"Print on demand"

The technology isn't there yet. I've done my homework, I'm nearly positive.

The "benchtop" equipment that I don't see is the die cutting. I mean, sure, you can POD square-cornered cards, and you can hand corner-round a bunch of cards if you want to, but the amount of labor required makes POD "real" playing cards highly improbable, AFAICT.

Die cutting for anything else of size (excluding one-at-a-time small-ish stuff like Sizzix or Ellison), especially anything thick like tiles and counters, doesn't seem to exist anywhere. Is there some piece of equipment that I'm missing, one that is "benchtop" and allows for custom dies?

-- Matthew

That makes it a matter of perspective, then. Personally I don't consider pre-perfed cards -- even microperfed cards -- to be of final game quality.

Benchtop usually refers to equipment that's as large as the size of a complex copier, like a Docutech. Desktop usually refers to smaller equipment, as big as a large laser printer. The die cutters I've seen would take about half the garage all by themselves, so that's what I was going by. (There may be smaller die cutters -- I've only seen ones that handle full press sheets, so I may be missing something.)

If you're die cutting thin stuff (like cards), you could use a die on a standard offset press, something that fits within that half-garage just fine. You'll run through blankets pretty quickly (as the die will tear them apart), but it's not cost prohibitive. Unfortunately those kinds of dies won't cut through anything thicker -- that tends to require hydraulics.

If you want microperf cards, though, you should defnitely check out this thread:

http://www.bgdf.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=786

BTW -- if you want me to reply, keep the questions out of larger text blocks. I have a terrible visual impairment, and I can barely see what I type half the time, let alone, what you type.

Not required, but I'm more likely to miss details if I'm stopping by the board and everything is in a giant block of text. That's normally my problem, unless you specifically want me to reply.

Cheers,
Lee

Please, that was completely unncessary. Jeff (jwarrend) and I are far more familar with what is traditionally discussed here than you. I'm pretty sure that if someone were to look somewhere else for info it wouldn't be Jeff.

That said, we discuss all levels of game production here, from DTP to full-scale mass production, so I'm pretty sure it's all good.

QED. Hence my statement that games are not ready for POD.

Obviously we're talking about different levels of quality. From my perspective, the type of cards you're talking about are equivalent to comb-binding in book POD: it's functional but lousy. Once devices like the Docutech managed to perfect-bind, POD books really took off.

Again from my perspective, POD for games of a quality similar to store-bought eurogames isn't a reality, and won't be a reality a year from now.

I do think, though, that benchtop laser cutters could make it a reality.

-- Matthew

[quote="FastLearnerYes, I consider PlainCards quality cards to be considerably sub-par.

Me too. Except for playtesting.

Exactly.

Then I guess it wasn't "completely useless" to you, was it?

The thread itself was entirely useless to me. The lead to Tom may or may not be useless (although that came outside the thread, thanks for the lead).

Lee

I find Lee's responses rather inappropriate and outside of the intent of this forum.

Unless my one sentence was miscontrued (which it might not be if you read it in context, but sorry if it was unclear), I don't think I've said anything that's particularly inappropriate.

Sure. It's also to warn people away from taking leaps that require too much cash or effort for their business model.

If the guy has a garage to spare and plans to produce many niche market games, then a POD printer and a die press may be for him.

If not, he should copy the notes he has and run in fear from the idea, because to have anyone else do it will be wildly expensive. And to go without the die press will, as others point out, potentially reduce quality.

I'm clearly missing details. However, since I have spent several months researching ink costs, maximum stock thickness for printers, etc., I'm not completely without a clue on this.

Um, try "to answer the guy's questions and carry on a discussion."

If you see my posts on other threads I practically wrote up a mini-FAQ on CCG print buying. I already have a place ("Zimmer Industries") who can make the die I need. It's only about $1200. So, it's more a matter of curiosity than anything else as to whether anyone has a pre-existing die, since if I'm stuck with somebody using their own die I won't be able to shop around and get the best price.

So, I already think I'm going to get my own die if we go forward with the project. I'm just making sure that I have to.

