Skip to Content
 

What would you consider a reasonable price?

16 replies [Last post]
Kirkatronics
Offline
Joined: 09/12/2016

Hi everyone

I'm trying to decide on a reasonable price for a product I plan to launch on KS.
I want to avoid over-charging people for my product, so i wanted to ask what a reasonable price would be.

56 Cards per pack
88 x 63mm with radius corners.
Illustrated in full Colour and Plastic Coated.
305um Corona black cored playing card board.
Tuck Boxes printed full colour on 430um Zanta Games Board gloss laminated.
Turnaround: Dispatched in 20 - 25 working days.

Without stretch goals each pack contains 30 character cards, 26 cards used to keep track of the game, and a rule book.

questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
Easy formula for retail

Well the most fair and easy formula for pricing a game goes like this:

Cost To Produce the Game x 5 = MSRP (Retail).

Since you will be doing a KS, keep that figure in mind and do one of two (2) things:

1. Offer a small rebate of let's say $5.00 - $10.00 depending on the cost
2. Offer stretch goals that the retail version will NOT have

So either you offer a better price to your KS Backers OR you offer them extra content that your retail version will not have. Sometimes you can do BOTH ... if you have the ability to do so with your game.

This will give you a fair and reasonable price point for selling your game via Kickstarter.

Cheers.

Note: You should also ADD the COST of shipping from your manufacturing location and preferably the average COST to mail to a Backer the game. This way you can say that shipping is INCLUDED in the reward price. Looks good for Backers - no additional cost for shipping...

Note 2: This method eases the guess work of trying to figure out how much to charge for your game. The pricing is determine by a function of how much it costs to produce the game. This is a standard practice - not something I "invented"...

More on pricing:

A> For Retailers the price should be 50% off retail. So a $50 game (MSRP) should be sold at $25 to a FLGS.
B> For Distributors the price should be 60% off retail. So their price should be $20.
C> The Manufacturing cost for a $50 game would be $10.

So you as the self-publisher would make $10 PROFIT on each game copy sold via traditional distribution. Which is pretty decent and reasonable to all parties involved.

Kirkatronics
Offline
Joined: 09/12/2016
Thanks for the reply,

Thanks for the reply, quest.
I've researched how much I should charge, but I wanted to know what would be considered 'normal' for a card game of this size.
I'm struggling to find examples, but I may be going the wrong way about it.

I Will Never Gr...
I Will Never Grow Up Gaming's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2015
Landed cost dependent but ..

Kirkatronics wrote:
Hi everyone

I'm trying to decide on a reasonable price for a product I plan to launch on KS.
I want to avoid over-charging people for my product, so i wanted to ask what a reasonable price would be.

56 Cards per pack
88 x 63mm with radius corners.
Illustrated in full Colour and Plastic Coated.
305um Corona black cored playing card board.
Tuck Boxes printed full colour on 430um Zanta Games Board gloss laminated.
Turnaround: Dispatched in 20 - 25 working days.

Without stretch goals each pack contains 30 character cards, 26 cards used to keep track of the game, and a rule book.

Largely dépendant on your landed cost (manufacturing + freight + duty/taxes) as mentioned above, but ..

For essentially a 56 card deck + rule book, probably in the $15-20 range, maximum. You need to find other similar games (not just in components, but in style and quality) to find an average range really.

Do you know what your landed cost is per unit? Does landed cost x 5 = that range? If so you're set. If not, you may need to look at other options for manufacturing and/or quality of components.

For reference, this game comes with more than 56 cards (square, but that's not much of a difference), + approximately 80 black core high quality tokens, rule book and box with a UV Spot Gloss high quality box for about $22 give or take (depending on where you get it - I got it via Kickstarter for $25, shipping included) : https://www.amazon.com/Pencil-First-Games-NA-GemPacked/dp/B016V88MUO

polyobsessive
polyobsessive's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/11/2015
Ratio

It's worth noting that the 5 * manufacturing cost thing is based on a game going through distribution and retail. If you intend to only ever distribute through KS or sell direct, you can lower the ratio, though that might limit your options later.

