BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name?

Summary

Planet Money: BOARD GAMES 3 – What’s in a Name?

Episode Date: January 22, 2026
Hosts: Erica Barris and Kenny Malone
Main Theme: The high-stakes, surprisingly human, and often unscientific process of naming and theming a mass-appeal board game for big-box retail, as Planet Money partners with Exploding Kittens to bring their own game to market.

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Episode Overview

This episode follows the Planet Money team as they, in partnership with Exploding Kittens, tackle one of the most crucial aspects of launching a board game: picking the name and the theme. Drawing inspiration from the Nobel-winning paper "The Market for Lemons," their card game is rooted in economic principles of asymmetric information and mounting distrust—but to succeed in the real world of Target and Walmart, it needs something much catchier than that. The show digs into why naming is everything, explores the messy creative process, tests candidates, faces global marketing snags, and finally reveals the game's name: Sell Me a Sasquatch.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Naming Matters So Much

• Story of Yacht/Yahtzee:
  Kenny recounts (00:06) the origin of Yahtzee, a dice game originally called "Yacht." The pivotal shift from "Yacht" to "Yahtzee" showcases how a name can make or break a game's success:

  “A good title or a bad title will absolutely sink a really great game.” – Kenny Malone (00:34)

• Expert Warning:
  Long-time game consultant Jamie Wolanski, known for bringing Settlers of Catan to Target, reinforces the message:

  “Picking the right theme is going to be critical to making it work, because a good title or a bad title will just absolutely sink a really great game.” – Jamie Wolanski (03:15)

2. The Unscientific Art of Naming

• The Exploding Kittens team describes their prototyping process: spend “0%” energy on theme until the game’s mechanics work, then pivot to theming and naming. It's all about what “sticks.”
• Art Director Stefanie Pesta:

  “This part of the process is a lot of like, seeing what sticks…we're kind of looking to capture that feeling.” (12:35)

• The process is compared to cooking by instinct rather than recipe—a tough pill for econ-journalist types.

3. The Three Feet, Three Seconds Rule (The Retailer’s Perspective)

• Jamie Wolanski breaks down consumer psychology:

  “You have literally three seconds to get that person to decide to pick up that box, flip it over, learn a little bit more about it…and take it home.” (15:05)

• Planet Money’s audience (millennial, 28–44, often women controlling household purchases) and purchase motivations: gift-giving or immediate game night needs.

4. The Big Three Theme Pitches from Exploding Kittens (09:20–12:19)

• Misfit Mascots:
  Trade whimsical mascots for a hypothetical team.
• Sell Me a Sasquatch:
  Collect and trade cryptids—adorable, mysterious creatures like Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster.
• Cats as Salespeople:
  Anthropomorphic cats take on classic deal-making professions.
• The process favors what "feels" sticky and memorable over data or metrics.

5. Why "Sell Me a Sasquatch" Stuck

• Despite initial reservations about data-light decision making, “Sell Me a Sasquatch” keeps resurfacing.
• Nostalgia’s power: tapping into memories of "The X-Files," "Unsolved Mysteries," and pop culture cryptids connects with millennial shoppers.
• The rhythm and “fun” of the name itself make it memorable.

6. The International Dilemma (23:05–24:16)

• European partners warn that “Sasquatch” doesn’t translate; few outside North America recognize the term.

  “We would have to either translate the word Sasquatch to something else and suddenly the game doesn't have the right name, or we’d have to leave that in English and just let people scratch their heads.” – Kelly Vopilek (23:58)

• Options to retheme (e.g., swap meets with silly objects, reviving the car theme) fail to resonate. The team is stuck until the original “Sell Me a Sasquatch” again wins out for its unique, sticky appeal.

7. Final Decision and Moving Forward (34:16–36:38)

• After dozens of alternatives, Exploding Kittens and Planet Money embrace the “American” version—Sell Me a Sasquatch—even if it’s less internationally viable.
• Next steps invite listener participation:

  “We need creative ideas that fit into the Planet Money wheelhouse. Like invented creatures with an economics twist—Toxi, the toxic asset. A literal black swan, a sad, very slow deer: stagflation.” – Erica Barris (35:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the pressure to get it right:

  “I was kind of joking and now I actually do feel genuinely a little nervous about this now. I think what I found so genuinely nerve wracking is that we did not have a Yahtzee yet. We just had yacht.” – Kenny Malone (07:35)

• On theme selection challenges:

  “We were not just choosing something that would appeal to a potential customer. We were choosing something that Walmart and Target think will appeal…” – Kenny Malone (08:32)

• On trusting the gut:

  “It’s like when someone gives you a recipe and they just say, ‘Oh, you’ll know when it’s done.’ Like, NO, tell me how long and at what temperature!” – Erica Barris (12:51)

• On Sell Me a Sasquatch’s nostalgia:

  “That was surgical nostalgia, right to my elder millennial heart. To Sunday evening with dad safely watching spooky X File stories.” – Kenny Malone (19:07)

• On international market challenges:

  “We’d have to leave that in English and just let people scratch their heads and say, ‘I don't know what that word is. I can’t pronounce it... I’m going to move on to the next game.’” – Kelly Vopilek (23:58)

• On finally committing:

