Forgive me, as this is something of a poll, but not a "iz this kewl or wat?" -
I'm back at my experimental publishing of card games, again using my baby Final Twilight as a guinea pig.
First, an update: PDF copies of the game have actually been fairly popular, making me one of the highest selling publishers on the Edge over at RPGNow.com. Not a *great* indicator, but selling an average of a dozen copies of each of the now 6 decks as PDF a month isn't too bad neither. (Earlier POD attempts failed to materialize due to expense, and business cards just don't work).
Next step is I'm aiming for a true POD, have an incredible avenue for doing so, but the stock of the print is something of a concern. The PDF sales alayed some concerns, but I wanted to get some other feedback as well, see if this might expand my market with its ease or not. Answer as best you can, preferably if you (like Lee) enjoy card games. I will say right up: this involves no printing or cutting on the part of the customer, nor are there shipping charges involved. All of it goes right to the customer, printed and cut.

As a consumer, is a stock equivalent to photo paper a functional or downright poor choice for "card" stock? Would you sleeve such a deck to play? I currently charge $8 USD per deck that I sell - costs of this printing method would allow for 1-off, true POD printing, and *cost* $4 to print. Would an $8 price point on this POD deck with weaker stock affect a decision to purchase? Would knowing the cost to print, and what I as a designer would need to recoup on other expenses affect a decision? Would the "cards" need backside printing, or is that negligible?

I'll follow up with anything else I may want to inquire. I'll discuss the actual method of how to pull this off after I run a few more tests and get some of my own player feedback.

I would not sleeve any card game I have in order to play it.  If I purchase a card game, I would expect that the cards be sturdy enough that they would stand up to regular play.  That said, if I purchased cards printed on photo paper without backside printing -- something that by lack of ommission would cause me to think that I somehow got a batch of misprints -- I would feel totally ripped off.

Every card game I've seen and every deck of playing cards that were not prototypes for card games all had the backside printing.  Not only would a deck without a print on the back look out of place, but the back print art helps to obscure the face if your paper is not as opaque as you would like. 

You mentioned PDF copies of the game -- as a total aside, how do these work?  Do you include an all backs page for the customer to print out?  Have you heard from your customers about benefits or problems when trying to print out the PDF versions?

Re: PDFs - Actually, I don't include the back side image, and I don't think that I ever would. After my own test prints, I know for a fact its a bad idea. Considering that we're talking pro-CCG production level on the print runs (been complimented many times over on the design and artwork for the game), we have full color faces, full color artwork, and a 95% black card back with the game's logo. Even on sturdier stock, this sucks on a home printer as the bleed through from one side or the other makes the cards look funky (I'll probably have some of my original samples in my big box of tricks at GenCon if you want to look me up.)
On top of that, I wouldn't ask that of home printers. Printing them off, full color front and full color back, would eat their ink cartredges alive.

Now, on the other hand, the PDF customers have had no issue with this. Granted, I don't include the back image, keeps the file size lower by a meg or few. They're content to print their decks and play it would seem with nary a quibble except for an early complaint about card placement on the sheet (each sheet contains 6 cards, of which some players want more prints than others). I'm also charging $1 per deck or pack for the PDF, so I imagine price factors into the "Should I have a problem with this or not?" concept.

Nate, have you thought about selling pre-cut stock on your website?  I have done business with perforated papers and they have developed a 3 x 3 card sheet on 8.5" x 11" 80 pound cover stock.  It's a little thin, but it's VERY easy to print on and separate.  To make it look good, you the developer, have to design your cards so that there's an additional black border around the 3 x 3 block so that when they are printed out, if they are off a millimeter or two the card borders still look good.

I think that if you get RPGNOW to advertise this stuff and all card publishers use that format it would be a boon.  Players who like buying your stuff could order a block of paper and print as many cards as they want.  With a few layout tweaks Greg Porter over at BTRC could use this layout too.

It makes the labor of producing a card game very low for the end user.

I honestly think people aren't going to pay a lot to get photopaper cards.  Offer it as a service if you want, but don't try to take them into distribution or anything like that.

I think you are better off just advertising that you sell hard copy versions done via your postcard printers technique.

To answer your question -- since I have to playtest my own game, I'm used to sleeving light cardstock and it doesn't, in any way, deter me from playing a PDF game.  I'm a little strange on that front.

The only PDF board/card game I thought was silly was Witchstones, which expected you to cut out tons of tiny chits, put them in a bag, and draw them out to play.  Without quality counters, that's just gonna be a pain in the butt and damage the chits quickly.

For PDF games I think you do NOT need the backs printed if the sales are direct.

I think your price point at $8.00 is too high for an inkjet deck.  I'd much prefer to have a block of microperforated card stock and printing out what I wanted when I wanted it.  That's me, though.  I have access to reasonably cheap ink, so that affects my decision.

I could certainly see people paying $4.00 for an inkjet set of cards, but if shipping was extra then I cannot see people paying like $4.00 plus any substantial shipping.

- Shipping not involved. Shipping is, essentially, free. And no player assembly, aside from sleeving the cards.
- Not inkjet printing. $8 would be too high for an inkjet deck, agreed. $4 is the cost to produce the deck. At $5, I'm still selling my game for $1, just like I'm doing with the PDFs, so thats a viable price point.

I presumed you'd be inkjet printing because you mentioned that kind of stock.  What will the type of coloring be: toner, solid ink, inkjet ink?  Will there be a press coat or a plastic coat applied to the surfaces?  Will the corners be rounded?  Also, keep in mind that if you don't need actual photopaper then, if you want, you could offset print a WHOLE BUNCH of backs and cut the sheets down to whatever size you want your press sheets to be.

I'd recommend a 300 GSM C2S stock, Nate, unless you can't print on that because of the printer you are using.

