The Game Crafter (POD) - Some Hints and Tips...

quintond

So I have been tweaking some elements and trying to find a way to reduce costs of the final product, so that I can bring them in to S.A. at a better price until I am able to find a local printer or cheaper printer without sacrificing quality.

Tl;Dr;

Box 1 - $20.60
Box 2 - $49.61
Box 3 - $30.01
$100.22 / 3 = $33.41 as opposed to to $46.27 per unit means a saving of $12.86 a unit.

What I started to notice was that certain items hit a certain point when the price jumped up dramatically and I started investigating it further and that is when I discovered this detail on the various products - Items Per Sheet (see attached images). So I started looking in to this and started adjusting my numbers accordingly.

By staying within multiple of those numbers, I was not being charged for extra sheets and therefore was able to reduce the costs quite a bit. Unfortunately the game in question requires a certain number of tokens which are far less than the 150 that I get per sheet, so I came up with another idea.

What if I split the game in to three boxes and put enough components of one type in to each box to make up three games. I can then order the 3 boxes and when they arrive on my end, I could create 3 complete sets from these.

It worked, I have managed to reduce the cost per unit by a whopping $12.86.

The original unit currently costs me (without shipping) $46.27.

Box 1 - contains all the tokens/chits needed for 3 sets = $20.60
Box 2 - contains all the cards needed for 3 sets = $49.61
Box 3 - contains all the rules and dice for 3 sets = $30.01

Total for all 3 boxes is $100.22.

Take my total and divide it by 3 to get $33.41 a unit as opposed to the $46.27. It means that I can get a set produced overseas for about R525.45 and I should be able to comfortably sell it for R650.00 to cover shipping costs and courier fees and this is much better than paying R727.70 and having to charge R900.00 to cover shipping costs and courier fees.

This is not an ideal situation, but I can probably bring in shipments every two weeks and will be able to sell it directly off my website. Fastway Couriers offer me R60.00 per parcel under 20kg and it is normally delivered within 2 to 3 days.

Obviously if I can order bulk the prices reduce dramatically, but for the interim this is a possible solution to try and get the game in the hands of South African players for a fairly reasonable price. The trick here is that I have managed to find a local printer who can help me with the printing of the cards, so if I can knock the Box 2 off the current price that is a huge saving, we are however still in a negotiation phase.

So I just thought I would share with those who think it might help. On a side note, I was quoted R5000.00 for a Die Cut for my cards, which are standard Poker Size (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/publish/product/PokerDeck). 8-}

quintond

So on an added note ... I might be able to get the cards printed here locally in Durban using a digital printer. A contact of mine has worked out what is needed and we are now just waiting for quotes and more information regarding the finishing of the cards.

If this is pulled off, I will share all the details and share some pictures of the final product. 8-}

dislekcia

I'm still confused as to why you want to produce locally? I've been talking to boardgame people here in SF and production is always centered on shipping hubs.

I'm totally aware that I might be completely misunderstanding what you're trying to do, maybe you just want a couple of copies to play locally or feature in KS videos...

quintond

Because the game was designed locally and why shouldn't it be released locally. Why should local players watch the game get produced internationally and than have to pay currency conversion and extra fees to bring the game back to South Africa.

Secondly, I want to support local South African businesses ... why should all the manufacturing be done overseas if it can be done locally and benefit local South African businesses.

I am in negotiations to have the game produced in Europe and the U.S. ... but I also want to try everything I can to get the game produced locally as well ... so my final answer is ... Why Not?

dislekcia

quintond said:

Because the game was designed locally and why shouldn't it be released locally. Why should local players watch the game get produced internationally and than have to pay currency conversion and extra fees to bring the game back to South Africa.

I doubt that local players will be sad that a game is being produced elsewhere. When was the last time anyone cared about a local printing of a boardgame they enjoyed? While trying to save local gamers money is a laudable goal, as a business you do need to consider the financial viability of solutions to that problem, perhaps there are others: Bringing the game to SA en-masse to reduce import and transport costs, for example (which is what local boardgame distributors do).

