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Anonymous

Hi,

My son and I are in the process of developing a ccg that he created and I just recently learned about your site. I've gained some valuable info here (had never heard of Delano, for instance) and hope to learn more, but I also think I have some things to share, so here's our story.

My son created a ccg called "Mage Warfare" and asked me for some feedback and help and before we knew it, we had 500 cards. We put the card stats into a database, used Word's Mail Merge to slap them into tables with card-sized cells, had them printed and cut at our local Kinko's (because they're open when I get out of work), put them in card holders with other ccg cards for backing :) and asked the owner of our local card shop if we could playtest there. She was happy to let us try it out.

We play tested for months and got so many good responses that we decided to move forward with a website (http://www.magewarfare.com) and to start soliciting artwork as well as set up a business.

Play testing has continued as we've gotten about 40 artists contributing pics and a card design from a graphics designer I used to work with. In the meantime, I've been pursuing the business end.

I'm a member of a loan group of Micro Credit NH (http://www.microcreditnh.org), a non-profit agency that provides loans for small businesses. I've also been meeting with a representative from SCORE (http://www.score.org), a network of retired businessfolk who advise people starting a business, for free.

We have a genral business plan, but the specifics have been difficult because I was finding it hard to nail down the cost of production. Until recently. I got a quote from a printer broker, and it was quite an eye-opener. Much more money than we have available to us. This estimate, however, included tuck boxes and finseal packs, cellowrap, diecut POP display boxes... the works. I just needed to know what it would take to put us on shelves next to the big boys. Well, now I know... 8O

So, we've revised the plan. Instead of going for all the fancy packaging, we're going for a subset of the full compliment of cards, a much more modest print run and little to no packaging. We will market it as a home-grown game and this print run will never be reproduced (and it won't). The store owner has agreed to sell them on consigment as well, so that we can raise the capital we need to do the full production. We've been playing regular games there for about a year, so we're building a fan base. Plus we've been bringing in samples of our art in form of nice, big posters, which has been making quite an impression. And we just got local press coverage, too. :D

One of the business decisions we made is that we are NOT going to sell this ourselves. It will be our job to promote the game primarily by putting on demos and regular games at stores and let them sell the product. If we go to cons, we'd like to do it in conjunction with retailers; share a booth with them.

Assuming we can get the art done, and that's moving along steadily, we are looking towards spring of 2004 for our first release.

Any thoughts, questions, reactions, feedback, advice, whatever? I'm here to learn and to share what I've learned! :)

hpox
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Joining the club

Wow, now that's a good introduction!

Welcome Kevin,

The consensus here is that CCG are not really feasable because of the tremendous cost like you mentionned and the stigma attached to them. There's too many CCG, the market is flooded and people are fed up with the whole "collectible" part a.k.a. money extortion :lol: . That may be only from my perspective though and I'm sure many people still play them and love them.

Ok, well I'm not here to discourage you and I think publishing it as an homegrown game is a very cool/good idea.

Have you thought about packaging it as a stand alone "game in a box"? With enough cards for two players and some extra so they can customize their decks. You could release themed expansions for the extra cards. It seems that would be a whole lot less costly to produce and easier to sell.

Good luck. Just checked the website and you have something nice going on, please fill us in as you progress!

(I have no experience in publishing whatsoever, take my comments as you wish)

Deviant
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Joined: 12/31/1969
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Wow, I'm impressed! Was it expensive to hire that many artists? Definitely I'd slim the deck down (50-60 cards), as well as change all the quotes directly from Starcraft, etc (ex: The Marine). Good luck!

Anonymous
Joining the club

Thanks to both of you!

Don't worry about discouraging us; it can't be done! :D We'll find a way to make this work.

I know what you mean, hpox, about the number of ccg's, but so far the response to ours has been very positive and players keep asking when it will be available. We are sensitive to the "money extortion" aspect. My son's frustration with other ccg's is the main reason he came up with his own.

The "game in a box" idea is a good one, but is it really easier to sell that than a deck and packs? I don't know. Would the advantage be that it wouldn't be "just another" ccg? As for production costs, from what little I know, it would be more expensive to produce, since it would require a box and at least two decks. A two-deck starter kit is something we're definitely looking into, though, but not instead of individual decks and packs. Thoughts?

As for "hiring" artists, Deviant, it would be very expensive to hire that many artists, if we were paying them up front. :) The agreement we have with all the artists is that we will pay them out of potential profits. We're still amazed at how many good artists we've gotten to take that gamble. Most are young and trying to break into the business and just want to get their name out. Others are doing it just for fun.

