BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name?

This is Planet Money from NPR.

Legend has it.

There was a Canadian couple in the 1950s who liked to play this game called Yacht.

They owned a Yacht.

They played the game on their Yacht, but as far as I could tell, that is all the Yacht

involved in this game called Yacht.

Yes.

Yacht was a dice game.

You roll a bunch of dice.

You try to make sets and pairs and whatnot.

And apparently, friends of the Canadian Yachters were like, this Yacht game rolls.

You should publish it.

Make some money.

Maybe buy another Yacht.

Yeah.

Why not?

And so, the unnamed Canadian sold the game idea to a game entrepreneur who then made the

very wise decision to not sell the game as Yacht.

He changed the name, of course, to Yachtsy.

Yachtsy!

Nobody's going to buy and yell, Yacht, come on.

And we share this little tale because a good title or a bad title will absolutely sink

a really great game.

That was the very serious warning we got previously on Planet Money makes a board game.

Let's catch everyone up real quick.

We're making a game.

We have partnered with the game company, Exploding Kittens, to try and design a game inspired

by the Nobel Prize-winning economics paper, The Market for Lemons.

That paper is literally about asymmetric information in the market for used cars.

But broadly, it's about how making deals when one side knows more than the other causes

chaos, distrust, and ultimately destroys a market.

In our game version, players have hands of cards and they're offering each other deals,

trying to get the best cards.

But they can trick their friends into accepting terrible cards because asymmetric information.

Yeah.

You only ever have to show heart of the deal.

We chose to make a mass appeal party game that sneakily brings the economics, the partial

information, the mounting distrust, the spiral into joyful chaos.

Instead of a complex, hardcore, nerdy economics game, and that is because we're hoping that

this game can be our Trojan horse into reporting and learning from inside a world that no other

planet money project has gone.

The real shelves at real, big box retail stores.

Yeah, we think an Exploding Kittens party game gives us the best chance of sneaking into

that world.

And in our previous episodes, we faced our first huge test.

That test was named Jamie Wolanski.

Jamie is a longtime game consultant.

She's legendary, convinced target to carry settlers of Catan way back when.

And Jamie had two notes on our joyfully chaotic deal and distrust card game.

Note one.

Okay.

I am constantly on the lookout for a new game mechanic that no one else has ever done.

And there is not a game out there that I can equate this to.

She loved our game.

But note number two, she told us, don't mess this up now.

The most critical thing at this point is naming it and yeah, the name, the title, picking

the right theme is going to be critical to make it work because a good title or a bad

title will just absolutely sink a really great game game.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money, America, Barris.

And I'm Kenny Malone.

The Planet Money game needs a planet money name and we need to not mess this up.

Yeah, we have taken this gamble to make a mass appeal game instead of a complex nerd

learning game.

And today, the stakes get real.

We learn what it takes to name and theme something for the big leagues, the big boxes.

We are surprised to learn how unscientific that process can be.

Plus, by the end of the episode, we will have a name and a theme.

And we have saved some spots in our deck of cards for you all you listeners.

Your ideas will end up illustrated and part of the Planet Money game.

Imagine rubbing that in your friend's face as a game knight.

Stay tuned.

This message comes from Capital One.

Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums.

What's in your wallet?

Terms apply.

Capital One dot com slash bank for details.

Capital One NA member FDIC.

This message comes from Odoo.

How many streaming subscriptions do you have?

Is it the same for your business?

Avoid it by having all of your business on one platform.

Try Odoo for free at odoo.com.

That's odoo.com.

Okay, we are on a mission to use the Planet Money game to crack open next tier access

to the world of big box retail.

Imagine getting inside the real shark tank rooms where a single pitch could result in

the shipping containers full of game orders.

But the problem was, what really was the Planet Money game?

We had a prototype and we had collectively done thousands of hours of play testing,

which you all helped us with.

Thank you very much.

But really, all we had to show for it was a set of rules.

Yeah, I mean, to be clear, we're proud of those rules.

They explain a card game that is subtly complex and even more subtly sprinkles in our

big asymmetric information economics idea, but it's true.

