Hello I am looking to print about 100 copies of a board game i'm working on do you know where I can print this game and get some professional game bits in South Africa? The game is (Monopoly like in terms of resources). If anyone knows anything please let me know :) SHAPA
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@quintond - I'm not sure exactly. A die for a hexagon shape was R1000 so I'm guessing it will be more than R2k which is why I would prefer to split the costs.
(what about standard playing card (magic card OR bridge card) dies, do they have those, do you guys know?)
A good die everyone can make use of can make a good first step for us producing locally :)
*shrug* Dunno how many people are keen though. 8-{
ironking blankds com (you know what to add in the gaps :D)
Die making isn't an issue either as I work with some of the best - if there are a number of folks looking for similar items we could look at making up shared die's.
However you should be aware that die's don't last forever. The cutting edges / blades get blunt over time and depending on the number of impressions, density of material etc they will have to be remade.
Cheers
Boardgames are also non-standard aspect ratio boxes - so A4 is actually a "weird" ratio for a boardgame, and impressions may come across as such.
And noone here can give you any real indications of price because noone here runs a print shop. You'll have to approach them. And they'll ask you the same thing - what *exactly* are you printing?
Then, printing 100 copies is probably going to be really uneconomic - it'll end up being way more expensive per copy than mass produced copies would. By a LOT. Even "small" print runs are typically 1000 or so. And probably not printed here locally, but in China. I work with people who are in Europe and they sometimes print in Europe, but they know what they're doing, and is usually saving on shipping and time from China to Europe, and will eventually probably end up working with China to print their games, simply because the cost difference is so great.
Then, before you even think about printing a game, you need to know where/how/who you're going to sell it to. Print and pray is the worst thing that you can do, which will most likely result in a lot of wasted resources.
The art of publishing boardgames is a long deep and complex topic. I hope you stick it out and do research before thinking "hey let's print this".
Feel free to share your game here for us to give you some feedback, that'll be super valuable for you :)
We understand that this advice is always hard to take, but it's really collective wisdom - expose your game to strangers, without your instructions and input, and see what they say about it.
But anyway, we all learn in our own ways :)
Disclaimer: I haven't dealt with any of these below companies as I haven't printed anything myself. @dammit and one or two others has printed through thegamecrafter.
http://pandagm.com/ <-- well-known games manufacturer in China.
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/ <-- easiest way to get printed, but much more expensive per copy as they're not mass production.
More copied from boardgamegeek, from a much bigger resource list (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/933849/designers-resources-list):
o 3D Printing http://www.shapeways.com/
o Brimar Packaging http://www.brimarpackaging.com/
o Cartamundi http://www.cartamundiusa.com/
o Custom Playing Cards http://customizedplayingcards.com/
o Customized Playing Cards http://playingcardsrus.com/index.php
o Game Manufacturers Association http://www.gama.org/
o Grand Prix International http://www.grandprixintl.com/
o Ludo Fact http://www.ludofact.de/cms/front_content.php
o Panda http://pandagm.com/
We all make prototypes for people to test, and prototypes should be made as cheaply and quickly as possible as putting money into "proper printing" is a waste in 99.99% of all cases. What we do to test games is to either hand-write the components or print them out cheaply at Jetline or Minuteman and just make one or two copies. And if we want to make changes (happens 99.99% of the time), we can make it cheap and come back and do another test quickly and cheaply.
Being out so far is unfortunate, but it will definitely be worth your while to come to our monthly meetups - the Joburg meet is every second Tuesday of each month, and there are always people to test your game with. The 2 hour drive is definitely going to be way cheaper and more effective than printing 100 copies of your game :)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/286160/Tabletop_Simulator/
@critic thanx for that I'll consider it as well.
:)
Searching "the boardgame group" didn't give me much to work with :)
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1876830/printers-finding-negotiating-and-pricing
Hi,
We just ran a successful kickstarter for our project and I thought I'd throw a little bit back to a community that has been SUPER helpful.
I was able to take my game from $22/set to $4.60 a set to $1.70 a set.
Some quick tips:
1) Don't use Alibaba. Alibaba was my first source. From what i've found, Alibaba is 95% "trading companies" (Chinese: maoyigongsi). These are people who themselves don't have a factory but know someone who does. Our game is four colors, 216 cards and a rigid box. Think Cards Against Humanity style with only 216 cards. Quotes we received from Alibaba went from $4.50 to $20 for 1,000 sets.
2) Be careful with the full service companies like Pando, MPC and others. They are great, but you pay a high premium for their service. These companies are just farming your work out to other factories (for the most part). These companies quoted me between $11-22/set for 1,000 sets. Insane.
