What does our mission statement ACTUALLY mean?

If you have visited our website or supported one of our Kickstarter projects, you may have seen our mission statement before.

At PickPocket Games, our goal is make "games you can share with anyone". Today, I want to talk about how that mission informs our decisions and drives the direction of our company forward.

To start, I think it would be helpful to explain where our mission came from because I think the context really helps illustrate intention here. PickPocket is not my first foray into the board game industry. I spent several years prior to starting this company working for other publishers (most notably, Keymaster Games and 25th Century Games). I love the work I got to do and the people I got to work with at those companies and I learned a lot about not just how to make great games, but how important it is to support the audiences that are built around those games. 

There are a lot of ways that a company can support their customers after they release a game. Great customer service and community engagement is a good start with things like free replacement parts, answering rules questions, staying engaged with online conversations about your games, etc... All of these things help a game have a long and healthy life and continue to get to the table for years to come. 

I feel like most companies KNOW the importance of supporting their audience and their games long-term, but don't do enough to focus on it. After all, it's much more exciting to spend money working on a new game than to spend money supporting a game that you released 5 years ago.

When I ventured off on my own to begin my own studio, I only knew I wanted one thing to be true of the games we released. I wanted them to still be getting played and supported years after we released them. I wanted our company to be built to last and our games to continue to be discovered by new players no matter how long it had been since they were released. To do that, we established three core tenets that have driven the company ever since:

1) Easy to Teach

Notice that I didn't say "Easy To PLAY". Some of our games can be simple and lightweight, others can be more robust and deep. For us, all that matters is that the game is as easy as possible to just start playing. That doesn't mean sacrificing depth, it means simple core systems that are easy to teach.

Now, this also means that the player who is teaching the game needs to be able to learn the game easily too! Our rulebooks are clear, concise, and packed with example imagery to help reinforce gameplay. The front covers also feature QR codes linked to thorough how-to-play videos for those who learn better from audio/visual.

2) Easy To Buy

We put a lot of careful consideration into our releases with a heavy emphasis on making products with accessible price-points alongside customer service and processes that give you peace of mind for your purchase (like free replacement parts and a 30-day money back guarantee). 

This line of thinking is the reason our Kickstarter campaigns are fulfilled in just 6-8 months. We put in the work to have the game ready to print and ship as soon as possible, because we know how much it sucks to spend money on a game that you wont see for 1-2 years!

It's also why we consistently send out review copies to as many media/creators as possible on a regular basis. We want you to know if the game is a good fit for you before you spend your money on it. For our most recent game, Lodge, we even released a full digital version of the game on Board Game Arena before the physical game was available so that you could try the base game for free before your buy it. 

Board games are a luxury. If you are considering one of our games, we want you to feel confident in your purchase BEFORE you spend your money.

3) Easy To Love

We're making something that we hope you WANT to continue playing for years and years to come. That means designing both the game and the product with intention. If we don't love our games, you won't love our games.

We consider this process an art-form, and we put a lot of care and attention to detail into perfecting our craft. We spare no expense when it comes to producing our games, working with an incredible team of creatives who are passionate about making something stunning and long-lasting.

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We want our games to be played, shared, and enjoyed for a long time. Every decision we make, we try to funnel back through our guiding mission statement. We may not always get it right, but by following these three tenets we hope that we can make games you can share with anyone.