In general, our philosophy for making products is: If enough people say they want it, we’ll probably make it.
Examples of this range from products like the Wingspan Nesting Box and the Scythe modular board to reprints. After gathering enough back-in-stock requests, we recently started a reprint of the Ignorance Is Bliss expansion for Euphoria.
However, the most recent example has me doubting this approach, or at least reconsidering the surrounding factors and methods.
By far the most requested Wingspan product (other than the Nesting Box and new expansions) over the last few years have been vision-friendly cards. At first they were just individual requests, and when I received enough of them, I posted a poll asking if packs of vision-friendly cards were legitimately something people would pay for if we made them. The answer was a resounding yes.
We took our time to develop the right format for the cards, as they needed to be the same size as normal Wingspan bird cards to fit on the player mats. We consulting with several vision-impairment experts and graphic designers, and we asked questions and joined conversations in the Wingspan Facebook group about what people would like to see in a vision-friendlier format.
The changes were much more substantial than just increasing the font size. We stripped away any visual clutter that wasn’t absolutely necessary for comprehending a card, we made icons darker (and sometimes bigger, if necessary), and we reformatted the power area (larger text, different font, higher contrast, and black text on a white background overlaid on the power’s color swatch in the background). Even the “cm” moved from next to the wingspan to below it, making the number stand out better.
We produced a small print run of the cards (2500 units per set) and announced them in our newsletter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and on this blog. They’ve been on our webstore for the last month.
But no one bought them.
Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. 175 people bought them. I very much appreciate those customers, but this is easily our worst-ever product launch.
I’ve spent the last few weeks pondering what went wrong and what I should learn from this experience. Here are my takeaways and questions:
- Is the problem the product itself? Perhaps this is a product people want in general, but not specifically the way we designed or packaged it. A few people asked why we didn’t just make vision-friendly versions of the games or expansions, but given the sales data, I’m really glad we didn’t go that route. That said, this is yet another reminder that we need to make each of our products as vision-friendly from day 1 (something we’ve significantly increased our focus on over the last few years).
- Is the price the problem? The bird cards are a significant portion of Wingspan, and I felt the price needed to reflect that, especially with our 20% discount for Champions. The core set of cards costs $25 ($20 for Champions), while each expansion set costs $15 ($12 for Champions). If you buy a vision-friendly pack at the same time as the matching expansion or core set, you get another discount. But perhaps it’s quite difficult to get over paying more for cards you already paid for.
- Is it too soon? Some people have told me they plan to buy the cards at some point, but they didn’t want to create an order just for the cards.
- Do the right people know the product exists? 1.7 million people own a copy of Wingspan, but we only reach those who choose to follow us in some way. One recent suggestion is that we focus on encouraging the people who follow us to think about the person in their life who loves Wingspan but struggles to read the cards (i.e., market the product as a gift).
- Did we not gauge demand accurately? I need to make sure the early surveys are accurate and feedback is prevalent. Indicating that you will buy a product is a very different decision space than actually entering your credit card. Perhaps these types of niche products are those for which crowdfunding is the best match.
- Thought from the future: One idea I mentioned in the comments is a way that we could ask people to put down a small deposit before production begins to support an idea that may or may not exist by using $5 webstore gift cards. If we’re curious about demand for an accessory, rather than sending a survey (or in addition to a survey), before we go to print we say, “If you want us to make this accessory, buy a $5 webstore gift card from us sometime in the next week. If we get enough of those orders to reach a reasonable minimum order quantity, we’ll make the product, and you can use that credit to buy it. If we don’t get enough orders, you now have $5 you can spend on our webstore as you wish.”
- Is it a special case to which sales aren’t relevant? Sometimes we do things at Stonemaier Games simply because they’re fun or because we feel that they’re the right thing to do, and that’s reason enough. Design Day, our annual charity auction, our April Fools products, and our eco-friendly Wingspan trays all cut into our profits more than not doing them, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do them.
- Do some people prefer the the feedback loop itself more than the actual results? I’ve noticed this pattern over the years: I can give some people exactly what they requested, but instead of them buying it, they just have more feedback. This happened with the Scythe modular board, the Wingspan Nesting Box, product bundles, etc. I appreciate the passion of these customers and their willingness to participate, but I need to understand that not all feedback translates to purchases.
This one experience hasn’t deterred me from listening to customers, trying to make products that serve a need, and using feedback to improve our future products. It’s just opened my eyes to how I approach the process of hearing and acting on requests.
What do you think? What’s the lesson here, and how can we apply it in the future? Also, if you’d like to check out the vision-friendly cards, we have plenty on our webstore!
***
Also read:
- Kickstarter Lesson #20: Flexibility, Filtering, and Responding to Feedback
- Kickstarter Lesson #48: It’s Okay to Say No
If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.
142 Comments on “If You Want It, We’ll Make It…but Will You Buy It?”
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European customer here!
I discovered the Vision Friendly card by mistake, after findout that my in-laws had trouble reading the card text (which is very important).
However, although I am initially willing to buy it, I think for European customer the price is a bit too high. At the time of writing, A fresh copy of Wingspan in Germany costs around 40 euros, while the core cards are 30 euros on SM store. So, I would have to invest 70+ euros to get a game that can be enjoyed more by in-laws (I have normal vision and for me is something hard to read the text on the cards!).
I think that expecting that customers 75% more for having vision-friendly cards is not realistic. IMHO these should have the standard version of the cards instead of the original and people with limited vision should’t have to pay this expensive tax.
I would hope that in next pritings of WS or expansion, the cards are more vision friendly, alternative ways / cheaper ways to upgrade the cars are made available.
Mikkel: Wingspan is a bit more expensive than that. :) If you buy it on our Europe webstore and you add the vision-friendly cards, you save 40% on the cards. And Stonemaier Champions save another 20% on everything they order.
That’s the method we’ll continue to use: The cards are the heart of the game, and their value is high (to the game or any expansion). But if you order the game or an expansion from us, you can add the respective vision-friendly pack at a very steep discount.
[…] If You Want It, We’ll Make It…but Will You Buy It? […]
I took the plunge during the recent sale and bought 3 complete sets. They’ve gotten great reviews from all players, including those with excellent vision.
One user complained that it made it harder for her to see the power colour, but she also decided never to go back to the original cards.
This is an excellent product, and thank you to the team at Stonemaier for making it.
Thank you, JRT! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the new sets. I see the point about how the power colors are a little more difficult to see–thank you for that feedback!
In my case I’m definitely planning on grabbing them for my low vision partner, but waiting to add them on to Ignorance is Bliss when it’s back. :) So from my perspective it’s something I plan on purchasing in the near future, but since I already have a version and we make do with magnifiers, I don’t need it so urgently I can’t wait for a bit. I do expect it will speed up our play a lot, so I’m excited they exist.
One thing to that came to mind is a chunk of the visually impaired community in the US only gets paid once a month and some of that chunk isn’t allowed much savings without losing their health care. So it may take a month or three to move on it, even if they heard about it in advance.
I appreciate your insights, Alix!
Thanks for the reminder that these vision-friendly Wingspan cards existed! When these were first announced, I made a mental note to purchase them, but forgot. Just ordered mine today.
I think the vision-friendly cards are a great idea – I have long wished that designers would take this into account in the design phase for all new games.
On another note, I’m loving the Wingspan disc golf disc (but would have loved to know the weight of the disc in grams before purchasing). Glad to see that you have discovered disc golf.
