Kickstarter Lesson #59: The Myth of MSRP – Stonemaier Games

Kickstarter Lesson #59: The Myth of MSRP

I stood in line in the sweltering heat for what felt like hours. It was the middle of August, and the AC was broken at the St. Louis Division of Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. Just my luck.

The paperwork in my hands–filled out in triplicate by typewriter, per the instructions–was sticky with sweat by the time I reached the the front of the line.

“Next!” called out the lady behind the counter. She was wearing those pointy horn-rimmed glass that went out of style in the ’50s, and her hair was in a bun so tight that her lips were pulled into a permanent grimace.

I slid the completed forms under the bulletproof glass and waited while the lady–Ms. Tennyflower, MSRP Administrator, the nameplate read–reviewed them. After a few minutes, she pointed the tip of her pen at page 4, section 3.

“You checked two boxes here. It says to choose one.”

I was prepared for this. “Yes, thank you. You see, it’s a winemaking board game–Viticulture–so I wasn’t sure if I should put it in the “games” category or the “wine” category. It has a little bit of both, so–”

“Is there wine in the game?” she asked, peering over her glasses.

“Well, like, wine tokens. But no alcohol.”

She was already scratching out the incorrect answer and stamping her approval on all three sets of forms. “It’s a game. Take these to Room 942. Your MSRP hearing begins in 2 minutes.”

Two minutes! I grabbed the forms and sprinted down the hall. The elevators were too much of a gamble, so I dashed up the stairs. I was gasping for breath by the time I made it to Room 942. The security guard at the door scanned the top form for Ms. Tennyflower’s stamp before taking the documents and ushering me into the room.

The room–more of an auditorium, really–was empty save a long, curved desk in the front. Two men and one woman sat behind it, each wearing a purple robe and an expression of superiority. Their average age must have been at least 65.

The security guard handed copies of my application to the MSRP judges. Without looking up, the judge in the middle said, “You can take a seat, Mr. Stegmaier.”

Where do you sit in an empty auditorium? I chose the second row and eased into a hard wooden chair.

“All rise!” said the security guard. I stood up. Such formalities.

After stating my name to the court and swearing in upon a copy of Freakonomics, the head judge asked, “Will your accountant be joining us today, Mr. Stegmaier?”

“No sir, I’ll be representing myself.”

The female judge–who I swear hadn’t even looked at the forms–addressed me with a smirk. “And what do you plead?”

I tried to recall the formal language of the court as I had studied online over the last few days. “I hereby plead for the court to consider an MSRP of $70 for Viticulture: The Strategic Game of Winemaking.”

The man on the left chortled before being hushed by the head judge. “How do you justify such an MSRP, Mr. Stegmaier? I will remind you just this once that you are under oath.”

“Yes sir,” I said. “My research showed that games with similar types of custom components and pieces have MSRPs of at least $70.”

“And where, pray tell, were those games registered?” The female judge really did not like me.

“Germany, ma’am.”

All three judges burst into laughter. I think the one on the left actually guffawed. Gasping for breath, he said, “Germany? This is St. Louis, son! We’re talking about Mississippi dollars here, not Berlin pesos! This boy comes in here, thinking he’s getting a $70 MSRP. My lord.”

I’m pretty sure the last few lines were directed at the other judges, not me.

The head judge wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Mr. Stegmaier, from what I can tell from this components list, you’ve got yourself a $65 game at best. And that’s if it comes with my wife’s homemade pecan pie in each box. Tell me, Mr. Stegmaier–does Viticulture include a pecan pie?”

“No sir it doesn’t.”

“Well that simplifies things, doesn’t it? All in favor of a $60 MSRP, say ‘aye’.” The other judges, expressions of superiority having returned to their faces, replied in unison.

The head judge stamped the price on his forms and handed it to the security guard, who ushered me to the door. As I turned the handle, the judge called out, “Oh, Mr. Stegmaier?”

I turned. “Yes sir?”

“Good luck with your Kickstarter.”

***

Some people–myself included, as of last year–think that MSRP is an officially assigned number. Hence the elaborate fictional account above. That’s how my overly active imagination thought MSRP worked.

But as I’m sure you can tell, that’s not how MSRP works. If you’re making a product, you get to choose the MSRP. You literally just get to make up the number.