This was not yet a product that you could put on a shelf at Walmart or Target.

But apparently this is how exploding kittens works.

During the prototyping phase, they seemed zero percent concerned with the theme of our

game.

Like they didn't worry about the pictures on the cards, about whether our players should

imagine they were use car sellers or fruit vendors running a literal market for lemons.

No.

Their strategy was the game should work without any of that.

And only then do we start thinking about theming and naming.

And then one day we got word.

Okay.

So let's talk about it.

Yeah.

So let's just be clear.

We're preparing for the highest stakes part of this entire process.

Is that what we're about to do?

Yeah, yeah.

The way to think about this is that is exploding kittens co-founder Alon Lee and the rest of

the team.

And this was the big one.

The meeting where we finally start looking at names and themes for the planet money game.

Well, everything we've been through so far is exactly 50% of it.

Now we start the other 50%, which is how to solve this thing.

All right.

No pressure, right?

In all honesty, when one of your consultants played the game, she really liked it.

And it was a previous version even.

And I asked her, I was like, what is the biggest obstacle?

And like, what's the thing that could tank this?

And she was like, the name and the theme is like, just don't mess it up.

She really said that.

Like, can this tank a game?

Absolutely.

Yes.

Like, we have games out there that I thought were spectacular.

And when we launch games, like, I go camp out at all the big retailers and I sit there

in the aisles and I watch people and I just, it's so heartbreaking to see them walk right

by a really epic game because the box just doesn't catch their attention.

Uh, okay.

That is a little intimidating.

I was kind of joking and now I'm like, I actually do feel genuinely a little nervous

about this.

Now, I think what I found so genuinely nerve-wracking is that we did not have a yachtsy yet.

We just had yachts, but unlike yachtsy, we needed a name and also we needed a whole story

for our game.

Now, our first instinct was to push for the most obvious idea, cars, just call it

for lemons and make it about trading different use cars.

I mean, it's so, it's right there.

Uh, yes, but apparently, according to exploding kittens, car themed games in particular have

a risk of being confusing and disappointing on a shelf.

Yeah, like imagine you're in the game, I'll, ooh, a car game, is it about racing or

they're moving pieces and fast cars and, oh, it's none of those things, bummer out, not

getting it.

I don't know if I fully buy this, but welcome to the world of choosing a name and a theme

for a big box.

Yeah, because we were not just choosing something that would appeal to a potential customer.

We were choosing something that Walmart and Target think will appeal to the potential customer.

After all, they are the ones who will decide whether to order and carry the planet money

game.

And now, in that highest stakes part of the process meeting, exploding kittens was about

to show us some potential themes and names that they think might get us on the shelf.

Okay, get ready for, oh, sharing is not turned on.

I am.

Let me hit allow.

I think I got it.

Stephanie Pesta is in charge of the art and design part of this process and she was

ready to present us with three possible names and themes.

The first she wanted to share a bit about how her team takes a prototype like ours and

starts to find a name and theme.

So the way the art team works is we'll play the game to get a general understanding of

like the emotions you feel as like you go through the core gameplay mechanics.

And for this one, what we really loved was the trading aspect, right?

That's where the tension is.

That's where the excitement is.

Yeah.

So remember in our game, the players take turns entertaining deals from the other players.

That deal might include great cards or terrible cards or mediocre cards or all of those

things, but because you only have to show one of the cards, it turns the straight forward

market into a chaos pit of distrust and betrayal and often shouting.

I feel like we've shouted at each other a bit a little.

And we really wanted to jump off of that feeling, those cards and the excitement of like

trading something that could be really funny, but also really exciting to have.

So we thought about people who trade a lot and were like, oh my gosh, sports trading,

sports trading.

You could imagine each of our players as a sports agent or a team trading and acquiring

good and bad athletes.

Okay.

Cool.

But part of the exploding kittens process, Stephanie says is then to ask, what is the

less on the nose version, funnier, more whimsical?

Because that may help the game stand out on a big box shelf.

Okay.

What if it's misfit mascots?

And the goal of the game is that you're trading different mascots and you want to

like build this ultimate dream team.

