Monopoly: What's It Like To Manage The World's Most Iconic & Most Commercially Successful Board Games Brand?

About a quarter of a century ago, one of my very capable colleagues left Hasbro Europe. At that point, I was managing Hasbro's Family Games portfolio for Europe excluding Monopoly & Cluedo (quick note for our North American brethren here, the Game you know as Clue is known as Cluedo in Europe). Until my colleague departed, I was managing classic Games like Risk, Game of Life, Mastermind, Yahtzee, Risk and many more. That portfolio was great fun, because it was very low profile, and so you could get on with things without too much interference and organisational politics.

For example, at the time the classic MB Game 'Hotel' was selling over 100,000 copies across Europe, but was not selling in the UK. Therefore it was quite important for other markets like Germany, but not registering highly on the corporate agenda. Looking at the P&L it was obvious that this Game was over specced versus the price it was being sold for. So I called together the development team and Hasbro's then Games factory in Ireland, and between us all we managed to implement some changes which had no effect on the Game but which saved a full $1 per unit in product costs. In other words, I had directly instigated a change which saved Hasbro $100k p.a. At that time they were laying off staff, so I took pleasure in saving the same as two people's salaries. That gig of managing the lower profile classic Games was awesome because you could easily & quickly do things like that and really make a difference.

When my colleague left, I jettisoned some other responsibilities I had (managing Play-Doh and being the junior on a two person team managing Hasbro's relationship with Disney in Europe) to take on management of Monopoly and Cluedo. In many ways for the kid who's favourite child hood past time was tortuously long games of Risk and Diplomacy, this was a dream job. I was the Games brand marketer who was actually into Games, which was a big thing at that time.

I can't however say that managing Monopoly and Cluedo for Europe was any fun. it was constantly mired in political issues and disagreements, because those brands were so iconic, so front of house and responsible for such a high proportion of Hasbro Europe's profit at that time. Even though it's a quarter of a century ago, I'm not going to breach confidence and share any hard numbers here, but rest assured, at that point the core version of Monopoly was infinitely more profitable than Hasbro's entire Toy business in Europe - that's a matter of stock market record so I'm happy to share that as it's already public domain.

When I took over we still needed a new headline feature version of Monopoly for the following year, and frankly the pressure was really on. Failing to deliver that version in a compelling and commercially viable format would have been catastrophic. Eventually from memory I think the smart development folks came up with a 'Wonders of the World' edition, which did OK, but my heart rate was elevated all the time until that solution was found.

One very contentious project was moving the core Monopoly Game from a rectangular box to a square box. The argument for this was that it would save c. $0.30 per unit - a lot when you think of all the copies that Game sold. But the secondary argument was that as Hasbro's market share of the Games market was so high at that point, that reducing Monopoly's footprint on shelf would open up more space for another Game listing, which would most probably be a Hasbro Game, and finally a smaller box costs less to transport. The counter argument was that it would cost sales & therefore a substantial amount of profit. The issue for the person purportedly in charge of this brand was that all these conversations circumvented the Brand Manager completely, because things got so political that Country Managers were speaking to the head honchos directly and I was occasionally being told what happened. I'm poorly equipped mentally or emotionally to deal with inaction, uncertainty and a lack of agency, so eventually this kind of issue lead to me quitting the job and going travelling round the world for a year instead...

...but there were some real highlights. For example, the team had been working on MyMonopoly.com, which was a customisable personalised version of Monopoly designed, ordered and purchased online. Back in 2001 when I came onto the project this was really cutting edge, as laughable as that seems now looking back. The team had struggled to get the game live and I was told that my remit was to launch it come what may. That's exactly the right brief to give to someone like me, because I would find a way to make things happen when given such a clear and strong remit. We did eventually launch, and the project became so high profile for a while that I was sending a weekly report directly to the CEO and Chairman at that time, Alan Hassenfeld (RIP). Sales were not strong, as we did not understand how to drive online traffic at that stage (I don't think many people did), nut that was one of the most fulfilling projects I ever worked on. One of my happiest memories of meetings back then was when Legal came up with the problem/risk of people using profanities, infringing copyright and a few other issues. So we called a meeting, and literally spent a whole hour of our working day brainstorming profanities we could exclude from the product...I really wish I still had the notes from that meeting as I learnt a few words that day I had not heard before!

