What's The Point?

When interviewed by The Cardboard Herald and W. Eric Martin back in January one of the first questions they both asked was why I'm doing what I'm doing. Why hand-craft games rather than submit them to publishers? Why fund it myself rather than go the Kickstarter route?

Both good and valid questions, and despite the fact that I know why I'm doing it, I flailed around a bit for an answer when on the record. As a result I've spent some time thinking about why I'm doing this. Why I'm risking my own money and investing a decent chunk of my time into the project. It's not to start a company that will become a full-time concern for me - I've tried that and failed spectacularly once already, and while Jamey Stegmaier has the skills, I don't - I accept that.

So, in a very buzzword bingo, corporate-speak-esque fashion (I am a manager in a large corporation in my day job after all), I've decided to codify my mission, values and strategy. While that seems frankly ridiculous in a company with only one person (me), I figure the time spent thinking about it is probably time well spent, and if I can codify them I've them got something written down that I can refer to and check that I'm still heading in the right direction. I can also use them as a yardstick: Has my behaviour lived up to my aspirations?

By publicising them here I'm committing to them, and you guys can hold me accountable too!

So here they are:

Why

I'm passionate about playing, designing and crafting games and sharing my designs with other gamers

Mission

Crafting unique board gaming experiences

Values

Craftsmanship in everything I do
Building community
Encouraging and supporting crafting in others
Lightening the mood with humour
Supporting charities

Strategy

Make small, profit-making hand-crafted print runs of unusual games finished to a very high standard
Grow the business to make larger/more complex games possible in future
Re-prints of popular games can be licensed to other publishers or not
Make my games available to other crafters as Print and Play editions
Build a crafting community


What do you think of them?