Emily Charles reveals what Gibsons wants to see from inventors

How was 2024 for Gibsons?
2024 was interesting. I feel like it was a difficult year for a lot of people for a lot of reasons… We’ve certainly felt some of that – but we’ve used it as an opportunity to reflect and plan for a better 2025. We’ve taken stock of our brand, our niche and what our focus should be on. We also had some major wins after introducing paper bags instead of plastic for our puzzle pieces – and gaining our B Corp certification at the end of 2023.

Great stuff. Which new launches speak to that renewed vision and focus?
We’re really excited about the new games we’re debuting this month. The first is called Grab Bag: Jungle, designed by Rob Harper and Mike Harrison-Wood. They’re new inventors to Gibsons – but when they pitched this concept, we just loved it. It’s about rummaging through a bag of animal shapes; you have to rescue the animals in the right order! It also has beautiful artwork from our internal game developer, Lauren Heywood-Law. She’s done an incredible job.

Then we’ve got a game that’s called Tegula, from designer Mark Langley. We actually met him at the Inventors Lunch that Mojo Nation and the BTHA hosted at last year’s London Toy Fair. We sat down with Mark, played this game – and loved it! We’ve made it with wooden tiles, and our Graphic Designer – Lauren Stallard – has created some stunning patterns and packaging. It’s beautiful and great fun to play. An ideal coffee table game!

Fantastic – and what a great advert for the lunch! Thank you! What other new launches should we keep an eye out for?
We have a game called Bean Counters Inc, designed by Nick and Alice Payne. It’s a party game that can be played by younger people. It centres on this company – Bean Counters Inc – that has a ridiculous CEO who expects his employees to count beans all day. It’s a very funny game – just reading the rules made me laugh a lot. If you can enjoy reading the rules before you’ve even start playing a game, then I figure we’re onto a good thing!

And that leads us to your last one – Swapple?
Yes – from inventors April Mitchel and Serena Fadlun. This one is a fun swapping card game that involves planting flowers in the right order. It’s RHS branded as part of our new licensed range… We’ve got three puzzles and this game launching in 2025, with lots more in the development pipeline. It’s a fantastic brand partnership for Gibsons with perfectly aligned values.

We’re looking at adding to our roster of brand collaborations too. If inventors have games they think could be adapted into licensed versions, we’d love to see them because they can really work. Look at our TfL game Mind the Gap – it’s been so successful for us since 2017, selling at the same levels every year. That’s the magic we’d like to recreate.

All of these come from the inventor community… Are you looking to ramp up your engagement with inventors?
Definitely. We really want to hear from more inventors – and in particular we’d love to hear from more female inventors. We really want to champion women in this space. It still has to be all about the right game, but we want to make sure we’re hearing from female designers more than we are right now. We’re looking for what you might call ‘warm up’ games. Lower-weight family games that look great on the shelf and you want to play again and again. We’d welcome wholesome themes, and we obviously do really well with British-themed titles.

You mentioned earlier that one of your recent launches comes from a ‘new’ inventor. How important is it for Gibsons to embrace fresh talent and not shy away from the more ‘amateur’ pool of designers?
We don’t shy away from that because our in-house ability to develop games is better than it’s ever been. We’ve seen people come in with an idea on a piece of paper, right up to people presenting fully fledged working prototypes – but both are valid. Just because you haven’t got the resources or knowledge to make a prototype doesn’t mean you haven’t got a great idea.

And how closely do you track trends as sources of inspiration for games?
A company of our size is not necessarily set up to compete in the fast-paced world of trend-led games. Our strategy is very much about creating games with longevity.Interestingly, the only title in our catalogue that I’d say capitalised on a trend would be 221B Baker Street – a game we first launched in 1975! It was around for a really long time. We re-released it in 2014 when the BBC launched Sherlock. The show shot that game back into people’s consciousness, and it hasn’t gone away since. It’s a classic now – a must have for any game shelf.

What’s the key to cultivating positive relationships with inventors?
I always try to give useful or constructive feedback and treat people how I would want to be treated. It’s about having genuine, honest conversations and relationships. And I’m a born and raised people pleaser! I really struggle with needing to say yes to people, so I’ve had to teach myself to evaluate things sensibly and say “no” as part of that honest review. Having Lauren on board as Games Developer has been invaluable to inventor relations at Gibsons. Her focus on games allows her to meet with inventors and grow the relationships.

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