Who decides what big box sells? Our GAME got us answers

**Erika Beras** (0:00)
This is Planet Money, from NPR.

**Kenny Malone** (0:05)
I have never heard my Planet Money co-host Erika Beras this nervous before. Hello, Erika?
I'm in the car.

**Erika Beras** (0:14)
Okay. Can everyone in your car hear me?

**Kenny Malone** (0:16)
No. This is between you and me. Erika had essentially dropped everything to fly to Los Angeles because there was a chance she might get inside the room, inside the system, maybe even participate in the system, where a relatively tiny group of people decide what products we all get to see and choose from when we walk into the country's biggest stores. All right. So where are you right now?

**Erika Beras** (0:40)
I am in my hotel room, about two miles from the Exploding Kittens office.

**Kenny Malone** (0:45)
Exploding Kittens is the company we've been working with to create the Planet Money board game. If you're new to this whole project, well, cue the recap.
We are making a game. Me and you all listening at home and Erika Beras too. Erika, come help me with this recap, yes?

**Erika Beras** (1:03)
Yes, gladly. In previous episodes, we've told you the story of how we 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** (1:16)
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 side causes chaos, distrust and ultimately destroys a market.

**Erika Beras** (1:29)
Our game version of that is not about used cars. We decided it should be about monsters and we chose a name. It's called Sell Me a Sasquatch.

**Kenny Malone** (1:38)
Sell Me a Sasquatch. Now, you listeners, you helped us refine this game and in it, our players have hands of cards with cute little mythical creatures on them, and then the players offer deals to each other, trying to get the best creatures but also maybe trying to trick their friends into accepting terrible creature cards because asymmetric information, you only ever have to show part of the deal.

**Erika Beras** (2:01)
One of the reasons we decided to make this game in the first place is so it could be our Trojan Horse to report inside a world that no other Planet Money project has entered, the real shelves at real big box retail stores. And we think making an exploding kittens party game gives us the best chance of sneaking to that world.

**Kenny Malone** (2:20)
So yes, that's the deal. And that is why Erika was at Exploding Kittens headquarters in Los Angeles. It's why they had told her essentially to drop everything because two representatives from a humongous big box company were on their way to visit the kittens office. Those representatives are board game experts traveling the country sifting through hundreds of new games to decide which handful of new games will get space on their company's shelves. This is the moment if we want to get the Planet Money board game into big box retail.

**Erika Beras** (2:53)
So I am doing this call with you and then I'm heading over there.

**Kenny Malone** (2:57)
Okay. And are you going to get in the room for the pitch? Like where did this land?

**Erika Beras** (3:02)
It landed. They emailed me last night and he said that confirmation that you can be in the room for the pitch. So I know part of me was like, maybe I don't have to do this, but.

**Kenny Malone** (3:14)
But yeah, Erika was not just going to be in the room. She was going to have to do the pitch for the Planet Money game.

**Erika Beras** (3:24)
This is a pretty big deal. I'm trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has gone into.

**Kenny Malone** (3:30)
It's really big. Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is? It's sort of the whole thing.

**Erika Beras** (3:35)
It's not. I have a pitch though.

**Erika Beras** (3:36)
I talked myself through it a few times. I was sitting on the airplane mumbling to myself being like, and the thing you got to know is how devoted I was. I was just like, yeah, I got this.

**Erika Beras** (3:46)
I got this. I have arm movements that are going to happen. So, okay.

**Kenny Malone** (3:52)
You got this, Erika. You got this.

**Erika Beras** (3:53)
All right. Bye. Bye.

**Kenny Malone** (3:55)
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone.

**Erika Beras** (3:59)
And I'm Erika Beras. And today on the show, we are going inside the secret room that could make or break our Planet Money game.