  “We came up with 400 million other titles, and everyone kept coming back…you’ve got to at least give us something better than Sell Me a Sasquatch. And we just couldn’t.” – Kelly Vopilek (34:16)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:06 – Origin Story: How Yahtzee got its name, lesson on the value of a good name.
• 02:26 – Exploding Kittens explains their prototyping & theming process.
• 03:15 – “The most critical thing…is naming it” – Jamie Wolanski.
• 09:20–12:19 – Exploding Kittens’ three initial theme/name pitches.
• 15:05 – Jamie Wolanski unveils the “three feet, three seconds” retail rule.
• 18:14 – Decision: The team's emotional and nostalgic connection to Sell Me a Sasquatch.
• 20:08 – Jamie hears the proposed title for the first time, assesses its appeal.
• 21:47 – Jamie gives Sell Me a Sasquatch a “nine out of ten”—then, with the addition of a fairy, a “ten.”
• 23:05–24:16 – The international market’s challenge with “Sasquatch.”
• 29:02–31:39 – Ideas that don’t make the cut, listener feedback on bad car-themed names.
• 34:16 – Final decision: Sell Me a Sasquatch is officially the title for the US market.
• 35:56–36:38 – Call for listener cryptid and econ-creature ideas.

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Takeaways For Listeners

• The name and theme are paramount for a game's success in retail; you get “three seconds and three feet” to win a customer in the aisle.
• Despite the desire for data-driven processes, creative decisions in publishing often come down to gut feel and group instinct.
• Nostalgia and “stickiness” can win out over broad logistical challenges—even major internationalization issues.
• Listener input is integral: Planet Money invites participation in building the final card set for Sell Me a Sasquatch.

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How to Get Involved

Submit your cryptid or econ-creature ideas at: planetmoneygame.com
Deadline: End of this month!

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Final Thought:
The journey from “game rules” to shelf-ready product is harrowing, wild—and, apparently, a little bit magical (and maybe a little furry).

“We were feeling about as good as we could possibly feel about cracking our name and our theme and turning our yacht into a Yahtzee.” – Kenny Malone (22:29)

Transcript

[Erica Barris]

This is Planet Money from npr.

[Kenny Malone]

Legend has it there was a Canadian couple in the 1950s who liked to play this game called Yacht. They owned a yacht. They played a game on their yacht. But as far as I could tell, that is all the yacht involved in this game called Yacht.

[Erica Barris]

Yes, Yacht was a dice game. You roll a bunch of dice, you try to make sets and pairs and whatnot. And apparently friends of the Canadian yachters were like this huge yacht game rules. You should publish it, make some money. Maybe buy another yacht.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, why not? And so the unnamed Canadian sold the game idea to a game entrepreneur who then made the very wise decision to not sell the game as Yacht. He changed the name, of course, to Yahtzee. Yahtzee. Nobody's gonna buy and yell yachts. Come on. And we share this little tale because a good title or a bad title will absolutely sink a really great game. That was the very serious warning we got. Previously on Planet Money makes a board game. Let's catch everyone up real quick. We're making a game.

[Erica Barris]

We have partnered with the game company Exploding Kittens to try and design a game inspired by the Nobel prize winning economics paper, the market for Lemons.

[Kenny Malone]

That paper is literally about asymmetric information in the market for used cars. But broadly, it's about how making deals when one side knows more than the other causes chaos, distrust, and ultimately destroys a market.

[Erica Barris]

In our game version, players have hands of cards and they're offering each other deals trying to get the best cards, but they can trick their friends into accepting tax terrible cards. Because asymmetric information. Yeah, you only ever have to show part of the deal.

[Kenny Malone]

We chose to make a mass appeal party game that sneakily brings the economics, the partial information, the mounting distrust, the spiral into joyful chaos instead of a complex hardcore nerdy economics game. And that is because we're hoping that this game can be our true Trojan horse into reporting and learning from inside a world that no other Planet Money project has gone. The real shelves at real big box retail stores.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah. We think an exploding kittens party game gives us the best chance of sneaking into that world. And in our previous episodes, we faced our first huge test.

[Kenny Malone]

That test was named Jamie Wolanski. Jamie is a longtime game consultant. She's legendary convinced Target to carry settlers of Catan way back when. And Jamie had two notes on our joyfully chaotic deal and distrust card game.

[Erica Barris]

Note one.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Okay. I am constantly on the lookout for a new game mechanic that no one else has ever done. And there is not a game out there that I Can equate this to.

[Kenny Malone]

She loved our game. But note number two, she told us, don't mess this up.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Now the most critical thing at this point is naming it.

[Kenny Malone]

Really?

[Jamie Wolanski]

Yeah, the name, the title. Picking the right theme is going to be critical to making it work because a good title or a bad title will just absolutely sink a really great game.

[Kenny Malone]

Game Game.

[Erica Barris]

Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Erica Barris.

[Kenny Malone]

And I'm Kenny Malone. The Planet Money game needs a Planet Money name and we need to not mess this up.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah. We have taken the scamble to make a mass appeal game instead of a complex nerdy learning game. And today the stakes get real.

[Kenny Malone]

We learn what it takes to name and theme something for the big leagues, the big boxes.

[Erica Barris]

We are surprised to learn how unscientific that process can be.

