I am very interested to know a few stats. about the game board industry.
Firstly, what is the recommended initial Production run to test the market.
What is considered a serious $ amount investment in producing a board game?
Thanks
Siobhan
Initial Production runs.
Sun, 10/20/2002 - 23:10
#1
phpbbadmin
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Initial Production runs.
Unfortunately, Our
Tue, 11/12/2002 - 19:08
#3
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
Hmm...Well, while we are awaiting the arrival of an expert I could certainly offer some real world free advice from a new company. (We have been around a little over a year now and have 4 games currently in print and available through distribution.)
The question of print run depends entirely on how you intend to distribute your intial run. Alien Menace publishes smaller mini or envelope style games. So we can do a print run of 500 or 1,000 copies and still experience the benefit of bulk pricing.
But on the printing of our boxed titles a print run of less than 2,000-4,000 copies seems to be prohibitive. (Between the box printing and game bits.)
I would be remiss if I didn
Tue, 11/12/2002 - 19:56
#4
phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
Initial Production runs.
Alien Menace,
I just checked out your site and your games and everything looks great! I love Beer & Pretzel games!
As the operator of BGDF, I do consider you an expert and I welcome your contributions to this and other subforums at BGDF. Welcome aboard and I look foward to what you can bring to the BGDF!
-Darkehorse
Sat, 02/22/2003 - 22:20
#6
phpbbadmin
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Initial Production runs.
Quote: 22-02-2003 at 17:34, XXOOCC wrote:
Ed, why don
Sun, 02/23/2003 - 17:29
#8
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
Of course color me interested... only Mondays are verboten as this is our company meeting and game-test night... just let me know what works for most folks.
Sun, 02/23/2003 - 21:14
#9
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
Well, the obvious choice for time is wednesday nights at 8:30 EST.
Mon, 02/24/2003 - 00:24
#10
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
Man...Chris is making me look bad!
Mon, 02/24/2003 - 17:40
#11
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
I would also put my hand up to attend these chats. Being in Australia make times a little difficult, but I
Sun, 03/02/2003 - 00:42
#13
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
To bring this back on topic.... and I plan to start a new thread on this while I
Tue, 05/27/2003 - 06:36
#14
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
Quote:
19-10-2002 at 00:25, siobhan wrote:
I am very interested to know a few stats. about the game board industry.
Firstly, what is the recommended initial Production run to test the market.
What is considered a serious $ amount investment in producing a board game?
Hi, my name is Karl Thain Maiwaldt
I own K.T.M. TOYS & GrApHiCs which is a toy development firm. We specialize in creating boardgame prototypes. May toy inventors often fail in learning the trades of the industry. Toy Shop, Toy & Hobby, and Playthings.
This is a serious issue because many companies like myself are listed in the toy designers directory and the toy fair directory. These are published every year and list toy companies as well who are also in the toy industry.
Many inventors are often lost to what is really graphic design, and prepress graphics which games are produced from. Depending on the designer the cost can be from 20 dollars per hour to 60 dollars per hour.
Printers employ graphic designers to assist their customers... and they often charge for this service.
The average game goes like this:
Game label Game parts Game Spinners, Game Cards, Game Money, Rule books, Box Design or Packaging design.
These are all various items that must be quoted on a illustration and graphic design bases. If you have no money... then its best to go to school and learn the trade. Our programs are photoshop, corel draw, pagemaker, quark express, and adobe illustrator.
Because all the items of a game are listed above, this makes a game very confusing to price. The real answer is all games have their own individual quotes because each is actually its own entity.
Printers make their money from print, many inventors fail to find a good graphic designer to help them. So the get a quote for their game from a printer who send a print job quote of 1000
Tue, 07/29/2003 - 22:37
#15
Anonymous
Board Game Production Volumes
To all participants,
I have read some great ideas here and while I will not admit to being an expert, I do manufacture board games for a living and will share some of my thoughts with you all.
My view on first time or early stage game board designers is that they are too focused on the initial COG (Cost of Goods) or profit margin as they see it. Everyone thinks they have the next TRIVIAL PURSUIT and lets face it that is unlikely. But they want to manufacture the large quantities in order to "show" profit margin. I have seen some of our Customers sit on 5,000 games for years ( all the while paying warehousing etc.) because their marketing plans were way too optimistic.
I often council new game developers to make 500 - 1000 board games even if the cost is greater than the wholesale price. It is better to loose or risk a smaller overal investment then to be stuck wtih 5000 games that cost $7.50 each and ultimately have to be dumped because retailers just did not bite on the look or feel of the game.
Also by making a very small pilot run and subsidizing the selling price you can quickly react to art changes that may come back from valuable feedback from your frontline retailers.
Even if a game is really solid and well developed we use a technique of printing twice the print and only making boxes and boards for a small lot at a time. Again this is a tool to reduce the inventory investment and also the space that the games will take up.
Food for thought.
Fri, 08/08/2003 - 18:03
#16
Anonymous
Initial Production runs.
I agree with Gameguys.
Keep in mind that the 1st production of Trivial Pursuit was 1100 games at a cost of $75.00 each!!! I am not a fan of trivia games, but I think they made a GREAT return on investment.
No pain - No gain
No risk - no reward
No grief - no glory
PS - Gameguys, can you please PM me your contact info?
Thanks
Rick Heli really has put together a very good list of game publishing and design resources, which include several links to advice sites, etc. I found his site to be very useful in putting together ideas for publishing my games.
Spotlight On Games: Publishing Resources