You’re only considering material cost, not time cost of employing someone to operate the machines. Also your system is not really scalable - it would take a long time per unit, making the labour cost even more significant per unit. There’s also R&D, distribution, marketing, etc. all before any profit is made. Also, as you mention, the quality of 3D printed pieces would be much poorer.
I find board games simply overpriced, they’re mostly paper and plastic, and r&d is now much reduced, since 90% of new games simply a mix of already published games with nicer drawings.
Well yeah, 90% of the market is overpriced crap - that’s not unique to boardgames, although like you say it’s understandble how when the material cost can be low. But there are some game makers that do really make the effort, and in particular when I looked up what Scythe is and all the pieces it comes with I feel it’s probably not too unreasonable to ask a higher retail price (although I saw them available for much less also).
Quite a few publishers have written about their costs and how the tariffs impact them. The actual cost of a $90 game is something like $15, and the rest is labor, distribution costs, and profit. I personally think the distribution costs are way too high and could stand to drop a lot, but I don’t know the details well enough to comment. Regardless, there’s no reasonable way to drop the manufacturing costs significantly.
That stinks…
Scyte is 90€ but if I printed it all at home (printer+3d printer) it would probably be 20€. A rough version of it, sure, but 20€.
Make it serial in a factory.
You’re only considering material cost, not time cost of employing someone to operate the machines. Also your system is not really scalable - it would take a long time per unit, making the labour cost even more significant per unit. There’s also R&D, distribution, marketing, etc. all before any profit is made. Also, as you mention, the quality of 3D printed pieces would be much poorer.
I find board games simply overpriced, they’re mostly paper and plastic, and r&d is now much reduced, since 90% of new games simply a mix of already published games with nicer drawings.
Well yeah, 90% of the market is overpriced crap - that’s not unique to boardgames, although like you say it’s understandble how when the material cost can be low. But there are some game makers that do really make the effort, and in particular when I looked up what Scythe is and all the pieces it comes with I feel it’s probably not too unreasonable to ask a higher retail price (although I saw them available for much less also).
Quite a few publishers have written about their costs and how the tariffs impact them. The actual cost of a $90 game is something like $15, and the rest is labor, distribution costs, and profit. I personally think the distribution costs are way too high and could stand to drop a lot, but I don’t know the details well enough to comment. Regardless, there’s no reasonable way to drop the manufacturing costs significantly.