    28. TF

      And for me, because, I mean, we became fast friends very quickly, right? And I was like, "Okay, that's rare for me as an adult-

    29. EL

      Mm-hmm. Yeah

    30. TF

      ... number one," and I've been banging this around in my own little head for so long-

  9. 26:44 – 34:15

    The Hanabi and Rock, Paper, Scissors-inspired Toronto trip breakthrough.

    1. TF

      So [laughs] let's talk a little bit about the, the origin story. Now, I wanna... I'll throw out a couple of things here, and we're gonna talk about the game development, and then we're also gonna talk about how to sell this thing, right?

    2. EL

      Yeah.

    3. TF

      How does that work?

    4. EL

      Yeah, and it's worth saying-

    5. TF

      Mm-hmm

    6. EL

      ... designing a game, I remember you asked me this early on, you started out from the, "Hey, let's design a game, and then we're basically done."

    7. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    8. EL

      And I remember really forcing myself to think through this process, 'cause I wanted to explain it to you. No, that's, that's half of it.

    9. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    10. EL

      Other half is selling the game, and just as much work goes into that, and if you're not willing to do it or if you have no mechanism by which you can do it, might as well not design the game.

    11. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    12. EL

      'Cause one without the other, useless.

    13. TF

      Yeah, yeah. So depends on the scale you're going after, right? If you wanna make something for your friends-

    14. EL

      Sure

    15. TF

      ... you can do that.

    16. EL

      Yeah, okay, fair enough, yeah. [laughs]

    17. TF

      But in this particular case, I mean... [laughs]

    18. EL

      You, you wanted to make something cool-

    19. TF

      I wanted, yeah

    20. EL

      ... and share it, right? Yeah.

    21. TF

      I wanted to share, I wanted to share it. So that kinda dictated parts of the process that [laughs] we needed to weigh really heavily. So the game development process, I mean, we started off looking at the possibilities of modifying existing games.

    22. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    23. TF

      Right? So looking at, say, Poetry for Neanderthals-

    24. EL

      Poetry, yeah

    25. TF

      ... with an alternate set of rules-

    26. EL

      Yeah

    27. TF

      ... or a different deck plus A, B, or C. We looked at prototype games-

    28. EL

      Mm-hmm

    29. TF

      ... that you alluded to earlier, bringing the suitcase, right?

    30. EL

      Yeah.

  10. 34:15 – 40:12

    Early prototyping and testing.

    1. TF

      part of the reason I wanna show this prototype deck, and we'll describe it for people who aren't watching, is quick and dirty is the fucking way to go.

    2. EL

      Yeah. Yeah.

    3. TF

      And I, I will just make another recommendation for Stephen Key. So Stephen Key has a book called One Simple Idea, which is about licensing and creating inventions. He's got a number of books now. But Stephen has made a gajillion dollars creating games for all the biggies that you can possibly think of, and he uses construction paper [laughs] and glue you would find in a second-grade class, and a handful of markers.

    4. EL

      Love it.

    5. TF

      And-

    6. EL

      This is alr-

    7. TF

      By and large-

    8. EL

      Already my friend. Yeah

    9. TF

      ... that is how he creates these amazing... Now, when I say ga- they can be games, they can be toys.

    10. EL

      Yeah.

    11. TF

      He's pretty broad spectrum. But it might be a new way to play basketball, shooting dirty laundry into a hamper, right?

    12. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    13. TF

      Something like that. And he prototypes these things incredibly quickly. And for him, for what he does, that is enough.

    14. EL

      Yeah.

    15. TF

      He is able to put together a pitch, and he's able to sell it, and he's able to develop these amazing passive income streams-

    16. EL

      So good

    17. TF

      ... with these annuities that just come in-

    18. EL

      So good

    19. TF

      ... from all these different places. But that relates to what we're looking at.

    20. EL

      So does... Okay. So I love that we have not even described what COYOTE is yet.

    21. TF

      Yeah.

    22. EL

      But that's okay-

    23. TF

      Yeah

    24. EL

      ... because it's more fun, I think, to walk th- like, I think the value of this conversation is to actually talk through the creative process and talk through-

    25. TF

      Yeah

    26. EL

      ... I think a lot of people who wanna make games, this is how you do it.

    27. TF

      Yeah.

    28. EL

      And, and we went through this two-year journey, and we arrived at a very happy outcome.

    29. TF

      Yeah.

    30. EL

      So I'm excited to talk about, well, let me show you the very ugly, very first deck we ever built. So we had this conversation about Rock, Paper, Scissors, and I knew there was something there because we were talking about players playing. My fundamental premise behind all game design is games should not be entertaining, games should make the players entertaining.

  11. 40:12 – 42:18

    The Zero Effect.

    1. TF

      "Oh, okay"?

    2. EL

      So there's two things to talk about here. Certainly, "Let's play again" is a great one, but to set your mind in a place where you're willing to say, "Imagine this, but, ugh, but tweaked, but-

    3. TF

      Mm-hmm

    4. EL

      ... something a little different." There's, there's this principle I love called the zero effect. The zero effect-

    5. TF

      Zero effect.

    6. EL

      Yeah, zero effect. It's from a movie, I think in the late '80s, early '90s, somewhere around there, called-

    7. TF

      Mm

    8. EL

      ... The Zero Effect, and there's this one scene where they explain what the zero effect is. It is as follows: If you've lost your car keys-

    9. TF

      Mm

    10. EL

      ... and you're looking for your car keys, here you are in your living room, you're looking for your car keys. The chances of you finding your car keys are very low because there's so many things in this room that are not your car keys.

    11. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    12. EL

      So your chances of finding that one thing, very, very low. If instead you are trying to find anything, your chances of success are suddenly at 100%.

    13. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. EL

      You will find something, as long as you don't care what it is that you found. That's my favorite premise for brainstorming and for early testing. Don't lock in your head, "I'm looking for this particular thing. I must find X. I must find X," 'cause the chances that you're gonna find that thing are almost nonexistent.

    15. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    16. EL

      But if you can keep your brain open and say, "I'm just looking for something. I don't care what it is. Something, anything."

    17. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. EL

      "And I'll tweak it later. I'll play with it later. I'll find some way to consider this thing I found my car keys."

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    20. EL

      As long as you're willing to make that leap, brainstorming becomes a pleasure.

    21. TF

      And does that take the form of what if blah? What if we blah?

    22. EL

      Yes.

    23. TF

      What if the, this card did blah?

    24. EL

      Precisely, yeah.

    25. TF

      Series of what ifs.

    26. EL

      And you're not scared for all of those to fail.

    27. TF

      Yeah.

    28. EL

      Right? Because you can come up with those all day long, and that's what we did, right? Over the next few days, that process, what if blah-

    29. TF

      Mm-hmm

    30. EL

      ... let's try it. What if blah, let's try it. What if whatever, let's try it. And as long as the answer is always let's try it, you will 100% find what you're looking for.

  12. 42:18 – 47:49

    Recommended game design rationales, resources, and reading.

    1. TF

      All right. So let's make some recommendations for people listening or watching. What books or resources would you recommend for people who are interested in game development? And I wanna reiterate also, whether you think you're playing games or not, you're already playing games-

    2. EL

      Yeah

    3. TF

      ... in life. So for me, this is a way of putting on a table what we've already implicitly agreed to in our own lives in ways that we generally don't realize, which is we're all playing games.

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      Now, what does that mean? That means that beyond Maslow's basic rungs on the ladder, shelter, warmth, food, et cetera, at some point, particularly as adults, maybe it's before you go to school, maybe it's when you're in college, but you have decided to play Or you have just ended up drafting into a game with certain rules-

    6. EL

      Yeah

    7. TF

      ... certain conditions for winning or losing-

    8. EL

      Yeah

    9. TF

      ... certain ranking mechanisms. And step number one is figuring out what games you're playing.

    10. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    11. TF

      Okay? So I would suggest that learning about building games helps you to put on X-ray vision glasses, where you start to see the world as comprised of-

    12. EL

      So true

    13. TF

      ... tons of games.

    14. EL

      Yeah. It's so true. And you start to dive deeper into game theory.

    15. TF

      Mm.

    16. EL

      Like, what is the prisoner's dilemma? What is a zero-sum game? Like, if you can start to identify those very fundamental game design concepts in the real world, you can jump to the end of a conversation so much faster. You can avoid so many missteps because everything follows, within reason, everything follows game design principles because this practice, this art form, has been so well-studied and so well-researched and so well-documented that you get to take advantage of all of that.

