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New Game, Portrayal, Released!

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braincog
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Joined: 12/31/1969

Hello All,

It's been several years in the making, but it is now complete - our first game, Portrayal. Please visit www.braincog.com and have a look. Of course, anyone with $50,000 can manufacture a game - selling them afterward is the tricky part. :-)

I really wanted to provide more than a shameless plug though. Over the last couple years I've gotten some useful information through this site, and posted some thoughts myself, but now that the major milestone of actually getting the game made has been reached, I wanted to be able to share my own experiences if anyone cares. :-)

Nuggets of information:

- We started designing and playtesting in 2001. At that time I was a fairly poor MBA student. We playtested a lot. You can see how long these things can take if speed to market isn't a huge issue, but not spending money until absolutely necessary is.
- I had the game method patented. I did this all myself, so it only cost me the filing fees. I'd say it was VERY useful to me to have this done. Not so much for the (illusion) of protection it provided (since we knew it'd be a few years before we could commercialize it), but more because it made us think very hard about what made the game unique. It gave us some credibility and helped us articulate our product.
- We playtested with a bunch of people we didn't know, and without us being present. Very important.
- We incorporated Braincog in mid 2005.
- In mid 2005, we created a very detailed request for quotation. Gave component, sizes, and our best guesses for what paper stocks we wanted. Included drawings. We sent this to about 12 manufacturers. All but a couple sent us quotes. We then interviewed the three that seemed to provide the best mix of cost, services, etc. that fit our needs.
- We ultimately went with a company called FourFourFour Ltd. We had the manufacturing done in China. 444 is also providing storage, fulfilment, and sales representation/distribution for our game (non exclusive). Not to say there have been no issues, but we have been happy with this partnership so far.
- We manufactured 5,000 units. This cost about $8.00 +/- $0.50 per game, depending on how you include costs of shipping and other one-time costs. You can see from our website what the components are, but it included an electronic timer and some pretty large full color cards.
- We attended the NY International Toy Fair at Javitz this year. It was a great experience. We shared a booth, so the cost was not excessive. But the networking opportunity was valuable.
- We (and our distributor) have been sending out copies to retailers, reviewers and media. Press releases and such are coming out now. We have a long way to go.
- We budgeted to sell our games within two to three years. Profit will not be very much, but if we are able to demonstrate that we can sell the games, we can do a larger print run (for lower unit cost) or even try to license the game to another company. We view this mainly as a "personal fulfilment" and educational project, not a money-making one. If it does make money, super. We're just hoping to not LOSE too much. :-)

If anyone has any questions or feedback, please let me know.

*** If you, or anyone you know, needs a new Family / Social Interaction / Party Game, buy Portrayal from www.braincog.com and use promotion code "portrayal4bgdf" for free shipping. :-)

Cheers!
Bill Jacobson
Braincog, Inc.

phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Bill,

The game looks great! Thanks so much for sharing your story of success with us. I'm sure the game will sell very well. Did you approach Tom Vassal with a reviewer's copy yet? He does play party games quite a bit and it might be worth the press, especially if he reviews it on the Dice Tower.

-Michael

braincog
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Darkehorse wrote:
Bill,

The game looks great! Thanks so much for sharing your story of success with us. I'm sure the game will sell very well. Did you approach Tom Vassal with a reviewer's copy yet? He does play party games quite a bit and it might be worth the press, especially if he reviews it on the Dice Tower.

-Michael

By strange coincidence, Tom Vasel contacted me last night and indicated an interest in potentially reviewing Portrayal. Of course, I'd be honored if he did. :-)

FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Congratulations, very cool! Regardless of how sales or anything else work out, you've got a lot to be proud of, and I certainly wish you luck and great publicity!

-- Matthew

DSfan
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

It sounds like a great game braincog -- right up my alley. Personally, I think I have quite an artistic family who would love to have a game such as this. The only problem, in my opinion is the price. Thirty-five dollars ($35) after adding in shipping and handling seems quite high, although I can understand since you are a relatively new gaming company with a new game.

Good luck
Justin

braincog
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

DSfan wrote:
It sounds like a great game braincog -- right up my alley. Personally, I think I have quite an artistic family who would love to have a game such as this. The only problem, in my opinion is the price. Thirty-five dollars ($35) after adding in shipping and handling seems quite high, although I can understand since you are a relatively new gaming company with a new game.

Good luck
Justin

Ah, just use the promotion code "portrayal4bgdf" and the shipping is free! :-)

OutsideLime
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

That, my friends, is quick problem-solving right there.

~Josh

DSfan
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Quote:
shipping is free!

Music to my ears!

Justin

seo
seo's picture
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Joined: 07/21/2008
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Finally! I've been waiting for your game to be available since you first mentioned it here. :-)

My only problem is that, as with Emphyrio's Venus Need Men, I want a signed copy. How do I get one?