We have a PDF version of our printed card game Zombie Rally, and it's selling slowly, but it's picking up steam. We mainly did it because we wanted a PDF alternative to buying the printed version of the game for our overseas customers who either don't want to pay more for shipping or don't trust their local mail service. Also, it was pretty easy to crank out a PDF from the files we produced to make the printed version.

We do include the card back file just in case someone wants it. We suggest in a readme file in the ZIP that they could print the cards out on regular paper and tape them to old Magic cards, or do that and put them in sleeves, or whatever. We feel we should give as many options to our customers as possible. And if they want to print out card backs, more power to them.

As far as our printed game is concerned, we kind of follow the orginial Cheapass games design (like the original Give Me the Brain): we print one color black on colored cardstock (about the thickness of a business card) and they don't have rounded edges. The game includes 54 cards, a 4.25"x11" instructions sheet (printed both sides), a color front card and it all comes in a small zip lock poly bag. We sell it for $5.95 and it's been selling very well (thanks, Key20!) to the point where we only have about 100 left out of our original 550 units printed.

We did have one "review" (on Board Game Geek) say that the cards seemed cheap, but then he followed it up with the fact that the game was under six bucks, so he got what he paid for. Card games can have a pretty high tactile bar for some players, and if you fall under that they better not have paid too much for the game.

So in closing, if your cards are perceived to be cheaply made or home printed (no backs or printed on photo paper) then I doubt people would be happy to pay $8 for them unless the game was really, really engaging. I haven't seen your final product, so I can't say for sure, but $8 might be too high of a price.

How many cards are in the game?

So in closing, if your cards are perceived to be cheaply made or home printed (no backs or printed on photo paper) then I doubt people would be happy to pay $8 for them unless the game was really, really engaging. I haven't seen your final product, so I can't say for sure, but $8 might be too high of a price.

I for one didn't think you were attacking his game.  It sounded like you were talking about perceived quality based on the materials the components were made of.  And I agree overall.

People would rather pay $15.00 for a game that's on good stock that's professionally printed rather than pay $8.00 for a game that's on photopaper printed on one side that they have to cut out by hand.  Now, quality of game can overcome that hurdle.  Also, having the game pre-cut at that price could be possible.  People certainly spend $7.00 on some Cheapass Games, but only because they can play them pretty much out of the box.  If I had to handcut like 100 cards to have two decks of playable cards and then sleeve them.  Well, now that starts sounding like a lot of labor.

That's why I feel that people would actually prefer lower grade stock that's microperforated to a higher quality photopaper that they have to handcut each card out of.

So, I think I agree with your overall question of just how the price point can be given that the material is not going to be of typical industry component material quality for a customizable card game.

Veritas wrote:
If I had to handcut like 100 cards to have two decks of playable cards and then sleeve them.  Well, now that starts sounding like a lot of labor.

daMoose_Neo wrote:
Okay - I'm going to say this once more cause I understand how Lee could have missed this: There is NO player assembly, cutting, etc. involved. Just pick up the cards, throw them in a sleeve.

I think I see where the confusion is.  The POD solution in the first post would have no assembly by the end user.  The PDF version would require assembly.

Thomas has got it.
The recieving end of the order could/would cut the order to spec before the customer ever picks it up. Thats why I would send directions. The customer, however, would just pick it up and throw it in sleeves. Lot less work.

That's where I was confused.  I didn't know that the receiving organization had people that could/would cut the cards out for the end user.  You said that the cards would print out uncut with instructions to cut them out.  I didn't realize that there was a third party cutting them out.

$4.00 for that might not be bad then.  Again, if it's just yet another option for receiving the cards, why not?

I would recommend changing your 8.5" x 11" layout to nine cards per page.  The six card layout just wastes paper, and if people are printing on more expensive photopaper at home that is not a good thing.

Considering that.
But yea, the recieving organization can cut the order. For the most part, a deck is going to be 20-30 prints to trim down, and believe me they have worse orders than that. I tested it, took me a couple extra minutes to cut that down.
It'd be at LEAST $4 for the cost of the printing. For experimental purposes, with the releases that are out now, I can run that as an introductory rate to test this whole thing, and advertise that as such for anyone interested. Later releases, if I persue this avenue, would need a small hike to cover the costs of producing the images in the first place (time laying out & testing, artwork, etc) to make it worth anything, else I'm essentially giving it away.

daMoose_Neo wrote:
As a consumer, is a stock equivalent to photo paper a functional or downright poor choice for "card" stock? Would you sleeve such a deck to play? I currently charge $8 USD per deck that I sell - costs of this printing method would allow for 1-off, true POD printing, and *cost* $4 to print. Would an $8 price point on this POD deck with weaker stock affect a decision to purchase? Would knowing the cost to print, and what I as a designer would need to recoup on other expenses affect a decision? Would the "cards" need backside printing, or is that negligible?

Hmmkay, I understand standard inkjet material is poor. Very poor. Hence why it isn't being used and is not even considered an option. Just to repeat: this is not inkjet printed in any way, shape, or form, so no inkjet level stock, no inkjet level printing, and certainly no other assembly required.
As for the other, I would disagree that card players wouldn't have sleeves. For the most part they're cheap enough for one, and for two CCG players do seek to protect their investment.

Nate, great to meet you in person at GENCON.  Chiming in, I've got to say that most adult CCG players have sleeves if they play in tournaments.  Magic the Gathering's marked cards rules are so ridiculous that it's practically impossible to play in Magic constructed deck tournaments without sleeves.

Too, sleeves are available rather cheaply. So between the cost of obtaining them in the rare event a player doesn't have them to how common they actually are among players, I'd say their use isn't an incredible burden.

Awesome meeting at the show too ^_^ DJ says hey as well, as unfortunetly he was unable to make it~