080 – Blue Ocean Strategy in the Board Game Industry – Part 1

Do you want to use the Blue Ocean Strategy for your Game? Check out the Slides I prepared for you

In today’s episode, I asked myself: Why are new games developed? How does it start? And how do the groundbreaking successes differ from less successful games?

I think many games are created because someone is unhappy with aspects of an existing game and thinks they can do better. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that approach. This has resulted in some really good games. But for me, in most cases, it results in incremental improvements rather than completely new genre-defining game concepts. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that either. Even incremental improvements have their justification and produce super successful games. However, the market you are entering is much more competitive than if you have a completely new concept or genre. And as the board games market continues to grow and the supply continues to increase, so of course, does the competition. This is not only the case in the board games market but also in all other saturated markets. That’s why there is a model in economics that helps creators and entrepreneurs to identify new innovative markets. The model I’m referring to is called Blue Ocean Strategy, which I’m sure some people are already familiar with. But I think in the board game environment it is a less known tool. That’s why I wanted to take the opportunity to make a small podcast series out of it and present this model and apply it to the board and card game market.