Showing posts with label POD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label POD. Show all posts

Sunday, July 4, 2010

TGC now printing more stuff in color

I got my new version of Yoggity with the art from Jason Greeno (GreenoDesign.com) from TheGameCrafter.com, and it looks pretty great.  Something I didn't know - they are now printing rules in color (looks like color laser printing), and they're including two stickers, both in color, one stuck to the outside of the box and one inside.

I think the colors on this run seem less dark, too - my older stuff from them has always come out darker than the images I submit.

This is the first game (of about 12) that I've ordered alone, and it came with the shipping stuff and priority mail tape all over it - not ideal, but the game components look really good.  They use an outer box if you order more than one thing at a time, so your game boxes stay more pristine.

Pictures of the new version soon.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Slowness at TGC

TheGameCrafter.com's move to a new physical location (WI to NY) has led to at least a 3-week delay in order processing, if my experience ordering a Yoggity prototype is any guide.

I also have a customer whose order was delayed, and who has received a bent card in his Diggity set when he finally got it.  If it were me fulfilling the orders, I'd have sent him a new card right away, but relying on TGC means that his experience, already drawn out, will now have to go through another round of back and forth to get his game into shape.  And of course this reflects on me, even though I'm not the cause of TGC's current troubles.  I hate that - when I was getting started selling Snood, I tried to be as responsive as possible to customers, and I think that's part of what helped to build word-of-mouth on the game.

Still very happy with TGC overall, and hopefully this is a one-time hiccup related to the move, but it's frustrating relying on others.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

TheGameCrafter moving to newer, better facilities

Print-on-demand publisher TheGameCrafter.com has announced (see here) that they're moving from Wisconsin to New York, where they hope to add items they don't currently provide, like tuck boxes, game boxes, thicker game boards, and other unspecified cool stuff.

That sounds great; with the move, it also sounds like a sale of the company, although they have not announced that and I have nothing to base that on.  But it seems like it would be very hard on the owners and employees to pick up and move, and they'd have no real reason to move to some place where labor and real estate are potentially more expensive just to expand their range.  I've been really happy with their management, customer service, and employees - I'd hate to see any of that change with the relocation.

But if they can add more custom items (like the boxes and better boards, but also maybe some printed chits and/or tokens), that would really provide a terrific way to produce print-on-demand games that aren't limited by their current range of customizable products (only cards, boards, and stickers for disk tokens).  A real printed game box (rather than the current featureless white corrugated carton) would be the biggest step towards making this a real option for marketing professional-seeming games.  I hope that happens soon.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Print On Demand - a blessing or a curse?

Within the demitasse teacup of boardgame company designer hobbyists, there is a tiny tempest.  A recent edition of the Dice Tower podcast included a half-hearted rant against the new availability of print-on-demand for games (listen at about 1:14 or so into the podcast if you're interested).  The argument was that now that people can essentially self-publish any game on the cheap at places like TheGameCrafter.com, there will be a flood of horrible, crappy games available, that haven't been properly tested or refined, as traditionally published game products are.

I guess the downside of this is supposed to be that:

  • The average quality of games will go down
  • People will ask you to pay good money for crappy half-baked games
  • People might be duped by these self-publishers into buying something that's really not ready to be published
  • Reviewers asked to review games on places like TGC will have no idea whether to waste their time looking at something that's published there
I've been on TGC for about six months now (I reviewed my experience here and here).  As a service for printing near-professional-quality game components, they're excellent.  As a framework for organizing a game into customizable cards, boards, and components, they're super.  As a tool for creating test copies of games you're developing, they're great.  As a marketing and selling service... eh.  Hasn't worked too well for me, but I haven't hit it too hard, either.

I follow their forums, and I've looked at every new game announced on the site in that six months.  I can confirm what the Dice Tower guys are saying; the vast majority of the games listed there are crap - bad games, bad art, ill-conceived and ill-described rules, sometimes all of these things combined.  I can think of maybe eight to ten games there that would actually be worth spending money on, that represent a real final package, thoughtfully assembled and thoroughly tested.  I like to think mine are in that category, but if I'm being honest, I don't think my art on Cult is up to commercial grade, although the game rocks.

Frankly, I'm not really sure this matters to most folks.  For one thing, hardly anybody is buying anything made at TGC unless they get a personal recommendation or request from the publisher, so there's really no crisis.  For the few sales that there are, the vast majority are to the authors themselves, or to friends of the author, not to random customer victims.  I suppose if I weren't a careful consumer, I might rush out and drop some money assuming a TGC game was good, but then maybe I deserve what I get.  Most of them have image previews and full-text rules (mine do), and I wouldn't buy anything from the site that didn't.

