Who Do you sell it to? It was the same game, it just it just had a different name. It was hard to get to the first company. If you like to get in touch with good people cool things, you can do so via facebook, twitter or in Instagram at GPCT podcast. They were going to produce it for us and I had to negotiate the contract. Wow, it was crazy, and so we looked and said, well, this success is not about Trivia. And the guy is sitting there. You're getting the chance to interact like you were young. During the depression of deck of cards was entertainment for a whole family.
Now I'm down with the the lame joke as well as you. That's that's such a good distinction to as the social element to it, because I know I've played games where it's really not that much of a social interaction and I quickly find myself wanting to pass something else. Brians latest game, Boom Again, targets a totally underserved market: Boomers, or people born between 1946 and 1964. So you know it is. I don't know. Never offended that you don't. So I'm finding out all this stuff about Marcel Mar so and it turns out he's a legion of Honor winner.
The Best 10 Candy Stores in Milton, Ontario. Once the you know, once I had a perception of what I thought the game should feel like and I learned what a game should engineer, in other words, what's it going to cost? What's going on with this and the game business in general? You don't want to be repetitive to what another game is. ha ha ha. You keep the inventory. I'm a huge fan of wordplay one of my favorite articles I've ever written is about the O. Henry Pun-Off in Austin. It's you got to be a pro. That's exactly what Marie Saba has done with her book Don't Worry Be Ha-PEA: 101 Deliciously Clever Food Puns. I mean that's what they grew up with. I we use that on our other podcast, parks and wrecked, for buzzing in on Trivia. And then it went from being the big game companies telling the toy buyer here, you're going to take these toys as here and we're going to advertise them to the company saying we're going to take one and we're not going to keep it in inventory. There's a lot of singing group saying excellent that, but but there's also those the little sparks, the little things that disappeared somewhere back in your brain and that you forgot were there, and you sort of noodle around a going you know, I got a hunch it might be a volkswagon beetle, and I like it that it takes you back to a time before of before the Internet, being like Oh, I can just easily look that up real quick, like making you think about that and where you you wouldn't have the answer right away back correct when you were doing that. To this generation because they figure you're not coming back. On the famous Abbey road album cover, beetles are crossing the street. Dick Clark and I met after my first game. Isn't an issue. You know, eighty million people all born, you know, and from nineteen forty five, one thousand nine hundred and sixty four roughly, and they've got all the money in the world. So those were the elements that came together to say this is how we're going to build the game. Needs another rewrite. The other example, and and let's say this is from things we heard and which is mostly music and and jingles and nathing. Country singer Kate Watson was faced with that very situation. It was in one of the additions of taboo many years ago. Pineapple Galore Tamalitoz is a sweet and spicy flavor combination that gives your tastebuds a flavor explosion. It is both art and science.
That got time on their hands, the retiring like crazy and nobody selling the many. It's a boomer culture trivia game. Here's a game that is has a very wide but not very deep knowledge base, sort of like a liberal arts education, and it strikes this enormous generation at just the right moment when they want to stay home. I'm thinking of cooking versus baking now, and I would much rather prefer cooking, but I do like the blend of art and science. But it became Walmart and target and toys or us, and the world changed. He said I'll take it. I may not know the answer, but the but my teammate next to me might know part of it. But it has to be some many people knows, something people care about. I will I will count it. Thank you to all of the guests who have been on good people cool things to check out all the old episodes. Get inspired by their stories to do your own cool thing, and here's your host, Joey held. It's a closed society. You know what? What was he says. Yeah, that and that's what we have here. So it's it's really a mix between the two I like. So we're going to pass. But once you have the game idea and you can you can take a game that you've created, if you want to walk us through this. Go ahead, try our little Pineapple flavor candy pillow and give yourself that moment of flavor fabulous your tastebuds deserve. I played with my whole family. What can we do that people will find entertaining, will occupy them for a couple of hours on a on a Saturday night? When I when we started, the big companies were JC penny and sears and and Kmart and toys R us. Here I'm at my house, my buddies at another house, my wife's friend is that another house. Will Wood isn't like most musical artists.