Deck size for playing is a minimum of 40 cards; decks for sale will likely be 50 cards. The 500 cards listed on our site are the full compliment (well, almost; we're already working on cards for future release :D ) of cards. However, the initial release, to keep down production costs, will be 280 cards.

And I agree about the Starcraft quote. That won't be on the final card. :D

Thanks again and please keep the feedback coming!

jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Joining the club

Congrats on your game! I'm glad to hear you're moving ahead with your idea and have a business plan and everything, and it's especially cool that you're able to work on this with your son.

One thing that I will ask, as a larger question directed at everyone and not just you, is about game design in general. It seems like there are two kinds of people in game design discussion groups. There are those like the "regulars" here who have designed a lot of games but haven't published any, and there are the "newcomers" who haven't designed more than one or two games but are already at the stage of self-publishing their first game. (I invest no further meaning than that in my choice of words "regular" and "newcomer" -- it's more a reflection of people on this site based on my experience than anything other than that). We hear a fair number of posts that run something like this: "I have a great idea for a game. My friends like it. Now how do I patent and sell it?"

What I'm curious about is how many people have ever playtested a game that their friends didn't like. Again, not trying to be a jerk, but the issue for me is, I've been doing this long enough to know that despite the fact that the games I've playtested with my group have been well-received, they are not ready to be sold. And this is especially true of my earlier designs -- looking back on them, I can tell that they are not as "good" as my more recent designs.

So, I'm wondering how people, on their first design, come up with a game that is good enough to invest a lot of money in the project. My "guess" answer is that in a lot of cases, what they call "playtesting" has really been more "market-testing", with an eye more towards "do people like the game" than "does the game engine work, is it devoid of obvious flaws, is it clean and elegant, etc." But my other "guess" is that the games, despite being well-received, really do have flaws that the designers didn't catch due to lack of experience, and that it really does take time to develop game design skill. Or at least, I really want it to work this way, since I'm taking my time doing it!

I haven't really looked much at your site, but from a brief glance, the art work and production quality is fantastic, but I'm not yet sure about the game play. It seems, at first blush, somewhat complicated, but maybe that's the way CCGs are -- I'm not too knowledgeable on that front. Yet, I get worried when I start reading the rules and the first item under "gameplay" is about manners...hmm...

The other "concern" I have is that with 20+ different artists, the artwork doesn't have a very "coherent" feel, but maybe that's the point since your game is about pulling pieces from different realities.

Also, I really, really don't like the use of "Flesh" as the "resource". That, in and of itself, would be enough to make me not ever play your game, no matter how great it is, simply because the thought of "flesh" as a resource makes my stomach churn.

Anyway, I suspect the game is fun to play and will do well whereever you do demos and such. Everywhere else, you'll probably have a more uphill battle due to the saturation of the CCG market. But who knows?

But in general, I'm very interested to hear more about your design/playtesting process. What are the demographics of the playtesters? What kind of feedback did they offer? How much has the game changed during that process?

Best of luck with your game, and I hope it does well for you!

-Jeff

Anonymous
Joining the club

Thanks, Jeff, for your comments. All good things to consider; a little sobering, but that's okay. :)

I was actually just about to post a ps to my last one that the rules on the site are not the newest ones. The game was originally very complicated, with several types of resources and lots of numbers to track. While some players enjoyed this, most found it frustrating and it made for very long games.

We recently streamlined the rules in a big way and all of the players have reacted positively. The new rules will be posted to the site soon (probably just after Christmas), once they're finalized. This will be in conjunction with a redesign of the site, so that our forum can be integrated into the design.

Your point about "first timers" being ready to dump money into their game is a good one. We're trying to be careful and thoroughly test the game, and more importantly, make sure we get real feedback from players and incorporate that into the design. Players' excitement about being involved in a developing game is nice, but we need criticism. The best feedback we've gotten came from the one player who didn't like it. We immediately took his comments to heart and revised some rules.

Our process has been to play at our local store every other week (since that's when my son is with me) and for us to play at home on our own and with friends so that we can test specific scenarios. We have some players who have been involved since the beginning (about a year ago). We recently played on a different day than our usual time, so we got a bunch of new players who had never seen the old rules. One player in particular would have given us $200 on the spot if we had anything to sell yet, so that was very encouraging.

The demographics of our playtesters has been regular players of ccg's, rpgs and uh... Warhammer-type games. What's the acronym for that? :)

The next step is to put together a package with rules and at least a couple of decks and hand it off to some people who've never played it and see how it stands on its own.

I think a part of the reason we might be "ahead" of some more experienced developers is that we're a team. My son is the game developer. I throw ideas at him, I came up with some cards, but he is in charge of the game. He is the rulesmaster. He has an incredible capacity to look at a card idea in the context of all the other cards, rules, etc. and to know how it will work and adjust it accordingly. But I'm the business guy. I'm learning about starting and managing a business, getting production quotes and funding, coordinating the art, etc.

