Publishing lessons

Update (23 December 2021): This week I released a new blog series on The City of Games website called Publisher Lessons and while this article was not written to be one of those lessons, I believe it gives an interesting insight to my experiences of being a publisher that can be learned from and wanted to include it.

On the 3^rd of June 2015 I launched the first website for The City of Kings, back then the website had no artwork, no logos, it was simply a basic blog to start sharing my journey while I designed The City of Kings.

Over the next year the website started to take shape and became the iconic website you’ve come to know for the past 4 years. The giant Earthshaker face, the blinking eyes, it was a highly thematic website to bring you into The City of Kings world and served well.

On March 28, 2017 I launched the first Kickstarter for The City of Kings, it was an incredible success and started the transition from The City of Kings to The City of Games. If you look back over the Kickstarter you’ll notice there was no mention of The City of Games, nor a publisher logo back then.

In fact, while the name “The City of Games” was always the name I planned to use, I had done little work on the wider picture of how the company should present itself.

Suddenly there was a pressure to have a logo, which was rushed in under a week and has been used for the past 3 years!

Over time new games started to spring up, Vadoran Gardens, The Isle of Cats, and finding a home for them in the heavily themed The City of Kings website started to become difficult.

While this never caused any issues, deep down I wasn’t happy that the public brand of the company didn’t live up to my expectations and I wanted to make a change.

The new look

So, a few months ago I decided it was about time to start again, I began on a journey of discovery to understand the long term goals of The City of Games, and how to represent all of my games equally moving forward.

The result of this is what I’m sharing with you today, our new website, our new logo, and an updated blogging system to allow you to comment and to become a part of the journey for the years to come.

There are nearly 100 articles on the website, so feel free to explore the history (and even leave a comment!) of The City of Games.

You’ll also find new sections containing loads of information about our games including photos, overviews, rulebooks, videos and more.

The new logo represents many things, from the sword and shield of our fantasy world, to the house we play games in, from the puzzle you’ll find around each of our games, to the cog that keeps everything going.

One day I may share the research and reasonings behind the design, but for now I’d love to know what you see and hope you enjoy the new look.

I can’t wait for the years to come.

Frank