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Yeah, I'm not so sure about competing with GW.

Appreciate people's info though, and thanks for the link KK, it looks like a swell idea.

Artwork might not be too much of a problem. I know some people...

Knowing some people isn't the same as getting good work from them. Also, you can't just throw in random artwork and expect a good response from players.

You have to make sure you unify the artistic design of the game.

One of the reasons why Warmachine and Warhammer does so well at the market is they have very well set styles for their artwork, and all their artwork across all their products tends to follow that style. This creates a visual identity for the game that sticks with people who see it. Get it to stick enough and people will be more interested into buying into your game.

Once again it comes back to a unified vision for the game, and someone who can lead that vision.

Kilkrazy wrote:Starting a company has a hugely variable cost depending on what you decide to do.

If you just want to publish books, you can probably typeset them yourself using software that's already on your home computer. Artwork is more expensive. Publish via Lulu.com and there are no printing costs. I have two rulebooks published via Lulu.

http://www.lulu.com/uk/products/

If you are going to compete with GW it's a whole different game.

I should make it clear that this phrase "I have two rulebooks published via Lulu." means I own two rulebooks, written by other people, which I ordered and they were printed to order and delivered by Lulu.com.

I have not personally published any rules via Lulu.com.

I mentioned Lulu.com because the quality of the books I bought was very good and it seems a good solution for self-publishing minority interest rulebooks. The books I bought are Agon and Panty Explosion RPGs. You order the books off the publisher's website and they are printed and delivered by Lulu.

http://www.agon-rpg.com/
http://www.atarashigames.com/whatispantyexplosion.html

Read Wyrd Games first Ezine. The owner talks about the early days of Wyrd. Its a pretty good business model for a start up game company. Contract out the sculpting, modeling and painting & just concentrate on sales & art development.

Greens are going to cost anywhere from $150 to $600 depending on the complexity and detail of the figure. Spin casting metal figures is going to require about 1K casts to get the most value out of the molds. Say it costs $300 for molds (master + production) plus metal cost for each fig or roughly $1 per fig. Add in $150 for a professional paint job.

If your company does an initial launch with 5 figures - the start up costs are about $7500 + business overhead for the LLC, tax #, accountant .... and that assumes you can run your own web site.

http://wyrd-games.net/Ezine/Wyrd%20Chronicles%20v1.pdf

RAN

Thanks, that is exactly the kind of info I've been looking for.

You get to move onto the next round!

GG

After looking at the costs related to the spin casting and I can see why companies choose that method, as it appears to be drastically cheaper than plastic injection. This is why I think if you were going to go plastic as a startup you would need to sub contract the injection part out to a vendor to perform that for you. The problem is, that those costs would get rolled up into the cost of the minis you wanted to sell (so would the capital expense of purchasing an injection machine), therefore you wouldn't make as much money. So it would seem that the best way to go for a start-up would be the pewter spin cast method.

There are other ways as well which need to be investigated, like resin injection. The resin injectors can be fairly cheap as well, but it's a much slower process.
GG

Casting method is a matter of scale:
Resin - hundreds of figures. Cheap to start (less than $500), but time consuming and with a high failure rate.
Spin casting - thousands of figures. Main cost is in the lead.
Plastic - 10K figures. Cost is in the mold.

Take a look at War Games Factory. They have been trying to do plastics for the past year or more & are having a hard time of it. Apparently they scrapped their first set of designs and re-did every thing. WGF has 5 kits on the market, so they have some success but I hate to think of how much capital they must have blown thru.

There are a lot of business costs you are forgetting about. Even a simple thing like insurance for your company will cost you more than you think. A game manufacturer and rules seller needs pretty extensive advertising and copyright coverage, since GW or Wizards or Hasbro will inevitably sue your ass.

hancock.tom wrote:There are a lot of business costs you are forgetting about. Even a simple thing like insurance for your company will cost you more than you think. A game manufacturer and rules seller needs pretty extensive advertising and copyright coverage, since GW or Wizards or Hasbro will inevitably sue your ass.

