Cost for printing cards (PoD/LCG/...)

I don't think attracting new player should be focused on. Vtes has always been bad in that b/c game is so specialized (just a good thing IMO) and hard to learn. New players might come if old players stay. That is why some new expansions and new stuff is important. Nowadays I'm all for new reprint of Netrunner but I will come back to Vtes when there is new stuff etc.

I would be more interested if killing the value of collections by reprinting Enkil Cogs 0,4€ might anger lot of older players. I am not sure yet about what I think.

Surreal wrote:

I would be more interested if killing the value of collections by reprinting Enkil Cogs 0,4€ might anger lot of older players. I am not sure yet about what I think.

PLAYERS will rejoice.

COLLECTORS (of whom I know none) would be unhappy.

SINGLES RESELLERS will be out of business.

johannes wrote:

I have been thinking about the whole "starter" issue a bit.

Yes 20-30$ for a deck sounds expensive at first, however it can be any deck you want. Of course you could buy a start for 10$, but:
- You needed to buy at least 2 or some boosters to make a viable deck out of it
- If you want to play tournaments and not be limited to very few decks you need to spend even more

To me, from a standpoint of say a Magic play, it sounds pretty good to spend 200$ and have 7 decks you can win games with.

If you want the old style starters with lots of suboptimal cards, well you can still buy them. Plenty of stock left.

However Adonai/Jeff is making a good point. I´ll look into a way of creating a competitively priced starter set (a la 3rd), that changes every 6-12 months, that gives room for a store margin. So stores can stock and sell that (just like any other game) and there could be a way for them to get affiliate payback when people order POD.

best idea ever.

mirddes wrote:

johannes wrote:

I have been thinking about the whole "starter" issue a bit.

Yes 20-30$ for a deck sounds expensive at first, however it can be any deck you want. Of course you could buy a start for 10$, but:
- You needed to buy at least 2 or some boosters to make a viable deck out of it
- If you want to play tournaments and not be limited to very few decks you need to spend even more

To me, from a standpoint of say a Magic play, it sounds pretty good to spend 200$ and have 7 decks you can win games with.

If you want the old style starters with lots of suboptimal cards, well you can still buy them. Plenty of stock left.

However Adonai/Jeff is making a good point. I´ll look into a way of creating a competitively priced starter set (a la 3rd), that changes every 6-12 months, that gives room for a store margin. So stores can stock and sell that (just like any other game) and there could be a way for them to get affiliate payback when people order POD.

best idea ever.

I've finally had a chance to take time and read this thread and all of the opinions. At the risk of a "me, too" post, I wanted to add my agreement to this - if it can be done. $25 decks wouldn't scare someone like me with my collecting habits because I'd look at it as 'getting over the hump' of acquiring sufficient copies of useful cards, after which the price of creating new deck would go way down. But unfortunately, newer player or more economy-minded players may get scared off - especially if they tend to be short-sighted about it or are unsure of their commitment to the game. Relatively cheap pre-built decks with lots of copies of staple cards would allow such players to make more modest initial investments and then tune their collections to their tastes relatively painlessly later on. If the pre-built decks don't contain copies of the chase rare cards like Enkil Cogs, that may at least politically deflect some criticism about wiping out the value of collections and destroying the singles market - although the PoD function will obviously do both, even so.

I also agree with the people who say catering PoD to FLGS is hopeless, even if it would be nice. On the other hand, if Johannes can find a way to print competitively-priced pre-built decks which could be sold in stores, that at least would be something.

All of this strikes me as pretty obvious (as well as late). Hope I didn't waste anyone's time. We love Mom and Apple Pie, too! Good luck, Johannes!

Fred

Non-existant user wrote:

Any reason why Gamecrafter are 10 times cheaper than the other printers? What are their minimal orders?

Production value. You are getting single-ply cardstock, meaning you can see through the cards when you hold them up to light.

Professional cards are two-ply cardstock, with something in the glue between layers to block light (usually graphite or something, it's generally a trade secret.)

GameCrafter is great for prototyping games and it's a great way to get a product onto a Print-on-Demand market with no capital.