Print and play babeee
I’d suggest looking to manufacturing locally, but that might just be a biased perspective. It’s either that or sitting on your hands until international shipping regains sanity.
Is there a place locally, wherever that is, which is capable of printing quality modern tabletop games at scale?
I think there’s a company in Germany that can manufacture games at scale, but from what I vaguely remember, it’s much more expensive than the ones in China/Taiwan. I don’t think there’s any manufacturer that can do that kind of stuff in the US.
If prices remain high permanently, it might be worth it for some VC to start a manufacturer in the US. It might be more expensive to produce the games, due to cost of living, etc., but if it saves publishers money on shipping, the business model might work. The problem is that these current high prices might only be temporary, so once they go back down, publishers go back to making their games in China, and this hypothetical US manufacturer goes out of business.
Print and play doesn’t earn game publishers any money. It doesn’t let them pay their employees, rent, utilities, etc.
The Game Crafter has its manufacturing center in Wisconsin. They do bulk orders, but for most things it’s roughly twice as expensive as having them made in China. Still, not bad. They can’t do the enormous scale of other print studios, but small-timers could get by.
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It’s also the question of the volume of the work. The place is Wisconsin might be better positioned to scale up. Manual labor is probably a bigger factor in this country, too.
I know some of our local people were looking at stuff, but it’s a matter of the work and the capacity being a catch 22. We’re not going to invest in the capacity unless the work is there, but without the capacity, hard to sell the work.
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It begins:
“Tasty Minstrel Games, the publisher of tabletop titles such as Yokohama, is reportedly in “virtual bankruptcy”, leading to staff layoffs and a halt to game development.”
" According to the cited email, TMG’s “book value is in the negative”, everyone in the company - besides its owner - has apparently been laid off and the development of upcoming board games has been halted."
“TMG does not expect to produce any new games for the next “two to three years”. Instead, the company will be focusing on selling its existing stock of dice and other tabletop accessories in the hopes of “eventually being able to start up again”.”
Very excited to play Pandemic Legacy Season 0, just got it with some birthday money and also picked up a used like new copy of Imperial Assault core set off facebook marketplace.
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A Star Wars version of Descent always appealed to me but I could never get enough interest from my friends to buy Imperial Assault. Definitely let me know what you think of the game.
And speaking of Descent, I have no idea what to think of the new game they just released. I really don’t trust FFG to support their games anymore because they seem like a shell of their former company. Also, the game seems like it’s in the uncanny valley where it wants to be a board game and a video game, but doesn’t do either well enough compared to other games. Also the price.
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So I have just the core set of Descent 2nd edition and enjoyed it a lot and Imperial Assault was on my list for years, but hard to pull the trigger at MSRP when I already owned Descent. This was even more so after the 2 price increases happened pushing MSRP to 100. The pot is sweetened for me a bit because I have Edge of the Emprie and the other roleplaying games for their FFG system so I have cross over dice and also the miniatures and terrain would be great to have for that system. Seeing the core set for Imperial Assault was no longer in print I went to FB marketplace and found an opened (the outer plastic) but unused copy (cardboard never punched out, all minis and tokens there) so I look forward to playing it and will definitely report back.
I wholly agree with you about the, what is FFG doing with its business model. I think on the one hand that the new megabox Descent looks pretty well contained as a big box product (it should be at MSRP 175). That said I can’t comment on if its worth that money in comparison to say Gloomhaven which I think is how FFG has positioned the new Descent game to be marketed against. I will say their support APPs for campaign tracking/randomization do alleviate a lot of the admin and setup burdens having personally used their official one for Descent.
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My biggest concern about the newest Descent is that the app does TOO much. I know I’m not alone in this, and I’m not inherently against app-assisted games, but if I want to play a board game, I want to play a board game, and if I want to play a pc game, I’ll play a pc game. The new Descent looks like it’s trying to be both, and as a result, succeeding at neither.
But who knows, I could be wrong and it’s amazing.
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Zach (of SMBC fame) and Kelly Weinersmith are kickstarting a board game:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erasmusfox/everyone-else-thinks-this-game-is-awesome
Reminds me of what the guys said about America, though I haven’t played that one either.
The rules sound more like Wits and Wagers, with non-numeric answers and an additional “no one is correct” betting space.
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Feeling pretty seen with those suburbia titles.
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Not sure if this has been posted before, but this hits way too close to home haha:
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This is going to end well…
“The purchaser currently in pole position to buy Asmodee is supposedly Goldman Sachs, which is currently the largest investment bank on the planet.”
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Board Game Designer Documentary
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