Board Games Consultancy Service: What Does A Board Games Consultant Do?

Our company has been in business for around 15 years now. In that time we have conducted a full range of Board Games Consultancy services - from being a board games expert witness, helping Games companies set up international distribution, finding Board Games factories and more.

On a day to day basis, what this looks like is a mixture of video calls with Board Games companies, research on the Games market, some emails to Board Games distributors, conversations with Board Games factories (normally haggling over pricing!) and more.

Our favourite part of working in the business of non-digital Games is playtesting Games. there is nothing quite like receiving a new Game, opening the box and smelling that fresh new Game smell and then testing out the Game.

One additional feature of the work of a Board Game Consultant is thought leadership and content creation. In this day and age there is an expectation of publishing ideas and opinions on key trends and topics that are relevant to the Games industry. This can be looking at commercial and retail topics, about the Game consumer/player, or about broader trends in the world which affect the business of games.

So, that's what a Board Games Consultant does. If you want to find out more about our specific Consultancy services, just click here: https://www.boardgamebiz.com/game-business-consultancy

How To Create A Best-Selling Board Game

There is no easy way to create a top selling board game. Statistics are against you as much as anything else. Due to the low barriers to entry in the board games business there is an ever-increasing proliferation of games in the market. To put this in context, the average board games company looks at somewhere between 400-600 new game ideas each year to launch anywhere between 1 to 10 new games each year, some review as many as 2000 new games each year. Consumers of board games products have an exceptionally large choice – a quick search on Amazon reveals more than 10,000 board games (this is without looking at cards games, dice games and other formats of games).

Therefore, you are very unlikely to create the next best-selling board game. However, there are some ways to increase your chances:

1.       Be Prolific – very few people ever got far on one game. There are of course some very notable exceptions, but our team knows dozens of professional board game creators, and nearly all of them are prolific. Over the course of time originators could be expected to create more than 100 board game concepts and gameplays. Clearly most games created don’t get any traction, even if they get to market they are unlikely to stay in the market for long, so the most effective way to give yourself a chance of creating a best-selling game is to be prolific.

2.       Be Great At Selling – this is an obvious factor, but nevertheless critical. If creators spent as long refining their selling skills as they do tweaking the finer points of gameplay then more of them would have best selling games in their portfolios.

3.       Jump On Trends At The Right Time – the most obvious example of this would be What Do You Meme, which has been remarkably successful. Memes had been around for some time when this game was launched, but that’s actually the key success factor – trend based games need to be carefully timed to be fresh and new while also being in the minds of enough people as a relevant trend. Go too early on a trend and it does not click with enough people, go to late and the market is already full. Cultural trends grow at different rates, so it is rarely possible to predict when is the right time. So again, repetition will deliver the best chance of launching the right game at the right time at some point in an originator’s career.

4.       Gameplay Is King – while trends and themes can drive strong upfront sales, what propels a game ahead and establishes it as a top selling perennial classic is gameplay experience. You need players to want to really push the game on their friends and to want to play with new people all the time. This organic growth is by far the strongest underlying factor in building top selling games. Perhaps the most powerful example of this in recent times is Dobble from Asmodee. It seems so simple, but if you watch the energy levels of a group of people when they play this game you can see why so many people are so actively passing the game on to friends and families, which in turn explains why Dobble is now one of the best-selling games.

5.       Stand Out From The Crowd – one of the most fundamental changes in the board games business over the past few years has been the increased volume of new games on the market each year. Therefore, each new game has to fight for attention and shelf space alongside an ever-growing number of perennial classic games. Sometimes achieving standout is about the game concept or theme, it can also be around a celebrity or influencer co-operation, but there needs to be something about your game and the way it is launched that contributes to standing out, otherwise regardless of how good your game is you are likely to be trampled underfoot by the volume of competition scrabbling for attention.

Nobody said it would be easy! Our team knows people working for decades to try to launch a new best-selling game without ever achieving it but following these 5 points should help to increase your chances.

We run a Consultancy business helping board games companies to grow. We have experience of most major board games markets around the world and our team has developed more than 200 board games including versions of classic games like Monopoly, Clue/do, Risk, Game of Life etc. For more information on our services (including our Export sales Consultancy) please just click here: https://www.kidsbrandinsight.com/services/

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