A local release doesn't actually mean a local printing.

quintond said:

Secondly, I want to support local South African businesses ... why should all the manufacturing be done overseas if it can be done locally and benefit local South African businesses.

Because this doesn't actually help your business right now. Once you've got a successful game, sure, focus on bringing business to local companies, that'd be great. There's a big difference between making your game successful first and focusing on something that's both costly and a time sink before that point though. At the moment, boardgame success seems to mean production outside SA in pretty large volumes. Once you're doing those volumes and have large SA orders to fill, that's when local companies can benefit properly.

quintond said:

I am in negotiations to have the game produced in Europe and the U.S. ... but I also want to try everything I can to get the game produced locally as well ... so my final answer is ... Why Not?

Simply because it's not necessary. Run the numbers, see what they dictate. Spending time on things that aren't necessary robs the necessary tasks that need to get done of energy. Much of this print on demand research isn't how boardgames are produced successfully, so while I can understand your current desire to min-max your expenditure on it, I worry that it's actually counterproductive to do so.

quintond

@dislekcia: The actual point of saving some money with Print on Demand was to allow me to bring in sample copies to be given to some South African shops as demo copies that wasn't going to kill my finances. I also thought I might be able to help others who are using The Game Crafter or who want to use The Game Crafter ... *shrug*

All the commercial printers require high volumes and I am not at that stage just yet.

The local printers are more forgiving when it comes to volumes so the idea is to leverage local printers to hopefully cater for the need of local game shops who want some stock while continuing to use Print on Demand services for those overseas customers who want copies.

So that is the point and while the game is in its starter stages, I need to save costs while still trying to get the game in the hands of local players ... well that is at least what I am trying to do.

mikethetike

No harm in finding out the numbers. Once you know the cost you can decide then. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.

Tuism

I think it's great that you are finding out about data and numbers that might assist in working out the numbers in terms of how best to produce and get games to people. I have a couple of assumptions that I have, of course if any of these assumptions are tested to be wrong, then AWESOME. But here they are in any case:

The typical scenario predicted in producing locally:
> higher cost per unit than overseas production (though they might have higher MOQ Minimum Order Quantity), which ups the cost per unit.
> Higher shipping cost out of SA, especially considering the majority of sales (of a successful product (successful is defined here as profit generating)) would be predicted to be in the US and Europe (simple fact of market size locally vs internationally).

So if you can overcome the shipping cost discrepancy by printing lower price per unit locally, then it might work out. But these savings tend to scale in such ways: Quantity goes up, cost goes down, but shipping goes up WITH quantity. And a successful product typically needs more quantity, not less.

So it would be awesome if:
> You already have people who will buy (with certainty, like kickstarter level certainty, like pre-order level certainty) and you can work the numbers to be profitable printing and distributing locally, then go for it :)
> You are doing this to figure out and learn from the local numbers to test assumptions, and you do work them out with this exercise.

Good luck man I'm rooting for your finding solutions :D

dislekcia

quintond said:

@dislekcia: The actual point of saving some money with Print on Demand was to allow me to bring in sample copies to be given to some South African shops as demo copies that wasn't going to kill my finances.

That's interesting. What would be the goal of giving out demo copies like that?

quintond said:

All the commercial printers require high volumes and I am not at that stage just yet.

Yup, the questions I'm asking are mostly wondering how you might be able to get to that point quicker. The conversations I had this past week all seemed to indicate that the most useful thing to do was to contact potential publishers/distributors after you had a solidly playable prototype and to ignore art. Apparently art can sometimes be a thing that changes if a publisher thinks that re-skinning the game might make more sense.

Most of this was second hand info though, so I'm hoping to contact people that have had boardgames/cardgames successfully published once I get back to SA and have a couple of days to think ;)

quintond said:

The local printers are more forgiving when it comes to volumes so the idea is to leverage local printers to hopefully cater for the need of local game shops who want some stock while continuing to use Print on Demand services for those overseas customers who want copies.

