Chapter 015 - 2005.02.12

She and her company had secured -

• the Desperate Housewives board game license.

She was giving a few of her best inventors -

• the assignment creating the best game.

Marc Cherry, show creator,

• would be selecting the winning submission.

After I got home -

• I went straight to work.

First needed to watch the show -

• which I had not been doing.

Fast forward a month or so -

• and I got the word -

  • Marc had selected my creation.

Mine would be the one that would be further developed.

They were claiming it would sell more than a million units.

We were given an extremely low royalty percent -

• because of the expected mega-sales.

Marc was quite difficult to work with.

He wanted what he wanted -

• with no regard for playability.

He directed an extremely complex game be produced -

• nearly impossible to play.

Here's what ultimately was produced:

Sales were way off the mark -

• at about 431K units sold.

I netted about $13,000 -

• for many months of long stressful work.

The win opened up other doors for me though.

Through the same company,

• I did another seven games -

  • several for Disney brands.

None of them were great games -

• as we were forced into a certain mould.

But the more successes I accumulated -

• the more other game companies -

  • gave us a chance and paid attention to novel ideas.