    17. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. EL

      And I love that. I use that for my relationships. I use that playing with my kids. I use that at work all the time. It's just, there's these fundamental principles of game design, and I'll talk about a book I love that-

    19. TF

      Mm

    20. EL

      ... illustrates them. But yeah, y- they can be applied to anything. You're right. You're playing a game all the time, and the first step is to be aware that you are playing a game.

    21. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    22. EL

      All right. So I got two books.

    23. TF

      Let's hear it.

    24. EL

      One is A Theory of Fun by Raph Koster. Rafe Koster? Raph Ko- R-A-P-H, Raph.

    25. TF

      Mm.

    26. EL

      It'll outline all these fundamentals. It is the first game design book I ever read. It is the one I go back to and refer to the most often. It's just got everything, and the author is brilliant, and go read that book.

    27. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    28. EL

      The second one is gonna be a little controversial.

    29. TF

      Memoirs of a Geisha?

    30. EL

      Yeah. [laughs]

  13. 47:49 – 51:24

    The beginner’s mind approach to writing effective game instructions.

    1. EL

      before I started Exploding Kittens, I designed games for friends.

    2. TF

      Mm.

    3. EL

      And I just had the hardest time. Like, people, when I wasn't in the room, people were not enjoying those games. And it was only once I read that book that I realized the fault is absolutely mine because I'm trying to get them to have as much fun as I want them to have, and the fact that they're not, I keep blaming them, and that's so wrong.

    4. TF

      So what did you do? How did you-

    5. EL

      Yeah

    6. TF

      ... fix that?

    7. EL

      So there's basically two parts. One starts with design. One says the game has to be so simple that it is almost self-correcting.

    8. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EL

      And I have to strip out all complication. I have to remove all nuance. I need, anytime I'm, like, thinking of the rules and I say, "Okay, if this happens, then this happens, except if..." The moment I say, "Except," I've gone down a wrong path, right? Like, I need to get rid of all of that stuff. That was the first part. And then the second part is in writing the actual instructions and figuring out how... Like, if I'm sitting in the room, you're gonna get this game because I'm gonna explain it, and I'm gonna be enthusiastic. And when you ask a question, I'm gonna answer the question. And when you get confused, I'm gonna clarify it. Like, I can 100% do that, but a piece of paper trying to do that same thing, I have to write it as if I'm in the room, and I have to anticipate those questions, and I have to cut them off before they come up, and I have to correct behavior because I know exactly where you're gonna go off course and fix it in the instructions. And that kinda one-two punch- ... changed my game design from, yeah, like 10% of the people get this to, like, 95% of the people get this.

    10. TF

      Yeah. One aspect, I mean, there's so many aspects, but one aspect [laughs] of this that I enjoyed was related to the instructions.

    11. EL

      Yeah.

    12. TF

      And so number one, you make it really clear in the instructions, which we both pored over ad nauseam.

    13. EL

      [laughs]

    14. TF

      But reading is the worst way to learn a game. Go watch this video.

    15. EL

      Yeah.

    16. TF

      QR code, right? So that's number one. But if you're going to put it into text, and I think I'm pretty good at this, but I was very impressed with your ability to identify anything that could be misunderstood or that wasn't yet defined-

    17. EL

      Yeah

    18. TF

      ... or that could be taken with another more broader connotation that would steer people off course.

    19. EL

      Yeah.

    20. TF

      And the number of edits in that Google Doc [laughs]

    21. EL

      I mean, it's gotta be in the hundreds, right?

    22. TF

      From, from all of us-

    23. EL

      Yeah, yeah

    24. TF

      ... hundreds and hundreds of edits.

    25. EL

      Yeah. So the most important skill is you will write better instructions, you will convey information to people better if you can clear your mind. If you can approach any set of instructions from the perspective of the things I know, I do not yet know, and the words that come out of my mouth have to not only fill my brain with the required knowledge-

    26. TF

      I see. Basically beginner's mind, right?

    27. EL

      Yes.

    28. TF

      Putting yourself in the place of someone who has never seen this before.

    29. EL

      Exactly. And it's so hard to do because you have this information in your head. It must be there, otherwise you're not gonna be able to explain the thing. But to back all the way up and say, "I'm just gonna, like, like, split my brain in two. There's this one reading a script, and I know the information I have to get out, but the other half is the recipient of that script, and it knows nothing."

    30. TF

      Mm-hmm.

  14. 51:24 – 52:51

    A simple fact: less complication = more fun.

    1. TF

      All right. You mentioned, I think it was two minutes to learn, 15 minutes to play?

    2. EL

      Yeah.

    3. TF

      What other golden rules or guiding tenets do you have-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... for yourself when you're doing game design-

    6. EL

      Yeah

    7. TF

      ... within Exploding Kittens?

    8. EL

      Oh, good question. If a component does not need to be in the game, remove it from the game.

    9. TF

      Right. So an example of that would be we had these chits or, like, little chips-

    10. EL

      Like, like bingo-

    11. TF

      ... like poker chips

    12. EL

      ... like bingo chips, right?

    13. TF

      Like bingo chips-

    14. EL

      Yeah, yeah

    15. TF

      ... that we were using for lives-

    16. EL

      Yeah

    17. TF

      ... or strikes.

    18. EL

      Yeah.

    19. TF

      And turns out you don't need that. You can use-

    20. EL

      Yeah, 'cause you got a whole thing of cards right here.

    21. TF

      Yeah.

    22. EL

      Just use those.

    23. TF

      You can use cards by flipping them over and using the back of the card.

    24. EL

      Exactly.

    25. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    26. EL

      That's a perfect example, right? We had this thing where we're like, "Hey, you know what'd be fun, is if everybody had a big hand of cards, and we're gonna play cards, and you make decisions." And, like, I get that. Most games you play, you have a hand of cards, and you're gonna play a card, and you're making a decision. That's awesome. But you know what? That's a private moment, and y- and you reveal a card. Every game you've ever played. When you play Uno-

    27. TF

      Mm-hmm

    28. EL

      ... you got a hand of cards. You're making a decision. You play a card. You've revealed what card you just played. And I remember thinking, "Is there a simpler version of that?" And it turns out there is.

    29. TF

      Mm.

    30. EL

      And the simpler version in Coyote is take some cards, put them all face up on the table, and then decide which one you're gonna pick. That's very similar to having a deck of cards.

  15. 52:51 – 53:26

    Cooperative vs. competitive play.

    1. TF

      when the competitive version was brought in-

    2. EL

      Mm

    3. TF

      ... which is the way that I like to play, the way I would suggest people play, but you can warm up with cooperative, or if you have somebody in your life or in your family [laughs] who just cannot lose without-

    4. EL

      [laughs]

    5. TF

      ... creating a huge pain in the ass-

    6. EL

      [laughs]

    7. TF

      ... then the cooperative mode is really fun. But the competitive mode then allows [laughs] the group decision on which card to play, potentially, although ultimately it's individual. That has implications for cooperative when it's public-

    8. EL

      Yeah

    9. TF

      ... but also for competitive.

  16. 53:26 – 56:46

    Leveling the playing field with attack cards and sabotage mechanics.

    1. EL

      Yeah.

    2. TF

      There are a number of tweaks made to this, but I mentioned earlier sabotaging. So we had competitive, but different minds are wired for different games.

    3. EL

      Yeah.

    4. TF

      And so God forbid what happens to you is what happened to one of my employees who was play testing this, where one of the people in the group was a mathematician who also is a high-level chess player-

    5. EL

      Oh, no

    6. TF

      ... if I'm remembering correctly, and he just smoked everyone-

    7. EL

      Yeah, of course

    8. TF

      ... because he had the mind for it.

    9. EL

      Yeah.

    10. TF

      So what do you do for that? Well, we ended up... And this took a lot of play testing to ultimately land on this, and I, and I wanna ask you about play testing, particularly if it's kinda hands off the wheel and you have-

    11. EL

      Yeah

    12. TF

      ... people playing the game without you.

    13. EL

      Yeah. Terrifying.

    14. TF

      Yeah. And this comes back to the underdog being able to win, right? Not getting my ass smoked-

    15. EL

      Mm-hmm

    16. TF

      ... in Magic over and over again-

    17. EL

      Mm-hmm

    18. TF

      ... by someone who's just got better hardwiring for it.

    19. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    20. TF

      And that's where the attack cards came from.

    21. EL

      Yeah.

    22. TF

      Right? So there are these attack cards in the deck which, to the simplification side, you can play in cooperative mode to modify a card. I don't wanna get too in the weeds.

    23. EL

      Well, I, I wanna give you more credit for this, 'cause-

    24. TF

      Oh

    25. EL

      ... I don't think you're taking enough credit.