I’ll keep this short since this entry is already quite long: Basically all you have to do is look at other published products in your category and base the MSRP off of those products. If that number is close to 5x your manufacturing cost, that’s your MSRP. (See an excellent analysis of the 5x formula by Randy Hoyt of Foxtrot Games here.)

Keep in mind that if you intend for your product to enter traditional distribution post-Kickstarter, your MSRP will determine your cut. For example, in the board game category, distributors purchase games from you for 40% of MSRP. So if it’s a $100 game, you get $40 when a distributor buys a copy. Retailers pay 50% of MSRP.

Why do you need an MSRP for your Kickstarter project? Because it gives backers a reference point so they know how big of a discount they’re getting. And they should get a discount. Keep in mind that they’re pledging to support something sight unseen that they’re hoping to receive someday. They’re taking a big gamble on you, and they deserve a nice discount for doing so. I recommend 10-20% off MSRP, especially considering that online retailers will discount the product post-Kickstarter.

However, you should also keep in mind that the product you’re creating on Kickstarter will most likely be better than the retail version thanks to your Kickstarter-exclusive stretch goals. You won’t be selling that version in stores, so it shouldn’t need an MSRP. But if you allow retailers to buy into your Kickstarter at a discount, you need to factor in all those Kickstarter extras while determining their price.

If you’re trying to determine your product’s MSRP, feel free to post a description of it below and fellow readers can help you decide.

67 Comments on “Kickstarter Lesson #59: The Myth of MSRP

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  1. Jamey,

    Thanks for your answers to my distribution-related questions on that other post last week, and for another great post. If you don’t mind, I have a couple of other questions. When you charge 40% of MSRP to distributors, are you paying for shipping, or is the distributor? Does the price for distributors depend on order quantity for Stonemaier Games, or is it always 40%? Thanks again!

    1. Thanks Alex! We pay for shipping to the distributor, and the distributor coordinates and pays for shipping to retailers.

      Distributors almost always get a 60% discount, though that discount is negotiable if the distributor is willing to pick up the games in China and handle freight shipping from there.

  2. Hi Jamey,

    I am trying to figure out how to build my pledges.

    Say my manufacturer quotes me at $7 per game. Following the 5x rule, it’s $35. However I need to account for “free shipping in the US”, let’s say another $5.

    How would I go about listing it on the pledge for a 10% discount? Would I say $37 (10% off $35 plus $5 shipping) or would I do $35 (10% of $40, which combines the two prices)?

    But would I need to list that the MSRP is $35 to my backers, and say I built in the shipping cost? I don’t want to mislead them. Or would my new MSRP be really $40?

    1. Keep in mind that the 5x rule is for MSRP–that’s the retail price of the game based on the 60% discount that distributors will get. Your direct-sale margins are much better, so you can charge less (potentially much less) if you’d like. Kickstarter actually prefers that you don’t list an MSRP at this point, as you may not ever sell the game in retail. Based on the hypothetical prices you mentioned, I’d suggest a $29 reward price.

      As I mentioned on the other thread, adding shipping will make more sense if you just start making the project page (it doesn’t matter if you’re months or years ahead of the actual launch). You’ll basically choose the reward price, and then you can apply shipping costs by region or country.

  3. When you say that you can expect retailers to pay 50% off MSRP, does this typically include the cost of shipping the games to the retailers? Or do retailers pay 50% off MSRP plus the cost of shipping?

    1. Cameron: I’m not entirely sure if retailers pay for shipping when they buy from distributors–I don’t think so, but it’s possible. MSRP strictly refers to the price of the game, not shipping costs.

      1. Interesting. The way I see it, they must at least to some extent. Suppose a game costs $7 to make with a $10 shipping subsidy. At a $35 MSRP, if you were to sell directly to a retailers purchasing it at $17.50, that’s only $0.50 the publisher is making per game…. The 5x model doesn’t seem to work if you have a high shipping subsidy… Likewise if you sold to a distributor at 40% MSRP at $14, you’d actually be losing money.

        1. Are you talking about regular distribution or retailers that back Kickstarter campaigns? If they back a Kickstarter campaign, I charge shipping.

          1. Both? The math seems to work out if you charge shipping. (Total cost to a retailer would then be $27.50 which they turn around and sell for the $35 MSRP). But say after a campaign I have a retailer looking to order copies from me of the game I mentioned above. If they expect to not pay shipping and pay just 50% off MSRP ($17.50), that’s a profit of just $0.50 per game.

