Cost Analysis

Shrewdly, I've worked down the price of making games to as small as I can for the time being

Thinking for future productions, I've managed to incorporate a game construction system that will reuse certain elements so that I may order in bulk. The only difference between each game set will be what I print.

Of course, I'm sure this has been done before.

There is an awesome wood cutting company that I learned about on BoardGameGeek last night called Casey's Wood (http://www.caseyswood.com). You can order huge bulk orders of little wooden shapes, everything from wooden discs and squares and game pawns (which is what I'll be incorporating) to... well... hell, EVERYTHING! It is PERFECT for what I need in terms of game-making.

My idea is to take the pieces, especially the more basic shapes such as the game pawns, the cubes, and the discs, spray paint and seal them myself then apply stickers to them. That way I can have a lot of those pieces and still manage to keep my costs way down by ordering in bulk.

The game board I can get down to about $1.04 right now, which is still higher than I'd like. Adding in the cost of having it book-wrapped, printed, and mounted, and it may be higher still. However, I have the contact of a local box maker, so I may be able to get sheets in bulk.

Another design idea that I'm toying with is having all gameboards I make come only increments of 12" x 12". So I can have a 1 sheet board that's 12" by 12", a 2 sheet board that's 12" x 24", a 4 sheet board that's 24" by 24" and so on.

Interestingly, Casey's Wood also prints 3" by 3" hexes, which will be great for constructing tile based games.

Superior POD (http://www.superiorpod.com) will be good for small order card printing. The waiter game currently has a need for five cards (maybe more, still working on that part of the game).

Here is my cost breakdown for the waiter game:

* Board for $1.04
* Table Tokens @ $0.058 per token, 50 for $2.90
* Order Tokens @ $0.03 per token, 21 for $0.59
* Game Pawns @ $0.10 per pawns, 5 for $0.50
* Colored Dice @ $1.00 (this is retail price, so I'm sure I can find cheaper) per die, 2 for $2.00
* Printing/Mounting Costs, estimated $2.50
* Box for $2.00 (still need to research this a bit more)
* Assistance Cards @0.072 per card, 5 for $0.36

C.O.G.S. for waiter game: $10.89

Still a little higher than I want it to be, but at least it's a workable number. I don't plan on selling huge quantities of games ANNNNY time soon, but at least I know that I can realistically make my costs back on selling one item.

Right now, my goals are to find the boxes, boards, and dice for cheaper prices, those being the steepest prices. Ultimately, I'd like to get the basic production of the game at $8.00 or less, so my ideal mark-up will be $12.00--frankly, a steal!

Board game design isn't some get-rich-quick scheme for me. It's somewhere to put my creative abilities to use, and I'd love to just get the games out there at little to no cost to me (although, I've probably already spent about $300 in development on this one, d'oh!)