Welcome back! I hope you had an awesome and productive week.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a notification email that there was a new blog post of the Stonemaier Games’ blog. The blog post talked about Jamey’s experiences with people using cards from one of Stonemaier Games’ games to propose to their significant other, or in the most recent case, announce that they were having a baby. Jamey goes on to discuss ways he wanted to try in order to help encourage people to this sort of thing more often, including the possibility of creating and releasing card templates for public use.
This was really interesting to me on a number of levels. First, I find it awesome that people would share their love of gaming with others in such a personal way. Second, I think it is awesome that Jamey, and based on the post comments other publishers/designers as well, would be open to others using their games in this manner. Finally, I also find it interesting that those involved would tell their story so publically and this got me thinking: what other examples of creative ways have I seen of designers/publishers giving back to the board gaming community. For this week’s blog post I wanted to mention three.
Smunchy Games and encouraging fan-made content through the use of Open Gaming Licencing
One of the many communities I have the pleasure of being a part of is Sean Fallon’s Smunchy Games community. Over the last while, Sean has been announcing some new RPG systems that his company will be developing using Open Gaming Licencing which allows fans and other users of the system to make up their own content within the RPG system. Smunchy Games is also taking it a step further by offering creators a marketplace where they can sell and promote their content which I think is pretty fantastic.
The Daniel Zayas Company and negotiating discounts with trusted partners to pass on to the community through his Trusted Partner program
What better way to give back to our amazing community then by saving them money on commonly used services, offered by people whom you’ve contracted with in the past and trust to do awesome work for any referral clients you send their way. This is exactly what Daniel has done with his Trusted Partners Program, and I am honoured to be a part of it.
Geekspiel and their Game of the Week program
The Geekspeil community is an awesome group of people to be a part of. Since joining them in December of last year, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed interacting with other members. This year they also started up a new program that I think is really neat. They call it their Game of the Week program and it includes a short write up on their blog that is released Sunday, an interview and rules teach with the designer streamed on their Twitch channel Monday, a streamed play through with other members of the community Wednesday, and then a wrap up of the week as part of their weekly podcasts on Sunday evening and gives designers an excellent opportunity to increase their reach and have other gamers play their games.
As you can see, there is any number of ways for us to give back to the community and pay forward some of the kindness that has been afforded to us. The best part is that it doesn’t have to take huge amounts of energy or time to be effective. What other examples have you come across of community members giving back in creative or fun ways? I’d love to hear about your experiences so join in the conversation in the comments. Until next week happy designing.
Creative Commons Image Credit: Community Bulletin Board<