          2. Right, exactly. We sell directly by the case to a few brick-and-mortar retailers, and they pay shipping.

  4. Hey hey Jamey!
    After developing paltry prototypes for around 2 years, last year, my friend introduced me to Scythe…. completely blown away! I’ve been trying to read up on as many of your articles as possible. Huge thanks for your contributions to the boardgames landscape!

    I’ve found this article at a somewhat difficult time in our boardgame development endeavours. I keep hearing about this 5x MSRP rule.. but if these are the numbers we should be looking for, I’m not sure how we could possibly release our game. Any suggestions from you or fellow readers regarding how we could reduce costs or justify our MSRP, would be greatly appreciated.

    Our game (Astraea) is a head-to-head strategy using cards as units, in a tactical battle of morale rather than total attrition. Think something akin to Summoner Wars, with a few key differences: primarily, the game features 20 highly cohesive cards per faction, with no random card draw. This allows players to cycle cards from their discard pile back to the board and control the flow of units rather than relying on random chance. This also helps us reduce the component cost. So far, the components include 4 factions (80 poker-sized cards), 8 custom 6-sided dice, 48 1/2 inch double sided tokens of 3 different prints, two individual 6″x3.5″ player matts, and a MASSIVE 15″x21″ game board (card stock).

    Therein lies our problem.. the game board must be quite large in order to fit 6 cards across by 6 cards down. We’ve tried to reduce sizes by cutting the board in half and making it foldable such that the game would include 2 foldable 15″ X 10.5″ boards, reducing the total size (and thereby the game box size) to somewhere around 7.5″x10.5″. Despite this reduction, the manufacturing costs we are looking at are around $25-$30. I really cant see a 1 on 1 game with 4 factions retailing at $120-$150.

    I truly think we are either pricing this game wrong, or we’ve made some flaw and included unnecessarily expensive componentry. Any help would be huge! Thanks again!

    1. Timothy: Thanks for sharing! Just for comparison, Scythe’s board is 624 x 818mm. That’s about 25″x32″, which is much bigger than 15″x21″. At our manufacturer, I think the board costs around $2 at most to make. The cards, dice, tokens, and mats might add another $8 at most. So I’m not seeing how your manufacturer is quoting you such a high cost unless I’m missing a bunch of miniatures. Are the tokens cardboard?

      I would suggest that you contact Panda with your components list to get a quote. Also, if I’m missing something about the board size (it’s big, but I wouldn’t call it massive), you could always consider using a smaller card size. I like the 57x87mm size.

      1. Huge thanks Jamey! We reached out to Panda and found that our price point is closer to $6.50. This sounds a lot more reasonable if we can hit the minimum 2000 MOQ. We also found that Whatz Games had a really good price point as well!

        Hopefully you’ll see our game on kickstarter soon!

  5. Hi Jamey, great post, funny and interesting. I was laughing loud reading the story. Till the half of the story i thought it is true and was thinking that you have a really weird institution in States. Nothing in EU so far, haha.
    Anyway thanks for this and your whole blog, which is really inspiring and useful. We are preparing our own game (with friend) and this blog is like a bible for me.
    Hopefully we meet at some con one day and I can thank you personally for what you are doing for all other game designers and publishers.

    Thanks
    Pavel

  6. Hi Jamey. Firstly, a huge thank you for all your posts! They’ve been an invaluable help to us throughout our journey into the board game industry.

    I had a quick question on the 40% of MSRP price that distributors normally pay. In your experience, have you seen any significant variations in this percentage? For instance between different countries or between different genre of games? We’ve had a similar experience in the UK, but are interested to know if this differs abroad e.g. in mainland Europe.

    Thanks!

    Ceri

    1. Ceri: Indeed, distributors typically get a 60% discount on MSRP. I haven’t seen this change from region to region–it seems pretty standard.

  7. hi Jamey;

    Im writing you from Spain as a partner of a new board game publisher with several projects for the next year. I found your article very interesting even for non-Kickstarter games. But it has caught my attention when in a previous comment you said that you don’t include sunk costs like art, graphic design, mould costs, etc in your MSRP calculation. Reading and asking in forums and to other people in the industry, they told me that they included even the promotion and trips to events. Why that difference? Why did you decide that those cost would not be included in the landing cost of your games? I look forward to your response because your calculation and financing model has worked successfully for you without including these costs.