Stephanie pulls up a screen showing that the art department has invented and

illustrated very silly mascots for all kinds of products.

Can catch up.

Livermore slide, Charlie Roger, mop top.

And that is how they arrived at theme and name number one, misfit mascots.

Great.

Okay.

Take two.

Okay.

Stephanie pulls up an illustration of, oh my gosh, a very cute bigfoot.

Sell me a Sasquatch.

Oh.

Uh huh.

This one we're like, what if people are trying to find and trade cryptids and or famous magical

animals?

Imagine Loch Ness monsters to pack up the crack in.

The idea is your creature collector trying to capture and assemble the best groups of magical

creatures.

Ethically, we would ethically capture them.

No cages.

I did feel magically transported to being a little kid who loves Sasquatch.

I will admit.

They were adorable.

But okay.

Yeah.

Finally, option number three.

Okay.

This next one is cats who are also car salesmen.

Cats who are also car salesmen.

Now to be clear, not cars because we talked about car problem.

The imagery here is cats in suits and they are in fact doing all kinds of jobs.

To be clear, these cats to be the best salesmen characters can be stock traders, car salesmen,

street vendors and other famous deal traders.

But imagine it's cats instead of people exploding kittens.

Let's bring animals into it.

It is dawning on us.

That we clearly have entered, I guess we'll call it the art of game selling.

Like will cats in suits sell better than ketchup bottles with crowns?

But we have no idea.

How are we supposed to know this?

Yeah, you know, this is really the exploration phase.

So right now, this part of the process is a lot of like seeing what sticks.

Like this one feels right.

This one will really, really, really work in retail.

We're kind of looking to capture that feeling.

What feels right?

What sticks?

These are not metrics that work with our econ data brains.

It's like when someone tries to give you a recipe and they just say,

oh, you'll know when it's done.

Like no, tell me how long and what temperature

and what water the things go in.

Yes, that is maddening.

I do hate that.

But exploding kittens say this is the method that works for them.

It's better they say for them than like a formal corporate focus group situation

where you might drown in too much data.

Sounds like a good problem to me.

But apparently their process is to now just let these three ideas sit

and see if anything ends up like one of those earworm songs

that you just cannot stop thinking about.

That's it.

That is pretty much where we left the meeting.

Thank you for all the work you've put into this.

I'm so excited to see more.

And our reactions are, if we're not giving you the reactions you want,

it's just because we don't know what we're doing.

No, it's great.

It's great.

Thank you.

So trust the process, I guess.

Trust the process.

Trust the process.

I don't know about you, Erica.

But I, for one, was not prepared for all of this.

Trust your gut.

Go on instinct to business.

On what we had been told was possibly the most important decision

we had to make.

Jamie, great to see you again.

It's been a long time.

I know.

Good to see you too.

You may remember game consultant Jamie Wilansky.

She's a person who months earlier played a prototype of our game.

She told us we've got something here.

But she gave us that dire warning.

Do you remember what you told us at the very end of our conversation?

Yes, well, I remember saying that the title and the theme are going to matter.

You said, quote, picking the right theme is going to be critical to making it work.

Heavy words, strong words.

Jamie Wilansky is the big box retail whisperer.

And that is why exploding kittens hires her to help get their games into big box stores.

In fact, she was visiting exploding kittens office in Los Angeles when we called her

up to talk about name and theme.

I mean, the most obvious question is, why does it matter?

Like, if we have a killer game, why does, why do the theme and the name matter so much?

Well, you're competing against hundreds of other games on the shelf.

And when a guest or a customer comes up to the shelf to choose a game to play it that

game night, you have literally three seconds to get that person to decide to pick up that

box, flip it over, learn a little bit more about it, and take it home.

It's three seconds like a science, like have you done research on this?

No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was pretty precise, Jamie.

Well, I think we all say this, and maybe I'm giving away the keys to the castle.

But in retail, we say we have three feet and three seconds to make a consumer purchase.

You're three feet away from the product, and you have three seconds to make that person

decide to pick it up, learn more about it, or decide to just blindly buy it.

So for Jamie, the question of theming and design and title is all about that three feet

and three seconds.

