I haven’t queried manufacturers to find out the cost of the game at ~64 dice and 4 players, but I don’t expect it to be cheap. I know that keeping a laser focus on unit economics will be very important if we want to publish a profitable game.
Ways to Keep Costs Down
A rule of thumb is that board games retail for about 5x their landed cost. This is because games sell into distribution at about 18-20% msrp, which works out to a 50% unit margin. For reference Nut Hunt which we are now selling for $39 (we recently reduced the price from $49) had a landed cost of $9.68. The breakdown was:
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Manufacture & Component Testing – $29,415 / 4,000 = $7.35 per game
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Freight – $6,154 / 3,732 = $1.65 per game
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Customs Inspection Fees – $2,529 / 3,732 = $0.68 per game
This was for a 4,000 unit print run with most of the units shipped Stateside. The $2,529 customs inspection fee was due to our container being pulled for inspection (which is a rare occurrence).
As you can see, we are breaking the 5x rule for Nut Hunt.
Our original MSRP was $49, but the $39 price point resonates more with consumers and is in line with peers (also a family weight gateway game although a bit higher complexity & component skew than its closest comps).