[Kenny Malone]

Plus, by the end of the episode we will have a name and a theme. And we have saved some spots in our deck of cards for you. All you listeners, your ideas will end up illustrated and part of the Planet Money game. Imagine rubbing that in your friends faces at game night. Stay tuned.

[Fernando Madera]

This message comes from. BetterHelp President Fernando Madera shares BetterHelp's commitment to expanding access to therapy.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Our state of stigma report helped us understand that believing in mental health is easy, but asking for help is not.

[Kenny Malone]

Now with the report on our hands.

[Kelly Vopilek]

We can work to make mental health care more accessible.

[Fernando Madera]

To get matched with a therapist, visit betterhelp.com NPR for 10% off your first month.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. We are on a mission to use the Planet Money game to crack open next tier access to the world of big box retail. Imagine getting inside the the real shark tank rooms where a single pitch could result in the shipping containers full of game orders.

[Erica Barris]

But the problem was what really was the Planet Money game? We had a prototype and we'd collectively done thousands of hours of play testing which you all helped us with, thank you very much. But really all we had to show for it was a set of rules.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, I mean to be clear, we're proud of those rules. They explain a card game that is subtly complex and even more subtly sprinkles in our big asymmetric information economics idea. But it's true. This was not yet a product that you could put on a shelf at Walmart or Target.

[Erica Barris]

But apparently this is how exploding kittens works. During the prototyping phase, they seemed 0% concerned with the theme of our game. Like they didn't worry about the pictures on the cards, about whether our players should imagine they were used Car sellers or fruit vendors running a literal market for lemons.

[Kenny Malone]

No, Their strategy was the game should work without any of that and only then do we start thinking about theming and naming. And then one day we got word.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Okay, so let's talk about. So, yeah, so let's.

[Kenny Malone]

Just to be clear, we're preparing. We're preparing for the highest stakes part of this entire process. Is that what we're about to do? Yeah.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah. The way to think about this is.

[Erica Barris]

That is Exploding Kittens co founder Alon Lee and the rest of the team. And this was the big one, the meeting where we finally start looking at names and themes for the planet Money game.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Everything we've been through so far is exactly 50% of it. Now we start the other 50%, which is how to sell this thing.

[Kenny Malone]

Right, Right.

[Stefanie Pesta]

No pressure. Right.

[Kenny Malone]

In all honesty, when one of your consultants played the game, she really liked it. And it was a previous version even. And I asked her, I was like, what is the biggest obstacle? And like, what's the thing that could tank this? And she was like, the name and the theming is like, just don't mess it up. She really said that.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Like, can this tank a game? Absolutely, yes. Like, we have games out there that I thought were spectacular. And when we launch games, like, I go camp out at all the big retailers and I sit there in the aisles and I people. And I just. It's so heartbreaking to see them walk right by a really epic game because the box just doesn't catch their attention.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, that is a little intimidating. I was kind of joking and now I'm like, I actually do feel genuinely a little nervous about this now. I think what I found so genuinely nerve wracking is that we did not have a Yahtzee yet. We just had yacht. But. But unlike Yahtzee, we needed a name. And also we needed a whole story for our game.

[Erica Barris]

Now, our first instinct was to push for the most obvious idea. Cars. Just call it Cars for Lemons and make it about trading different used cars. I mean, it's so. It's right there.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. But apparently, according to Exploding Kittens, car themed games in particular have a risk of being confusing and disappointing on a shelf.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah, like imagine you're in the game aisle. Ooh, a car game. Is it about racing? Are there moving pie and fast cars and. Oh, it's none of those things. Bummer out. Not getting it. I don't know if I fully buy this, but welcome to the world of choosing a name and a theme for.

[Kenny Malone]

Big Box Yeah, because we were not just choosing something that would appeal to a potential customer. We were choosing something that Walmart and Target think will appeal to the potential customer. After all, they are the ones who will decide whether to order. And Carrie, the Planet Money game.

[Erica Barris]

And now, in that highest stakes part of the process, Meeting Exploding Kittens was about to show us some potential themes and names that they think might get us on the shelf.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Get ready for. Oops. Sharing is not turned on.

[Erica Barris]

Hold on, let me hit Allow. I think I got it. Stefanie Pesta is in charge of the art and design part of this process, and she was ready to present us with three possible names and themes. But first, she wanted to share a bit about how her team takes a prototype like ours and starts to find a name in theme.

[Stefanie Pesta]

So the way the art team works is we'll play the game to get a general understanding of, like, the emotions you feel as, like, you go through the core gameplay mechanics. And for this one, what we really loved was the trading aspect. Right. That's where the tension is, that's where the excitement is.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah. So remember, in our game, the players take turns entertaining deals from the other players. That deal might include great cards or terrible cards or mediocre cards or all of those things. But because you only have to show one of the cards, it turns the straightforward market into a chaos pit of distrust and betrayal and often shouting. I feel like we've shouted at each other a bit.

[Erica Barris]

A little.

[Stefanie Pesta]

And we really wanted to jump off of that feeling. Those cards and the excitement of, like, trading something that could be really funny but also really exciting to have. So we thought about people who trade a lot, and we're like, oh, my gosh. Sports trading.

