My Review of The Game Crafter

In terms of components, they do offer bulk pricing, although their rates are steeper than other wholesalers. Mostly, it's that their bulk pricing hits the ceiling at 1k, whereas other vendors have a better economy of scale with further breaks at 10k, 50k, 100k, and such. Breaking it down with 7/8" bingo chips (the larger kind), for example:

Game Crafter charges $0.0634 ea for 1-9 and $0.0098 ea for 1k or more.

They cost 0.0264 each just buying a pack of 150 off the shelf at Walmart. Buying from an online retailer like us-bingo.com runs $0.017 ea.

Domestic wholesalers sell them for about 0.0085 ea for 1k, 0.00645 ea for 10k, or 0.00585 ea for 100k. I'm sure that you can get a lower price ordering direct from China.

All-in-all, in terms of price, even on small volume prototyping components, I can get a lot of Gamecrafter's components at around the same price out of the bins at our local educational supply store without the need for paying S&H. For value though, I typically hit up the big chain craft stores that offer 40+% off coupons . . . or I just steal my bingo tokens from the local nursing home while I'm looting their bottles of Ziprasidone and Olanzapine.

$13 USD for a game seems rather HIGH. I would CAP it at $10.00. Using traditional sales/distribution, your MSRP should be 5x your cost to produce.

5x $13.00 = $65.00. That's quite expensive for a retail game.

But again it depends on the game itself... and the components.

Just a FYI - you may not even be considering traditional channels for sales/distribution and so that price might be okay.

But just remember the more you produce (runs), the odds are the price will go UP from $13.00 to $14 - 15... As the manufacturer will tell you the price of paper has gone up, parts are costing more because of fluctuating plastic, etc.

Note: About the fluctuating prices that's Hamish (HPS74) that told me that his price per game always seems in flux. The manufacturer always has some cost increase when he places orders... So you should be aware of this also...

I've only ever ordered components, game pieces, bags, etc. from The Game Crafter. Love their service and prices are decent.

I hope to use their direct print service soon on a card game I'm working on.

Hi Bluebright,

Thanks for taking the time to provide a detailed and honest review of our service. We know there are lots of other things you could be spending your time on so we greatly appreciate it you doing this.

We follow lots of different websites/forums and we do actively listen to feedback/comments from our community members. Thanks for letting us know where you think we can improve. I'll definitely share this with my partners.

There are several people in the community that are able to generate a healthy profit using our print on demand service. The trick (for them) is that they purchase in bulk and are able to sell units at game conventions, their websites, etc... That helps to bring down the price point some and allows them to make a better margin. POD is certainly more expensive per unit vs traditional print runs but those have tremendous upfront risk and their own set of issues. POD is not for everyone but it does have it's place for some designers.

Thanks for your willingness to recommend us. We'll keep making improvements to the service/products based on the community's needs and feedback. Cheers!

Regards,

Tavis Parker
The Game Crafter

I totally agree with you. Like I said, the people in the best position to do this already have the proper skill set and resources at home, typically because they are in a compatible line of work. The guy in my link has ridiculously expensive and specialized equipment worth thousands of dollars as part of his home office. He indicates that he hopes to get a light table, worth a couple thousand more, for his birthday. That's a far cry from someone using freeware art software and a $50 inkjet.

Don't get me wrong. If I call GC a "vanity press," that's not something I intend as an insult. I used to work for a vanity POD service, and I recognize the worth. You fill a very important niche when it comes to production options for aspiring designers. For prototyping at home though, I consider it an investment for people who are company-building, as opposed to prototyping a game to pitch it elsewhere or planning a one-shot campaign. That's just aspiring for an economy of scale that is serviced by a different segment of the industry. You want to ultimately have a certain degree of self-sufficiency for in-house work in that case.

More than that though, some people just enjoy all aspects of production. It can be more fun than the actual game design. I lay out game components and produce prototype materials at home for no other reason than to maintain my design skills. Even so, yeah, it would be exciting to get a box from you guys in the mail. It's just that the part of this sort of business I really, really miss the most is ordering a dozen bulk bags of 10k+ components each and sourcing locally where I sit down with the printer over a light table to go over mock-ups. The aspects of production that you guys handle for your customers are the best part of the hobby for me.

True Soulfinger you have a point. Del Laird got me plastic cubes he ordered from China. Anyhow I decided to buy the cubes for about $40.00 USD. Not too much but those cubes came in perfectly for when my game sets were made for reviewers.

Although I used TGC for the cards and the boxes, I bought my own parts (like the cubes and dice). It's not because TGC didn't offer a good deal on those parts, I just wanted different options (like Chessex dice - nice dice for the reviewers). And Del's ice cubes are nicer than the one from TGC (IMHO clearer - he had them all made custom).

Anyhow putting the reviewer sets was a lot of fun. I also had the game pad that was a separate print run from TGC also. So I had to wait for the cards, then the boxes and lastly the game pads. I also had to go to local game stores to buy my dice. Which fortunately worked out!

So I understand having to do this for a limited set of game - but I would never want to handle more than 50 boxes. Just too much effort and shipping costs would be disastrous. But definitely get what you mean about "putting it all together".