    Greetings from Spain and congratulations for your career.

    1. Hi, thanks for your note! When calculating MSRP, I like to only use direct costs (the manufacturing cost) in my calculation. All of the other costs are important too, but because they are irregular and often spread out over a long period of time and multiple printings, it doesn’t make sense to me to include them in the MSRP formula. That’s just me, though.

  8. Hi Jamey!

    Thanks for yet another great article!

    You mentioned the 5x rule.
    As a first time creator, would it be a bad idea for me to make sure that the MSRP is high enough to cover expenses given a “reasonable” number of backers even if it is below 5x? Would you include freight in the base cost you multiply by 5?
    My objective is to gain experience self-publishing through KS. If a profit is made, great. If not, no biggie.
    I also have no intention of going through distribution at the moment, so does that impact the need for the MSRP to be 5x cost?

    Based on the following list of components, could you provide an estimate of what you might consider a reasonable MSRP, please?

    1 board (300x250mm)
    146 mini cards (44x67mm – at least 300GSM Blue core) split across 4 decks.
    31 large cards (80x120mm – at least 300GSM Blue core) split across 4 decks.
    46 tokens (cardboard 22 to 30mm) split across 3 types.
    6 tokens/discs (wood 25x3mm)
    1 faux velvet bag (90x120mm)
    1 rulebook
    Some ziplocks
    Maybe a cardboard organizing insert.

    Thanks again for always being so helpful!

    1. I’m at Gen Con on my phone, so I’ll reply when I get back. If I forget, feel free to post a reminder. :)

    2. Eddie: Thanks for your patience! MSRP is calculated for sales through distribution; that’s distinctly different than your backer prices. For example, if a game costs $10 to make, it might have a $50 MSRP because when you sell it to a distributor, they buy it for $20 and you make around $8 of profit after you remove freight shipping.

      For a product like that, a reasonable Kickstarter price would be $39 with free US shipping. You’d be making about $20 profit on that game.

      As for MSRP of the game you proposed, I would suggest getting an estimate from a manufacturer and multiplying it by 5. :) I’m not comfortable pricing your product.

  9. Hahaha, awesome writing, Jamey! I’ll give you 2 victory points for every additional flavor of pie you manage to include in subsequent posts

  10. Hey Jamey, thanks for answering my question yesterday! Your blogs are truly awesome and super helpful!

    Question, so if I do minis with Panda it’s going to be at least $23,000 in mold costs. How does that figure into the 5x formula? Or does it not at all, merely going off the increase in cost per game from printing the minis.

    Thanks!

    1. Darren: I personally don’t include sunk costs like art, graphic design, mould costs, etc in my MSRP calculation.

  11. […] way this information is useful is that it’s another data point to plug into calculations for MSRP and Kickstarter reward prices. If you know that a distributor is going to buy your $60 game for $24 […]

  12. Hello! I contacted Aldo of Impressions, as recommended. He seems great. However I’m looking at the price and, at the percent discounted from each game going from 60% to near 68%, I would hardly be making a profit at all on each sale (a point I’ll keep in mind for future games). Maybe this is simply necessary. It’s possible that the business strategy should be to simply have as big a Kickstarter as possible, then release games into distribution simply to keep the name out there. Have you found this to be true at all?

    However, the thought of directly contacting retailers has crossed my mind. Could that be worth it? I think you mentioned that you have a list of stores in the US that Stonemaier is in contact with. Did you start this list just by looking up stores on the internet/BGG? (I know that records of all the stores are there, but not in any useful list form that I’ve seen.) If you have recommendations on finding lists of stores, I’m all ears.

    Do retailers only want to speak to brokers and distributors? Is there a common format for game publishers, before they’ve made distribution deals, to reach out to many game stores?

    This is a lot of questions. My apologies! Any advice would be appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Don

    1. Don: Thanks for sharing your findings there. 8% is significant. For a point of reference for others, if you have a $60 game (which typically costs between $10 and $13 to make, plus another $1-$2 to freight ship), normally you’d sell it to distributors for $24. At a 68% discount (instead of 60%), you’re selling to distributors for $19.20. That’s nearly a $6 cut into profits. It shouldn’t result in a loss per unit, but it is a big cut. Hopefully it includes both the brokerage fee and warehousing.

