Standardised game pricing
Most video games cost $60 and they’ve been at that price for 10 years (Business Insider).
Most average-sized paperback novels price between $13.95 to $17.95.
Most music is $.99 to 1.29 per song and around $9.99 for an album.
Movies at the cinema are a set price, doesn’t matter if it’s a good or crappy movie, or 90 minutes or over 2 hours.
There’s very little variation in the pricing above, there are always some exceptions, but even J. K. Rowling’s book prices follow the industry norm.
Games have some norms but seem to have a larger range than other published media.
Since our mint tin games are born on Kickstarter and are made by us, I’m very sensitive to pricing. I have Excel spreadsheets loaded with formulas that let me put in our component costs, reject rates for each component, shipping costs for the US, Canada, and the world. I even calculate the Kickstarter fee to the penny (it’s not 10%, it’s a bit less) and our income tax hit.
Our next game, if all stays on track, should be Mint Tin LunaSyr.
It will be our biggest game yet—both in playing time and number of components—and in price.
Regardless how I try to put it together, it looks like it’ll be $25 for the US. And its size pushes it to next shipping tier (for example, instead of $13.78 for international, it’s $23.28).
I digress but shipping’s a hot button for me (don’t get me started on Kickstarters that add shipping later – in that case, Mint Tin LunaSyr will only be $1 . . . with $24 shipping later). =p
Back to standardised game pricing . . .
This all came up because I backed a game (Game X for this discussion) that’s the same form factor as ours and is also being assembled by the creator. Since I know pricing well, Game X‘s reward seemed high by my standards. I’ve got nothing against a person making big money—it’s up to us individually to decide what we’ll pay—or is it?
Does the industry set the price, or in the case of games, the expectation of a fair price?
But it hit home that maybe I’m a dork for getting so entrenched in pricing and for lamenting about the $25 for ours—even though it’s a tight margin like our other games, it’s stressing me out.
If games are a bit of the wild west for pricing, surely the actual quality and quantity of components might be a factor (it isn’t for movies of music though).
Since Game X brought this up, I could at least look at it from a purely spreadsheet cost perspective and that’s what helped me chill and accept that “it is what it is“.
Game X
- standard mint tin with sticker label
- folded instructions sheet
- 32 mini cards
- 3 12mm dice
- 20 plastic cubes
Mint Tin LunaSyr
- round threaded tin with magnet label
- rules brochure (no text where on the folds)
- 64 mini cards
- 2 d12 & 1 d4 dice
- 14 wood meeples
- 30 wood tokens
- 1.25″ aluminum coin
- cloth-backed neoprene rondel
I understand that a game with a zillion minis can get $125 but I also see games with the same number of minis for $75.
And minis are very cool, I considered some for Mint Tin LunaSyr. Domestically made ones were over a dollar a piece but offshore were only 12 cents each. I created two in Hero Forge as a way to get quotes for minis of this detail. Since offshore isn’t for us, we’re now looking at resin 3D printers (no need to tell me they’re very slow, so is hand-pressing 7,000 tins!). =D
So what are your thoughts on standardised game pricing?
Let’s chat* in Facebook and Twitter, I’d love your insight. =)
* – derr, why don’t you use the comments here on the blog Dave?
Good question, years ago I had a blog with over 4,500 posts on it. Years of work. And the hosting server was hacked and a script was injected into the comments, via the comments, that took it down. The hosting company said I had to fix it by going into the MySQL databases and I had no clue how to do that. So I was unable to remove the script which meant the blog was lost.
So I don’t enable comments for that reason. It’s a huge bummer but so was losing so much work.
June 2019 update
April 24th, 2020 Update:
Everything’s on hold as we weather COVID-19. Including Mint Tin LunaSyr. From our website:
Update: Kickstarter delayed =(
It’s a great time to have games on hand but what about launching a Kickstarter?
- LunaSyr’s undergoing tiny tweaks and ready for review once coins are minted
- our wood component vendor has temporarily stopped some items
- most of our US vendors are effectively offline
- our printers (rules, labels, and cards) are running at a diminished capacity
- uncertainty for many of us about income
We believe pushing this Kickstarter out is good for us and for many backers.
In the meantime, our COVID statement has links to our print-and-plays as well as a BGG list.
