Four Questions with Jeremy Young

Jeremy Young is a busy guy. He's an integral part of three game publishers: Uberplay, Inspiration Games, and SimplyFun. Between them, those companies have published nearly three dozen games in just over three years. And SimplyFun is more than just another publisher -- Young is trying to help usher in an entirely new distribution model, selling games via home-based game parties (think Tupperware or Pampered Chef).

What's your favorite recently played (for the first time) game?

Man, I'm so busy playing prototypes that the latest first-time played game was Diamant a couple of months ago! I know that's sad, I just don't get a lot of chances to play published games that often except when I go to game conventions! I loved the way Diamant scales to large numbers of people and the press your luck element is something I always enjoy in a game.

What game do you want to play most that you haven't played yet?

I'd like to try Tower of Babel by (Reiner) Knizia. I love most of the Knizia games and have heard some good things about this one. I've also heard great things about Shadow of the Emperor but haven't played that either.

With more than three years under your belt, how would you assess the success of Uberplay?

We've had some great success with some games and others have fallen flat. I love all of the Uberplay games but with this business, you always have some that didn't do as well as you would have hoped. We do have some great games coming out this year, including Ra -- which I know a lot of people are looking forward to. In fact, that's one of my favorite games of all time.

You've also branched out into the Mormon market (Inspiration Games) and introduced a new game company that uses the Pampered Chef distribution model (SimplyFun). What's next?

The Mormon market and religious games in general have been great for us. SimplyFun is doing fantastic and in fact, we're having our first national convention in Redmond, Washington, this weekend (Aug. 6-7, 2005) where over 100 people will gather from all over the U.S. to look at new products for the fall and to be trained on different aspects of the business. This one is going to keep me busy for a while. I have opened up a couple of clothing stores in Utah with my brother, however. ;-)