    26. TF

      [laughs]

    27. EL

      So, all right. Let me, let me phrase this a different way. So the basic premise of the game is we have a whole bunch of activities on the table, right? Ballerina, peace sign, whatever it is. Thumbs up, thumbs down, smile, frown.

    28. TF

      Lean and make a fart noise.

    29. EL

      Yeah, exactly.

    30. TF

      [laughs]

  17. 56:46 – 1:03:30

    Tricking people into cognitively bettering themselves by gaming.

    1. TF

      Sometimes, you know, artists talk about the visual library, right? Just the exposure to different types of artwork, different forms, different silhouettes, different structures, so that they can pull from that visual library to inform whatever they're trying to-

    2. EL

      Yeah

    3. TF

      ... build or solve for. And it's the same with game design. Same with everything. You know, like, you need to build your ABCs so you can convey what you're trying to say in terms that are solvable-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... if that makes any sense.

    6. EL

      Totally.

    7. TF

      Yeah.

    8. EL

      You're a quick study, too. [laughs]

    9. TF

      Yeah, helped getting the books that you recommended.

    10. EL

      [laughs]

    11. TF

      All right. So I'm, I'm not gonna dox my, my friend in question, but as long-term listeners will know, I was, in a former life, neuroscience major, and then in the last 10 years have funded a lot of science. And [laughs] I always have just had this hankering and this dream of being involved in neuroscience.

    12. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    13. TF

      It continues to this day. And in the process of building this game, and this is not how I necessarily sell it, because this is gonna sound terrible, but through many experiments with different companies and so on, I've concluded that even though generally Americans, I'll throw it on Americans, I'm American [laughs]

    14. EL

      [laughs]

    15. TF

      ... say they wanna be smarter-

    16. EL

      Yeah. Yeah, yeah

    17. TF

      ... they will typically not pay for something that is designed to make them smarter.

    18. EL

      Yeah.

    19. TF

      Unless it's a magic pill, and then sometimes the answer is yes. But what I was hoping to also do with this game is to create something that would, and this has not been proven, there's no randomized controlled study examining this, although that might change at some point, is to design something that would help those players who are not good at this-

    20. EL

      Yeah

    21. TF

      ... or the people who are in the middle of the bell curve-

    22. EL

      Yeah

    23. TF

      ... or the people who are good, to get better.

    24. EL

      Yeah.

    25. TF

      And for people who are interested in looking at some, they're not perfect analogs, but they're similar, people can check out the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, WCST. It's a neurophysiological test used to assess cognitive flexibility in executive functions, particularly the ability to shift cognitive sets and learn from feedback.

    26. EL

      Hmm.

    27. TF

      All right, so participants must sort cards based on an initially unknown rule, which changes after a certain number of correct sorts. Now, this is not a perfect parallel because that does not in and of itself make for a fun game.

    28. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    29. TF

      Right? So fun, number one. Lots of probably rank ordered, like, one, two, three, four, five, but could I also Trojan horse-

    30. EL

      Yeah

  18. 1:03:30 – 1:06:11

    Finding the sweet spot.

    1. TF

      also, I'd love to hear you talk about finding the sweet spot. I mean, we could talk about Bushnell's law, right, of Atari fame.

    2. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    3. TF

      You know, I'm paraphrasing here, but a good game is easy to learn and difficult to master.

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      Right? But how do you in the course of play testing-

    6. EL

      Mm-hmm

    7. TF

      ... working with prototypes, find the sweet spot of difficulty, right? Because with this game, well, through making this game, I've just really [laughs] come to appreciate how hard it is to create a game where people experience that sweet spot.

    8. EL

      Yeah.

    9. TF

      Because if you were to take Coyote and make it too easy, what a simple game to make.

    10. EL

      Sure.

    11. TF

      Right?

    12. EL

      Oh, yeah.

    13. TF

      If you wanted to make it basically impossible and not fun to play, also very easy. But to find that sweet spot on the graph is incredibly challenging.

    14. EL

      Yeah. So the way I think about this is when you first encounter any game, the first thought that has to go into your brain is, "I can do that," right? You hear it described and you have to think, "I can do that." And then you have to try the game, and that has to be reinforced. The game has to say, "Yep, you can do that." And you have to feel like, "Okay, I thought I could do it. I can do it. This is great." But that's only gonna last a few seconds. The next thought that has to go into your brain is, "I understand the path to mastery. Like, I understand how to get better at this." And then the next thought is, "And I can do that, too."

    15. TF

      Mm.

    16. EL

      So you have to see, like, the moment a modifier card comes out or the, the moment any complication happens in your favorite game, it has to, like, stop you dead in your tracks. It has to be like, "Oh, the thing I just did to start the game and was really good at, I thought I could do it, I could do it, that's not gonna work here. I have to rethink my strategy, or I have to get better at something else." And then those two follow-up thoughts have to show up in quick succession: "I know what I have to do, and I can do that, too." And that's really the art, to me, of that, that ramping up of game design, and you have to keep hitting that. "I think I can do that." Yes, you can. Now you can't anymore, but you know what you have to do, and you can do that, too. And then that's gonna get blocked, and you think, "Okay, now what? Now I know what I have to do, and I can do that, too."

    17. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. EL

      And you have to just keep hitting those two things, and it's just rinse and repeat over and over and over again. And if you can hit that-

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm

    20. EL

      ... you are just holding somebody's hand from the beginning of the game to the end of the game, and they're gonna get great at it. They're gonna achieve that sense of mastery over time.

  19. 1:06:11 – 1:09:12

    It takes a lot of work to make a game effortlessly fun.

    1. TF

      Yeah. And if you listening or watching have any game that you consider simple that you enjoy, rest assured there was an absurd-

    2. EL

      [laughs]

    3. TF

      ... absurd amount of development and testing and revising that went-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... into it. And just to give you an example, like, this is by all outward appearances a very simple game, and be three to eight players, you could probably play with more, 10 minutes, says age is 10 plus. I've, I've seen people playing with their kids who are much younger, and it's-

    6. EL

      Yeah

    7. TF

      ... actually hilarious and super fun. There are so many levers you can pull here, right? You have the action cards, which are these cute little salamander cards with the different motions and gestures and so on. Just the sheer number of cards. How many variants do you have?

    8. EL

      Mm-hmm.

    9. TF

      How many total cards do you have? How many coyote versus attack cards? When you have a fully shuffled deck, what does that actually look like?

    10. EL

      Yeah.

    11. TF

      There are so many different variables-

    12. EL

      Yeah, yeah

    13. TF

      ... that you have to think through.

    14. EL

      Yeah.

    15. TF

      The-

    16. EL

      And, and we even set up... One of my favorite things is we're starting to see people compete now. Like, so we set up this page of here are table configurations. Here's, like, an array of cards in exactly this order-

    17. TF

      Yeah

    18. EL

      ... with exactly these modifiers. This one's hard. This one's impossible. This one is going to kill you. And we've started to see just... And, you know, the game is barely available so far.

    19. TF

      Yeah.

    20. EL

      But we started to see some people try to tackle those challenges.

    21. TF

      Oh, fun. Okay, I didn't even know that.

    22. EL

      It's incredible.

    23. TF

      Yeah, so the, where this came from also is in The 4-Hour Chef a million years ago, came out in 2012, which was actually a book about accelerated learning, confusingly. But putting that aside- There were a few recipes in that book, I think one was called Dragon Force Chaconne or something like that, which was named after this video game track that people found impossible to play-

    24. EL

      [laughs]

    25. TF

      ... on guitar.

    26. EL

      Yeah.

    27. TF

      And then there was something a la ancienne, which was this just ludicrously complex-

    28. EL

      Yeah

    29. TF

      ... French dish that involved fish. And I was like, "Okay, look, if you've done everything up to this point and you wanna take a quantum leap forward and try something that is considered effectively impossible-

    30. EL

      Yeah

  20. 1:09:12 – 1:10:18

    How many games does Exploding Kittens publish per year?

    1. TF

      How many games per year do you guys put out on average?

    2. EL

      It's funny. I actually built this out as a graph. So our first year we did one, our second year we did two, our third year we did two again. Last year we did 14. This year we'll do 23, I think.

    3. TF

      Wow.

    4. EL

      Yeah. It's a lot, but we've built this... It's really fun. We've built this incredibly robust pipeline.

    5. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    6. EL

      Like, from design all the way through to testing, and then sales and marketing, and I feel obligated to just keep that pipeline full because-

    7. TF

      Mm

    8. EL

      ... it's such a beautiful thing we've built. So we do a lot of games.