About "Flesh": that's an interesting comment. The first time we've ever heard that, but that's good to know. The term came about because the concept is that you're actually consuming your opponents' minions as you fight them. Nice, huh? :D But we will have to keep that in mind as we go forward; we don't want to drive away players before they even try the game!

Anyway, thanks for your comments and compliments. I hope this answers your questions. If not, or you have more, please ask!

Kevin

Anonymous
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jwarrend wrote:

So, I'm wondering how people, on their first design, come up with a game that is good enough to invest a lot of money in the project. My "guess" answer is that in a lot of cases, what they call "playtesting" has really been more "market-testing", with an eye more towards "do people like the game" than "does the game engine work, is it devoid of obvious flaws, is it clean and elegant, etc." But my other "guess" is that the games, despite being well-received, really do have flaws that the designers didn't catch due to lack of experience, and that it really does take time to develop game design skill. Or at least, I really want it to work this way, since I'm taking my time doing it!

Jeff makes a good point, but IMHO, I think it is possible to "over-design" a game. As I look back on different games I've played, especially CCGs, I see many instances where the game was refined as it went along. Magic the Gathering is a great example. There were many cards in the early editions that were just broken. WotC saw this and made changes to the cards in later editions or banned the use of cards altogether. One of the early game rules of the MtG game - anteing up one of your cards, has mostly been dropped from play altogether.

I think its great that Kevin is ready to go forward with the game, as I am sure they will learn a lot both about the business side and the gaming side and take any problems they face and learn from them.

If we wait until we have the perfect game then some of us may never publish. :wink: Yeah, maybe the game will flop, or a serious game flaw will emerge, but we can learn from them and correct them. Play-testing is important, but is it possible to over playtest? I don't know. I do think that the kind of "market testing" that Kevin and his son have done is also important. They have already seen a small market for their game, and that is the kind of encouragement I think we all like to see. Also, the nice thing about designing and selling a CCG versus a board game is the fact that you will be putting out new decks of cards all the time. This allows you to make rules modifications with each new card set if necessary.

Just my two pence.
- Geoff
Tangent Games

Anonymous
Joining the club

Thanks, Geoff.

Yes, we have been doing "market testing", but we've also done actual "play testing". Sometimes we have to drag it out of people; I think the natural reaction is, "This is cool! I'm playing a new game!" but we know we need more than that. The real test will come when we hand it off to other people to play without us present, I think. And if we need to make adjustments, we will.

But all feedback has to be tempered by your own vision. My son has a vision for this game and while we want it to be playable and will adjust specific rules, certain aspects will remain. I'm also in a playwrights group and while feedback there is vital to the writing process, there comes a point where you have to say "this is what I want it to be". Someone will always have another comment, another change to suggest.

I guess it's a bit of a balancing act, a give-and-take. Does that make sense?

Anonymous
Joining the club

kdbarrett wrote:
I guess it's a bit of a balancing act, a give-and-take. Does that make sense?

Yes it does. I've been part of a fiction writers group where writers get other writers to review and critique your stories. Many of the comments are helpful (such as correcting grammer), but others you just have to ignore because the reader is giving you a critique that is taking you down a path you don't want to go.

Good luck with the game. I've had a chance to look briefly at the website and it looks like it is an interesting game to play.

-Geoff

Anonymous
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as far as selling the CCG in a box look at Scarab lords it's really just a ccg but sold in a stand alone box. i would sell this game in themed skirmish packs with two decks and rules, with a Little story thrown in and then offer extra cards as prizes for playing in tournaments, also eventually adding more decks to the same faction (with more skirmish packs) will allow for more customizing of decks. nice art but until you pay your artist i think they should have the copyright.

Anonymous
Joining the club

super wrote:
nice art but until you pay your artist i think they should have the copyright.

I understand what you're saying, but from a business/publishing standpoint, we need to be the owners of the artwork so that we can control where it appears, how it's used, etc.

Anonymous
Joining the club

I think all you need from an artist is a written document allowing for the use of a piece for production and promotional proposes, Heck maybe even an exclusive license on the art work but just giving copyright away means that if the artist ever wanted to publish a collection, the pieces owned by you would have a difficult time being include. I know you personally would probably not do that. But if the game gets big and other people take control of the company you wont have a say in how the art is handled.
one more important thing for a CCG is a good organized league or something like one. it may cost more money but it is what keeps players competitive.