I Will Never Gr...
I Will Never Grow Up Gaming's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2015
polyobsessive wrote:It's

polyobsessive wrote:
It's worth noting that the 5 * manufacturing cost thing is based on a game going through distribution and retail. If you intend to only ever distribute through KS or sell direct, you can lower the ratio, though that might limit your options later.

Assuming direct sales absolutely.
(remember its also 5x landed cost not just manufacturing cost)

Heres a great article on the 5x landed cost idea as well (part 2 anyway which is directly related to kickstarting).

http://blog.foxtrotgames.com/2016/02/24/kickstarter-cash-flow-profit/

questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
Great article IWNGUG

I Will Never Grow Up Gaming wrote:
...Here's a great article on the 5x landed cost idea as well (part 2 anyway which is directly related to kickstarting).

http://blog.foxtrotgames.com/2016/02/24/kickstarter-cash-flow-profit/

Thank you for sharing that article... It's smart to do "as prescribed".

@Kirkatronics: You should be more clear about what I posted too. The article suggests the same in it's last bulleted table:

A> You don’t have to set your pledge level to 5× your landed costs: you can afford to give your backers a discount off that MSRP.

OR B> Offer KS Backers exclusive content that will only be available via KS.

Like I said IF you can manage to do a little of BOTH ... you'll be ahead of the game and offering KS Backers a worthwhile purchase.

polyobsessive
polyobsessive's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/11/2015
Yup

I Will Never Grow Up Gaming wrote:
(remember its also 5x landed cost not just manufacturing cost)

Good point, that is what I meant. I need to be more precise in my use of terminology. ;)

kwasher
kwasher's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/07/2016
This kind of scares me.... I

This kind of scares me.... I have 5 or 6 prototypes at tgc and the lowest cost one is $13 (90 cards,dice, pawns). But I'm cheap and don't think I'd pay $65 retail for that. Seems like too much $ for so little components.

polyobsessive
polyobsessive's picture
Offline
Joined: 12/11/2015
Not the same thing

kwasher wrote:
This kind of scares me.... I have 5 or 6 prototypes at tgc and the lowest cost one is $13 (90 cards,dice, pawns). But I'm cheap and don't think I'd pay $65 retail for that. Seems like too much $ for so little components.

The 5* think definitely doesn't apply to Game Crafter. I'm sure that if you were wanting to produce a game and get it into distribution and retail, they would tell you to look elsewhere. If you want to just make a few copies, whether as quality prototypes, gifts for friends, or just a vanity project to hopefully earn you a little beer money, they're great.

If you want to do a full print run, talk to a proper manufacturer. You may find that if you do a print run of, say, 2000, you might be able to get the cost per unit below $5.

questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
Not feasible to retail via TGC

kwasher wrote:
This kind of scares me.... I have 5 or 6 prototypes at tgc and the lowest cost one is $13 (90 cards,dice, pawns). But I'm cheap and don't think I'd pay $65 retail for that. Seems like too much $ for so little components.

It's not possible to use traditional SALES with TGC... My own game "Tradewars - Homeworld" COSTS $20.00 to MAKE. I can get that to less than $5.00 + shipping. TGC adds another $6.00 to the USA and $16.00 international... It's way too expensive for most people to buy...

If you are SERIOUS about your game - and want to Kickstart it... Well then you should explore OVERSEAS production (China). Even there you will need to shop around to get the best overall deal (and make sure you are producing a quality product as well)!

I Will Never Gr...
I Will Never Grow Up Gaming's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2015
Don't use print on demand as a gauge for MSRP

kwasher wrote:
This kind of scares me.... I have 5 or 6 prototypes at tgc and the lowest cost one is $13 (90 cards,dice, pawns). But I'm cheap and don't think I'd pay $65 retail for that. Seems like too much $ for so little components.

Like above, do not use TGC as your baseline. It's a vanity press/print on demand service and will cost more than traditional manufacturing.