[Erica Barris]

Sports trading. You could imagine each of our players is a sports agent or a team trading and acquiring good and bad athletes.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, cool. But part of the Exploding Kittens process, Stephanie says, is then to ask, what is the less on the nose version, funnier, more whimsical? Because that may help the game stand out on a big box shelf.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Okay, instead of athletes, what if it's misfit mascots? And the goal of the game is that you're trading different mascots and you want to, like, build this ultimate dream team.

[Kenny Malone]

Stephanie pulls up a screen showing that the art department has invented and illustrated very silly mascots for all kinds of products.

[Stefanie Pesta]

King Ketchup, Liverworth Lad, Jolly Roger, Moptop.

[Erica Barris]

And that is how they arrived at theme and name number one. Misfit mascots.

[Kenny Malone]

Great.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Okay, take two.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. Stephanie pulls up an illustration of. Oh my gosh, a very cute Bigfoot.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Erica Barris]

Oh, uh huh.

[Stefanie Pesta]

This one, we're like, what if people are trying to find and trade cryptids and or famous magical animals?

[Erica Barris]

Imagine Loch Ness monsters, Chupacabra, the Kraken. The idea is you're a creature collector trying to capture and assemble the best groups of magical creatures.

[Kenny Malone]

Ethically, we would ethically capture them.

[Erica Barris]

No cages.

[Kenny Malone]

I did feel magically transported to being a little kid who loves Sasquatch. I will admit they were adorable, but okay.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

Finally, option number three.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Okay, this next one is cats who are also car salesmen.

[Kenny Malone]

Cats who are also car salesmen. Now, to be clear, not cars, because we talked about car problem. The imagery here is cats in suits. And they are in fact doing all kinds of jobs. To be clear, these cats, the goal.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Is to be the best salesman. Characters can be stock traders, car salesmen, street vendors, and other famous deal traders. But imagine it's cats instead of people exploding kittens, let's bring animals into it.

[Kenny Malone]

It is dawning on us that we clearly have entered. I guess we'll call it the Art of game selling. Like, will cats in suits sell better than ketchup bottles with crowns? But we have no idea. How are we supposed to know this?

[Stefanie Pesta]

Yeah, you know, this is really the explorational phase. So right now, this part of the process is a lot of like, seeing what sticks. Like, this one feels right. This one will really, really, really work in retail. We're kind of looking to capture that feeling.

[Erica Barris]

What feels right, what sticks. These are not metrics that work with our econ data brains. It's like when someone tries to give you a recipe and they just say, oh, you. You'll know when it's done. Like, no, tell me how long and at what temperature and what order the things go in.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes, that is maddening. I do hate that. But exploding kittens say this is the method that works for them. It's better, they say for them than like a formal corporate focus group situation where you might drown in too much data. Sounds like a good problem to me. But apparently their process is to now just let these three ideas sit and see if anything ends up like one of those earworm songs that you just cannot stop thinking about.

[Erica Barris]

And that's it. That is pretty much where we left the meeting.

[Kenny Malone]

Thank you for all the work you've put into this. I'm so excited to see more. And our reactions are, if we're not giving you the reactions you want, it's just because we don't know what we're doing.

[Stefanie Pesta]

No, it's fine.

[Erica Barris]

This is great.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Thank you.

[Erica Barris]

Thank you.

[Kenny Malone]

So, trust the process, I guess.

[Erica Barris]

Trust the process. Trust the process.

[Kenny Malone]

I don't know about you, Erica, but I for one, was not prepared for all of this. Trust your gut, go on instinct business. On what we had been told was possibly the most important decision we had to make. Jamie, great to see you again. It's been a long time.

[Erica Barris]

I know.

[Fernando Madera]

Good to see you, too.

[Erica Barris]

You may remember game consultant Jamie Wolanski. She's a person who, months earlier, played a prototype of our game. She told us, we've got something here, but she gave us that dire warning.

[Kenny Malone]

Do you remember what you told us at the very end of our conversation?

[Fernando Madera]

Yes, I.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Well, I remember saying that the title and the theme are going to matter.

[Kenny Malone]

You said, quote, picking the right theme is going to be critical to making it work.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Heavy words, strong words.

[Kenny Malone]

Jamie Walansky is the big box retail whisperer. And that is why Exploding Kittens hires her to help get their games into big box stores. In fact, she was visiting Exploding Kitten's office in Los Angeles when we called her up to talk about name and theme.

[Erica Barris]

I mean, the most obvious question is, why does it matter? Like, if we have a killer game, why does. Why do the theme and the name matter so much?

[Jamie Wolanski]

Well, you're competing against hundreds of other games on the shelf, and when a guest or a customer comes up to the shelf to choose a game to play at that game night, you have literally three seconds to get that person to decide to pick up that box, flip it over, learn a little bit more about it, and take it home.

[Erica Barris]

Is three seconds like a science? Like, have you done research on this? You know, there's three seconds?

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, yeah, that was pretty precise, Jamie.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Well, I think we all say this, and maybe I'm giving away the keys to the castle, but in retail, we say we have 3ft and 3 seconds to make a consumer purchase. You're 3ft away from the product and you have 3 seconds to make that person decide to pick it up, learn more about it, or decide to just blindly buy it.