And an extra question, thinking about replayability: are you planning on upgrade packs in the near future (i.e. new cards)?

Seo

braincog
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Joined: 12/31/1969
New Game, Portrayal, Released!

seo wrote:
Finally! I've been waiting for your game to be available since you first mentioned it here. :-)

Me too! :-) Thanks though, that's VERY nice to hear.

Quote:
My only problem is that, as with Emphyrio's Venus Need Men, I want a signed copy. How do I get one?

Wow. Now I feel like a rock star. :-) There's a "notes" field on the order form in PayPal. You can just request a signed copy there. We will be happy to oblige. Note though, we'd have to tear off the shrink wrap to be able to sign the game and we don't have a shrink wrap machine to rewrap it. I'd wrap it in bubble wrap though. :-) If you don't mind, neither do we.

Quote:
And an extra question, thinking about replayability: are you planning on upgrade packs in the near future (i.e. new cards)?

Seo

Well, we'd love to do expansion packs and have worked that into our business plan. We don't yet have a full set ready to go, since we kind of figured we'd see how well (or poorly) the game was received before we invested the extra time to do that. We'd also thought of options such as a "Junior" expansion pack geared more toward younger kids, themed packs (e.g. movies), etc. With any luck we'll be able to try these things out.

Cheers,
Bill

HRPuffenstuf
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Joined: 12/31/1969
congrats

Bill,

Congrats on your new endeavor. I'm 5 months or so new in the industry with a finished game so I hope you have as much success as I constantly dream about :) If you take things in perspective, try and get one new retailer at a time and build a successful company. As much as many thinks that a Wal-Mart would change your lives (and it probably would), building a solid foundation and then eventually looking at mass retailers might make your goals very attainable. Good luck.

HR Puffenstuf
www.looneylaundry.com

Wingnut
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Man, everyone is going to hate me after this post...though I love to hear about people and their excitement behind their completed game, I am going to be the bearer of bad news...

1) You say the game has been in the making since 2001. If it takes 5 years to make a game...well...nuff' said.

2) If 444 say they are doing distributor sales, chances are they are actually just doing fulfillment of orders as you give them to them to ship out. They are not a distributor in the game marketplace nor a game sales agent in the game marketplace.

3) 5,000 units at $8 a piece...Way too many units made and way too much cost of goods. A $30 retail game should have a COG of no more than $3.75 (1/8 retail). On the other hand, a $8 COG game would be $64 retail (8 times COG) to truly have a chance to make money. Wholesalers take 60% OFF retail so selling to them at $12 each plus paying the shipping will eat up every chance of profit. Selling direct to retailers is 50% off retail and $15 is still too much considering the time and effort for shipping and paying the fulfillment fees probably charged. It sounds like you hired a middleman in the US who contracted the job out to China, whereby they tacked on a ton more charges....I may be wrong here though...either way, way too much COG.

Again, please don't hate me everyone...I hear from a multitude of people with their games every month and for every 10 games, 1 is lucky to sell well.

In the end, I do wish you all the luck possible.

Best,

braincog wrote:

It's been several years in the making, but it is now complete - our first game, Portrayal. Please visit www.braincog.com and have a look. Of course, anyone with $50,000 can manufacture a game - selling them afterward is the tricky part. :-)

jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Re: New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Wingnut wrote:
Man, everyone is going to hate me after this post...though I love to hear about people and their excitement behind their completed game, I am going to be the bearer of bad news...

1) You say the game has been in the making since 2001. If it takes 5 years to make a game...well...nuff' said.

Please clarify what you mean by this. As it stands, this sounds very condescending.

Quote:

2) If 444 say they are doing distributor sales, chances are they are actually just doing fulfillment of orders as you give them to them to ship out. They are not a distributor in the game marketplace nor a game sales agent in the game marketplace.

Is there a way for a new publisher to verify this kind of thing for himself?

-Jeff

Wingnut
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: New Game, Portrayal, Released!

jwarrend wrote:
Wingnut wrote:

1) You say the game has been in the making since 2001. If it takes 5 years to make a game...well...nuff' said.

Please clarify what you mean by this. As it stands, this sounds very condescending.

Quote:

Sorry about that...It was actually meant to be more of a comment about making yourself viable as a business. With most games (and I stress most as something like this does not apply with say, Apples to Apples) they sell 75% of their potential sales in the first month. If you make a game every 5 years you will not have enough cash flow to survive selling a few dozen every month or waiting 6 months for that one order of a couple hundred. The best thing is to do a game every 4 months and start building up a library of titles, cash flow and establishing yourself as a company vs. a single product.

