ROXLEY GAMES LAB’S PAUL SAXBERG ON GAMER COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT, HOW TO SUPERCHARGE CROWDFUNDING, AND THE DO + DON’T OF PUBLIC APOLOGIES, ENGAGEMENT + MARKETING (MF GALAXY 108)

MF GALAXY

TV killed radio, ebooks killed paperbacks, and video games killed board games, right? Wrong, of course. In fact, according to my guest on today’s show, we’re living in the golden age of board games.

When I was a kid, all I knew was Monopoly, checkers, chess, backgammon, Trivial Pursuit, and the Game of Life. Now walk into any board game store, or these crazy things called table top cafes, and you’ll see wall after wall lined with board games, and people paying cover charge to sit with their friends for hours playing them. What is the freaking deal?

To answer that question I spoke with Paul Saxberg, the community manager for Roxley Games Laboratory. Roxley is a Calgary developer and publisher of board games. Saxberg told me he wouldn’t be in gaming community management without years of experience with game design, theatre, book sales, stand up comedy, IT, and ADHD.

At this point you’re probably asking, “What is community management, and why does it sound so awful?” You’ll get answers to those questions and learn why it’s actually excellent. Saxberg and I discussed plenty, including:

• What board games offer that video games simply can’t
• How to supercharge your crowdfunding campaign
• How to get great publicity for your game or other project
• How not to manage a gaming community or any other community
• How game companies and other groups can improve their reputation, and how they can sink it, and
• How to apologise, and how not to, when your company screws up publicly

Because Saxberg has a background in theatre, we began by discussing the link between stage and games, and why we’re living in the golden age of board games. We spoke by Skype on December 28, 2016.