[Erica Barris]

So for Jamie, the question of theming and design and title is all about that 3ft and 3 seconds. When you get close, does our game very quickly pique the customer's curiosity somehow?

[Kenny Malone]

And here, amidst all the trust your gut, use the force, Luke stuff, Jamie brings us a sweet, sweet numerical oasis because she says we can try to reason through this a bit. So what will pique a big box customer's? Curiosity. Well, who is that customer? We should ask.

[Jamie Wolanski]

The number one consumer that walks into these big boxes are generally millennial women, probably, who are. Who are owning the household purchasing dollars, who are between the ages of 28 and 44. So that's your core customer.

[Kenny Malone]

Our core customer is. It is basically you, Erica. You are the core customer.

[Erica Barris]

It's me. I feel seen. Yep, that's me.

[Kenny Malone]

Age wise, at least it's also me a little bit.

[Jamie Wolanski]

So there is data supporting the fact that people go into a big box retailer to buy games for two reasons. One, for game night that night with their friends or family.

[Kenny Malone]

Game night. That night.

[Jamie Wolanski]

That night.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, no, I've scheduled game night. I forgot. I don't have a game.

[Jamie Wolanski]

That's right. They want to play something new.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, okay, sure. That makes. That makes more sense.

[Jamie Wolanski]

So a game that they buy that night to play that night with their friends or family or as a gift for someone else. Those are the two main reasons they come in.

[Kenny Malone]

So millennials giving gifts, spicing up the old game night. This. This was a bit of a revelation for us.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah. And just to step back for a second, after we had that big meeting with the Exploding Kittens with their three themes and names, we tried to trust the process to let the choices percolate.

[Kenny Malone]

But that anti data driven process, it just doesn't work. No, no, it totally worked. Of course it did. They know what they're doing. After a few weeks, just as they'd predicted, one of Exploding Kittens themes and titles did start to stand out for us. But for the Exploding Kittens team as.

[Erica Barris]

Well, it was a name that we all just liked saying, like we wanted to tell our family and friends about and just couldn't stop thinking about.

[Kenny Malone]

It was a theme that just felt fun to spend time inside. I can't defend it. It was just instinct.

[Erica Barris]

That theme and that name was. Drumroll, please. Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, is that the sound?

[Erica Barris]

You get a Sasquatch and you get a Sasquatch. Yes.

[Kenny Malone]

Sell me a Sasquatch. We loved it. I don't know what to say. And until we talked to Jamie, it had not occurred to me. There was something else special about Sell me a Sasquatch. Because unlike the theme that was funny mascots or the one where cats had jobs or whatever, there was something about Sell me a Sasquatch I hadn't quite been able to put my finger on. Ah, yes, that was it. Sell me a Sasquatch was hitting me right in the old X Files.

[Erica Barris]

Ah, yes, the Breakout TV show about paranormal things viewed by tens of millions of people back in the 90s.

[Jamie Wolanski]

And you suspect what?

[Erica Barris]

Bigfoot?

[Kelly Vopilek]

Scully. It'll be a nice trip to the forest.

[Kenny Malone]

Sell me a Sasquatch. A game where you spend an evening with family and mysterious creatures. That was surgical nostalgia. Right to my elder millennial heart. To Sunday evening with dad safely watching spooky X File stories.

[Erica Barris]

Or maybe you were one of the millions of 80s kids traumatized by NBC's Unsolved Mysteries.

[Kenny Malone]

Is Bigfoot real? An elaborate, ongoing hoax we wanted to believe in the 80s and 90s. And look, maybe we're just grasping for logic inside this wild exploding kittens process, but if the core customers walking into Big Box are millennials, we. We could do worse than picking a theme and a name that might cut to their 80s and 90s hearts.

[Erica Barris]

It all comes down to three feet and three seconds inside a store. A gut reaction to a name and a theme. So what would Jamie's gut reaction be to ours?

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, so here's what we and exploding kittens are thinking. Erica.

[Erica Barris]

It's gonna be called Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, listening back, it does sound a little like Jamie hates this idea, but her face does not say that. She seems unsure, not hateful. Just like. Let me process this. She's a thinker.

[Erica Barris]

Let me do this again. Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Sell me a Sasquatch. Is it cute? We don't know how cute it is yet, do we?

[Kenny Malone]

That's very cute. It's very cute. Yes. In fact, exploding kittens had mocked up some cover art. So picture a vending machine, and jammed inside, pressed up against the glass, is a very sweet, very cute Sasquatch.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Yes, a cute Sasquatch. Ready to be sold.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah.

[Jamie Wolanski]

And I would say Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Yeti, whatever we wanna call that old buddy is trending and super hot right now.

[Kenny Malone]

That's what we're hoping.

[Jamie Wolanski]

I actually love that. I think you're right on the money with the trend here.

[Erica Barris]

Obviously Jamie would know that kind of thing better than we do. But I will say, if you squint at Google Trends for Sasquatch, it kinda looks like searches have been on the rise over the last half dozen years.

[Kenny Malone]

And if I may add one hard data point, my nephew is very into Sasquatch. Sasquatch gifts for Christmas. And I do consider him a five year old trendsetter.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Erica Barris]

Has a good rhythm.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, so on a scale of sure thing to. Don't call it that. Where are you on Sell me a Sasquatch Home run?

