While at GenCon I was able to speak with Matt Hudson from Dire Wolf Digital. It was the company’s second year at the convention and we focused on their digital and physical strategy, specifically looking at two of their more famous games, Eternal and Clank!. He spoke about the challenges of creating a physical game as a primarily digital publisher, new offerings for Eternal, and offered more philosophical fodder: the role of technology in board gaming.
Primarily a digital publisher, Dire Wolf has gotten into the physical space by partnering with Renegade Game Studios to create Clank!, their analog board game. There are a number of Clank! iterations now available. The game is a cooperative deck builder that is positively reviewed and has five iterations with the newest, Clank! In Space! Apocalypse! available to see before its September launch date. 
Dire Wolf’s games are created in house. They haven’t used Kickstarter. It’s a fact I only note because many established studios have been going the Kickstarter route recently (as an example, Mantic as a popular tabletop wargaming company used Kickstarter to launch Vanguard, their new tabletop skirmish game). Dire Wolf has plans to roll out additional physical games in the next 6 months.
As a primarily digital game publisher, Dire Wolf’s flagship offering is Eternal, a digital card game. When creating a digital game much of the action takes place up front. Do the coding, development, then find a platform and distribute. When using Steam it’s easy enough to upload your game there (your humble writer said, grossly oversimplifying). In our conversation, Matt alluded to what many board game publishers may empathize with, the challenges of distribution. They found that there were new challenges in creating a physical game that occurred both in the lead time, testing new versions and physical set up, as well as the further question of how best to distribute. How many copies do you create? Where do you ship them? These are not questions a purely digital studio needs to consider, but was a new learning curve for the folks at Dire Wolf; a learning curve they seem to have overcome with the success of Clank!.
We spoke a bit more philosophically about the role of technology in gaming. Renegade Game Studios offers a companion app to support their games. Understandably, some gaming groups may encourage less phone or other electronics usage. Some outright ban them as they can offer a source of distraction. Dire Wolf doesn’t see digital technology as an impediment to users enjoying games. Digital aids can be a way studios can enhance the user’s interaction with the game. The point of gaming is to bring people together, to gather us around a common table for a shared experience. So long as digital game aids like Renegade’s app or 5 Minute Dungeon Timer support that feeling and don’t detract they have a space, both physical and digital, at the table.
Dire Wolf is also currently running a promotion for users who also have Twitch Prime accounts to get additional content. While there is content available for purchase, Dire Wolf stresses that the idea is not a “pay to play” model. The content available is largely cosmetic. The game should be fun to play at any income level and can be played without purchases. I have downloaded Eternal myself to take a look. Be on the lookout for a review of that game in the coming weeks.
Ross Blythe is a Chicago based gamer interested in all things tabletop. He enjoys reading history as well as fiction, and so has a soft spot for historical wargames like Pike & Shotte. For the campaigns he runs as a DM he often looks to history for inspiration, for the lessons of the past to challenge the players at his table.
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