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Product: Colour n Wipe Dinosaur play mat Company: Eduk8 Tel: 01661 831 080 Email: enquiries@eduk8worldwide.co.uk Web: www.eduk8worldwide.co.uk
Product: STEAM Green Paper Craft Company: Great Gizmos Tel: 01293 543221 Email: sales@greatgizmos.co.uk Web: www.greatgizmos.co.uk Product: Advent Calendars Company: Thames and Kosmos Tel: 01580 713000 Email: sales@thamesandkosmos.co.uk Web: www.thamesandkosmos.co.uk
STAND N5
The right Format
In an unlikely career move, radio DJ and TV presenter Matt Edmondson has been developing games since well before lockdown. He outlines why he loves playing and why he’s looking forward to meeting TnP readers at Toy Fair…
Matt Edmondson
Radio 1 DJs, and radio DJs in general, have always followed a traditional route when it comes to work outside their slots on the wireless. Television presenting, moving into game or chat shows, writing autobiographies, doing voiceovers for ads, hosting Top of the Pops… It’s a well-worn path.
One DJ breaking the mould when it comes to this is Matt Edmondson.
He’s taken an entirely new path and, alongside his business partner (and brother-in-law) Laurence Emmett, is developing and publishing games under the Format Games banner and has inked a deal with Asmodee that sees the company distributing the ideas that he has come up with, developed and published.
It is now more than a sideline and a fully-fledged operation, backed by Asmodee’s games nouse and with a roster of games, both in the marketplace and on the way.
So how did it all come about?
“I’ve always loved board games,” he explains. “Part of the rest of my job is coming up with lots of formats for things; I host a radio show so I had to come up with games and features for that and I run a TV production company and have to come up with formats.
‘‘Coming up with games isn’t that dissimilar to coming up with an idea for radio or TV, be it a quiz or something else.’’
When lockdown hit, Edmondson had even more time on his hands, with production on his TV series Dress To Impress shut down.
He and Emmett were discussing potential ideas and, as an experiment, they developed Ansagrams. They had a go at making it, using YouTube for help and guidance. “My God, did I learn through trial and error on Ansagrams, I made loads of mistakes but eventually got it to a point where we were happy.”
Printed before Christmas, received in December 2020, initial sales via Amazon started taking off, then expanding on to Etsy, they became one of the site’s bestsellers and sold the entire stock of a few thousand.
This led to John Lewis stocking it. “They said a very dangerous thing to me, which is if you have any other ideas, let us know by February. This was in January. So we pitched them two other games.”
One was Egg Slam, developed with his young daughter, and So Wrong It’s Right. Mocked up and pitched, John Lewis took them. As Edmondson notes: “We’d gone from being this experiment to having three games in John Lewis. We realised we might need someone to help us with distribution.”
Laurence Emmett
This brought the Asmodee hook-up (“and since then it’s grown”). Games now include Karen, with one-star online reviews turned into a game, and Wheels Vs Doors, as well as the award-winning Noggin. Design and manufacturing is now a lot easier. “We’re playing with the big boys now,” says Edmondson, as retailers took stock and games sold out.
Walmart in the US will be taking
Ansagrams
a trio of titles from them, including Karen and Wheels as well as new game Toodles.
There’s more too, including what Edmondson says is the best – and most addictive – game he’s created, although he won’t reveal further details, but it’s on the way.
The relationship is ideal for Format, he says. “Asmodee has incredible relationships with independent stores, hobby stores and they have big accounts with the major retailers and big supermarkets.
“Their sales team pitches the games, but we pitch directly too. We spoke to lots of people at Toy Fair. If people want us to play games with them, we will.” Asmodee’s US arm fixed up Zoom meetings with Walmart, with Edmondson’s enthusiasm helping pitch the product.
The two work closely on marketing and PR elements, and this is where Edmondson and his contacts book help. He sends games to DJ pals and celebrities, who help create “a level of awareness you just couldn’t pay for”.
Format has expanded and has staff to work with European partners, as the games roll out across the continent, and beyond, as well as a social media staffer. “We will continue to grow, we have a team of designers to work on the nitty gritty of things.”
Edmondson is still closely involved, right down to box design and more, and his genuine sense of enthusiasm shines through. “I love getting involved,” he says, “I get to be the fun ideas man. I can have the ideas and execute them in a short space of time, we turn things round quickly.”
So far, Edmondson notes, it’s all been working out for them and they’ve yet to have a rejection. “With the board games, I know if it’s going to work within a minute of having the idea, I can see it being played out in my head. It’s very rare that it doesn’t play out
“Now, Edmondson is ready for Toy Fair, his enthusiasm for the business is unrestrained
”
like it did in my head. When you test them, generally speaking, they’re 90% there. We haven’t pitched anything that people have said they don’t want it. We’ve been lucky. We have a strike rate of 100%.”
How does it come so naturally? How does he work it all through? “I have more ideas than I could ever hope to make, so you have to focus on the ones you want to do, and the ones that will complement the range or are so different they’ll open us up to a new audience or slightly different market.
“I don’t really know how the creative process works, other than if I have an idea I tend to be able to get it out fairly quickly, especially the initial design.”
When it comes to the nontraditional path he’s taken for a radio DJ, he smiles knowingly. “It’s not surprising to [other DJs]. On the radio, I love a game, I love a feature. There’s a myth that to be on Radio 1 you have to be cool. I’m not cool. There are people on Radio 1 who are cool, who stay up all night and come in hungover from the Brits. I’m a nerd. I hate going out, I love playing board games. “For me it’s an obvious industry to go into, because I unashamedly love it.” Even at the Radio 1 Christmas party, he had his own corner for attendees to go and play Noggin with him Now, Edmondson is ready for
Toy Fair, his enthusiasm for the business is unrestrained. He still enjoys it, still loves playing other games from rival companies as well as prototyping. “We’re going to be there for the whole time, with Asmodee, demoing the current range and some new stuff as well, It’s my favourite thing to be at those industry events, meeting people and playing games.
“I can talk about them until the cows come home, but if you play the games I know you’ll love them. If any of your readers want to try them out, please come and find us!”
