Imagine...
A room with 100 designers, each with their game. Imagine you asked each designer how likely it was that their game would be published. You could add all these numbers up, and work out roughly how many games the designers themselves would expect to be published, out of the group of 100. I'd say the answer would be, very roughly, about 50.
The actual answer is less than 1.
Well under 1% of games are accepted for publication.
And, this number has been decreasing. I'm finding it much harder to elicit interest from publishers than 10 years ago, despite being a published designer now. Board games are booming, which means way more players, and way more aspiring designers.
If twice as many people are playing board games, how many more board games do we need?
None.
Yes, there will be more games, but mostly, we just have more people playing the top 1,000 games.
These days, publishers are only looking for gems, that will stand out amongst the rising deluge of other games. That sub-1% chance is on its way to becoming sub-0.1%.
Should I just give up now? These seem like poor odds. What are my chances of getting published, if not even 1% of games are accepted?
1% is not your chance of getting published. It's not a lottery. Your success will be overwhelmingly determined by your skill, effort, and attitude, not by chance.
There are all kinds of easy things you can do, to push yourself into the top 50%, then the top 25%, etc.
I sometimes chat with another Australian game designer who recently had a game signed with a publisher for the first time. We've both been making games for about ten years. He designs simpler games, so he's made about 130 games, in whole or part, while I've made around 40.
It’s only when you have a published game that you realise where the bar is. It’s two orders of magnitude higher than where you think it is.
If you're serious, and skilful, you'll someday make a good game. But good games don't all just get published. The publishers sift through, and pick the best of those.
Publication is a great achievement, but more than 5,000 games are published every year. Most get a first print run, and then aren't reprinted.
I don't just want to get published. I want to get into the top 100 on BoardGameGeek, and have a game that stands among the giants of the industry. I don't even think about the criterion of publication now. I just try to make something amazing. I compare my games with the best games in their genre, and aim to make something better.
Don't aim for publication. Aim to make a game that's amazing.
For the vast, vast majority of board game designers, they will never see one of their games published. That probably includes you.