When you get close, does our game very quickly peak the customer's curiosity somehow?

And here, amidst all the, trust your gut, use the Force Luke stuff.

Jamie brings us a sweet, sweet numerical oasis, because she says we can try to reason through

this a bit.

So what will peak a big box customer's curiosity?

Well, who is that customer?

We should ask.

And number one, consumer that walks into these big boxes are generally millennial women,

probably who are owning the household purchasing dollars, who are between the ages of 28

and 44.

So that's your core customer.

Our core customer is, it is basically you, Erica, you are the core customer.

It's me.

I feel seen.

Yep.

It's me.

Age wise, at least.

It's also me a little bit.

There's data supporting the fact that people go into a big box retailer to buy games for

two reasons.

One, for game night, that night, with their friends or family.

That night.

That night.

Oh, no, I've scheduled game night.

I forgot.

I don't have a game.

That's right.

They want to play something new.

Oh, okay.

Sure.

That makes sense.

So a game to that they buy that night to play that night with their friends or family,

or as a gift for someone else.

Those are the two main reasons they commit.

So millennials, giving gifts, spicing up the old game night, this was a bit of a revelation

for us.

Yeah.

And just a step back for a second, after we had that big meeting with the exploding kittens,

with their three themes and names, we tried to trust the process to let the choices

percolate.

But that anti-data-driven process, it just doesn't work.

No.

No, it totally worked, of course it did.

They know what they're doing.

After a few weeks, just as they'd predicted, one of exploding kittens' themes and titles

did start to stand out for us, but for the exploding kittens' team as well.

It was a name that we all just liked saying, like we wanted to tell our family and friends

about and just couldn't stop thinking about it.

It was a theme that just felt fun to spend time inside.

I can't defend it.

It was just instinct.

That theme and that name was, drum roll, please, sell, me, a sass ball.

Oh, is that the sound of sass quatch?

You got a sass quatch and you got a sass quatch.

Yes.

Sell me a sass quatch.

We loved it.

I don't know what to say.

Until we talked to Jamie, it had not occurred to me.

There was something else special about sell me a sass quatch, because unlike the theme that

was funny mascots or the one where cats had jobs or whatever, there was something about

sell me a sass quatch, I hadn't quite been able to put my finger on.

Ah, yes, that was it.

Sell me a sass quatch was hitting me right in the old ex files.

Ah, yes, the breakout TV show about paranormal things viewed by tens of millions of people

back in the 90s.

And you suspect what?

Bigfoot?

It'll be a nice trip to the forest.

Sell me a sass quatch.

A game where you spend an evening with family and mysterious creatures, that was surgical

nostalgia, right to my elder millennial heart.

To Sunday evening with dad safely watching spooky ex-files stories.

Or maybe you were one of the millions of 80s kids traumatized by NBC's unsolved mysteries.

It's Bigfoot Real, an elaborate ongoing hoax.

We wanted to believe in the 80s and 90s, and look, maybe we're just grasping for logic

inside this wild exploding kittens process, but if the core customers walking into

the big box are millennials, we could do worse than picking a theme and a name that might

cut to their 80s and 90s hearts.

It all comes down to three feet and three seconds inside a store, a gut reaction to a name

and a theme.

So what would Jamie's gut reaction be to ours?

OK, so here's what we and exponent kittens are thinking, Erica.

It's going to be called, Selmy a sass quatch.

Selmy a sass quatch.

Yeah.

OK.

Listening back, it does sound a little like Jamie hates this idea, but her face does not

say that.

She seems unsure, not hateful, just like, let me process this.

She's a thinker.

Let me do this again.

Selmy a sass quatch.

Selmy a sass quatch.

Is it cute?

We don't know how cute it is yet.

Do we?

That's cute.

It's very cute.

Yes.

In fact, exploding kittens had mocked up some cover art, so picture a vending machine and jammed

inside, pressed up against the glass is a very sweet, very cute sass quatch.

Yes.

A cute sass quatch.

Ready to be sold.

Yeah.

And I would say sass quatch, big foot, Yeti, whatever we want to call that, old buddy is

trending and super hot right now.

That's what we're hoping.