You are way off base here, about me. One sentence in my previous post was likely misinterpreted and/or poorly written (although in context I think my intent is much clearer if you re-read it).

Please. Please. These things are so rare, that I doubt anyone on the boards knows about these other than you, and I was already discussing this off the board.

I'm answering one person's questions to the best of my ability. I even went back and tried, per the original party's request, to bring things down to easier terms (like "pizza cutter"-style blade) to make sure the fellow got what little information I had to offer.

I'm also debating (on the side) the viability of POD. I think it probably is viable if you are willing to be YOUR OWN POD shop (i.e., have your own printing setup). I think it's not that viable if you have to outsource it, and have largely said as much.

I have also agreed with Matthew on the lack of viability of this technology without a lot of $$$ and space.

Please read my messages to you. I _already_have_ found someone to build me a die. Already. Zimmer Industries told me it was not a problem. I'm looking to see if I need to bother buying one. It's utterly a matter of curiosity. If the only people who have them are outside of my state, shipping the materials back and forth will be so expensive that after about 3 microperf runs I should build my own die.

You are wildly assuming fantastic things that are really untrue.

In fact, I didn't bring up the microperforation idea except in response to the notion that the equipment needed to be small, or that you needed to outsource it. If you read my earliest posts in the thread (and even later ones), I think I've made it clear that I think the best way is to own your own POD machine and big die press.

Microperforation is only an option if you want to be able to print out things on your desktop.

Certainly note me.

Kudos to you. It's something we all aspire to, but few have reached.

Right, and in this instance, even if my knowledge has gaps, I have been researching this very topic for months. So I came to share what I know. I've been very explicit on which technologies were dead ends for me (e.g., the inkjet stuff looks awesome, but at least for the quality of ink we wanted to use was brutally expensive).

The fact that Matthew and I disagree does not mean that I wasn't here to learn and share. I learn by reading some other threads. In other threads (like the intro to CCGs thread and this one), I share what my research has told me.

What attitude? The fact that I disagree with Matthew? Or the fact that I probably poorly worded a single sentence that was subsequently read out of context?

Having seen Matthew quote my own post back to me, I'm assuming that you are reacting to "go somewhere else for your threads" and I've explained by that that I meant "you probably aren't suited for doing games POD, because they are expensive and clunky to outsource, and you only get results with lots of space and $$$, and should therefore be reading other threads, because this is decidedly dead end for you."

Lee
My 2 cents.

Dude, how do you have to tease it out. I gave you a product page with pictures of the Rollem Slipstream and a movie showing it in action. Please don't tell me that I have to explain something because you are afraid to click a link I post and watch a movie.

The Rollem Slipstream is a complex machine, and it's easier to explain via a video and the product page than it is to explain line by line to you.

Go back and check the link I posted on the Slipstream. Lots of big card companies use it. It's basically an automatic card making machine.

"Offset printing"? Do a google search or else just assume that it's what many printers do who aren't printing on a digital photocopier.

Otherwise, you can look here. There's an article called "How offset printing works..."

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/offset-printing.htm

Again, if you have questions, just keep asking them. I have no clue what level of knowledge you have here. Others who work in the printing industry can undoubtedly give you very precise definitions, and more precise than I can give. I know what I know as a buyer of that service not as a person who engages in offset printing.

Please, that's hardly what I did. With regards to the Slipstream I gave you a link to a video of the machine in operation. Unless you want me to explain every internal mechanism in it (which I can't do), the product page and the video of the machine working should have been fantastically more informative than the techno-babble you claimed that I spouted.

"Offset printing" is a term I've found commonly used among laymen. I didn't know you didn't know what it meant.

And to avoid jargon I gave you a video showing cards being processed through the industry's standard machine. The page I sent to said that:

"With the push of a single button
the Slipstream:
Trims all four edges of a sheet and the multiple printed images

Cuts the sheet into separate rectangular portions as small as l 7/8” x 2 l/2”

Perforates and/or creases each portion

Collects and delivers all the portions into a fully collated stack or individual pack, with accuracy within l/l000th of an inch.

