As we enter a new year, we look ahead, but also back. It’s important to think about what we can do better in the future, but I think it’s just as important to think about what we have done (and are doing) that we’re proud of. I personally have a little bit of difficulty patting myself on the back, so I don’t get to talk about the pride I have in MCG as much as I probably should.
Now, it would be easy to go on about how proud I am of all the incredible products we’ve put out in the last few years, but that’s not really what I want to talk about today. What I want to talk about is how much we love the team we’ve created, the extended circle of contractors and contacts we’ve developed, and the great fans and customers we’ve found—or rather, have found us.
MCG is now a team of twelve full-time employees and a part-time warehouse staff of ten—twenty-two in all—plus a number of contractors. We have a diverse, insanely talented staff and—just as important—they’re a lot of fun. I’m not going to rely on the cliche of “we work hard and we play hard,” but we work hard and we play, well, we play… a lot. Working at a game company and not playing a lot of games and doing a lot of silly, fun stuff together would be weird, don’t you think? Like someone working at a restaurant and not eating.
We had our most successful years so far in 2022 and 2023, and I can’t tell you how proud I’ve been to pass along that success to our team in the form of solid salaries and very sizable bonuses. At MCG everyone contributes to so many aspects of our success, and therefore benefits from it. If you back an MCG crowdfunding campaign, or purchase one of our products, your money goes right to the people making (and promoting, and delivering) those products. When we have a good year, our employees get big bonuses, not layoff notices. We don’t have shareholders we’re trying to make wealthy, we have team members that we try to provide with great opportunities and rewards.
We’re proud of the other benefits we can provide to employees as well. Employee health insurance premiums are entirely covered by the company, we give monthly stipends for all employees to cover home office costs, and we pay for our team to go to conventions they want to attend. (Speaking of which, did you know that the whole MCG team goes to GameholeCon in Madison, WI, every year? It’s a great convention and we have our own little con-within-a-con there with events and so on. For our team, it’s a relaxing time for all of us to hang out together and play games.) We also have a no-limit vacation and sick day policy. In short, being good to the team is really important to us.
It’s also worth pointing out that over the years, we have received a lot of praise for our art, and how gorgeous our books look. Our graphic designers are second to none, and the artists in our art director’s stable simply blow us away on a routine basis. We love the amazing artists we work so closely with. We’re not going to utilize “AI-generated” artwork, but keep with imaginative worlds and characters crafted by actual people. We support creators and creativity.
Lastly, we love our customers. We love the community you formed and nurture, and appreciate the great job so many of you do to help spread the word about our new projects, run games at stores and conventions, make videos, run Discords (looking at you, Cypher Unlimited), and so much more. It’s always our goal to make products that you’ll find innovative, exciting, and most of all, fun. We see it as our mission to bring joy and entertainment when the world gets a little crazy, or even a little grim. Oh, and we’re never going to look at our customers as obstacles or figures on a spreadsheet. I promise, MCG will never hire the Pinkertons for any reason.
To further our mission, we’re constantly trying new things. I can say personally that I continue having a blast making new games and products, even after all these years. One thing that keeps us on track is that we are the biggest fans of our own products. We make games and supplements that we want to (and do) play at our own tables. We haven’t—and won’t ever—put out a product that we’re not insanely proud of. We don’t cut corners or “phone it in.”
So in short, our values are people, fun, and people having fun. We look to those values with every decision we make, and will continue to do so in the future. We recently updated and expanded on our core values statement—you can read more about our values here. I hope you agree that we strive to live up to those values, and are grateful for everyone that helps support us to do so in the future.
