Billings Man Invents Musical Board Game
December 1, 2010By JAN FALSTAD of the Gazette Staff
Even with more than 15 million Americans out of work, Stanford ranch kid Rob Ridgeway is confident enough in the musical board game that he invented last year to quit his day job in Billings and swing for the hit parade.
In August 2009, he was hanging out with family and friends at the warm springs near Lewistown when his stepsister said a word and her friend spontaneously broke into a song.
For the next two hours, the group tossed out keywords and sang lyrics containing that word. During the fun, Ridgeway saw a business opportunity.
“Man, that would be a fantastic board game,” he said, and “Spontuneous®” (spon-TUNE-e-ous) was born.
The board game has sold nearly 2,000 units out of its first printing of 5,000, mostly through the Internet site www.spontuneous.com. For the holidays, Ridgeway rented a Rimrock Mall kiosk in front of Herberger’s where people can buy the game in person for $30, including $1 donated to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Yellowstone County.
Someday, he’d like to create boating and camping versions and develop other applications or “apps” for tablets like the iPad.
And then there’s the ultimate dream.
“I’d like to have my own TV game show some day,” Ridgeway said.
The road from concept to execution was a long one, but, unlike many inventors with an original idea, Ridgeway didn’t quit.
First, he searched online to see if anyone else had a similar game or patent.
No one did. So, while waiting for a plane ride at Denver International Airport, Ridgeway hopped on his computer and bought the rights to a dozen potential Internet domain names, including Spontuneous.com.
He leaned heavily on websites that help gamers learn the craft.
And then he spent last Christmas apologizing to his mom for eating a quick turkey dinner and spending the rest of the holiday writing the game rules. This was the toughest part, he said, and took about two dozen revisions.
One problem was speeding up the pace of play because a game could take two hours. Now players can play a round in less than an hour by using two dice and having a 15-second deadline to think of a song lyric.
“I learned that, if people didn’t get it right away, they weren’t going to get it,” he said.
Ridgeway’s friend, Mark Johnson of Graphic Imprints in Billings, designed the board and cards and is a partner in the game. The result is a colorful, attractive board patterned on the treble clef symbol.
“It can take years and years and possibly millions of dollars to brand your product,” he said. “Over time, I hope people will associate ‘Spontuneous®’ with the treble clef and the treble clef with ‘Spontuneous®.’ ”
Ridgeway has been advertising his game in Billings since October and is branching out to Great Falls and Missoula.
A.J. Oliver, a marketing junior and member of the ski racing team at Rocky Mountain College, is analyzing Ridgeway’s promotion of “Spontuneous®” for a class project. Oliver also is one of three part-timers selling the game at the mall kiosk.
“I think he’s done a stellar job of marketing,” he said.
In the future, the game could be customized to Beatles songs or other musical genres, but Ridgeway wants to change the deck of cards, not the board itself.
“Spontuneous®” won’t be one of those board games that sit on the shelf after the holidays, he said.
“Everyone writes their own list of keywords and there are so many songs, it will never get old,” he said.
The game is manufactured by a company in Battle Creek, Mich., which matched price quotes from China and delivers the games in three weeks instead of three months.
“I want to keep it in America. I have no intention of taking this game job to China,” he said.
The music industry and the gaming industry have their annual conventions early next year, and Ridgeway wants to market his game at both the National Association of Music Merchants in Anaheim, Calif., in January and The Toy Fair in New York City in February.
Eighty percent of board games are sold in November and December. So, Ridgeway, at age 32 with no family to support, is taking the next big gamble and quitting his day job selling commercial insurance.
“This is my opportunity to make it or break it,” he said. “With two jobs, I won’t be able to give this game 100 percent.”
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