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6 June 2024
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In 2012, I had the idea of starting a board game publishing company. The board game industry was already booming, with Kickstarter as a major catalyst. Walking around Spiel in Essen, it seemed feasible to start a publishing house specializing in strategic board games and to do at least as well as the existing publishers.
My preparation and market research took nearly five years. During that time, I co-founded a board game store, De Kolonisten in Turnhout (Belgium), with a good friend. We intended to run it together for a year, but after three months, I had gathered all the necessary information, and my friend continued running the store on his own.
I then designed a board game myself, called Pixie Queen. Since it was the first game I designed and developed, it took me several years. In 2016, I launched our first crowdfunding campaign under the name Game Brewer. Pixie Queen was well received by several reviewers. We raised €36,000 from 671 backers, more than we had hoped for and enough to attract the interest of several major distributors. We produced 5,500 copies of Pixie Queen, and it took until 2022 to sell them all.
My first game design and crowdfunding campaign were thus part of my market research. Once that was successfully completed, everything was ready for the official launch. Due to that initial success and an attractive tax benefit in Belgium for investors, I convinced 42 people, mainly friends and family, to invest in Game Brewer.
It is thanks to the shareholders of Game Brewer, who invested a considerable amount at the start, that we have been able to hold on for so long. I will be eternally grateful to them, and I am trying to conclude this story as positively as possible for them as well.
Game Brewer officially launched on February 14, 2017. I immediately hired two people. Our goal was to become a major board game publisher focusing on medium-heavy strategic board games. We knew the first few years would be loss-making as developing new board games requires significant investment, which I will elaborate on later. We aimed to break even by 2019, but it happened faster. Our startup capital was almost exhausted in 2017 since we couldn’t sell any games then. However, in 2018, we broke even, and in 2019, we made a profit of €164,000. It was a promising start that made us dream of more. Before Covid, the future looked bright.
But then, in early 2020, came Covid.
When I talk to people about Game Brewer, the first question they always ask is, why we are stopping with publishing board games? The answer is twofold.
Firstly, Covid-19 has significantly impacted us. We sold fewer games during the pandemic, but more critically, container shipping costs skyrocketed right after Covid. The extent of logistical costs is, of course, determined by volume, but the peak we experienced in 2022 was unprecedented and depleted all our reserves.
In 2022, our logistics expenses can be roughly divided into €200,000 for containers, €80,000 for ground freight, and €150,000 for crowdfunding fulfillment. We only expected a total sea freight cost of about €50,000 for the 13 containers we shipped in 2022. Half of those containers were delayed shipments that were supposed to be shipped in 2021.
The second reason is that we simply sold fewer games. Until 2021, we had enough successful games to remain profitable. But after that, sales per title declined. The exact reason for this decline is unclear. Possible factors include increasing competition, declining crowdfunding sales overall for medium-heavy euro-games, lesser-known game designers for our titles, higher sales prices due to inflation since Covid, logistical issues that angered many backers in 2021, a poor choice of manufacturer for Stroganov – 1st print, and my unfortunate decision to opt for lower production costs instead of higher sales prices. It is probably a combination of all these factors that caused our sales figures to fall.
I saw the storm coming and did my utmost to intervene in time, mainly by cutting expenses. At our peak, we were with a team of 7 people. I had already reduced that to 4 people in 2022 and to 3 people in 2023. But with the current sales figures, it no longer makes sense to continue our operations.
With 24,000 copies sold, Gugong is by far our best-selling game. To be clear, for a small indie publisher, that is a huge success. But we have always remained a very small indie publisher, as these figures show.
That, in a nutshell, is the road we have travelled. It was a fantastic adventure from which I learned a lot, and which I have absolutely no regrets about.
In subsequent articles, I want to talk about:
I want to do this for two reasons: To give people who want to embark on the same adventure some useful information, but most importantly to help buyers understand the differences between a small indie publisher and the much larger publishers, and hopefully make some realize that board games are not too expensive.
If there are any topics you would like to see covered, or if you have any questions, be sure to note them in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
Rudy Seuntjens
Game Brewer
Why do I not see discounted prices? To see your rebate, you must log in with the email address you use on
Dear Friends and Fans, Seven years ago, we embarked on an incredible adventure, bringing you exciting and innovative board games. From
5 responses
Hey GameBrewer! Greetings from Peru!
It makes so sad to hear you guys are ending this journey, though it is absolutely understandable. Logistics can win or lose a war… or a board game company! I didn’t know anything about you guys until Stroganov got my attention and then I started reading all about (and the complaints…) over at BGG. And it’s hard, KS gives plenty opportunities, surely, but it also ruins a game’s reputation entirely when things get tough. I just wanted to let you know that Stroganov is a joy and a beauty to play and it’s one of my favorite games. I would love to get a deluxe version one day but shipping to Peru is painful, haha. I wanted to ask if you guys know whether Turukhan will be distributed by your localization partners (in Spanish) later, or if you can only acquire it over here.
Would love to play/get Paris and Gugong one day… hopefully one day! Thank you for sharing your story because it helps a lot to see the struggles happening at the other side and understand a bit more about this industry, specially for the smaller teams.
Have a wonderful new journey and thank you for the beautiful, beautiful games!
Hey Rudy,
I was really sad to hear that GB was shutting operations. You guys made some of my favorite games. The unique theming (Trolls, Oak, Delta, Bone Wars, Algae) for mid-heavy euros really spoke to me. Personally, I think only GB and Devir really stand apart to me in terms of the unique/quirky themes… I recently acquired a copy of Pixie Queen and enjoyed that too!!! What I’m trying to say is, it’s a huge loss for the tabletop gaming community to lose GB; and I’m really thankful to you and the team for pushing through it out hard, as long as you guys did… considering the difficult circumstances you have mentioned in the blog.
I’m looking forward to read more of these articles. I really hope the best for you and whatever future endeavor you would embark on.
Sid
PS. Really hope that the two other games that you guys were developing (Tulip Mania and Test of Time – listed in the old subscriptions) find a new life elsewhere… I’m sure if you guys were interested in them, they must be worthy of making.
Thank you so much!
We finished the development of Test of Time this spring. It is ready to be published and is a great game about time traveling critters.
Tulip Mania has a very interesting theme. There is a series on Netflix called Tulip Fever on this topic.
Interested publishers can always contact me if they want to know more. Would be great for the designers to see there game published eventually.
Hi Rudy,
Congratulations on this great initiative !
I can’t wait to read the rest of the articles. 🙂
Vince
Thank you, Vince 🙂