Nobody Wants to Steal Your Brilliant Idea

Nobody Wants to Steal Your Brilliant Idea

I have been sitting on a million idea for maybe the last decade: a horror hotel. We all know about haunted houses as well as themed hotels. But what about a horror hotel wherein the terror is manufactured? Each would-be visitor would fill out a questionnaire that indicates where their comfort boundaries are, times they wish not to be disturbed, that sort of thing. The hotel would feature rooms with showers that seem to bleed, or balconies that seem to have someone pacing on them in the middle of the night, or the occasional zombie chasing guests to their rooms. It's brilliant! I dare you to tell me otherwise!

Now. I'm not a lawyer, so I couldn't even begin to comprehend the scope of liability and risk here, so to make this work, I'd need a bunch of lawyers. If you know me, I spend my money on games, so I can't afford to hire lawyers. Or build a hotel, for that matter. So I'd also need someone to financially back the whole project. To be clear, I'm also not an architect or an engineer. So we'd need to hire some of them too. You know, to design the hotel. Guess what? I can't build it either, so we'd need to hire folks for that. But I have an outstanding idea that would make us all a lot of money! And I say "us" because it's my idea, so I believe I am entitled to some of the profit. Not a lot, mind you, but a tidy sum feels appropriate.

At this point, if you've not rolled your eyes so hard that you hurt yourself, then I congratulate you!

I'm guessing you rolled your eyes because nobody would ever pay me just for that idea. I know you didn't roll your eyes at the idea, because it's brilliant. If you disagree, then you're straight-up wrong. But you'd be right if you rolled your eyes because nobody will buy this idea! Why would they? Even if it's a terrific idea, I'm not in a position to contribute anything to its execution. Anybody who "stole my idea" would need to start from scratch. It's easier to, you know, not do that.

The same is true of board games. I've been doing a lot of reading on board game development as I slowly work toward my own development goals. I am confident that I've got some really good ideas written down in my notebook. I've got some good ideas on my computer, too. And I'm maybe a sixth of the way toward a working prototype of a game about which I'm really excited. But if someone were to steal any of that material, they'd still have to make the damn game. Sure, some ideas are further along than others, but the vast majority of what I've got so far still really needs to be fleshed out. It's not there yet. And that's okay! Part of me is really impatient with myself for taking so long, but honestly, what's the rush? Nothing I'm working on has a clock (it's not like I've been trying to produce a dinosaur board game for the past several years and the dino-game rush went right past me, you know?), so what exactly is my rush? But because I'm still working on this stuff, there's part of me that really adores what I'm working on, and I'd hate to see it out in the world with someone else's name on it.

Except, let's be honest: do I really have to worry about that? All of the experts in the field say no. Couple of quick hits on why that's the case.

• The gaming community is relatively intimate, and so stealing someone else's ideas is cause for bad blood and even a substantial rumor about it can easily end a designer's career.
• They'll have to create a game that they don't care about as much as I do. They're not as invested in it, it's not their idea, and there's no evidence that it'll do well. So why are they going to go through all of that work? Short answer: they won't.

There are too many components to creating a board game that act as obstacles to someone looking to lift your idea. So when we jealously guard the things on which we're working, we don't do ourselves any favors. The reason I haven't shared my ideas here on this blog is simply because the majority of my ideas are just one or two sentences. They're still *just* ideas. Not very interesting reading, in my opinion, and I strive for a little more content when I post here.

...I'm not saying they're wrong; I'm just saying they're being rude...

I promise that as some ideas make headway, I'll be sharing them here. Part of that is building up my confidence in what I'm working on, since I'm just an amateur game designer. The bottom line here is this: if you have an idea you like, share it with folks you trust! You don't need to plaster it all over the interwebz, but when you keep it completely to yourself, I promise that you are not doing yourself any favors. You don't know what other people can contribute to your idea until you trust them with it. And sure, you do have to ask yourself, "How important is it to me that it's only my name on this game box as a designer?" And if that's so important to you, then yeah, I guess you gotta wait awhile to share your game with anyone. But I think that's a real shame, because you never know how much faster you could've gotten it together or how much better it could've been with help from a friend or colleague. I gotta say that the game design I'm most excited about right now is a pick-up and deliver game, and I really thought that I had some solid and unique ideas! I think the theme is fun but also interesting, it works well with the central mechanic, and I introduced an element I'd never before seen in a pick-up and deliver game.

Then I sat down and talked with Chad about it. And he thought of a wrinkle that really just sorta blew my mind and makes my game idea so much more than it was before. And I can tell you that it's a mechanic I never would've considered introducing in the first place, so I'd never have reached that design space! But honestly, it's going to be, in my mind, a huge selling point on the game! Despite our extensive experience as board gamers, we're very new to the role of designers. But we've started meeting up more often to talk games and design and work on a couple of ideas. And sure, we're not moving at light speed, and not everything comes fast and furious to us. We're a little stuck on another idea we both really like, but could go in about ten different directions with. But this is our process, and that's the way it goes. We need to not beat ourselves up, we need to go through the paces, and ultimately, we're confident that we can produce some really terrific content together. He's not interested in stealing my ideas, and I'm not interested in stealing his. Could each of us try? I'm sure we could! But I can tell you with a fair amount of confidence that we wouldn't get very far!

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But seriously, y'all want to pay for my horror hotel? Because it really is an outstanding idea.