Thanks Clare! I agree about the importance of vision-friendly design from the start. As for our discs, sometimes they vary based on the printing, but in general most are 175g.
I heard from some folks they didn’t order because they already have the cards that came with the game and they’ll “make do”. I bought a set for my mom … she’s notorious for only reading half of a bird’s powers and charging forward without doing all the actions. Ha! These cards meant she had no excuse not to read the entire thing!! I find with accessibility work, it falls more into the “right thing to do” category. You’re not going to make a wild profit, but what it means to the people it helps and affects is huge. For me, it was another example of the amazing work you all do – listening, understanding and respecting your customers. So, thank you!
Thanks Claire! I’m okay with the “right thing to do” category…we probably just should have made fewer of them. :)
How many people would like a Stonemaier wooden dice tray?
Me…….
We’ve considered it as an April Fools item. Is there something specific you want out of a Stonemaier tray that you can’t already get from any number of custom dice trays?
Hi Jamey, I appreciate you posting this because it reminded me to order a set for the core game (which I just did). Wingspan is still the most frequently played game for my wife and I. Our play count is somewhere north of 200 times. I was among those who got in on the pre-release orders, and we have played the game so many times that some of our original bird cards have “broken” due to the number of times that desk has been shuffled. So this release is a timely solution for us!
Thanks Matt! I’m glad you’ve gotten so many plays out of Wingspan. :)
maybe you could create an in-house backer platform for new products like this. create a funding page, give it a completion level and time frame, and maybe just create one pledge level that is 50% of the projected cost of each unit. if the project reaches the funding goal, maybe the campaign backers get a 10% discount on the cost ( 5% if they are a champion member ) if funding is unsuccessful, you can gauge what needs to change, or cancel altogether.
Agreed. GMT Games has been using its P500 ordering system for *years*. Buyers *approve* of a charge, and when they have 500 such buyers, their cards *are* charged. While GMT customers are still paying much like a webstore, I think there’s more commitment involved per buyer, even if perhaps there are fewer actual buyers than those who are “just interested”. https://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTP500Details.aspx
If you can tell me a Shopify plugin with that functionality, I would be happy to check it out.
I just ordered the full set of cards. With getting older, I’m having a harder time reading small fonts and reading in a darker room. I’ve never been able to read the bird facts on the bottom without a magnifying glass, and have noticed it takes a bit of effort to read the bottom half of the card. It’s a luxury to buy these cards (but all of boardgaming is a luxury), and it will definitely be more enjoyable to easily read the cards. I’ve held off for a while since it’s the cost of another game, but I enjoy Wingspan and will get my money’s worth out of it.
Thanks Karen! I hope the cards make Wingspan even more fun for you. :)
I did not hear about this product, or I overlooked it via “the usual channels”. This is actually something I will buy. However, quite coincidentally, I just nominated this product for next month’s featured product. Selfishly, I will be waiting to see if that is the case and hopefully buy at a small discount.
Would something like GMT P500 be useful for these types of products? You allow people to make the order, and you don’t charge them until you have the minimum number of orders you think are reasonable (GMT uses around 500 orders).
Sometimes it takes time to get the product to print, but that way when it gets there, you know you have the orders for it.
Thanks! A lot of people have mentioned this system, and here’s my blog post about it: https://stonemaiergames.com/my-thoughts-on-the-p500-program/
In terms of this specific situation about gauging demand for an uncertain product, we don’t have a way of accepting potential payments, and it locks in the price for something that could be priced quite differently depending on demand. I think it’s a clever system but niche products, and the workaround I mention in a few places that we could consider is to ask people to reserve a potential copy of the product by buying a $5 webstore gift card within a specific timeframe. We would use that information to decide if we should make the product, and if we don’t, people still have a $5 gift card they can use on the webstore for anything they want.
I bought over forty Stonemaier products in the past year alone. Yet, I have no desire to buy vision friendly cards because of two reasons. They seem to be created for a specific subset of customers, and because of inadequate product differentiation.
All my friends around me who love Wingspan independently and consistently tell me that they love Wingspan because of the bird facts on the cards. At least two friends told me “Even the wingspan information of birds on the cards are real”. To have these information removed is, for me, a very significant downgrade. Out of the 117 comments on this thread, only one person (Brian C) has made this downgrade point on this thread. Many comments on this thread are enthusiastic about the existence of vision friendly cards – which of course are valid views and opinions – yet sale figures are low. To me, this perhaps illustrates that some people are enthusiastic in expressing their valid views, yet there is a silent majority who have not expressed their differing views due to indifference to the proposed vision friendly cards, or the worry of looking bad for voicing against inclusivity. The silent majority is, perhaps, reflected by the sales figure. I appreciate the vocal views that this product should exist for corporate social responsibility, but this exactly signifies that the existence of these cards are not because of popular demand. Vision friendly cards will benefit some people, and it is the right thing to do. However, for most customers of Wingspan these vision friendly cards represent a significant downgrade, meaning they are unlikely to be flying off shelves.
Another point is that, the only immediately noticeable difference between the vision friendly cards and the original cards is the white box in the coloured banner that explains the card effect. The other changes do not appear immediately obvious. There appears to be inadequate product differentiation between the vision friendly cards and the original cards.
The specific subset of customers who will benefit from the vision friendly cards are likely not reading Stonemaier websites, newsletters and blogs, given their specific visual needs. I know first hand how stressful it is to be sitting on stock that doesn’t sell – so I do hope you will reach them very soon.
Thanks Gordon! I think there are plenty of people who value the bird facts–we were aware of this, and that’s why we see value in some people having both sets of cards (the version included in the game and the vision-friendly versions for those who want it).
As for the noticeable difference, check out the photo on this page, as it makes the difference in readability quite clear: https://stonemaiergames.com/games/wingspan/accessories/
I think they look great, but I didn’t really know about them (didn’t indicate that any interest). That being said, we have all content and to replace our cards would be costly and a time consuming act due to all of our cards being sleeved. I know it doesn’t make sense to change the cards in production because you will have so many style mismatches. But if a new edition of wingspan comes out, it might be good to update the cards with the new ones!
But they are pretty cool!
[…] this which I saw recently is the new vision-friendly cards for Wingspan. Stonemaier Games created a special pack of cards to help make the game more accessible, but how do they inform the 1.7 million people who own the […]
Hi Jamey,
My thoughts here may be a little different.
Have you considered why so many people asked for a card design that was easier to use?
Designing cards, rulebooks and components to show information clearly and concisely helps all players (young and old) have a better game experience. I imagine this would minimise requests for vision-friendly versions and be better for the environment too!
Regarding Wingspan, I see aspects of the card design that can improve the original and vision-friendly cards.
The following thoughts are based on what I see in the cards, there may be valid reasons why some design decisions have been made that I am unaware of.
– simplify the icons. The water icon – one wave, the forest – one tree, the grass – two blades, and remove the shaft from the feather icon.
– open up the spaces between icons (the diamonds and food) and the + / symbols.
– remove the grey panel behind the icons – this will improve contrast and legibility, providing additional space to increase the icon sizes.
– remove the keyline around the bird name, this will create space for a larger font size.
– for the body text (in the colour panel) choose a typeface that is more open and legible at smaller sizes.
– use a common colour for the secondary icons (feathers, nesting, eggs). This will make them visually easier to look at.
