I liked this article and would like to see more like it. With the maker movement, Kickstarter, 3D printing, etc there now seems to be a lot more interest in making physical products. But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app.
I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the total project costs. And labour isn't even factored in.
I was just involved in making a small injection molded part. I was surprised how easy and inexpensive it was. For all the hype 3D printing is getting, I think there could be lots more businesses in making injection molding more accessible.
> But the isn't a lot of public information about the costs and processes involved, compared to say the number of tutorials on how to build web app or a mobile app.
This is because your are in the field. Say you were a person, who has never programmed anything in their life, but has a great idea for an app. Where would you even start? It would seem to me that finding good programmers is as difficult as finding good factories.
> I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the total project costs.
This is why Apple is the largest company in the world, not Foxconn.
I was at a presentation about the logistical aspects of production during PAX and 3D printing is almost illogical. The current machines aren't fast enough, and the quality isn't there compared to what you can get for an injection mould.
From what the panelists were saying, the closest thing to 3D printing could be useful for would be to use a high resolution printer to create a few masters from which you could create your moulds instead.
Really cool to see the numbers and congrats on making the product!
One nit to emphasize the value in basic accounting knowledge for others when going down the manufacturing route: it's $11.37 _gross_ margin (aka gross profit, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_margin ), not _net_ profit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_Margin ). While this may sound silly and academic, net confers a sense of finality -- it includes all costs, marketing, discounts to sell remnant inventory, depreciations... everything. Learning this distinction will also introduce you to inventory management, promotion cycles, and all sorts of other crazy business skills to help you get to the next level in building a game business. There are hundreds of years of wisdom built up about manufacturing that all has to funnel through.... accounting...
For example, having >50% net profit is fantastic for manufacturing! Having >50% gross profit is on par for low-scale, specialty products. Jon's 11.37 is a gross profit and on par. Knowing nothing about this specific market, the standard advice in this case is to focus on growing the market rather than reducing costs at this point. (This is a business-model version of the 'don't scale prematurely' mantra you hear in tech considering his price of $20/game doesn't seem insane).
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show the gross revenue for all 333 sets is $6,660. Assuming he's included all costs, this means:
Revenue: $6,660
Costs: $4,660
==================
Net Profit: $2,000
Which means a net profit of $6/set, a little more than 25% of the sale. Depending on how aggressively he wants the market, he should offer discounts to influential or trend-setting groups of people in the 25% range.
Another way to look at this business is he would get a return of $2,000 for $4,660 in capital (since he has 1 production run), or 50% ROI... also not too shabby (if sold at retail price).
And yet another way to look at this is manufacturing the product over 8 hours yields $2000, or $250/hour... better than most. It's unclear how much time he spent on the admin and design tasks, but since this is a labor of love... let's assume it was leisure time and free :) It also means a second production run may get him an economy scale from re-using the design and website assets for even more $$$/hour.
All-in-all, this looks great across the board, and I wish the Jon the best of luck in bringing Space Dice to the world!
One comment though - if the intention is to get the game onto the shelf in retail stores, there's not enough margin in it at the current cost/pricing.
A store is going to require most (or all) of that margin - in most "dice game" type stores, if you want to put a product on the shelf at $20, you're going to need to sell it to the store for somewhere around $14 or they're not going to be interested.
Seems to me that at least an investigation into whether getting a run of 3,000 or 30,000 sets made up (and outsourcing the 80 or 800hrs of packaging work) would be a worthwhile exercise rather than being premature optimisation.
I really like this analysis as well - can I ask where the "standard advice" comes from? And if it's from an MBA, what school? I haven't seen this kind of quantified strategizing taught before; I've been winging it and would love to pick up some formal knowledge if it exists.
Why make an iPhone app to keep track of planets owned when you could just make a simple paper based scorecard? Or am I missing something about the complexity of the game? An app might be useful but you want the game to be playable by the largest number of peopl possible and there could be some opportunity for recurring revenue from selling the scorecards.
You don't even need a paper score card. The Munchkin card game suggests using pennies to keep track of your hp. You could just suggest that, everyone should have something they can use as "counters" and you don't need to sink the costs into a score pad.
"I spent a few hours hacking together a little rails app which would play out 100,000 rolls in a few seconds and tell me the chances of everything coming up. "
Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities? It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.