    9. TF

      All right. Let's get some info that we wouldn't normally have any access to.

    10. EL

      All right.

    11. TF

      Uh, if you do an 80/20 analysis-

    12. EL

      Yeah

    13. TF

      ... it's not gonna be exactly 80/20, but you get where I'm going, on your best-selling games-

    14. EL

      Yeah

    15. TF

      ... what's on the leaderboard? What are the top X number of games? Five, three, four, whatever the number.

    16. EL

      Up until last year, number one, the top-selling game in the world amongst all games was Exploding Kittens.

    17. TF

      [laughs] That's nuts, man.

    18. EL

      It, it's nuts. It's nuts.

  21. 1:10:18 – 1:14:11

    Exploding Kittens’ number-one seller was designed by Elan’s four-year-old daughter.

    1. TF

      Congratulations.

    2. EL

      It makes no sense.

    3. TF

      That's-

    4. EL

      But I'll tell you something I'm even more proud of. It's now number two.

    5. TF

      Okay.

    6. EL

      Number one is a game called Hurry Up, Chicken Butt.

    7. TF

      [laughs]

    8. EL

      Hurry Up, Chicken Butt is a game I designed with my four-year-old daughter, and she did most of the design.

    9. TF

      Yeah.

    10. EL

      And it is outselling Exploding Kittens. Like, it is selling one game every four seconds.

    11. TF

      Wow.

    12. EL

      Yeah. It's nuts.

    13. TF

      All right.

    14. EL

      And it was designed by a four-year-old.

    15. TF

      Okay. So we got Hurry Up, Chicken Butt-

    16. EL

      Yeah

    17. TF

      ... Exploding Kittens.

    18. EL

      Yeah. The next few spots in the, like, global sales are constantly shifting.

    19. TF

      Okay.

    20. EL

      Like, everybody's fighting for those. But we always have our entries-

    21. TF

      Yeah

    22. EL

      ... into that list, which are constantly shifting. Poetry for Neanderthals is usually number three. Throw Throw Burrito is usually either number five or six, and the rest are just totally random.

    23. TF

      Yeah. Okay, got it. So what has made Hurry Up, Chicken Butt a success?

    24. EL

      So remember what I said, if you have the best-designed game in the world-

    25. TF

      And by the way, when we spoke, I think two years ago-

    26. EL

      Yeah

    27. TF

      ... you were just beginning to talk about this. I don't think it had-

    28. EL

      Yeah

    29. TF

      ... launched at that point.

    30. EL

      No, and it has been an absolute rocket ship.

  22. 1:14:11 – 1:18:16

    Prototypes and pitching.

    1. EL

      Once I had, like, 10 names that I really liked, we sat down with my daughter and all her friends, and I would just read them off. And there was no contest.

    2. TF

      [laughs]

    3. EL

      Like [laughs] it was just, I got to Hurry Up Chicken button. They're like, "Whoa," just laughing hysterically, jumping up and down. They didn't even wanna hear the rest of the names.

    4. TF

      Yeah.

    5. EL

      I was like, "Okay. Sold."

    6. TF

      All right.

    7. EL

      So that was a really nice step forward.

    8. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EL

      It was like, I know I got a game that's, like, just fire for kids.

    10. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    11. EL

      Like, they're just so excited about this. And the next thing was, all right, well, what do we make this box look like?

    12. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    13. EL

      And I was like, I know it has to be... The game itself involves a character and a die shaker and some sound effects. Like, it's got all this stuff packed into this character, this chicken. And I was like, "I can't just hide that. Like, I have to put that in a box where you can see it."

    14. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    15. EL

      And that was really hard. The difference between box design for, like, an iPhone and a game is an iPhone will spend, like, $100 on that box-

    16. TF

      Mm

    17. EL

      ... with the materials and making it beautiful, and when you open your iPhone, you take the box and you throw it away. In a game, you've got about 40 cents to spend on the box, and it has to last forever. [laughs] It sucks, right?

    18. TF

      Yeah.

    19. EL

      So the, the equation is totally backwards. But I needed a thing that displayed the chicken and told you it made noise and lets you shake around the die and still hold its structure as a box-

    20. TF

      Mm-hmm

    21. EL

      ... so that you could remove this thing, play with it, and then reinsert it into the box in a way that isn't gonna mess with the integrity of the box-

    22. TF

      Mm

    23. EL

      ... its structural integrity. So that was really hard, but we finally solved that.

    24. TF

      Did you do that before or after you started testing the waters with retailers?

    25. EL

      After.

    26. TF

      After.

    27. EL

      Yeah.

    28. TF

      Okay. I don't wanna hijack-

    29. EL

      Yeah

    30. TF

      ... but whenever it makes sense-

  23. 1:18:16 – 1:20:47

    Improving on the industry’s fundamentally flawed testing procedure.

    1. EL

      Okay, so here's how most game companies test games. If you had partnered with a different games company, here's what your experience would've been like. All right, we got a game. We really like it. It's really fun, lots of internal testing. Everyone's on board. We now need external testing. And they go to these, these market research groups-

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm

    3. EL

      ... and they pull strangers in, and they sit in a room with a one-way mirror, and they show the game, and they play the game with people they don't know, and they order in some crappy catered lunch, and they play the game, and then they rate it on a scale of one to 10, and they fill out this form that's like, "Here's what I liked, and here's what I didn't like, and here's what I would improve." And then you get to watch those videos, and they present you back all these forms, and you get to make a determination. Okay. Nobody plays games like that. You don't play games with strangers. When was the last time you played a board game with a stranger?

    4. TF

      Can't even remember.

    5. EL

      It doesn't happen.

    6. TF

      Yeah.

    7. EL

      Right? The testing procedure that all these other companies go through is fundamentally flawed. They're using a resource because it's the only resource that exists. That's what we did our first time. We went through one of those companies, and they gave us all the results, and I looked at these results, and I was like, "Oh my God, we just burned $25,000 on this thing and it's useless." So I realized at that moment, because nothing better exists, we're gonna have to build it ourselves. So I started reaching out to, at first, our Kickstarter community, and then our Discord community, and then our Reddit community as we grow and grow and grow, and said, "Look, I got a bunch of prototypes. I need families and friends who get together regularly to play games, and I'm gonna mail you ... a free game. You don't even have to send it back to me. It's yours forever. You get this amazing prototype. All I ask in return is, upon receiving it, within 24 hours, you play the game with your friends and family, and you record the session, and you send me that video. And that's it. That's all I want in return. And within about 12 months, we had 400 families sign up for this thing. They are called our Kitty Test Pilots. And they're this incredible group of enthusiastic game players that give us the best feedback, and we don't have them fill out a questionnaire. All we ask them, at the end of the test session, we say, "Look into the camera and answer one question, the only question we care about. Do you want to play again?"

    8. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    9. EL

      And we know a game is ready when everybody looks into that lens and says, "Hell yes."

    10. TF

      Mm.

    11. EL

      And that's it. That's our testing process.

  24. 1:20:47 – 1:24:29

    Analyzing passing/failure with play testers’ video and feedback.

    1. TF

      What are some of the pass/fail marks or green versus red signals that you look for? In other words-

    2. EL

      Mm-hmm

    3. TF

      ... I imagine the response rate could vary, but you don't know if that's because people are busy-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... or if it's the wrong time of year-

    6. EL

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    7. TF

      ... or maybe they looked at the game, the box, and so on, and it just didn't sell them, so they didn't play it.

    8. EL

      Totally.

    9. TF

      Is that something you pay attention to? Are the people, I'm sure I'm not the only person wondering this, like, if they're part of this special VIP get-free-game group, are they disincentivized to say, "Hell no, I would not play this game again"?

    10. EL

      Mm.

    11. TF

      So, do you get a false positive signal?

    12. EL

      I see.

    13. TF

      Like, how do you think through what constitutes a thumbs-up versus a thumbs-sideways versus-

    14. EL

      Yeah

    15. TF

      ... a thumbs-down?

    16. EL

      There are a lot of false positives, for sure, and there's no way I can solve that problem.

    17. TF

      Yeah.

    18. EL

      We prompt them in advance. We're like, "Look, we need honesty. This game will get great if you tell us that something's broken with it."

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    20. EL

      Like, we need to know that. Like, and they're motivated because we also send them the final version of the game, right?

    21. TF

      Mm.

    22. EL

      So, they know that's coming. They know a better version is coming if they help us make it better. So, some of the problem is solved that way, but not all of it. So, that's why the video is so important. So-

    23. TF

      They say, "We had a great time," and you're watching and you're like, "They're not-

    24. EL

      Yeah

    25. TF

      ... having a great time." [laughs]

    26. EL

      "They're not having a great time." Look, count the number of eye rolls.