– add the wingspan icon below the feather, nesting, eggs etc. icons, so that it sits with all icons. Minimising effort to locate icons helps with card usability.
It would be interesting to know if you have had similar requests for vision-friendly cards or components for other Stonemaier games or whether it is a common request across the game industry. Given the world’s aging population, I imagine any vision-friendly game would be well received.
Presenting information more clearly can help make gameplay easier and more enjoyable for everyone so it should be a consideration early in the design process.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Hi Jamey. I am a graphic designer and like making thing better. Apologies in advance but I have tinkered with the Wingspan card artwork. If you would like to see a visual that incorporates my design thoughts please let me know. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts too.
Thanks
David
“It would be interesting to know if you have had similar requests for vision-friendly cards or components for other Stonemaier games or whether it is a common request across the game industry.”
We’ve heard this for a few of our games regarding font size and contrast, so it’s something we’ve been working on. You’re always welcome to share ideas in forums like this, BGG, and the Wingspan Facebook group. The biggest thing I’ve heard from Wingspan fans is they like consistency–they do not want us to suddenly redesign the cards and one expansion’s cards look different from the cards they already have.
Thanks Jamey. I agree that consistency is important, but I am certain changes that provide a positive result would be welcome.
Good to hear you are working on improving legibility overall.
Feel free to share on the Wingspan Facebook group to see if others are certain about that as well. You might be surprised by how important consistency is to people who have already invested hundreds of dollars into a game. :)
There a number of factors at play here. Personally this is a great design idea and product, and I hope you continue doing this.
I think this a primary a marketing issue and the challenges of position a product for the visually impaired when this is a great example of universal design that benefits everyone,
No one wants to be sold on a product that questions their ability to use a product. You can google a number of case studies on the psychology of buying products. Marketing your product to explicitly target an audience with disabilities or impairments limits your audience, make its so that its not for people who are not disabled or impaired.
When it fact everyone benefits from great design. This is a core idea in universal design theory.
Take for example curb cuts. They were initially designed to make side of the road more accessible for wheelchairs. However they are beneficial to everyone not just those in wheelchairs. The product was never sold as product for the wheelchair bound but beneficial to make road more accessible to everyone.
I would love to see these visual impaired designed cards in the next print run of Wingspan replacing and standard set. Then just marketing it as a new and improved version/run/edition of Wingspan just like you did in later runs with more sustainable packaging.
As someone who got the Asian cards instantly when they were released, I think they are amazing, and it’s great that you offered them, not only for people with vision impairment, but also for people like me, who did not want to own the entire Asian expansion, but just the cards, as an expansion to the base game.
I originally bought the Asian expansion, but the duet mode was not for me and I felt bad owning so much extra content that I wasn’t going to use, so I sold the expansion, despite liking the cards.
I didn’t mind the price of the cards potentially being relatively pricey, as long as I feel less wasteful about owning the content. I wonder if this would be something that you could market more strongly, perhaps there is more people like me?
Thanks again for offering the cards!
Thanks! I’m glad you mentioned that other purpose the cards serve, and you’re right that I could market that aspect better. I’ll make a modification to that effect in tomorrow’s newsletter.
I don’t know how your question was worded. Was there some room for interpretation if buying the cards was in addition or as an alternative?
Because I can see that paying extra for a possible improvement is a harder sell, then having the choice to buy Wingspan (or an expansion) only with the new cards.
I understand that this is way more difficult and expensive to produce all Wingspan boxes with alternative card versions.
It was worded as an extra product, with each set costing around $20.
Then I’m surprised as you are.
to answer your question my husband’s level of “will it improve his ability to read it” really varies, so it is not like if font is 20% bigger he will for sure be able to read easier. I srongly suggest you bring them to Gencon for people to see them live, then if it help then they will buy it. Because we already have the game I understand you have costs but I would only ‘double buy’ if the actual product fits our needs.. otherwise we stay with the cards we have. Also Wingspan doesn’t come out as often so if I spend another 100$ to buy then we also need to make sure we will play at least a few times.
Yep, we’ll definitely have them at Gen Con. I think it’s also pretty clear to see the difference the new format makes in the comparison photo on this page: https://stonemaiergames.com/games/wingspan/accessories/
I apologize in advance for the long post. I’m so sad to hear this, as I believe the idea of making cards specifically for vision-impaired people is amazing and shows everyone how much you care about your customers. I believe that there should be a considerable market for this, and I’m so glad that you went the extra mile to make it happen. I feel for you… I haven’t expressed any interest in buying these cards, as I’ve already bought every other Wingspan product from your store, and as such, I already have all the cards. Last year it was found that I have cataracts (although just in the early stages), so these products will be more and more relevant for me as the years go by. I’ve followed the news about these products with great interest for quite some time, but I have to say that there are a couple of possible deterrents for me at the moment.
I’m afraid the Nesting Box will have lots of problems fitting double the amount of cards (both the regular cards and these versions), as I sleeve all my cards (using 80 microns Arcane Tinmen sleeves). I really love the great amount of detail of the original cards, especially the where-to-find-the-bird-map in the lower left corner, as I usually play with 1) only cards from the base game, 2) only cards from two expansions or, 3) with all the birds that live in Europe, where I live (whether the bird cards are from the base game or from an expansion), obviously in a vanilla version without bonus cards, as the percentages are off. This third way is especially good for teaching the game, playing with small children, or playing with none-gamers, as most of the birds will be familiar to the players, but for the other ways of playing I would much prefer going with these new versions.
I don’t think I can bear throwing away the original cards for that reason alone, but my eye-sight is detoriating markedly, so I’ve wanted to buy these easier-to-read-cards in addition to the regular ones for quite some time. Reading this makes me worry that you might not finish this product line, or that you may make it print-on-demand from now on, so that the card backs may not look consistent throughout the whole range. Can you say, with any confidence, that you will finish the whole product line of Wingspan cards for vision-impaired customers without switching to print-on-demand at any point? Do you believe the Nesting Box will eventually hold both copies of all the cards, preferably sleeved? If the answer to both of these questions are yes, I’ll order all of the new cards currently on the market at once (I already have them in my shopping cart, actually).
I very much appreciate you sharing this, Øyvind, and I’m really sorry to hear about the cataracts. You make a good point about fitting everything in the Nesting Box. There’s a lot of room in the bottom layer, but it isn’t made to fit sleeved duplicates of every card. The Nesting Box can fit everything you need to play the game, though, so perhaps that’s enough?
We will make these cards for every set, and we’ll make them available at the same time as the first printing. However, due to what happened with this first printing of these cards, we’ll probably just make the minimum order quantity of 1500 units. That might be more than enough…or it might be not even close to enough if a lot of people suddenly decide they want them if they’re getting them at the same time as they expansion (and at a steep discount). More surveys may be needed. :)
Heck, I’ll even order them at once if you can say yes to my first question about finishing the product line without a change to the format. I don’t have to have all the cards sleeved in the box, I only need to sleeve the cards I’ll be using in each game. This will clearly add some set-up time, but I’m so used to sleeving, from sleeving almost all of my several hundred games, that I do it kind of subconsciously, anyway. I’m pretty sure the Nesting Box will eventually hold two of each card, if none of the cards are sleeved inside the box, if the three remaining expansions have more or less the same amount of cards as the three current expansions. :)
“if you can say yes to my first question about finishing the product line without a change to the format.”
