Imagination Gaming is an entrepreneurial global games and entertainment company with staff based in New York, Los Angeles, London, Sydney and Brisbane with a Head Office/Creative Campus in Adelaide, South Australia.
Imagination Gaming is a subsidiary of Imagination Entertainment, which celebrated 40 years in business in April 2024, and was created by Founder Shane Yeend who started the media company as a teenager.
Imagination Gaming have been proven innovators and brand builders in the social games business for 28 years. The company was established in 1996 with the launch of Battle of the Sexes™ — a cross platform gameplay pattern and media strategy that started as a global radio contest and global hit boardgame, working with Kmart here in Australia. It became a Television Gameshow in just about any language (Mobile Game & CD Rom) with SEGA and #1 Website in Australia from 1997 to 1999.
20+ years ago Imagination also patented and wrote the code for randomization of media on a DVD disk that allowed you to play games and took interactive TV to the world in a box for $20, with the DVD game in the board game aisle. This software revolutionized the traditional games business globally with over $500 million in sales. Imagination then went on to create interactive TV board games; licensed to Hasbro, to Disney and everybody in between across the globe. It was a board game that came alive with the television and the magic of Hollywood that provided one thousand times the customer experience of social games.
In 2010 Spin Master acquired a portfolio of Imagination’s titles including Quelf, Left Centre Right, Fact or Crap, Would You Rather?, Beat the Parents and Battle of the Sexes. The acquisition helped to build a solid base for Spin Master to create Spin Master Games.
Today Imagination Gaming is a team of industry experts with deep experience in gaming on all platforms and distribution globally into 100,000 retail fronts direct in North America, UK and Australia.
“We are extremely excited and privileged to bring the board game Deal or No Deal to our Big W customers. Our mass exclusivity will allow one lucky customer to be part of our activation to win $1 million. Only at Big W.”
Darragh O Se — Big W, Senior Category Manager of Toys
Imagination Gaming continues to acquire, innovate, design, develop and produce games & entertainment brands, delivering a compelling social interactive experience. The Toy Universe had the chance to speak with Shane Yeend, Chief Executive at Imagination and more specifically about the latest promotion that the business has done with Deal or No Deal.
Thanks for speaking to us Shane. Imagination has been around for a long time and ridden some big waves over the years — both highs and lows; can you tell us about the journey so far?
Shane: I started in the board game business with Battle of the Sexes. I called a guy from Kmart from a phone box after them turning it down. Next day I flew to Melbourne where I was taken to the cafeteria at the old Kmart office and I figured that was not a good start. But I left with a 10,000 unit order. The game was then promoted on the radio across Australia and played everyday for three minutes and had the hosts telling you to buy it at Kmart.
Within a year we had the highest selling game in the country and we went on to replicate this on 800 radio stations in the USA and this little Adelaide company had the #6 Game in North America. We went on to the UK and I got the late Jono Coleman, who was the #1 breakfast jock in UK @ Heart FM, to play it on the radio every day and tag WHSmiths. The WHSmiths buyer who had turned it down was getting calls from her stores across the country wanting the game. They listed the item and the rest is history; we still sell games to them 26 years later!
I also did some work for Roland Hanson, who is quite famous and had worked for Bill Gates, and had named a small little program called Windows ☺ . He was helping Horn Abbott and Trivial Pursuit and after helping them I figured there was a need for an easy trivia game with 50/50 chance with whacky trivia. We called it Fact or Crap and started it on radio in Wagga Wagga and with 48 games sold in the first week at the local toy store. This got Toys “R” Us’ attention and that game went on to sell four million units in 10 years.
Our next hit was developing the DVD interactive game where I found someone to write the software and patented the technology and held every license imaginable, this went on to achieve half a billion dollars in sales and a company worth $200 million. With 180 staff and people in offices all over the world it was certainly a challenge with so many moving parts. Then the Global Financial Crisis hit and a lot of our customers were going broke and DVDs were getting sucked out of the stores as streaming was getting started. The ride was unbelievable, but it was a testing time that I hope not to go back to!
Moving forward to 2010 and I attempted to retire and sold off 8 titles to Spin Master, but as everyone knows you can never really leave the Toy Industry. To this day I am Chief Executive of Imagination Gaming and am often asked by many if can I solve this or build this for X; it’s just too much fun making ideas happen. We currently have a much smaller team of specialists that execute creative solutions and partnerships for brand owners, retailers and AAA talent. We are known for innovation in gaming.
We moved on to ask Shane about Imagination Gaming and how the business is building games and businesses, and solving problems for some of the biggest companies in the industry including Disney. More specifically we asked Shane about the way the business operates and some key focus points.
