Are you looking for a stock?
Try one of these
Are you looking for a stock?
Try one of these
More
More
Most Popular Content
Latest Videos
{{ video.Name }}
The information you requested is not available at this time, please check back again soon.
5h ago <\/p>\n
Cassandra Coleman<\/span>, BNN Bloomberg<\/span>
What if the goal of a board game wasn\u2019t entertainment? What if, instead, it was about making the people around you entertaining?
That is the mission Exploding Kittens Inc. has been on since it was founded in 2015.
Elan Lee is leading the charge. The co-founder and CEO of the game maker is an experienced game designer who spent time at Microsoft and Xbox before founding a few of his own companies.
Exploding Kittens, his most recent venture, began as a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign. It has now sold more than 25 million games globally.
\u201cWe don\u2019t work so hard to make our games entertaining. We make sure they are toolsets so that you are entertained by your family,\u201d Lee told BNN Bloomberg in an interview last week.
Exploding Kittens is best known for its game of the same name. According to the game\u2019s Kickstarter page, which has since closed, the game is a \u201chighly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette. The game\u2019s combination of graphics and buzzwords are meant to appeal to players\u2019 sense of humour.
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE<\/strong>
Lee\u2019s journey in the board game business was inspired by his own childhood experiences. He recalled sitting around a table with his siblings, laughing, cheating and forging secret alliances as they would play board games.
Those positive childhood memories weren\u2019t special because of the specific games Lee and his family were playing, but about the interactions they shared, he explained. That feeling was one of the driving forces behind Exploding Kittens.
Lee was on the original Xbox team in the late 1990s. He became chief design officer at Xbox Entertainment Studios in 2013 before he had a realization.
\u201cI think I\u2019m part of the problem,\u201d said Lee. \u201cI am putting screens in front of kids for a living, all day, every day.\u201d
That was when he made the jump from digital to board games.
FAMILY BUSINESS<\/strong>
In the early days of Exploding Kittens, Lee said he and co-founder Matthew Inman raised US$9 million through crowdfunding in just 30 days.
These days, the company is still creating new games. This summer it released a new line of \u201cKitten Games\u201d created for children aged four and up.
The game design process was particularly interesting for Lee, who stumbled upon a new collaborator: his then-four-year-old daughter, Avalon.
Lee said Avalon saw his frustration about games that overlook kids\u2019 abilities, and she said they should fix it.
\u201cThat was a world-changing moment for me,\u201d said Lee.
The duo created 12 games over the next 18 months and four went to market: \u201cHurry Up Chicken Butt,\u201d \u201cI Want My Teeth Back,\u201d \u201cMy Parents Might Be Martians\u201d and \u201cThe Best Worst Ice Cream.\u201d
Lee said he and his daughter ended up with games that satisfied both players.
\u201cI didn\u2019t have to cheat to lose, I didn\u2019t have to let her win,\u201d said Lee. \u201cInstead we\u2019re both playing, we\u2019re both having fun.\u201d
That goes back to Lee\u2019s mission to play games that put the spotlight on people.
\u201cWe are the greatest source of entertainment,\u201d he said. \u201cThese games can just be toolsets to enable that every day that we invite them into our homes.\u201d
Lorne Steinberg’s Top Picks: October 20, 2023
Paul Harris’ Top Picks: October 19, 2023
Chris Blumas’ Top Picks: October 18, 2023<\/p>\n