For reviewers, who are asked to review these games, well, that comes with the territory.  Write a scathing review if you want to, or ignore all TGC games if you must, but it's not that big a deal.  Having more games available to the public with high quality easily-customizable components is only going to help get more good games to the market eventually, good games that would heretofore have stayed in the backs of notebooks or as hand-made components sitting forgotten in a desk drawer.  Even if there's a bunch of horrible stuff to wade through, I think that's worth it.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

MWGames on TheGameCrafter.com

Matt Worden has a post reviewing TheGameCrafter.com, where I have so far published my games. His thoughts run mostly where mine do (see here and here).  I have been less troubled by the lack of sturdy gameboards than other TGC users - I've printed up a couple of games that use boards (Galapagos and Yoggity, not released to the public yet), and the 10x16 boards they provide have been perfectly fine.  I agree about the boxes they use; if they could find a way to add some standard chipboard setup boxes, maybe with a sticker label or insert, then they'd pretty much have achieved everything you'd need for true print-on-demand game manufacturing.  As it stands now, all the components are great, but the box issue (petty and non-essential as that part of it seems) leaves a pretty big hole in terms of professional appearance.

However, it seems a little punky to get hung up on this, when the rest of the operation is so flexible, so complete, and so well-run.  I'd still recommend it to anybody.

Matt Drake doesn't seem so happy with TGC printing and components, speaking as a consumer rather than a publisher.  I haven't had the problems he describes with the cards not shuffling well (at least after they're broken in a little), so maybe he had a different experience or different standards.

Monday, April 5, 2010

A tale of a third POD publisher

My earlier post compared TheGameCrafter.com with SuperiorPOD.com.  There's also Artscow.com, another popular print-on-demand source for cards.  I haven't used them, but one customer has done a comparison here, and finds the quality of product from SuperiorPOD better.  Here's another customer with a photographic comparison showing that the SuperiorPOD cards are a good deal thicker than Artscow.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Another printing option

These guys at Custom-Tradingcards.com seem set up to do fairly inexpensive printing of cards, although their focus is definitely on trading cards rather than playing cards.  Their prices get much better with bigger print runs, as most of these places do.  The default pricing quote gizmo on their website gives prices not too far off what I'm getting from printers for my card game for big print runs, and they seem to have customizable templates and are prepped for user-submitted art.

Unlike the other places I've linked to here, they seem to be able to do randomized collating and small-pack packaging, too, which would be a big deal for those developing collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon.  I don't have a good idea of what their product is like, and I haven't used them, but I thought I'd add the link in case any of my mighty and burgeoning readership is looking for this kind of service.

A tale of two POD Publishers...

OK, here's a comparison between my experience with TheGameCrafter.com and SuperiorPOD.com, two print-on-demand game publishing services. Both of them offer a similar service - near-professional quality printing of games in short print runs - and both are suitable for making a small number of games up for yourself as a prototype, to use as a demo for a publisher, or to sell. Both purport to have an order-taking and order-fulfillment service.

I'm going to evaluate them head-to-head on a number of factors in two sets - the first set will be facts, either from their websites or in my experience with each company. The second set will be my opinions, based on my experience. How about table form? Here goes:


Facts

ConcernTGCSuperiorPOD
Possible productsCard decks (poker size only), game boards (thick cardstock only), tokens, counters, parts, money, rulesCard decks (poker or bridge size), tuck boxes, cardboard chits, RPG screens, rule booklets and other customized printing. Other size card decks and custom printed items listed, but it's not clear how to order them.
Acts as a sales agent and order fulfillment/distributorAutomatically when game is publishedCan be arranged through Publishers Warehouse system
Terms for sales50% of net profit
e.g., a game that costs $10 and sells for $20 would net the author $5.00
20% of net profit plus $2.00 per order plus $0.25 per item
e.g., a game that costs $10 and sells for $20 would net the author $5.75 (but production costs are lower on SuperiorPOD than TGC).
Art submissionIndividual images (PNG) are submitted and organized through web-based management systemImages must be pre-formatted into pages (TIFF) using templates (18 cards per page)

Opinions/Personal Experience

ConcernTGCSuperiorPOD
WebsiteVery nice and easy to use. Actively updated with active forums; product management straightforward and mostly glitch-free, although adding parts can be a little confusing at first; address management a little cumbersome during orderingSomewhat confusing website organization; not all products seem to be available for printing; you need to "order" the templates that you later submit for printing; no online content management other than FTP upload with e-mail response
CommunicationExcellent regarding orders; slower with regard to more technical questions. Employee responses in the public forums are very prompt.Minimal communication other than initial order response (they responded to my third and fourth e-mails and not to the two messages I left on their voice mail). Once I complained more, about three weeks after placing my order, I got more regular responses.
OrderingMostly straightforward except for address management; shipping is relatively expensiveMostly straightforward, but preparing artwork is more involved and requires more computer savvy than with TGC.
Cost to me for one copy$10.87 + $5.15 shipping
Total: $16.02
$8.40 + $6.06 shipping
Total: $14.46
Total cost to me for 15 copies (includes shipping)$189.20$113.79
Time to receive order after placement7 days40 days. Very frustrating. SuperiorPOD staff indicated this was unusual, and blamed a trade show, but it took much longer than the 10-14 days indicated on their site.
Product QualityGenerally very high; printing is darker than expected and dark-colored cards sometimes show flaking, but otherwise, a very good product. Cards come in ziploc bags. Games individually boxed with sticker; these are functional but nothing fancy.Very high; cuts seem better centered than TGC; cards shuffle a little better than TGC cards, and printing isn't so dark. Decks come shrink-wrapped. No individual boxes by default.

