Interviews by an Optimist # 72 -

Jeremy Young

Jeremy Young founded Uberplay at the beginning of 2003 and is Uberplay's President and CEO. Jeremy is responsible for setting the company's vision and strategy and for leading the Uberplay team. He has over 10 years of experience in starting and running successful small- to medium-sized businesses. He served as President of VServers LLC from 1996-1999, growing the startup from day one to its successful sale to Micron Electronics in 1999. Having started and successfully sold two Internet businesses, Jeremy brings a unique understanding of how technology can be used to enhance the enjoyment of board games by people everywhere. His latest venture is co-founder and VP of Product Development of SimplyFun (www.simplyfun.com) a Bellevue Washington based
direct selling company that is selling games directly into people's home.

Jeremy is an active angel investor, having invested in over 10 startups in various fields. He also is involved in several local and national charities including the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Montreux Clinic for Eating Disorders.

Tom: Can you tell us where the idea for starting Uberplay came from?

Jeremy: Uberplay was started from part boredom, part wanting to see the typical American family playing games again, part business intuition and part because chicks dig guys who start hobby board game companies - especially companies with games developed by guys with first names of Reiner and Wolfgang.

Tom: Jeremy, it seems like a lot of Uberplay's resources have been put into Simply Fun. Is the company as a whole changing directions?

Jeremy: Uberplay and SimplyFun are two totally separate companies in terms of resources and funding. We actually raised money from outside investors for SimplyFun, and with Uberplay I funded it myself. Uberplay will still do 3-5 strategy games a year for the hobby community, and SimplyFun is really going after the mass market through in-home parties and in-home sales.

Tom: While Uberplay and SimplyFun are two different companies, you are but one person. How do you fit into the structure of both companies?

Jeremy: Right now, we have 14 employees at SimplyFun (along with hundreds of sales consultants) and with Uberplay, Eagle Games is handling all the product sales and marketing so that allows me the time to make sure both companies are operating and succeeding.

Tom: Why do you think the idea of SimplyFun hasn't been tried before?

Jeremy: We've been asked this several times, but I think the answer is just that no one has pulled the trigger on the idea yet. And also that when people think of game distribution, they automatically think of retail sales. We are just taking distribution to another level and literally thinking outside the box.

Tom: When choosing games for Simply Fun, what characteristics do you look for?

Jeremy: We look for games that are simple to learn and fun to play. The name of our company pretty much says it all. We have some very incredible releases coming out in the next 6 months that will appeal to the gamers as well as families. So keep your eyes peeled on our web site, or better yet, make friends with a SimplyFun consultant so you can get you orders in! ;-)

Tom: How about Uberplay? What were your determining factors when choosing a game?

Jeremy: With Uberplay, we are looking for games that are different and unique. I like the medium to light weight strategy games like Oasis, For Sale, Motley Fool and New England. We're coming out with Ra (it's on the ocean and will be in the port soon!) and that is one of my top 5 games of all time. I think it's Knizia's best game personally besides Relationship Tightrope (LOL!) Ok, we messed up the theme on that one! But I really thought it would appeal more to the mass with that type of theme, but the name causes confusion to the consumers. The mechanic of that game is a blast however!

Tom: So how important is theme to a game?

Jeremy: Theme is somewhat important as that is what draws someone to come and look at a game. A lot of our games are somewhat abstract, and you could put any sort of different theme on it. For example, our next Knizia game "Double or Nothing" could have been a race game, a train game, but we decided to make it look more like a Casino type game because there is this press your luck element to it. I personally love a very nice themed game.

Tom: Many of Uberplay's games are licensed from German companies. Is it easier to do one of these or an in-house production, such as Oasis?

Jeremy: It's definitely easier to do a co-production with the German company, because all you do is piggy back on their run. The costs are typically higher because you are paying them for the production run, the graphic work, their royalties, the royalties to the designer, and then you have the Euro exchange and shipping costs. So it's cheaper sometimes for us to do our own production in Asia, but it is easier to do a co-production. The German companies have all the hard work to do, and all we do is a translation ;-)

Tom: So what games will we see coming up from Uberplay?

Jeremy: We have RA that will be out in the next couple of weeks. It is on the boat coming across the water right now. I'm excited about this game, as we've made some great improvements to it. The tiles are bigger, and we have marked on the tiles which ones you keep from round to round to make it easier to remember. We also included a bag to draw the tiles out of!

After that, we have a Knizia game called Double or Nothing that will be shipped out of China very shortly. It's a press your luck type of game that got great reviews at the last Gathering.

Then we are publishing Traufambrik, an incredible Knizia auction game.

I also have a few other opportunities that we are working on with some German companies that we'll announce as soon as the deals are done!

Tom: Can you tell us about Trafambrik - will the game be the same as it currently is, or will the movie titles/actors/directors be changed?

Jeremy: Our plan is to use fictitious names and titles as going through the legal process of licensing these names would be too cost prohibitive for a hobby game. In Germany, the laws are more relaxed in dealing with using names, titles, etc., so they could do it without any problems over there.

