Game agents are some of the most important contacts anyone can have within the board game industry. If you are new to the business of making board games, or if you’ve invented a game you hope to see manufactured, you are going to want to find an agent that believes in your idea(s) as much as you do. They are industry insiders who know people at all levels, from graphic designers to manufacturers to game company executives. They know what has been successful in the past, and they know what will likely do well in the future. Of course, sometimes they are wrong, but for the most part their knowledge, experience, and expertise within the board game industry are invaluable.

Basically, the role of a game agent is to be a mediator between you and a game company. Some companies will accept unsolicited proposals for board game ideas directly from inventors, but most do not. In fact, the bigger a game company becomes, the less likely they are to entertain any outside ideas. This is so they can’t be accused of stealing ideas from anyone. As a game company grows, it may have more and more new concepts being developed which raises the odds that an idea from within the company will coincidentally be similar to an idea from outside the company. And no company wants a lawsuit; especially since being bigger over time means it has more resources and is therefore a potentially bigger legal target.

The solution to this is to accept ideas for new games, but only through an agent. This does two things. First, it takes away the threat of lawsuits. Second, and probably more importantly, agents filter out the ideas that would likely have been rejected by game companies. An agent will only agree to represent a product concept that he or she believes has enough originality and mass market appeal to be profitable, so convincing an agent to represent your idea is half the battle. If you do get such an agreement, the agent will then do pretty much all of the work from that point on, and at no cost to you.

So, how do agents get paid? As previously mentioned, an agent isn’t going to waste time (and effort and resources) representing a product that he or she suspects will be rejected by every potential company that could be approached. But, if an agent is able to strike a deal with a game company and convinces them to take a chance on your idea, the agent will then receive a percentage of your royalties. For as long as that company manufactures the game you invented, one check will be sent to you and another will go to the agent. The standard amount to pay out as royalties is five percent of the wholesale price of a game (or toy). Out of that amount, your agent receives anywhere from thirty to sixty percent. The more unknown and unproven you are as in an inventor, the more of your royalties go to your agent. This, of course, is negotiable and also depends on the perceived value of your idea, but realize what you get for sharing your royalties with an agent: a professional that can help you fine tune your idea to make it more marketable, and access to the larger game companies who would never have looked at your idea in the first place.

Some agents deal exclusively with the largest game and toy companies (i.e., Mattel, Hasbro) and they will charge a fee to evaluate your idea. (If they agree to represent you, the fee is typically refunded.) These agents are extremely particular about what they represent because companies like Mattel or Hasbro won’t manufacture a game or toy unless they believe they can sell at least 300,000 units per year. So if one of these agents rejects your idea, it doesn’t mean others wont accept it, it just means he or she believes that your game won’t sell several hundred thousand annually.

Lastly, keep in mind that the business relationship between you and an agent is, in fact, a relationship. You don’t want to work with someone who only likes your idea, but someone you get along with and trust. When you find the right agent, follow his or her advice as best you can, because striking a deal with a game company is what you are both now after.