Media Watch: Game Company a Roll of the Dice
If, like me, you regularly check out the game display at Barnes & Noble to see which new games are being offered amongst the old and familiar, you’ve probably seen copies of Spy Alley, an independently published game from designer Bill Stephenson. TwinCities.com has an article about Stephenson, Spy Alley, and the difficulties of keeping a small game company afloat.
Bill and Wanda Stephenson started Spy Alley Partners with a list of 50 friends who expressed interest in investing. Collecting $60,000 allowed them to produce 5,000 games on contract with a manufacturing company in Texas.
Bill Stephenson was working full-time managing a grain elevator, devoting nights and weekends to the game venture. He demonstrated his games in local stores and worked his way through the Yellow Pages. It took three years to sell 5,000 Spy Alley games. Since the launch, 180,000 games have been sold….
Rick Reed [co-designer of the fishing-themed game Get Hooked] was among a group of Minnesota game makers that used to meet to talk about the business. Bill Stephenson is the only member who retains complete control of his company. “We all thought we had the next great game, the next Pictionary,” Reed said. “We have good games. We have really good games. It’s just that it’s tough. It’s tough to hit that home run.”
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Feb 15, 2009 at 08:00 PM in Game News, Media Watch / 1015
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Eric, The article link does not appear to be working, at least for me. Thanks, Mike Posted by Michael Potts on Feb 15, 2009 at 09:27 PM | #
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Try this instead. Posted by David Chappelle on Feb 15, 2009 at 10:48 PM | #
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I’ve fixed the link. Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Feb 15, 2009 at 11:08 PM | #
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Wow, 180,000 copies! That’s huge! Posted by Mark Crane on Feb 16, 2009 at 01:54 AM | #
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And it is rated 5.69 at the BGG. Posted by Mark Crane on Feb 16, 2009 at 01:57 AM | #
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180,000 copies of Spy Alley? Wow. We have Spy Alley and Daughter the Elder loves playing it. All bar one of my 15 plays have been two player with her. One was three. It may be better with more, but I am not sure. I would call it a passable kids game, it has some good ideas but could have done with further development or tightening up. The components are interesting, some like the spy cards are very high quality and then others like the Move deck are comparatively low quality. That said it still gets quite a bit of play at our house :-) Posted by Fraser McHarg on Feb 16, 2009 at 06:58 AM | #
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Spy Alley is a good little true “gateway” game that can quickly find a wide audience. Solid, light fare with a bit of strategy. We own that… and “Simply Suspects” are among the 30 or so games we own. Posted by Ryan B. on Feb 17, 2009 at 01:51 AM | #
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To the editors at Twincities.com, this is an interesting story of a small businessman in an unusual business. To me and many others, I suspect, it’s just another Kamikaze game maker. In the creator’s words “We hit a single.” That’s way better than most. But it’s still a long way to home, and there’s no one else at bat. Posted by Jonathan Degann on Feb 17, 2009 at 04:42 PM | #
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