Episode 133

“I thought, you know what I could do? I could make games.”

Julien Sharp is a board game inventor and industry executive who moved to Minnesota in 2022 to head up the U.S. division of Paris-based Asmodee Group, with a portfolio that includes CATAN, Spot it!, Ticket to Ride, and Star Wars Unlimited.

Despite the popularity of video games, the board game industry is also in growth mode—particularly with adults seeking hobbies, recreational and party games. The $13 billion board game industry is expected to double in market size by 2030, according to research group Fortune Business Insights.

An avid game player, who can solve a Rubik Cube in 45 seconds (which she says is amateur stuff), Sharp started out in the industry as the inventor of several games including Disruptus and Juxtabo. She sold her company, Funnybone Toys, to FoxMind Toys & Games and went on to work for popular names including What Do You Meme? And Spin Master toys.

Sharp takes us inside the global industry, from creating a game that endures to the growing popularity of strategy games to the power of play—for both kids and adults.

Sharp says games are played every day in the Asmodee office in Lino Lakes, Minn. But her work is not all fun and games. “Budgets, logistics, sell-throughs—there’s all the aspects of business,” she says. “But if you’re going to do all that, why not do it in games?”

Takeaways

Following our conversation with Sharp, we go Back to the Classroom with the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business, where Tera Galloway is an associate professor in the Department of Management—and an avid game player who is working to incorporate games into her business classes.

“The idea of gamification in learning is huge. There’s the collaborative component, which is good for mental health and it increases [feelings of] belonging.” Galloway is currently working on teaching methods that use board games to teach leadership, cultural change and strategic thinking.