From Pilot to Publisher: Grandpa Beck's Story

The routes into game design all start with a passion for the hobby, and thereafter they are many and varied. But Brent Beck of Grandpa Beck’s Games took one of the most unlikely paths it’s ever been my pleasure to discover.

- Matt Thrower

He started out as an airline pilot but, fed up with unsure pension provisions in the industry, decided to seek another source of income. Of all the things he could have chosen, he picked the house rules for a favorite family game.

“We had developed our own rules for the classic card game Golf,” he explained. “We thought, ‘hey, our friends like playing this game, especially with illustrations, I bet we could sell it.’” Unlikely as it may sound, it turned out he was right. But he had no idea how long or how difficult the journey would turn out to be.

Back in My Day...

Beck and his wife Tauni are both long-time game players. “I actually proposed with a rigged game of Scrabble,” Beck revealed with a grin. “When we were a young married couple with a limited budget, one of our main ways we would socialize would be to have a game night,” he continued. “We’d let the young kids watch a movie and the adults would enjoy playing a game together. As the kids got older we started to involve them in our game night as well.”

Unsurprisingly, Beck is a big advocate of the value of gaming to family life. “Life is really all about relationships,” he told me. “Game time is such a great way to interact and build those relationships. We bonded together as a family by playing games and doing other activities together. Now, even though our children are all adults, they remain close friends. I give a lot of the credit for that to the time we spent around our kitchen table.”