Best,
Aldo

Wingnut
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: New Game, Portrayal, Released!

jwarrend wrote:
Wingnut wrote:

Quote:

2) If 444 say they are doing distributor sales, chances are they are actually just doing fulfillment of orders as you give them to them to ship out. They are not a distributor in the game marketplace nor a game sales agent in the game marketplace.

Is there a way for a new publisher to verify this kind of thing for himself?

Well...ask who they sell to first of all...then ask them for other game companies they have worked with and ask them. There are very few true game distributors in the world and many game company's websites have them listed. I just typed "game distributors" in yahoo search and a lot of the "right" ones came up, including places that listed many.

Best,

braincog
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: New Game, Portrayal, Released!

There are good comments here and some that deserve clarification/correction, especially if the business case is to make sense to an outsider who is also considering whether to move forward with self-publishing. So here goes...

Wingnut wrote:
Man, everyone is going to hate me after this post...though I love to hear about people and their excitement behind their completed game, I am going to be the bearer of bad news...

I definitely don't hate you. :-) These are all things we thought about quite carefully, so it isn't as if you burst our bubble or anything.

Wingnut wrote:
1) You say the game has been in the making since 2001. If it takes 5 years to make a game...well...nuff' said.

First, note that it wasn't five years ago that we began putting any real money into this. That didn't happen until about 9 months ago. So really, the four years before that should be looked at more as time spent on a hobby rather than on a business deal. And as hobbies go, this one involved far less money and time than, say, golfing, a home photography studio, video game playing, or many others. In fact, in 2002 and 2003 we probably spent less than 40 hours TOTAL on our game. It was always on the backburner, but nothing more.

Second, it didn't have to take five years. If we had been ready to put any money behind it, we could have manufactured within a year. It didn't take us longer than that to design, play test, and do all the other research. If I wanted to release another game now, I could go from idea to product in a year no problem, if it was an idea I believed in.

You develop at a rate that makes sense to you, not at one that Out Of The Box, Cranium, or Hasbro might.

Wingnut wrote:
2) If 444 say they are doing distributor sales, chances are they are actually just doing fulfillment of orders as you give them to them to ship out. They are not a distributor in the game marketplace nor a game sales agent in the game marketplace.

No, actually they are definitely doing distribution and sales representation. They also do fulfillment, if I sell games myself and want them to simply ship out inventory. Otherwise, they make a commission off of the games they sell through their own contacts in the industry.

Certainly, they aren't the biggest distributor in North America. In fact, they have very few contacts in the US, most are in Canada (including Walmart, Calendar Club, and others). But they are trying to grow in the US and since I understood all of this before I signed a contract, it is all good.

Also, it is not an exclusive deal. I am free to try and get additional sales reps or distributors any time I want. So far I haven't, but we've only had product for two months.

Lastly, they have about 5,000 games at their warehouse. I am not paying for that at all right now, which makes sense since they should have an incentive to sell the inventory, and if I pay for storage, that incentive goes away for the most part.

Wingnut wrote:
3) 5,000 units at $8 a piece...Way too many units made and way too much cost of goods. A $30 retail game should have a COG of no more than $3.75 (1/8 retail). On the other hand, a $8 COG game would be $64 retail (8 times COG) to truly have a chance to make money. Wholesalers take 60% OFF retail so selling to them at $12 each plus paying the shipping will eat up every chance of profit. Selling direct to retailers is 50% off retail and $15 is still too much considering the time and effort for shipping and paying the fulfillment fees probably charged. It sounds like you hired a middleman in the US who contracted the job out to China, whereby they tacked on a ton more charges....I may be wrong here though...either way, way too much COG.

OK, down to the math. :-) Again, I have to repeat that this was never conceived of as a "get rich" deal. If you look at it just as an outside investor as you have, and look just at economic profit and consider opportunity cost, then one could definitely do better. If we had invested the money we spent (and will spend) on this game into an indexed mutual fund or something, then realistically, we would have made more money in the end (at a far lower risk). However, there was a lot more behind the decision than just money. For us, the education and the personal satisfaction are worth something too.

But anyway, back to the math...

$8 for 5,000 copies. We could have gotten fewer copies, or we could have done it for less per copy, but we could not have it both ways. We bid this project out to no less than a DOZEN companies. At least four were in China. Factoring in shipping, $8 for 5,000 was certainly at the low end of the spectrum. I am very skeptical that anyone could have done it for much less, considering the components we had.

And yes, 444 was definitely a middleman in the process. They could have manufactured the game in Canada at their factory, but it would have been several dollars more per copy. But I was perfectly happy having a middleman, in fact, I WANTED A MIDDLEMAN. I have never manufactured a game. It was worth the extra $0.50 per copy (far less than a ton, IMO) or so that it cost to have 444 be the liasion to the China manufacturer so I didn't have to deal with it. They provided some useful expertise and as a frequent customer of this Chinese manufacturer, had more pull with them than I would have, if something were to go wrong. That bit of assistance that reduced risk was, in my opinion, worthwhile.

