"custom moulding" vs "laser engraved" dice

If you are still designing the dice I would get the prototypes 3D printed until they are where you want them to be then you could look at the molding options.

What if they want something other than d6. A nice alternative is a site called q-workshop(http://q-workshop.com/). They're pretty cheap as long as you get a minimum of 50. My 50 d20 are costing me about $4.84 each. Best part is it doesn't have to be 50 of the same dice.

And I already know I'm taking a loss on the decks, so its all a matter of what you're working on I guess. I'm working on a tcg that has both decks and booster packs and I'm looking at a cost of $0.31/booster pack including cards and packaging.I can stand to take a loss on the initial starter decks because I will more than likely. make it back on the 7000 or so booster packs I will be able to produce next to the 25 starter decks. I understand with board games its a little harder to do what I'm working on. Doesn't mean you don't give them all the options. In general its entirely up to each Designer what they're willing to do and sacrifice.

I think they do engraved dice: http://www.customdice.com/pricing.php

In their YouTube video, I can see what seems to be engraved dice (0:15 seconds into the video).

Obviously pricing is the issue... They don't explicitly say how much each custom dice costs.

Not sure if "Custom Dice" does MOULDING (http://www.customdice.com/pricing.php/)

I think they ALSO do just PAINTED onto the DICE. I think this is just like "PRINTING" on plastic.

Take a look at: http://www.customdice.com/images/company_promotions/RR_Limo_Dice-large.jpg

Notice how the LIMOUSINE is NOT ETCHED into the dice... I think this is basically just printing (with color too!) on the dice themselves. This does NOT require a MOULD. It is also probably LESS COSTLY than having a mould made for custom dice...

You might want to check out that option for production quality dice... Cheaper than a mould but nice enough (better than stickers).

Well check out this one: http://www.customdice.com/images/events_weddings/50th_Wedding_Anniversar...

or http://www.customdice.com/images/personal_gifts/Named_Dice-large.jpg
or http://www.customdice.com/images/personal_gifts/Celtic_and_Blood_Raven_D...
or http://www.customdice.com/images/company_promotions/Custom_Dice_Single_P...

It seems like the additional writing is actually ETCHED into the dice... But I'm guessing those are probably more costly than the PRINTED ones (in the previous example).

Contact Panda manufacturing (China) $1,000 per die mold, but they have minimums that may put you into the $6,000 range you have been quoted.

I have a mould for Pocket Cricket (thanks for the plug questccg!) - it cost less than $1000 per dice - polyresin, as opposed to Urea which was about $2300 per mould. The mould is only 5-sides and they laser engrave the last side. We only got it made after licensing with Cricket Australia as we needed significant volume, and this brought the unit price down to something acceptable.

We started with laser engraved dice. Unit price is obviously higher, but there's no need to worry about words/symbols rubbing or scratching off. Personally, I think laser engraved dice present better to the customer.

We are using this same approach now for our Pocket Golf & Pocket Soccer games due out in a couple of months. We've got print runs of 500 sets of both as a market feeler. If we then see there's a good opportunity to forecast enough sales to pay royalties, we'll then get moulds made. We've had a chat with the Australia PGA and they're keen to see a finished product.

So far we've had over 100,000+ dice made at the same factory. They're small and sometimes, slow, but so far the product has been excellent. They do fluctuate their prices from time to time, but overall, I've not found anyone cheaper that does small MOQ.

Hope that helps!

I'm pretty sure I've posted most of this in the past....and provided a contact to a few peeps that have PM'd me, and I'm happy to do it again.

Yes, they are made in China. I found them on Alibaba. www.longbright.com

They have an extensive range of dice, chips and components. In the beginning I was looking for a factory to do a run of 1000 sets (6 dice in a set). Most factories wanted MOQ of 3000 dice/colour, in some cases more than that. This place actually required a higher MOQ to start.

Through emails back and forth we struck a price of $1.20 per set - laser engraved. I'd decided to go this way as opposed to printing because they'd stand the test of time and beer spillage. They also helped me source the custom cotton bag the dice come in, printed with our logo for .40 each. They also packed each game (dice in the bag).
So all up it was around USD$1600 for a 1000 games. Of course you then add on shipping, customs tax and other incidentals......

We were fortunate enough to sell those 1000 sets in the lead up to Christmas, and reordered 6 weeks later. This time however, we order 2000 sets but there was an issue with availability of acrylic to make the dice due to other orders they were we working on. I've mentioned they are only a small factory so sometimes there may be delays on production....especially around Chinese New Year / October and May - all national holidays when factory workers have a well earned break. We had to use polyresin (laser engraved again) but the price was $1.55 per set - this was possibly some price gouging in the high season but we needed the stock.

A couple of months later we approached the governing body for Cricket in Australia for licensing. We worked a deal to use their logo/IP so know we needed to get a mould - Polyresin mould was the cheapest option $3000 ($500 per dice) - as opposed to Urea $14220. I was even quoted Urea 'long life' mould by another game developer in Australia with a factory in China (Ken Howard) of $20K-$25K !

It was obvious which one to start with and we went with polyresin, even though daily output is slower. To be honest, the quality of the mould dice compared to laser engraved can't be told apart. So you can be comfortable with 'polyresin' as an option.

This then brought the price down per set to around half of what we were paying before. It's certainly not 'pennies' but we were ordering 10,000 sets so the savings more than the mould cost.

Back to the screen printing option - in most cases they may have a lower price per set, but they charge a set up fee for the colour plate....There's no plate fee for engraving.

We are having Pocket Golf http://boardgamegeek.com/article/13195507#13195507 made laser engraved at aroun $1.20 per set. The screen printing would have been about .60 per set but a plate fee of $394 - so, again, I'd rather pay a little extra for good engraved dice.

Of course all of the above comes down to your MOQ - as we've ordered a bunch of dice in the past, getting a small run of 500 sets now is doable as we've established a business relationship. Sometimes they want extra charges for colour dye, or the laser engraving factory says they are not making any money or they are out of certain stock...this is all part of dealing directly with a Chinese factory and is to be expected at some stage. I lived and worked in China for 9 years so being able to chat in Chinese is helpful too!

I hope this answered some of your questions! Please keep an eye out for our next two games - Pocket Golf & Pocket Soccer!

These dice in our second game were laser engraved - www.pocketfooty.com.au