Definitely seeing some parallels between this and the board game industry, which I have been trying (mostly) unsuccessfully to get signed games over the past six years.

I have noticed that the most sure-fire way to become a board game designer in the space seems to be #1: volunteering all of your time manning booths at conventions for publishers until you're offered a job with them, and then work for them for a bit and eventually get a shot at one of your designs, or #2: starting a board game review and promotion channel, becoming friendly with publishers that way, and then eventually transition that into a job working for one of them (I've seen it happen to about a dozen people I know personally, but I can't really do the same, I already have a well-paying day job and I'm trying to do this on the side, not as a full-time vocation).

So the easiest path to being a game designer is to not be a game designer but do something adjacent, then eventually you're given a chance to be a game designer.

The most recent proof of this path to success is Roy Cannaday, who edits and stars in videos for the largest board game channel, The Dice Tower. He built up a name for himself over several years by making videos, and that let him get his own game, Last Light in front of other publishers, found one willing to go for it, and it found major success in crowdfunding (raised $500k, which is a major success even for popular designers...and also more than the previous three Kickstarter campaigns by the same publisher combined) in part because everyone knew who he was from his videos and it was talked up by other people who have made it in the industry. And this is his first design.

Thankfully I don't think there's an "MFA" equivalent. There's no prestigious board game design school to go to :).

There's also the Kickstarter route (i.e. the self-pub equivalent), but that has it's own set of pitfalls, especially now that shipping containers have quadrupled in price in the past two years. And also it's an order of magnitude more work than just designing and pitching to publishers.

The one game I did get signed was kind of by accident. I knew an established game designer through a friend, and had given him a prototype that I had only playtested a few times and asked him to play it (and a couple other games) and give me some feedback. Turns out six months later he decided to form his own small publishing studio and said "The more we play this game the more we liked it, can I sign it?"

Which again leads more evidence that it's who you know, not how good or polished a game is. I've got other prototypes I think are stronger designs that have gotten a lot more time and attention that I haven't been able to convince publishers to even take a prototype to evaluate, including one that was a finalist in a game design competition that also won a slot in an online pitching event to pitch to 30 publishers at once, and no interest.

The article did help give me some ideas for how to increase my chances, and it's become pretty clear I need to start writing articles and start putting them out there, maybe do my own substack. Probably should start making more videos also but I really don't have time to edit those.

And also don't let not having got past the gatekeepers yet get to me. I kind of let that happen a bit since I've tried for six years and several of my friends have had much better luck than I have had, in less time (but they did have more focused and dedicated effort towards it), but I need to get over it and not let it sabotage my efforts.