      “It’s possible that the business strategy should be to simply have as big a Kickstarter as possible, then release games into distribution simply to keep the name out there.”

      I think the first part is true, and releasing into distribution is great. But as for the last part–keeping the name out there–it really depends on your business goals. I’m guessing that you, like me, want to bring joy and fun to tabletops around the world. If your game achieves that goal, then a bigger motivation might be for you to find a way to give the many millions of people who don’t back the Kickstarter some way to access the game post-Kickstarter for years into the future.

      As for working just with retailers, check out my recent post about quitting Kickstarter (part 2). In it I share an analogy about why distributors are super helpful for getting games to retailers. I think that’ll help answer your last question (short answer: most retailers just want to deal with a few distributors, not hundreds of different publishers).

      My list of retailers was created slowly over the last 4 years. Whenever a retailer has contacted me (either during a Kickstarter campaign or separately), I’ve asked them if they’d like to opt into our mailing list. So we started with 0, and now we have over 400 retailers on our list.

  13. Thanks for the response, Jamey! I’ll look into Impressions today. If you have a specific contact there that you recommend, I’m all ears!

    For the MSRP, I’m glad the 50-60 range seems reasonable. Question, though: is the MSRP essentially only relevant to the amount that distributors will pay you for your game? Meaning – would it be fine to tell distributors $50 MSRP, and still sell it on my own site for $39.50, assuming that they will also be discounting the game through their channels?

    I feel like I’m missing the one other thing that MSRP is connected to, which would keep me from simply saying $60 MSRP or another amount to distributors.

    1. Don: I think you can just use their website. You’ll probably hear from Aldo, but he might have other people working for him now. :) https://www.impressionsadv.net/

      That’s a great question. I tried doing that for a while, but I found that distributors and retailers really don’t like it if you sell at less than MSRP on your website when the product is in stock. Pre-orders are fine, as are special sales, but it’s kind of an unspoken agreement that you’ll sell the game at full MSRP.

      Other than that, MSRP really only comes into play when you sell to distributors, most of whom get a 60% discount.

  14. Jamey this is about the 20th helpful article I’ve read from you, so I’ll say me 2nd thank you. Thank you!! I also have really come to appreciate your policy of posting questions on these forums. It’s beyond useful to read others’ questions and responses. And now I’ll take you up on the MSRP recommendation offer as well.

    My Kickstarter for Abandon Planet is wrapping up right now. The game was already not cheap to produce, because it has 8 custom rocket models each with a different color. On top of that, I’ve added a plastic insert and 88 custom wooden tokens through Kickstarter upgrades.

    In an ideal world, I would really like to sell ‘one game, one box.’ As in you don’t need to buy extra things to have the game that everyone else has. I don’t *want* to have generic wooden cubes be the standard, with custom tokens as a separate purchase. But to do that, the game is simply more expensive to manufacture.

    Still though, we are lucky to have enough backers that I will likely go with a higher manufacturing order, meaning that I at least will not go into the negative by selling to distributors. My big question right now is setting the MSRP, because I need to begin those conversations with distributors very soon (like tomorrow), in order to have the best count for the manufacturing order.

    My game will weigh about 2 pounds, and includes:

    1 large cardboard hexagon
    8 custom plastic rocket models
    12 cardboard chevron tiles
    20 plastic chevron tiles
    25 inch-wide cardboard tokens
    12 5×5 cardstock sheets
    4 4×6 cardstock sheets
    88 14mm custom wooden tokens
    54 mostly standard shaped cards
    1 die

    What do you think a reasonable MSRP for this would be? $40-50 is the range that I’m looking at, though neither of these would meet the 5x standard, which would be closer to $60 at least.

    Also, do you (Jamey or others) have distributor recommendations? Again this is something I would ordinarily send in a private email, but I see the benefit of public questions and answers, so there you go. Thank you for all responses!

    Don Eskridge

    1. Thanks, Don! You’re awesome for posting these great questions publicly–I really appreciate that, and I’m sure other readers do too.

      I think the $50-$60 range would be great, based on those components. Though you might want to run an analysis to see if the first print run will pay for the second print run if you go as low as $50. You wouldn’t want to be stuck in a situation where the first run sells great, but the MSRP you select doesn’t allow you to fund the next run (and ideally it would leave you with some kind of profit too).

