Is My Game Market Viable? Part 1 - Making the Cut
One of the most important things you can do in your publishing journey, and one that will save you the greatest heartache later on, is to assess the market viability of your game (meaning how compatible it is for success). Most of us don't have the time or money to review crowdfunding publishing trends to figure out what types of games the market is looking for. It is an unreasonable expectation of the cozy crowdfunder. But bringing the wrong product to market can doom a project before it ever begins, wasting your precious investments of time and money. How then do you determine what to self publish?
Trying to publish a game backers don't want can doom a project before it begins.
To answer this important question I've written a two part blog series. In this first part, I review three different criteria I use to determine which games meet the minimum requirements for successful publishing. This is where many designs end up on the cutting room floor. In the next part I show you a low cost method to do market testing to see which of your designs have the greatest chance of success with backers.
So let's look at your designs and see which make the cut!
The First Cut - Can your design sustain your interest?
Since crowdfunding successfully is about finding products that backers want, a lot of your focus is going to be about which designs draw them in and provide the right incentives to support your project. But at this first stage, this is the principle time you get to ask yourself, "what do I actually want to publish?"
Publishing is going to sap your motivation, so your game needs to be able to sustain your enthusiasm though the challenging times.
Not every design may be market viable, but its important to think about what you want to produce. Crowdfunding and publishing in general will drain your energy and motivation over time. You will need enthusiasm and a positive vision of the future to sustain you. If a game design isn't doing that for you, you won't be in it for the long haul. So look and which designs give you life and pick a few because not all will make the final cut.
The Second Cut - Do the components match the game's experience?
Before I begin this explanation, I'll say this is very difficult to explain. It may not be immediately obvious what I am referring to, but I cannot overstate how important this step is. You need to figure out if there is a intuitive mismatch between what people expect to pay for your game based on the experience of playing it versus what people expect to pay for your game based on the components.
To do this you need to figure out the approximate MSRP (price at retail) of similar games based on the following. First, what is the general price of games that provide a similar experience? Then, what is the general price of games that have similar components? Compare these two MSRPs. If the MSRP for group one is too different than group two, it means you have a experience vs component mismatch.
If the value of the game experience doesn't match the value of the components, backers will be turned off to your game.
For example, if the experience of playing your game is similar to Azul, backers expect to pay about $40 for it. However if the components are only cards, a price of $40 is going to feel exploitative. On the other side, if your components involve figures, coins, lots of cardboard, and a large gameboard, backers might be willing to pay $80 for it. But backers are going to feel cheated if you only provide a game with the depth of Azul.
People always create their price expectations around the game experience before components. You'll need to either scale up or down your components to match the experience. If this can't be done, then cut the game.
The Final Cut - Can you make money?
With our estimated MSRP for the game experience in mind, it's time to look at production costs for the design. This is where you need to connect with manufacturers to evaluate your product cost at a variety of MOQs (minimum order quantities).
Recognize that backers also tend to be collectors. So when you think of cost, I want you to imagine your game in two states. Think about the minimum you need to make your game playable that still fits within the expected experience for backers This is called the MVP or minimum viable product. Then think about the very best version of your game. Think about a deluxe version with all the fun upgrades like thicker cards, linen finishes, wooden bits, metal coins, whatever you think would enhance the experience.
Note you may think that we cut these souped up components in the previous step, but there is an important distinction here. Backers will pay more for a DELUXE version of your game with upgraded bits so long as those bits are consistent with the experience.
Now you need to get the costs for each version of your game. I recommend getting a quote for 100 units of your MVP from Launch Tabletop, quotes for 500/1000 units of both MVP and Deluxe games with Whatz Games, and a quote for 1,500 Deluxe games with LongPack Games. They will return a quote for the cost per unit. Finally add about $2 - 4 to each game to estimate the cost to get the product from the manufacturer to you (though this can vary wildly). This is how much it should cost to make one unit of your game.
Compare the MSRP you determined during the second cut and the cost per unit. Can you still make a little money at a 100 MOQ? Can you make at least 2x your cost at 500 units? This isn't an exact science. This whole exercise is to eliminate games that don't have enough margin to support your efforts. For example, if you can't reasonably make money at lower than 1,000 units, the game is probably not market viable and too risky for a cozy crowdfunder.
You might be tempted to multiply your costs by 5x or more to get your MSRP. I explain why this advice exists here in Why Retail is a Trap.
How much will your game cost to produce? If it's too expensive for its value, it's not viable.
It's possible that after this cut none of your game designs remain. Do not despair, you've learned some valuable information for your future design process. You've learned how to think like a publisher and not a designer. Then use your newfound knowledge to design something you are interested in publishing that also meets these minimum requirements.
What's Next?
In the next article I'll discuss how to answer the question, 'do backers even want your game?'
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