Yes, I’m fully committed to doing that. :)
Thanks a lot! Champion order upcoming (Europe store)! I’ll add a couple of items for a fellow Wingspan-fan whose birthday was last week. :)
Thanks! Also, in the 0.01% chance that something completely unexpected happens and we don’t make more vision-friendly cards, I’ll personally refund the purchase you’re making today. I really don’t see that happening, but the future isn’t always 100% certain, even for things I have nearly full control over. :)
As someone who did actually order the cards, I’m really glad you made them and I’m sorry they aren’t selling as well as you hoped they would.
My wife doesn’t have any diagnosed vision impairment, but she’s always had trouble with the Wingspan cards. She can usually read the cards in her hand and on her board, but she has trouble if the three faceup cards are any distance away from her (and figuring out what birds do on another player’s board is right out). She’s never been able to articulate why Wingspan cards are so much harder for her to read than other games with similar-sized text, but it has made it significantly harder for her to enjoy the game.
We were pretty excited for these and I ordered all of them (Core + Expansions) on day one. They really do seem to help and it’s getting the game back into the rotation around here. I just hope they didn’t flop so badly that you won’t want to do them for subsequent expansions. It will be a shame if we can’t get them for the remaining continents.
We really appreciate you making them available!
Thank you, Ron! I’m glad you mentioned that these cards have utility beyond those who have severe vision impairment. This is also a good reminder that we need to continue to improve the vision-friendliness of our components from day 1.
Coming from a web development background, this feels somewhat familiar. There are WCAG guidelines to which a website needs to adhere to be friendly (or just usable) to people with disabilities for example. This requires extra work (so often extra budget) from a design and development standpoint, but also, in my opinion, sometimes limits creativity or possibilities, because some stuff just doesn’t work for WCAG (be it color contrasts, animations, …), and then I also wonder, is it worth making the experience “worse” for 90% of the users, to make it usable for those remaining 10%.
It’s not 100% the same, since this is a seperate pack people can buy. So here it’s more of a question you need to ask yourselves: “is it worth the budget we spent on this, just to make the game playable for these 175 people, who otherwise couldn’t enjoy our game”.
But, as you said yourself, if you want to be user friendly, you need to commit to it, from day one, and it will cost extra budget and might make the game visually a bit less appealing.
Also, I’m obviously not the target audience, but I didn’t know about these until someone posted this article on facebook..
Thank you for sharing this, Steven. You’re right, that is a question we need to ask, especially now that we have sales data for this initial attempt.
Great post! I so appreciate how you run your business and the transparency and engagement with your customers.
We don’t have a need for the vision impaired wingspan cards, but they look very well done as is always the case with Stonemaier.
We love wingspan and have all the expansions and so far this year Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig is our most played game! Keep up the great work!
Thank you, Matt! :)
I work in accessibility, and I see this often — products designed to provide access for a specific disability (in this case visual impairment) don’t do well, and it’s frankly because no one has actually reached out to that community in a meaningful way. Their experience is that games in general are not released with accessibility in mind, and they are not going out of their way to see if maybe something happened to be released as an afterthought (that would require them to pay more than the cost of the base game, too).
I’m sure there are FB groups and Discords for visually impaired board gamers. I would suggest starting there and engaging with them, and listening to their feedback first and foremost.
You’re right, and I think this is the fault of an assumption on my part: As I mentioned, the reason we made these cards is because people–many of whom are visually impaired gamers–reached out to me to request them and offer specifics on what we wanted. All of that feedback went into creating the cards. My assumption is that those same people, given their investment in us making these cards, were also following Stonemaier Games or Wingspan and would know if/when we made them. Perhaps that is the case with some of them, but it seems not all of them. So the responsibility is on me to reach out to those communities to let them know. I’ve done a little bit of that so far, but I can definitely do more.
Just to clarify, the core game vision-friendly card pack ($25) does not cost more than the cost of the core game ($65).
When you get older you might need glasses (most people do) for reading at close range. But there are things you can do in order to help to improve vision like light and glasses. What game designers can do is to consider contrast. I have a lot of games and I find it harder to read dark text on colored backgrounds that are “darker”. WebAIM “dot” org have a useful tool that checks contrast. Why not try the test on the original Wingspan cards and analyse the result?
The vision friendly cards you have printed seems at first glance easier to read :). The question is would one pay the extra money for them? It would be better if game designers would address this issue in the design phase so that extra prints are not needed.
Your games are great!
I didn’t even know about the vision-friendly cards until I happened to notice them while coming to the site to look up something for Tapestry. They don’t seem to have been mentioned anywhere else, so my hunch is that a lot of potential buyers may not know they’re here and ready to purchase right now, instead of just being a “Stonemaier is going to do this at some point in the future” product.
If I were in your position I would feel very frustrated because I did what I thought people wanted and in the end my investment did not pay off. It may not be the right words, but I would feel like my trust was broken: I trusted what people said is what they meant, but maybe it wasn’t what they meant.
I don’t really know the whole process of how the vision-friendly cards were made. I don’t have vision impairment (yet) so I cannot speak at all from that perspective. I do know though, that I am near-sighted, so if I want to read the card without my glasses, then yes I’m legally blind and I would have to bring the card closer to my face to read. I’m not sure the font size makes that big of a difference for me, I would still have to bring the card close to my face even with the larger font size – based off of looking at the cards side-by-side on the computer, the difference for me is 2 centimeters.
So for me, with myopia I don’t feel like the cards make that much of an improvement. But that’s just me! As an analogy: drug A and drug B cures the common cold. If you take drug A you can get better in 3 days. If you take drug B, you can get better in 2 days, 23 hours and 50 minutes. The difference is an improvement of 10 minutes, but does it really matter?Especially if drug A cost $100?
The font is better because it’s wider and larger obviously. Maybe people were hoping for something like more icons and less text which I don’t know if that’s possible. I honestly thought there was going to be braille on the cards. Or maybe a QR code that can be scanned – I have no idea what tools are available.
I can’t remember if I took this survey or not. But if I was asked, should we offer vision-friendly cards or not, I may say yes even if I wouldn’t benefit from it. It would be like asking, should we have homeless shelters or not? That is super extreme but as a consumer, if I’m not putting money down I may not really consider what I personally want or need.
Things that can be learned: I think for what it is worth, at least Stonemaier is championing accessibility and that does not go unnoticed. So by offering this product, Stonemaier shows that they care for smaller groups within the larger community. And if they care about a small group, then maybe they care about other small, neglected groups.
It might not be a useful assessment to compare sales with your typical products. People with impairments are a minority group and so it might just take more time for the ball to get rolling – maybe the product needs more word-of-mouth spread. Even within this minority group are more subgroups that may not even benefit from this product so the number of potential customers may be smaller than the demand estimated from the survey. This group may even have large, untapped populations of potential gamers. So while this product may not be as successful in the short run, I think it’s an investment in the future.
Excellent comment, Alaena–a lot of this resonates with me. And you’re right, perhaps I’ve rushed to a conclusion here and should be patient to see how news of this spreads in the vision impairment community.
Did you check with low vision specialists about the type of font used? I will likely buy them in the next month or two when I refill my game budget. But, from photos, the font is a little tough still for me. Times new Roman or other basic fonts with a blend of curves and straight lines work better. Less-used fonts aren’t as easy to guess some of the letter pieces or shapes you may not see as well.
Absolutely! The font, size, and kerning were big discussion points that the experts weighed in on. I appreciate your feedback too, though!