3) Go to a tradeshow, look for some Chinese printers. THEY WANT YOUR BUSINESS. I just got back from Spiel. There were six factories there. Two were "maoyigongsi" and four were actual factories. After meeting with them, showing my game prototype and some back and forth haggling, I have two factories that are going to produce my our project for $1.70/set at 1,000 sets. I just got my first from the first factory and it is FANTASTIC. Both factories produce major major games but they are always taking on more to hedge their future.
So that is my advice.
Hope it helps!
We are still in early stages and he is able to do small runs as well ... once I have more information I will post it here.
1) Making 100 copies of a game is not 'production'. It is at most a glorified prototype run; a small marketing exercise; a little test to see if the game has any legs. I've been considering doing this, and it would be to give me high quality prototypes for me to give to publishers that would look finished and give a good sense for the vision I have. If I sold any, it would essentially be to cover the expenses.
To give a sense for costs (from a recent case):
- 100 copies of a game might come out at about R170 a copy (digital printing)
- Making only a small number using overseas printers (under 10 units) will likely be in the region of $50-$60 per unit (that's upwards of R700!) before shipping!
[In fact, I had a print shop from Taiwan at Spiel cost out Megan's WW at over $70 for one copy, and it's currently selling at $43 on Game Crafter, before shipping.]
The point is, making some copies locally would cost you less to make a bunch of prototypes, than if you were to buy a few from overseas suppliers.
2) If you're really looking at doing 1000+ units as a production run, there are a lot more unknowns, and the timelines are quite stretched when we're dealing with far away countries and international shipping. I agree that if we were able to get the kind of really low rate mentioned in your post, and if we were able to negotiate that at a trade fair, we will be able to get relatively affordable production, but a lot of the cost of publishing a game actually comes in the logistics, of shipping, storage and fulfillment.
In the end, it might come down to someone being able to afford an outlay of R15-R20k but not be able to stretch to R50k+. I think it's quite a reasonable plan to make 100 units, to send to reviewers and publishers and sell locally, and then try to run a crowdfunding campaign to get you a few more units, until you've managed to get some critical mass.
Of course, if one had the ability to pitch to a number of publishers at trade shows, that's probably another valid way to spend R20k, but I digress...
If you're pitching at publishers, no publishers want to see jazzed up copies. 95% of the time if they take it they'll take the game design and do everything else - art, name of the game, theme, etc on their instruction, because they know THEIR market inside out. That's their job.
If you're keeping all your own design and art you're most likely self-publishing. In whichever form self-publishing takes.
Boardgame publishing is VERY different from videogame publishing.
I am looking for someone that can professionally manufacture my two games for me.I have prototyped them using card board and poster cards for someone to have an idea about what I have in mind.
Hope I'm on the right platform.
I suggest that you read through this thread above to get an idea of what it's like trying to manufacture physical games in SA, there are several solutions proposed above.
I think by fiddling around with the settings they found a couple of sweet spots where the price improves, as well, although this project was done in 2018 before the rand/dollar tanked hard so for the moment, depending on what someone's project might be, it could be prohibitively expensive.
My point is, however, that I have personally seen completely custom cards printed by this company and everyone was very impressed with the quality, which is one of those aspects that you can't glean from looking at pictures on a web site.
I have found no manufacturers in Africa to add to the list yet, can anyone help?
Has anyone been successful in finding local printers to print their board game prototype? I am struggling to find any and I need to get feedback on the game soon. Please assist
If you're looking to just make prototypes, I would really suggest not going to spend money on big printers, it'll just cost a lot of money that won't actually help you. Prototypes is for feeling out what the game is like, more than trying to figure out production quality. I've made many prototypes with whatever local printers are around, Jetline and Minuteman Press, for example. Cut things out myself, etc.
Do you want to talk more about your game?
Hi all,
I am new to the scene and by no means an expert here, but keen to help out/ offer board game prototyping as a service.
I have designed two board games so far, and locally produced/ hand made 100 pilot-run copies of the first one and 20 prototype copies of the second one.
So if you have a board game idea and looking to produce a couple of prototypes for play testing/ pitching purposes, feel free to send me an email to piet 1 vdw at gmail dot com.
Have a look at returnrevolution on insta for pics.
Thanks
(-:p
Typically noone who asks this is ready for retail and is only asking for a handful of copies. In that case no print house would bother with printing like 10 copies, the margins just don't make sense for them or for you who will pay a lot for setup fees to print 10 copies. I typically say go to Jetline or Minuteman Press etc and ask what they can fulfil from your specs.