Transfers the packs to in-line round corner, shrink wrap, box die cut or over-wrap systems.

The following diagram shows the processing..."

Then there was an operations video. Was this not clear enough?

I am not a pro publisher. I have done playtesting and design consulting. I am partnering with a veteran of the CCG industry who has printed millions of cards and with a professional print buyer. I'm the design guy. I know what I know about the nuts and bolts of the process because I got conned into doing some of the phone research for the team on current tech innovations.

I assumed that everybody here had pretty substantial knowledge (and in some areas much more than me). I figured in some subject areas that maybe only one guy or two on the whole board knows something, but I assumed (apparently wrongly) that folks here were master-tinkerers one and all. The tone of this forum strikes me that way. Perhaps I'm baffled.

I'll keep your summation in mind for future reference. At the same, time, please don't be frustrated. Just keep asking more questions.

And please, if I offer a link with a simple explanation and a video do use it. If you use it and then still have questions, then that's useful to know.

What I meant by that, is if you want POD cards, Matthew and others think it can't be done usefully. I think it can, but only with a lot of time and money or with certain quality compromises.

What I meant by my remark, was that unless you were willing to make sacrifices in quality or unless you are willing to invest $$$ and half your garage, this is a dead thread for you if you are trying to POD games (since I'm the only one who's claimed that it can reasonably be done, and since you may not want to do what I'm recommending).

If you just want to learn about POD (and don't want to actually use it), then I'm in error, and this thread is very much alive. I apologize if this describes your situation. I perhaps wrongly inferred that you intended to use the technology to produce games as opposed to learning about it. My bad. Learning is never dead end.

Sometimes, however, if you come with built-in requirements on cost or quality, though, a subject may be dead until the technology gets up to the speed you want it at.

If you want to know more generally about POD for books, that's not a dead thread, but that's pretty simple. Effectively that's a high speed digital photocopier with either integrated or separate machines for slapping a quick (generally glue) binding on the book.

Highly in error. I directed you elsewhere because I thought your needs might not match the tech and I thought you might be considering printing with it. Sorry. Curiosity is always open for discussion, and far be it for me to close off such a discussion.

Money goes into setup in traditional printing by cleaning the printing presses, setting up the inks, putting plates (ask if you don't know what those are, like giant devices to apply ink to paper in specific patterns) on the machine, selecting the paper stock, loading that onto the machines, etc.

Setup costs in traditional printing are to pay for the initial labor involved in setting up the machine.

Consider a low-tech example. You bring in 100 pages for photocopying. You want the pages reduced by 10%, and you want them doublesided. You also want them on a special bone white colored paper. The photocopy guy has to walk over, change the copy paper. Put the pages on the tray (making sure they are even). Then he has to set the copier settings. Then he punches in a number of copies and goes to town.

At this point, he's engaged in a lot of effort if you want one copy. However, if you want 50, he just sets the copier to make 50 copies and walks away. Printing is much the same way. All the hassle up front is for setting up the first page. After that, it's sort of start the machine and let it do it's job.

So you get stung for the initial labor.

Throughout a game printing process, it's really easy to see who is using a highly automated system and who is not. The Rollem Slipstream is like an automatic playing card making machine. Labor is lower. Setup and production costs are lower. In other shops, the print the cards first. Take them off the press. Cut them into blocks. Put them on another machine that rounds the corners. Then they hand separate the decks. Then they shrink wrap them on another machine. Lots of labor.

With high automation you get just a setup fee. With low tech you get high labor fees at all stages of the process. Printing 3000 decks of 100 cards, shrink-wrapped can cost you $7000 or less with a Slipstream. One traditional printer was going to charge $30,000 for the same thing because every step (printing, cutting into rectangles, rounding corners, collating the cards, shrink-wrapping them, etc.) were all on different machines that took people time to setup.

If you want deep, deep descriptions ask the printing guys here on the offset technology. Or ask the Rollem folks for any product information they can send out to you on the subject (if folks here don't own one).

