Other interesting information:
Gene Billingsley (founder of GMT Games)
posted in 2002 "our smallest print runs on games are 2,500 copies. That probably won't change much unless something real bad happens, as it's about the lowest quantity where bulk pricing helps keep most of our P500s in the $25-45 range. Largest print runs in the past year (2001) were a little over 5,000 for Zero, Wilderness War, and Thirty Years War. PoG sold out of the inital run of 3,000, and we printed another 4,000 last year. "
Jason Matthews (designer of Twilight Struggle and others):
posted in 2007
"There are a couple of problems with TS as a Eurogame in the strict sense. The most important of which is the European market. The largest European game consuming country -- Germany -- is about the least likely to want to play it. In and of itself that would not be that big a deal, but when you consider the card driven nature of the game, you've got a real question. Would you publish the game with German cards -- since they have the largest market? Or should you publish in French or Italian, countries with smaller markets but seemingly more receptive to wargaming generally? Because if you are serious about selling in Europe, you have to print the cards in someone else's language. Otherwise you can't get beyond a very small niche of players.
"Now, a second question is could you make the game more widely played in the United States/Canada/UK? That's an interesting question to which I have no certain answer. Is it the game length? TS is shorter than Risk or Monopoly, both of which people play regularly. Is it the complexity? Well, its not really much more complex than CCGs and they sell like hotcakes. That brings us to four hard things to get around. First is the price -- will normal consumers drop $50 on a boardgame. I don't think so. But given hobby print runs (3K compared to a Euro 10k-20K), I see no surefire way to bring the sale price closer to a realistic number. Second is the distribution system -- that's where Mike's wife might have an interesting niche in the educational/homeschool arena. But, by in large, its going to be hard to encounter a game like Twilight Struggle unless you are acutally looking for it. Finally, there are the components (and see #1 in this regard). If I can pay $15 for a game at Wall Mart with high quality components, how am I going to feel about TS at $50. Slowly but surely, I think the Chinese may help us out here, but for now, its still a big disconnect.
"When TS goes into its third printing, something GMT is anticipating before the end of the year, we will have printed 11K copies or so. That brings TS into the modest sized Euro success range. So, I don't want to be too down on things. That IS a great success for GMT and wargaming these days. But once you've hit a good chunk of the folks who read over here and on the Geek, I am just not sure how much further a game like TS will go -- even streamlined."
Note that for the
Deluxe Printing of Twilight Struggle, which just occurred, it was GMT Games' largest print run ever at
11,000 copies! (Gene Billingsley)
In 4Q 2009, Twilight Struggle Deluxe sold
over 2000 copies
Dominion... "[Someone knows] one of the Developers of Dominion and within minutes of winning the award, she heard Jay Tunnelson (head of Rio Grande) on the phone authorizing a print run of like 200,000.".
More GMT Games typical print runs: (2010):
"Actually our typical print runs now are in the 3,000-5,000 range. I had heard that most European companies were only doing 5,000 initial print runs. I agree we're still probably small fries in comparison. I'm okay with that. It means it can still be my hobby versus just my job." -
Andy Lewis
Cheers!
