Re: Components/Pricing

Bob Hayes writes:
> 1) 4-color commercial printing, with aqueous coating and corner
> rounding and all that good stuff, put into a nice box with a label and
> everything.  My cost per unit:  $10 minimum, with a big capital outlay
> up front that would make slow sales a personal disaster.
> 
> 2) Color laser printing on heavy stock, possibly with coating or
> laminating and corner rounding but more likely just raw output onto
> (high quality) cardstock.  Delivered in a poly bag a la Cheapass
> Games.  My cost per unit:  $6 or so, with minimal upfront costs; I
> could afford slow sales.
> 
> 3) a PDF file that buyers would download and print out and cut
> themselves.  My cost per unit:  Darn near $0.  Risk:  intellectual
> piracy, since of necessity I would be delivering a reproducible
> product.
> 
> If I went with (1), I would have to charge around $20 per game to
> cover my risk.  That just feels high to me for what is essentially a
> card game.  With (2), I could charge between $10-15 (depending on what
> extra features went into the production process).  With (3) I was
> thinking of charging $5 or so.

Personally, I'd do either (1) or (3), and if I were going to do (3) I
would set the cost at zero (which would automatically eliminate "piracy").

I guess it depends a lot on what your motive in producing the game is.
If your motive is to maximize your own profit, then you should choose
(2), because most buyers won't figure out how poor quality the cards are
or how much this affects play until they buy it, and then it's too
late.  If your goal is for people to enjoy the game, then (1) or (3).

                                        David desJardins