I have invented a new chess variant that I truly believe is so good that I believe it is superior to all other types of chess and I believe may well be set to be regarded as an all-time classic that will completely revolutionize the world of chess by eventually becoming the new standard chess i.e. the overwhelmingly most common type of chess internationally played thus replacing the current standard chess (which is technically called 'western chess' ) .
But here I don't want to explain the details of that game but rather hope someone here can geve me some advice with a big problem I have:
I want to profit from my invented chess variant (obviously) but to do that I have to first get a publisher for my game and then hopefully a games company will pay for the patent for it and I can then get royalties.
But, to do that, I have to first contact a publisher; -and that's were I seemed to have hit a brick wall.
I spent many HOURS over the net, but only to then give up in despair, trying to obtain a reasonable shortlist of suitable publishers or games companies I could make first contact to give them my game submission. The problem is there are literally thousands of them in the UK alone and I couldn't find any relevant information that would hint which ones might be interested or how to narrow that down to a sensible shortlist. I can't even find any relevant information about a single one of them!
What am I supposed to do then here? Just idiotically completely randomly choose one despite not knowing the first thing about any of them and see what happens? That's totally ridiculous.
Can anyone here recommend such a publisher?
Or tell me who might?
Or tell me what I should do to find one or how to create a shortlist of them?
I am really desperate here so any help would be greatly appreciated.
@humy saidHonestly, i would be amazed if anyone was prepared to pay for a variant. If it uses the standard pieces and board, then there is no way to market it. Any person with a standard board would be able to just use their own board and pieces to play your version. Now if you were creating some sort of mobile app, maybe that would be different, but it would still be very hard to convert the 100's of millions of players around the world to abandon the standard rules, given the time most players invest into learning this game.
I have invented a new chess variant that I truly believe is so good that I believe it is superior to all other types of chess and I believe may well be set to be regarded as an all-time classic that will completely revolutionize the world of chess by eventually becoming the new standard chess i.e. the overwhelmingly most common type of chess internationally played thus replacing ...[text shortened]... to create a shortlist of them?
I am really desperate here so any help would be greatly appreciated.
There are a couple of really good variants on other sites, chess960, crazyhouse, etc, which are all a lot of fun. But if you look at the numbers of people who play them, it is a fraction (and i mean a tiny fraction) of the number of people who play standard rules.
@Marinkatomb
My chess variant is, just like shogi, played on a larger 9-by-9 square board and has no less than 4 kinds of fairy pieces meaning pieces not found in standard chess, and has no bishops because it has "squids" instead that have similar but not identical movement power to bishops.
Neither player start with the queen but rather a queen for each player is reserved for promotions only and no less than 3 kinds of the fairy pieces can be promoted.
I have always been a chess enthusiast playing in several chess clubs albeit only played in one real chess tournament
I have spend years trying to make a good chess variant and finally did.
In my opinion all the chess variants made by other people that I have so far tried have been hardly worth ever playing instead of standard chess and that includes the two you mentioned, which I didn't find particularly inspiring.
One of my motivations for designing a chess variant was to come up with one that just for once was different in that respect.
My chess variant can never end in a draw and has several big play advantages over standard chess.
Can you recommend to me a publisher?
@humy saidWell the only other instance of a variant being produced by a manufacturer is
@Marinkatomb
My chess variant is, just like shogi, played on a larger 9-by-9 square board and has no less than 4 kinds of fairy pieces meaning pieces not found in standard chess, and has no bishops because it has "squids" instead that have similar but not identical movement power to bishops.
Neither player start with the queen but rather a queen for each player is reserved f ...[text shortened]... raw and has several big play advantages over standard chess.
Can you recommend to me a publisher?
Seirawan chess, which was developed by Yasser Seirawan. House of Staunton sell these 4 extra pieces as a small set. How many they actually sell is unknown to me.
https://www.houseofstaunton.com/musketeer-chess-elephant-and-hawk-kit-sharper-kit-4-pieces.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seirawan_chess
I am really desperate here.
Despite many hours trying over the net, so far I haven't managed to get the contact details or even just a mere name of a single ONE publisher (to contact a games company to arrange patent and manufacture) that deals with games such as board games, let alone a LIST of such publishers!
This is after HOURS trying all sorts of things in the google search engine field such as "List of publishers of board games" etc.
OK, I now think my real questions should be;
How do I obtain the contact details of ANY such publisher?
Can ANYONE here give me ANY one specific example of the contact details of ANY such publisher?
-and, if so, how on earth did to obtain this information?
Anyone?
@humy
http://beach.silcom.com/~tomjolly/design2.htm
https://www.boardgamesmaker.com/customized/custom-board-games.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjtfBmZmE3wIVC1XTCh3qBQEJEAAYASAAEgJfR_D_BwE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_manufacturers
http://www.longpackgames.com
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Game_Manufacturers
@moonbus
Thanks for that. Very much appreciated.
I will now systematically look through every one of those links and then try and contact some of those publishers in due course.
If and when this turns out to be successful, I will eventually post full details of my chess variant here.
It funny but, for example, when I put "List of publishers of chess variants" in the google search engine, all I get is either stuff about "publishing books" or "list of chess variants" but never what I actually ask for or what I want. Stupid search engines. I guess anyone who figures out how to make a smart search engine could get rich from it.
Let him have his fun... good luck, humy!
p.s. surprised nobody has mentioned anything about a patent yet... if it's going to become so successful that it will replace chess itself in terms of popularity, then securing a patent would be top of my priorities.
But he has spent HOURS on the web... makes it sound like a LOT of effort, so I'm sure he'll do well.