Fixing errors

Here's what fixing a printing error looks like. This is four cases of 11 games each laid out with the eleven cards I needed to replace in each box next to them. This set took me about an hour and fifteen minutes. I did 12 cases total today (132 games) for a total of about four hours work. The hardest task is cutting the shrinkwrap carefully on each box, although opening each box and finding and replacing the badly printed cards takes some time too. I elected not to invest the time or money in re-shrinkwrapping. No complaints so far, but I imagine if I sold in game stores I might need to rewrap them.

I really wish I didn't face this problem, but it's not insurmountable. In about four hours work today, I fixed about 12% of my print run. I have 79% of the print run (860 games) left to fix, so another 27 or so hours of boring labor to get them all done.

Esker card game quotes and pricing

Getting some quotes back from manufacturers. A big variety in price points and discounts. The game is at a minimum 72 cards in a tuckbox, although I have considered extras like a two-piece box and an instructions sheet. I already have an instructions card, but it might be cool to have that be more obvious.

Here's what I have so far for quotes.  Tuck = tuckbox, 2P = two-piece box, I = small instructions sheet.

Some notes:

• Ace (aka PlayingCardsIndia) is coming in at the most economical. They only bid for one print run, so they may have even steeper discounts at higher orders - I just extended their line so that I could see them relative to others. 
• A two-piece box is way more (+$1-2) for some companies and not much more (+$0.50) for others. 
• At a potential retail price point of $12 or $13, assuming I use my own art and don't get it redone, I'd probably be able to cover other costs (advertising, equipment, my time) at the Ace bid, but not necessarily too far above that. I don't want to order too many to start, because it's an unproven product in an industry that I know well as a customer but in which I have very limited experience as a seller. 
• I've checked into selling at Amazon, and for something like this, they'd take about a $3.40 commission per order for just providing a purchase link and collecting orders for me to fulfill, and $7.00 if I have them do the whole fulfillment thing (they warehouse and ship the game, including via Amazon Prime). I'd like a presence on Amazon, but I don't know which option to go with. If I'm paying $5 per game to print, there's almost no margin for the Amazon fulfillment, but if I'm at $2 per game, then I could still make a few bucks that way. If I do the packing and shipping, then the margin is considerably larger, but I lose the Amazon Prime advantage and have to do the work myself, which may include equipment and will include my time (though not likely too much).

More on SuperiorPOD's new service

In an earlier post today, I mentioned SuperiorPOD's new distribution service, and I said I couldn't find much detail on what extra parts they offer.  Well, further research has revealed this page which has a good summary of the other stuff they offer.

The bottom line: more printed products and components and generally cheaper than TheGameCrafter.com's current offerings, especially for game boxes, but still a fairly maddeningly opaque site with hard-to-find templates, details, and pricing.  If you're willing to write and ask, it looks like you can eventually work out what you need, but some folks in the forum above indicate a pretty slow set-up process (extending to months). I'd rather have it readily available and clear, like TGC does.  As of now, it looks like you can't have both things (good prices, more extensive printed component offerings, and possible game store distribution of SuperiorPOD vs. straightforward, easy-to-use interface, easy storefront site, and numerous plastic parts of TGC).

Distribution service

From a new e-mail I got this morning - SuperiorPOD is trying to bridge the gap between print-on-demand, direct sales (which TheGameCrafter and SuperiorPOD itself provide) and getting games into actual retail stores.  The service they've set up is here - Adventure Game Source.  It looks like what they're doing is creating a wholesale style distribution service, similar to what traditionally published games use, that retail stores can order from.  They also claim to have printing capabilities for lots of different parts and packaging.

Key things I don't know yet:

• How does the MSRP for a game get set?  Given that they're offering a 45% discount off this price for distributors, and that print-on-demand costs are generally far higher than printing a whole bunch of a game at once, this could be tricky.
• How hard is it to get listed through the service?  They only have an e-mail address to send your stuff too, and that makes it look like they need to look over your game and approve it for their model.  I'm not sure how hard it is to be accepted to the program. 

One thing that has always frustrated me with SuperiorPOD's site is that, even though they seem to have some pretty neat publication options and a lot of flexibility, their site is difficult to navigate, and key pricing or design information is hard or impossible to find.

So, I don't really know what to make of this. I got some copies of my games from them a while ago, and the quality was excellent, although the timing and communication left a lot to be desired.  The merge and then un-merge with TheGameCrafter has left these two companies as rivals.  From my point of view TGC has some advantages - clear, relatively easy-to-use website, consistent service, clear lines of communication, and lots and lots of standard game parts - but cedes ground to SuperiorPOD in other areas, like cost, variety of printed parts and packaging, and now this distribution option.

I see that Andreas Propst has moved Elemental Clash to this service, so he must have found an advantage there.  Maybe I'll see what they can do with Diggity.

Distribution: the challenge

A really interesting post over at the Starlit Citadel detailing why paying middlemen (i.e. distributors) is actually a good deal for retailers rather than ordering direct from manufacturers.  The math is compelling, if depressing.  I think the suggestion for co-op distribution is good; likewise, I think in my case I might be able to get below a $15/unit shipping charge, but I don't think it would help that much - still too much benefit to retailers for placing big, diverse orders at distributors that handle a wide variety of games.

Games People Play

I recently visited a game store I've been going to since my college days back in the late 1980's - The Games People Play in Cambridge, MA.  Great store - a huge selection of really neat stuff.  I bought my copies of Wiz War and Swashbuckler there back in college, along with some other games. This time around my father-in-law picked us up Pandemic, which I'm eager to try.

I spoke with the guy there (I think his name was Hank?) about how they acquire their games.  He said they get most of them through distributors, from Alliance and ACD, about whom I hadn't yet heard but probably should have.  But he said they also make some purchases for their big wall of single-copy games (i.e. games where they have only one copy in stock) directly from designers at trade shows, and that they'd sometimes buy games directly from producers.  So, there's a chance there to avoid paying the distributor's mark-up and get into stores directly, but it's going to be in very small numbers and require a lot of effort.  But it did sound like the trade shows were maybe worth doing.

Interesting stuff!  It was great to see the store again (they've moved across the street from where I remember them, but little else has changed) and to get good information from a knowledgeable source.