Spiel MD Carol Rapp on what designers, families and gamers can expect from next week’s show

Carol, it’s great to catch up. Let’s start at the beginning – was a career in games always on the cards?
It was always games! We played games at home – classical board games, but also European card games like Doppelkopf. My aunt always gifting us Spiel des Jahres-winning games too, so my way to the industry was paved early on!

That said, I did an apprenticeship in a totally different industry. It covered everything – HR, logistics, purchasing, sales, marketing… The company I did that for worked in shifts – three shifts a day. My body disagreed with that, so I left and went into event management for game publishers. I worked on the event which is now called CATAN Connect – we did the first one back in 2005 for Kosmos with over 800 people playing the game at the same time. So that’s how I got started in this space. Later I moved to Asmodee Germany, first in marketing, later taking on the role as CEO and then transitioning to the international marketing.

That experience on the publisher-side must be useful now that you look after one of the board game industry’s premiere events in Spiel.
Absolutely. I worked for Kosmos and Asmodee for many years, so I know both the pain points and good things about events for board game publishers! It’s helpful because it means I can empathize 100% with the publishers’ perspective on things.

Spiel is taking place next week. What makes a successful show for you?
For me, it’s the moment when the doors open and I see all the happy faces storming into the halls – and to see those happy faces lasting until the end of the day or the end of show. When people leave with happy, smiling faces, we know we’ve done our job right.

At the same time, if publishers and traders tell us it was a great show because they had so many people at their booth playing games, that’s exactly what we want. Talk to me at the end of day four and I can tell you how the show went!

I will! And am I right in thinking every exhibitor has an area of their stand devoted to people being able to sit down and play games? Is that an official rule?
It’s not an official rule, but it has become a core part of Spiel’s DNA for exhibitors to have that.

It started back in 1983 when Friedhelm Merz, the founder of Spiel, said: “Every person coming to the show should be able to sit down, playtest games and enjoy themselves.” We’ve embraced that and continue to do so today.

The tabletop space has grown a lot over the years – and continues to do so. Do you feel there’s still room to bring new people into the hobby?
Oh yes, there is still a lot of room to grow. Over the past two years, we’ve seen more families come to the show – more children and younger people – and that’s exactly what we want to see. We also love the hobbyists that come every year, but new people drives the business. The hobby is more or less a static figure that changes a few hundred up and down every year, but the new people grows the overall show.

That’s where I feel the media – at least in Germany – could be a bit better. We have a lot of people talking about games, most of them content creators, but the general press are not so fond of games. We miss that which is disappointing as that could be key to find new audiences for the hobby. Look at Flip 7 for example – such an easy game to learn, very mass market, and so enjoyable for anyone!

How do you grow that family audience for the show without disrupting the core hobby attendee base? I imagine it’s a bit of a balancing act?
Yeah, it’s very tricky. We have specific themed areas. There’s a real hobby core area, so if you’re deep into the hobby, go there first and you will find your tribe. We also have a miniature area which is growing every year, and huge trading card sector. We also have a growing RPG area. So there’s lots of deep hobby themes covered, but we also have areas for family and ‘easier’ games. And for those new to the show, when you walk in you’ll first see Ravensburger, Kosmos, Asmodee, Schmidt… The big players, but more on the casual part of the hobby, right? Plenty of entry-level games to play. It helps that audience feel at home.

And do you see the lines between hobby and mass market games blurring a little?
It’s really blurring; times are changing. The perception of what makes something mass market is changing. I remember back when I worked at Asmodee, Just One was a big seller here in Germany, but at the time, the view in the US was that it was too sophisticated and might not work… Whereas today, everyone would agree it’s a great example of a party game, whether here in Europe or in the US.

Another interesting example is Cards Against Humanity. It’s huge in the US but I’m not sure if it’s ever had a German translation… It’s a name that everybody knows, even here in Germany, and that’s a mass market game, but it’s also a party game for a very specific type of person… So it’s mass market and not mass market at the same time, if that makes sense?

Absolutely. Great example. It’s complicated!
It is complicated! And some publishers think they have a mass market family game, but they don’t consider that the person they want to target has maybe never seen a board game before. A four-page rulebook might be too heavy for them… That’s why I come back to Flip 7 as an example. That’s truly a mass market game – it has, maybe, five rules… Anyone can play it. It’s really easy and lots of fun. Exactly what a mass market game should be.

It’s a great game. And what makes the show a must-attend for game designers and inventors?
Well, we have the vast majority of publishers at the event and most are open to talking to designers. It’s always best to book an appointment in advance, but there are people looking around, open for impromptu meetings. That said, my advice is: Be prepared! Have a sell-sheet that’s essentially your elevator pitch. But yes, we want Spiel to be an important show for designers.

And for folks attending next week, what would you tell them to check out?
We have a great conference slate this year. The first day is a look behind the curtain of the industry. For example, Atomic Mass Games’ Ross Thompson is doing a talk titled: ‘Discovering Career Paths in the Tabletop Gaming Industry’. I love that. We also have some people talking about media and on the Friday, we have the Educator’s Day. That looks at how to use games for education. There’s people from publishers, but also universities – it’ll be great.

Then on Saturday, we’ll have an role-playing game hosted by our Spiel ambassador, Mháire. And I’ll also be on a panel called: ‘The Great Big Convention Panel about Conventions’.

Yes – you’re joined by the folks from GAMA, Gen Con, UK Games Expo and DoKomi.
Yes! That’ll be a wonderful session.

Do you attend those shows every year?
Yes, I’m travelling a lot. I go to all the shows, look at what’s working, chat with the organisers and exchange ideas. That’s the point of that panel – to invite people to learn about the similarities and the differences between the shows.

These sessions are aimed at the consumer audience that attends Spiel. Is there an appetite to launch any B2B programming at the show?
Yes, there is an appetite. We know that for sure. We are thinking about what could happen in the coming years and as my team likes to say: “Carol will have plans by the end of the year.” So yes, something will come next year – but I don’t know yet exactly what it will be. But you can be sure we will stay innovative and change things, while also staying true to the core of what Spiel is.

Amazing! Carol, thanks again for taking time out to chat.

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