It's really a demand issue. The technology is there. For instance, inkjet printers need special paper with a gel coat on it (that's what the ink sinks into). Almost nobody needs to inkjet double-sided things at photo quality. The standard demand is for a single photo sheet or a photo on one side and text on the other. Text is OK on uncoated stocks. So most inkjet sheets are not coated on both sides (what you'd want to make playing cards easily). Since inkjet stock that's coated on both sides is rarer its more expensive than normal inkjet photo paper.

Next, if you want your cards to be durable you need a special coating on them so the ink doesn't rub off. Your desktop inkjet doesn't do varnish coating. So you need a very special paper that allows the ink to sink in below the surface of the card rather than sitting on top. This type of paper exists but it is VERY expensive. And it is made in 2-sided form, but only in labs, and rarely sold.

Next, there's the thickness of the stocks -- most inkjet printers are low end desktop printers and aren't meant to handle things like wargame tiles. They are meant to handle photos and typing paper. Again, the demand isn't there to handle thicker stocks, so fewer cheap thick injet stocks exist.

Now, these stocks do exist for the big inkjet printers. Some of those will handle paper that's about 24 point paper (I have another thread on this, search for my name). That's 24 thousandths of an inch. Thick stuff. You can make simple wargame counters out of that stuff.

The demand is lower, the cost is higher. People use it for making signs mostly, and mostly on a once a year basis or something (not 1000s at a time), so the market tolerates high pricing that kills this stuff for mass markets.

Laser printers face some of the same problems (only they don't need special gel-coated papers to print on). Demand. Demand. Demand.

Most people printing cards want to print a lot of them. So they go to traditional printers. The demand for color laser printers to handle really thick stock is pretty low around the household. High end printers can handle the stuff though, and it's not nearly as expensive as the inkjet. Depending on your artwork and printer, you may like inkjet color better than color from other non-inkjet sources, so that may be a concern.

Next, what do you do when you print the stuff? If you are making cards, you need to cut them out, right? Well, most copy shops don't get a lot of people asking them to die cut playing cards. They are not equipped for it. So they have to fake it by cutting the cards into rectangles on one machine, then rounding the corners on another. The cards come out fairly similar, but not the quality you'd really want.

So, the demand is not there for the technology to be universal and cheap. And where it is viable, it's viable primarily if you have your own equipment. And it still, at best, is a two-step process (print and die cut on a separate machine).

POD has lower setup costs, but for cards the per unit costs can be so high that you'd want to offset cost can be anywhere from 1/3 to 1/20th the cost of doing POD once you hit 3000+ units.

The inks, etc. in POD printers tends not to be that cheap.

Lastly, the people who normally do POD don't carry actual playing card stock. They might be able to order it, but playing card stock is super expensive unless you order a lot of it. Some vendors will sell it at a substantial markup, but lots of people want you to buy it in 5000 pound quantities. One company wants you to buy it in 46,000 pound quantities.

Heritage Paper, Arjo Wiggins, and a few others are the only ones I've heard of who make high quality playing card stock (and Wiggins imports it from their European parent company). Maybe Beaver Paper. Actual playing card stock isn't made by thousands and thousands of company's worldwide. I know of a handful. An insider in the print business probably would know of a lot more. Suffice it to say, pretty specialized stuff, so copy shops can't get it for you cheap, and some of their machines may not handle a thick coated stock well.

The companies that handle big offset printing of playing cards make so much money in volume that they don't want to be nagged to make 10 copies of a deck of 52 special cards. It's not worth their time or money.

The result is, the technology seems to be there (or almost there, I'm not sure on that, we're checking on the price for new inexpensive inks and stock which may change things), but few companies have the demand or the interest to marry the machines and customer base together to do the stuff.

Printing 3000 decks on a Slipstream is so much cheaper than going to Kinko's that it's not even funny, and the Slipstream decks are nicer.