Tom: Uberplay started with a huge selection of titles (for a new company, at least). Was this a good move, and why?

Jeremy: In hindsight, it was a mistake, but only because there were about a dozen other companies launching right after us that also came out with several games. If that didn't happen, it would have been a great strategy for us, as it put us on the map very quickly. And you also had Rio Grande and Mayfair triple or quadruple their output of games as well the year we launched. I still think you are feeling the glut of all the game companies and the large amount of product being pushed out to the channel. The Gamewire lists over 90 plus companies releasing games in the hobby channel this Essen. That's a lot of games for a pretty small hobby game market. The effect of this will be that you will launch a title and sell whatever you can in the first 3-4 months, and then it will die off unless the game is a huge hit like a Settlers, Carcassonne or TTR.

Tom: Which of your titles has brought you the most success?

Jeremy: So far, the Settlers of Zarahemla has been our best selling title. The game has sold well in the Mormon community as well as the general gamer community.

New England did fairly well despite being priced so high.

I think Desert Oasis is an incredible game, but it's been looked over for some odd reason. Most gamers I talk to always say, "I like Oasis and think that it deserves more attention!" I happen to agree. So everyone reading this, go out and buy a copy right now gosh darnit!

Tom: (I agree about Oasis!) Speaking of Settlers of Zarahemla, will we see more religious themed board games produced by Uberplay in the future?

Jeremy: Yes, we are still looking at publishing another one - we'll launch it in spring of 2006. More info is coming on this, as we haven't decided between a couple of games we are looking at.

Tom: What are the advantages and disadvantages to publishing religiously themed games?

Jeremy: The advantages are that we had a unique channel that hadn't seen quality games in the Euro style. Even though the games are a lot more expensive than what these Christian bookstores had seen in the past, they recognized the quality and paid a little more for our games. I really don't see any disadvantages as we clearly separated our Uberplay and Inspiration Games brands to not cause any issues between the two.

Tom: Why do you think the Christian game market is so untapped?

Jeremy: I think it is because people haven't created high-quality Euro games for this market yet. I think anytime you can take a specific market that has a very easy way to market to and get an awesome game with high quality components, you are going to be able to sell quite a few games.

Tom: What have you found to be the hardest things about running a game company?

Jeremy: Just managing everything that needs to be done. It seems that the business side of things always takes over the fun side of the business. The busier I get, the less time I even have just to sit down and play new games! That's the worst part about it. Between everything that I need to do in a week, game playing outside of what I do for work
(prototypes, etc) seems to get put in the back seat. My birthday is coming up this weekend, so maybe I should pull out a few new games! Got any suggestions? ;-)

Tom: Uberplay produced some "TV" commercials that you put up on the internet. How successful were they, and will/would you do them again?

Jeremy: The TV commercials were something Matt and I thought up on the plane back from NY Toy Fair about 2 years ago. We had just launched "The Best Games You've Never Heard Of" campaign, and we thought we were pretty funny coming up with all these crazy ideas. Looking back on that, and most things in my life, I always think I'm funnier than I actually am ;-) I did go see Conan O'brien once, and I got to dance with him and his mom on stage, but unfortunately, his comedic touch didn't rub off. Speaking of Conan, the tonight show is going to rock when he takes over in 2009. Not that I don't love Jay Leno and all, but his chin scares me a bit.

We just did the TV commercials for fun. We knew we weren't going to air them on TV, because they all were more than 30 seconds in length. The one I would have loved to air was Zarahemla down in Utah. We would have had all the Mormons screaming "Oh My Heck!" We may do some more of them in the future, you never know.

Tom: What have you found to be the best way to market games?

Jeremy: So far our greatest successes have been to create games for specific markets. The Motley Fool Buy Low, Sell High game for example. We can use the name to get recognition for the game, sell through their web site and get it into other channels that might not typically carry games. Our religious themed games have done very well for us as well. You will see Uberplay focus more and more on those types of opportunities in the future.

Tom: Jeremy, thanks for the time you took to answer these questions! Do you have any final thoughts for our readers?

Jeremy: No problem Tom, it was my pleasure. I would just ask all of the gamers out there to check out Uberplay's upcoming and new releases (Double or Nothing and Traufambrik). We are also going to possibly do the new Schmidt game Angkor, and we are just pricing it out right now. I think it's a very good game. Something that you can play in about 20-30 minutes and has some good meat to it.

Also, SimplyFun has some cool announcements coming up on October 1st. We'll be having a Launch Party in several cities in the US, so if anyone is interested in attending, please let me know. The cities are Seattle, Boise, SLC, Billings, Chicago, Denver, San Jose, L.A. We may have Virginia Beach and Anchorage as well. So email me if you are interested in coming to check us out. We also have some great "German" games that we distribute through our SF consultants including Zing by Stephan Dorra, Drive by Schacht, Pop Belly by Teuber, Walk the Dogs by Moon/Weissbum, Eye to Eye by Weissblum, Argh by Weissblum and more coming. If you are interested in purchasing, please come to the Web site at www.simplyfun.com.

Happy gaming!

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
October 6, 2005