The rules require knowledge of the dice' relative orientations in meatspace and I believe subsequent rolls in a turn exhibit memory (dice are not equivalent), which makes the conditional probabilities substantially more difficult than a Monte Carlo simulation.
>Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities?
Perhaps it's along the same lines as the physical prototype he made prior to that.
"It really helped to make a prototype, as I could actually play the game rather than everything being hypothetical."
Building the app seems like perfectly logical extension of that.
>It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.
Yet here he is with a fully finished product in spite of that notion. He wanted to make a game, he made a game using the tools he was aware of and comfortable with.
> It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.
People have been making games of chance since long before advanced mathematics. Being a statistician doesn't necessarily mean you can design a great game - the opposite holds as well.
Because people who get stuff done typically use whatever they know and make it work "good enough" while people who don't get things done (like me too often) spend their time thinking about the proper language, statistics, probability, and the like.
"In space, noone can hear you roll! The fate of the galaxy is in your hands, as you race your friends to create (or destroy) planets. Who will be the first to 10? Only the dice know."
Harsh to call them errors. Noone is a legitimate spelling, if uncommon[1], and comma usage is basically a subjective artform, although I agree it doesn't read very well in the quoted sentence.
For your next run you should shop around for a different tube supplier, it's a huge portion of your unit cost (24%) and I bet you can drop its price by at least half.
Or consider not using a tube! The bottoms fall out if you shake them to shuffle which has caused at least one case of Zombie Dice ending up in all corners of a small bar to my knowledge :|
Check out yazoomills.com. They make amazing tubes, and have fantastic customer service. I'm guessing you can get your tube price down to $0.40/tube or less with an order of 2,000 or so tubes.
It's eye-opening to see a breakdown of the process behind conceiving, designing, and manufacturing a product. I think that for many, this process is hidden behind smoke and mirrors, but Jon made it appear doable and worthwhile.
It's also empowering to know that he did this with ~$5000 USD. I have no doubt that small-scale production like this would have been prohibitively difficult (read: annoying/costly) even five years ago.
Awesome! (purchased) I've been reading about game design and playing with ideas myself. The prototyping was _this_ past Christmas? So you went from concept to sales in three months!? That seems fabulous. Congrats.
Would love to see a follow-up on what you actually try to do in terms of marketing and distribution - as I'm finishing up my first 7-song album, I'm painfully aware that even after all the songwriting, recording, mixing, mastering, and product design, "release day" means that you are still only half done.
As a huge board-gamer, I always love seeing the "making-of" of different games, and this one is no exception. I especially thought the prototype was pretty hilarious, but it definitely makes sense to have one when working with a physical product.
I'm not too surprised at how much the costs ended up turning out to be, but I am curious as to how long it took to assemble everything together, from prototype to finish? I guess the main difference for a physical product is really the time it takes to get from prototype to sellable product, rather than just hacking something out in a weekend and getting it out there immediately.
Use a throwaway account when dealing on Alibaba your email is either sold or leaked and you will receive a thousand scam offers per second after sending an inquiry to a vendor.
I did manage to do a test run of 100 custom cellphones there though and it worked out fine. I had a friend who speaks Mandarin actually call the place directly though and didn't deal through Alibaba
don't deal with alibaba, contact the manufacturer directly. Most have reps in either Singapore, Hong Kong, or Taiwan that you can talk with, just need to find them.
Loved this post, great that he wrote a rails app and nice to get the costs at the end too.
I tried to make a wi-fi kettle with a wifi module in that had a API, the prototype alone was a huge expense (£25k+) and to get it into production was around £200k (CE certified etc). In the end I just wrote up the blog post (here http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/introducing-the-twettle-p...)
Props to anyone who makes something physical, it's dedication, passion and investment
Got a couple emails asking me questions, this is the company I always used in the US for prototyping. They are a little expensive but fast. They also have great resources that will answer all your questions:
This really resonates with me. I am currently working on a physical product of my own. In a world where digital goods are the norm, I'm thinking of publishing a bi-weekly magazine.
I'm still really in the planning stages, as I haven't got any experience on this front at all. But I do have some of the digital backbone in place already. And I have my ideas stirring in a pot now. All that's needed is for me to start cooking.
Anyway, I would just like to say that I am inspired by what I'm seeing here. I'll work as hard as I possibly can. Wish me luck!
Interesting post.
The author could save another 0.83$ per package by skipping the included instruction manual.
