Profit from boardgames?

The short answer is no, there is no profit to be had from designing board games. LOL. Seriously, One should not go into this business thinking they're going to get rich from it. You should do it because A) You love designing or B) To possibly make a little money to support 'the habit'. There are very few professional game designers (and by that I mean that designing games is there one and only job).

-Darke

Zev,

So, if I interpret your numbers correctly, a game that sells for $39.95 in the stores was sold to distributors for around $16 and produced for around $5, assuming a 10k print run. Sounds reasonable.

Thanks for the insight!

- René Wiersma

So, what's considered a "normal" print run size for a small publisher then? 5k? 3k? 1k? What kind of volume do you need at the least to be able to make a decent profit?

- René Wiersma

I think a small shop can be profitable at closer to 5K, but it's hard for a small shop (like Your Move Games) to do everything it needs to. For "real company" status, I think you're right with 10K. Another factor to consider is that no matter how hard you test, some games will flop for reasons you couldn't anticipate. So you can't just say, "Well, at 3K or 5K if I sell 85% of my product I'm in good shape," because you have to account for the games you make where you'll sell 10% or even less.

The flipside to this is that the gaming market is as much about hits as it is flops. If your game is a hit, you can do another print run. If it's a mega-hit...well, I read that when Ticket to Ride won Spiel de Jahres (sp?) they did a print run of one million copies.

This also means if you don't have capital you can consider making small numbers of good quality products and concentrate on getting them out there. If one of them does well, you can approach a major company with the idea of doing a larger run. Pair-of-Dice games has gotten two of "their" (really his) games noticed by Games Magazine's top 100 list.

Hugs,
Chad

It sounds right, but I'm not so sure it sounds reasonable. It seems like far too much to lose in distribution expenses. The designer and players both lose and the only winners are the middle-men. It seems very unreasonable to me.

You can sell this hypothetical game game for $39.95 at retail or $19.95 from your website including shipping and still make the same profit. Why doesn't a company like Alea with the repetation to move a lot of stock do just that. PR is a $38 List. So it should be $19 straight from Alea. At those sort of prices I'd have bought their whole product line by now.

"Get rid of the middleman" is often a rallying cry of people who think that channel costs (distribution and retail) are too high. One of the premises of the dotcom boom was that retailers could eliminate the costs of physical retail and that the prices they would offer would offset any barriers to purchase online.

Of course, it's different for a new publisher like me, but when Your Move Games is one of the big boys we're still going to get a lot out of our channels. It's not just shelf-space -- retailers run demos of our products, tournaments, provide expert recommendations, etc. Even if there were enough online customers, you would lose that if you sold your products at a level that made it impossible for retailers to compete.

Another thing to consider is that your estimate for how much of a cost reduction is possible is probably than reality. As evidence, look at the online specialty retail shops like funagain.com and gamefest.com. They are buying from distributors at 50% off MSRP and yet typically offer discounts of only 20%, implying a markup of 60% -- or $12 -- to cover the costs of taking orders, packing, shipping, etc. This is with scale and flexibility that no publisher could match -- they only order what they need and can sell to any game buyer. A publisher who makes 5K or 10K of a game eats whatever doesn't sell; online retailers buy only what they have demand for.

There's also a BIG risk to adding a major mail-order business to your publishing business. You have to take on new expertise and substantial new overhead, both of which complicate running your business dramatically.

As a publisher, I share the gut reaction that something is amiss when a game selling for $39.95 "only" sells for $16 to distributors. And I've taken on an additional cost by using Impressions to consolidate my distribution. But I'm very glad that this expensive system is out there!

Hugs,
Chad

Folks,

I'm going to give my opinion on some of the latest posts rather than quote a bunch and answer.

"Why not get rid of the middleman?"
Answer: Cause you ain't gonna sell enough to justify doing any kind of print run.

Unless you are a major publisher with a core audience for your games, the amount of games you will sell online will be pitifully low and will net you probably less in monies than if using a distributor.

Having a distributor, or actually several distributors, you have a good shot of selling 300 or so games initially - this means a new company with an unheard of product. How many copies you think you will sell online if you are an unknown company with an unknown product?

Let's do some numbers. Assume your game retails for $24.95. Through distribs you sell 300 copies at $10 - that is $3000. Online you'll sell, what, 100 copies? I think that is overestimating but let's say 100. That's $2495. Of course we can't quantify sales in any channel while missing many other factors, but I know many pdf games under $10 that barely sell 50 copies.
Still, in my example above you'd need to sell another 20 games to catchup up to the distribs. The other factor to consider is that one assumes that your product is in more stores which means more people see it and it can result in faster sales. Not only that but the 300 games is the initial sale so you'll get all that money owed with in 60 days. You are not going to sell those 100 copies in one month.

"What is the typical print run?" "And is it enough to make a profit?"
Answer: I don't know if there is a typical print run but I'll tell you that I normally do 3000 copies of a new game. And yes, you can make an ok profit.

There are so many factors that I can't break it down easily, but if you price your product well, using the cost to make the product and freight as a basis, then you can see what you need to break even and what profit you would make if you sold everything. And you usually don't need to sell everything to make an ok profit: but you have to look at your numbers.

Here's an example from one of my games, Ideology. It cost me a little over $4 to get the game done, plus freight to my warehouse, for a print run of 2500. Why do 2500 and why price it at $24.95? I was new to board games, competing with better looking more expensive German board games. I needed a low price point. I also did not wish to risk so much more money so I took a chance with a smaller print run (thus paying a higher per unit price). But doing the math, I knew it would take me about 1100 games to break even at the $10 wholesale cost. I know I have some reputation and lots of distributors, so could sell 400-600 games intially (I actually sold near 700-800 initially). So the investment was worth the risk: if it flopped after only selling say 700 games, I'd be out a few thousand dollars. I thought I could take it - and it worked out: I've now sold over 1500 games, almost a year later. The numbers are not great from a good business perspective, but I made my money back and am making a profit, though it took a lot of time.

The point is that you CAN make ap rofit with a print run of 3000 games if you set the retail price right according to what you are paying for it.

"Distributors will only take you if you have multiple games for sale"
Answer: Nowadays that is more likely. Howevew,r if you market your game, go to the GAMA Trade Show (GTS), get the word out on your game to retailers and consumers, then distributors might seek you to carry your one game.

Impressions works for many because the distributors can do the one-stop shopping thing. Is it worth the money? You have to figure out that cost and see if you can make a profit after paying that percentage.

I know Aldo, owner of Impressions -a great guy: if you do go with him he'll work for you. But if your product doesn't sell, well... it's business.

I'll stop here. Hopefully I've illuminated some things for someone.