With messages pinging back and forth about new releases and livestream times on popular digital community platform "Discord," "TBD Gaming" could be mistaken as a chat room for typical console enthusiasts. But, scattered across multiple continents, its members are concerned with a distinctly more analog pursuit -- board games.
Those joining the server are welcomed by Smoox Chen (???), one of the founders of Taiwan Board Game Design, or TBD.
Since 2013, TBD has grown from a group of like-minded enthusiasts and indie board game designers to become an internationally renowned supplier of Taiwan-made tabletop games.
Well-known sources of family disputes such as "Monopoly" or "Settlers of Catan" are largely absent from TBD Gaming, with the sidebar instead featuring discussions on an eclectic mix of titles including "T-Rex's Holiday," "Cleocatra," "1, 2, 3 Cheese," and Taiwan-centric offerings "Ubike Tours" and "Formosa Flowers."
Board games can be a great ice breaker, as they encourage communication and camaraderie. These tenants have served as guiding principles for Chen when introducing Taiwanese board games to the rest of the world.
"We are from Taiwan, and this is a Taiwanese board game." The phases are often the simplest and most to-the-point mantra Chen and his TBD coworkers repeat to prospective international buyers.
From social club to flag bearer
Chen is the mastermind behind TBD, moving the pieces between logistics and coordination to lead the group on trips, where members would sacrifice their luggage space in hopes of squeezing in one more unit to showcase to an international audience.
"When I was a kid, I barely played any games," Chen recalled. "I might play some video games here and there, but I was never addicted. I was the type of student who put study first."
With a PhD in biochemistry, the 42-year-old Chen once had a stable job as a researcher in Taipei, but now, he dedicates his life to promoting Taiwanese board games full time.
"I am truly grateful to my professor," Chen said. "He was really concerned about me, and challenged me to think whether board games were truly 'good business,' but he nonetheless gave me a lot of freedom and supported my decision."
Chen said that during his tenure with his professor, he had spent the majority of his days diving deep into English publications about stem cells and mitochondria. One day in 2009, a friend from grad school decided that Chen needed a hobby.
"After my first foray into it (the world of board games), I couldn't resist the urge to keep going," he recalled. "I would spend my off days researching board game websites, dropping a lot of money."
It was not long before Chen realized that no matter where he looked, online or in brick-and-mortar stores, he seldom found games made by Taiwanese designers.
"I ended up getting to know game designers," he said, "and I discovered that tabletop games needed to be tried and tested for bugs and playability. However, it was hard for local designers to find enough people or space for game tests."
As a result, he said, "even before we have a solid board games environment here (in Taiwan), I ended up creating get-togethers for board game designers."
Brainstorming among designers
According to Chen, the first monthly meet was attended by 15 designers, most of whom were only making games as part-time passion projects. The designers created their games after getting off work, sacrificing whatever free time they had for what was then just a hobby.
However, at that time, Taiwan's market was relatively small, lacking both shops and players, he pointed out. "Even if one of us had the capital, it wasn't easy to find a channel to sell the products, making it impossible to pursue board game designing as a full-time job."
Yet, the lack of resources did not diminish the designers' ambitions, according to Chen. The monthly gathering eventually became home to a staple group of regulars playing games for hours on end, regardless of location, even in places as distracting as fast-food restaurants.
Soon, emerging crowdfunding platforms online opened the doors for the board game enthusiasts to get the funds they needed to turn a social club into what has now become Taiwan's foremost promoter of board games.
In 2013, just four years after his introduction to board games, TBD was officially formed by Chen and his friends thanks to funding from a disparate group of crowdfunding backers.
Shortly after the platform's birth, board game shops and parlors began to gain traction in Taiwan. However, starting a business is always difficult due to the lack of distribution channels to markets, Chen said.
"We used to have boxes and boxes of our games stacked in a corner in our homes," he recalled. "We even used to joke that we all got new beds -- ones that are rock hard when we sleep on it."
As luck would have it, during one casual conversation, TBD designers were jokingly introduced to Tokyo's Game Market, a biennial convention founded in April 2000 for games that do not require electricity.
In 2013, what was a humorous suggestion became reality when they brought their self-designed games to the Japanese event as participating vendors.
Game on
While reserved at first, worried about the unpredictable reception and sales at the Tokyo convention, TBD got a confidence boost on the quality of their products after one of its members, Soso Studio (????), sold a record 10 units of its self-published "Castle Crush!" game in just one hour.
The pieces of "Castle Crush!" were all handmade by a professional carpenter, Chen said, "the cost was very high, and I remember it sold for 6,000 Japanese yen (US$52.74) if not more."
They had been so worried that as a first-time attendee, the game could not garner buyer interest because of the high price, but in fact, it sold unexpectedly fast, Chen said.
The Game Market also provided TBD with the necessary networking and exposure with international connections and potential partners. Since then, the company has been participating in many international shows and platforms, including the Essen Game Fair (Internationale Spieltage SPIEL) in Germany, the world's largest board game trade fair.
Beginning in 1983, the Essen fair is widely considered the climax of the year among board game aficionados. Chen himself made multiple pilgrimages to the show prior to establishing TBD, and the language skills he honed while in academia provided him with enough confidence to fully immerse himself in the international setting.
With translated games such as Dadaocheng (???), based on its namesake historical market in Taipei, TBD frequently lauds the beauty of Taiwan and the artistry of its people, telling the story of the island through board games.
In the eyes of international game publishers, Taiwanese board games share a unique allure, Chen said. "This charm is hard to describe, as it is not about a difference in game mechanism, but rather about the way Taiwanese people deliver stories with humor."
"This particular trait often brings a smile onto the faces of board game players in western countries," he said.
In Chen's eyes, TBD operates very much like an agency, with a goal that is both direct and straightforward: "We aim to take Taiwan board games or designers to all the biggest international conventions."
"Our mission is to license our games to foreign publishers, and do our best to get everyone with us a contract," he said.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel