We exhibited at Game Market 2025 Autumn — what our first show taught us
This is Ota, the developer of Photo Werewolf. We exhibited Photo Werewolf at Game Market 2025 Autumn — Japan’s largest analog game event.
We were there both days, 22–23 November 2025. Neither as individuals nor as a team had we ever exhibited at Game Market — we hadn’t even attended before. Complete beginners. My family helped out as sellers.
I’m writing this on the evening the event ended, while the excitement is still fresh.
Why exhibit at all?
Because it looked fun. Eighty percent of the decision was just going with it — but the other twenty percent is that I believe in Photo Werewolf’s potential, and this seemed like a great event for getting it in front of people.
What went well
People actually playtested the game we made
Since finishing it, I’d only ever played with family and relatives. Getting to playtest Photo Werewolf with people I’d never met — and hearing every one of them say “this is fun” — was genuinely wonderful.
A few people even signed up for a paid plan on the spot after playing. One of them was planning to bring it to a board game night later.
Posting on X and the official Game Market blog paid off
Plenty of the people who came to the booth had seen us on X or on the official Game Market blog. Nothing we posted went viral in the slightest, but it brought home that people really are reading.
ゲームマーケット2025秋始まりました！ D20ブースでお待ちしております😊
#ゲームマーケット2025秋 #ゲムマ2025秋
“Game Market 2025 Autumn has started! We'll be waiting at booth D20 😊”
The booth looked good
Back tapestry, tablecloth, raised displays on the table — we followed write-ups from people who’d done this before and managed to put together a booth we were happy with.
We got ideas for improvement
Being new to this, we turned up without anything physical to sell. Photo Werewolf earns through a monthly subscription, so that’s just how it fell out.
But almost everyone who comes to Game Market is there to buy physical board games. There’s a whole culture of posting your haul on social media afterwards.
Some people walked up and said “one Photo Werewolf, please!” — and when we explained it’s a game you play on your phone with nothing physical, they left looking a bit deflated. A sales rep whose job is getting board games into retail stores came over interested, and looked equally disappointed when we said there was no product. Obviously enough, you can’t sell into shops without a thing to sell.
What didn’t go well
A big loss
We made a big loss. What we took over the two days was a tiny fraction of what we’d spent on the exhibition fee, production and decoration.
In our defence, there’s a free plan you can play on, so sales aren’t the whole goal — the plan is for free-plan players to watch ads, with advertisers covering the cost. Even allowing for that, though, it was clearly a big loss.
We printed far too much
We printed 1,000 A5 flyers and didn’t get through even 500. We also made 1,000 tissue packs to hand to people who signed up, and didn’t get through 200. We’ll cut that down next time.
Bundled gifts didn’t seem to move the needle
We ran a promotion where anyone signing up for a paid plan got a phone stand on the Gold plan, or a Thermos tumbler on the Platinum plan (the photo at the top of this article shows them).
With no physical product to sell, we figured we may as well give away something nice — but having a gift didn’t really seem to drive sign-ups. We also issued a coupon valid only for the two days of the event, and I don’t think anyone subscribed because of it.
In the end people are looking at the game itself, so we should focus on how to make the game itself look appealing.
What’s next
Before Game Market 2026 Spring
- Make something we can sell — build something you can physically pick up and hold, ready to distribute at Game Market 2026 Spring
- Make it easier to share — it’s a game built on photos, so build a feature that makes the photos from a game easy to share together
- Find advertisers — find companies to place the video ads that free-plan players see when they start a game
In closing
Our first time exhibiting and our first time attending was great fun and a genuinely valuable experience. It was a good way to appreciate the work the Game Market organisers and the wider Japanese board game community put in.
We want to exhibit at Game Market 2026 Spring too — so please come and see how Photo Werewolf has evolved.
Photo Werewolf Play Photo Werewolf free in your browser A new kind of online Werewolf where you bluff with photos on your phone. Grab some friends. Play a round for free