Dale Yu: Interview with Alex Yeager from Mayfair Games

Well, by the time you’re reading this, I’m hopefully already in the air headed for Berlin, Germany. The announcement for the Spiel des Jahres is coming next Monday morning, June 29, but Valerie and I are heading over to Europe to see some sights, meet up with our partners at Hans im Glück, and get ready for the weekend events surrounding the SdJ. [In case you’ve forgotten, Valerie and I are the developers of Dominion.]

This year, the award will go to one of the five following nominated games:

• Dominion (Rio Grande/Hans im Gluck)
• Fauna (HUCH & Friends)
• Finca (Hans im Gluck)
• FITS (Ravensburger)
• Pandemie (Pegasus)

As of now, I really don’t have a good feel for what to expect or how things will go, but I promise to make a full report on my return from Europe. If you want to know more about the Spiel des Jahres in the meantime, I might refer you to my three-part interview with Tom Werneck, one of the SdJ jury members, which can be found here, here, and here.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Dominion!

But enough talk of the award – there will be plenty of time to talk about the SdJ once it’s been awarded! Over the course of the summer, I’ve had a chance to have a little chat via email with Alex Yeager. Now, this hasn’t been purely a journalistic endeavor – I have continued my involvement with Steam, the new Martin Wallace release, and Alex is the point person for this at Mayfair Games. Alex is a full-time employee in the game industry, and I thought it would be interesting to see what life is like for someone completely immersed in the business.

DY: So, what exactly is your role with Mayfair? How did you get a job in the industry in the first place?

AY: With Mayfair, I have two official titles (Production Liaison and Education Outreach) and the unofficial title “Junior Bottlewasher.” I was hired full-time by Mayfair in 2005 after being a volunteer for five years.

My industry path started with cutting school and going over to the university to play Cosmic Encounter and Illuminati with folks, as well as some roleplaying. When Steve Jackson Games released Illuminati: New World Order, I was a fanatic for the game. This got me into some playtesting and I eventually ended up one of the charter members of the SJ Games Men in Black demo team. Concurrently, I also was a charter Demo Monkey for Cheapass Games, and to this day still do a bit of non-Mayfair work on the side. There are about 30 board, card, and roleplaying games for which I have playtester or development credits.

I certainly understand when people say they want to work in the game industry because they love games – and believe me, I do – but there are an awful lot of experiences that I get to bring to bear in a typical week at Mayfair. I’ve been a print buyer, produced corporate videos, edited a magazine, spoken live to crowds in the tens of thousands, done television studio freelancing, worked 15 years with an automotive research company, and produced original radio comedy for seven years. If you want to break into this industry, it’s a combination of luck, versatility of skills, and a bunch of volunteer hours.

DY: Yeah, pretty much everyone that I know of in the industry has just happened to be at the right place at the right time, but I still get a lot of questions from folks asking me whether or not I know of any job openings. Do you know if Mayfair is currently looking for people? Or when they do look for people, is that posted anywhere?  I realize that you’re probably not doing HR also, but I figured I’d ask anyways!

AY: Mayfair uses networking pretty heavily for our manpower needs, either from folks who have worked with us at shows, or have made themselves known for one reason or another to staff. I’m not the person who would be hiring anyone, but I do coordinate things like our Mayfair Room staff, and folks who are willing to volunteer their time on the company’s behalf are people I would have no problem recommending for a position if the right fit arose.

DY: Since you work for a game company and are working with board games constantly, does that mean that you play games more often than an average gamer?

AY: I don’t know about more often; I coordinate two game groups (one in Ann Arbor MI, the other in Toledo OH), so those ensure I have gaming once a week at a minimum. Normally, it’s two sessions a week, with more if I’m hammering at a prototype or a convention (of which I do 10-12 a year).

DY: How often do you play games outside of work? Once a week?

AY: “Inside of work” is rather nebulous. I try not to push Mayfair games on my groups, and I certainly have most other companies well represented in my collection (as BGG will attest to). Playing games is as much opening the hood to see how things work as it is playing for fun for me.

DY: Do you guys play games AT work? Or is it all business there?

AY: Several times during the year, we get all of the Mayfair crew together, and games are a part of it. (Origins, Gen Con, Essen, and Christmas are the biggies.) You’ll hear industry folks bemoan that they didn’t play a game at Origins or Gen Con; we make it a point to do so (even if it is “work").

DY: Is there some sort of “Holy Grail” vault at the Mayfair office with one of every game ever made?