Where did the idea of this come from, because this is going to lead us into a bunch of different places. Traffic was slow and I'm late for a dinner party at my house. We've written somewhere around six thousand outburst topics, because the game is, you know, it's just been around so long and we keep trying to keep it for us. And you mentioned joke tellers. It's why we moved to team play, because teams helped people who were shy, people who were who lacked the same bravado or confidence. What's the Paprica or the that's going to say slantra, but I feel like that turns a lot of people off. So so we had a very unusual relationship with the game companies, and there is nothing that makes it easier than success. Adding a business to Yelp is always free.
And I'm a huge fan of trying new foods that's partly why I started my website Phat Phoodies. And we recognize that they're not gathering with friends to you know, in the traditional way. Another example from the game. How did that never occurred? Your first thought is, all, I could have made this. Always had straighting to say yeah, and you look at that, going really, but a game, if it's simple enough, you look at it and you go I could have done that, okay, but you didn't. So, in essence, this is a tool that really everyone needs, or at least one of your games that they can get that practice back with interacting with other people. And then who would ever have thought those are those would go away. Sure you know they brought out a group, brought out winning not no, they I'm trying to remember the name of it now. Yeah, I'll allow it. And another question I like to ask, because I say I like to put the onus of the work for this podcast on to you, is a question that you, as you were, asked more frequently and I really liked yours. You've heard. Some feedback is useful. And is there a super surprising piece of feedback that you've gotten from a player, whether it was for a specific game or just like generally and games that you've tested? We found out, you know, Gede, they read the rules we wrote but after, you know, the first two paragraphs, they got lost. What's on fence? I would say that that number one would be Dick Clark. But if you did ten out of ten on every single card for an hour, it's a flat line. I went out and did a market research port and had that done and read it, read it again and thought, Gee, you know, I think the big game companies don't really understand what's going on with trivial pursuit. And I had a list and I walked in the House and to deflect my wife from killing me upon my entry, I turned to everybody and said tell me ten things about the battle of the bulge, and they all started yelling out snow, Panzers, Germans, you know, yeah, patent, and they said what are we doing, Brian? Are you answered one of my questions just with that of can people under roughly fifty five years old still enjoy this game? In this episode, Kate shares some of her top stories from her American Idol experience, some of the worst experiences in her life, her top tips for building a successful music brand, and why it's important to always give your all in any situation. So that's just a another nice element to it, I think. It's a different environment now. You can also always shoot me a message, Joey, at good people cool thingscom. How are you doing? But what makes for a successful boom again zoom game? Marc Dubavoy is a Jewish guy from Mexico City, not particularly religious, speaks six languages, plays Flamenco Guitar, plays Jazz Piano, has a Ph d in nuclear physics. You'll enjoy it. On this episode, Brian Talks about the key to making a successful board game, whether it's art or science, might be a little bit of a combination of both, and why he calls them social lubricators his games, which come in very handy after I don't know about you, but my post pandemic social interactions have not been the smoothest, so I appreciate any kind of social lubricant that I can get to help me through it. As always, thank you for listening and have a wonderful day. Pineapple Galore Tamalitoz Pineapple flavor candy pillow filled with chili, lime and sea salt, Colored with Annatto, Spirulina Extract and Turmeric Oleoresin, Individual Pineapple Galore Tamalitoz, Five Pack Pineapple Galore Tamalitoz, 2021 Tamalitoz | All Rights Reserved. But in the end the contract issues were worked out in what was a fair way. So I had purposely stayed away from Trivia. So it's it's going to be fantastic. She was a a regular test player and guys on my team would would grieve when they knew she was coming in and they say, why do you keep calling her back? A Gi could put in his backpack and take a deck of cards off to war and they remained, you know, card players. It's a great game. We should get in it. I believe they're made in house too! That was never our plan. In fact, he was ansel Adams asked private pupil, and my friend mark happens to be one of the great joke tellers in the world. Everyone's in different places and I've got four different people singing, singing badly, at the same time and everyone else is just laughing. We kept television rights, we kept interactive rights, we kept merchandising rights, it gave us control over our own IP. It's such a healthy opportunity, absolutely and within boom again do you have a favorite trivia question?