We're hoping.

That's what we're thinking.

I actually love that.

I think you're right on the money with the trend here.

Obviously, Jamie would know that kind of thing better than we do, but I will say if you squint

at Google Trends for sass quatch, it kinda looks like searches have been on the rise over

the last half thousand years.

And if I may add one hard data point, my nephew is very into sass quatch.

Sass quatch gifts for Christmas, and I do consider him a five year old trend setter.

Yeah.

Sure, sure.

Yeah.

Salmi sass quatch has a good rhythm.

Yeah.

Okay.

So on a scale of sure thing to don't call it that, where are you on sass quatch?

Oh.

I'm probably at a nine on this one.

Whoa.

Can we add a fairy in there?

I do feel like there's a fairy.

Off mic there.

You can hear Kelly Vopalek from Exploding Kittensway in.

In fact, there is a fairy in the game.

That's right.

See?

Okay.

Guys, now that just went to a 10 out of 10.

Whoa.

I mean, look, I won't pretend to fully understand it, but Jamie knows what the people want.

Or more importantly, what big box wants, I guess.

This is really great.

This is great.

This is great.

We were feeling about as good as we could possibly feel about cracking our name and our theme

and turning our yacht into a yacht sea.

And that is when.

So let's talk about what we all kind of agreed on a few months ago, which was Selma

sass quatch.

Elon Lee and Thor Ritz from Exploding Kittens called another meeting.

I still really love that name and that theme.

We ran into a problem with mostly with the international teams.

Yeah.

What?

I don't know what a sass quatch is.

Hold on.

Yeah.

Hold on.

They don't have sass quatches in Europe.

They do not have sass quatches in Europe, he says.

How much?

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

How much of our, like, what are we expecting like the international audience to the buy?

Like, you know, yeah, it's, it's typically about 20% of sales.

Okay.

That's not it.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, no, that's not nothing.

Are you sure they don't know about the Yeti?

I mean, I'm not sure they don't know about the Yeti, but Selma Yeti didn't roll off

as well.

Well, yes, you have to be creative.

But what about like, eat me a Yeti, like throw me a Yeti?

They probably don't know about Yit.

They probably don't know about Yit.

Yeah, I think you've introduced the whole new problem.

So it doesn't matter that like the Loch Ness monster would be known or whatever, it's

because we are so heavy on the title sass quatch that was going to tank the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, because we would have to either translate the word sass quatch to something

else and then suddenly the game doesn't have the right name or we'd have to leave that

in English and just let people scratch their heads and say, I don't know what that word

is.

I can't pronounce it.

It's very, very difficult and I'm going to move on to the next game.

After the break, we are miserable, but it gets better and how you can get your idea into

the player money game.

I have heard a lot about you, but I'm going to have you just like introduce yourself to

us.

So, I'm Yuri Hoster.

My team and I manage all of the international business for exploding kittens, so anything

outside of North America.

And Yuri, oh, have you never heard of a sass quatch before?

For real?

I have heard of it.

I have heard of it.

Yes, definitely.

But I'm not so sure about all the other people in Europe, so that's why we're thinking we

might need to switch it up a bit.

Yuri Hoster says that international business is actually more like 30% of exploding kittens

sales at this point and growing.

Yeah, but not monolithically.

Yuri has seen different exploding kittens games take hold in different countries, different

preferences.

And France, for instance, is definitely more of a card game market and is often looking

for a bit more layered and complex rules.

I was rolling my eyes.

Sorry, France.

Spain and Italy maybe seems more dynamic place.

So, for instance, our trobarito range does better in those markets than many other markets

in Europe.

Meaning, the game where you throw a phone barito at each other is specifically popular

with the Italians and Spaniards.

Yeah.

And then the game where you imagine being a horrible therapist has been doing well in Germany.

And there are several other markets where it doesn't perform as well yet.

Interesting.

Obviously, Austria is where Freud is from, you know, therapy, Freud.

It's funny that you mentioned that, but I think, because I think like within two weeks

of us announcing the launch, we were contacted by the Freud Museum, asking if they could

sell it in their good shop, yeah.

