I was wondering if I could try to produce a low quantity of physical copies of my game at a reasonable price and try to sell them. The problem is that I need to shop for manufacturers and establish links with retailers which is very time consuming.
There is a board game publisher in the province I am living in that has published many board games. But it does not a accept submission from the exterior, it only publish it's own games. I agree with their decision, considering that it can be a risky business. But on the other hand, they already found manufacturers and they already have a retailer network established.
So I was wondering if I could pay the publisher to manufacture and distribute my game for me. Considering that my game is currently PnP, all the print out are done, I'll only need to re-layout them for the manufacturing, so in theory, the publishers does not have to produce anything. The idea would be that I pay the production cost or any other initial investment, and we both share a part of the profit.
Do you think that it's something that could be done?
I was thinking of having a small production run at first. I am not sure how much a copy of a game could cost and what is the minimum copies that must be produced. If I could just manufacture 100-200 copies, it would be OK. I would be willing to pay between 1000$ and 3000$ to publish a game physically. My goal is not to make profit, but rather avoid any losses. If I do make profit on the first print run, and if the demand seems high, I might reinvest in a 2nd small print run.
What do you think?
Here is a picture for 4 players, it can go up to 6
http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/uploads/fallen_kingdoms/Main/Pictures/Pic...
this is a page where I posted many pictures
http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/games/fallen_kingdoms/index.php?n=Main.Pi...
This is a review with pictures taken by somebody else than me
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/626742/by-thor-by-odin-for-valhall-v...
As you can see, since it is PnP, I tried to keep components quantity not too high. This is why, I think the game could be manufacturable at a reasonable cost.
If I manufacture it myself, I need to shop manufacturers, which is not necessarily easy to do in Montreal. So this is why I thought it would be better to use the publisher's contacts to manufacture the game.
This is one thing I wanted to know. If a game cost 10$ to manufacture, I need to pay 10000$ and that is just too much. The other thing is that selling 1000 games is much harder than selling 100. So the probability to reach break even would be lower.
This is why I thought I could using the experience of a publisher to make the game would make my life easier since they already used to produce, store and distribute games.
Does people think it is still a good idea to make a call?
Else, the other solution would be to make a very small print run. Like let say less than 100 copies and store them in my apartment or my parent's house and distribute them locally and maybe some copies online. This could only be possible if the production run is very low. I would even not be bothered of packaging the components of the game my self. That is something I would gladly do if I have less than 100 or 50 copies. The only thing I might not be able to do is the shrink.
Another solution could be "the game crafters" like discussed in another thread. I am not sure if many sales are done with this system.