[Jamie Wolanski]

I'm probably at a nine on this one.

[Erica Barris]

Whoa.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Can we add a fairy in there? I do feel like off mic there.

[Kenny Malone]

You can hear Kelly Vopilek from Exploding Kittens weigh in. In fact, there is a fairy in the game.

[Fernando Madera]

That's right.

[Jamie Wolanski]

See? Okay, guys, nailed it. Just went to a 10 out of 10.

[Kenny Malone]

Whoa. I mean, look, I won't pretend to fully understand it, but Jamie knows what the people want. Or more importantly, what big box wants, I guess.

[Jamie Wolanski]

This is really great. This is great. This is great.

[Kenny Malone]

We were feeling about as good as we could possibly feel about cracking our name and our theme and turning our yacht into a Yahtzee. And that is when.

[Kelly Vopilek]

So let's. Let's talk about what we all kind of agreed on a few months ago, which was Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Kenny Malone]

Elan Lee and Thor Ritz from Exploding Kittens called another meeting.

[Kelly Vopilek]

I still really love that name and that theme. Uh oh. We ran into a problem with. Mostly with the international teams. What? They don't know what a Sasquatch is.

[Kenny Malone]

Hold on, hold on.

[Kelly Vopilek]

They don't have Sasquatches in Europe.

[Erica Barris]

They do not have Sasquatches in Europe. He says how much?

[Kenny Malone]

Go ahead.

[Erica Barris]

How much of our, like, what are we expecting the international audience to buy? Like, you know.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah, it's typically about 20% of sales.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay.

[Erica Barris]

That's not a terrible.

[Kenny Malone]

No, that's not. Not. Are you sure they don't know about the yeti?

[Kelly Vopilek]

I mean, I'm not sure they don't know about the yeti, but Sell me a yeti. No, no, no. Didn't roll off as well. Yes.

[Kenny Malone]

You have to be creative. But what about, like, yeet me a yeti. Like, throw me a yeti. They probably don't know about Yeet. They probably don't know about yeet.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah, I think you've. You've introduced a whole new problem.

[Kenny Malone]

So. So it doesn't matter that, like, the Loch Ness monster would be known or whatever. It's because we are so heavy on the title Sasquatch. That was going to tank the whole thing.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah, yeah. Because we would have to either translate the word Sasquatch to something else and then suddenly the game doesn't have the right name, or we'd have to leave that in English and just let people scratch their heads and say, I don't know what that word is. I can't pronounce it. It's very, very difficult and I'm going to move on to the next game.

[Kenny Malone]

After the break. We are miserable but it gets better and how you can get your idea into the planet Money game.

[Fernando Madera]

This message comes from Grammarly. From emails to reports and project proposals, it's hard to meet the demands of today's competing priorities without some help. Grammarly is the essential AI communication assistant that boosts your productivity at work so so you can get more of what you need done faster. Just a few clicks can tailor your tone and writing so you come across exactly as you intend. Get time back to focus on your high impact work. Download Grammarly for [e-mail] podcast that's Grammarly.com.

[Kenny Malone]

Podcast this message comes from Insperity Excellence takes drive, work, perseverance. Tiger woods brings it to the course. Insperity brings it to your business. Want to be the best work with the best insperity how you HR matters. Learn [e-mail] Tiger.

[Erica Barris]

I have heard a lot about you, but I'm going to have you just like introduce yourself to us.

[Yuri Hoste]

So I'm Yuri Hoste. My team and I manage all of the international business for exploding kittens. So anything outside of North America.

[Kenny Malone]

And Yuri, have you never heard of a Sasquatch before?

[Kelly Vopilek]

For real?

[Yuri Hoste]

I have heard of it. I have heard of it. Yes, definitely. But I'm not so sure about all the other people in Europe. So that's why we're thinking we might need to switch it up a bit.

[Erica Barris]

Yuri Hostas says that international business is actually more like 30% of exploding kitten sales at this point and growing.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, but non monolithically. Yuri has seen different exploding kittens games take hold in different countries, different preferences.

[Yuri Hoste]

France, for instance, is definitely more of a card game market and is often looking for a bit more layered and complex rules.

[Kenny Malone]

I was rolling my eyes. Sorry.

[Yuri Hoste]

France, Spain and Italy maybe. Seems more dynamic play. So for instance, our Trotro burrito range does better in those markets than many other markets in Europe.

[Kenny Malone]

Meaning the game where you throw a foam burrito at each other is specifically popular with the Italians and Spaniards.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah. And then the game where you imagine being a horrible therapist has been doing well in Germany and there are several.

[Yuri Hoste]

Other markets where it doesn't perform as well yet.

[Kenny Malone]

Interesting. Obviously Austria is where Freud is from. You know, therapy Freud.

[Yuri Hoste]

It's funny that you mentioned that because I think like within two weeks of us announcing the launch, we were contacted by the Freud Museum asking if they could sell it in their gift shop.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah, but okay. The now untitled Planet Money Game. Is it really worth rethinking the whole name for Europe?

[Kenny Malone]

Well, Yuri says there is reason to take this seriously, so I think overall.