I think it's safe to assume that very close to 100% of users will have an internet connection available when playing this game, unless they're on a vacation abroad. I would opt for:
1. Full manual + videos on spacedice.com, aimed for use before the first time one plays the game.
2. Abridged version of manual printed on the tube, mainly meant for recalling some specifics of the game.
I'm impressed by how fast you decided to go into production. How many playtests did you do? I know a bunch of people who failed with a game that wasn't sufficiently tested. I experienced that the main faults in game design are testing with the same group over and over again, and relying to much on calculations rather than getting real life feedback.
But hey, it looks awesome. Great Design.
If you come over to the largest game fair in Essen (Germany) this year, I may grab one ;)
Curious why you chose to spend $2.06 on the tubing stateside? That's a lot of money for packaging, and then to have to assemble the kits together. I'd try and get as much done in China as possible, especially the tubing, which would run you far less and you would be shipping a finished product and minimizing costs a ton.
Happy to help anyone who needs guidance on sourcing and manufacturing in China. I've become pretty savvy over the years.
Hi rianelli, if you don't mind I'd love to take you up on your offer and bounce some questions off of you. I can be contacted at hn.torvid at recursor.net
[+] [-] FigBug|13 years ago|reply
I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the total project costs. And labour isn't even factored in.
I was just involved in making a small injection molded part. I was surprised how easy and inexpensive it was. For all the hype 3D printing is getting, I think there could be lots more businesses in making injection molding more accessible.
[+] [-] curt|13 years ago|reply
elaborated a bit more here: http://curtgeen.com/post/7575880635/expanded-part1-design
I've been out of it for a few years but if you have any questions I should be able to point you in the right direction.
[+] [-] ma2rten|13 years ago|reply
This is because your are in the field. Say you were a person, who has never programmed anything in their life, but has a great idea for an app. Where would you even start? It would seem to me that finding good programmers is as difficult as finding good factories.
> I noticed that the actual cost of the 'product' is less than 40% of the total project costs.
This is why Apple is the largest company in the world, not Foxconn.
[+] [-] learc83|13 years ago|reply
Last time I tried to price injection molding it was way too much.
[+] [-] thezoid|13 years ago|reply
From what the panelists were saying, the closest thing to 3D printing could be useful for would be to use a high resolution printer to create a few masters from which you could create your moulds instead.
[+] [-] yajoe|13 years ago|reply
One nit to emphasize the value in basic accounting knowledge for others when going down the manufacturing route: it's $11.37 _gross_ margin (aka gross profit, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_margin ), not _net_ profit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_Margin ). While this may sound silly and academic, net confers a sense of finality -- it includes all costs, marketing, discounts to sell remnant inventory, depreciations... everything. Learning this distinction will also introduce you to inventory management, promotion cycles, and all sorts of other crazy business skills to help you get to the next level in building a game business. There are hundreds of years of wisdom built up about manufacturing that all has to funnel through.... accounting...
For example, having >50% net profit is fantastic for manufacturing! Having >50% gross profit is on par for low-scale, specialty products. Jon's 11.37 is a gross profit and on par. Knowing nothing about this specific market, the standard advice in this case is to focus on growing the market rather than reducing costs at this point. (This is a business-model version of the 'don't scale prematurely' mantra you hear in tech considering his price of $20/game doesn't seem insane).
Back-of-the-envelope calculations show the gross revenue for all 333 sets is $6,660. Assuming he's included all costs, this means:
Which means a net profit of $6/set, a little more than 25% of the sale. Depending on how aggressively he wants the market, he should offer discounts to influential or trend-setting groups of people in the 25% range.Another way to look at this business is he would get a return of $2,000 for $4,660 in capital (since he has 1 production run), or 50% ROI... also not too shabby (if sold at retail price).
And yet another way to look at this is manufacturing the product over 8 hours yields $2000, or $250/hour... better than most. It's unclear how much time he spent on the admin and design tasks, but since this is a labor of love... let's assume it was leisure time and free :) It also means a second production run may get him an economy scale from re-using the design and website assets for even more $$$/hour.
All-in-all, this looks great across the board, and I wish the Jon the best of luck in bringing Space Dice to the world!
[+] [-] bigiain|13 years ago|reply
One comment though - if the intention is to get the game onto the shelf in retail stores, there's not enough margin in it at the current cost/pricing.
