Congrats on following a dream. It sounds like a very exciting time for you. So, first of all, I would like to say "Good Luck" with the project(s), and may they remain fun and rewarding through the entire journey.
Regarding communities, I have a few opinions and a bit of experience. Communities are a tricky thing and they come and go as interests wax and wane. I tend to be a fan of larger / broader communities smaller ones. There are a few reasons for this.
(1) Board games are a niche hobby. Even as mainstream as they feel these days, it is a generally small portion of the population that is involved in the hobby.
(2) As communities form around the hobby of board games, you start to see sub groups form. Niches within a niche. At some point sub-communities get so small that they may have a razor sharp focus on a particular topic, but they lack a lot of members / conversation.
(3) Establishing critical mass in a community is key and becomes harder the more specialized the "niche within a niche" is.
For these reasons, I tend to advocate for larger / broader communities to make sure there is always ample exposure / participation. I wrote about this a bit in an article I wrote for SaskGames back when I was involved in that community. It can be found here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/53788/community-musing-part-ivI think the best / strongest / longest-lived communities tend to be those with a broad members base. These tend to be more generalized from a hobby perspective, a site devoted to a particular game / sub-genre of games, or a group that shares a geographic region.
www.BoardGameGeek.com - Generalized site
https://opinionatedgamers.com/ - Generalized site
www.carcassonnecentral.com - Devoted to a specific game.
www.wingsofwar.org - Devoted to a specific game.
https://www.torontoboardgamers.ca/ - Devoted to a geographic region.
https://www.meetup.com/seattle-board-games/ - Devoted to a geographic region.
I think for a game company, it is even more challenging. I believe you need to tap into existing communities and build a base of interest to create inertia to move forward. Probably lots of outreach on existing sites, social media, etc.
I have used Discord and belong to a number of communities. Those communities tend to be more "underground" and do not readily show up on goggle searches for people looking for games and related items. For that reason, I generally avoid using Discord, Slack, and tools like that to "build" a community. I think you need a more open / searchable / web format for that.
Anyways, that was a lot of rambling on my part. Very best to you in your efforts, I will certainly follow along and hope things take off.
Very best,
a voice from your past.
Matt "Bixby"