Spotlight:
Baffle Gab game fetches spot on Borders' shelves
A new board game for word geeks just hit bookstore shelves and is the latest creation to emerge from a market already dubbed the board game capital of the world.
Port Townsend-based Baffle Gab Inc.hopes to join the slew of local companies that have already hit it big in the game industry. Be it the result of constant caffeine rushes or endless rainy days, the game-crazy region counts Screenlife's Scene It?, Cranium, Pictionary and Front Porch Classics as its own.
The latest, Baffle Gab, is gearing up for major marketing efforts. Baffle Gab is the only featured game at 150 Hilton Hotels across the U.S., is the title sponsor of the Seafair Milk Carton Derby in Seattle, and will have sample game questions on 100 million milk cartons across the country during the back-to-school season. The game arrived this week on its first retail shelf, with displays near the front doors of the 15 Puget Sound-area Borders book stores.
Baffle Gab has already attracted over $1 million in two rounds from individual investors -- an amount raised more quickly and easily than expected. Baffle Gab CEO Craig Olson said no potential investors turned the company down, leading him to launch a new round of financing this year and to contemplate wooing institutional investors next year.
Baffle Gab's ambitious growth plans call for placing the game in bookstores and other nonconventional retailers, such as coffee shops, across the country. Bookstores increasingly carry games and Baffle Gab's storytelling concept is a natural fit for the literary crowd, Olson said. When Borders approached Baffle Gab with the idea of selling the game in its stores, Olson embraced the idea.
"Book people get this game immediately," Olson said.
Though large toy stores are traditionally the landing point for games, Cranium proved that niche distribution could work by selling its games through Starbucks. New games are easily overlooked in large stores such as a Target or Wal-Mart, Olson said, and a game that sells poorly can be discounted, hurting the brand.
Dave Long, CEO of Screenlife LLC, said he also wanted to build a buzz around Scene It? before attempting too big a launch. He took Scene It? to Nordstrom stores during the Christmas shopping season, and soon customers were shouting out answers to the DVD movie game in the store. The word-of-mouth advertising worked, Long said. The company says Scene It? sold 5 million copies last year.
"If you go out in too big of a way and they don't move the product, you hurt your product right out of the gate," Long said.
To play Baffle Gab, players draw five word cards. Each player is given one minute to develop a story using all of the words, with bonus points for someone who can complete the task in one minute.
Baffle Gab founder Pam Dionne developed the game as a gift for her editors at a launch party in late 2000 for the now-dormant Internet journal Literarysalt.com. Always a word person with a fondness for Scrabble, Boggle and crossword puzzles, Dionne knew she wanted to create a game with a writing bent. She woke up one night at 3 a.m. with the idea for Baffle Gab, and then spent the next three days testing it on her husband.
The early version of the game, a hit with her editors, was meant for the brainy crowd and included words such as "reliquary." But when Dionne invited the Port Townsend community to test the game at The Public House and Lahani's Deli & Coffee, families showed up. Dionne realized she needed to make the game work for a younger audience, and eventually went with words fitting a fourth-grade reading level.
The family market shows promise -- while game and puzzle sales in the United States declined by 9 percent in 2005, family board games grew by 18 percent, according to the Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD Group research firm.
To keep the game interesting for adults, Baffle Gab is open for variation. For instance, in recent sample round, Olson suggested players write to the theme "political speeches circa 1932." He's played the game with a bunch of wordy people by selecting 10 cards that must be used in a specific order.
Olson left a technology startup called Wet Paint to jump on board with Baffle Gab last December. At that time, the board game was ready to go, but the company needed a marketing plan and business strategy. Olson relocated from La Jolla, Calif., to the Puget Sound region to run Baffle Gab full-time.
Baffle Gab currently has six full-time employees and a crew of consultants. It will soon be hiring a sales team. Olson doesn't know how many he will hire but wants to keep the Baffle Gab staff lean as the company grows.
Baffle Gab hopes to follow in the footsteps of hit Seattle creations Cranium and Scene It?, both of which have reached a nationwide audience, but the path to a hit board game isn't easy. Steve Edmiston, who sits on the Baffle Gab board and is the co-founder of Front Porch Classics and consulting toy and game firm Storybox Studios, said the board game space is already packed with contributions from major manufacturers, making it challenging for a new company to find its way.
"It's very difficult for a new board game to find traction," Edmiston said. "You have to offer something special so you can stand out."
Edmiston joined the Baffle Gab board when the company approached him because he felt the game concept and marketing strategy will lead to success. He believes the team is creating a marketing buzz through deals like Hilton Hotels and the milk cartons without forking over big bucks. The game has also received recognition in the industry, winning 12 educational and toy industry awards so far.
"Hasbro goes out and makes a $20 million ad buy, but smaller companies can't do that," Edmiston said. "Baffle Gab has been really clever."
Olson expects Baffle Gab sales for this year to be under $1 million, but he expects to make a profit by next year. In addition to pushing the original Baffle Gab, the company is developing a Spanish-language version and Party Gab, a version of the game aimed at adults.
Long said he isn't surprised to see a new Puget Sound area game company arrive on the scene. When he attends industry conferences around the country, people always ask him what's going on in Seattle.
"This area is definitely a hotbed of new game companies," Long said.
Contact: hrdietrich@bizjournals.com • 206-447-8505 x112