And the 1/8 fraction you mention really is only a generalization that has very little real meaning in a specific situation. It's silly to think that the financial terms or return that I would have to achieve are the same ones that Hasbro or another company would. You are completely correct that I still have to sell my games to retailers for about 50% of retail, and distributors pay only 40%, but I've done the numbers. Selling to a retailer for $15 or a distributor for $12 leaves enough margin for incidentals. Obviously, the profit is maybe $1 or $2 a copy after you factor in shipping and other actual costs, so not much. But I have low overhead, and I haven't "quit my day job". If you think of the time I spend on this as mainly a hobby which I derive happiness from, it doesn't matter. From a strategic standpoint, I view any sale to a distributor or retailer as marketing. My ultimate goal is to sell the games in order to demonstrat that the game is viable. If, in the end, I do that, but make ZERO profit, that is OK. Then I decide if I do a larger run with lower per unit cost, try to license, or just move on to something else and chalk the whole thing up to a great experience.

I also sell games myself. Granted it's a low volume, but every game I sell myself is like selling 6 or 7 to a retailer (in terms of profit). This helps bring my break-even point down quite a bit.

Wingnut wrote:
Again, please don't hate me everyone...I hear from a multitude of people with their games every month and for every 10 games, 1 is lucky to sell well.

Actually, you are being more optimistic than we were when we thought about this. Our expectations are more like 1 out of 100.

Rest assured, I'm a rational and analytical business person. I would never have invested money in this venture as an outsider. The return will be very low if any, and the risk is too high.

But, everyone here that spends their time developing games knows there much more to it than that. The way I justified the decision was to take the "In 20 Years Test". Suppose I didn't pursue this. 20 years from now, would I have regretted it? You bet. And just imagine if another game like mine came out and did even marginally well. I'd have wanted to kick myself. However, even if I lose all the money I put into this, 20 years from now, I am pretty sure I will not have regretted it. Everyone has to weigh the financial stakes given their own situation. For me, losing this money doesn't mean sacrificing my childrens education or putting off essential surgery. But letting the opportunity pass by to experience seeing my game in a store or being played by strangers would have been huge.

It's the same for any other form of art. Painters, poets, and authors might spend quite a bit on their art with no real financial gain in the end. But they all do it anyway.

Wingnut wrote:
In the end, I do wish you all the luck possible.

Best,

Thanks. Hopefully my bombastic explanation was even a little useful to someone thinking about this.

Cheers,
Bill

OrlandoPat
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Joined: 10/16/2008
I missed you at ToyFair!

Heh, heh, heh... don't let Aldo's comments get you down. In case you're wondering, he really does know what he's talking about. He's the consolidator for Live Oak Games, and the genius behind Gamebuyer magazine. Nonetheless, you've got to find your own way, and if his numbers don't work for you, go with your own.

You were at ToyFair? I don't know how I missed you. Great web site, by the way. I've been in the process of re-creating ours (off and on) for quite a few weeks now. I really like the clean look and easy navigation that you've got.

If you're interested in a little (and I do mean a little) free press, I do game designer interviews over at www.orlandogaming.org (a site for gamers in Orlando). Go there and click on "Spotlight" to see what I mean. If you're interested, shoot me an e-mail or pm and I'll send you some questions.

It's a way for me to give new (and not so new) game designers a little free publicity, and it also helps generate a little extra traffic for the site.

- Patrick Matthews
www.liveoakgames.com

FastLearner
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: New Game, Portrayal, Released!

Wingnut wrote:
Man, everyone is going to hate me after this post...though I love to hear about people and their excitement behind their completed game, I am going to be the bearer of bad news...

Nah, we talk about this stuff all the time here. Retail price needing to be 7x-10x manufacturing cost, storage, distributor promotions and the lack thereof, etc. No wet blanket problem. Speaking for myself, anyay, I expressed my congratulations at Bill having taken that step to get his game in print, whether it was going to make money or not. That alone is worth celebrating.

Quote:
1) You say the game has been in the making since 2001. If it takes 5 years to make a game...well...nuff' said.

This has already been ably addressed, but it's also worth noting that I and many others I know are developing multiple games simultaneously. One taking 5 years doesn't mean there won't be another ready every 6 months after that. In fact, I'd argue that it takes a while to build up a good backlog of ideas that you can then serially bring into being.

Quote:
Again, please don't hate me everyone...I hear from a multitude of people with their games every month and for every 10 games, 1 is lucky to sell well.

Me, I'm really glad you're here and posting about this. The stories of people who have 4,925 games sitting in their garage are plentiful, and your real-world input is fantastic. I met you a few years ago at GTS (iirc) and thought then that you'd be a great voice of experience here, and that it would be a good place for you to run into potential clients.

-- Matthew

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