They will?

They will if your ripping off your IP, any company will do that.

Hell, I've already had to threaten legal action against a company for violating our trademarks.

Grim stuff. It seems that the best option would be to come up with a solid set of rules and artwork and trying to get an established miniature company interested somehow. I've tried that a couple of times, and all I got were polite letters of rejection. I even got a letter from Fantasy Flight Games eight or nine years ago stating that they had no interest in developing miniature games. Of course, after seeing their failures with CaoR, AT-43 and Mutant Chronicles, It seems they should have stuck to that.

Wow. ... I just read all of this. I think before what we should do.(hopefully me too) Is to think of to get some solid things down first.game
Is this game going to be sci-fi or Mythical and more fantasy.
Is it going to be large scale wars or tiny scale. Suggesting the detail of the models.
Is it going to be more of an rpg or war game.
Is it going to be more centered around infantry or vehicles, And if has vehicles will there be a lot of them.
just my 1 cents(only have on side of my brain left =P

lolzman wrote:Wow. ... I just read all of this. I think before what we should do.(hopefully me too) Is to think of to get some solid things down first.game
Is this game going to be sci-fi or Mythical and more fantasy.
Is it going to be large scale wars or tiny scale. Suggesting the detail of the models.
Is it going to be more of an rpg or war game.
Is it going to be more centered around infantry or vehicles, And if has vehicles will there be a lot of them.
just my 1 cents(only have on side of my brain left =P

If you're at this stage, then don't even bother with a company. Go off in a corner for 2-5 years and work on the game, fluff, product, etc. In that time so much can change in the industry and manufacturing, that any costs of production will be different. And 90% of the people in your group will have got bored and gone back to playing games, not trying a start up company.

Game/Product/Idea first, company second.

lolzman wrote:Wow. ... I just read all of this. I think before what we should do.(hopefully me too) Is to think of to get some solid things down first.game
Is this game going to be sci-fi or Mythical and more fantasy.
Is it going to be large scale wars or tiny scale. Suggesting the detail of the models.
Is it going to be more of an rpg or war game.
Is it going to be more centered around infantry or vehicles, And if has vehicles will there be a lot of them.
just my 1 cents(only have on side of my brain left =P

Well, the idea I'm fiddling around with is more Scifi, just because that's what I like. It will have vehicles, because I'd never want to make a game without tanks. It will be infantry and vehicles.

My idea would be more of a wargame, but with differences in the complexity of the rules depending on game size. I'm thinking of maybe three different variations, like maybe under 500 points there's a pretty complex set where things are less squad based, and more individual. Then from 500 to 2500 or something (speaking in terms of 40k points, which I don't know if I'd use) there's a standard wargamey rule set. Then after 2500 or 3000 or whatever, there would be a less complex set to allow for resolving shooting and conflicts faster, so that you can play larger games faster. I plan to use 28 mm.

also, as a word of advice, don't give out too much information before you have things written down and trademarked/copyrighted.

Don't want to see your ideas putting money into someone else's pocket.

If you're serious, I'd suggest going for the minimal-investment route while developing stuff. make up a company name, get a cheap but capable web-hosting account (Under $15 a month, easy) and set up some sort of private space to BS on development... Maybe use a wiki set so only members can see it to keep discussion provate and not interfere.

Yes, it's a couple bucks, but it's not that much and can be used for other things, too.

Balance wrote:If you're serious, I'd suggest going for the minimal-investment route while developing stuff. make up a company name, get a cheap but capable web-hosting account (Under $15 a month, easy) and set up some sort of private space to BS on development... Maybe use a wiki set so only members can see it to keep discussion provate and not interfere.

Yes, it's a couple bucks, but it's not that much and can be used for other things, too.

Seconding the Wiki, its what we used & continue to use. Huddle and Google Docs are also good for this.