      As for distributors, we sell to a lot of different distributors worldwide. I would actually recommend that you instead seek a distribution broker like Impressions–they’re equipped well to handle distribution transactions and logistics for smaller publishers (basically, you’ll store your stock of games at Impressions and they’ll sell the games to distributors for you).

  15. Hi Jamey! I’m launching my kickstarter campaign for Feudum in 32 days. (gulp). I am offering an offline retailer discount (10+ games) at 50% of KS MSRP. (online at 40% off MS KSRP for only 5 games). However, some folks are asking me about larger (distributer level) volume discounts. (Nice problem to have!) I realize that distributers expect 60% off MSRP, but at what volume (in your opinion) should this distributer discount kick in? 50 games? 100 games? Is there a rule of thumb for this?

    Before you answer, please consider this….. When I apply 5x manufacturing cost to a minimum production of 1500 games, I wind up with an MSRP well over a $100. However, at 5000, it comes down to a more reasonable MSRP ($79ish)…Based on some price research based on other games of similar size and number of components, I felt i had to set the MSRP around $79 and my KS MSRP at $89. But, this lower MSRP price makes discounting games for retailers and distributors a bit nerve racking, knowing that the discounts only make sense if the demand forces a larger print run.

    1. Mark: Thanks for sharing your detailed question here–I appreciate this level of transparency. I would say that a distributor discount should strictly be applied to distributors (60% discount off KS MSRP), just as a retail discount should strictly be applied to retailers (opposed to, say, group orders).

      The reason the big distributor or retail discounts can end up being okay is if they’re buying in bulk. So you can set any minimum quantities that works for you. Retailers generally don’t like minimums, but distributors are going to understand if you require them to buy at least X number of games.

      1. Jamey: Haha… Yeah, details. You are the king of details, so I figured I’d go straight to the top. You bring up another interesting point. Group orders. Are you saying you avoid discounts for large group orders of say 20 to 30 games? Does this undermine retailer and distributor relationships? Or, is there a special place in your heart for group orders from large clubs. (say from other countries).

        1. Mark: Indeed, for all of my recent projects, the largest order I allowed was 3 games. It’s because shipping costs become much more varied (and expensive) beyond that, and, as you noted, it undermines retail backers. Check out the wording on some of my recent projects and you’ll see how I do it.

  16. Jamey, i know it’s tongue in cheek but , looking between the words as it were, you’ve got novel writing talent.

    1. Thanks Mark! I enjoyed writing this. Writing fiction was my passion before focusing all of my creative time on board games. :)

  17. Raymond: While I usually make my MSRP calculation based on the manufacturing cost per unit (5x that cost), in terms of components, your game does look in line for a $60 MSRP.

  18. Hey Everyone,

    I want to take Jamey up on his offer of running my MSRP thoughts passed you guys. I’m currently working on a board game that will come in a box that is 8.75″ x 11.25″ x 2″ and shouldn’t weigh more than 1kg. The game components are as follows:

    1 11″ x 17″ bi fold game board
    6 4″ x 8″ Player Mats
    6 8″ x 8″ Hacking Mats
    1 Tool Inventory List (regular letter sized paper)
    6 Player Reference Cards (regular letter sized paper)
    6 Sets of Cardboard Tetrominoes (2mm punch board)
    34 Target cards (300 gsm poker size)
    162 Tools cards (300 gsm poker size)
    29 Event Cards (300 gsm poker size)
    18 Insider cards (300 gsm poker size)
    1 D6 die and 5 D20 dice (16mm)
    1 wood coloured token to track turns
    1 first player’s token
    18 wooden cubes – 3 in each of the following colours: black, blue, green, orange, red, yellow (10 mm)
    24 wooden discs – 4 in each of the following colours: black, blue, green, orange, red, yellow (10mm)
    Bit Coins in 50, 100, 250, 500, and 1000 denominations (2 mm punch board)
    5 Sand Timers – one each at 30 secs, 60 secs, 90 secs, 120 secs, and 150 secs
    1 Rules book (letter glossy)
    1 book of Hacker Objectives (letter glossy)
    6 4” x 8” Ziploc bags – 1 for each player to store their player’s mat, hacking mat, and coloured cubes and discs
    4 3.5” x 5” Ziploc bags – 1 for each deck of cards
    1 4” x 5” Ziploc bag – for coins and dice

    Waiting on a quote from Panda, but I’m thinking that my MSRP will be $60. Any thoughts on how reasonable this is? Am I way high or way low?

