Cardboard coins or "real" coins?

Well the first thought that jumped into my head was, how many coins? And how much heavier are the metal coins? Because it might impacted your shipping costs. Thus adding another additional cost amount to your totals.

As for look, feel, theme, yeah I would love to see *real* metal coins. I think it would be great when compared to the cardboard coins. But I worry about the additional costs and how much value add players will get when using a *real* metal coin instead of the cardboard coins.

Have you tried to use real coin dollars, half dollars or quarters? To simulate what value add you might get from using these *real* metal coins?

I agree that weight is the issue. Also remember the multiplier: $1 of manufacturing costs translates into much more than $1 of MSRP.

Having said that, including metal coins would really help distinguish the game from others that are out there.

Nothing quite beats that feeling when you open a game box and see something really cool.

Traditionally calculated, and additional dollar in manufacturing cost becomes an additional $7-$10 to the MSRP. While I would love a game with metal coints, I'd guess than an additional ten bucks will drive too many buyers (and retailers) away.

-- Matthew

I agree. Dread Pirate has amazing parts. metal coins, cloth board, velvet bags and a wooden box that closes with a magnet. Maybe the best compents of a game I have seen. The game is just ok but the great components keep it in the "we will play that some times column."

That seems high to me. I thought Whole sale was 2X manufacturing cost or $2 and MSRP was 2X that or $4 in this case? $4 is still a lot to add but great components make a great game better.

If I am right and I doubt I am the only question would be how much it increases shipping.

- Dwight

I think gameplayers just develop a mental 'tangibility' with solid elements of currency. Even to the point were they might be more thrifty about spending them just *because* their mind treats them as actually valuable. If that's an important aspect in your game maybe it might be worth considering, regardless of the added MSRP costs. I know I can't speak for the market, but variance in price is no object to me when the components are slick (well, within reason! I didn't rush out to buy Settlers 3D)

One technique I tried once was instead of individualizing coins, I cut cardboard 'coin piles' (basically with a cloud-shaped dye), e.g. "100 gold", and just boosted the minimum unit of currency in the game. That seemed to bring back the spirit of tangibility a bit. Or coin purses-shaped tiles might be as effective.

Just something to knaw on...

Just curious, who will be publishing and distributing your game? I'm seriously thinking about buying it.

How were the first 100 boxes produced -with the 16pt cardboard? If that is the case, I would ask for feedback from people who have purchased the game.

I think that the box quality will make a difference in how the game is perceived. How much more costly are the nicer boxes?

I'm very interested in how publishers arrive at the numbers of how many games they can sell. I suspect with self-publishers, it's more a matter of how many they can afford to produce than anything else. But I was talking to a publisher about one of my games and said, "I think it can sell X copies per year, maybe" and he came back and said "actually, we think it can sell Y copies per year". I wonder where he came up with Y...

Anyway, to answer your question, 5k copies is a lot to sell, and you need to make as much profit as you can off the early copies. I really don't think anyone is going to buy the game because of the metal coins alone, so it doesn't seem like a wise investment. On the other hand, this is your chance to produce the game in the way that you see it in your head, so if metal coins are what you're really looking for, I could see wanting to go for it. It's probably prudent to wait for the 2nd printing, but if you can settle for $1 less profit per game, it might be a good move.

Cardboard is a tougher call. I buy most of my games on line, so it's not really a selling point for me, but I do feel more satisfied with the "high end" cardboard boxes than the cheap boxes; it just feels like I've bought a product from a "better" company when I get the nice box. Probably won't matter that much once the game inside hits the table, as long as it has good components.

Yeah, but those costs are somewhat fixed, and won't change whether he goes with metal or plastic coins. Say he is able to buy weightless coins that do nothing other than add $1 to the production cost of the game. With plastic coins, say the game costs $4 to produce, and the metal coins make it $5 to produce. Let's say he sets the MSRP to $30. So, he sells the game to distributors for $12. The only difference is that he only has $7 with which to cover shipping, marketing, storage, and make a profit, instead of $8 per game. But those costs don't go up (if the coins are weightless) just by the addition of the $1 manufacturing cost; it's just that they're harder to cover if the difference between your wholesale price and production costs are smaller. So, most likely, with the $5 cost, the most prudent thing would be to set the MSRP higher, at $35-36, so as to keep the same profit per game.

I think we're basically saying the same thing; it just sounds to me like you're saying that the costs are in some sense "indexed" to the production costs, which is not entirely accurate.

-Jeff

In my humble opinion, I think Plastic Coins would be cool as well. In other words, if I had the choice of good box/plastic coins and lower quality box/metal coins, I just the former.

Just curious, do you need these coins in different denominations? I know plastic coins are easy to find, ( I just saw a cool bag of pirate coins in Wal Mart that I ALMOST bought) but finding them in the correct denominations might prove a little difficult.

-Darke