More Competitive PRICING

Another reason is the changing business environment, production costs in China are rising rapidly.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100651692

When you also take into account shipping, custom duties, language difficulties and variable quality (unless you have someone on the ground or focussed on keeping things in check) China is rapidly loosing its golden shine.

Companies are gradually shifting production back to their home countries. Fortunately, some domestic producers still remain, despite the loss of production income in recent years as companies chased cheaper prices.

I think the overall cost of games is going to steadily rise over the next few years. Domestic manufacturers are being hit by increased costs, although wages are falling slightly, but without the cheap production of China the only way for prices is up.

There are some avenues to offset this a little for the big players, but not for small volume publishers, unfortunately.

Self-publishing is simply more expensive than a large production run because they have to account for the work involved in printing one game and never making it again. It's a lot like self-published books that tend to be more expensive for the same reason.

On top of that, thegamecrafter sources several materials from the US instead of China, which no doubt adds to the price.

Do you know how many Dominion games were printed? I wouldn't surprised if it received a print run of about 2000-3000 games which would lead to a lower wholesale price. Also, if some of the cards are the same, you can further down the cost by having less different sheets.

The board game industry is very similar to other retail markets in the sales margins. An easy way to understand it is the commonly applied “Rule of 5”, and it begins with the MSRP – the price the consumer pays.

The consumer pays 100% MSRP.
The retailer pays 50% MSRP.
The distributor pays 40% MSRP.
Manufacturing costs 20% MSRP.
Publisher net revenue = 20% MSRP.

In the case of Dominion with a $45 MSRP, I would expect the publisher sees about a $9 net revenue per unit sold. This should not be confused with profit, which still must account for fixed costs, royalties, etc.

The Game Crafter could be thought of as handling manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Since the product actually goes from manufacture to retail right away, the distribution step effectively does not exist. The potential cost savings is then eaten by the higher cost of being unable to realize economy of scale in production.

For Dominion to see a similar return if it were published through The Game Crafter, it would retail for $63, and would only be sold through the one website. Bottom line? Economies of scale mean *a lot*.

An important consideration is to determine where your break-even line is located and how much you want to invest. For a game with about 100 cards plus dice and tokens, you can source on TGC for about $20 per unit. You can expect a cost per unit of $5 with a US mass manufacturer. If you expect to sell 300 units, it is worth the money to invest in a print run of 1000 units – you would realize a greater return on investment. The big difference is that TGC doesn't require any up front purchasing, warehousing, or fulfillment, all things that you would have to do when ordering from a manufacturer.

Viewed as a Return on Investment at small sales quantities, TGC just can't be beat. But it's simply not suitable for a game that expects to enter general distribution in any meaningful way.