Stay safe, keep playing and smiling, and see you on the other side of all this! =)
In addition to this update, once we complete all the LunaSyr work (print-ready files, etc.) we’ll move on to completing our most probable next game: Mint Tin Mineshaft. That would help us launch that sooner after the LunaSyr Kickstarter.
The COVID-19 situation is fluid, so it’s hard to predict when a good time will be.
I think it’s safe to assume we won’t launch until next Spring. The last thing we want to do is cause people to stress with income and, further out, year-end holidays.
In my day job, I’ve volunteered for a pay cut to help our company weather this storm. I count myself lucky to have this option and feel for so many that have lost their jobs.
Stay well and thank you for all the online support. =)
David & Kate
Original post:
As we head into summer on the beautiful Seacoast of New Hampshire, thoughts of summer fun fill our heads. And tabletop games pop in to mind (plus the remnants of Mint Tin Mini Skulduggery production still linger in the living room!). =p
So what’s up with the next game for you?
It sure looks like Mint Tin LunaSyr will be that one. =)
A 2-player mint tin game that plays in 45 minutes or so (probably an hour your first time). It’s our longest game by far with Mint Tin Aliens being second to it (the tin says 5-15, but it’s usually 20-25 for us).
We’ve tweaked Mint Tin LunaSyr nicely and have decided on the final card “look”. We need to figure out how to make the card icons stand out from the background better than they do in this latest prototype.
Our biggest snag was on the end game and we *think* we have that figured out.
Now we’re testing for how big the first-player advantage is—since the first player changes for each round, it’s minimal, but we still want to figure it out (even chess has a first-move advantage of 52-56%)—once we do, we have a few options that can easily address it.
Here’s a sneak peek at what we say about it on its unpublished Kickstarter project page:
What’s the game?
Worker placement, set collection, resource management, and random events keep this game interesting for loads of replayability. Euro-style scoring means every point matters and one point often snatches victory from your rival.
It’s a microgame that can be played almost anywhere, anytime—hanging out at home, in a food court, a tent, or even if you’re part of the Artemis program.
Fast-to-learn, easy-to-play, and a nice break from the daily grind.
You’re a roughneck crew chief for the world’s premier lunar mining operation—the LunaSyr Mining Corporation. You work 12-hour shifts competing against another crew for the bragging rights of who’s the best.
You and your crew of roughnecks are tough lunar miners—the toughest—at least that’s what you say. But bragging’s easy . . .
The moon’s a harsh place and you need to be clever during every mining shift to improve your mining operation and to make sure your crew stays healthy.
Every shift starts with a crew chief change and you have twelve shifts to prove that you’re the best, so:
- mine resources smartly,
- improve your mining operation,
- make your habitat better & stronger,
- deal with issues from the robot sentinel, and
- remember— this is corporate—excesses are penalized.
If you’re clever and cunning, you might just win this thing and actually be the best.
A sentinel robot named RoSE (Automated Robot Sentinel Enforcer) keeps an eye on conditions and will alert both crews if something bad happens. It’s the moon after all and it ain’t made of cheese.
Deal with the consequences of your decisions and those of your opponent—plus the harsh conditions of being away from Earth.
It ain’t easy and this is where guts meet glory.
So that’s the sneak peek, but what’s that mean for you?
We still have this stuff to do before it goes live on Kickstarter:
- secure a domestic tin manufacturer for the screw-lid option, which might be a stretch goal (the added tooling makes threaded tins more costly)
- determine our label approach (believe it or not, we’re looking into printed magnets!) o_O
- recreate the card & label art in Illustrator (they’re in Fireworks)
- create coin art as a possible stretch goal (an aluminum coin like the ones passed out to school kids in the ’60s vs. a wood token)
- determine the best shipping package options (contrary to what some KS projects say, you can figure out that cost ahead of time) *roll eyes on my soapbox issue*
- continue with local play testing and mail prototypes to remote testers
- tweak the current instructions and layout for printing & determine the paper to use
- send refined prototypes to reviewers
The last one’s the longest step and needs 6 to 8 weeks of patience (that’s a tough one for me!). =D
Once reviews start coming out, we can launch the Mint Tin LunaSyr Kickstarter!
A date? That’s tough but we’re aiming for the fall—stay tuned! =)
Thanks for your patience and play well this summer! =)