    Any help you can provide would be appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Raymond

  19. […] will surprise nobody to learn that Jamie puts fairness first. His KS lesson on the subject emphasises fairness – set the MSRP based on other published products of a […]

  20. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out you were kidding. I can see this being an actual thing in New York.

  21. I Really enjoyed your account of The MSRP Inquisition Squad! … yes I agree whole heartedly… that MSRP is extremely important to establish your game’s future as well as it’s present state… It adds value as well as accountability… If your game doesn’t end up living up to it’s MSRP or its “Box Sized Pricing” then bad blood will be boiled… if however your game is Jam-Packed with amazing Gaming Goodness…. You’ll become a golden God of “This game has 48 minis and tons of awesome components! I love these guys! $100 bucks for a board game… Absolutely! No Problemo! “

    1. Thanks Chris! I’m glad you enjoyed it. You’re completely right about the game and its components living up to the sticker price.

  22. Screen printing or some thermal transfer techniques can be done at very high quality. Manufacturing with wood or some castings as well.

    4 color art quality screens can be produced at around $80 per color. A table saw can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars. The advantage of considering these options is to create games that a mass printer could not consider and produce products profitably at lower volumes.

    There are craftsmen making reasonable money making chess sets on Etsy – why not original games?

    Kickstarter has shown there is a market for more expensive games, too.

    1. At very small volumes, it’s possible. But all of you reward levels would have to be limited. You might be able to make 50 premium games and sell them at $200 (that’s a big maybe, but it’s possible), but if you don’t have limited rewards and suddenly you’re making 500 games, that would be extremely difficult.

      I don’t want to discourage your creativity–by all means, give it a try and let me know how it goes! :)

      1. Kickstarter is a great option for game creators, but it shouldn’t be the only one.

        For me, the most interesting part of looking at games this way is the expanded game design possibilities.

        I’m not discouraged at all. Another part of this could be to add additional premium options to Kickstarter games (many of which are already quantity limited).

        There are also good games that may viable at smaller quantities than would work at the standard card game or boardgame run from Ludofact or Panda.

        1. Absolutely, being a service to someone who wants to add premium options to their Kickstarter project is a great idea!

      2. I think the type of market you make (playnoevil’s specialty niche, Jamey’s larger-scale production) really has to be driven by the product. Look at “Boss Monster”, mode (highest number of backers) was at $40, while for Kingdom Death: Monster it was at $155. Arguably the hard-core mini rpg gamers aren’t going to be satisfied with a game as light as Boss Monster, so these are different markets for completely different products and completely different gaming experiences.

        I think Kickstarter does one thing extremely well – aggregates interest. While Amazon showed the value of “The Long Tail” by offering every product imaginable and setting the market in many, and eBay sold information that allowed the market to set its own price, Kickstarter generates a process that precedes both Amazon and eBay by allowing a product to be generated. The best Kickstarters IMHO allow a recursive feedback so that the entrepreneur presents a good idea that the backers make better over time, and in turn fine-tunes the innovation to meet the best demand.

        It is true that companies use Kickstarter as a “pre-sales” approach, and they have a higher visibility than, say, when Queen Games (awesome as they are) does a pre-order on its own sight. The enthusiasm that’s generated is far greater on Kickstarter, and the opportunity to branch out to a wider customer base is there as well (say folks were turned off by Alhambra and never looked at Queen again).

  23. Jamey –

    Excellent post. One real question is whether you are making the game yourself or having it contract manufactured.

    I know most game makers contract the game production out, but if you make the game yourself you may be able to control costs better. This is why a lot of game publishers in the old days were printers making games during their”idle” cycles.

    I’ve been interested in this problem for a while and I’m planning a blog about game manufacturing.

    1. Can you describe what you mean by “making the game yourself”? Do you mean buying printing equipment, moulds, wood-cutting machines, etc? The setup cost for that would be incredibly expensive. Either that or the quality of the components would be really low compared to a manufacturer (and the cost would probably still be higher).