AY: They have quite the collection, yes. My office is a pretty good cross-section of everything Mayfair’s had in print from 2004 onwards…

DY: How large is your personal game collection?

AY: I’m thinking that I’ll break the thousand game mark at Essen this year, assuming I don’t go crazy during the summer con season. I really need to update my BGG profile!

DY: So I’ve heard rumors that all employees of game companies get a free copy of every game that is produced. Is that true? Did you all get free 3-D Settlers sets?

AY: For Mayfair, yes and yes. It’s more functional than you might suspect; having all of the Mayfair games within arm’s reach is valuable when confronted with rules questions, or production questions, or simply needing a fact about a particular title. It’s nice to have them all, but they’re working games!

DY: You mentioned once that you were trying to collect a lot of old school Mayfair games. Are there specific games that you’re looking for? (Maybe the readers will have copies to trade you!)

AY: Heh. Well, I do keep a casual eye out for older Mayfair titles. I’m not trying for any of the old RPG stuff, but there are a couple of board games out there I don’t have, and little oddities like the Ellery Queen game would be fun to have. (Please don’t bombard my inbox with trade requests!)

DY: Well, enough about you! Let’s talk about the games! What is the current progress on Steam? When can I get it in stores?

AY: It’s officially in stores as of last Thursday, June 18!

DY: Can you outline the differences that will be found in Steam? For instance, say I already own Age of Steam (any version); what would make me want or need to get Steam as well?

AY: I’ve played a lot of Age of Steam and enjoy the game, but it’s a game that is brutal to new players. It’s both a feature and a bug, but when the Steam project arrived at Mayfair, we were mandated to create a more accessible version so that many more people could learn the game (and enjoy, or at least play until the end).

As project lead, you can imagine what it’s like to have feedback and suggestions coming from Martin Wallace and his team, and also from the train gamers within Mayfair (who have created and played train games for decades before I arrived). And of course, all of this for a game engine that’s regarded as a modern classic. Throughout the process I tried to keep three things constantly forefront in my mind: 1) make a version of the game that’s shorter, more forgiving and less random; 2) make an advanced game based on the new engine that approaches the earlier editions in challenge; and 3) make the new version both easily expandable and provide the ability to reuse earlier edition’s components. I think everyone has succeeded in all three goals.

Mechanically, we’re dropped the random goods reload in favor of having sets of cubes to the board available for city creation and growth. Auctions have been eliminated (or, optionally, reduced to a single instance) in the Base game (the casual version of Steam), though they remain in the Standard (experienced player) version. Income reduction has been eliminated (as well as maintenance costs in the Base version). Most dramatically, income and victory points have been separated into two tracks, with players deciding to assign points earned to one or the other. A typical Base version game now takes around 90 minutes with experienced players.

DY: Well, as I’m part of the “Martin Wallace team” that you so kindly adopted when Mayfair took over, I will agree that it has been a wonderful collaborative process. Did Mayfair have any other external playtesters? Is there any opportunity for gamers to get involved in this way?

AY: We have a variety of playtest groups across the U.S. (Pretty much wherever we have staff: Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Illinois, California.) Our playtesting and development stays pretty close to our staff locations. That said, we do playtests at most of the conventions we attend (certainly the ones I attend), and it’s another good way to get noticed.

DY: Anything else I should be on the lookout for at Origins or Gen Con from Mayfair?

AY: Well, Steam and Empire Builder will be new enough to count, and both the updated reprint of Eurorails and the all-new Martian Rails should keep rail fans happy. We’re finishing up work on Ablaze! (which will be an expanded version of Heinrich Glumpler’s Feurio), and there’s a new game that we’re working on by Frederic Moyersoen that makes me giggle a lot. That, along with Martin Wallace’s Rise of Empires and the English version of Kosmos’ Der Hexer von Salem, Witch of Salem, gives us a pretty full plate for the next few months!

DY: Wow, that lineup sounds great! I can’t wait to get a peek at the new games – especially any game that makes you “giggle a lot”! What else exciting is planned from you guys?

AY: I think we’re starting to get our footing with new projects. We had a tremendous backlog of completed or semi-completed designs that were waiting to be released, but we’re now looking at a schedule that allows us to really focus on new games. We have a bunch of interesting prototypes in-house, the Geographies series of Catan is going to be heating up, and there always seems to be something new coming down the road. And, without giving anything away, some classic things as well…

DY: Great, I’m looking forward to checking those games out as well! Thanks for the quick update, and I’m sure that we’ll cross paths at one of the conventions this summer!

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

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