We're talking food puns, the cooking utensils you need for your kitchen essentials, and how motherhood can open up more creative thinking. That's battastic. The jets of the Jetson's dog was astro pastor our, yes, and they walked them on the treadmill outside the spaceships. Yet it is as a game designer, my goal is to get people to do something they don't do every day and yet have fun in the process. An example of a favorite question something I thought was clever at I'll give you two examples. If you're a fan of this episode, go ahead and hit that follow button. So I made based on what I knew was in different companies current lines and what their needs were for the next year. And and that was you know, it wasn't just me who didn't get it. Third Base? He was open to it, he was fascinated by it and while we were while I was at his home, walking around, you know, many acres out in the country.
We gave them the rights to produce just the board game. The interest rate, the prime interest rate, is over eighteen percent. So I take the colony says, listen, I just want you to now. It just felt good and you suddenly felt here's this box full of cards and there's the there's little thing, a little easel to hold the cards, and there's this Buzzer, this this toy attic, this piece of toy that just add so much and you never felt like you got ripped off, because you did. The axiom then was big game companies act like gangsters, garage inventors act like process who's it's a match made in heaven. Shes a social worker, professor at the University of Southern California, community organizer, and activist against human trafficking. We actually have one. It's like that canvas that you know when you played Tri of you pursue. I'M gonna I'm gonna let you leave. I'll give you mine. It's an essay tale, like you're saying. I tried it out every four or five or six years to somebody. 124: American Idol Stories and Building a Music Brand with Kate Watson, 123: How to Change the World By Doing Good with Annalisa Enrile, 122: Creative Risks, Trapped Mice, and Social Media Negativity with Will Wood, 121: Food Puns, Motherhood, and Cooking Essentials with Marie Saba. Yea, was you know, that was a pivot. So for your top three, who are the top three most interesting famous people that you've ever met? We could have played that game without the Buzzer, but everybody loves the BUZZER. So we're chatting all about that good stuff and it's just a blast brand of so many good stories, and I hope that by the end of this episode you're like, I need to create a board game of my own and share it with the world, because I certainly felt inspired after talking with Brian. Actually, I'm here's a question from I believe this was in the news and they and the question is who was older, Elizabeth the second when she became queen or Freddie Mercury when he became queen? It was because he spent World War Two escorting children up the up the Alps and into Switzerland to freedom hum and suddenly there was a level of depth to Marcel Marceau I've never even heard of. She pairs food and creativity to introduce more people to the wonderful world of cooking and photography, and she's having a blast doing it. She's so negative, she's so unpleasant, she's such a miserable human being, and I said because when she doesn't have a laundry list of complaints, we've succeeded. You've got the BUZZER. I have the chance to stay at his home out outside Paris and he was he could not understand that I'm taking him to do something, that we're going to put a suit on him with little metallic balls in the computers going to watch where those balls go and we will permanently, forever have his motions and someday they may be dressed like a like a grizzly bear, but they'll be his motions. Well, two are really famous and one should be more things. Two major players, one season one way, one season another. You felt like you got something worth while. Oh my God. If I said to you name ten pieces of silverware and you named them, you wouldn't care. So we basically said, well, wait to say let's let's let's redesign the game let's just alter the play pattern a little and give everybody rules and and directions on how to play it on zoom and it took off. You get to the mid S and we discover sex and run and drugs and rock and roll and we're no longer playing board games. Are you just following a recipe? And Baby boomers know this answer. There's an art to the marketing methodologies, and yet those are also science. All Right, now, I'm inspired. And Parker brothers, Milton Bradley stand on the dock and with a