A quick investment: Design your own card game
There are multiple ways to make investments. One often-overlooked method of investing your money is to fund a product startup. Although such investment strategies were once very expensive the Internet and modern engineering technology have made it easier for almost anyone to break into the market for new games.
One very adroit example that comes to mind is the game called Cards Against Humanity. Players do not have to buy the game. They can make their own cards and play for free. But you can visit the Cards Against Humanity Website and order custom game cards, for which you pay a modest $10. You can pay about that much for a deck of classic Hoyle gaming cards.
You should be able to play a few games before you start to design them. Playability is very important and many new games fail because they are too hard to play, too easy to win, or just not very interesting. You want to design a game that challenges players and keeps them focused on the play.
As an investor you should consider what it takes to play a game before you hand over your money to a startup. A few people have been very successful at attracting investors through Kickstarter and other microinvesting Websites.
Start learning about games by studying the basic rules and styles of gaming at Websites like Board Games Pub. Once you have decided what type of game you want to invest in, look for a game designer and marketer who has an interesting concept. You only need to pay for the production costs and recover your investment with a profit.
This is an interesting way to make money. You can scan crowd-funding sites like Kickstarter (Mashable published a list of Kickstarter alternatives in 2012). The crowd-funding sites do vet the projects they take on, so you know that someone else sees potential in the game projects listed on those sites.
Do not make frivolous investments. If a designer is asking for $3000 you should be getting a significant return on that stake.
You should also make sure that the game designer has a promotional strategy. They may have to buy advertising. It is better to find someone who has an established following that is ready to buy his or her games. You don’t want to have to be the promoter as well as the backer for a new game.
Give your investment time to grow. Don’t look for immediate returns. But you should see something in a year or less.