Guest in SA: Tiffany Franzoni of Roll2Play

Roll2Play owner Tiffany Franzoni and game designer Keith Parker show off their badges.

With ChimaeraCon, San Antonio’s annual gaming convention, just a month away, Missions Unknown is kicking off a series of Friday interviews highlighting some of the movers and shakers behind the event. We start the series with Tiffany Franzoni, owner of Dallas-based online games store Roll2Play.com, one of the ChimaeraCon 2012′s vendors and sponsors.

Tiffany started Roll2Play in 2009 and has grown her inventory to include hundreds of board, miniatures and dice games. In addition, she features a wealth of game reviews and stocks gaming supplies ranging from brushed brass 20-sided dice to Cthulhu-shaped dice bags.

ChimaeraCon 2012 takes place April 6-8 at the La Quinta San Antonio Convention Center.

What will be your role at ChimaeraCon this year?

I will be a vendor again with Allison Gabby, my store manager and friend. I love being there for the gamers. Of course, I hope to get in some game time, learn what’s new, talk to game developers and basically relax and enjoy time with friends.

So, it sounds like this isn’t your first ChimaeraCon. How many have you attended?

This will be my second time going to ChimaeraCon. I first learned about it through April at AKon almost two years ago, then through a few other folks asking me if I was going. It was Al that convinced me to go. I am very glad we finally made the trip. I have met a lot of really neat folks that are genuine about growing the gaming community in Texas in a very positive and welcoming manner.

How do you see the convention growing and evolving?

It’s hard for me to tell how it’s evolving since I am fairly new coming to the group. Over the last year alone, I have seen ChimaeraCon make their presence known at other venues. They are promoting themselves in a big way. It’s great to see them in the different cities of Texas. Everyone has become like family. They are very engaging. They get out there and talk to people, shake hands, introduce games and get into conversations.

Tell me a little bit about Roll2Play.

Roll2Play has expanded a lot over the last three years! It was almost three years ago I had a contest to just name the company, let alone even place my very first game order. Charles Poynter won that contest. He got a game of his choice — I think it was the Last Night on Earth. Becky Taylor helped me create the logo and overall feel of the company’s website and marketing style. Many of my friends have helped me from going to the conventions as volunteers to promoting the name and helping me work. Long Le has been at just about all the conventions locally, talking up that 30 sided die and much more. I had a vision that most of my sales would be online, however, it is roughly 1 percent. I am not a low-cost provider, which results in people researching the game on my site and buying the game somewhere else online at a heavy discounted. I had to change my approach and get more involved with the community. I don’t want to cheapen these awesome games that I offer, so I won’t. Instead, Roll2Play has become more service oriented. It’s time to bring in more mainstream folks and grow the gaming community with respect and a good neighborhood vibe. I now teach games at schools, daycares and libraries, for examples. Sarah Childs and Crane Billingsley are my two gals that have been taking on all the teaching that happens at the daycares now. They are awesome! I know that this side of Roll2Play will grow in leaps and bounds this next year. It already has. I have increased conventions and events that Roll2Play participates in and supports. I have even hosted fund raisers for other organizations like PEO and schools. With all the support from local community, gaming groups, schools and libraries, I am confident that a store front is the logical next step. Soft open date is June 15th with the big grand opening July 15th. The biggest challenge I thought was going to make sure that other game stores don’t see me as a threat. But as I talked with other game store owners, I found that they loved the idea of having area tournaments where our store champions compete and help stir up lots of hype. This is growing the community, not tearing it apart or being destructive. Other stores have been very generous and willing to give me advice as I explored leasing space. Of course, there are some owners that aren’t supportive and just don’t get involved. But, overall, the phrase, I think we can bring a ‘Seattle Feel’ to Texas gaming by working together, not against each other.

How do you see having an actually store front changing your business.

With the store front, many new opportunities and events can be tried out. I even want to explore more of the game developers’ world. This has expanded my business plan a great deal. We (I say we now, because I am not doing this by myself. I have a wonderful staff and many awesome supporters), will be assessing what worked, what didn’t work and why. Then of course, what’s next. This is where I get to make up my own rules of running a business. This is the fun stuff for sure! A full event calendar, blogs, podcasts, Youtube game reviews are on the horizon.

In May of 2011, you introduced a program called Games4Grunts that allows 
customers to purchase discounted games to donate to U.S. troops. What was the 
genesis of that program and how is it going?

This program was the creation of Allison Gabby. She is also known as the ‘Go-To Gaming Girl’ for Roll2Play. She’s been there with me since the beginning. Games4Grunts is still evolving. It hasn’t grown as quickly as I had hoped, but I think having the storefront will change this. The challenge is conventions (most of my sales come from these events right now). There are so many things going on it’s hard to talk up just one program, especially is we are involved with the gaming events at the con as well. We have almost a huge bin that is almost full of games and some cash donations. Once the bin is full, we will make the trip to a drop off point to deliver the goods. I love all the quick notes that folks have made for the troops that will receive the games.

What’s hot in gaming right now? What are people ordering?

There is so much to share here, so, I’ll just run through highlights quickly and spout off what first comes to mind. As for the actual games that are selling very well, Steve Jackson Games is always a big mover, especially Munchkin — even after all these years! Looney Labs is another popular line of games. Anything that has expansions or several themes of the same type of game sells well. The new releases from just about any game maker are always big hits. People are curious. Award-winning, highly ranked games are selling too. Deck Building games, however, seem to be on the decline. They were really big just a little over a year ago, with Dominion being the leader. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next year with this area.

Are you noticing 
any interesting trends?

The most interesting trend I see is happening with mainstream folks. People are looking for things to do together instead of spending time on computers, PDA’s and so on. Libraries and schools are heavily promoting family game nights. More gaming companies are expanding their marketing to the mainstream as well. You can see it in commercials. Pokemon is coming back when most folks thought it was dying out. I am finding more and more garage conventions getting big enough that they need to find a location that can support larger groups. I am also seeing more cross-promoting of conventions and events that focus on tournament-style play more than ever before. Conventions that don’t have a gaming theme have picked up hosting gaming events now. This helps to grow the participation numbers and offers even more over the weekend. I think a lot of this has to do with the cost of traveling for vacation. People are staying close to home or within state. Board Games Geeks is here in Texas and they now run an annual gaming convention that continues to grow. There is more mentoring in RPG’s. It’s not shunned like it has been in the past. Libraries are encouraging more one-day conventions, game nights and so on just to increase patronage numbers. And it’s working! For this area, the Children Courtyards, one of the biggest daycares in DWF, are adopting more family game nights and have dramatically increased their scheduled events with Roll2Play. This is telling me that the community has a need to get unplugged and back to socializing over activities like games. We find we end up teaching more social etiquette than we expected, like taking turns and how to win/loose graciously. Now, for the schools and family-focused events, games from companies like Calliope, Playroom, Out of the Box Games, Fireside Games or Mindware are huge hits. Games that all ages within a family group can play together and enjoy are sure to sell quickly and are rising in popularity. But it’s the dice that fly off the tables at conventions. Gamers love the variety we offer, from the beautiful resin colors to the metals to the stones. Our dice line has grown a lot since we first started. We have had many seasoned gamers bring someone new over to our table to get their very first set.

What are some of your favorite games right now? What are some of your 
all-time classics?

I love changing up the game play. My favorites constantly change. I tend to always pull out Carcassonne, Catan, Puerto Rico, Red Dragon Inn, Munchkin, Risk and the Fluxx games. There are tons of games I want to learn, of course. Really, I’ll play just about anything with a good group. Gaming is a social interaction that I love!