Currently I am researching custom dice manufacturers and I am finding huge price differences. What I am looking for is advice, or more bluntly, suggestions as to a company to connect with. Any help?
Looking for a Custom Dice manufacturer
Sun, 04/14/2013 - 22:59
Sun, 04/14/2013 - 23:15
#1
Chessex and Koplow
Currently I am researching custom dice manufacturers and I am finding huge price differences. What I am looking for is advice, or more bluntly, suggestions as to a company to connect with. Any help?
I know Chessex is a *well known* dice manufacturer: http://www.chessex.com
They have a bunch of different dice with all kinds of colors... I also know another dice manufacturer Koplow Games: http://www.koplowgames.com
They are not as *fancy* as Chessex - But I don't thing they retail dice...
If you are looking for custom dice with custom faces, you can consider The Game Crafter's plastic dice combined with dice face stickers. https://www.thegamecrafter.com/parts/d6-indented-blank-blue
Mon, 04/15/2013 - 06:53
#3
Shared efforts
Why would you want to do that? You need to come up with the best game idea there is, and playtest it extensively, and then either find a publishing house - who would most certainly not care much about what prices you may have gotten but do their own thig anyway - or a producer who also has all kinds of relationships and can offer prices. But: prices for components of a complete board game are much cheaper than prices for components.
Custom dice are very much a matter of print run size....
Frank Jaeger
Ludo Fact GmbH, Germany
Mon, 04/15/2013 - 10:49
#4
Custom Dice
My current target is self producing through Kickstarter. I of course want the best quality that can be afforded for production cost and retail costs. For an intitial print run we are currently looking at 1000. The main hang up is finding the best cheapest custom dice supplier.
Mon, 04/15/2013 - 16:28
#5
Good experience
Hi Swiftshadow,
For what it's worth, I had some custom dice made by Chessex about 18 months ago. They were expensive, but the quality was very high, communication was good and they delivered within the time and cost estimations they provided.
I have no reservations using or recommending Chessex for custom dice if your project has enough budget :)
Mon, 04/15/2013 - 21:15
#6
over 600 dice manufacturers.
If you check out Alibaba Global Traders you will see dice manufacturers that can make you anything you want. Priced from $.02 to $ 1.00. Free to join, free quotes. Watch the minimums.
Good luck with your game!
Mon, 04/15/2013 - 22:11
#7
Looking for Custom Dice Manufacturers
Any manufacturer you work with may have some issues, and you should investigate them thoroughly before sending money out the door. There have been more than the average number of issues with Alibaba. I don't know Alibaba's current status, but here's a sample from a couple years ago -
http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2011/02/online-fraud_scandal_china
By they way, I don't think they manufacture anything themselves, they are just a middleman.
Tue, 04/16/2013 - 01:01
#8
Better think twice...
My current target is self producing through Kickstarter. I of course want the best quality that can be afforded for production cost and retail costs. For an intitial print run we are currently looking at 1000. The main hang up is finding the best cheapest custom dice supplier.
That run of 1,000 units is too HIGH for a Kickstarter.
A very GOOD campaign was done by Jason Glover (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1243534184/zogars-gaze?ref=live). That one had 862 backers. That was a big campaign with a lot of different rewards and stretch goals.
One from the BGDF community was Dirk Murset's Planet Pioneer (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1894302567/planet-pioneer-card-game?...). That one had 80 backers. It too had stretch goals since the original amount (goal) was only $600.
You had better evaluate how many backers you believe would be generated by your campaign. Remember not all Kickstarters are successful. Sometime people will lower their GOAL so that a project is successful. If you do that, be certain to have STRETCH rewards which allow more people to become contributors and generate more cash flow. That one is a balancing act...
I too find Chessex to be a little bit pricey (but they are only 5 cents more expensive for retail dice...) However you could make the dice a STRETCH rewards: if you get $x (like $5,000 or $7,500) all game sets will have dice from Chessex... Getting $2,500 or $1,000 extra in backers is worth the trade-off for dealing with Chessex to buy you dice, no?
Good luck with your project.
FYI: In terms of projections of the number of backers, my own Kickstarter projections are around 150-175 contributors (for my own game). That is FAR from 1,000 game units.
Wed, 04/17/2013 - 05:23
#9
many issues
Making custom dice is generally expensive, especially when you want quality. Also there are all kinds of techical issues. You need to talk to someone in the industry and get feedback. It will not help you posting here, get in touch with a potential supplier and make him quote.
Wed, 04/17/2013 - 16:08
#10
Custom dice
Already getting quotes, but I did not want to overlook the expertise and experience of the people on this forum. Advice is always welcome. I was hoping that there is a great supplier that everyone uses that I may have overlooked.
Fri, 08/23/2013 - 10:02
#11
I realize this is an old
I realize this is an old thread but in the event someone else is looking for a solution, I have successfully requested quotes from Alibaba and sourced 1000 custom dice for my first production run. I actually had to choose between two competing companies with similar prices. I used the Alibaba Escrow service which cost an additional $10. That provided some peace of mind. My service was top notch, fast, and 11% of what it cost to get the same quantity of custom dice made in the USA.
The printing is not perfectly centered and a few were downright off center - badly - but my game has a price point of $4.99 so I wasn't terribly interested in quality control. I even refused samples because I had some deadlines to meet. Besides, I can always send out a free replacement die if anyone complains. In reality, the printing on the die isn't going to make or break your game. The mechanics will. Once I sell through this initial production run I will have verified there is a market at which point I'll worry more about quality control.
You can see a picture of the die on this page: www.beakergames.com/product/three-squares-game-the-original/
I hope this helps...
The custom dice would be for a game that is currently in the playtest stage and showing promise. Its time to start getting price quotes from manufacturers.
Chessex seems the most expensive of all the places I have found so far.