In our current issue, Rob Trounce, Hachette’s marketing manager, told TnP a positive and entertaining story that explained the early successes and spilled the joys of working at Hachette Boardgames UK. It’s a seriously fun read and, as they say in every bar, cafe and restaurant up and down the country these days – ENJOY!!!

You clearly have a great chemistry – how did you all end up at Hachette?

Everyone at Hachette Boardgames UK (HBG UK) has come from different spaces. Our GM, Flavien, is an engineer from the automotive industry. Our sales director, Rory, spent years with Apple and in the book industry. We have staff who are ex-IBM, come from optometry, and I specialised in the food sector, running a marketing consultancy for 10 years and spending time as marketing director with a restaurant chain. 

We bring these various skillsets from different industries to board gaming because all of us are passionate about it. We love gaming, and we are inspired and excited by the potential to grow this industry and hobby. We believe it’s a vehicle to bring people together, to indulge in shared experiences – vital in a world that’s becoming more addicted to digital screens.

You are clearly achieving early successes – what’s the secret and who takes the credit? 

There are push and pull factors. So first, the push factor. The world is changing and year-on-year we see growth in the games sector. We’ve just overseen a record-breaking UK Games Expo, the biggest event of its kind in the UK, and that’s set to grow into new halls at Birmingham NEC next year. People are becoming more conscious of screentime, digital clutter and technology taking over our lives, and a reaction to that is to embrace tabletop gaming – a hobby as old as the human race itself in many ways, and a vehicle for being together, talking together, laughing together and enjoying time with friends.

The pull factor comes in the form of the ever-growing talents in the gaming industry. While we may only be a team of seven at Hachette, we would be nothing without the endless support of our publishers, the designers they work with, and the stunning games they bring to the table (literally) for us. We work to bring the very best games from Europe and Japan to the UK market, and we are consistently excited by what the design studios and publishers provide us with. 

How would you describe the space you are playing in? 

A warm, welcoming, and uniquely human hobby that is about bringing people together. The tactility of gaming produces truly mindful experiences and allows us to connect with our most joyful instinct and activity – that of play and the fun that comes with it. There’s a game for everyone from relaxed and silly dexterity games to brain-burning strategy games – all we are trying to do is to find the right ones for each person.

You said recently that the games space is “more refreshing” than your previous experience. In what way?

The food industry is rife with cost-cutting strategies. Shrinkflation, cheaper formulations, and shirking on expensive ingredients. Gaming, by contrast, is a quality-first space.
I won’t pretend that costs and margins don’t matter, but the product is always, always first. Every publisher, distributor, retailer etc recognises that the gameplay plus the tactility, art and the quality of a game should always be prioritised over cost-cutting.

You have taken Adam Davies on to concentrate on the move towards the family-oriented/kids game category. Will this be at the expense of the other categories? 

No! On the contrary, we have some of the biggest titles ever coming to our strategy game range this year including the much-lauded Legendary Edition of Cyclades. But we are expanding all of our lines, and our Family range has an absolutely incredible range of multi award-winning titles. Every week we’re seeing board gaming become more accessible as a hobby due to the ever-increasing number of outlets for play such as gaming cafes, and we’re also fielding numerous queries every day from savvy toy stores who are looking to diversify their range into board games. Adam’s background in the toys space means he will be well equipped for dealing with toy, gifting and family-oriented stores of all shapes and sizes and will be able to help any store find the ideal range for them.

We remember you saying: “If I could tell my eight-year-old self what I’m doing now I’d have given myself a high five.” What excites you so much about this sector? 

Play is such a fundamental part of our psyche and its one that we engage with from our earliest days in the world. Long before we can speak, walk, read – we can play. And that instinct never leaves us. Sometimes as adults we can be guilty of trying to suppress it, but play is fun and it never ceases to be. It’s a joy to be in a career that respects the importance of play.

The other part of this is loneliness. UK government statistics have shown that 47% of the UK’s population regularly experiences feelings of loneliness. Games have a unique ability to bring people together and facilitate meaningful interaction with one another. I’m not claiming that games can solve the loneliness epidemic, but I believe they’re a tool to bringing about a happier and more connected culture.

What are your personal favourites on the HBG UK product front?

I’m very attuned to whom I’m playing with, and a big believer in picking the right game for a group. If I’m playing with kids, I’m always reaching for Stomp The Plank – a combination of push-your-luck and careful stacking with elephants who are slowly making their way down the plank on a pirate ship. If I’m teaching people who are new to games, I love to show them Quoridor PAC-MAN, which sees the arcade classic come to life on your tabletop – one player takes PAC-MAN and must gobble up power pellets, while the other players control Ghosts who must chase PAC-MAN down.

What were your favourite games and puzzles when you were a child?

I credit Monopoly with first getting me interested in board games. So much of modern board game design has DNA that first appeared in Monopoly – auctions, negotiation, resource management with money. I fell down the trap I mentioned earlier of getting hooked on video games when I was young. Fortunately, it meant me and a few friends huddling around a Super Nintendo system and the TV to play Mario Kart. It was fun and communal. That all but disappeared as video games increasingly moved online. When I got back into board games in the early 2010s it felt like rekindling a fire and threw me back into that feeling of playing games with my pals – all the laughs, banter, trash talking, and cheers as people make big moves and smart plays.

What is the most fun you and your colleagues have in the working day? 

We love building an effective and impactful gaming business, but ultimately it’s about two things for us: the games and the players. To that end, our favourite times are the polar opposite points in the game distribution process: getting our hands on sample games, and ultimately getting them in front of players.

Every couple of weeks we’ll get the latest test and sample copies through from our publishers, and despite working remotely we’ll all huddle in on a Teams call and run through the box of goodies together. We all love games in this company, and so it feels a bit like a mini-Christmas each time there’s a delivery and we get to pore over the multiple new boxes of joy. This might be the earliest time we see them physically, which leads to my second favourite type of working day: conventions and expos.

We attend approximately 10 events a year, powering through weekends of teaching people games and showing off new stuff, and it never gets old. Ultimately, it’s all about putting great games on people’s tables, and nothing quite beats that feeling of watching people play at conventions – from uninitiated gamers taking up their first modern board game, to kids beating mum and dad in a game, to laughter as people tuck into a social game. It brings it all to life.