[Yuri Hoste]

Our expectations are quite high. So in Germany, there's this game fair called Spiel. Takes place every year in Essen.

[Kenny Malone]

Gigantic.

[Yuri Hoste]

Exactly. So we did have the game there this year in October, and it was actually quite well received.

[Kenny Malone]

All right, we're not throwing anything at each other with this game. So are the Italians and Spaniards going to not like it?

[Yuri Hoste]

No, I think they'll be French going.

[Kenny Malone]

To like it because it's a card game and it's a little complex.

[Yuri Hoste]

Yeah, I think they will. All of those markets were on board. Obviously, a lot will be influenced by the theme that we ultimately pick. So hopefully we'll be able to make. Make some good progress and lock something down.

[Erica Barris]

Now we should say it's not unheard of to launch a game in the US And Europe with two different names.

[Kenny Malone]

It's also not great either. It would slow things way down in Europe. It would obviously require completely redoing all of the art and the naming and require a completely separate factory setup or whatever. It's possible.

[Erica Barris]

But regardless, let's cue the sad montage music because we spent forever trying to come up with a whole new title and theme.

[Stefanie Pesta]

Okay, close your eyes.

[Kenny Malone]

Please be a taxidermy Chupacabra Please be a taxidermy Chupacabra Something that would work for. For both America and Europe. And first, exploding kittens came back to us with. I guess it was like a swap shop theme.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Sell me something stupid.

[Erica Barris]

Okay, imagine you are at a swap.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Meet, but just like the craziest, most insane swap meet ever.

[Erica Barris]

And the items you trade each other are just, like, the wackiest junk you could imagine.

[Kelly Vopilek]

We have a dog with human arms.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, I'm so out on that one.

[Kelly Vopilek]

We have a cactus with a sign hanging around it called Free Hugs.

[Kenny Malone]

This cactus is very silly.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah. Yeah. We have a couple's toilet.

[Erica Barris]

That's what I'm looking at.

[Kelly Vopilek]

It's in the shape of a heart.

[Kenny Malone]

That's the grossest thing I've ever thought of. That is so gnarly. Hard pass on the toilet, but also, I don't know, a bunch of random objects just. It just, like, wasn't a market for anything anymore. It felt wrong. All right. Okay. Do you want my feedback? Yeah.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yes.

[Kenny Malone]

I'm so naive in this space. Right. I don't know what matters and doesn't matter, but the basic tension is you're pulling this towards something that Will sell copies, to put it nicely. And we're not, I guess. And I think part of the reason this tension is interesting is because hopefully we're going to find something that's really oddly in the middle for both of us. And I think that will be the right place.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Like maybe somebody even said it in this meeting and we just didn't realize it yet. I did.

[Kenny Malone]

I did say it. And it was sell me a Sasquatch. We've all said it. What are we doing?

[Erica Barris]

Alain agreed to throw us a bone and actually try and make cars work. We'd asked a million times. He said he'd give it a whirl.

[Kenny Malone]

And actually a bunch of you listeners, you got a little sneak peek at this.

[Erica Barris]

All right.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah. Everybody ready?

[Kenny Malone]

Are you?

[Kelly Vopilek]

My whiteboard here is filled with car theme ideas.

[Kenny Malone]

We held an online event to talk about the making of our game. And Alon admitted to you all that he was struggling to come up with a good car theme for us.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Okay, here we go. Running on empty. A lot of lemons.

[Erica Barris]

He presented a bunch of his possible game titles for everyone to weigh in on.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Wheeling and dealing.

[Erica Barris]

Oh, that's cute.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah, yeah. See what I did there?

[Erica Barris]

Uh huh.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Rust in peace. I'm gonna keep going now. Buy, sell, regret.

[Erica Barris]

No.

[Kenny Malone]

And listeners, you sure let him know that they were not good names.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Okay, Ready for another dad joke? Dumpster drive? No? Nothing. All right, here we go.

[Kenny Malone]

Welcome to what our meetings are like. We share ideas.

[Kelly Vopilek]

In the comments, it says, I'm so sorry, Elan. Those are all trash.

[Kenny Malone]

No way.

[Kelly Vopilek]

That's so perfect.

[Erica Barris]

After weeks and weeks and weeks of bashing our heads against the wall, exploding kittens, they called us back.

[Kenny Malone]

Hey, everybody.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Hello.

[Kenny Malone]

I think we want to talk about theming. Correct? Sort of the million. Literally the million dollar question.

[Kelly Vopilek]

I think. Yeah, literally.

[Kenny Malone]

Is our goal still to try to get this thing on shelves for next Christmas, next July. So if we want to be in for Christmas next year, we need to be in by July of 2026.

[Kelly Vopilek]

That's the idea.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, I did not realize that's the timeline we were working on.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Welcome to the wonderful world of games. Yeah.

[Jamie Wolanski]

So today was originally the due date for this game.

[Kelly Vopilek]

We would love to walk out of this meeting all holding hands and agreeing on a theme and a title.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. Okay.

[Kelly Vopilek]

So with that said, we're going to present one theme to you today.

[Kenny Malone]

Only one. Okay.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Should we.

[Kenny Malone]

So just to be clear, you're saying you want us to say yes to the one thing you're about to present, and if we don't we run the risk of starting to fall even further behind schedule and miss Christmas next year?