Another possibility that might have worked for something like this would be setting up the product availability at a print-on-demand vendor; there are some that will allow you to list products, set pricing, and protect your IP. The resulting cards would not be as high-quality as the originals, and would cost more, but for niche addons this strikes me as a way to provide an option without having to risk anything more than the design labor.
Thanks a good point!
It might just be timing. Certainly as cards get worn replacing them with these will be great option. Also, on my birthday or Christmas list for some of my wingspan friends.
It took awhile before I upgraded to the expansions, and the box, and a wooden dice tower. I see the in the future as well as upgraded meeples. These cards are now on that future list also!
My very personal opinion is that having to pay for cards that are already part of the game but that can’t be used effectively might feel a bit too much for some people.
Games have increased in price and some people will actually expect the vision-friendly cards to come for free.
I also think that those people pointing out they would prefer tho have the whole game or expansion with the vision-friendly cards actually mean why not develop the game with vision-friendly cards in mind instead of having to create Ann”accessibility” pack later?
If the card design had taken into account readability from day 0, there would be no need for additional cards.
My last concern about translations. Wingspan is available in how many? 7? 10? 12 different languages?
I think that most owners of non-English versions will never buy English language card pack because that would create a new barrier while trying to take another one down. I have the game and all the expansions in Italian language and I’m not aware of such vision-friendly packs from the Italian publisher. It would make no sense for me to replace all the Italian cards with English cards to increase readability, because most of the people I play with would have a hard time understanding the birds’ abilities.
Wingspan is available in 30 languages.
“why not develop the game with vision-friendly cards in mind”
Absolutely, we are always striving to improve accessibility and inclusivity in each new product we make.
Hi Jamey, are the sales for Asia cards better than the rest of the vision friendly products? I am really glad Asia cards are sold separately, vision friendly or not.
My game group is 3-4 players and when Wingspan Asia was announced, it became clear to me that I will never use majority of what is offered in this set. I can’t justify the $45 price so I passed on it. I like the discounted initial price of the card deck, so I now own Asia birds and am very happy. I know there were people like me online, maybe they were just a vocal minority.
Kerim: You’ve touched upon an ancillary reason for making these card-only packs (and making them separate): For people who only want the bird cards from certain continents, not the full expansions, this is a way to get them. The Asia deck has sold slightly better than the other continent decks, but not as well as the core game deck.
I would never replace the standard cards, the flavor text alone is reason enough to keep them. Plus, how would this work with expansions that still have to be released? A vision friendly pack for each of them? I hope you’re not considering replacing the regular cards with the vision friendly ones.
Here’s what we say on the accessories page for Wingspan:
“The original format for bird cards included in the core game and expansions (current and future) remains exactly the same; those cards remain relevant for their bird facts. The vision-friendly cards are a separate option. Each future expansion will feature cards in the original format as found the core game and other expansions. Available at the same time as the preorders for each of those expansions will be a separate set of vision-friendly bird cards for those continents available as an add-on.”
Also, please note that we’re not asking anyone to get rid of their original cards, as that’s where the bird facts are.
Crowd-sourced ideas should have crowd-sourced funding. Perhaps user-feedback generated projects should have a no-frills campaign. People do love to share their opinions.
For me the big problem was mainly the shipping: we only have one expansion, but cards of core + the expansion we have + shipping would have made it more than the MSRP of the two expansions we are missing (specially when we can get the other 2 expansions + free shipping at some online store).
I understand it is a different type of product, but for me it did not feel worth to drop 50$ or more. This feels the kind of thing I would buy some day if I see it in person (say, at a convention or at a FLGS)
Sorry to hear that he cards themselves haven’t been a success but thanks for turning the unsuccessful venture into something else successful by sharing your thoughts in the article :-)
It’s a great point you made that I think is summed up in the title. At UKGE this year (and last year) I had 3d printed some giant meeples from the games for the table. People loved them, and a lot of people said something along the lines of “I’d love one of those” or “you should sell them”. But there’s a massive gap between “I would like that” and “I and many other people like me are willing to pay real money for that”. It sounds like your survey might have captured a lot of people that said number 2 but if they were being honest with themselves it was really number 1.
This is one area where perhaps crowdfunding excels, which is gauging not just what people ‘say’ they want but what people ‘pay’ for what they want. I do wish Kickstarter had an option for Kickstarter add-ons though. For example let’s add a metal coins upgrade addond but we only make it if 200 people add the coins. Gamefound is pretty hot on innovating so maybe they can (or already do) do this
“I do wish Kickstarter had an option for Kickstarter add-ons though. For example let’s add a metal coins upgrade addond but we only make it if 200 people add the coins.”
I love this idea, Ben!
I would recommend running a pre-sale before design/production if possible. That way you know the likely conversion rate before you start investing.
I think the reason I didn’t do that this time is (a) that the poll data indicated that there was enough demand to justify a print run and (b) that the production cost was relatively low (and thus low risk). I wouldn’t ever run a pre-order *before* the design, but before production is fine. The key here is that we have to be careful about accepting money for something that we might not actually make, but the idea I mentioned below is that we could sell $5 gift cards to our webstore as “deposits” for any buyers to use towards the product if we make it…and if we don’t make it, they still have $5 to spend on our webstore as they wish at any time.
@Jamey Stegmaier, that is by far my favorite idea. Letting people have some skin in the game, while also allowing us to convert said skin into a different purchase if the product doesnt get made is something I would completely get behind.
BTW, we just got our vision friendly cards replacement order cards today, after the first package went MIA. Thanks to your team for making it right, much appreciated.
I LOVE the cards. It is the first time I haven’t had to strain to read a card. It just feels right. Thanks for making them!
We plan on buying a set for each new expansion.
Thanks Chung! I’m very curious to try this idea. And thank you so much for getting the cards (sorry about the shipping mishap).
So there are a number of vendors who will do preorders for products not yet manufactured. I know you’ve looked into the GMK gaming P500 system before, but in theirs they capture credit card information from each person saying they want to order the not-yet-existent product in question (though they don’t actually charge yet).
Of those, there will always be some percent of customers where the eventual charge for the finished product doesn’t go through, but I think you’re far more likely to get a reliable count of demand if you actually make people at least semi-commit to purchasing.
I’m one of the 175. I backed those Feld City Collection games awhile back. I kinda remember seeing add-ons for English cards. I had no idea what they were. Last month, I seen somone mentioning they picked up the cards at a convention. Then realized the words/mechanic were written out instead of all these symbols. I bought them immediately. A couple weeks ago, I was on the Stonemaier site and noticed these cards for Wingspan. I’m 53 and my wife is 52. She has great far vision, but not so much with small print. When I seen the vision friendly cards on sale for Wingspan, I bought one of each. This past weekend, I replaced them with the new cards. My family are not big into board games. Bought them for the vision friendliness and for anyone I’ll play Wingspan with. They will help, especially for people who are new to the hobby. The cards will help me and them, with understanding the cards better and quicker. Even without the information about the birds, they still look great. Hopefully more people will hear about the cards and it’s just a slow burn with sales at first. Think it’s great that you listen to the customers feedback or requests.
Thank you, Lance! I appreciate you thinking about the players around you. And really, this is a good reminder that we need to strive to be vision-friendly from the beginning of each game, not just later, but I appreciate the feedback we get from our customers. :)
Maybe a potential option is to charge customers $1 as a deposit when they sign up requesting the new item. Studies show that putting money down in advance increases conversion rates later.