    27. TF

      Right. [laughs]

    28. EL

      Or you know a great one? They'll take the instructions... I love this. They'll open the instructions, and when you see, when you see that-

    29. TF

      [laughs] Oh

    30. EL

      ... eyes go wide and they, like, inhale-

  25. 1:24:29 – 1:27:41

    Risks of internal testing.

    1. TF

      What are some of the risks of internal testing? 'Cause I've always wondered-

    2. EL

      Hmm

    3. TF

      ... for instance, when I have, as I'm doing right now, you know, having, doing a bunch of writing, and I have people proofreading or test reading my writing-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... I do not only do it with professional writers.

    6. EL

      Yeah.

    7. TF

      I mean, they're very good-

    8. EL

      Yeah

    9. TF

      ... and I know I'm very fortunate to know some amazing writers.

    10. EL

      Yeah.

    11. TF

      But they're also a little too close to the material, right?

    12. EL

      Yeah, yeah.

    13. TF

      It's like a travel writer-

    14. EL

      Yeah

    15. TF

      ... who can't stop looking at their travel experience through the lens of a writer. They, they have lost the ability-

    16. EL

      Yeah

    17. TF

      ... to just travel and have fun.

    18. EL

      Yeah, yeah.

    19. TF

      Right? So what are some of the risks, if any, of internal testing?

    20. EL

      So you and I have the same instinct here. I remember when we were testing this game internally, hadn't gone out the door yet.

    21. TF

      This game.

    22. EL

      This game.

    23. TF

      Coyote.

    24. EL

      Yeah.

    25. TF

      Yeah.

    26. EL

      I remember you would say, "Hey, can you show me test results? But can you have, like, your accounting team test it-

    27. TF

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    28. EL

      ... instead of your game design team?" And I remember thinking like, "Yeah, that's what we do." Like, I'm not interested in the game design team's results. So I would show you the accounting team results.

    29. TF

      Yeah.

    30. EL

      And I would, I would show you the sales team's results, who hadn't even ever seen the game.

  26. 1:27:41 – 1:30:19

    Coyote’s first positive signs from the wild.

    1. TF

      Right. So what do you do? And I remember Carly, I wanna say, sent a text to me. She was in, I wanna say Germany, at some type of gaming convention or m- meeting of distributors. I don't remember the exact context, but she said COYOTE was belle of the ball. She's like, "You would not believe, we had an entire, like, huge room full of people playing-"

    2. EL

      Yeah

    3. TF

      ... smashing on the tables-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... over and over-

    6. EL

      Yeah

    7. TF

      ... and over and over again.

    8. EL

      Yeah.

    9. TF

      And I was like, "Whew."

    10. EL

      Yeah. Isn't that-

    11. TF

      Okay

    12. EL

      ... a great feeling?

    13. TF

      Here we go.

    14. EL

      Yeah.

    15. TF

      LFG.

    16. EL

      She sent me a video of that. So just to set the stage there, there's 2,000 people at this hotel of the, like, 25 hotels that are part of this convention. There's one games room, and there's, like, 10 tables in there. And the idea is there should be a different game at every table, and everyone's testing out the games and, and sampling them. And we put COYOTE on one table, and almost immediately people started gathering around. And so those people said, "Can we just grab another copy and we'll just put it on the next table, just so not everyone has to gather around this one table," 'cause it looked so intriguing. And so they sent it to another table. And then by the time Carly sent me a video, it was at every table in the room.

    17. TF

      [laughs]

    18. EL

      Like, it was just an entire hotel playing this one game because nobody wanted to play anything else.

    19. TF

      Yeah. Wild.

    20. EL

      It was so neat. It was so-

    21. TF

      Yeah

    22. EL

      ... and, like-

    23. TF

      Yeah

    24. EL

      ... how gratifying. Like, you know, we'd been killing ourselves on this thing.

    25. TF

      Yeah, yeah.

    26. EL

      And, and to see an audience receive it and say, "Thank you for the gift."

    27. TF

      Yeah, totally. And also, I mean, I sent it to you guys. And look, it says, technically it says age 10 plus, so I don't want to contradict that. But if you're willing to modify the rules, which is something that, that I encourage, and we have that in the instructions, house rules-

    28. EL

      Yeah

    29. TF

      ... feel free to modify the rules. But I sent you guys the video of my friend's four-year-old-

    30. EL

      Yeah

  27. 1:30:19 – 1:37:28

    Online vs. physical store sales and tweaking variables to gauge market interest.

    1. TF

      So let's talk about the, uh, the selling process a little bit more.

    2. EL

      Okay.

    3. TF

      Because you, you said, right, there's the game development, there's building the game, there's crafting the game.

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      But there is an equally important part, which is how do you get this thing into people's hands.

    6. EL

      Yeah.

    7. TF

      And for that you need distribution.

    8. EL

      Yeah.

    9. TF

      So could you... This is gonna be a callback. Remember that line review at the very beginning? Then I took us on a very meandering path-

    10. EL

      [laughs]

    11. TF

      ... but there was a point to it. How do you pitch big retailers?

    12. EL

      Yeah.

    13. TF

      How does that happen? And, like, how did you do it in the beginning-

    14. EL

      Yeah

    15. TF

      ... of Exploding Kittens, and how-

    16. EL

      Yeah

    17. TF

      ... I know it's changed over time as you've built your track record, but nonetheless, you still need to do it. And actually, here's a, here's a data point that most people will never hear anyone talk about. What percentage of your sales are offline retail versus-

    18. EL

      Mm

    19. TF

      ... online?

    20. EL

      Yeah. All right, we'll start there. Yeah, we never share these numbers, but for you, Tim, thank you. Here we go. 70% of our sales are in-person retail. Only 30% are online sales. Totally backwards than what you'd expect for almost any industry.

    21. TF

      Yeah.

    22. EL

      But yeah, people like to walk into a store.

    23. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    24. EL

      They like to see and touch and feel the game and flip it over and read the back and compare it to the other games, and that's where we sell our games. Which means not only do I need tremendous retail buy-in, those sales meetings are so important, those line reviews, but also the game has to sell itself on the shelf, right? When you're walking down that games aisle, 70% of our audience does this. You need to look at all the game- hundreds of games, and you need to stop dead in your tracks on this one.

    25. TF

      Yep.

    26. EL

      And you need to say, "Ooh, what's that?" Right? And that starts at that line review. Starts with getting them to say, "Not only are we gonna commit to this game, but we're gonna put it in multiple locations so we c- so you see it more than once."

    27. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    28. EL

      Right? Very important. Also, we work with them to figure out the color scheme. And you and I, we, we did tons of surveys on the color scheme and the character and-

    29. TF

      Yeah

    30. EL

      ... everything to stop people in their tracks.

  28. 1:37:28 – 1:39:58

    What a successful line review looks like.

    1. TF

      So we were talking about the sort of road to retail.

    2. EL

      Yeah.

    3. TF

      Right? So it's 70% of your sales are in-person retail-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... versus online.

    6. EL

      Yeah. Right.

    7. TF

      And therefore, the stakes are high for these-

    8. EL

      Yeah

    9. TF

      ... line review.

    10. EL

      Yeah. Yeah, line reviews-

    11. TF

      Line reviews

    12. EL

      ... are a big deal. And I remember, so we really wanted to all show up in person. I remember you were trying so hard to get... Our first line review was with Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas.

    13. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. EL

      I remember you wanted so badly to be there, and there was some scheduling conflict that just-

    15. TF

      Yeah

    16. EL

      ... wasn't gonna let it happen.

    17. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. EL

      And we tried to change the date, but again, you know, they're, they've got so many meetings, and you gotta get in at exactly this time, and they couldn't change it to anything appropriate. And I remember thinking, like, "Oh, we're sunk."

    19. TF

      Mm.

    20. EL

      Like, "I don't know how to sell this game without Tim there in the room, like-

    21. TF

      Mm

    22. EL

      ... showing how much passion he has." And you had a great solve. You just recorded a video of all that passion, and you sat down in front of the camera, and you just riffed on the game. You were just like, "Here's why I love this. Here's why this is important to me. Here's why I made this game. First time I put my name on a thing." And you recorded this beautiful, impassioned video. And I, I remember walking in to the line review and sitting down and saying, "I have a new game. First thing I'm gonna do is we're gonna play this game. I'm not gonna tell you anything about it. We're just gonna play this game." And I set up the game, and within five minutes they're laughing, and they're having this incredible time, and they're like, "Oh, this is amazing. This is so much fun. How are you gonna sell this thing?" And I said, "I'm gonna play a video for you now."

