Dropout CEO Sam Reich Takes Us Inside Game Changer: Home Edition [Exclusive]

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

It's hard to invest in the streaming wars when, in my humble opinion, Dropout continues to be the best streaming service on the market. The flower that righteously blossomed from underneath the concrete rubble of CollegeHumor, Dropout is one of the few outlets where truly original comedy production can thrive. It's been a pillar in the increased public interest in tabletop role-playing games like "Dungeons and Dragons" thanks to the wildly popular actual play series "Dimension 20," but it's the streamer's most-watched show, "Game Changer," that has catapulted the streaming platform beyond niche circles.

One of the flagship series on the platform, "Game Changer" is a competitive game show where contestants have no idea what game they're playing until they start playing. That means "Game Changer" delivers a completely new game every week, except for a handful of "Game Samer" episodes or games that span multiple episodes. Dropout CEO Sam Reich hosts the show and doubles as a sort of trickster god, with many Dropout players confessing that there's a constant bit of anxiety that follows them, knowing the threat of a "Game Changer"-shaped trap can show up anywhere, at any time.

Now, fans are getting the chance to experience the chaos for themselves with "Game Changer: Home Edition," an unpredictable board game inspired by different episodes of the show. Ahead of the gamified pre-orders available through Kickstarter, I spoke with Reich to learn how in the actual fresh hell fans will be able to bring home a game where, famously, "the only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning."

Sam Reich has been trying to turn "Game Changer" into a party game for years, but says that they could never quite crack the right angle ... until now. Reich teamed up with board game designer Joshua Balvin, and the two hammered out the details to come up with the perfect way to play "Game Changer" at home. "The role of being a dungeon master or storyteller in 'Blood on the Clocktower' is pretty creative, but here, we didn't want to have one person be left out," says Reich. By not releasing the mantle of host to one of the players, it's as if Sam Reich remains the host of every game.

"Game Changer: Home Edition" features three games inspired by beloved episodes — Bingo, Name a Number, and Sam Says — each played with prompt cards. "Some of them are very subversive and outside the box in ways that we think will surprise and delight people in the exact same way that 'Game Changer' the show does," Reich explains. "So you'll know some of the rules heading in and not nearly everything the game is going to ask of you. Particularly in Name a Number and in Sam Says, the game will ask you to do things that will surprise you."

Many of the cards were written by Reich and his writing team, so when the game asks something of the players, they can imagine that it's till Reich hosting from afar. "You're not going to pass that curse onto a regular person," I told him. "It's really admirable." Reich quips that he didn't want to be responsible for breaking up friend groups or forcing someone to put their friends on edge for the rest of their lives.

While most people think of Kickstarter as a place for hopeful crowdfunding campaigns, "Game Changer: Home Edition" is innovating in how it uses the platform. "Kickstarter is kind of where games go to be marketed now," Sam Reich explains. "If we were to drop this on the Dropout Store tomorrow, we would for sure sell the game, but we wouldn't generate nearly the same kind of hype." By using the platform, "Game Changer: Home Edition" can reach the gaming community beyond the existing Dropout audience. It's also a great way for the creative team to better understand pre-order interest and communicate directly with the audience. As Reich tells me:

"We want fans to have a hand in, particularly in helping us to write aspects of the game. It's sort of a give-and-take: on the one hand, we want the game to be finished enough that folks aren't waiting around for two years while we figure out what it is, but on the other hand, we want them to contribute to it. And so we've gotten it 80 to 90% of the way there, but really want fans to participate in filling out that additional 10 to 20%."

Thanks to the unlockable stretch-goal options, the team can also gamify this final stage of development. "When we realized we were going to be doing this on Kickstarter, it prompted this conversation, of 'Well, how can we do Kickstarter in a way that feels Game Changer?'" Reich jokes that it's "so hat on a hat on a hat," but wants supporters throughout the campaign to not only have fun, but to "hopefully unsharpen some of the capitalist corners around how we traditionally think of a Kickstarter campaign, which is just a money-making exercise," he says. How on brand.