tear in their eye, they wave goodbye. So I'll see if I could find it and transcend it. And I looked at my cards in my hand and I put down the letters M T S A pe. You are really engaged with people on an easy level and not just ask him, how are you holding up? We found out what wasn't working. So how does it go from idea in your head to physical game that we can play? How I have been starting as asking people for their elevator pitch, but I feel like you've got such an established history already that surely people have played at least some of your games. I wanted to investigate trivial pursuit. Some of them have bought their first houses, others are paying rents that are too high. It's just it's just work. But how many companies can exist selling fifty two pieces of paper in a box? We Are we have released ourselves. So the goal is to generate that little laugh, that little piece of remembrance that has a spark about it. But what do you call a row of rabbits hopping away? So that teammate interaction, that's part of social gaming and that's that's my focus, is social gaming. I wouldn't, just because the retail environment is so changed now. I've had grains that I thought were okay that made it modestly. What's on second? They they beat the hell out of me. What's the other example? Never never been was sell it. People are loving it and now you've got to go at it and you have your biggest decision to your self. Ip, by the way, was a term that didn't exist then. Who that sounds fam one of the one of the sounds was ah AH. Brian Hirsch is the creator of more than Forty Board Games that have sold over fifty million copies. Even this one's not a simple answer for you, but I think it'll help to understand it. Just pointed out this is but it was. You're going to get royalties like it's a record. We're talking about all of that and more in this episode. So it's we SARENDIPITY's a wonderful thing and occasionally we step into it and it and instead of going ankle deep and going why did I step in here, we float alonggoing well, we got this one right, and the boom zooms have been one of them. When you have a game that succeeds, everybody wants to know what, what else have you got? And it hit and it went out of control. There's the science of cost engineering, there's a science of demographics. And he hates social media even as it's brought him tons of new fans and millions of new listens. Well, I my my problem is that I am by nature a smartass and I have never hesitated to let that side of me show through in Games.
There is something very nice to feel the fresh tug and pull of something that's old and familiar, like playing games, but it's but it's new again. This success is about and entire generation returning to its game playing roots. My favorite all time game that never no one would publish. Let's let's see if I can alter the ingredients. I know I'm in trouble. It's postwar. Will tell you when, if and when we need more. In one thousand nine hundred and eighty five is reported to have sold over twenty million games in one year. So what are the activities? There's a lot to this business and once we got there, once we had a success, it became now I understand the recipe. I think that I never wanted to take things too seriously. That stimulates me to think of the rest of it. But when everybody, especially our demographic target, baby boomers, they took the pandemic and very seriously and they isolated very seriously and got cut off. It's a boom againcom boom again. And suddenly I'm going off in a direction saying I think there's a I think there's an entertainment product, I think there's an opportunity. Thanks for the vine. We did not license it, we did it ourselves. Nobody's got any money. So I feel like you asked. There's an art to building a product that people want. He's created outburst, supers, categories, taboo, among so many others, and he's at it again with his latest board game, boom again, a pop culture game aimed at boomers that I'm not a boomer, but I had a blast just with a couple of the questions while we're chatting through it. So four years ago I began to to break through, saying the same demographic target that launched all of my games and that's supported trivial pursuit was currently being ignored and it was this enormous baby boom generation. Its storytelling at its finest. I have questions in here that some people are surprised at. Let me let me share some of what I learned. So our goal is always how do we balance those two elements? If you ask me to day of the other positions, I don't know if I could day them.