    23. TF

      [laughs]

    24. EL

      And that was it. It was that one-two punch. It was like we've nailed game design, and we've nailed the pitch. We know exactly who to talk to and how to talk to them. And they saw those two elements, and they're like, "Full line purchase. Every single store is getting this game."

    25. TF

      [laughs] Yeah. Wild.

    26. EL

      I mean, that has never happened on an initial pitch for us, ever.

    27. TF

      Yeah.

    28. EL

      Normally, we get into a subset of stores, and then eventually it rolls out to all the stores.

    29. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    30. EL

      This was the first time ever they said, "Whatever it takes. We need this game everywhere."

  29. 1:39:58 – 1:44:15

    Line review hoops through which lesser-proven companies have to hop.

    1. TF

      What are other keys to pitching-

    2. EL

      Mm-hmm

    3. TF

      ... in a line review?

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      And that could also be... I'll just offer another option, which is what are some common mistakes that people make-

    6. EL

      Mm-hmm

    7. TF

      ... or that you suspect people make?

    8. EL

      So the first most common mistake-

    9. TF

      Because this could be for games, but it could be for-

    10. EL

      It's for anything

    11. TF

      ... cosmetics.

    12. EL

      Yeah.

    13. TF

      It could be for anything.

    14. EL

      For anything. The first question is how are you represented in that room? Remember I said they only take a certain number of meetings. It took us, like, five years to get one of those meetings.

    15. TF

      Wow. Even with the thunderous, crazy, lightning-in-a-bottle success of Exploding Kittens?

    16. EL

      They only have so many hours.

    17. TF

      Yeah.

    18. EL

      Yeah. So what you have to do instead is you find someone who already has a meeting-

    19. TF

      Mm-hmm

    20. EL

      ... and you hire them as your publisher, and then they represent your game in their meeting.

    21. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    22. EL

      That's how most companies do it.

    23. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    24. EL

      And that's how we did it for years.

    25. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    26. EL

      So the first problem is you have to make sure that whoever is representing you, assuming you can't be in the room-

    27. TF

      Mm

    28. EL

      ... 'cause n- 99.9% of the people can't, they are representing you the right way, with enough attention. They're pitching it the right way. They're representing it the right way. They're saying the right words. They're conveying the right fun.

    29. TF

      How do you ensure that?

    30. EL

      It's a personal relationship. And you... It's re- it's just hard. It's really... And, and to be honest, I, I don't wanna name names, but we went through, like, three different publishers-

  30. 1:44:15 – 1:50:16

    Elan’s field-tested line review meeting strategies.

    1. TF

      a lot of time on this, guys, because this applies to everything. Like, it, it applies to so much. You have a movie? Okay, fine. How are people gonna see the movie?

    2. EL

      Yeah.

    3. TF

      Yeah, you can go direct, but you might want a distribution partner. Like, what we're talking about will apply to that pitch meeting, a lot of it, right?

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      And this is j- [laughs] it's sort of the stuff that mainstream magic is made of-

    6. EL

      Yeah

    7. TF

      ... is figuring out how to craft these meetings.

    8. EL

      Yeah. Remember you said, "Like it or not, you're in sales"?

    9. TF

      Yeah.

    10. EL

      Here it is.

    11. TF

      [laughs]

    12. EL

      This is where the rubber meets the road.

    13. TF

      Yeah.

    14. EL

      Like, dust off your tap dancing shoes-

    15. TF

      [laughs]

    16. EL

      ... 'cause holy crap, these are tough. So you have to walk into that meeting, and y- first you have to keep in mind you are their 10th meeting.

    17. TF

      Yeah.

    18. EL

      Right? Even if you're not their 10th meeting, you're their 10th meeting, right?

    19. TF

      Yeah.

    20. EL

      Like, they're, they're in this, like, "I'm tired. I wanna get out of this room." [laughs] "I've been at this for too long." Like, they're in that mindset.

    21. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    22. EL

      So the first thing you gotta do is get them out of that funk.

    23. TF

      Yeah.

    24. EL

      You need to ... You need them to understand that this is gonna be the best of the 10 meetings.

    25. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    26. EL

      And you do that with enthusiasm. You do that with props. You do that with a cool video, right? Like, the stuff that can get them out of, "Oh, this isn't like the other meetings? Cool." That's where you start. So we walk into the room with those suitcase- two of those suitcases, not the ones that fit in the, like, overhead, like the big crazy ones you have to check, and they're filled with games, like the most beautiful games we've got, even stuff that we're not pitching that day, even stuff we know will never see the light of day, because we're gonna set all of those up. And the basic premise is buy into this world. Exploding Kittens is not a product. It's a whole world.

    27. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    28. EL

      And you can have this world on your store shelves. And so that's how we start, and that's a really nice way to start. Okay. Then what they're expecting is, "Okay, pitch us a game, one at a time. Pitch this. Okay, you're done. Okay, pitch the next one. Okay, you're done. Pitch the next one." So what we do is very different. Instead of pitching a game and then pitching the next one, just like I said for COYOTE, we're like, "Hey, we're gonna play a game." And usually they say, "We don't have time to play. Can you just pitch it?" And I say, "No. We're gonna play a game." Confrontation.

    29. TF

      [laughs]

    30. EL

      I get it, but I force them to play the games, every single one of them.

  31. 1:50:16 – 1:55:42

    The importance of finding proper agent representation.

    1. EL

      carefully.

    2. TF

      How do you request those time slots? 'Cause I imagine you're not the only people-

    3. EL

      Yeah

    4. TF

      ... who are thinking about this, right? It makes me think of the data. [laughs] It's just like a kind of meta-analysis long ago looking at- ... judges' verdicts-

    5. EL

      Yeah

    6. TF

      ... like before or after meals-

    7. EL

      Yeah

    8. TF

      ... and leniency.

    9. EL

      Yeah.

    10. TF

      Right?

    11. EL

      Right. So how do you get the right slots?

    12. TF

      So, so-

    13. EL

      Yeah

    14. TF

      ... yeah, so how do you-

    15. EL

      So-

    16. TF

      ... angle for those?

    17. EL

      There is an art to that as well. So we have agents. We have representatives, one for Target and one for Walmart, and these are people who live in those cities, and they live and breathe sales with the sales rep.

    18. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    19. EL

      Their job is, the very kind of cynical way to say it is they're like lobbyists.

    20. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    21. EL

      Right? But the more-

    22. TF

      Ambassadors.

    23. EL

      Ambassadors. There we go. That's a much more appropriate way.

    24. TF

      [laughs]

    25. EL

      They have been doing the job for longer than the salespeople have, for longer than the buyers have.

    26. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    27. EL

      And as a result, the relationship that they have with the buyers is actually one of education.

    28. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    29. EL

      Right? Because they've seen all the mistakes. They know where all the landmines are. They know how to avoid them. And so part of the art of getting the best meetings, of getting yourself set up the best, is to hire the best agent.

    30. TF

      How does someone find said agents?

  32. 1:55:42 – 2:00:50

    In modern marketing, social media (especially short-form video) is king.

    1. TF

      deal.

    2. EL

      So important.

    3. TF

      You mentioned a couple of tricks of the trade.

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      Any other tips, tricks, learnings along the way?

    6. EL

      So what happens after those meetings is also very important. Okay, so there's two things we have to talk about. One is pricing structure, and the other is marketing.

    7. TF

      Yep.

    8. EL

      So in the meeting, you talk a little bit about both. You have to now include marketing. Remember I said three years ago things were different than today? Three years ago, the marketing plan that you show for your game is largely your own website. Maybe you've bought some TV commercials, things like billboards, product placement here and there, things like that.

    9. TF

      Hmm.

    10. EL

      Today, none of that matters. All they care about is social media-

    11. TF

      Mm-hmm

    12. EL

      ... because that's the only form of marketing for games that works anymore.

    13. TF

      I should say also, it particularly works on, is my understanding-

    14. EL

      Yeah

    15. TF

      ... platforms like TikTok, or now that other platforms have realized to avoid TikTok consuming their market share, they need to push and reward short-form video.

    16. EL

      That's right.

    17. TF

      Short-form video. Casual games are perfectly suited-

    18. EL

      Yeah

    19. TF

      ... to short-form video.