Shane: We liken ourselves to a Navy Seal Team who are highly skilled and can execute anything in record time without getting bogged down in red tape. We also have a direct trading accounts with key mass retailers globally which allows us to work directly with these partners. We’re not the business that works with 3,000 distributors, selling a box of 6 games here and there. We work with brand owners, retailers and talent to build out game ranges and constantly refresh the ranges with innovation and marketing support. We operate with so many different business silos and can execute — bringing them all together so 1 + 1 = 7. This has been our strength over the years and continues to be.
At Imagination Gaming we love games and we love doing things that get noticed and make our partners happy. Innovation is at the core and we strive to be leaders in our categories, like building an 18 + 40 SKU range for Spencers in the USA and Gift Box’s for 275 stores in Australia. Finding brand ambassadors/influencers and matching them with ideas and viral hits, keeping them fresh and selling 17,000 games in one night in Australia — stuff you have never heard of. We have been building out a board game brand Tipsy Land globally that is just killing it. Soon to be four games and a subscription app and a venue for bachelorette parties in Nashville.
We don’t only do adult games, although that sector is on steroids. The family sector is also so important to us. How do we create memories and that one perfect hour by bringing your family together? We have a catalogue of games and companies we have purchased over the years, We recently extended our partnership with Disney that we have held for 10 years in Australia to include USA, UK and Ireland. To manage this process we have small New York team and a small London team who will work to make sure this partnership is a great success in these markets. But we really are like the McKinsey of gaming and we sit with our retailers and listen and build and execute.
We also asked Shane, as we see on the front cover of this edition of The Toy Universe Magazine, ‘When Imagination Plays, Everyone Wins Big!’, — which leads us into DEAL OR NO DEAL and the current promotion that Imagination Gaming are running.
Shane: We developed a Deal or No Deal game 18 years ago with Howie Mandel in the USA, and at the time selling $50million a year, and it still sells today at Walmart. So when the opportunity arose to launch the new Deal or No Deal board game in Australia — it was a no brainer for us. Like many of our other promotions this is a 360 media promotion partnership with EndemolShine Australia, Network 10 and Big W with Imagination as the conductor of the orchestra.
Having previous success with a Board Game + Lottery concept with The Block Monopoly (where we gave away a Block Apartment — the biggest prize in Australian TV history), we thought “let’s throw in a 1-million-dollar cash prize (in the Deal or No Deal board game) and have people lining up to buy the product”. We arranged for Grant Denyer to turn up to the Toy Hobby & Licensing Fair in Melbourne with $1 million cash, and within 25 days we pulled the campaign together and printed the product. We’ve worked with Grant before on Family Feud which was an enormous success at Kmart. Grant has family written all over him. The all-new Deal or No Deal board game is a fantastic family game which also includes a companion banker app plus… the chance to win $1 million buckaroos. Yes, somebody must win, this is not one of those chance-of-a-chance things. This will be the #1 Game of the Year. We have a couple other little surprises later in the year too. 😉
“It’s got the best promotion I have ever heard of where one board game box has a Golden Ticket to win $1 million bucks in cold hard cash!!!”
Grant Denyer
As things change with new technology, new platforms and new opportunities, where is Imagination Gaming heading in the future?
Shane: We think there is enormous opportunity in retail with interactive TV. We see an opportunity to merge these, like what we did with the DVD games, using new technologies. We’ve been pedaling away on this since 2016 and you can see it starting to be rolled out in our games such as Disney Game Night, which incorporates physical and digital games (Phigital). We can again bring that one thousand times the customer experience and keep the cost of goods at a great price.
At a high-level, we asked Shane where he thinks the board game industry is heading.
Shane: Well, its not going away. It’s just a lot harder to create hits. It used to be a 3,000 to 1 game and now its 30,000 to 1. But it helps with nearly three decades experience to harness social gaming trends. We have 2,000 ideas with at least 10 that will be smash hits. Just so little time.
Our big bet is Gamestar. Board games with interactive TV, which we think will bring together multiple devices using your phone, so it’s a like a swiss army knife with the television with a board Game is golden.
“We love gaming and we love doing things that get noticed and make our partners happy.”
Shane Yeend
Also to quote the CEO of Hasbro, “the fastest growing sector is adult games”. We’ve been doing this for 7 years and have 40+ items in the market. We are also heavy in the 18+ game play business, but you wouldn’t even know that it’s us. We like to break the rules and I like having an idea that can sell 17,000 units in Australia @ $39 overnight on the back of a social media post!
Shane, thank you for your time today! For anyone who would like to reach out to Imagination Gaming where do they head to find our more?
Shane: To get in touch with us here in Australia, the United States or the United Kingdom, please email me and I will put you in touch with a seal team leader.
This article originally appeared in Edition 10 of The Toy Universe Magazine