But okay, the now untitled planet money game, is it really worth rethinking the whole

name for Europe?

Well, Yuri says there is reason to take this seriously.

So, I think overall our expectations are quite high.

So in Germany, there's this game fair called Spiel, takes place every year in Essen, gigantic.

Exactly.

So, we did have to game there this year in October, and it was actually quite well received.

All right, we're not throwing anything at each other with this game.

So are the Italians and Spaniards going to not like it?

No, I think they'll be going to like it because it's a card game and it's a little complex.

Yeah, I think they will.

All of those markets were on board.

Obviously, a lot will be influenced by the theme that we ultimately picked, so hopefully

we'll be able to make some good progress and lock something down.

Now, we should say, it's not unheard of to launch a game in the US and Europe with two

different names.

It's also not great, either.

It would slow things way down in Europe.

It would obviously require completely redoing all of the art and the naming and require

a completely separate factory setup or whatever.

It's possible.

But regardless, let's cue the sad montage music.

Because we spent forever trying to come up with a whole new title and theme.

Okay.

Close your eyes.

Please be a taxidermy chupacabra.

Please be a taxidermy chupacabra.

Something that would work for both America and Europe and first exploding kittens came

back to us with, I guess it was like a swap shop theme.

Sell me something stupid.

Okay.

Imagine you are at a swap meet.

Just like the craziest, most insane swap meet ever.

And the items you trade each other are just like the wackiest junk you could imagine.

We have a dog with human arms.

Oh, I'm so out on that one.

We have a cactus with a sign hanging around it called free hugs.

It's cactus very silly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We have a couple's toilet.

That's what I'm looking at.

Yeah.

It's in the shape of a heart.

That's the grossest thing I've ever thought of.

That is so annoying.

Good pass on the toilet, but also, I don't know, a bunch of random objects just wasn't

a market for anything anymore.

It felt wrong.

All right.

Okay.

Do you want my feedback?

Yeah.

Yes.

I'm so naive in this space, right?

I don't know what matters and doesn't matter.

But the basic tension is you're pulling this towards something that will sell copies to

put it nicely.

And we're not, I guess, and I think part of the reason this tension is interesting

is because hopefully we're going to find something that's really oddly in the middle

for both of us.

And I think that will be the right place.

Like maybe somebody even said it in this meeting and we just didn't realize it yet.

I did.

I did say it.

And it was sell me a Sasquatch.

We've all said it.

What are we doing?

Alon agreed to throw us a bone and actually try and make cars work.

He'd asked a million times.

He said he'd give it a whirl.

And actually a bunch of you listeners, you got a little sneak peek at this.

All right.

Yeah.

Everybody ready?

Are you set?

Whiteboard here is filled with car theme ideas.

We held an online event to talk about the making of our game.

And Alon admitted to you all that he was struggling to come up with a good car theme for

us.

Okay.

Starting on empty, a lot of lemons.

He presented a bunch of his possible game titles for everyone to weigh in on.

Wheeling and dealing.

That's cute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

See what I did there?

Uh-huh.

Rust in peace.

I'm going to keep going.

Okay.

Yes.

Buy, sell, regret.

No.

No.

And listeners, you sure let him know that they were not good names.

Okay.

Good job.

Uh-huh.

Dumpster drive.

No, nothing.

All right.

Here we go.

Uh-huh.

Welcome to what our meetings are like.

We share ideas.

In the comments, it says, I'm so sorry, Alon.

Those are all trash.

Oh, right.

That's so perfect.

It's amazing.

After weeks and weeks and weeks of bashing our heads against the wall, exploding kittens,

they called us back.

Hey, everybody.

Hello.

Uh, I think we want to talk about theming, correct?

Sort of the million, literally the million dollar question, I think.

Yeah, literally.

Is our goal still to try to get this thing on shelves for next Christmas?

Next July.

So if we want to be in for Christmas next year, we need to be in by July of 2026.

That's the idea.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I did not realize that's the timeline we were working on.

Well, it's really tight.

It's a wonderful world of games.

Yeah.

So today was originally the, the due date for this game.

We would love to walk out of this meeting, all holding hands and agreeing on a theme

and a title.