This is not the first time a CollegeHumor/Dropout show has been given the board game treatment: the "Um, Actually" trivia game is still available through Wiggles 3D on Amazon, but "Game Changer: Home Edition" is taking a different path. "I haven't talked about this before, but we probably did have the opportunity to go sell this to Hasbro, but we are so addicted to independence that this will allow us to create something that remains fully independent," Reich explains. He continued:

"We are in this funny spot as Dropout now, where that opportunity to sell out big time is right there. Before, we could sing the song of independence, and it's very true while no one wants us. Now we are wanted. And so now it takes more for us to resist that temptation left, right, and center. But doing it this way will allow us to make a big splash with the game in a way that mirrors what broad distribution might look like, or traditional distribution."

The fact that Dropout also has a show on the platform called "Parlor Room," hosted by Becca Scott and dedicated to playing board and other tabletop games, provides a built-in promotional arm. 

"It's like you're reading my mind," Reich said. "We shot a 'Game Changer: Home Edition' episode of 'Parlor Room,' and it'll air soon as a part of this next season." If you're a fan of crossover events, know that they also gave a later iteration of the game to the folks over at Smosh, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well.

I told Sam Reich that I genuinely think he should be studied in a lab, because the existence of "Game Changer: Home Edition" opens the door for fans to make content of themselves playing the game, essentially providing free marketing. Dropout famously grew its audience through social media and provides enough material for fans to continually feel involved.

"I was talking to someone the other day who said, 'Now you've said that 10% of Dropout users come in just through social,' and I was like, 'Oh, you misunderstood. 10% come in through paid, 90% come through social.' Our entire business hinges on this, this sort of extended word of mouth of the social universe. And yeah, so far so good." The reality is that the Dropout fandom is an entire ecosystem of people who have built a shared language rooted in a communal love of pop culture that extends beyond studio-based IP.

"Without getting too sappy about it, this became so clear to me last year when we started to tour, that you can sort of try to picture the social media audience as the audience, and all that gives you is figures, and it's easy to kind of compartmentalize people that way, but then you see these people in the flesh," Reich explains. "You look out at a Dropout live audience, and you're like, 'Man, this is a cool fandom. It is a diverse, passionate, and ragingly creative fandom. And what's gratifying about this, in a way, is giving them something to do off a screen. For the same reason that the live shows feel fun and exciting, [this] is us creeping into their analog world."

There are members of the Dropout cast with whom I've forged friendships over the years (and I've appeared on the show "Crowd Control"), and it's fascinating to see the lingering threat of Sam Reich springing a "Game Changer" episode on them at any given moment in real life. But what's even more interesting is seeing how much they all love it. "What I'm told by cast members of 'Game Changer' is that they come onto set anticipating an act of sort of game show terrorism, and they're terrified, but they leave having had one of the most fun days of their lives," Reich explains. "I can't get too into Season 8, but there was one episode this season where we literally could not kick them off stage. They were hanging out on stage for hours just talking about what had just occurred." Reich, ever the philosopher, went on to say:

"Play is simulated stress. We play because somewhere along our animal journey, we realized that simulated stress was good for us to experience because it helped us handle actual stress better. This is a game that will bring people out of their shells. This is a game that will show you the little sides of people you didn't see before. And I think that that's really, really fun and exciting in the same way the show's fun and exciting. So I hope everybody who plays the game goes through a little tiny dose of the mild war that we go through on the 'Game Changer' set and walks away feeling like they know their friends better."

I told Reich that he's not beating the "Sam Reich is just Jigsaw for people who play D&D" allegations anytime soon, but that's a moniker he embraces with pride. "I'll take it," he says. "Listen, we all have to be known for something. Could be a lot worse."

"Game Changer: Home Edition" is now available to support on Kickstarter.