Entrepreneur makes play for game market

? Stuart Montaldo didn’t set out to make the science version of Scrabble or anything like that.

Montaldo was working in marketing and publishing in Boston in the midst of the cyberspace explosion of the mid-to-late 1990s. He specialized in developing new products, and was eager to put his experience to use in the dot-com world. He thought he’d develop an online game about space aliens, based on accurate science.

But nearly three years after his first idea, video and computer game companies are struggling. Few investors are putting their money into splashy rollouts of the latest battle-laden game or other computer-based entertainment.

Montaldo, 39, is back home in St. Louis getting ready to launch a board game, Cogno: The Alien Adventure Game.

He believes he’s riding new/old trends — back to the Heartland, back to family activities, back to products with affordable price tags, back to shoestring ventures that substitute marketing savvy for lavish hype.

“This game has no explosions, no violence, no conflict,” Montaldo says. “There’s competition, definitely. But it’s a fun, good-natured, ‘I’m gonna beat you,’ kind of competition.”

Montaldo designed the game for children and adults to play together, using echoes of the tactics in such popular board games as Sorry!, Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit.

A lifelong fan of the late Carl Sagan, Montaldo believes that real science — especially physical science related to space exploration — is more exciting than mythological otherworld creations.

After testing and refining the game with the help of about 100 children, Montaldo founded DoubleStar LLC, raised a modest $110,000 in startup capital and crafted a marketing plan.

Stuart Montaldo explains the board game he invented to Ann Foy at a store in Webster Groves, Mo. Montaldo is launching his invention, Cogno: The Alien Adventure Game, Friday.

He will launch the game Friday, at Family Game Night at The Magic House children’s museum in Kirkwood, Mo.

“There are a tremendous amount of games being made each year,” Montaldo said. “They range from the type you sell to a couple of your friends to Milton Bradley’s new launch.

“There are so many ways to fail along the way.”

Other projects

As a marketing executive in Chicago and Boston, Montaldo worked on new product distribution and customer loyalty services for such organizations as AAA Motor Club, Visa Corp., and McDonald’s Corp. Among his big projects were print and Internet versions of the U.S. Postal Service’s Mover’s Guide, and a project of federal agencies and McDonald’s to distribute guides in Happy Meals, encouraging children’s reading.

Some of the missteps he knows to avoid involve product development, such as falling so in love with your creation you can’t hear feedback, not focusing on the end user and ignoring production and materials costs.

Focus on marketing

He spent most of his startup money on the product and packaging.

For the last six months, Montaldo has been concentrating on marketing. He’s starting small, calling on independent merchants such as Ann Foy, owner of the Webster Groves Book Shop, and working with institutions such as the Magic House and the St. Louis Science Center.

“If you want to be successful in a big way, you have to focus on distribution channels,” Montaldo said. “I want to sell in places that would be expandable nationally,” such as grocery stores, video rental operations, toy and game stores and over the Internet.

Foy agreed to carry Cogno in her bookstore, even though “we don’t sell a lot of games,” she said. The 38-year-old bookstore carries a few book-related toys and some puzzles. “It has to fit,” she said.

After seeing a demonstration of Cogno, Foy said, “This will be fun. We’ll give it a nice trial at a couple of book fairs we’re doing this fall” at area elementary schools.

Hoping to expand

Montaldo was eager to spend time with a small operator like Foy because, “I’m trying to prove I can sell Cogno in bookstores here,” he said. “Then I can take it to the larger chains and say, ‘Look what we did in two or three stores in St. Louis. Imagine what we could do in (a large national chain).’ “

Montaldo used his connection as a member of the board of the St. Louis Science Center to get a test run in the Science Center’s gift shop, operated under contract by Event Network Inc., of San Diego.

“We buy for a lot of institutions,” said Lorena Theilacker, senior buyer for Event Network. “Our first goal is to have (a product) tie into an exhibition which is supported at the institution or venue. In St. Louis, which has the Planetarium, the game ties into space products.”

Theilacker looks for products that “extend the experience” of the museum, gallery or venue sponsoring the gift shop.

“A child or adult likes to buy something that teaches me more, helps me to remember it or helps me enjoy the subject matter,” she said.

The launch is timed well, she said.

“More board games are purchased in the fourth quarter.” Her company will watch the game’s sales through the holiday season.

“We’re looking at a 60-day window,” Theilacker said. “If it sells, we would expand it to other museums with science-related exhibits.”

Theilacker declined to be specific about how many units or what dollar amount she would consider successful. Except to say, “It’s got to sell and make me money, too.”