It’s difficult to find a suitable print partner for board games: Prashant Maheshwari

He was speaking at Print Summit 2023, the annual knowledge seminar hosted by the Bombay Master Printers’ Association (BMPA) on 16 February. Maheshwari is a second-generation family-owned business and established Meeples India in 2012. 

To give an example, Maheshwari said he has found out that there is a negligible number of broad game manufacturers in India. While board games have a huge market, more than 80% of it is occupied by China.He said the Indian market is dominated by games like Ludo, Snake and Ladder, Chess and a few others, but the segment is full of opportunities, and that’s why game developers and book publishers are looking at the Indian market.

“People meet every weekend and play games of their choice. We found that there is huge resistance in the public to learning new games. We curated games for MNCs and other professionally managed companies for their team-building exercises. During our events, designs and ideas from small designers always amazed us,” said Maheshwari.

He showed three samples during his talk and shared his experience related to the printing of these games. In the first example, the game developer couldn’t find a print partner in India and finally, the job went to China for execution.In the second example, the game developer took eight months to find a printing partner in India.In the third example, it took the game developer six months to find the right partner. 

Maheshwari said the board games market cannot develop and grow without the printing industry because it is all made of paper and cardboard. “People have concepts on paper but whom to reach out to for execution?” he asked.He told the gathering, “I am here on behalf of 150 designers, retailers and publishers. They would love to meet printers for execution. 

In our event, which is happening shortly, publishers are coming from the USA and other countries. We will be happy to connect printers with them.”Maheshwari is a graduate of Manchester Business School. His family business is manufacturing bags, footwear and garments for high street retailers, such as Zara, Next, Walmart, Westside, Reliance, etc. His love for board games started in 2012 when he kick-started the Mumbai community by hosting free meetups all over the city. 

He helped kickstart the same in Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, and Chandigarh by advising and supporting board gamers. In 2017, he co-founded Meeplecon, the only board gaming convention in India attended by 300+ people, growing to 3,000 in 2018, 6000+ people in 2019. The organisation’s flagship event is attended by board gamers, publishers, distributors and indie designers all over India and 300+ schools from Maharashtra. 

Mattel and Hasbro are among the notable sponsors. Meeples India uses board games to do team-building events with corporations such as Roche, J&J, Kotak, Chroma, among others. Maheshwari’s latest endeavour is Gamebae, a joint venture with Blue Orange France to manufacture and distribute its product range in India.