Conversations with Anthony Kniss

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Kniss.

Hi Anthony, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Well, it all started way back in 2013 after a few years of collecting board games just on my own and gaming with a club in West Toledo, a friend had reached out to me that he was looking to design a board game loosely based on a videogame he was playing. He had heard that I was playing more board games myself so I had a feel for certain mechanics that may work for his game. After a few playtests of his game, we both had heard from even more friends that were interested in meeting regularly to play board games.

So we got into a routine of gaming on Fridays or Saturdays with a small group of us, about 5-8 people every week. After about a year or 2 of doing that out of our homes, as a group we decided that it was probably best to go to a “more public” environment with our gaming than into our homes so after some local searching for office space, we were able to get connected with the landlord of Peddler’s Alley in Waterville OH.

He TOO had a special affinity to board games as he had also produced a game in the ’80s called “Strike Four”. With his help in allowing us to rent office space, we then generated our official social club called “Black Swamp Gamers” where we now meet every Saturday and Sunday, have over 30 paying yearly members, as well participating in many local outreach events where we host gaming days at breweries, churches, and are part of the events listings for the Toledo Public Library branches.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been an interesting road, to say the least, haha. Our road bumps included our initial payment for the space in Peddler’s Alley as we decided first as a group that we wanted to have our first-year rent all paid in full so that we could spend the year generating memberships that would in turn hopefully pay for the space. The hardest part was trying to find consistent members who wanted to keep coming back to the game regularly.

Then 2020 COVID hit and made it even harder for us because now we weren’t even able to utilize the space we were renting but luckily our members understood our main goal and kept with us through it. Membership numbers are our hardest part and finding ways to generate income when we only see membership payments once a year. Besides that, we also had issues within the last 2 years of overgrowth and how we needed to expand into new space because we’re seeing more regular membership on the weekends than our table space physically allowed for.

Luckily our landlord was able to help us again with moving across the street in Waterville to our now-current location on Third Street in a lower unit that has room for multiple games to be going on at a time rather than only 2 games in the old Peddler’s Alley space. COVID in itself was a tough road and there are many things we had to change and adjust to make it work for our members to keep them safe while still giving them something tangible for the membership they were paying for.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
By day, I am an IT Professional for the last 20yrs so my love for board games fits well as a hobby for me as I enjoy problem-solving. All board games are puzzles that if you can make the mechanics of the game work in your favor, will give you the win. Creating Black Swamp Gamers for me was a way to regularly keep my mind active as well as get a chance to see my friends more often than we had been getting together in the past.

The club itself is known for our large game collection as that’s what usually gets more people in our doors. They hear that we have shelves in our space that has over 400 games to pick from and people are amazed that if they become members, all those games can be checked out for them to take home and share with their families.

I am most proud of how mature our club has become over the years where when we first started, we used to have superhero posters on our walls and played mostly silly party games but now I feel with our current larger space, we have more minimalistic artwork on the walls and our choice of games have grown into the more time consuming and more strategic games that make us think about what we need to do to win the game.

What sets us apart is that we are a uniquely at-heart gaming club. We don’t sell any games, only memberships to a community of people who all like gaming. We encourage people to buy locally through a few local game stores in the area. Each of those stores has their followings too where they have regular gaming but we have found that people enjoy our space because of the library we have to give them more selection on games they could play instead of having to buy a game first to then play at those stores. There seem to be very few publicized gaming clubs in the Toledo area as well we want to provide people a chance to do something different with their time.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
When it comes to board gaming, I feel the biggest quality we have is that we are so welcoming to new people to try new things and games. We want people to engage with us where the stigma of board gaming at least in the past was that people would game at home with their families and think it was silly to game publicly. We enjoy giving people an outlet to even just get out of their homes to come to talk and chat with us over our favorite games.

When we do our outreach events, we try to chat with people about their lives and what they do and hope that maybe gaming with us could be a good way to relax for an evening. All our members are friendly and are always willing to ask anyone who walks in if they want to join them on whatever game they have set up.

We also enjoy teaching games to new players because there are so many out there, not everyone knows how to play every game so a lot of the time, people are scared that they “don’t know how to play” so we tell them that if any game comes to the table, at least one person usually knows how and is willing to teach everyone. Or even in some cases, if no one knows how to play a game, they will all sit down and learn it together then. I feel that we are very welcoming and encourage people to set outside their comfort zone while having a little fun doing so.

Pricing:

• Guest Passes – 2-day punch card for $5 or 8-day card for $10
• Basic Membership that allows for game checks and every Saturday/Sunday to game with us- $100 for 1st year, $125 at annual renewal
• Partner Membership for people who want to be more involved with the club, chances for being a club officer, helps with functionality – $225 annual
• Keyholder option for people who want to come and go as they please and game with their friends anytime (with hopes their friends would then become members) – $50 annually

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.blackswampgamers.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackswampgamers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackSwampGamers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIU1u61ELxkVrc0-rUh90rQ
• Other: https://anchor.fm/bsgonbg

Image Credits
Matt Gruenwald