Okay, we'll set will set you up for success with this one, because it's it's pretty bad. Yeah, sure, I'll tell you that. And for now let's hop into the conversation. Sure, social media might be the downfall of us all, but there's plenty of good out there, too. But you got to do the work and then you've got to not fall in the tramp of saying well, if there's a list of ten, that's good enough. Yes, two little old guys are sitting and talking and he says that restaurant the other night was fantastic. There's and art to so much of what's required. It allowed them to be part of a group and that group paradigm is wonderful in the social setting. Put It in the game. So I walk back into the guy from Milton Bradley. What is the value that you're getting for your money? But what else goes into the success? So we invested in having people come in and sit and test play and we discovered a lot.
It's quality, it's pricy, it's not just posable and that was something baby boomers expected. I could have made this, but the truth is you couldn't. Absolutely, and you're almost off the hook. It you know, it's I have to tell you I've had games that I thought were great that didn't make it. Hes the mind behind gems like Taboo, Outburst, and Super Scattergories and has provided countless hours of entertainment for millions of people across the world. You know where they visit and after six weeks, forget six months, after six weeks, I know enough about your children. Love sharing it with people. As always, you can send me a message Joey at good people, cool thingscom. I'd love for people to do even more and interesting things with gaming. It speaks to being surprised that there's a depth to someone you never thought would be there, and that would be Marcel Marceau. The actual ice creammore. I really enjoyed the chance to share this stuff. So yes, I have harder questions and thoughtful questions, and our goal is to make people saying. What do we need in perceived value? And you're not really selling it. From my standpoint. They're sitting in the back room amongst all those games that just didn't work. But then came the work. But we always like to wrap up with the top three, and your ample experience with Board Games has introduced you to many different celebrities over the years as well. You've kind of been touching on this throughout in terms of having the the social lubricant and not making trivia like to too difficult if it is a trivia based game. Dick was a really smart guy, so he's number one. That just irritates people. Marie is a self-taught cook who's been featured in Bon Apetit, Food & Wine, and The Rachael Ray Show, among others. I agree with you. Is it? This is what works and this is what doesn't. You know who Abbott and Costello are. Now that I mean it's as the legitimate question. At this point, at all these years later, we recently were reviewing it.
I was never offended when a company said this doesn't fit our wish list right now. And if you're going to do if you're going to deal with Trivia, if you're going to ask people to remember things, then why not give them the added benefit of additional memory power?
I want to have you thrilled that you got ten, angry, that you got seven, happy that you've got nine, annoyed that you got for I watch you on an emotional roller coaster. Its that instant when flavors come together and explode in your mouth. Pineapple Galore Tamalitoz mixes your dream vacation to Hawaii with a Spring Break moment of absolute indulgence and packs it into an un assuming candy pillow. And I learned the following the baby boom was the biggest generation at that point ever and it grew up play. You cost engineer to satisfy your major clients.
Yeah, I agree. I wanted to understand why is this so successful? So I'm yeah, I'm not sure. If you got to be willing to swing and this and that happens and and frankly I still think a couple of my very best games ever never got license, never got built, never appeared anywhere. That's how I wound up doing business with all of these companies. I would tell you that one of the first and most important elements is test plane. It's the flower, the flower with the thorns. Did you have visions for all of these other Games too, or did that come after they were like, okay, we need more? So which is it? Okay, it it varies often. You've done anything and, God bless them, they lie. I assume that was because of his work, as it's an internationally famous entertainer, and it wasn't. It tested over the moon and the reactions told us so that's the way we went. Trivial pursuit. We produced a TV show together and that was the start of producing a lot of things together and Dick we became personal friends and he be he was a mentor and a and a partner and and Dick Clark was smarter than almost anybody in entertainment that I've ever met. Plus knowing that you don't want to be too hard. He's got he's got photography across the world. So you've kind of been touching on this throughout. I've already got some people in mind that I'm going to need to play this with. Baby boomers are making money. That's what I like to hear.
Is it art or is it science? That helps more people here the show. I took out my extra prototype the first time. That would be amazing. See, I laid those down and said metal teeth serving as pants closer. They have a great selection of unique candies.more, Received the chocolate and caramel dipped pretzels, bear claw and chocolate dipped sour keys as a gift.
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