2024 Stakeholders Report

~ Editorial Team

A little over a year ago, I found an article by Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games, which he calls his Stakeholder’s Report. I connected with it on a few levels. Most helpful to me, I realized that this article let Jamey, one of the founders of Stonemaier Games, communicate with his fans (stakeholders) about how the company, and games, were doing.

Last year, I started doing the same. Below is this year’s 2024 Stakeholder’s Report for Paper Dice Games.

What are Stakeholders

Stakeholders are defined as anyone who has a stake in the success of PDG. This includes people who play my games, watch or read content, are a part of the mailing list, are customers, followers, and fans. It also includes everyone we partner with, from artists to other designers. 

This report outlines for all of you, how the games of Paper Dice Games are doing, how the hobby business is going, and some of my goals for 2025.

2024 By The Numbers

Because Paper Dice Games is a hobby business, I’m choosing not to share any concrete numbers around revenue. However, the places where people are buying and downloading games has some interesting changes, so I am sharing those.

Revenue Streams – 4

This was a big change from last year, and sales/downloads this year took off on itch.io. I think a big part of this comes from their marketplace discovery. I spent a bit of time improving my tags and game pages on itch.io. The results were positive, and reflected in the numbers above. To be honest, I also think that the type of games I sell are, for the moment, better served through itch.io – but that may change in the future!

I’m also adding two small revenue streams for 2025. My Youtube Channel has grown enough to monetize, so I am earning a (very tiny) amount from ads. I am also earning (a very tiny) amount from affiliate sales through DriveThruRPG. I’ll cover the reason for my choice to add these revenue streams for 2025, in my goals section below.

Independent Contractors and Collaborators – 18

Jesse Gillespie – I worked with Jesse for the amazing art for Artifacts and Curses. He’s done art for a few other games as well, so if you like the art you’ve seen, be sure to check him out on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/graaar/?hl=en

I also collaborated with this huge list of artists for this video:

New Games – 1

New Expansions – 1

Summary

I was able to spend more time designing and publishing games in 2024, which I enjoyed. My plan is to spend even more time on this aspect of PDG in 2025. I also collaborated more, which often costs more (either in time, money, or both), but I’ve always found that the results speak for themselves. Art is not a skill I practice a lot, and the gameplay of my games always feel way better when creative and spectacular art is involved.

Lifetime Game Sales

The section below takes a bigger picture look at the health of the games I’ve created since 2018.

I’ve released at least 16 games so far, depending on what counts as a game release. Many are free. For each game I’ve released, I’ve included the total sales or downloads from the game’s release through the end of 2024. I do want to note that there was a bit of a jump in this year’s totals compared to last year’s, because I didn’t realize that itch.io counts games sold in a bundle, or during a sale, differently than when someone buys the game individually. Also, it’s worth mentioning, that these numbers do not include charity sales or charity bundles.

I don’t track sales/downloads for my Dungeon Builder pamphlet, Deduction Name Game, Dwarf Mine: Winter Workshop, or my Century: Spice Road Project Hail Mary hack. I also do track downloads for a few of my playtest releases, but I’m not sure I want to share those numbers at this time.

For the second year in a row, I am blown away by how many people are buying and downloading the games that I’ve designed. My favorite part of designing games, is watching people enjoy playing them. I’ve gotten so many nice comments in Youtube, through email, on reddit, and other places of fans sharing the joy they have when they play these games – and that means the world to me.

This positive feedback, of seeing people continue to buy and download my games, gives me motivation to continue designing awesome and fun games for you!

Outreach Metrics

Like I said last year, I firmly believe that a rising tide in the tabletop game industry – especially the indie space – lifts all boats. There really isn’t a lot of competition in this business – just opportunities for collaboration and discovery. The more people play tabletop games and enjoy them, the higher chance they’ll find my games.

Here are some of the outreach metrics I track to see how I’m doing in sharing my games.

I am very happy with how outreach has grown this year. In particular, my Youtube Channel has done very well, and a significant number of blog referrals come directly from Youtube.

This is, I think, a huge reason why so many games were purchased and downloaded in 2024. My plan going into 2025 is to continue what I’ve been doing, but try to be a bit more consistent with videos and blog posts that I put out.

Highlights from 2024

I wrote a detailed blog post titled 2024 Year in Review that covered most of this in detail – but here are the highlights.

  • I released the free version of Star Solo! I have huge plans for this game in 2025 and 2026. My original design aspirations for this game were too big and I felt that I would never get it in a place to be released, so I decided to do a free version as I worked out some parts of it. I’ll keep adding content, and eventually move to a paid version.
  • I have started doing some really fun top 10 videos on the Youtube channel! Here’s a playlist if you haven’t been able to check them out.
  • Finally, I release Dwarf Mine: Artifacts and Curses. This was developed during a busy time in my life, so I am very happy I was able to get it out in 2024. I think it’s super fun, and like I said above, the art is spectacular!

Looking ahead to 2025

I don’t like to share specific plans or timelines until I’m almost certain that I can keep any promises I make. Having said that, here are three big goals I have for 2025.

  • I want to release 2 paid games/products this year. I have done a ton of concept, brainstorming, and pre-design work on these already. There is a long way to go still, but I think it’s possible that I’ll be able to do this. In addition to these 2 games/products, I’d like to finish releasing content for the free version of Star Solo. In other words, I’d like to “finish” the free version of Star Solo.
  • I want to continue releasing content through the blog and Youtube channel, but be more consistent about it. I’d like to do a weekly video, and articles at least twice a month. This does take up time (and take time away from designing), but I think my efforts over the last two years have shown significant increases in the amount of people who play and enjoy my games.
  • Finally, I want to begin transitioning Paper Dice Games from a hobby business to a part time business. This has a lot of impact on how I approach my time with PDG, but the cliff notes are this: I want to monetize my Youtube channel and add affiliate sales to my reviews. This will help justify the time I spend on content creation. More importantly, I’m going to trial paying myself hourly this year, but only when I work on game publishing. My least favorite part of game design is finalizing the PDF document, ensuring that the rules and graphic design make sense, and proofreading. So, to motivate myself, I’m going to pay myself hourly for these and related tasks. This will, hopefully, get me in front of the computer more often to finish designs. It will also give me a concrete metric for 2026, and help me determine if I can switch to an hourly pay schedule, instead of a “whatever is left over” pay schedule.

    At the core of this, though, is my focus on designing and publishing fun games for all of you to enjoy! That remains the vision!

Connect

Thank you for reading! If you want to here about the games I make, and get great discounts and goodies, you can join the newsletter here or check out my Youtube channel here!

Thank you for being a fan of games! I’m looking forward to sharing more with you!

2 thoughts on “2024 Stakeholders Report”

  1. Pingback: Dwarf Mine – A Design History – Paper Dice Games
  2. Pingback: Tariffs, Economy, and the Future – Paper Dice Games

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.