Chip
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Joining the club

I'm not a lawyer. That being said, in my opinion, you're better served controlling the artwork/trademarks incorporated in your game. If you're ultimately going to publish the game, from a marketing standpoint you need to have control of the elements incorporated in it. You need to make sure that what is said and depicted about the game is devoid of unwanted, unofficial information. You need to control the marketing direction of the game and retain the right to do with it what you want. That's not to say you don't want people talking about your game, etc. But without copyright and trademark protection there's absolutely no reason why someone else couldn't copy your game outright. The mechanics of the game are likely not protectable. You can protect the name, artwork, and "look and feel" of the game though.

If you're obtaining original artwork from other people, there is specific language you should try to incorporate into your agreement(s) with these persons. It should be explicitly stated that these are "Works Made For Hire" and that once commissioned/submitted they become your sole property. It's important too that the agreement states the submitted artwork will be incorporated into a larger "collective work" and doesn't represent the work or final product itself. By law (in the U.S. anyway), the original creator of artwork, writings, etc. is the one that holds legal rights/claims to the work unless it is explicitly assigned in writing to another party.

In my agreements with contractors I allow them to use works commissioned by me as "examples of their work" when promoting their services to other people. But they are not allowed to incorporate specific work done for me into work performed for other people or to benefit/profit from these works, unless agreed to by me. As for the idea of not being able to include their work in a "collection of their work", this could be acomplished simply with your "express written consent". They'd have to ask you if it were alright to do this, and if you were smart you'd let them (you'd get some free publicity, plus you wouldn't upset this or other future artists from working with you.)

Some artists might find it distasteful to have to ask for permission to use "their own artwork", but that's the point. It's not "their artwork" anymore. Once it was commissioned/submitted for inclusion into the larger "collective work" it ceased to be theirs.

No one - neither you, the artist, lawyers, etc. - will ever care about the copyright/trademark issues should your game go nowhere and remain simply an idea manifested as a stack of paper and cardboard worthy of only your living room table. Should you however actually publish the game, and god willing, make a few bucks in the process, then everyone will care. And if you don't have it in writing up front about who owns or has rights to what, then you leave yourself open to a lot of headaches - some of which will likely cost you money.

Chip

Anonymous
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kdbarrett wrote:

I understand what you're saying, but from a business/publishing standpoint, we need to be the owners of the artwork so that we can control where it appears, how it's used, etc.

Kevin makes a good point. From my experience with freelance work (writing - not artwork, but the principle is the same) is that once you submit the piece it is the property of the company you submitted it to.

In most cases the author (or artist) first fills out a product release form when originally submitting the work. This is to show that the work is original, not been previously published, and is an understanding that the work is only being considered for use, not actually being purchased. (Most publishers - game companies and magazines like Dragon, etc. require a product release form to be sent when submitting work for consideration.) The second part is the contract. Once the company decides to buy the piece then the author/artist completes the contract. The contract spells out the rights of the author/artist, the rights of the compnay, payment terms, credit, etc. (Disclaimer: If you have a lawyer I would invest in their help in drawing up a contract, or you can check out places on the web or library for help in drafting a business contract. THis will save you headaches down the road. :) )

In most contracts I have completed the company purchases the right to the piece so they now own it and can do what they want with it including making derivative works based on the piece, etc. They must give me (as the author) credit and payment, but I release any rights to the piece to them. You can add a clause to the contract stating that the artist may show the piece as a representation of their work (usually for artwork) as long as reciprocal credit is given (ie, this piece appears in the Mage Warfare CCG). It is up to the artist to agree to the terms and they have the right to suggest changes, but most contracts I have signed have been extremely fair as to my rights.

My two pence.
- Geoff

Anonymous
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A product release form? I'm not familiar with that. Do you know where I can find samples of that?

As for copyright and ownership and all that, I think it's important for us, even though we're a VERY small operation, to work like a "real" company. I guarantee you that Wizards of the Coast OWNS the artwork on their cards. We should, too, even though we can't pay. :) Yet. :D We have every intention of paying out of profits (assuming there are any).

Anonymous
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kdbarrett wrote:
A product release form? I'm not familiar with that. Do you know where I can find samples of that?

Here's the submission form Paizo Publishing (Dragon magazine) uses. The disclosure form is at the bottom of all the small text.

http://paizo.com/writersguidelines/dragon.html

Other companies I have written for have similar disclosure forms. The disclosure form is just a mini-contract to say that 1) the writer/artists states that this piece is their own work, and has not been published prieviously. 2) to tell the prospective writer/artist that you (the company) are under no obligation to buy said piece. That's what the contract is for.

Hope this helps.
-Geoff

Anonymous
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Hey, thanks! That's a great help!

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