Interesting detail by CP on TOS

There was a lengthy and well-written review of Battlelore 2nd Ed., the thread for which inevitably asked the question about expansions and the cost of same. Someone referenced the seemingly high price of the lieutenant expansion packs for Descent 2nd Ed., based on the fact that they only included one miniature. The OP threw together some back-of-the-envelope numbers and suggested that FFG was simply doing so as a method of profiteering on the game's popularity. Christian Petersen showed up with some more detail:

"JunJun,

Your math is interesting, but lacks a few very important notions.

Keep in mind that FFG sells it products to retail/distribution, and publishers only have revenue of about 40% to 45% of the retail price point. FFG's sees about $33 per copy of Descent sold.

Secondly, for miniatures, keep in mind that every unique mini is far more expensive than a repeat mini. For each unique figure, you need to pay for concept artwork, sculpting, and tooling. Repeat mini's are more "hits" on the tool (and for these you pay for materials, gluing, handling, and manufacturers' margin). Adding another 6 unique sculpts in the core set, would in fact be very expensive, far in excess of the proportion to raw number of minis. For miniatures with less play-time (such as the Lieutenants) we feel the significant extra price is in the best interest of the average customer (and provide tokens for these characters instead).

Instead, we are making the lieutenants available separately to those that want the maximum experience in their game, and we've tried hard for these packs to be FAR more than just a miniature accessory for a single campaign, and to make these at a very low SRP.

For reference, look at pricing of comparable individual miniatures for miniatures games (GW, Privateer Press, etc).

I'm confident that FFG provides the miniature, plus card, tokens, packaging (and the significant testing and development of the "Plot" cards) for an exceptional price. We are *thrilled* at the low SRP we've been able to price these at. Again, look at the comparative values out there.

Another issue with your math, is the notion of margin and print runs. Due to the high setup prices of plastic, printing in low volumes (such as the 1500 or 2000 you're guessing at) both printing and one-time costs are greatly more weighty. FFG sees nowhere near a 80% margin. I believe our margin on the Lieutenant packs are lower than the core set, in fact. Placing all the Lieutenant minis in "one box", would not significant lower the SRP, and would depress volumes more due the high SRP of the content (and we would not be able to afford the development time for the "plots").

That said, I appreciate the fact that you tried to quantify these facts. Hopefully, some of the above will help you in this. The math for publishers can be quite punishing and is unfortunately something that is often misunderstood by customers, making the publisher look exploitative when this is not the case.

Cheers,

Christian"

He's certainly right about the high setup costs of plastic compared to other materials, since plastic molds generally have to be metal, which are far more costly to make than the rubber molds that can be used for materials like pewter. However, pewter as a material is far more costly and more difficult to use and transport, which is why even minis companies like GW and PP are switching to resin (in addition to the greater/easier conversion possibilities for modelers.)

As much grief as Mr. Petersen and I have shared over the years, I really appreciate the handful of times that he's come out with complete transparency on issues like this. It's a far too uncommon thing, this kind of insight into the economics of making games. There is so much speculation and misunderstanding out there. Nice to have someone step in and say "this is how we do it, this is why we do it, and this is why it costs $X."

i backed Martin Wallaces Moonga Invaders ks. Martin is quickly learning this stuff the unfortunate way. Plastics are complex to produce. The only companies that do it really well are those like FFG that have built their business around it to an extent.

I always enjoy CPs posts when he does this. I don't know if it's true, but I feel like he's had a 3rd beer, is idly browsing BGG and has a "fuck no" moment.

My favorite publisher.

I know FFG takes a low margin because even Book Depository carries their stuff.

I've only met Christian very briefly once or twice, but he was extremely decent and gracious with my son Brian when he interned there last summer, taking him out to lunch, advising him, etc.

. . . and is polite enough to leave out health care, unemployment insurance, energy costs, rent & mortgage, shipping inbound and outbound, errored runs . . . all of which is in the mix as well. As it stands he's keeping it mighty simple and making a solid case.

S.

^Good point. I love the calculation that people do about projects where they leave nothing for paying themselves, any employees, taxes, etc. I think it's a major kickstarter problem for people who've never owned a business or really produced a project. Shit gets really expensive when you actually pay professionals to do things and leave this BGG realm of volunteers for everything.

Reminds me of Valley Games' "volunteers" for a 300K kickstarter project. CP isn't in this kind of BS "business"

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1325766284/...rd-game/posts/710223

Team Covenant did an interesting recent interview with CP on YouTube. It's worth a watch.

Here it is:

its a good interview. In general i think gaming companies should do more of these kinds of things, it does nothing but enhance their rep.

I'm always impressed with CP's calm, collected, professional and informative responses. If it were me, I'd fly off the handle and get too emotionally invested in the response and come off looking like a twit.

Sometimes he does look like a bit of a hothead when he does this. Definitely not on this occasion.

It always bugs me to no end when some no nothing motherfuckers go off about this or that and try to act like they know anything about how things actually work. It happens in all communities but fuck does it happen a lot in gaming.

I'm happy that gaming does seem to have a lot of industry professionals who are willing to step up and explain how things actually work and be transparent.

Jackwraith wrote: However, pewter as a material is far more costly and more difficult to use and transport, which is why even minis companies like GW and PP are switching to resin (in addition to the greater/easier conversion possibilities for modelers.)

8 pounds (1 gal) of a resin material costs around $43.00. 8 pounds of a Brit pewter ~Sn92Cu2Sb6 alloy is around $68.00. A pound of that alloy roughly covers 3.81 cu. in, whereas a pound of the resin covers around 26 cu. in. If you were to change the volumes to 2,000 pounds of each material, the price of the metal will remain about the same whereas the price of the plastic will probably drop 20% for volume discount. So, in short, for 20$ less, you can make about 6 additional miniatures from resin.

Spincasting metal is easier to do that resin casting using a variety of metrics, and the quality of the product is much better. The tooling allows for smaller runs, and the only tooling required is the mold. It's also easier to change from one mold to another than with resin casting. Resin is also harder on molds than metal.

Transporting resin is harder as it's a DOT regulated material - it's flammable. Transporting metal has zero regulations.

Just a few facts about resin v. metals. Thought I'd toss this out there for the fun of it.

MattLoter wrote: It always bugs me to no end when some no nothing motherfuckers go off about this or that and try to act like they know anything about how things actually work. It happens in all communities but fuck does it happen a lot in gaming.

LOL, I am attempting to be that guy. LMAO