Matrix Games Forums

Have been looking at a lot of board game sites over the past day or so looking for Malta/ Op Hercules games and it occurred to me to wonder why board games are generally more expensive than computer games. Factors I considered were the cost of manufacturing and shipping the physical board game product and a smaller player base per game but then I ran out of ideas (don't laugh).

Btw, after looking at a bunch of boardgame offerings I decided it would be better to play WarPlan to game the Med in WW2 rather than going through the tedium of setting the board game up and throwing all the dice and going through all the mechanics of counter pushing and such. I am getting too old and my visual handicap gets in the way.) It makes me a bit sad. I recall the day over 50 years ago striding through an ER in Portland, Oregon, and seeing a group of ER providers playing an Avalon Hill game of Guadalcanal I was immediately smitten, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I need an education in the economics of gaming. Can you help?

Thanks,

Physical components are expensive, and you have decide on a production number, and have to keep a physical stock of invested value. If it is a success, you have to produce new print runs, while with a computer game, success will get you extra income with very little extra costs. If it doesn't sell well, there is your money sitting on the shelves.

An acquaintance of mine went broke by producing a board game himself.

Development investment by small game designers (board or software) is usually done in 'spare time', next to a job to pay the rent. When it fails to sell as a software project, that is a big disappointment, but when it fails as a board game, there was also a big loss of production money.

Real money comes to play with collectible miniature wargames. 1 game can have dozens of books (not counting novels), even more game boards/maps, and miniature models can cost from around 10 $/€ to hundreds (Warhammer 40,000 Titans) each. Thick rulebook alone can go for 50 $/€. I have invested in 2 different miniature games: BattleTech and Warhammer 40,000. One shopping trip for miniatures can easily cost hundreds €s.