Blog

The Ten-Thousand Dollar Email

30 avr 20 Christian Lemay

At the beginning of December, we started an emergency print-run for Zombie Kidz Evolution, which was selling faster than we had expected. Our manufacturer promised to have them done by January 10th, at the latest, which would allow our shipper to pick them up in time to be able to catch the boat leaving for France on January 18th. That would be the last boat until Chinese New Year, at which point EVERYTHING stops in China for a month (and a bit more this year, due to a certain... illness...).

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The Scorpion and the Pandemic

07 avr 20 Christian Lemay Scorpion Masqué

I didn’t want to talk about COVID-19…

I didn’t want to talk about COVID-19… 

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Thoughts on Cannes International Game Festival, and Strategic Decisions

03 mar 20 Christian Lemay Events, Scorpion Masqué, Development, Europe, France, International

Strategic Decisions   It takes time to make a good game. That’s why we have an 18-month period between the moment we start work on a game and its release. This means that we often sign prototypes 2 years before the final version appears on store shelves! This development period that we give ourselves requires us to look more efficiently toward the future and to plan better. 

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2019: In Words and Numbers

10 jan 20 Christian Lemay

Well, here we are: the 4th Scorpion Masqué Year-End Review (and the first to be translated into English!), in words, thoughts, and numbers!Year End Review?For newcomers, my name is Christian Lemay, and I founded Scorpion Masqué in 2006. Every year since 2016 I’ve put together a review of what we’ve been doing for the past 12 months, and also added my thoughts on the board game industry, the marketplace, and how it has evolved over the year. In addition to this, I also give some very juicy financial details. The thinking behind sharing this kind of information was inspired by Steve Jackson Games's Annual Stakeholder Report, as written up by their CEO, Phil Reed.

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Leaving a Mark in the Board Game World

10 nov 19 Christian Lemay

When we released Decrypto, I gave myself the goal to reach the 300th position in the ranking at BoardGameGeek.com. I even dreamt of 200th place, without really believing it. I also told myself that if Decrypto didn’t make it to 500th position, I would give up this whole publishing gig!! Why? Without taking away anything from the other titles in our catalogue, Decrypto had the best potential to connect with the ‘connaisseur’ gamers (notice the quotation marks!) that often visit Board Game Geek, and who play hundreds of games. Our other top-sellers, Monster Chase, and J’te gage que… (I Betcha), don’t appeal to that crowd, despite selling 200,000 and 400,000 copies respectively. If Scorpion Masqué wasn’t able to get Decrypto to 300th place, we would have to be doing something wrong, perhaps without even knowing what… and there’s no room for improvement if we can’t identify our mistakes.

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Are Less-Demanding Games More Popular?

01 juil 19 Christian Lemay

Games today are less confrontational because they measure us subjectively rather than objectively.

Every time a journalist or radio host interviews me, they invariably ask me why there has been such a resurgence of interest in board games. Rediscovering human contact and the desire to avoid screens are the kinds of answers that the media like to hear (yes, yes, it’s always best to tell the media what they want to hear). But is there more to it than that…?I’d like to propose another hypothesis here: games today are less confrontational because they measure us subjectively rather than objectively.Trivia games dominated the ‘adult game’ marketplace throughout the '80s and into the '90s. In this type of game you either know the answer to a question… or you don’t. Your knowledge or abilities are being measured objectively.

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Board Game Stats and the 'Value' of a Game

02 juin 19 Christian Lemay

To ‘get your money’s worth’ out of a game, you absolutely must take into account the ‘opportunity to play’ factor.

 I downloaded the Board Game Stats app at the beginning of January.https://www.bgstatsapp.com/This tool allows me to keep track of ALL the statistics of every board game that I play: how many plays of which games, with whom, when, where…? How long did the games take, who won, with how many points, and a ton of other information that we don’t really need. A tool for total geeks. Like me.

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About Scorpion Masqué

Scorpion Masqué is a leading Montreal-based tabletop game publisher part of the Hachette Group. Since 2006, our passion has been making quality games for children, adults, and the whole family, with the goal of creating memorable moments for everyone. With more than 40 published games, Scorpion Masqué is a recognizable and renowned brand on the international scene. We have a presence in more than 45 countries and have sold over 2.5 million games since the studio founding. Some of our successes include multi award-winning titles such as Zombie Kidz Evolution, Decrypto, and Turing Machine.