But I suppose if you never make the item that is something to consider – is the $1 a donation or a credit for another future purchase?
Kirk: One way we could do this is to use store gift cards for that purpose (probably $5). That way, even if we don’t get enough interest to make the product, the customer has credit to use on our webstore.
I think a major problem is that people who are more likely to require vision-friendly cards are people who are new to the game and new to the iconography in the game.
But to people who own Wingspan and know the game enough to know that these cards are an upgrade, already know the iconography and cards well enough to the point where they don’t need these cards.
Basically, these cards would be good for new players but new players don’t even know that these cards would be good, hence the low sales.
At least, that’s what I think
Hi Jamie! I’m not sure if this has been mentioned, but the value proposition of these cards might have had too much of an overlap with existing product and fallen in a bit of an uncanny valley.. as you said, most people who know about the product probably already have the game so the improvements are nice-to-haves but not significant enough to reinvest in essentially a whole other copy, while the specific improvements themselves are not enough to bring in a new cohort of users ie. vision impaired players. I was very excited when I first heard about it and had 10 copies in the cart for our clients with visual impairment disabilities (in one of our disability services companied) before I realised upon checking with my clients that they wouldn’t work (even for sightly vision impaired players). If we had a truly vision impaired version of the game it would open up an entire new market (but of course the complexity of this is of a whole different magnitude), and Wingspan is exactly the type of game that would work well in that space. My two cents, hope you’re well! Shiung
Im not a great sales person, but I do try to serve people well. I made Dark Chocolate Sea Salt popcorn for a friend who was allergic to specific types of salt – and she loved it. We then let others try it and they also liked it. We continued to make it and sell it for the same price as our other flavors, and for whatever reason it has been our number one flavor sold 🤷♂️.
Your 175 customers are the tip of the iceberg – if you manage to stay in business, those 175 will probably tell their friends about this amazing service you gave them. At the very least you made something for them and are still willing to talk to them after they made the purchase. That isnt nothing. You may have printed too many for this first run – but as long as they dont decrease in value, you have opportunities for future marketing.
One idea is to put a pamplet in future Wingspan stuff so purchasers know its available. I know that I have told people about them in conversation, and my dad would like the vision friendly cards if he got it, but my mom likes the facts (they are happily seperated but dont seek out games with me – it is me with them 🤦). I think your strategy for continuing to strive after principles is key – so thank you for continuing to be transparent with us (to whatever ability you deem appropriate) and sharing these thoughts and stories with us.
I absolutely want to do the pamphlet idea–currently the plan is to mention it on the back of the Wingspan Digital promo code sheet included in the game.
Speaking of niche improvements to great games, when are we going to have the Scythe Leaders in Metal to go with the Metal Mechs? Have my four (4) sets of Metal Mechs (sold out again) and only need the leaders to complete the sets. Big investment on our part.
Great idea to have the Vision Friendly cards as an option. Long term, this could be a big plus if you offer them discounted when buying the game or expansions. What about your loyal customers (I’m one)? Do not know your pricing model with the cards and might suggest a discount if buying the full set? Two other game examples of improving vision friendly I have worked with:
When “Ticket To Ride” first came out, the board was not color blind vision friendly and they upgraded the board and cards of the next run with shapes for people who are (they also replaced the original board for free if you asked).
“Splendor” early sets where not color blind vision friendly and they changed by adding shapes of the tokens. Picked up a newer set for family who had color blind vision issues.
Thanks for helping all of us with more vision friendly games.
Thanks for investing in the metal mechs, Doug! There won’t be any metal characters, though, for several reasons, the biggest of which is that the metal mechs are metal because real-life mechs would be made of metal. People aren’t made of metal. :)
For our Champions (loyal customers), they get a 20% discount on all of our products. :)
I remember you discussing these cards a while back. And though I probably read about one out of every three blogs that you post, I had no idea they were for sale.
I’m still not sure if I’m going to purchase them, but my eyesight has changed significantly in the last 3 years, and I certainly am thinking about them.
The main issue is, I still had no idea they were for sale until now.
This article prompted me to buy a set. Initially, I really didn’t feel a need to get it but I appreciate all that Stonemaier Games does to support accessibility in all it’s forms. (Website accessibility was an important part of my previous job.) And then it just occurred to me that in the past year my wife and I were in a game which didn’t have great lighting and she sometimes didn’t have a very easy time reading things. So, you did indeed fill a need that I didn’t realize I had until just now. So thank you for going above and beyond!
Thank you, Steven! I’m glad you mentioned the low lighting situation–the cards aren’t just for those with vision impairment.
Being honest, they look extremely similar to the existing cards so IMO that stops people from thinking their SO would find them helpful.
I think the design team should have gone the whole mile and made real WCAG improvements such as:
1.- Removing the dark gray background from the cost at the top-left.
The icons are still very very dark and fail on first glance
2.- Making the font size much much larger. To me the change is negligible.
3.- Icons on the left. They are still the same size, only slightly darker, so there’s not much to gain from this change.
It will be interesting to see whether this blog post prompts an upsurge in demand for the vision-friendly cards❓
The article has not had that effect. :)
“Some people say, ‘Give the customers what they want.’ But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, ‘If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’’ People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”
Steve Jobs
I love your open thought process here (and in other posts). I almost bought them, but then I wondered what I would do with the current cards? I also know you have public-drawn artwork cards being released and I don’t know how those will fit into my collection. I own every Stonemaier game, but wingspan is one that I have spent the most money on, northwards of $500 on the game, expansions, nesting box, wooden upgrades from meeplesource and others. So, with my wife’s voice in my head, I just wondered “what will this truly benefit me?” I don’t think I responded to the poll, but if I did and I said yes, I perhaps wasn’t thinking through it completely.
I appreciate your investment in Wingspan, Kevin–thank you. I think the original cards are still relevant for the bird facts, which aren’t on the vision-friendly cards.
Hi Jamey,
I may be echoing what others have said but I think in this instance, I agree with your point that there’s a cost/benefit analysis that people may not want to buy cards that they already have, particularly when you then have the originals that you then have to throw away/recycle which may seem wasteful to some.
Would perhaps a trade-in option be possible? People send their original cards to you to do with as needed (maybe a pre-loved edition that’s cheaper for new customers or donated to charities/schools etc) for something like a discount code and then pay for the revised cards.
There may also be a lag if some are thinking they will buy for a gift for a birthday or holiday that hasn’t come to pass yet so the immediate need isn’t there.
Nevertheless, although these cards aren’t something I would personally need, I think it’s great they’re out there!
Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that anyone get rid of the original cards (and there’s nothing we can do with them)–that’s where the bird facts are! :)
This brings up another important point – for some players these will be a downgrade, as they like the bird facts & world map on the original cards.
I can’t think of any other SM add-ins that any players would see that way.
It’s a complicated issue & once again I appreciate you sharing the data. These are important accessibility conversations.
For what it’s worth, we love the vision-friendly cards and used them just the other day!
It’s worth a lot! Thank you! :)
My wife also runs a small business and has done so for almost 15 years now, and by experience, when customers ask for something, either that she does something new, add a new product to her current line, etc, even if the initial demands are common and that this is asked several times, the true number of customers really buying this new thing is only 10% of the perceived demand (what you get with polls and other tools like that). In the end, she (and I) have learn to either divide by 10 to really gauge the true interest (which end up in actual sales and not just the number of people interested and saying yes to a poll) or sticks to her plans and releases the products she want/planned/that are her core business and thus not doing these side products. I don’t know your actual data for these, but it’s always a good practice to check your number to learn your “actual sales factor” (which will be differentby type of products). But in the end, all those side products never sells that much and are not worth the time and efforts unfortunately.
I think that’s a really smart rule, Francois, one that’s reflected in Kickstarter prelaunch pages (signups vs actual backers).
In my experience – Surveys are really mostly useful for direct feedback on something that just happened, or to collect CRM insights on things like demographics / interests.
Instead, I would rather eg fake-door test things like this: Add the product as an option as if it’s available, and when the person tries to place it in their basket, notify them that “sorry, it’s not available yet. You can sign up here, if you’re interested:” preferably adding a bit of information on this being important feedback, and thanking the person for partaking (albeit involuntarily).
Dominos does that sometimes to gauge interest in pizza flavours before launching a new one.
It’s not AS obviously transparent as polling, but with the right context and explanation, it’s a great way to gather feedback.
That’s a really interesting method! I like it, and I’d love to try it sometime.
I’m probably one of the guilty people who said I want them, but, haven’t purchased them. I probably need them (nearly 50 with a magnifying glass), so, this sounds great. However, I also have everything so far, so, if my math is correct, it is over $50.00, even as a champion. I understand the price completely, but, this is where I sit. Do I purchase it all at once, or, do I piecemeal my collection? Then, I realize, I already have these cards, so, it would be essentially just getting double of everything and technically, the magnifying glass does work.
I think the problem for me in hindsight, is that, this great idea came too late in the game’s lifespan. That is a lot to replace now, that, I probably needed to think harder on when filling out the survey.
I’m proud to be one of the first 175 people to have purchased these. I’m disappointed that there were not more initial purchases, but I think it’s too early to pass judgment (regardless of what prior launches looked like – this launch is, after all, a unique launch and shouldn’t be compared).
I bought a set of each vision-impaired card deck to replace what we use in play. My husband has a really hard time seeing the original cards, and it’s made playing the game more challenging for him. We always read allowed the card information when a card appears in play, and the size of the font was a hindrance. My husband has certainly played many games with us, but I want everyone to have their best experience when we do family game night.
For me, the purchase was no-brainer. At the same time, I could see that this is easily a product that wouldn’t fly off the shelf. It’s a nice-to-have in many circumstances, and with the economy where it is, and the time of year, I would imagine not everyone is rushing out to buy replacement cards in mid-June.
I had the means to make the purchase now and I wanted to show support with my purchase, but honestly – we’ve sleeved the new cards but haven’t used them in play yet as we’ve been doing much more outdoors this time of year.
I think the key takeaways are (1) it’s important to focus on making games inclusive the first time (as you said) so that things like this aren’t needed for future games; (2) this is a unique type of launch that should not be compared to anything you’ve done before. You simply don’t have the data to say whether 175 units was “good” or “bad”; (3) sometimes, something is just the “right thing to do,” and that’s it. As you noted in another reply, the lesson learned will hopefully be to order less inventory next time, and not to avoid doing it altogether.
I am sure more purchases will follow, especially as we approach year-end holidays.
I very much appreciate that these were made, and I hope that you don’t have regrets about them. As summer wanes and we get back indoors playing more often, I guarantee that these cards will make my family’s experience more enjoyable. We won’t forget the efforts you put in to making that happen, and that will continue to ensure that we are loyal customers of your products, and true fans of your business approach and leadership style.
Jonathan: Thank you for getting these cards, and I really like your summary of key points, especially 1 and 3.
Well said.
The first thing that came to mind for me while reading this post is two-fold: (1) Your feedback is generally coming from a small sub-set of your customers, and (2) some people just like to feel involved.
(1) means that you might be looking into an echo-chamber. Not saying you are, but understanding that the people that follow you here and on social media are not all (most, or even a significant portion) of your customer base.
(2) means that well-meaning people, wanting to be a part of something they love, may over-hype their own enthusiasm. It’s human nature, and all that.
That brings me to an idea. That idea is too long to post here, but I will email you and let you know what I think you might be able to do.
Thanks David! This is the best place to post your idea (rather than email) so others can engage with it too. It’s fine to post a really long comment. :)
OK. Here is a copy-paste of the email I sent you.
Hi Jamey!
One of the things that intrigued me about the post you made was a seeming willingness to embrace crowdfunding again when it comes to such niche products. I happen to think this is the right approach for these types of products.
Back in the days prior to Kickstarter and the like, I used to spend a lot of time on the Steve Jackson Games (Pyramid Online) website. There were message boards that were exclusive to the people who subscribed to Pyramid Online — a very cool little community.
One of the things that is interesting about Steve Jackson Games’ RPG business model is that most everything they published back in those days was written by freelance authors. This meant that Steve Jackson and company needed to judge the viability of a product and the ability to find someone who could write that product. It is an interesting balancing act.
There was a book, GURPS Russia, written by S. John Ross. This book was one that Steve Jackson felt was not a viable product for a long time. S. John Ross wanted to write this so badly, he kinda berated the company until they gave it a chance. Turned out to be a great seller. Steve Jackson was on the message boards explaining that their market research did not suggest that this would be a successful product, so they did a very limited print run at first. Last I checked, I think that book has had like 3 re-prints and is now on POD.
I piped in on that discussion and made a suggestion. I said that since Steve Jackson has a web-store, when they have a passion project like this from an established author, why don’t they add the product to their web store (in a special area) and allow people to pre-order it. When the number of pre-orders reaches the tipping point, they can process the transactions (take the money), then produce the book in that exact count — if 5,000 people ordered the book, print 5,000 copies; if 6,823 people ordered the book, print 6,823 copies.
I was told this was a terrible idea, and they would never do anything like this. :)
But… several years later, Kickstarter comes onto the scene, and Steve Jackson Games does a lot of crowdfunded projects — think OGRE. This is not much different than the idea that I had.
What I am saying is this: if you did not want to get back into traditional crowdfunding, could you set up a special area on your web store for projects like this. Then, allow people to pre-order the product and when you get enough pre-orders, you send the project into production. If the product languishes for too long, then pull it from the web store and move on. No harm, no foul.
Anyway… love you guys. Never stop being you.
“S. John Ross wanted to write this so badly, he kinda berated the company until they gave it a chance.”
I’m not sure where this belief might have come from, but it’s not true. I pitched the book exactly once; they accepted the pitch immediately and gave me a contract. I didn’t even have to campaign for it, let alone “berate” anyone. SJG were immediately interested in the book because they felt it was an interesting topic.
The issues arose when the book was nearly finished, and distributors balked at it as being a likely poor seller. That led to it being shelved for a while, then becoming the guineapig for the “Straight Line” experiment. These chapters of its existence are pretty well-documented.
To be sure, I was passionate about creating the book and I’m still very proud of it … but the idea that I had to badger SJG for the chance to write it has no truth to it.
– Sjohn
More evidence for David’s (2) comment above re some people just want to answer:
I often post specific questions on Amazon re products I’m interested in buying. Among the answers there are usually a notable number of “I don’t know” followed by “it was a gift I sent to someone else” or “a friend borrowed my tape measure,” etc.
