I made a card game.

[raidzuo]

I made a CCRPG (collectible card role playing game) for my players as a replacement for DnD and I want to print it en mass and possibly publish it. Should I do it myself or is it cheaper to have a big company do it for me? I'm asking because there are hundreds 9wuth the possibility of thousands) of cards and I don't know if that is more expensive than reproducing a set of 50 unique cards thousands of times.

Also, will I need a lawyer to see if I copied another game? I didn't do any research before I made it but I have played a lot of RPG's and I made sure I didn't rip anyone off.

One more thing: is this a hard business to break into? Will it cost me a lot of money to launch it? Are there a lot of politics involved in this sort of thing?

[Ron Edwards]

Whoa.

Someone who knows what he or she is talking about, please help this person. (I'll send a couple of emails around to rustle up people I know, too.)

Everyone who "heard" something or otherwise thinks your own opinion is important without having direct experience in card game publishing, please stay out of it.

Best, Ron

[raidzuo]

Thanks Ron.

[guildofblades]

Printing 50 cards thoudands of times is infinitly cheaper than printing thousands of cards a few times.

Breaking into the market with a new card game is not really any more or less challenging than breaking into the market with a new role playing game. That said, depending how you define "breaking into the market", yeah, that can be a fairly challenging task.

In times past printing a card game meant paying a steep fee to have 2000 to 5000 decks printed over in China or India and imported in or paying an even steeper fee to print the same locally with the US based printer. That remains the way most hobby game card games are produced.

A bit over a year ago we launched a POD card printing service. These days there is us and a few other folks entering that same service area. POD lets you print a wholly smaller number of decks from the onset (our new minimum for a new game's first printing is 25 decks), but POD tends to be more expensive than offset printing when printing thousands. Additionally, no one has a POD box printing service presently, so the quality of box we and other POD providers can potentially offer is NOT the equal of the boxes you could expect to get when printing thousands of games. Your game, potentially having a great many cards, would likely be challenging to be produced by POD at a level that would allow you a decent enough profit margin to use wholesalers as part of your sales methodology.

That all said, the majority of indie role playing games are lucky if they can roll out an average of a couple hundred books sold per title per year. That same holds true for indie card games. So if you are looking to print big, really take a moment to ask yourself if you can afford the cost of printing say 2,000 or 5,000 decks of cards, then selling 200 decks per year. Because that could happen. You could be looking at a 10 to 25 year supply. I'm not going to tell you to not print big, just going to say that if you are leaning on going that way, you need to fully educate yourself on the market and its varied sales channels and have arrived at a realistic business plan that would enable you to surely sell in larger numbers. That will require detaching yourself somewhat from the pride you have in your creation and taking a hard analytical look at the market, the position your game might be able to achieve and what sort of investment and long term commitment your might have to engage in to make it happen. If that all sounds somemwhat intimidating, well, it should. Its possible to start big and succeed, but in the games industry, that can be a pretty big gamble and it should absolutely be taken very seriously. Unless you happen to be independetly wealthy, in which case, print what you will and enjoy the ride.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

[raidzuo]

Printing 50 cards thoudands of times is infinitly cheaper than printing thousands of cards a few times.

Breaking into the market with a new card game is not really any more or less challenging than breaking into the market with a new role playing game. That said, depending how you define "breaking into the market", yeah, that can be a fairly challenging task.

In times past printing a card game meant paying a steep fee to have 2000 to 5000 decks printed over in China or India and imported in or paying an even steeper fee to print the same locally with the US based printer. That remains the way most hobby game card games are produced.

A bit over a year ago we launched a POD card printing service. These days there is us and a few other folks entering that same service area. POD lets you print a wholly smaller number of decks from the onset (our new minimum for a new game's first printing is 25 decks), but POD tends to be more expensive than offset printing when printing thousands. Additionally, no one has a POD box printing service presently, so the quality of box we and other POD providers can potentially offer is NOT the equal of the boxes you could expect to get when printing thousands of games. Your game, potentially having a great many cards, would likely be challenging to be produced by POD at a level that would allow you a decent enough profit margin to use wholesalers as part of your sales methodology.

That all said, the majority of indie role playing games are lucky if they can roll out an average of a couple hundred books sold per title per year. That same holds true for indie card games. So if you are looking to print big, really take a moment to ask yourself if you can afford the cost of printing say 2,000 or 5,000 decks of cards, then selling 200 decks per year. Because that could happen. You could be looking at a 10 to 25 year supply. I'm not going to tell you to not print big, just going to say that if you are leaning on going that way, you need to fully educate yourself on the market and its varied sales channels and have arrived at a realistic business plan that would enable you to surely sell in larger numbers. That will require detaching yourself somewhat from the pride you have in your creation and taking a hard analytical look at the market, the position your game might be able to achieve and what sort of investment and long term commitment your might have to engage in to make it happen. If that all sounds somemwhat intimidating, well, it should. Its possible to start big and succeed, but in the games industry, that can be a pretty big gamble and it should absolutely be taken very seriously. Unless you happen to be independetly wealthy, in which case, print what you will and enjoy the ride.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

Thank you for the reply. This is so helpful.

My primary goal is to print a few decks for my players instead of printing them myself, and then a few more decks for other people - friends of friends who heard about my the game and want to try it out.

It would be nice if I could actually make money from this but I don't expect too, That being said; who knows. People seem to like it and maybe even a lot of poeple will. For now I want to print all the cards I created and about 10 or so duplicates of each so my players can grab them instead of asking me to print 1 at a time when they level up or decide to switch their abilities around.

Again, thank you so much. This really means a lot to me, and it really helps.

[guildofblades]

There is a company out of Hong Kong that does one-off specialty POD playing card decks. They might be able to service your printing needs. We're geared a bit more towards the small production run for product to wholesale rather than singular prootype decks. The company out of Hong Kong would be a bit more expensive per deck, but likely still cheaper and better quality than simply trying to have cards printed and cut at say a Kinkos. I forget the name of that company, but its was being discussed on boardgamegeek.com, so if you search for it you might find it there.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

[raidzuo]

So I found some stuff out. I can print 50 decks at: http://www.psprint.com/brochures for $228.00, but I have to cut them myself. I'm already pretty good at cutting the cards; and I put a 1/0th of an inch bleed between card to do this.

You can get a pretty cheap cutter here: https://www.laminator.com/Product_Details~ProductID~8270~P~Craft-Trimmer-Model-370-Card-Maker-from-Dahle.htm

Here's a corner rounder for 8 bucks: http://www.factory-express.com/Paper_Cutters/Cornerounders/Carl_CP6A_Basic_Corner_Rounding_Punch-3943.htm

I'm just gonna go to the Michael's arts and craft store down the street. Scrap booking is a big deal where I live and they have everything I need. The bottom line is that it will cost me about 30 dollars for the cutter and the corner rounder, and 230 dollars for the prints. This means I can make 50 decks for under 300 dollars. I think that's pretty awesome.

[Tyler.Tinsley]

http://www.gobretail.com/podcards-pricing.php

You may want to take a harder look at GOB pricing looks like you can get 50 of 54 cards for around $200.

if your really serious about this or even if your not, i recommend picking up the game inventor's guidebook by Brian Tinsman

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  I have heard decent things but can't myself say for sure but http://www.plaincards.com/Store/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=60&cat=Blank+Trading+Sports+Cards looks decent for a DIYS aproach. If you want to try running things on your own get a decent printer and sign up as a "whole sale" client with them, which seems to just be what they are considering a retail store. You could run two 60 card decks for $6 (maybe 7 after ink and stuff) a pop not including the discount they would give you.