Hey Reader!

Emily Vincent here.

Some of you know that last year I decided to branch out from game design into game publishing. I see so many great designs in our online community and wanted to become a part of bringing those games to tables around the world. As part of this process I applied for and was accepted to the GAMA Horizons Fellowship program, an accelerator for emerging publishers and retailers from historically underrepresented groups in the tabletop industry. I'm excited to share with you all that the Fellowship is now open for applicants to the 2025 class!

​GAMA Horizons Fellowship Applications are Open​

The GAMA Horizons Fellowship is a eight-month accelerator program for prospective and newly established tabletop game publishers and retail store owners. It was created by GAMA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to help address the needs of communities that have been historically underrepresented in the tabletop industry.

Now in its fourth year, the Horizons Fellowship connects participants with industry professionals who will serve as mentors and peer coaches, and will provide access to grants and resources essential to developing and sustaining successful business relationships. The new cohort of Fellows will start the program in September. This year’s program will include travel and accommodations for GAMA Expo in Louisville, KY from February 23-27, 2025, and the Origins Game Fair June 18-22, 2025.

My personal experience has been that the Fellowship was a huge boost to my publishing company. The Fellowship comes with a significant financial benefit as well as some great educational opportunities. I would add that there are also some amazing intangible benefits, with one of the largest being the growth in my network to now include retailers, distributors, media, and more. I'm also connected to a small group of publishers and retailers who are at the same phase of their business, so there have been many opportunities to learn together as a cohort. Additionally, the experience of putting together and running my own booth under the mentorship of an experienced publisher is a huge leg up as I look toward future conventions.

The Publisher Fellowship is best suited for a publisher that has one or two published games OR a publisher that is getting ready to produce their first game. Previous year's Fellows ranged from those preparing to launch a Kickstarter to those who'd already launched to those who had self-funded their first game. The Retailer Fellowship is well suited to those who are preparing to start their retail company as well as those who have recently stood up their company.

While our Protospiel Online community is global, the Horizons Fellowship is only available to those in the United States and Canada.

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That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more awesome events, community opportunities, and updates about games tested at Protospiel!

~Emily

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P.S. If you have something you'd like to see featured in our Community Newsletter, you have 3 options -- either submit an official feature request, reply to this message, or, if you're a current attendee or alumni, post in the #🙌share-your-wins channel in the Protospiel Online Discord server to let us know the details. We'd love to celebrate you!

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