Who are the Major Manufacturers?

www.gama.org has one but it is not working for some reason.

I would say you are jumping in head first not feet first.

The process is as I see it.

1. Design a game.
2. Test it.
3. Test it.
4. Test it.
5. Redesign
6. Return to step 2.

(Yes this first part goes on indefinitely or at least it seems to)

7. Once you have a game that works really well then it is time to start looking for a publisher to license it too.

If you’re not done with your game don’t worry about figuring what publishers might want it yet.

Essentially this franchise already have a winning product - and they wish to explore converting this into board game format.

Which is why I am looking to speak to possible manufacturers directly.

Unfortunately you are right that the list of manufacturers on that site appears not to be working. Do you or anyone here perhaps have any kind of functional list?

GJ

In that case it would be beneficial if you approached them with game in hand. Contrary to popular belief most game companies don't design many games. They just market and sell them. If they have designers working for them they likely only work on refining designs and altering games they have licensed to fit their market plan.

We are the people that design games and then license then to the companies for a % of the take. There are some that do all their design in-house but they tend to be smaller operations.

This sight has both armature and professional designers with all levels in-between. If you interested in finding someone to work on your project this is the place to post your job offer.

As for talking to them directly that can be hard if your talking about approching Hasbo for example, they don't just taalk to anyone. You might want to contact a game broker for assistance with that.

You might want to send PM's to "OrlandoPat" and/or "Z-Man" through the forum's private message system (or a direct e-mail) ... they both run their own board game companies and might be able to point you to the full-service manufacturers.

I'm confused about if you're looking for just manufacturers (make the game, but don't sell it), or publishers (have the game made by a manufacturer and do the selling).

-Bryk

In the U.S. for Card Games only you can look to U.S. Playing Card Company and Carta Mundi U.S.A.

If your game has non-card components (boards, plastics, etc.), you can go with Delano, or more likely Yaquinto.

I'm not familiar with the overseas board game manufacturers.

Keep in mind that you may have to drop $20 thousand to $40 thousand for a mass market game, just for a production run if you have custom plastic components, etc.

Delano can probably handle smaller runs, but charges a substantial markup on smaller orders, really cutting into your chances to actually getting into distribution.

I've heard of a place called MJS Creations, but I know nothing about them. I think they run the www.boardgamedesign.com website.

The only way you can probably cheaply produce a board game is to use "off the shelf" plastics (like those at Plastics for Games) so that your manufacturer can buy them instead of having to custom make them.

Smaller runs really should be done by getting all the components and putting them together yourself. Get the cards done in Asia if you are cost conscious. But "off the shelf" plastics. Use whatever standard board sizes the manufacturer can manage. Maybe get the boxes at wholesale and pay a separate printer to manufacture the box wraps.

That's probably what you need to do to be able to produce 500 or so copies of a game. Otherwise you are most likely looking at 5000+ copies through a place like Yaquinto.

Raid,

It sounds like, in your particular situation, the company you represent will be the publisher. You will then need two things. A designer to create the game and a manufacturer to actually print the game and it's components. A normal publisher would handle all aspects in between the design stage and the manufacturing stage, and everything after manufacturing. So it may look something like this:

1) Game Design
2) Prototype creation
3) Playtesting
4) Design refinement / prototype modification
5) Back to step 3 when necessary.

6) Graphic design / layout / Editing / Artwork

7) Print and obtain components
8) Package everything in box
9) Have everything delivered to your storage location

10) Obtain distribution channels
11) Setup website
12) Advertise / Market game
13) Fulfill orders from distributors / website / mail order, etc.

Normally stages 1-5 are performed by the game designer. Stages 6, and 10-13 are performed by the publisher, and stages 7-9 are performed by the manufacturer. Either the company you represent needs to act as the publisher or you need to have that outsourced as well.

Another alternative that your company may want to consider is to let game publishers know that you are licensing your particular franchise for board games.

Also, you may want to contact Brian Yu, who is a board game designer at Mattel who has designed a BUNCH of games from famous licenses. If you can find some way to contact him, ask him how the business relationship between Mattel and it's licensors works.

At any rate, Good luck with your games, and if I may make a request: Try to make designer games. And by that I mean games that are well thought out and have meaningful choices for the players. So many board games based upon franchises are just garbage slapped together to make sales. For once it would be nice to see a major IP franchise put out a decently designed game to the American public.

-Darke

GJ

Yaquinto is a major game manufacturing plant. They actually typically recommend that you go to someone else for quantities less than 10,000 units in most cases.

You sound like a man who should go to Toy Fair with a stack of business plans and promotional materials and shop around your client's IP. Outside of that forum, you seem to be working on the inverse of the normal production model -- like a guy with a license you are trying to shop around and find someone who wants to produce a licensed game.

It's unclear exactly what you are trying to do. Are you trying to sell rights to produce a licensed game (i.e., you are shopping around your license)?

If you are wanting someone to custom design you a board game with little or no input from you, there are companies on the net that do that, but they charge you, and most are not interested in paying for the privilege. Most game manufacturers are not going to pay you for producing your game. They will want you to pay them to design and produce your game. Is that what you are trying to do?

Because, as I've noted with Toy Fair, there are venues where people are expected to try to shop around ideas, licenses, etc. For instance, Top Cow just distributed lots of materials at the E3 (?) computer game show to tell people what licenses were available. It seems you are trying to "push" your content, when it may be more to your advantage to go to the right convention, advertise, and "pull" interested parties toward you.

GAMA is the organization to contact for game companies in the hobby game industry. If you want to reach more companies who get their stuff into typical Toy Stores, the Toy Industry Association is a good place to start.

Link to Toyfair: http://www.toy-tia.org/Content/NavigationMenu/TIA_Trade_Shows_and_Events...

All this said, I would ask you kindly to be a little less short in the patience department. I'm not a moderator, so I'm just asking as one person to another. People have given you some leads. You just don't seem to like them. It's kind of unclear exactly what you want to do, since you haven't explained all the details, and, in fact, seem like you are purposefully keeping some of the details close to your vest.

You started out the thread sounding like "my client wants to get in touch with a fully featured game development shop and manufacturer to pay to get a game designed for them with their brand on it."

Then on re-read it sounds like you are shopping around a license.

Those are potentially two different groups of people you need to talk to: people you are willing to pay to build you a game from the ground up, versus people willing to pay for the privilege of licensing your client's IP.

All in all, I'm not entirely certain what you are trying to do, but clarity on that front will likely get you better answers.

Just wanted to Chime in here - My name is Bill and I work for Rehtmeyer Inc. We also do manufacturing, in addition to design, development, and licensing. Our facilities for production are in China and we have the capabilities to literally produce anything you might require from paper, to metal, to plastic, etc.

You can visit out site at www.toysngames.com and see some of what we do.

Our minimum order is normally 5,000 units.

Thanks!

Bill