[Kelly Vopilek]

No pressure.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay.

[Erica Barris]

Yeah, no, let's just see what. Let's see what this is.

[Kelly Vopilek]

All right, Steph, I assume the next slide gives everything away.

[Kenny Malone]

My heart is genuinely thumping out of my chest because of how nervous I am that we may not.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Okay, well, go ahead, Steph. Hit the button.

[Fernando Madera]

Okay.

[Kelly Vopilek]

What? Yes.

[Jamie Wolanski]

Yes.

[Erica Barris]

How did we end up here? Do we not care about the European market? Is that what's going on?

[Kelly Vopilek]

So here we have. Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. Yes.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah. So here's what we did. We came up with 400 million other titles, and we pitched some of them to you, and we pitched some of them to giant retailers, and everyone kept coming back to us with, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, great. But you've got to at least give us something better than sell me a Sasquatch. And we just couldn't. Everyone has fallen in love with this name, including our team. But the pushback, of course, was always international. Sasquatch is not a translatable word. And finally we thought, you know what? Screw them. We just need to go for it with the best name we have. And they'll just deal. They'll just figure out a solve. It's their problem, not ours. It's sort of our problem, but it's mostly their problem. And we love this so much.

[Kenny Malone]

Sorry, Europe. Looks like we have an American edition and a European edition. And apparently the Europeans have really pigeonholed exploding kittens as the funny animal company. So, I don't know, maybe cute animals is what Yuri told us. He'll figure it out.

[Erica Barris]

But here in the United States of America, the planet money game is Sell me a Sasquatch.

[Kelly Vopilek]

And here we are. Kelly, have we. Have we grabbed the URL yet?

[Kenny Malone]

Steph, do you know, I'm not sure.

[Stefanie Pesta]

I'd have to ask the project manager.

[Kenny Malone]

But, no, not yet.

[Erica Barris]

We were.

[Stefanie Pesta]

We were hoping for your blessings first.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yeah. Yeah. Let's go grab.

[Kenny Malone]

Go grab.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Go grab all of them.

[Kenny Malone]

Sell me a sasquatch.com can be reached.

[Jamie Wolanski]

So actually, don't start searching for it.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh. Because it'll, like, show. Oh, yeah.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Sorry.

[Erica Barris]

Sorry.

[Fernando Madera]

Okay.

[Kelly Vopilek]

That's okay. It's all right.

[Kenny Malone]

How much did we just increase the price of that URL?

[Kelly Vopilek]

We.

[Erica Barris]

We might.

[Kelly Vopilek]

We. It won't be bad.

[Kenny Malone]

If you want me to grab. Eat me a yeti.

[Kelly Vopilek]

I'll.

[Kenny Malone]

I'll happily do that, too.

[Kelly Vopilek]

Yes, please, Just in case.

[Kenny Malone]

The Internet. International market.

[Kelly Vopilek]

So, yeah, grab that. That's gold.

[Kenny Malone]

And now the most important part for you. Yes, you listening? Right now we are going to need so many creatures for sell me a Sasquatch. Listen, we've got the classic cryptids covered. Your Bigfoots, your lochs ness monsters.

[Erica Barris]

However, you'd say that we've also got some more playful, magical creatures. We have a tooth fairy, a golden goose.

[Kenny Malone]

But we need two things from you all at home. Number one, do you have a local legendary cryptid that we must know about? For me, it's the pig people of Meadville, Pennsylvania. I know you're listening to this exploding kittens. I still haven't seen a Meadville pig person in the game mock up. So just saying.

[Erica Barris]

But also we need creative ideas that fit into the Planet Money wheelhouse. Like invented creatures with an economics twist. So toxi, the toxic asset. A literal black swan, a sad, very slow deer. You know, stagflation.

[Kenny Malone]

Tough to beat stagflation. Go to planetmoneygame.com and there's a post there to download the latest playable prototype, plus a form to submit your creature ideas. We'll post a couple images of cards on the site for inspiration. Planet moneygame.com and make haste, the window.

[Erica Barris]

Closes at the end of this month. Planetmoneygame.com and thank you.

[Kenny Malone]

You are all truly, truly the Sasquatches in our hearts. Is that nice? You're the best. That's what we mean to say.

[Erica Barris]

This episode of Planet Money was produced by James need and edited by by Marianne McCune. It was fact checked by Willa Rubin and engineered by Sina Lofredo and Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

[Kenny Malone]

I'm Kenny Malone.

[Erica Barris]

And I'm Erica Barris. This is npr. Thanks for listening.

[Kenny Malone]

Hey, Erica, do you mind? Will you just. Would you sell me that Sasquatch over there in your hand?

[Erica Barris]

I've got one here, but I don't know if I'm ready to give it up. You did this whole thing to make Sasquatch noises.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh my God. That's the other reason I like sell me a Sasquatch. It's totally Chewbacca me.

[Erica Barris]

Interesting.

[Fernando Madera]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify. No idea where to sell. Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. It is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IPO ready, Shopify is the only tool you need to start, run and grow your business without the struggle. Once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the Internet's best converting checkout to help you turn them from browsers to buyers. Go to Shopify.com NPR to take your business to the next level today.