The only solutions I've found are to order a lot of playing card stock yourself (or stick with non-playing card stocks -- again search the archives for this distinction under my name), order a POD printer yourself, and order a die cutter and shrink wrapper (as an optional third step) yourself. You can actually crank out decks reasonably fast then, but there is some labor and you have to own at least $7000+ in machinery (maybe $15000+ for nice stuff) if you are serious about volume. And you have a place to put all this. If you have that, you can probably POD games. Whether you can do so inexpensively, I will know by the end of the year. Tech innovations in the last 4-6 months may have just changed my answer from "no, you can't" to "yes, you can".

Otherwise, you're stuck printing out stuff and cutting out a handful of cards at a time with Ellison person die cutting machines. At that point, the speed advantages of POD are pretty much gone, and your only advantage is that you can make one deck for pretty cheap if you can get the right paper.

Either that, or microperforating playing card stock and laser printing it. But then you are selling unpunched sheets which will generate cards with an unflattering "fringe" around the edge. They won't look as nice as decks off a Slipstream even if they are all the same size, on the same stock, and even if they use high quality inks. Plus, people will have to punch them out instead of just opening them and shuffling. Another downside. That's the only way I've found to end run some of the problems if you don't want a garage full of equipment.

Regarding game boards -- you need the boards, right? Kinko's doesn't make them. And many company's will charge you only a little more to put a color image on the board than to build the board itself if you are ordering 3000 boards. If you are ordering just one game quad-fold game board for $15.00+ then the cost is so high that it's not to your advantage to do it except for prototyping. Again, nobody has found the customer base to keep 1000+ game boards on stock and equipment to print, mount, and box them.

Hope that helped.

Hopefully some printers will chime in who know more about the actual printing technology. Maybe I gave you a start on the process itself and the economics.

And again, sorry for the confusion, I was encouraging you to jump to another thread because I thought you wanted to manufacture with the technology and it sounded like there was a poor fit between what I thought you wanted and what the tech does right now. I didn't want you to waste your time and money just to end up dissatisfied. We've been researching POD CCGs for about 6 months now, and we are constantly having to rethink various aspects of the labor, pricing, etc. The tech is there, but it's just not easily afforable. And it's not integrated (like the Slipstream is).

I don't have enough knowledge to answer all of your likely questions. Hopefully some of the other folks will pitch in a bit and pick up my slack, adding corrections as needed.

Maybe you can teach me about something on another thread :-) And maybe I can learn something more for myself from any printers or print buyers who chime in on the workings of the actual printing machines.

BTW -- you want to know something about the stock itself, try here:

http://www.bgdf.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=472

I think Matt's got some info in another thread that's got the exact sizes that sheets of various weights come in.

Cheers,
Lee

Sure. Hopefully others will add some points and correct things as needed. I take it that my description was reasonably clear?

Did anyone check out the Slipstream machine? It isn't really POD (I mentioned it just to show the normal way cards are made as opposed to POD), even though in many ways it is a fantastically well-integrated looking machine.

When Rollem hooks up their non-printing technology in the slipstream up to an actual POD printing system, WOW! Then you'll have POD cards at offset speeds and quantities.

Just for the cool factor I suggest checking out the machine if you are a hobbyist.

Lee

-- Matthew

Thanks. Hopefully, you understand that some of my quotes above that disturbed you were the result of poorly formed thoughts or sentences, rather than attempts to "banish people from the board."

Matt, I'm starting to note that some material on a given subject is sometimes separated across multiple disparate threads, which sometimes go unnoticed by people. As an example, somebody asked about pounds of paper the other day and I knew the press sheet size varied by paper weight, but I didn't remember the sizes. I _think_ you had a post on that. It would be good to have that info together, but it's in two separate threads.

I'd like to chime in as well on the idea of a wiki, etc. I've seen some of your posts on stocks, etc. I think stuff like our posts on stocks and technologies are probably appropriate for general reference.

I had the same problem in some of the board game threads -- sometimes the best info was piecemeal available in 2-3 threads.

Folks may eventually benefit from that consolidation of information. Since I'm a game design type guy and not a print buyer, manufacturer, or printer myself, perhaps you, Tom, and others would like to collect some info with me over the next few months and compile them into "ready reference" for people so they don't have to pay in sweat and mistakes for the info like I have so far.

Thoughts?

Lee