I love listening to publishers speak publicly, frankly, and openly about their business decisions. Two such publishers are Joe from Allplay and Nick from Bitewing, both of whom share their thoughts and often field questions from guests on a podcast called The Bits.

I also love asking questions, so I reached out to Joe and Nick to see if they might consider me as an inquiring guest. They were very kind to accept, and we recorded the episode recently. It hasn’t aired yet, but I thought it would only be fair if I answered the same questions I asked. So here’s part 1, and when the episode airs, I’ll share it here and add my answers to the remaining questions.

1. I really appreciate that you two take the time to make this podcast. Does it continue to bring you joy, and what’s a game-related podcast you enjoy?

I’m fortunate to have a few platforms on which I share my thoughts on publishing from different angles: this blog (which is also available as a podcast), our game design YouTube channel, and the Posivitely Board Gaming podcast (with cohost Mitchell Whitfield). All of these formats absolutely continue to bring me joy, especially when I get to hear your thoughts in the comments; if they weren’t, I wouldn’t keep making them week after week, year after year!

I listen to a lot of podcasts about games, but I’m only aware of a few that are recorded and regularly posted by fellow publishers. There’s The Bits, Lens and Veil (by Shem, Sam, and Zach from Garphill Games), Decision Space (one of the hosts is Paul from Gamehead Games), Think Like a Game Designer (Justin Gary from Wise Wizard Games), Nerdlab (Marvin at Nerdlab), and Crowdfunding Nerds (Andrew Lowen at Lowen Games).

2. What’s the best way you currently serve customers? What’s the #1 area of improvement for serving your customers?

This is a slightly difficult answer to question, because at the heart of literally every decision we make at Stonemaier Games is, “Does this serve our customers? How can this better serve our customers?” We don’t always get those answers correct or execute them perfectly, and what’s best for one customer may not be what’s best for another hundred customers, but this is our guidepost every day.

So what’s the best way we serve you? I’m actually more interested in your answer to that than my answer. But if I were a customer of Stonemaier Games instead of the co-founder, I think I might say that I appreciate the sheer abundance of art (all created by humans) in each of our games. I love when every card or tile in a game has unique art, and I don’t take that for granted–it is a significant expense, and one that takes time, trust, and project management. A close second might be how accessible we are (mostly publicly, but also privately for confidential questions/requests), but it’s really quite rare that I ever have a direct question even for my favorite publishers.

As for our #1 area of improvement, I think it’s first-printing perfection. We put so much work into creating, testing, and proofreading our games, expansions, and accessories, yet we all-too-often falter late in the process with something that ends up sticking out like a sore thumb. While only some of these errors are my fault, they are all my responsibility. We’re currently using an app called PageProof for proofreading that seems to be helping significantly, and our PPC playtests over the last few years really help too. But we can do better, and we will do better.

3. For people who don’t already follow you, what is the number 1 way they discover your newest product?

Honestly, it’s far more important for me to serve people who already follow us or our games than it is to entice newcomers (whether it’s via organic marketing, our content, advertising, etc). However, I also strongly believe in the power of actively and inclusively inviting people into the world of Stonemaier Games. I want to welcome people who haven’t tried one of our games, especially if there’s a game we make that might bring joy to their tabletop.

Again, it’s difficult to pick a true #1; rather, I have a top 5. However, of those 5, I think if I had to choose one, it would be word of mouth from people who either play our games and share them with friends (one of the perks of making games/expansions that always play up to at least 5 players) or follow our content and share it publicly. This is followed by reviewers (we send thousands of review copies each year), retailers (it’s hard to measure if people are discovering our games through retailers or if they’re learning about them elsewhere and going to the retailer for the purchase), digital games (Board Game Arena in particular is a great discovering platform, though I’ve heard from many people who discovered Wingspan via Wingspan Digital), and play-and-win at conventions (thousands of people play our games for the first time via play-and-win, but I’m not sure how many of them are learning about those games for the first time via play-and-win).

I’ve rambled enough for today, so I’ll save the remaining 7 or so questions for future articles. I’d love to hear your thoughts about all three, whether they’re in relation to Stonemaier Games or if you’re a publisher who would like to share your answers!

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