I kinda feel that this is an over-focus on earning sales right now. Do you have numbers of potential local sales numbers that you might get out of local shops? I strongly suspect that we're talking 20-30 copies max if you're very good at selling and willing to put in a lot of time. To me that's not a good return on investment - I'd rather focus on earning those same sales later when my margins are higher and time costs are lower, they'd be part of larger sales runs internationally.

quintond said:

So that is the point and while the game is in its starter stages, I need to save costs while still trying to get the game in the hands of local players ... well that is at least what I am trying to do.

All I'm advocating is being realistic about the actual costs of getting the game into those local hands, as well as how many locals are going to be wanting the game. To me POD stuff seems to be great for prototyping once you're in need of more polished versions for pitches - I wouldn't use POD for international customers though, or for end-user sales at all. If you've got something that CAN sell, then focusing on getting other people to produce and sell it for you is a much better way to spend your time :)

quintond

You have made some very valid points and I am grateful for the advice, I am going to digest all the comments and questions and will provide some more feedback and/or answers once I have done so, for now I will answer the one question and provide some information about my rationale.

dislekcia said:

That's interesting. What would be the goal of giving out demo copies like that?

Basically all the shops have board games evening and keep local copies of games for players to either bring their own games or come try out a new game. The idea is to get a copy of of my game on their shelf and getting the word out there about the game.

That is primarily what ICON by the sea is for me, a chance to demonstrate the game and speak to potential players. I have also made some appointments to chat to a few people who will be there as well who have influence or contacts in the board game and expo industry.

The goal for the next few months is to make people aware of the game and not necessarily drive sales ... but should ICON by the sea be a big hit and potential buyers or shops want to get some copies, I want to be able to provide them with some stock. I don't want to have to tell them, oh I am sorry you can't get it now.

So the base idea here was not a permanent solution but an interim solution until I can work out the full figures and get definitive answers from everyone and then start looking at bigger scale production runs.

So in a nutshell, it is a back-up plan in case I need it but is also a way for me to send some demo copies to the stores that will be at ICON by the sea this year ... this is by no means a permanent solution.

The main reason for sharing it here was to possibly help other people who want to use The Game Crafter to get high-quality prototypes or demo copies here ... so they don't make the same mistake I did.

Tuism

To me, the problem you have of "want to promote" but "without stock to sell" is a conflation of two points:

1. You want to "get the word out" about the game, and thus have done art and made the game pretty and want to attend cons and such.
2. You're not ready for sales yet as you don't actually have a reasonable and profitable production/manufacture line.

So when you present the game as finished, of course people might want to get it as finished... However I think that it would be perfectly reasonable for your game to still be undergoing changes in rules, art and such - I haven't seen the final "lockdown" decision yet.

So I think that at this point, your management of expectations from people who see your game is a bit of a hit-and-miss. If you present your game as strictly in-production game prototype, they wouldn't necessarily want to buy it "right now", they'd know it's coming and there would be no pressure of sales now.

At this point I reckon it's much more valuable to get prototype feedback rather than going into the confusion of "it's final but not really and you can't buy it". A clean, incomplete-looking prototype communicates where you are much more clearly.

quintond

The game is final ... there are no more changes being made. I have had 20 game sessions that have been run ranging from 2 to 7 players and there have been no glitches or rules bypassing that has occurred.

These sessions have involved about 30 different players ranging from casual board gamers to the hard core ones. So yes, the "lockdown" decision is there and has been there for about 3 weeks now. 8-}

The management of my expectations to potential customers is that currently we are still negotiating final production printers but we can offer the game to them with a lead time of 2 weeks or they can purchase the game directly from The Game Crafter.

This is not my first expo (albeit it is my first for a board game of my own making) and I have seen potential interested parties lose interest when you tell them that the product is not ready to go in to production or we are still at the prototype phase.

Yes, ICON by the sea is much smaller and I am probably over-thinking the problem but once again, I would rather have a back-up plan that is not required than have no plan and get caught with my pants down.