  24. Jamey

    I think your paragraphs,

    “Why do you need an MSRP for your Kickstarter project? Because it gives backers a reference point so they know how big of a discount they’re getting. And they should get a discount. Keep in mind that they’re pledging to support something sight unseen that they’re hoping to receive someday. They’re taking a big gamble on you, and they deserve a nice discount for doing so. I recommend 10-20% off MSRP, especially considering that online retailers will discount the product post-Kickstarter.

    However, you should also keep in mind that the product you’re creating on Kickstarter will most likely be better than the retail version thanks to your Kickstarter-exclusive stretch goals. You won’t be selling that version in stores, so it shouldn’t need an MSRP. But if you allow retailers to buy into your Kickstarter at a discount, you need to factor in all those Kickstarter extras while determining their price.”

    make a good point. But what I find really striking about this is the difference between a self/very small game publisher and a well established publisher that tells backers in the kickstarter “We don’t need to use KS, this game would eventually get published through our regular pipeline, BUT we want to use KS so we can publish MORE games this year” and then ask backers to pay full MSRP and DO NOT offer any KS exclusive items in the project.

    I have been involved in several tense, and some at times even heated, discussions on the difference between the two types of projects.

    1. Faith–I think that’s why you don’t see many established publishers having campaigns that get really big on Kickstarter (and those that do, like TMG and Cool Mini, offer incredible values on Kickstarter).

  25. I feel like you’re doing that the wrong way round.

    You don’t get a cut of the RRP per se – you determine the RRP by figuring out the cost of the game and then adding the markup surely?

    I never have, but that’s how I’d do it… :-/

    1. Brilliant story, Jamey. well crafted. Solid advice too :)

      I think an Indie has to sell direct as much as possible at first (to willing stores as well as gamers). Certainly the opportunity is there to do that these days more than ever before. I could make this reply so very long, covering off all the points running through my head right now, but that’s the crux of it I think.

      But of course one should still, most definitely take into account the middle men for those sales that go that way or will (hopefully) go that way in the future.

      Michael – Good points, well made. To emphasise the warehouse fees you mention: For us in the UK, to get the games to an overseas distributor, we need to ship them over and a fulfilment house would do this for a cut as well and that’s 5-10% on top of the distributor’s cut. So that takes the 40% down a little bit more. Unless the publisher can drive their games over themselves (we did this with Esdevium – a UK distributor. Not really possible to the US though …)

      Really great articles, Jamey.

      1. Lloyd–Absolutely, direct sales are incredibly important. For Stonemaier, we really don’t make a profit on the Kickstarter versions of our games–any profitability comes from selling retail versions post Kickstarter. That may be different for other companies.

  26. I love the story, and I think the message is spot on. However, I think it’s also useful for self-publishers to think about all of this as they decide whether or not they can profitably produce and sell their game idea.

    If similar games to yours are selling for a $50 MSRP, then you have to do the math and realize that you have to be able to sustain a business if you’re only getting $20 for most of your sales (40% of the $50 MSRP when you sell to distributors). Obviously you’ll get to keep more of that for direct sales (including via Kickstarter), but if it’s going to cost you $18 to manufacture your game and have it shipped to your warehouse and then shipped to distributors, can you sustain your business if you’re only netting $2 on that distributor sale?

    I’m guessing that most first-time publishers will have to be satisfied with a relatively small margin (maybe keeping a profit of $5 on that $20 sale) as they get started, simply because they won’t be doing large enough print runs to get their per-unit costs down to the point where they can really compete with larger publishers on price. It’s either accept a smaller per-unit profit, or try to sell for a higher MSRP (which I think you’ve done a good job of explaining as a not-great plan).

    If you’re having 1,000 copies of your game printed, the per-unit cost is going to be high for you. If you’re printing 2,000 copies, the costs come down nicely. If you’re doing 5,000, then it looks like a good business… but only if you have enough demand to sell those 5,000. Most first-time publishers will struggle there.

    It’s a tough business, kids! But follow Jamey’s advice and you’ll keep yourself from making expensive mistakes.

    1. Michael–Great points. You definitely have to look at your production cost and margins. But as you mention (Nathan, this responds to your point), you don’t know how many units you’re producing when you launch a Kickstarter campaign, nor do you know how many stretch goals you’ll hit, so it’s really tough to tell what the production cost per unit will be. You just have to budget on the safe side while pricing your game in line with similar games.

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