What would you consider a reasonable price?

Well the most fair and easy formula for pricing a game goes like this:

Cost To Produce the Game x 5 = MSRP (Retail).

Since you will be doing a KS, keep that figure in mind and do one of two (2) things:

1. Offer a small rebate of let's say $5.00 - $10.00 depending on the cost
2. Offer stretch goals that the retail version will NOT have

So either you offer a better price to your KS Backers OR you offer them extra content that your retail version will not have. Sometimes you can do BOTH ... if you have the ability to do so with your game.

This will give you a fair and reasonable price point for selling your game via Kickstarter.

Cheers.

Note: You should also ADD the COST of shipping from your manufacturing location and preferably the average COST to mail to a Backer the game. This way you can say that shipping is INCLUDED in the reward price. Looks good for Backers - no additional cost for shipping...

Note 2: This method eases the guess work of trying to figure out how much to charge for your game. The pricing is determine by a function of how much it costs to produce the game. This is a standard practice - not something I "invented"...

More on pricing:

A> For Retailers the price should be 50% off retail. So a $50 game (MSRP) should be sold at $25 to a FLGS.
B> For Distributors the price should be 60% off retail. So their price should be $20.
C> The Manufacturing cost for a $50 game would be $10.

So you as the self-publisher would make $10 PROFIT on each game copy sold via traditional distribution. Which is pretty decent and reasonable to all parties involved.

Largely dépendant on your landed cost (manufacturing + freight + duty/taxes) as mentioned above, but ..

For essentially a 56 card deck + rule book, probably in the $15-20 range, maximum. You need to find other similar games (not just in components, but in style and quality) to find an average range really.

Do you know what your landed cost is per unit? Does landed cost x 5 = that range? If so you're set. If not, you may need to look at other options for manufacturing and/or quality of components.

For reference, this game comes with more than 56 cards (square, but that's not much of a difference), + approximately 80 black core high quality tokens, rule book and box with a UV Spot Gloss high quality box for about $22 give or take (depending on where you get it - I got it via Kickstarter for $25, shipping included) : https://www.amazon.com/Pencil-First-Games-NA-GemPacked/dp/B016V88MUO

Assuming direct sales absolutely.
(remember its also 5x landed cost not just manufacturing cost)

Heres a great article on the 5x landed cost idea as well (part 2 anyway which is directly related to kickstarting).

http://blog.foxtrotgames.com/2016/02/24/kickstarter-cash-flow-profit/

Good point, that is what I meant. I need to be more precise in my use of terminology. ;)

The 5* think definitely doesn't apply to Game Crafter. I'm sure that if you were wanting to produce a game and get it into distribution and retail, they would tell you to look elsewhere. If you want to just make a few copies, whether as quality prototypes, gifts for friends, or just a vanity project to hopefully earn you a little beer money, they're great.

If you want to do a full print run, talk to a proper manufacturer. You may find that if you do a print run of, say, 2000, you might be able to get the cost per unit below $5.

Like above, do not use TGC as your baseline. It's a vanity press/print on demand service and will cost more than traditional manufacturing.

It's a card game. In quantities of 1000 you should be able to get an excellent price from manufacturers. Probably less than $5 landed cost. And that goes down at 1500, 2000, 3000 units.

YOu could probably get a half decent price at 500 units as well, but it would be more in the line of 4x landed price to find your final that way (500 is essentially the minimum order quantity for any manufacturer, most are at 1000 units or above).

I'll give you an example with my game;

TGC cost (with zero profit) = $85 + shipping per unit
Manufactured in China @ 500 units = $11.50 per unit
Manufactured in China @ 1000 units = $9.85 per unit
Manufactured in China @ 2500 units = $7.45 per unit

This is for a game with (approximately) 160 x mini cards, 14 x player boards, 40 x meeples, 6 x custom dice, 20 x 8mm plastic cubes, 60 x 0.5inch round tokens, rules, box, insert.

SO as you can see, Suggested Retail @ 5x landed cost would be (at the high end) $57.50 .. which is still almost $30 cheaper than through TGC. And at the low end, I could price it at $37.25, which is less than half of TGC pricing.

Thank you Very much for this info. I have much more to think about.... yikes, dealing with China. Seems like this is not a "game" for newbies.

I felt the same, even being somewhat familiar with some of Kickstarter's steps before and some after funding. But some people are better at negotiating manufacturing prices and getting better bargains. Some people have more skills in producing a video or 3D content, etc. Other people just have more connections such as previous KS Backers, etc.

There's a whole list of things you need to concern yourself if you are going to Kickstart.

My advice is pretty much what I am doing: partner with a Publisher interested in your type of game.

If you just troll Kickstarter, put in keywords into the search like "Fantasy" "RPG" "board game", etc. (as an example), you will get a list of people in the same category.

From there you can reach out to these people and see if they are willing to HELP in making a Kickstarter for your game. Some people might be willing to spread the news via "tweets" or "backer updates", etc. And sometimes for FREE!

Maybe you can find someone who will assume the Publishing role of your game.

Anyways the bottom line is this: You don't have to go it alone!

Best of luck with your game.