Profile: Exploding Kittens Games
True Connection as a Brand Purpose
It’s better when we entertain each other
There are many companies who have built their brands around their ability to bring people together. Coca-Cola. Disney. Facebook. Even tech companies like Apple.
But for those companies, it’s a byproduct of what they do. It’s not the intent. For example, Disney brings us together for sure, but to watch what they made. Not to interact with each other.
Exploding Kittens, started in 2015 as a Kickstarter*, was founded on this principle - it’s better when we entertain each other. It’s at the core of each and every game they make.
When you think about what concerns us today. Our addiction to our screens and devices. Loneliness and lack of connection. There’s something great about a company focused on counteracting those forces through something as simple as playing a card game.
*The most successful Kickstarter at the time
What is Exploding Kittens?
It’s a gaming company named after its most successful game.
Started by former Xbox game designer Elan Lee and The Oatmeal’s founder Matthew Inmanon in 2015 as a Kickstarter for their original game, Exploding Kittens.
The campaign was, at the time, the most successful Kickstarter campaign ever raising $8.7M in 30 days from 219,000 backers. To date, Exploding Kittens is the #1 most-backed project in Kickstarter history and has sold over 18 million games.
Today, there are over 30 games sold in 50 countries since its founding. The company, based in Los Angeles, employs 80 employees and has an annual revenue is $19MM.
Its most popular games are
The original Exploding Kittens: A highly strategic, kitty-powered version of Russian roulette where players try to avoid the exploding kitten cards. This has ‘exploded’ into an entire sub-brand of expansion packs and other titles based off the original idea.
Throw Throw Burrito: a dodgeball version of a card game
Poetry for Neanderthals: A competitive word-guessing game where you must speak in single syllables or get hit with stick.
They recently expanded into games tailored for playing with younger kids based on the company’s principles for gameplay.
When my daughter turned four, she was finally old enough to play games and I was so excited.” Lee explained of his daughter Avalon. “We bought a bunch of games, but everything for her age group sucked – they are all based on chance and didn’t teach her anything.” - Elan Lee, the CEO and co-creator
Called Kitten Games, the games are designed to play with kids ages as young as 4. Made to entertain but also help parents educate as well.
First, games need to be vehicles for entertainment otherwise they might as well be staring at a screen. Second, the game has to teach a kid something. It can’t just be learning how to spin a spinner - it needs to have a skill they learn. With that, kids need to be able to get better at that thing every time they play the game. - Elan Lee, the CEO and co-creator
The company is also expanding its IP into original content as part of an animated series this July on Netflix. Exploding Kittens (produced by Greg Daniels and Mike Judge of King of the Hill fame) is loosely based on the game. The mobile version of the card game is available on Netflix’s gaming platform.
Not for the Kitten Games crowd.
How to design to ‘entertain each other’
What are the principles for designing gameplay?
These come from co-founder Elan Lee’s interview on the Tim Ferris Show podcast:
Games should be easy to pick up and play
You should be able to pick up the game in five minutes and you shouldn’t even have to read to do it. You should just sit down, watch a thing, you’re done.
The Game itself is just a toolset for players to entertain each other
Take Poetry for Neanderthals, the game is won by teams trying to guess the word through the ‘poet’s’ one-syllable words. Which is funny in its own right. But then, if the poet messes up and uses a two-syllable word, or time runs out, there’s a penalty. “Matt with his just perfect pitch sense of humor said, well, it's a caveman game, so give them a club and let them bonk each other over the head.”
The game cannot be too fragile
You shouldn’t ever feel motivated to outsmart the game.
The game should be a source of joy
You should look at a game and smile. It should be a source of joy. These things should be dopamine engines, and part of that is you want to hold the thing and show it to all your friends.
The game should make you want feel like I want to play again
A sense of connection and belonging are core needs. Things modern life seems to be robbing from us. While the company isn’t explicitly marketing its games as the antidote to all of this, by centering its gameplay on ‘entertaining each other’ the company is acting with true purpose. I don’t go into the whole story of how its Kickstarter became such a success nor how the company continues to foster community with its super fans, but these are all further evidence of a defining belief around the power of connection.
But to really bring this purpose to life, I’ll end it with a story co-founder and CEO Elan Lees tells of being caught in a long airport layover situation and seeing a group of kids playing one of his games to pass the time:
“And everyone was complaining and you just, there's this horrible negative energy. And except for this one group of kids sitting on the floor in a circle, just laughing their asses off. And I couldn't help but like go over to them and like look over their shoulders and see what they're doing.
And sure enough, they're playing Exploding Kittens. And it was like this unbelievably beautiful moment for me…I am so delighted that I could give them a toolset to laugh with each other and have this horrible experience transformed for them into a positive one.”
Resources:
RocketReach Exploding Kittens, Inc.
Tim Ferris Show (podcast) with Elan Lee, how to raise a million dollars on Kickstarter
Tabletop Gaming Kitten Games Interview: Exploding Kittens Make Young Family Games!