By having this back-up plan, I am going to be able to "sell" the game to interested parties with more confidence knowing that should they require a couple of copies, I will be able to provide them. This is a stop-gap and gives me time to continue my negotiations with the contacts in China, Europe, and America for the printing and distribution of the game.

Is my plan perfect - no.
Am I maybe over analysing a perceived problem - probably, but as stated I would rather have something in place just in case.
Is there my final plan - no.
Am I working on other avenues for the sales and distribution of the game - yes.
Will I give up - no.

Anyway ... I am off to Hillcrest to do some more "promotion" of the game and to meet my guy that has the printing contacts in China. Catch you all later. 8-}

Tuism

Yeah I know it's not perfect and that you're working on other avenues, I just wonder if it's worth your effort to be trying to sell something before it's ready to be "actually" sold yet.

Getting playtests sure. But getting "awareness" without a call to action means wasted effort, but if it's something you'd do with or without a payout anyway, then sure, cool :)

Good luck man :)

dislekcia

Generally if people are keen on the game after a playtest, having a mailing list for them to sign up to is probably a good idea and a less time-consuming solution AFAICS.

The problems you're talking about having are generally production/partnership issues - that's what boardgame publishers are all about. Are you making any plans to pitch your game to various publishers? So far all the local boardgame industry people I've met have been distributors - they're keen, but they're not publishers so they can't help with production.

I guess I just find it strange that you're trying to sell locally instead of stepping up to sell the game internationally and catching all the interested locals in that loop as well. If the game is going to sell, then why not try to sell it to everyone? In that vein, have you considered a Kickstarter?

quintond

@dislekcia: Okay now I am confused ... previously I asked the question for this exact same game about Kickstarter ...

dislekcia said:

quintond said:

@dislekcia: Do you think I am in a position to enter the game in to Kickstarter?

If yes, I would need to figure out what the rewards would be for the various funders ... that is a challenge on its own.

Um, bluntly put, no.

I'm not trying to say bad things about the game, or your skills*, it's just obviously not a thing I would even think about putting on KS yet. The simplest way to explain why would be to ask what people would tell each other about the game? What would someone shout to their friends about this awesome campaign that they need to back right now? That's the hook, and right now, I feel very much like your game is missing a strong hook.

The mechanics might be solid, the deckbuilding might be great (disclaimer, I haven't played it yet, so I'm not analysing based on design - and I have to say that the dice roll + odd/even event structure is really interesting to me), but if you don't have a hook then it's impossible to get people to care without investing loads of time and effort into explaining why they should.

I'm not sure how to get a hook going for this, maybe you need to expand on the peril the players are facing so that it's about overcoming something scary. Maybe you can try reskinning the theme so that people go "What? A game about being <insert something surprising here>, I gotta try that!" or it just leaps out at people. Right now you've got where you are based off of first impressions on your art, not the name or the setting (those are, no offense, pretty standard things - space colony with mining) and the art's good, but I worry that it might be nailing you to a theme that's not working to make your marketing life easier.

... I have no idea if that makes sense or not, but that's why I wouldn't put this on KS as it is.

* NB NB NB! Please, this isn't an attack. Okay? I'm just trying to explain stuff that I wish people would say to me about my projects when I can't see them.

Now you are telling me I should consider Kickstarter. So I am getting mixed messages and this is one of the reasons I am trying to get the game in local hands in order to build some momentum so that I can leverage that with potential publishers.

"Hey look, here is my game and I already have x copies selling locally in South Africa, lets talk numbers and business."

I did consider Kickstarter, but on your advice, I decided against it ... but now I can consider Kickstarter again ... I just don't know anymore.

Tuism

My understanding of this:

A) Kickstarter needs pre-marketing to succeed. You can't run a KS campaign and just hope people would stumble on your stuff and fund you. So if you don't have a big enough fanbase already, then it won't work.

B) Kickstarter also is a tool for gauging interest and raising funding before production, before actually throwing good money after bad.

Do you have A? I'm not sure, but it seems like you're building up towards A, or attempting to. But instead of telling people "Get the game when it's available" you're telling people about POD and trying to produce the game via other, possibly (probably) less cost-effective (less efficient and thus less likely to make the whole project sustainable) means.