It's a card game. In quantities of 1000 you should be able to get an excellent price from manufacturers. Probably less than $5 landed cost. And that goes down at 1500, 2000, 3000 units.

YOu could probably get a half decent price at 500 units as well, but it would be more in the line of 4x landed price to find your final that way (500 is essentially the minimum order quantity for any manufacturer, most are at 1000 units or above).

I'll give you an example with my game;

TGC cost (with zero profit) = $85 + shipping per unit
Manufactured in China @ 500 units = $11.50 per unit
Manufactured in China @ 1000 units = $9.85 per unit
Manufactured in China @ 2500 units = $7.45 per unit

This is for a game with (approximately) 160 x mini cards, 14 x player boards, 40 x meeples, 6 x custom dice, 20 x 8mm plastic cubes, 60 x 0.5inch round tokens, rules, box, insert.

SO as you can see, Suggested Retail @ 5x landed cost would be (at the high end) $57.50 .. which is still almost $30 cheaper than through TGC. And at the low end, I could price it at $37.25, which is less than half of TGC pricing.

I Will Never Gr...
I Will Never Grow Up Gaming's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2015
However ..

kwasher wrote:
This kind of scares me.... I have 5 or 6 prototypes at tgc and the lowest cost one is $13 (90 cards,dice, pawns). But I'm cheap and don't think I'd pay $65 retail for that. Seems like too much $ for so little components.

If, however, you don't want to do a Kickstarter and don't want to go with manufacturing, you're more than able to price your game in the $20-$25 range on TGC and earn a profit off each sale made since you're price is in the $13 range.

Of course, this holds with it a more limited audience and means you have to hustle even more to get people to buy, BUT it removes any overhead costs and other publishing issues on your part.

kwasher
kwasher's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/07/2016
Thank you Very much for this

Thank you Very much for this info. I have much more to think about.... yikes, dealing with China. Seems like this is not a "game" for newbies.

I Will Never Gr...
I Will Never Grow Up Gaming's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2015
kwasher wrote:Thank you Very

kwasher wrote:
Thank you Very much for this info. I have much more to think about.... yikes, dealing with China. Seems like this is not a "game" for newbies.

It takes a lot of hard work, research and time to launch and ultimately publish and distribute a game on your own. It can be the equivalent of a full time job with little to no pay over a matter of years.

But if you, like me and many others, love designing games, it can be rewarding in and of itself. Of course, if all you want to do is design them and see them in the hands of people you may want to consider pitching to an existing publisher.
That alone is easier, but still a very difficult market to crack with the glut of games available these days.

questccg
questccg's picture
Offline
Joined: 04/16/2011
Alternatives

kwasher wrote:
Thank you Very much for this info. I have much more to think about.... yikes, dealing with China. Seems like this is not a "game" for newbies.

I felt the same, even being somewhat familiar with some of Kickstarter's steps before and some after funding. But some people are better at negotiating manufacturing prices and getting better bargains. Some people have more skills in producing a video or 3D content, etc. Other people just have more connections such as previous KS Backers, etc.

There's a whole list of things you need to concern yourself if you are going to Kickstart.

My advice is pretty much what I am doing: partner with a Publisher interested in your type of game.

If you just troll Kickstarter, put in keywords into the search like "Fantasy" "RPG" "board game", etc. (as an example), you will get a list of people in the same category.

From there you can reach out to these people and see if they are willing to HELP in making a Kickstarter for your game. Some people might be willing to spread the news via "tweets" or "backer updates", etc. And sometimes for FREE!

Maybe you can find someone who will assume the Publishing role of your game.

Anyways the bottom line is this: You don't have to go it alone!

Best of luck with your game.

kwasher
kwasher's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/07/2016
Great ideas. I've barely

Great ideas. I've barely dipped my toes into kickstarter, I want to present my game here first and expect to have more to work on tweaking it after that. Then study kickstarter in more depth, reread Jamie's book, etc. My game is a drinking/skill party game... not sure even how acceptable something like that is here, or on kickstarter. But I'm excited to find out!

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut