In the beginning you either found a publisher or took the super risky route of self-publishing. Then crowd funding came along and mitigated much of the risk of self-publishing, but introduced a whole slew of it’s own risks. We felt there had to be a better way, so we created crowd sales.
A crowd sale is a crowd funding campaign, but instead of getting more and more stretch goals of dubious quality that can cause delays, increase shipping costs, and bankrupt the game designer, crowd sales just offer an ever increasing discount. In addition, there is no tipping point of “funded” in a crowd sale. If you buy a game in a crowd sale, you’re going to get a copy of it for an automatic discount of around $5.
Our first crowd sale will feature a brand new game called Song Froggy.
The reviews are in and Song Froggy is a great game. Normally priced at only $20, you can get it for $15, or maybe less, during this crowd sale (plus shipping). To see the possible discounts, see our official announcement.
The more people that buy the game, the greater the discount is for everyone, but you have to act fast. This sale will last for only 1 week starting on January 19th. Click the remind me button on the Song Froggy crowd sale page to be notified when the sale begins.
Comments
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I wish that I could find an 'About Page' for this, because I'm skeptical about the details here. This looks like a print-on-demand pre-order scheme, which isn't in the same ballpark as crowd funding.
Self-publishing isn't super risky, as the OP claims. It's just expensive, and the only risk is that you will never recoup your investment. For some people, that's not a risk at all.
Added to that, stretch rewards only cause problems if the crowd funding campaign wasn't well implemented to begin with. Were those same people to switch over to this format and self regulate their projects, you would see a parallel set of problems. For example, unrealistic discounts set for supposedly unattainable goals. "Yes, we set the discount at 80% for 1,000 copies, but we never dreamed we'd sell that many. It was just there to encourage people to pledge more. Woops!"
I don't see a way for game designers to sign up, but since they are comparing it to crowd funding, I have to assume that this is the intent. I'm also guessing that the sliding discount scale will offset any earnings from bulk. "You sold 100 copies? Here's your $300. You sold 200 copies? Great, here's your $310." If this is tied to them handling the details of production then you lose out on all of the benefits of crowd funding along with the risks. It's just getting a royalty check from a POD, a gimmick, very much like what I've seen working for a major POD publisher in the past.
Realistically, this won't result in a better price for the customer than crowd funding. You just won't get stretch goals, and since there is no minimum funding goal, you may even pay more.
Another Skeptic
Along with Soulfinger, I too have some concerns over the claims made here, especially as someone who has run two successful Kickstarter Projects (albeit not in the board game realm). There's always a bit of risk involved in any of these endeavors, but with regard to "finding a publisher" or purchasing a game through "crowd sales" I'm not seeing the link which actually gets the game published.
With regard to board games and true crowd-funding, Ryan Laukat (City of Iron, Empires of the Void, etc.) has done remarkably well, and has used Kickstarter to great effect over the past few years. To that end, while I certainly applaud any effort to demystify the world of board game publishing, I'm not convinced by the short paragraph that this is the panacea for would-be game designers.
Cheers,
Joe
We'll have an FAQ up shortly,
We'll have an FAQ up shortly, but the Official Game Crafter Podcast discusses all your questions in detail:
http://thegamecrafter.libsyn.com/crowd-sales-on-the-game-crafter-episode-3
I think...
The goal is to SELL as many copies of the game - and everyone gets a discount when they buy the game... So if the game starts selling at $20.00 and there are 500 buyers maybe the price will drop to $18.00 each...
It's like a bulk-buy discount that the backers of this sort of selling will profit from. Instead of having to waist time defining stretch goals - this is a simple solution: more buyers, cheaper price...
No risk of having to ADD MORE value to the game. Typically stretch rewards are there to encourage MORE participation in crowdfunding. Be it in terms of money or in terms of total backers.
Here's the Crowd Sales FAQ
You have questions, we've got answers. Here's the Crowd Sales FAQ:
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/help/crowd-sales
Yeah, I See Your Point But No
I see the potential value of crowd sales, but certainly not as a replacement for the "risky" Kickstarter campaigns. Crowd sales might be an excellent complement launching a board game following the completion of a successful Kickstarer though, or as a holiday special perhaps.
but what?
Yo just throwing in my 2 cents as a longtime user of TGC.
Aside from possible advertising costs, the crowd sale format is literally zero risk for the game designer. TGC is prettymuch handling everything on the distribution end. As someone who doesn't have 2 months to dedicate to running a kickstarter campaign, not even counting the extra months to handle fulfillment, this is pretty damn convenient.
They already have bulk order discounts, this is just a way for designers/customers to take advantage of those discounts without needing to invest in buying 100+games themselves. (normally it's more expensive and time consuming all around to produce one copy of a game at a time, which is why POD games tend to cost more in the first place) The only possible victim here is TGC, everyone else is getting a game they want for a sweet price.
PUGFARTS wrote:Aside from
Correct. This is a better format for a vanity press game designer. Kickstarter is better for designers wanting to launch their own small business and build their own customer base. Most failed KS projects are run by people who don't fully understand that latter point. It would have been more accurate for this service to be advertised as an alternative to traditional print-on-demand services. The apples and oranges comparisons to Kickstarter are made purely because of the popularity of that medium.
Exactly, quest, almost...
The game starts at $20 normally, $15 with as little as one buyer, and goes all the way down to $11.60 with only 200 buyers.
Better price for the customer very likely
Full disclosure: I designed Song-Froggy. I'm certainly more passionate about the project, but I also have some specific information you don't have access to. You might have found the FAQ and know a lot of this, but here are some things I think you should know.
- Stretch rewards would make no sense for my game.
- Other designers will be able to sign up in the future.
- I get a set amount per copy sold, so selling twice as many earns me twice as much money.
- If I decided to KS this game, I would have to charge people enough to counteract the 10% cut KS takes, and I would charge even more than that just in case I screwed something up so that I was not having to pay out of my own pocket.
- If only one person buys the game during the sale, they are already getting a better price than I can offer them right now.
- If 200 people buy it, they are getting it at a price I would normally need 250 sales for, still with no 10% cut for KS.
- The price can go as low as $11.60, which is getting very close to an amount that I would not charge less than even if I could have them made for free, because of the perceived value that I want my game to have.
Very generous pricing
Well I think it's a good idea - BUT can't say that I agree with your numbers. If 500 people buy the game and the price drops from $20.00 to $18.00 that's a $2.00 saving (I know everyone can do the math).
BUT that $2.00 is $1,000 in SALES (because of 500 backers). That's quite a fair amount of money!!! Dropping to $15.00 for one sale, that's like a serious amount. IF you get 500 backers (and you probably will), that's $2,500 in sales amount that TGC is just eating up!
This is NOT to be ignored... It's a lot of money that TGC is giving up... More likely future Crowd Sales will see smaller discounts because that's a fair amount!
questccg][quote=KochGames
This is NOT to be ignored... It's a lot of money that TGC is giving up... More likely future Crowd Sales will see smaller discounts because that's a fair amount!
It's a promotional sale. They are discounting on the front end to build a customer base instead of clearancing out unsold product on the back end, which is easy since this is a print on demand operation. You get better pricing buying a mattress on Memorial Day. Really though, it's not truly even a discount. This is a basic price-volume relationship, which anyone here should be familiar with, even if you've only ever done direct sales.
Since they are able to get the consumer base to pre-order all of the units at one time that facilitates them being able to treat those individuals as a single client and offer them a nominal percentage discount (making this more like Groupon than anything). This is a tremendous savings for TGC compared to them dealing with retailers or wholesalers. They aren't "giving up" a dime, particularly since the perceived value stimulates sales that otherwise never would have existed. Not to mention their marginal savings on bulk ordering components.
For example, Sedition Wars had an MSRP of $89.99. Miniature Market is selling it for $29. Seems like they are losing money, but no. They are still making a small profit on that transaction, because the distributor discount was likely 70%. More than likely the sale of that deep discounted good will lead to additional items being added to the cart to meet the $100 minimum for free S&H, so it also functions as a good loss leader for them. MSRP assumes a 40-60% discount for retailers and up to a 70% discount for distributors. With this "deal", you'll at best get the discount rate reserved for small volume retailers (who'd get 40% on 1 copy).
Frankly, that initial 25% discount is a gimmick. Consider $15 the retail and refactor the discounting scheme from there (not nearly as impressive). The $20 price in their store was set by the designer, and it is unlikely that the manufacturing prices cited to the designer match their actual costs. With this edition, they factor their cost of goods according to their actual material costs, which probably still comes out to a 4x markup. I'm willing to bet that the pitch to the designer was, "You get less money per unit, but you'll be making more on volume -- plus you get free advertising and word-of-mouth." Correct me if I'm wrong. I overheard similar lines a lot from the sales people at the POD publisher where I used to work when they were screwing people over.
TGC is a direct sale operation looking to increase volume sales without extending the traditional volume discounts that they'd give a retailer or distributor.
Suggested reading for anyone wanting to understand price structuring on goods:
http://www.bizmove.com/marketing/m2y1.htm
https://www.nuvonium.com/blog/view/how-to-price-your-product-for-retail-...
Soulfinger, I'm not sure if
Soulfinger, I'm not sure if you have a vendetta against The Game Crafter, crowd sales, designers, or just capitalism as a whole. Yes we will make money on crowd sales. Yes so will the designer. You saw Bryan's post above, he's happy to be part of this, why not be happy for him?
He makes money and gets his game out there. The customer gets the game cheaper than he normally would. The Game Crafter makes more money so it can extend its services. Everybody in this scenario is happy except you, and you aren't involved. It's hard to see why you are spewing so much hate.
The Game Crafter wrote:
Pointing out that your presentation is somewhat misleading is not "spewing hate," nor is rebuking the notion that this is some extraordinary value by discussing discounting and price structuring as a marketing technique. I assume that you are characterizing me this way and resorting to hollow rhetoric, intimating that I have some vendetta against you and capitalism in general in my cartoon villain quest to crush the world's happiness, because my actual observations are spot on. Stop being a silly goose.
I'm new to the site, but my understanding is that it is intended for people wanting to learn more about game design, and I assume that extends to all levels of production. Hence, deconstructing this crowd sale service seems entirely germane, as it may give designers a better understanding of these marketing strategies for their own projects, especially when a couple of the comments here reflect some misunderstandings. I probably used to place bulk orders from the same component suppliers as you, so I have a pretty good notion about your price structure. As I stated earlier, I do think that this venture of yours is a better format for vanity press game designers than KS. You have a solid business model overall.
What I do apologize for is any misunderstanding about POD publishers screwing people over. I was referring to the sales team at a past employer and did not intend the statement to reflect on TGC. I can see how it would look that way. Past that, if you are offended because I pointed out that you aren't martyring yourself on pricing then it is perhaps your take on capitalism that is skewed.
I appreciate your apology. I
I appreciate your apology. I actually don't take offense at all to you deconstructing crowd sales. It's certainly accurate to say that crowd sales in no way takes away from or replaces kickstarter or other crowd funding systems. My concern here is that the way you presented it seemed to imply that we were somehow scamming people and that Bryan and others considering crowd sales are stupid. Overall your tone seemed negative rather than constructive. If I have misread you then I too am sorry.
Lower price, more sales
I think, though, that a lot of the sales will only happen because of the lower price.
For fun, I have also figured out in what instances I could buy more copies for less money, based on where the price changes are.
Crowd Sales have finally begun!
Today is the day! The Game Crafter's new Crowd Sale system is now live!
Song Froggy is the first game available in this new experiment and the next discount happens when 6 more people join the sale! If you have questions, feel free to check out the FAQ.
The Game Crafter wrote:Today
Oh... I was surprised to find a link to The Game Crafter (TGC)?! I thought this was going to be an IndieGoGo campaign... Not a new TGC "service".
Hmm! very interesting. It's a
Hmm! very interesting. It's a good solution like the OP said for those who want to publish a game but not necesasrily start a business.
It also focus only on the game's price as a reward instead of some other goddies that you don't really need.
I think it could be good for launching new products, or for an mass reprint if there is an increase in demand for example.