Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes in game development?
Grand Prix International (GPI) is a project management group focused on manufacturing products in the toy and game industry. For the last 20 years, the company has worked on iconic products, becoming a one-stop shop that includes product safety testing, freight logistics, game design, sourcing, and more delivered with a holistic approach.
The Toy Book: GPI is perhaps best known for its custom manufacturing and product sourcing. Can you talk a little bit about how the company planted its roots?
Tami Murphy: We love to joke that we were the best-kept secret in the toy industry but in reality, our history in the toy and game industry goes back more than 40 years to our founder, John Fisher, and Milton Bradley (MB). John was a sourcing agent for MB and struck up relationships with Chinese factories. Those relationships remain even today. A little more than 20 years ago, John’s son, Mike Fisher, bought the business. He wasn’t interested in only components but wanted to produce the box and everything in it. It wasn’t long before GPI realized its customers needed help to ship games from China to distribution centers all over the world. Testing assistance followed from there.
Fast forward to 2018, Mike sold his second business, The Haywire Group, and the staff was folded into GPI, and its design, development, playtesting, and graphic design services were added to the company.
TB: GPI has been making waves for more than 40 years, but readers may not know that you’ve produced iconic games such as Bananagrams, Coup, No Filter, and more. Can you touch on GPI’s mission?
TM: Those are three great examples of how each customer is different and comes with different needs. More than 16 years ago, Abe Nathanson of Bananagrams called the office with an idea for an anagram game that his family had invented. He wanted to make that idea a reality. In his mind, the game packaging needed to be a banana. So, Mike and Kathy Kary, one of our Project Managers, began sketching and working with both the Nathanson family and our China factory to design the “right banana.” The rest is history as they say — we’ve been making Bananagrams ever since and truly appreciate the relationship we’ve developed with the Nathanson family and the entire Bananagrams Bunch.
Tom Wetzel: For Coup, Indie Boards & Cards came to us with their game specifications and artwork fully flushed out. We worked with them to produce that fantastic box with foil printing, which makes it pop on the shelf. Coup remains one of my favorites both in play and looks.
Alex Mackie: No Filter was an assignment from Big G Creative. They needed a game and leaned on the portfolio of our product development team to find an idea they connected with. From there, we fine-tuned the gameplay and theme, the artwork, the game components, and the packaging. Each customer is unique with unique needs. We will meet them where they are and act as if we are their employee. At the end of the day, we are an extension of their team and are invested in their success.
TB: GPI operates on a holistic approach. For those that aren’t familiar with the company, what do you mean by that and what kind of work do you do behind the scenes?
TW: When we begin working with a new customer — or even an existing one for that matter — we start with the understanding that each company is unique and will have its own approach to bringing a game to market. They may be a small one- or two-person company, or they could have a large staff. Either way, they have different expectations, different processes, and different knowledge bases of the industry.
We start with a conversation. We would like to know how they got into the game industry and what past experiences and connections they have. Then, we like to know what their approach will be for distribution and marketing once the game is a reality. This allows us to better serve them and to see where we can assist. It also gives us an opportunity to tap into the vast network of connections that we have within the industry and to make introductions to people who could be in a position to help our customer see success with their game(s). Together, our staff has 150 years of toy and game industry experience and we aren’t afraid to flex that.
We obviously also talk about the project itself. We may have discussions on the packaging, the size of the retail box, the legalese needed on the box, the reasons to pick one type of paper stock or plastic over another, testing requirements — the list goes on. We may talk about the three seconds they have on a brick-and-mortar retail shelf to catch a consumer’s eye and how their game meets that challenge. What we discuss all depends on the customer and their unique needs. Sometimes we have customers who are well-oiled machines, so these conversations aren’t always necessary. But we also often have customers who are relatively new to the industry and need these conversations.
The great thing about this mix of client types is that it keeps the day-to-day work very interesting. Even with our experience level, we are learning as much from our customers on an ongoing basis as hopefully, they are learning from us.
TB: Can you walk us through a typical project where a customer needs assistance working on a game design?
TM: This is what I am really enjoying about GPI in its evolved state. We have a design and development department. Although it’s a different team than the Account Managers, we work together. From the account manager’s view, when a customer comes to us with a game idea and needs a quote, we have options to help them get across the finish line if they aren’t quite there yet. We can offer a discussion with our design team to help round out the game, whether that’s playtesting and tweaking gameplay, helping finish the development of the game, or graphic design work. Similarly, if we have a customer who needs to grow their product line, we can again offer a meeting with our design team so our customer can review their open-to-license game portfolio, or the GPI team can offer design to specification. We have the experience and team to do the work.
TB: Although you’re known for game design and manufacturing, you do a lot more than just that, including freight and logistics. What’s the process like after you’ve completed the game design?
AM: Once the game design and artwork are complete and we move into production on a game, we pull in our co-workers who make sure the game gets to the warehouse location. Typically by this point, the logistics team knows a job is coming their way. They keep track of all jobs in the pipeline and remind the manufacturing team to gather all the pertinent information. This can include tasks such as confirming the number of games in the case pack, necessary markings needed on the shipping cartons, the warehouse address — including delivery and packing requirements of that warehouse — age gradings, the countries the game will be sold in for testing purposes, and arranging samples shipped to the testing facilities. Similar to the manufacturing process, this part of completing the job is very detail oriented and runs on a strict timeline. There is a great advantage in having both manufacturing and logistics on the same team and in the same office.
This year, we added a new service to this portion of the job. GPI and Floship are now collaborating on the fulfillment of crowdfunding campaigns directly from whatever country the specific game is being produced in. We bring Floship into the process early on to talk about timing, expectations, shippers (packaging) needed for the game, and the various stretch goal items. Again, it is a very detail-oriented process so that conversation starts sometimes before the game is in production.
TB: It seems like GPI is always completing a fascinating project. Can you talk about what you’re currently working on?
TW: Would it be too cliche to say we could but then we’d have to kill you?! Joking aside, we do have some exciting projects in the works but we have NDAs in place. Until the games are available on the open market, we cannot share details.
AM: That is one of the more personally challenging parts of this work. We see so many cool things coming down the pipeline but we cannot say a word about them — sometimes for close to a year. When the product becomes public, you almost feel like a proud parent.
TM: One of the things I have noticed is there are a lot of new creative people entering the industry with ideas. If people are savvy at social media marketing, they can create a good ground swell for their games and then move them into different channels. I have particularly enjoyed working with these clients.
TB: Anything else you’d like to add?
TM: The landscape of manufacturing is changing and as such, so is GPI. Over the course of the last few years, our president has vetted and onboarded several new factories. Each factory brings strength to our manufacturing offerings so that we can better serve our current and potential customers. One of these new factories is in Vietnam, which Mike recently visited. In April, he was also able to travel to our Chinese factories. It’s exciting to see Mike at these factories since our visits had been few and far between during the pandemic years. We hope that his visits become as frequent as they were in the pre-pandemic years.
Other than that, call us…
A version of this article was originally published in the 2023 Classics & Specialty Issue of The Toy Book. Click here to read the full issue! Want to receive The Toy Book in print? Click here for subscription options!
