Mathe said that his fulfillment company stated that out of 80 new products in 2012, only 22 of them sold over 500 units at retail. That’s a sobering look at the reality of the board game business, and it’s a business with a heavy cost in terms of production and shipping. In contrast, Mathe gets production quotes assuming runs of 1,500 to 2,000 copies of each game. “You’re not going to sell more then that on Kickstarter and through distribution unless you have a real hit of a game,” he explained. “Which is rare, though everyone thinks their game is great.”
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
i thought kickstarter was really just to produce the number of units in terms of physical product as the backers? books, board games, etc would have to be sold online or eBay or something unless vastly requested by some chain store, so selling a small number seems reasonable. you make the product primarily for those interested in the product rather than making it for the global market. and if it catcvhes on in the global market, you jsut happen to be lucky.
Play the game, not the rules.
Swordslinger wrote:Or fuck it... I'm just going to get weapon specialization in my cock and whip people to death with it. Given all the enemies are total pussies, it seems like the appropriate thing to do.
Lewis Black wrote:If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.
good read (Note to self Maxus sucks a barrel of cocks.)
Generally, kickstarter is to raise capital from a sort of distributed angel investor; and the guaranteed sales are a cherry on top of that. Cons: more work; pros: one guy doesn't own your soul.
Vebyast wrote:Here's a fun target for Major Creation: hydrazine. One casting every six seconds at CL9 gives you a bit more than 40 liters per second, which is comparable to the flow rates of some small, but serious, rocket engines. Six items running at full blast through a well-engineered engine will put you, and something like 50 tons of cargo, into space. Alternatively, if you thrust sideways, you will briefly be a fireball screaming across the sky at mach 14 before you melt from atmospheric friction.
Boardgame design, much like RPG design, is still simply not going to pay the bills. Virtually all boardgame designers except the obscenely successful (i.e. Knizia) have a day job. Those who don't (i.e. Martin Wallace) tend to need to design a crazy number of games per year to pay the bills.
Secondly, boardgames do in fact have generally tiny runs. GMT for instance has a print run of around 500-1,500 for its boardgames, and they're the biggest wargame (chit and counter) publisher left. Bigger companies (i.e. Z-man) may be larger than GMT, but only because they publish a ton of 500-1,500 print run games every year.
Only a tiny few number of games (i.e. Agricola) reach the exalted status of being a "hit", which warrants multiple print runs and serves as a company's main source of revenue (this is the point when you CAN make designing your day job). In fact, most of the new games published by the big companies are just "throws of the dice" to see if they can get a new hit.
GMT for instance is to a large extent kept afloat by Twilight Struggle, their best-seller, which has spawned numerous attempts to create a sequel that could provide the company with a second hit (i.e. Labyrinth and 1989)
Thirdly, the successful kickstarter models are really just carbon copies of GMT's old P-500 policy. With a tiny, limited market, GMT basically said "Okay, we will show you the rules of our games, but we won't print it until we get 500 people to pledge that they'll buy it". The good kickstarters are basically just following the model.
Finally, all successful game companies buy the majority of their components from China, no exceptions. Yes, there are shitty suppliers. But people in the know are adamant that there are a handful of Chinese companies with excellent records despite having very cheap prices; GMT for instance found it was cheaper to get a high-quality mounted board from China than to buy a low-quality paper board from the US! The low cost of these components are a major reason that most companies now have very generous replacement policies.
(FFG for instance will replace individual missing components as long as they still have it in stock. GMT sometimes ships games to people who didn't order the game by mistake and respond to inquiries on how to return the game with "Oh, we sent it to you by mistake? Never mind, it's yours!" - seriously, I've had a friend who got two "free" games from GMT this way)
The only component that folks might consider buying from Europe are cards, which is supplied by Cartamundi (the same guys who print MTG cards), who tend to be the only ones making really good cards.
However, the cost of Cartamundi cards is also a major reason why cards tends to be the most expensive boardgame component; much more than meeples. This is a major reason why many new releases don't feature cards at all, and why expansions that are basically just a card deck are so expensive.
Last edited by Zinegata on Thu Jan 31, 2013 3:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