    20. EL

      And the way that you build the most effective videos for those is you need to inspire, I think, two emotions. One, I understand what those people are experiencing right now, and two, I would like to experience that. And it took me forever to get to those two sentences, right? At first it was, "Let's show gameplay. Let's show setup. Let's show a, a memorable moment. Let's show people screaming and yelling 'cause they're having-

    21. TF

      Mm-hmm

    22. EL

      ... so much fun." None of that matters. None of that works. That looks like fun. I could have that much fun. That's it. That's what you're trying to show.

    23. TF

      How does that differ from the first-

    24. EL

      It's very, very focused, right? Like, you want to sh- Remember we talked about mastery early on?

    25. TF

      Well, I also asked you guys because we were talking about this very early on in the process, right? Also because if I'm procrastinating doing something hard, I like to talk about the marketing 'cause it just [laughs] is a lot-

    26. EL

      Yeah

    27. TF

      ... easier for me to talk about. But I wanted to see examples of videos that had worked-

    28. EL

      Yeah

    29. TF

      ... for any of your games.

    30. EL

      Yeah.

  33. 2:00:50 – 2:09:12

    The best and worst ways for an aspiring designer to sell a game.

    1. EL

      difference.

    2. TF

      All right. So for somebody listening who is thinking about making a game, and I really encourage everyone to do that, and I'm just gonna flash... This is as good a time as any just to flash these blank cards that are within every COYOTE box. And they are color-coded. You can use these to make action cards, which are these different gestures and actions and so on.

    3. EL

      Yeah. Those are the templates that we use.

    4. TF

      These are the templates. You can use them to make Coyote cards, these modifiers. You can use them to make the attack cards, which you use to sabotage other people. There are other ways to play those cards. This is intended to invite everyone to basically create their own game by modifying the rules-

    5. EL

      That's right

    6. TF

      ... or adding new elements that are uniquely their own. You can have fun with your friends. You can have fun with your kids. I mean, this is, this is intended to make you a part of the creative process, which you will be part of anyway just by the way you play the game.

    7. EL

      Yeah.

    8. TF

      But this takes it to another level, and this was a really important element for me. So this would be a warmup, in a sense. You get to try game design, game development lite-

    9. EL

      That's right

    10. TF

      ... right, with these blank cards. But let's say somebody then decides they want to give it a go, right?

    11. EL

      Yeah.

    12. TF

      Maybe it's with-

    13. EL

      Yeah

    14. TF

      ... one of their kids, like you did with your daughter.

    15. EL

      Yeah.

    16. TF

      Maybe it's by themselves. Who knows? Maybe it's going to the game shop, local game shop, which I really recommend people do. If you've never been to, like, a real-

    17. EL

      Oh, yeah

    18. TF

      ... proper game shop-

    19. EL

      Yeah

    20. TF

      ... go in on a game night when people are set up, and also check out the games you might not be inclined to check out. So if you're a casual gamer, like, go to a Warhammer night. See what that's about.

    21. EL

      Totally.

    22. TF

      You know?

    23. EL

      Totally.

    24. TF

      Check out, like, these different worlds.

    25. EL

      You know, another secret weapon is go to a game shop, find the owner or even the person behind the counter, like someone who knows what they're talking about, and just say, "I'm looking for a game. What game do you wish more people would give a try?"

    26. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    27. EL

      And you will find the gems that way.

    28. TF

      Yeah.

    29. EL

      'Cause they know. But maybe the game doesn't have the best box or the best name or some- it fell short somewhere and, and people just aren't buying it. But they know it's amazing. That's where you find them.

    30. TF

      Yeah.

  34. 2:09:12 – 2:16:08

    Crowdfunding pros and cons, and Kickstarter alternatives.

    1. EL

      to step two.

    2. TF

      Let me ask this. There may be people listening or watching who think to themselves, "That sounds awesome, but wasn't the heyday of crowdfunding three, four, five years ago?"

    3. EL

      Yes.

    4. TF

      You hear less about it.

    5. EL

      Yeah.

    6. TF

      Certainly for, let's say, selling to 100 people-

    7. EL

      Yeah

    8. TF

      ... or maybe many, many more. I'm sure there are runaway success campaigns even today.

    9. EL

      Yeah.

    10. TF

      But are there any tweaks that you would add to it?

    11. EL

      It's really tricky. Okay, so here's what happened with crowdfunding. We launched on Kickstarter. Exploding Kittens launched on Kickstarter. And, you know, by some amazing twist of fate, that was perfect timing.

    12. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    13. EL

      Very few people had heard of Kickstarter. They heard about this funny, silly thing. It was drawn by The Oatmeal. Already ... Matt already had this incredibly large audience. And people showed up, and they said, "Ooh, crowdfunding. Ooh, this thing costs 20 bucks. I'm gonna back this thing." And we had 219,000 people-

    14. TF

      [laughs]

    15. EL

      ... try that thing.

    16. TF

      [laughs]

    17. EL

      Amazing. Right?

    18. TF

      Yeah.

    19. EL

      Unheard of success. Those people then, over the next, let's call it five years, stayed on Kickstarter, and they backed other things, other games, other projects, whatever, and what they found was the nature of Kickstarter is such that only about 50, 50% of those projects shipped. Either the thing that shipped was nowhere close to the thing promised, or the thing never shipped and they never got their money back. Whatever it is-

    20. TF

      People got burned

    21. EL

      ... they got burned, and they had a terrible experience. And now, when you say, "Hey, back my Kickstarter," everyone's got this memory implanted of, "Oh, that was a bad experience for me. Maybe I even had some great experiences, but I also had those bad ones, and this is not worth it, and I'm not going back to that site or any crowdfunding site." So that's the problem. We're not seeing the numbers we used to see-

    22. TF

      Mm

    23. EL

      ... because everyone's walking in with this baggage.

    24. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    25. EL

      And it sucks. My only advice is there is now a secondary ecosystem around Kickstarter, other websites that have gotten very good at promoting projects, that have gotten very good at advertising new offerings on Kickstarter and building trust, right? Like, if you get on this other series-

    26. TF

      So it's like a curated site-

    27. EL

      Exactly right

    28. TF

      ... that vets projects.

    29. EL

      Exactly right. And here's the thing. Those companies almost always take a percentage of what the maker gets-

    30. TF

      Mm-hmm

  35. 2:16:08 – 2:20:04

    Dealing with deal terms.

    1. EL

      this.

    2. TF

      What deal terms do you need to s- pay attention to?

    3. EL

      So there is one very important number that you're gonna get, and it's gonna seem like a very low number, but here's how this works. Most publishers are gonna throw a number at you, like 2%.

    4. TF

      Royalty rate.

    5. EL

      Yeah.

    6. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    7. EL

      And you're gonna think, "Wait a second. I was the inventor. I get 80%, and you're offering me 2%?" But here's what that number actually means. They, the publisher, are going to take on all the risk. They're gonna do all the printing. They're gonna do all the relationship management. They're gonna do that sales meeting. They're supporting hundreds of people on their staff. Like, they're doing all this stuff-

    8. TF

      Mm-hmm

    9. EL

      ... that you are not doing. But in exchange for that, that 2% isn't 2% of the profit, it's 2% of the revenue.

    10. TF

      Yeah, top line.

    11. EL

      Exactly, and that is a very important distinction. That makes that 2% probably closer to, like, 20%, 30%-

    12. TF

      Yeah

    13. EL

      ... once you do all the math.

    14. TF

      It's the opposite of Hollywood accounting, right?

    15. EL

      Exactly.

    16. TF

      It's not some percentage of net income, which is defined in some Byzantine way to-

    17. EL

      Precisely

    18. TF

      ... fuck you every which way from Sunday.

    19. EL

      Precisely right.

    20. TF

      If it's top line-

    21. EL

      Yeah

    22. TF

      ... just to reiterate what you just said, like, 2% is more like 20-plus percent-

    23. EL

      Yes. That's exactly right

    24. TF

      ... of, of profit.

    25. EL

      Yeah, and you can ask them to break down that math for you. You can say, "Show me the spreadsheet. Show me, like, what you're spending, what your responsibilities are, what mine are. After all of those numbers are crunched, what is the total amount you're gonna spend on this game? Show me your total projections on what's coming in. Show me how much I'm going to make of that." And then you can start comparing those numbers yourself and see, "Oh, of the money that came in, I'm getting 20% of it. Even though this number only says 2%, once you crunch that math, this is a pretty decent deal." And you can get higher than 2%, usually not as a first-time developer. But I've seen deals anywhere from, like, 2 to 12% on the super high end. Like, you've gotta be-

    26. TF

      12? Wow

    27. EL

      ... you've gotta be a rock star because at 12%, now you're at, like, 50%, right?

    28. TF

      Yeah.

    29. EL

      And that's tough to get to. Like, you've gotta really pull your weight to-

    30. TF

      Mm-hmm

  36. 2:20:04 – 2:21:54

    The Exploding Kittens attitude toward rare partnerships.

    1. EL

      Now, let's call it, like, 90% done, to be fair.

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    3. EL

      Right? And usually when we take on games, we, we change them significantly just 'cause there's always a better version, and through testing we discover it. But the reason we don't do advances partially is exactly what you're saying. Like, you're already done, right? We're not trying to pull you off of other projects.

    4. TF

      Yeah, you don't have to stop your 9:00 to 5:00.

    5. EL

      Exactly. Exactly. But the other reason is because I want a partnership. I'm not here to say, "You sold us this game. Now we're never gonna talk again." I want you here every day. I want skin in the game.

    6. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    7. EL

      We're gonna all make this better together, which is why we do so few partnerships.

    8. TF

      When you do partnerships, meaning you're the publisher, you're paying someone a royalty-

    9. EL

      Yeah

    10. TF

      ... how do you typically find those? So for instance-

    11. EL

      Mm

    12. TF

      ... and I imagine a lot of it is you guys canvassing and basically asking the question that you recommended people ask the store owners.

    13. EL

      Yeah.

    14. TF

      Like, which game do you wish people-

    15. EL

      Yeah

    16. TF

      ... played more often?

    17. EL

      Yeah.

    18. TF

      And then you find something that has the bones of a really good game-

    19. EL

      Yeah

    20. TF

      ... but a piece of it is shitting the bed, right?

    21. EL

      Yeah.

    22. TF

      There's something that is broken and you're like, "Oh, we could-"

    23. EL

      Yeah

    24. TF

      ... "fix that broken thing."

    25. EL

      Yeah.

    26. TF

      Or do you take cold submissions?

    27. EL

      Mm.

    28. TF

      How does that work?

    29. EL

      We have a submission form on our website.

    30. TF

      Mm-hmm.

  37. 2:21:54 – 2:23:47

    The types of games that capture Elan’s attention.

    1. TF

      Aside from a crowdfunding campaign, what would actually cut through in a submission? Are there any ingredients outside of here are a bunch of compelling data from a-

    2. EL

      Yeah

    3. TF

      ... crowdfunding campaign?

    4. EL

      Yeah.

    5. TF

      Or, "Hey, I've designed 100 hit games." [laughs]

    6. EL

      Yeah, yeah. There's that.

    7. TF

      Aside from those two-

    8. EL

      Yeah, right

    9. TF

      ... what other types of lines or elements would cut through the noise?

    10. EL

      Remember I said that phrase, the way we design games is we don't make games that are entertaining. We make games that make the players entertaining. 90% of the game pitches I see are attempts to be entertaining games.

    11. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    12. EL

      And I just immediately dismiss them.

    13. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    14. EL

      That looks like that game is working so hard to entertain the players. I don't care. The best games, the ones that I pay very s- careful attention to, are when everything you do in the game creates an interaction between two players.

    15. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    16. EL

      Right? Like, I'm not interested in a four-player game where all four players are playing solitaire.

    17. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    18. EL

      Like, it's just, who cares?

    19. TF

      Yeah.

    20. EL

      I'm interested in a game where the players are playing the players.

    21. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    22. EL

      And I play a card-

    23. TF

      We tweaked a lot in COYOTE based on that-

    24. EL

      Exactly

    25. TF

      ... sort of guiding principle.

    26. EL

      Those are the, those are the best games. Those are the ones I love the most. Those are the ones I wanna play over and over again.

    27. TF

      And it could be as simple as you might, I'm saying you, the listener or viewer, might remember holding your cards facing you-

    28. EL

      Right

    29. TF

      ... versus having the cards-

    30. EL

      Night and day difference

  38. 2:23:47 – 2:25:55

    Common game design mistakes.

    1. EL

      in the world.

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm. What are some common Achilles' heels for games that have the potential to be great and huge successes? And I'm not gonna mention names, but we've, we've talked about a couple of games that you've considered-

    3. EL

      Yeah

    4. TF

      ... buying or publishing, and I'm wondering what are some of the common weaknesses where you're like, "This is a great game, but the reason it didn't work is X-

    5. EL

      Yeah

    6. TF

      ... or Y or Z."

    7. EL

      All right. So there's two basic places the games fall apart. One is right off the bat, their boxes suck or the name sucks. The number of games out there called The Legendary Folklore of Gorgonzola, right? Like-

    8. TF

      [laughs]

    9. EL

      ... I, I can't remember them. I don't know what they are. I look at this-

    10. TF

      Gotta throw a Cockpunch in there, and then it's-

    11. EL

      Yeah. [laughs]

    12. TF

      ... problem solved. [laughs] Anyway.

    13. EL

      [laughs] Cockpunch aside.

    14. TF

      Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

    15. EL

      I would argue that those games, they're just... They have no chance of success. Yes-

    16. TF

      Yeah

    17. EL

      ... they're gonna sell 10 copies to the 10 people that bought The Legendary Tales of Gorgonzola Volumes 1 through 6, and they're gonna buy Volume 7.

    18. TF

      Yeah.

    19. EL

      Cool. Great. I don't care.

    20. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    21. EL

      Picking the wrong name, picking a non-descriptive name, putting a picture on the box that does not describe gameplay at all-

    22. TF

      Mm-hmm

    23. EL

      ... and does not provide a compelling narrative about what experience you are about to have-

    24. TF

      Mm-hmm

    25. EL

      ... those games have zero chance of success, and I see that over and over and over again.

    26. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    27. EL

      So you can fail right up front, and I've even seen the biggest publishers in the world mess this up.

    28. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    29. EL

      Especially now that game shelves are so crowded. You don't have 5 games to choose from. You have 500 games to choose from, and a game that doesn't do a good job of saying, "Pick me, pick me, pick me," you're just not gonna pick. So you will fail right there.

    30. TF

      Overly complicated packaging too.

  39. 2:25:55 – 2:30:00

    How we tried to avoid these mistakes when packaging Coyote.

    1. EL

      noise. So we worked very hard on COYOTE, on all our games, but I remember having this discussion about COYOTE because this is such an important lesson. When you look at this box, we know the first thing you're gonna look at.

    2. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    3. EL

      And we know the second thing you're gonna look at.

    4. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    5. EL

      And we know the third thing you're gonna look at.

    6. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    7. EL

      And this is a formula, and we crafted this-

    8. TF

      It's a formula, yeah

    9. EL

      ... very carefully.

    10. TF

      By the way, also exactly what works in old-school print advertising.

    11. EL

      Yes.

    12. TF

      Right?

    13. EL

      Yes.

    14. TF

      Header image, headline, subheading-

    15. EL

      Exactly right

    16. TF

      ... text.

    17. EL

      Yeah, and those components are all present here.

    18. TF

      And if you fuck up the order, pardon my French-

    19. EL

      Yeah

    20. TF

      ... the eye doesn't know how to track, or it bounces around.

    21. EL

      Yeah, and if there's other better options right next door, off you go.

    22. TF

      Yeah.

    23. EL

      So we hit those three things on a box meticulously, and your reaction should not be, "I'm gonna buy that game." That's not our goal. Your reaction is, "I'm gonna pick up this game, and I'm gonna turn it over."

    24. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    25. EL

      "Now I'm gonna read the back of the box."

    26. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    27. EL

      And now we've got a very different task. Now we have more real estate.

    28. TF

      Mm-hmm.

    29. EL

      We can afford. We still know the first thing you're gonna look at, but now we care a little bit less about the second thing as long as you've already got enough interest, right? You've already committed to picking this thing up. Now you're gonna, you're willing to, to read a little story.

    30. TF

      Mm-hmm.

  40. 2:30:00 – 2:34:42

    Self-publishing vs. conventional publishing.

    1. TF

      And I also want to revisit something you mentioned earlier, which is that royalty rate.

    2. EL

      Yeah.

    3. TF

      Whether it's 2%-

    4. EL

      Yeah

    5. TF

      ... up to 12% in the book world. Let me take the book world and the publishing world in the book publishing sense is changing a lot, but it's also quite consistent over time. Different things have changed. Sure, audio as a format has grown tremendously and become highly prized now-

    6. EL

      Yeah, yeah

    7. TF

      ... versus 10 years ago.

    8. EL

      Yeah.

    9. TF

      When I could carve out those rights, it's a lot harder to do now if you're gonna g- do the conventional route. But some folks will look at the percentages and they'll say, "Well, wait a second. Max 15% after an escalator? I'm starting off at 12% for hardcover? That's ridiculous, right?"

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