A store is going to require most (or all) of that margin - in most "dice game" type stores, if you want to put a product on the shelf at $20, you're going to need to sell it to the store for somewhere around $14 or they're not going to be interested.
Seems to me that at least an investigation into whether getting a run of 3,000 or 30,000 sets made up (and outsourcing the 80 or 800hrs of packaging work) would be a worthwhile exercise rather than being premature optimisation.
[+] [-] dcx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martinced|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gcheong|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrThousand|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mythobit|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DividesByZero|13 years ago|reply
Why did the author write a rails app to run statistical experiments on what are easy to calculate probabilities? It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.
[+] [-] patio11|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tantalor|13 years ago|reply
The real question is why write a rails app? How does a web application framework help you roll dice?
[+] [-] incision|13 years ago|reply
Perhaps it's along the same lines as the physical prototype he made prior to that.
"It really helped to make a prototype, as I could actually play the game rather than everything being hypothetical."
Building the app seems like perfectly logical extension of that.
>It seems that if you want to make a probability based game you ought to have at least a working knowledge of the basics.
Yet here he is with a fully finished product in spite of that notion. He wanted to make a game, he made a game using the tools he was aware of and comfortable with.
[+] [-] sequoia|13 years ago|reply
People have been making games of chance since long before advanced mathematics. Being a statistician doesn't necessarily mean you can design a great game - the opposite holds as well.
[+] [-] heironimus|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Falling3|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] munificent|13 years ago|reply
Ouch, two errors:
"noone" -> "no one"
"hands, as" -> "hands as"
[+] [-] adam-a|13 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/noone
[+] [-] j0ncc|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonknee|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] famousactress|13 years ago|reply
I'd consider a bag.
[+] [-] caixa|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcalacci|13 years ago|reply
It's also empowering to know that he did this with ~$5000 USD. I have no doubt that small-scale production like this would have been prohibitively difficult (read: annoying/costly) even five years ago.
[+] [-] famousactress|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakeburtn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tunesmith|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffandersen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterevans|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EStudley|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarle|13 years ago|reply
I'm not too surprised at how much the costs ended up turning out to be, but I am curious as to how long it took to assemble everything together, from prototype to finish? I guess the main difference for a physical product is really the time it takes to get from prototype to sellable product, rather than just hacking something out in a weekend and getting it out there immediately.
[+] [-] marban|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dobbsbob|13 years ago|reply
I did manage to do a test run of 100 custom cellphones there though and it worked out fine. I had a friend who speaks Mandarin actually call the place directly though and didn't deal through Alibaba
[+] [-] curt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjic|13 years ago|reply
http://365bowls.com/?p=175
[+] [-] muratmutlu|13 years ago|reply
I tried to make a wi-fi kettle with a wifi module in that had a API, the prototype alone was a huge expense (£25k+) and to get it into production was around £200k (CE certified etc). In the end I just wrote up the blog post (here http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/03/introducing-the-twettle-p...)
Props to anyone who makes something physical, it's dedication, passion and investment
[+] [-] Torrents|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Colliwinks|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willtheperson|13 years ago|reply
Congratulations! Can't wait to play!
[+] [-] curt|13 years ago|reply
http://www.protomold.com/Resources.aspx
[+] [-] dplusavidg|13 years ago|reply
I'm still really in the planning stages, as I haven't got any experience on this front at all. But I do have some of the digital backbone in place already. And I have my ideas stirring in a pot now. All that's needed is for me to start cooking.
Anyway, I would just like to say that I am inspired by what I'm seeing here. I'll work as hard as I possibly can. Wish me luck!
[+] [-] amit_m|13 years ago|reply
I think it's safe to assume that very close to 100% of users will have an internet connection available when playing this game, unless they're on a vacation abroad. I would opt for: 1. Full manual + videos on spacedice.com, aimed for use before the first time one plays the game. 2. Abridged version of manual printed on the tube, mainly meant for recalling some specifics of the game.
[+] [-] atlbeer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mprinz|13 years ago|reply
But hey, it looks awesome. Great Design. If you come over to the largest game fair in Essen (Germany) this year, I may grab one ;)
[+] [-] rianelli|13 years ago|reply
Happy to help anyone who needs guidance on sourcing and manufacturing in China. I've become pretty savvy over the years.
[+] [-] Torrents|13 years ago|reply
Thanks!