I hope that helps those of you considering each print-on-demand option.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Resources for game designers and publishers

This page over on SpotlightOnGames.com has a ton of resources for parts, components, printing, tools, and other neat stuff. A really comprehensive directory.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Harrumph

This is bumming me out: 
34 days and counting.  Or processing, or whatever.

UPDATE:  I finally got my order from SuperiorPOD 40 days (and 40 nights?) after placing it.  A comparison between SuperiorPOD and TheGameCrafter.com is here.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Even more on boxes

I bought some of these boxes from Papermart.com to box up print-on-demand versions of Diggity to share with friends. I got style 07350, the 4"x3"x2", which are a bit too big for my decks of cards (poker size, at 3.5"x2.5"x1.5"), but they work OK. The boxes come as unfolded stamped sheets, so you have to fold them together, but that's not too hard. They're white corrugated (like a pizza delivery box), so not too fancy. I bought some of these stickers from OnlineLabels.com, which were the perfect size to go on top of the boxes. They come with a downloadable template for MS Word or other word processing programs, so it was easy to convert my cover art to fit into the sticker templates. I printed them out on a color laser printer, which gave good results, and stuck them to the top of the boxes.

Not very elegant, and probably not anything that I could put in an actual retail environment, but it worked for homebrew copies, and at a total of $0.24 cents per labeled box, the price is right.

I hadn't seen these boxes - they look like a better size, and they come in a two-piece format.  But they look like they might be flimsy, like those cheap gift boxes you get for shirts at department stores.  Nothing you could ship in, and probably not something that would stand up to being crammed on a shelf.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Game card production options

I've had some luck creating home-made versions of cards for my games using a variety of stuff, from completely hand-made, hand-written parts, to laser or ink-jet printouts on cardstock, to pre-perforated business card forms (pretty cheap from Office Depot, and they separate easily and shuffle surprisingly well).  I've used color ink-jet printing, which can get expensive but is pretty high quality, and color-laser printing, which can get super-expensive if you do it at a place like Kinko's, but is generally very high quality (but it doesn't always stand up to repeated play - the toner can flake off).  But if you want to take a step further, to a more professional look, there are now a few print-on-demand options.

For cards, the simplest custom printing option is probably business card printing.  Business cards are a bit smaller than normal game cards, but you can get them printed in bulk for very cheap.  If your deck doesn't have a lot of different cards (either a small deck, or a number of repeated cards within a deck) you could order one set of business cards for each card type in your deck, and then collate them.  That's labor-intensive, but it doesn't have to be cost-intensive.  It's also very scalable - for example, Uprinting.com has both regular and square business cards at 250 for $20-22, while 1000 is only a dollar or so more.  And there are hundreds of business card printers online.  For a custom project, or for a deck with many unique card types, you might be able to contact a local print shop and get those made up easily - business cards are very common print requests for these companies. Some of the drawbacks are that usually, business cards are a little thinner than "real" cards, they aren't plastic-coated so they don't slide past each other as easily, and they don't have rounded corners, which means they catch on each other when you hold them in your hand.

There are also actual custom playing card printers, which give better results.  For game printing, I've heard of folks using Artscow (custom cards here), TheGameCrafter, SuperiorPOD, and Guild of Blades Retail Group.  These companies print real decks of cards.  I have experience with TheGameCrafter (detailed in an earlier post), and I should (hopefully) have some cards from SuperiorPOD next week for comparison.  Many folks I've read online have sworn by Artscow.  I don't know much about GuildOfBlades - they've not been taking on new projects recently, says their website, so I didn't look into them for my recent print-on-demand projects.   However, their pricing looks very competitive, and it scales downward for bigger print runs, which isn't true of the other POD folks.  They (like TheGameCrafter) have an order fulfillment option.

So, there's a quick guide to some different card printing options.  Let me know if you know of other good ideas!

Friday, March 12, 2010

TheGameCrafter.com

I've used TheGameCrafter.com to create copies of all of my recent game projects. They also have a sales option, so they can sell whatever you create there. It's a very neat service, very cool for independent game designers, where you can get professional-quality components for very small print runs. It's a little expensive per copy, and the packaging is not up to the standards of the rest of the components, but it's well-run, very flexible, and is something I've been looking for for a long time. They seem to be evolving quickly, and they're generally quite responsive to customer/designer requests and ideas.

I wrote a full review/testimonial on their site.