6 - Where can I find manufacturers, and who should produce my board game?

Upon request, I'll continue with the topic of pricing in this blog post. How do I determine the production costs of the game? Through quotes from manufacturers. And where can they be found?

There are actually plenty of manufacturers that produce board games, and not all of them are easy to find. To find some, I visited the booths at Spiel 2019 with my prototype and outlined which components I needed using it as an example. While I’m sure I missed many manufacturers, I managed to establish contact with 17 companies. That’s definitely enough for a good overview. Three were from Europe (Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic), while the other 14 were from China. Of these, three never sent me a quote, leaving me with one German and 13 Chinese companies.

The first 14 quotes were overwhelming at first. So many different materials, various minimum order quantities, tiered pricing for print runs, special conditions for packaging and shipping, and sometimes even possible fulfillment services (shipping directly to Kickstarter backers—more on this in the next blog post). This led to prices that were not directly comparable at first glance. Usually, the prices are also listed individually for each component. To bring some clarity to the material chaos, it was time to pull out all the demo packages from Essen again.

Descriptions can initially be confusing.

Even though different manufacturers sometimes use different terms for certain things, the demo packages helped me get a clearer picture. Comparing the quotes also gave me an overview of which conditions are more standard in the industry and which are not. It also highlighted issues I hadn’t considered before that needed addressing with some manufacturers. With a second quote where I specified preferred materials, discussed any missing components, and standardized the print runs (e.g., 1,000/2,000/5,000 units), I was finally able to compare prices. And they vary widely—by about ±50% from the average price.

However, price alone isn’t everything. Communication with some companies was significantly better than with others. I had no board game references for some, and reviews from board game design groups and forums were a crucial factor in my decision-making. Some companies also specialize in certain components, such as miniatures, specialty dice, chips, coins, or game mats.

Deciding on one of the final five favorites was incredibly difficult. Panda has the best reputation in terms of quality and service but is very expensive and demands larger print runs. Other companies with bigger names were almost equally good in quality, offered significantly better prices, and provided excellent service. Ultimately, I chose LongPack. If something were to interfere, I could still fall back on Magicraft. Feedback on these companies is excellent, the prices are good, and communication was outstanding. However, the components needed and how comfortable one feels with a company may also play a role. The decision was truly tough and lengthy—370 emails were exchanged in total.

If you’re wondering what happened to the German company: I didn’t feel as comfortable with them. I also got the impression that they were reluctant to produce smaller print runs. The price was about 40% worse, even though some components were missing and not accounted for. Certain components made of other materials (e.g., plastic feet for standees) would still have to be ordered from China. Deluxe components for a special Kickstarter version would also have been significantly more complicated and expensive here.

Have you had experiences with board game manufacturers? I—and likely some of the readers—would love to hear your stories. Leave a comment. If you find this blog interesting, feel free to subscribe.

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