Selling a game outright

It's unusual to outright sell (or buy) the rights of a board game, but I don't see why it cannot be done. Whether it is a good idea to do so, is another matter. For both parties involved, it is a matter of calculating the odds, and determining if it's a good bargain.

For a typical board game in the hobby industry, you'll make $1 on a game that retails for $40. Suppose 3000 copies are sold (a typical number for a small publisher), that means you make $3000. Adjust these numbers accordingly (print run, retail price) and you'll get an estimate of what you should ask for selling the rights to the game.

Selling the rights to the game puts the risk solely in the hands of the publisher. If somehow the game never gets published, or if the game flops, the designer still has his money. Conversely, if the game becomes a runaway hit, you'll never get more money than what you received initially.

Personally, I would rather keep the rights to the game and receive a royalty. I believe in my games, and I believe they are good enough to become hits. I would hate it to sell the rights to a game completely and then see it win the Spiel des Jahres and sell a half million copies. On the other hand, if somehow a game flops, I haven't lost anything besides the time invested in it. But that's just my opinion.

You could also stipulate that the rights would come back to you after a certain amount of time.

Give them 10 years, and if the game goes well you will get the rights back just in time for when people are clamouring for a reprint :)

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For a typical board game in the hobby industry, you'll make $1 on a game that retails for $40. Suppose 3000 copies are sold (a typical number for a small publisher), that means you make $3000.

Zaiga how do you get that number of one dollar?

Zaiga how do you get that number of one dollar?

*Wearing my Zaiga Mask*

It is something like this: You get 5% of what they sell it for which is %50 of retail.

$40.00 x .5 x.05 = $1.00.

Each company does their contracts different so percentages, advance payments, etc. may very.

Look at it like this. Most of us don't do it to make a living but those designers who have games that sell 100,000 copys or who have a large number of games in print can make a nice liveing.

Dralius has it right. Typically a designer gets 5% of the price the publisher sells it to the distributor, which typically is half of retail. Of course, this is an estimate. Contracts, prices, print runs and percentages will vary from game to game. Also of importance is after how many years or months the right of the game go back to the designer, if the designer has any veto right in the creative process, what happens when the game doesn't get printed before a certain deadline, how many free copies the designer gets of the game, etc, etc.

Yes, this is for licensing the game to a publisher. For self publishing the numbers will be different. You might make more money, but then you also invest more time and you take a financial risk.

There are only a few lucky people in this world that make a living as freelance game designer, without dabbling in self publishing. Alan R. Moon, Wolfgang Kramer, Klaus Teuber and Reiner Knizia are the names I can come up with. Perhaps there are a few more, but the list is very short. Even prolific designers such as Michael Schacht and Bruno Faidutti need a day job to pay the bills.

A few designers make a living of basically one hit game. I'm sure Klaus Jurgen Wrede and Andreas Seyfarth have made some nice money on Carcassonne and Puerto Rico respectively.

Then of course there are in-house designers working for the Hasbro's, Eagle Games and Fantasy Flight Games of this world, but they don't count :P

It is really deceiving to see the low income rate. I am always comparing to the book industry where the author get 10% of the book store price. So for a 20$ book, you would receive 2$. The Book store get 40%. I am not sure if it is the same proportion in the united states since there is an additional middleman.

With 10% you can only make a living if you write a lot or write a best seller. But it can become a good side line. I think it is worth the effort. But at 2.5% of the final price, considering that you generally sell more copies of a book than a game, I sincerely think that the companies abuse from their freelancers. I don't know why the book industry can offer better rates. Since we are speaking percentage here, even if a game is more complex( or expansive) to build, it won't influence proportion.

This is why I have decided that the only best solution would be the PDF distribution. You get in contact with the distributor which get in contact with the client. You generally get around 75%-85% of the final price but the sales and the prices are lower. But considering that a board game sales are already low, I think it worth it.

I'm rather new in board games designing, but its my wish since high school to publish one. I plan to begin playtesting in 1 month or so for the piece I'm working on right now through these forums.

But when you said online games sell better, do you mean ordered online, or computerized boardgame sort of thing... Just to be sure, do you mean the former?

There is "cheap ass games", there is "war games download".

I am currently studiying as a documentation technician and I am working in a book warehouse and I can assure you that the author get 10%. But like I said, this is in canada. Not sure for US, and the concept of "mass market" distribution does not exist here, only pocket version is the cheapest version available.

For online distribution, I was talking about PDF distribution, but some games can be bought online directly from the publisher. They build the game for you and ship it. Of course, it might be a bit more expensive since they build it and must pay shipping.