Tasty Minstrel Games

Tabletop games date as far back as 3500 BC, but recent interest has led to the development of more innovative, creative options.

Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) has already produced 60 games, with a wide array of options ranging from the civilization-building card game Eminent Domain to the fantasy-adventure dice game Dungeon Roll.

Since inception, the company has sold over 400,000 games and has generated over $5 million in gross sales, including more than $1.2 million in revenue in 2016.

Its gross profit increased 33% in 2016 to more than $475,000 from over $350,000 in 2015.

One of its most popular games is Eminent Domain, a civilization-building game for two to four players. Players must build a space empire by colonizing nearby planets or by taking them by force.

Each player’s abilities are based on a deck of Role cards. At the beginning of the game, each player has the same deck of cards, including two cards for each Role. Each turn, players must choose a Role from the communal deck to execute, and in doing so they will add that Role card to their deck.

When executing a Role, players can boost its effect by playing cards out of their own deck that match the Role they have chosen. Over the course of the game, players choose to specialize in their own combination of Roles, allowing them to take over planets, harvest and trade resources, or research for points and upgraded abilities.

THE MARKET
The board game market has grown rapidly in recent years. The NPD Group reports that the U.S. board game market grew from $794 million in 2008 to $1.6 billion in 2015.

Game sales—including tabletop games, card and dice games, role-playing games, and strategy games—grew by 21% in 2016. According to Euromonitor International, global sales of games and puzzles have grown from $9.3 billion in 2013 to $9.6 billion in 2016.

This growth may be spurred in part by Millennials; around 30% of Millennials say they are interested in visiting a board-game themed café or bar, and they find the reusability and travel-friendly nature of board games offsets the initial purchase cost.

Sales in the adult party games, a popular segment that includes edgy and risqué content, jumped 138% through November 2016 from the same period last year.

This market growth may also be attributed to a lower cost barrier for new games as technological advances allow manufacturers to affordably create and distribute their products.

Tabletop game developers have also branched into collaborating with mobile and video game systems by providing electronic versions of popular games for further expansion.

The company plans to continue to build brand awareness and introduce new titles to this growing market.

Team Background

Michael Mindes - CEO and Co-founder

Before founding TMG, Michael worked as a financial advisor for over eight years.

Michael started TMG as a side business and it was more than five years before he hired the first employee of TMG. Thus, Michael has done everything associated with building and running TMG, including but not limited to, game development, financial management, product design, artwork coordination, manufacturing management, talent scouting (HR), training, logistics, customer service, marketing, and sales.

As CEO, Michael concentrates on further enabling and assisting the team at TMG.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy with a minor in Economics from Northern Arizona University.

Seth Jaffee - Co-Head of Games and Co-founder

Seth was a behind-the-scenes supporter of TMG from the beginning, always striving to discover games, develop games, and do pre-product development.

Now an official member of the TMG team, Seth discovers games, develops them, and helps usher them through the production process.

Formerly, Seth was a structural engineer. But that took a back seat as soon as TMG launched his first game, Terra Prime.

His most popular title, Eminent Domain, was TMG’s first crowdfunded game.

Seth graduated from the University of Arizona.

Daniel Hadlock - President

Co-Investors