Maybe it’s too niche? EVERYONE could use a nesting box or a modular board. But only a select few people have visual impairments that require purchasing additional cards.
Perhaps! I’m not sure that a person needs to have vision impairments to benefit from the cards, though–a lot of people wear glasses, and even those of us who don’t can sometimes struggle in poor lighting.
Hey, Jamey! Have you heard of 64 oz Games or 64 oz Braille? They specialize in board game accessibility kits for low vision and blind players. We provided Herbaceous to them for an accessibility kit, which is available as a combo pack on their site. Maybe worth looking at for some more traction in some way. Good luck with everything!
Thanks Jessica! I have heard of that project, and I’ll reach out to them to see if they’d like to look at our cards.
What a great solution! Cuts out that impressive list of Stonemaier research steps, takes advantage of presumably ongoing research by specialist, and expands visibility of the product to potential new buyers.
Having no expertise, and with the benefit of hindsight, I would guess that people responding to initial polls are answering the question “Would you want these?” and not “Would you buy these?”. If people could snap their fingers, and have their existing Wingspan cards immediately transform into vision-friendly cards, they might. I think buying them is a bigger barrier, because you’re replacing existing components. It’s not an expansion, and unlike other upgrades, like fancy resource tokens, there isn’t a tactical element nor a clear acquiring of wood/metal/etc. There’s more psychological inertia as well, because people with copies can play the game with existing cards and there’s a tendency to try to just “power through” and squint than take the steps to go out of your way to purchase replacements. People will say they want a Coke, but they’ll drink a leftover Pepsi in the fridge before they make a trip to the grocery.
It’s also easier to answer the question in the abstract. “Would you buy vision-friendly cards?” lets people imagine some idealized version (that might not even be physically possible), and that version probably varies a lot by individual preferences. It’d follow that fewer people would purchase an actual, specific version of any product.
Yes, yes, an impressive analysis! I agree with all that hexstardragon said. I speak as one who often uses a powerful magnifying glass to read directions on meal boxes.
How long ago were the surveys gauging interest?
A lot of people are in a very different financial place than they were a year or so ago. My guess is that for most people this falls into the “nice to have” rather than “need to have category.” It’s easy to say you’ll buy something like this when you have plenty of disposable income, but it’s also easy to cut it out of your budget when you don’t.
This might be a case of really bad timing (making plans during one financial climate, having to execute them in another) rather than an indication of anything more systemically wrong.
Great question, Jamie. The poll was last fall.
I was just waiting for them to arrive at my LGS. I didn’t realize they were just on your website.
I have a vision impared sister new to board games and this is one of the few games that is card heavy I’m not worried about showing her.
That said, I definitely get how unsettling it is to see a large delta between hype and results.
Thanks Mike! Yeah, these cards have very minimal packaging, and we didn’t think retailers would want them. They’re just on our webstore.
I plan on buying a set of these for each wingspan game/expansion for sure.. possibly even two but just waiting until I have something else I also want to order
I bought a set and they are great,
Thank you, Jeremy!
Honestly I’m curious if anyone else is in the same position as I am with regards to these kinds of items:
I want them. But i don’t NEED them. So I will buy them, eventually. If things weren’t so expensive right now, it would be easier to justify this purchase.
I do honestly want them. I have friends with vision issues that I play with regularly and so these would be incredible. But also, they seem like a great way for me to have a “fully mixed” deck where I shuffle all the sets together, vs. Individual sets that I can play with when I don’t want that insanity!
I follow you regularly, but somehow didn’t know these existed. I will likely buy them. Regardless of sales, this was an inclusive product to make… it was worth the risk in this case. You’ve created a new category. Before now, I would never have Googled “replacement cards for a board game for the seeing impaired.” If the new cards, as you’ve designed them, do meet the needs of the niche market, it will probably take a while for awareness to reach the people who need them.
That said, perhaps the incremental change in the cards wasn’t significant enough for the target market? The font is larger, but I’m guessing most with vision limitations come to the game table armed with glasses or magnifiers. They’re used to operating in a world built for 20/20 vision. So, perhaps these cards aren’t mis-priced, or unknown, or a difficult “double-card-set purchase” but perhaps people were wishing for the impossible… Cards in a standard size, for the seeing impaired, to eliminate the need for seeing/vision aids… that just might not be doable, though I wish it was. Kudos for giving this a go!
Hi Jamie,
I am in agreement with Lori, I didn’t know they were available yet and I follow SM pretty closely. I wonder if there is a space on the front page of the website that shows a feature of what is new this month? Something to focus and draw eyes to the new thing(s) of the month?
I’ll talk to our web designer about that! At the very least it should be in our Latest Releases menu.
My guess, in this instance, is that people like fairnesd and justice. People like that people with reduced sight have the same possibilities to enjoy a product as everyone else. So we say yes in a poll asking if this is a product that should exist.
The idea of this product is great, so we want to support it. But the market just isn’t big enough.
I think that’s a great way of putting this. Todd touches upon this below too. And sometimes it is totally fine for us to make a product that improves accessibility and inclusivity without resulting in high sales (perhaps it’s just that I should have made 1500 units instead of 2500 units).
I think that there’s a very important difference between “should it exist?” and “will you buy it?” I would agree that it’s great for such a product to exist but i wouldn’t buy it because I don’t need. Check in again in 5 years and that has probably changed :D.
I hope you’ll find a continuous trickle for these, especially as an option to replace cards you’ve thoroughly played through. I’m glad these exist, but don’t need them yet!
I think you might be on to something about crowdfunding for niche products. Really, I think it comes down to if you’re going to spend money to create products based on buzz, you need those “buzzing” to have skin in the game – unless you’re comfortable with taking on the full risk. Thankfully, you have a strong line of products that provide revenue and can mitigate that risk a bit. But I wonder what other ways folks could put their skin in the game in a way that help you to focus your energies on products people will actually buy rather than just say that they want.
I work with college students, and we’re always talking about how to get them vested in the work we’re doing or the opportunities we’re offering. In our case, we can say, “if even one person is positively impacted, it was worth the effort.” It doesn’t work the same for a business.
Depending on what it is that you’re considering reprinting, perhaps FOR SOME ITEMS (not all) you should go more with a Kickstarter approach – you’ll only do it if a minimum number of people actually commit funds to the purchase of the product. I can certainly believe that many people would say “Yeah, vision-friendly cards are great, make them!”, even if they never had plans to purchase them. If you only had 175 people pledge their money, then you would have known “actual” demand was lower than “hypothetical” demand.
In this instance I guess a problem is paying double for cards, even with discounts softening it a little. Secondly, the last one, people often say I want this and that and when it’s there… they simply don’t buy it.
While we are at it…. can you produce bigger room tiles for Between two Castles? A bit jokingly but I read far more comments on those than on the Wingspan cards.
But, wingspan will for sure have much more players thus also a more people reacting to a poll.
Roy: Thanks for your request! While bigger room tiles for Between Two Castles would no longer fit into the insert or box, for the second printing of the game we significantly increased the icons and text on the tiles.
Truth on the last part of your first paragraph..a game is out of print and people are screaming for it…then they reprint it and people act like they can buy it any time and ignore it.
Im color blind. Though I can see most game good enough. I could see myself buying these if I needed to replace the decks I already owned, if they got damaged. I would have a hard time buying them to replace cards that were in perfectly good condition. And as much as I enjoy Wingspan, it seems to get played on the Switch more than on the table.