So if you're gunning for A anyway, possibly might as well look at doing B eventually. Not immediately, but eventually. Working towards it means that your messaging would be clear.

The thing is it seems you're doing a lot of work on building an audience, but your message to your audience right now isn't clear (you can't guarantee production yet) or efficient (TGC unit price + shipping is nuts and a huge turnoff for Saffers) or global (a local focus is pretty much doomed because our numbers just aren't good enough for sustainability).

-------------------------

I think the TL;DR is actually to try and look internationally rather than locally for an audience. Yes it's harder, much harder, but I'm not sure whether a locally produced "success" is possible given our local numbers.

Consider that. And if you still can make it a success locally, then effin' ace :)

quintond

@dislekcia and @Tuism - thank you for your advice and comments, it is greatly appreciated. You have given me some serious food for thought and I will need to sit down and work out a strategy going forward.

Seeing as though I have already started the process, I will see what the quotes for the local printers and the printers for China come back with, just so I have some idea of what the costs could possibly be.

Right now, I am not sure what my next step will be. I have already committed to ICON by the sea and so I will get that behind me first.

I am going to bring in a couple of copies as demo copies for two of my local shops who have been instrumental in testing the game and helping me iron out some kinks.

I will then have a strategy meeting with my team and we will decide what the next steps will be.

Thanks again to everyone who got involved and gave input, it is greatly appreciated. 8-}

Tuism

By the way the quotes and things will be useful in any case, doing a kickstarter doesn't mean you don't need to produce the thing - it in fact means you do need to produce the thing, so you'll need to know the budgets and such. (unless you're going with a ks publisher)

dislekcia

@quintond: Ah, okay, I see where the confusion is coming from. I think it's also due to me not really explaining very well too, so let's see if we can clear that up :)

Let me re-iterate: The things that are confusing me with your approach to selling this game is that I don't see you actively engaging with marketing or considering marketing a functional part of its development in multiple ways. You're saying that you're focusing on selling local copies so that you can use that in a pitch to publishers because you took to heart the perspective that the game isn't ready for Kickstarter... But what makes you think that international publishers are interested in local sales numbers? And, if they are, what do those numbers have to be for them to consider a product? These are questions that can be answered, but it seems like you haven't tried to. At the very least, knowing those numbers would help you better estimate local printing cost/investment.

I said that I felt the game wasn't ready for a KS campaign for a number of reasons. Those reasons can be dealt with - you're only stuck without a hook for as long as you consider the game final and unchangeable, for instance - so I'm surprised by your lack of desire to want to make the game a better fit for KS. Basically, it doesn't really matter how many local copies you sell to people you meet in person, you're never going to meet enough people to become a sustainable business that way (at least, not with traditional boardgame margins, it works with selling houses tho). It also doesn't matter how many local copies you sell from the perspective of a KS campaign: "Look how many people you don't know like this thing" isn't a good sales pitch, plus it seems to actively fly in the face of the "help make this thing a reality" angle that drives many KS campaigns (if it's already selling somewhere, then it's a reality).

The goal of a KS campaign for a boardgame is generally to gain the funds to produce enough of the game to benefit from economies of scale. This is exactly the problem you're dealing with at the moment. A secondary outcome of many KS campaigns is to prove interest for publishers (especially with clamoring for reprints). This is ALSO a thing you're trying to achieve right now. That's why I'm asking if you're considering a KS campaign - the issue is that a campaign would require re-examining your take on marketing the game that you sorta seem to not want to do...

Right now you're learning how to convince individuals to play a thing they can already see in front of them. That is completely the opposite set of marketing skills than you're going to need to convince people on the other side of a screen or standing in a boardgame isle to pick up the game or back it on KS. How are you going to learn those other skills? How are you going to structure a successful KS campaign for the game?

TLDR:

A KS is going to take a lot of work on the marketing and communication of your game. You should start doing that work, which might well take your game back to a prototype stage, because it's never going to get easier to do that than now.