Okay.

Okay.

So with that said, we're going to present one theme to you today.

Only one.

Uh, okay, so just to be clear, you're saying you want us to say yes to the one thing you're

about to present.

And if we don't, we run the risk of starting to fall even further behind schedule and miss

Christmas next year.

No pressure.

Okay.

Yeah.

No.

Okay.

Let's, let's see what, let's see what this is.

All right.

Steph, I assume the next slide gives everything away.

Yep.

My, my heart is genuinely thumping out of my chest because of how nervous I am that we may

not.

Okay.

Um, well, go ahead.

Steph hit the button.

Okay.

What?

Yes.

How did we end up here?

I know.

I know.

I know.

I know.

I know.

I know.

The European market is going on.

So, uh, so here we have, sell me a sask watch.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

So here's what we did.

We, like, we came up with 400 million other titles.

Uh, huh.

And we pitched some of them to you.

And we pitched some of them to the giant retailers.

And everyone kept coming back to us with like, yeah, yeah, yeah, great.

But you've got to at least give us something better than sell me a sask watch.

And we just couldn't.

Everyone has fallen in love with this name, including our team.

Um, but the pushback, of course, was always international sask watch is not a translatable

word.

And finally, we thought, you know what, screw them.

We just need to go for what the best name we have.

And they'll just deal.

They'll just figure out a solve.

It's their problem, not ours.

It's sort of our problem, but it's mostly their problem.

And we love this so much.

Sorry, Europe looks like we have an American addition and a European addition.

And apparently the Europeans have really pigeonholed to exploding kittens as the funny animal

company.

So, uh, I don't know, maybe cute animals is what Yuri told us.

He'll figure it out.

But here in the United States of America, the planet money game is sell me a sask watch.

And here we are, uh, Kelly, have we, have we grabbed the URL yet?

Stuffed, you know, I'm going to try to ask the project managers, but no, not yet.

We were, we were hoping for your blessings first.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's go grab, go grab, go grab all of them.

Sell me a sask watch dot com, you know, so actually don't start searching for it because

it'll like show.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

Sorry.

It's okay.

It's okay.

I'm sorry.

Um, how much did we just increase the price of that URL?

We, we, we, it won't be bad.

If you want me to grab, eat me a yedi out, I'll have to do that too.

Yes, please.

Yes.

Just in case the international market, so yeah, grab that and that's gold.

Here's now the most important part for you.

Yes, you listening right now.

We are going to need so many creatures for sell me a sask watch list.

We've got the class of cryptids coverage, your big foots, your locks, nest monsters, whatever

you'd say that.

Uh, we've also got some more playful magical creatures.

We have a tooth fairy, a golden goose, but we need two things from you all at home.

Number one.

Do you have a local legendary cryptid that we must know about?

For me, it's the pig people of Medville, Pennsylvania.

I know you're listening to this, exploring kittens.

I still haven't seen a Medville pig person in the game mock up.

So just saying, but also we need creative ideas that fit into the planet money wheelhouse,

like inventive creatures with an economics twist.

So Toxie, the toxic asset, a literal black swan, a sad, very slow deer, you know,

stimulation tough to be stagflation, uh, go to planetmoneygame.com and there's a post

there to download the latest playable prototype, plus a form to submit your creature ideas.

We'll post a couple images of cards on the site for inspiration, planetmoneygame.com.

And make haste, the window closes at the end of this month, planetmoneygame.com, and

thank you.

You are all truly, truly the sasquatches in our hearts.

Is that nice?

You're the best.

That's what we need to say.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by James Need and edited by Marianne McHugh.

It was fact-checked by Willa Rubin and engineered by Sina Lafredo and Quacy Lee.

Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

I'm Candy Malone.

I'm Erica Baris.

This is NPR.

Thanks for listening.

Hey, Erica, could you mind if we just, would you sell me that sasquatch over there in your

hand?

I've got one here, but I don't know if I'm ready to give it up.

Yeah.

You did this whole thing to make sasquatch noises.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh my god.

That's the other reason I saw me a sasquatch.

It's totally chewbucking me.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Interesting.