http://www.bgdf.com/

The fact you think you'll get any profit is 100% wrong.
I'm very well entrenched in the board game scene and let me tell you it's going through a bit of a recession, there was a bubble a couple years ago and now people are heavily pulling back. At the very least, you should make an account and read everything interesting on boardgamegeek.com, probably should watch at least 100 hours of Dice Tower reviews (start with their Top 10 videos), and then ask yourself if you still want to go down this route.

You're about 60 years too late

What sort of board game? If it's like Diplomacy it should be very easy to make pieces. If it's like A&A it may be a bit trickier. As usual, you don't give us any info to give useful advice.

I mean, while true, unless he's done what I said he shouldn't even start. There's nothing more annoying than someone making a board game who doesn't know the current state of the field.

Sure, research is always very important. But if it's just a card game, then production is almost effortless. If it's Cones of Sunshine, then production logistics will be a nightmare. It would help to know how much he's bitten off.

*Dunshire

It also depends on if he's doing it for money, which I assume he is given his track record. Because if he is, then as I said, and Valis mentioned, he's decades too late. If he's doing it just for enjoyment then sure, do what Valis & Abge say.

Oh, of course, don't plan to make any money no matter how good it is. But, you may break even if you are smart, which is good enough if it's just for fun.

There are still good markets for board games out there, it's just that the average adult doesn't really invest into most board games.

Kids games and party games are still reasonably popular.

Yeah but how many parents are funding start-up board games instead of just going to Toys R Us?

My understanding is that there is a big resurgence in board games.

Its also my understanding that this is just Steephies flavor of the week.

Designing the board game is actually for school, although I did pick this as a project because I thought I might be able to do something with it that gives me quite a bit more than a nice great and a good conclusion if I'm lucky. A fun game and perhaps some potential for money.

The design is actually not costing any money. I understand it's not a fat jackpot, but when the design is done and I figured out how to produce it and at what costs, I can still play it safe: leave a decent margin and possibly even only produce after people order. I guess I don't see why it would have to be a big investment.

The actual board game may also remain quite exclusive with a dozen of them produced, more for visualizing purposes, so I can show developers something tangible.

It's much like with webdesign and webhosting: I definitely didn't have the market in my favour but it's not like I gained nothing from that. Just keep it small and ensure your profit before investing. That's my approach. I anticipate a small demand and my entire bussiness plan will revolve around that, in general. Make sure you make profit with a small demand and more demand only means more profit.
I understand that this may be harder with board games since production is always gonna be relatively expensive on a small scale, but I'll be sure to investigate!

This is also why I want quite a lot of control: so I can make sure this is the approach used.

Besides, you all know you want to check it out when it's finished.. :-)

@abge:
Apologies :-)
As far as pieces go, I suppose it's more like A&A as far as variety goes (I'm at 6 unit types and I think I'll stick to that, but there will be other non-unit pieces. Resources and a bunch of other things). I'm not sure how complicated those units would really need to be though. Haven't thought about that yet, so maybe it's enough if they're simply distinct enough although miniatures as in A&A might be nice.. Depends on costs too. I'm also considering introducing multiple 'statuses' for the units, which could be shown by flipping them if they're flat or turning the right side up if they are effectively dice, for instance. Or with seperate pieces, this is something I don't know yet but like I said, in part it does depend on practical answers I've yet to find.

Going offline now.

Last quick comment:
Dyager_nh is dead wrong on the second sentence. The only thing up for debate is whether the production will be professional. One copy for me isn't optional, especially since I do it for a school project :-)

As for the market, will see. If your product/bussiness plan only works in the right market, I'd say you're doing it wrong.

If you have a few 1000$ to spare take out a stand decent trade fair. Smile have fun and see if anyone is interested in buying it. You don't need a lot of stock. But be prepared to get production lines moving if it takes off.

You should design your board game based on your own life. You start off with nothing except limited social skills and a webhosting service. You have to complete a certain number of "quests" to win the game - for example, digging up the magnets in your backyard, hiring a new employee for your web design firm, and pushing your friend in a wheelchair through a marathon. You only get 68% of your allotted turns. The game ends when you lose interest or the magnets make you forget what game you're playing.

Instead of designing a new game from scratch, why not start with a wildly imbalanced Diplomacy variant?

For the record, I like play testing board games. I've play tested a few and written reviews and offered suggestions. If you get to that stage, let me know and I'll help.

@TooCoolSunday: I plan to advertise it online and through mouth-to-mouth advertisement right now, much like I did with the webstuff. Here I will also consider delegating sales to other people, much like I consider doing that with the webstuff.
I do plan to be prepared to keep production lines moving though!

@2WL's first post: Maybe next time.
@2WL's second post: Not ambitious or interesting enough for me and I took this on as a school project, quite a big project, and I don't think tweaking a variant would do (read: I know it wouldn't do).

@Tru: Would you fly over to test it? :-)

I suppose I could send everything online and you could playtest it with friends for instance, but I've also heard/seen advice to use NDAs before, well, disclosing stuff. Hence I'm not sure how to go about that, but I very much appreciate the offer and I hope I can take you up on that offer somehow.

Note that my boardgame being copied could be a particularly big problem if my school finds out and thinks it went the other way around.

Also @Valis: How exactly are you entrenched in the board game scene?

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1018707/

But go ahead and go to any boardgame design forum and get laughed out for being the third person that hour to ask how many vaults deep they need to store their secret idea in. You have not heard or seen NDA's for board game design, especially by amateurs (compared to, say, people employed by FFG for a living).

Please, please use those resources I gave you. I'm out.

Fair point. I won't be paranoid about it and I'll make sure that secrecy doesn't get in the way of development, but I will remain aware of ways to make copying it harder without costing anything in terms of money or development(speed).

@Tru: Thanks for the offer, putting you on a list. Any other takers?

@Valis: Still wondering: in what way are you entrenched in the board game scene?

I'd imagine in terms of pure sales, the boardgame market is much the same as fiction - a snappy title and a sexy cover being far more important than the actual content.

How much can buy your boardgame for Stephie? Because if you actually produce one I will actually buy it just because I would be THAT impressed. Btw I would never play it.

I was pretty disappointed in the Game or Thrones board game. I play-tested GoT: A Song of Fire and Ice but it was never released :(

Probably for the better. It sucked.

@fiedler: Noted. Haven't thought of a price yet. Are you serious and can I put you on the potential clients-list? Anyone else for the potential clients-list? Might as well start early :P No obligations attached, just some early mapping for me. Probably worth mentioning what country you live in or what valuta you use as well.

If anyone wants to stay updated/advise/playtest/buy when finished, you may want to send me your e-mail so I can add you to a list.

Right now, I'm still clueless what the production of a simple board with various semi-detailed figures and packaging would cost, roughly..

I actually created a board game when I was in college. It was real estate based - you had to buy up "properties" and got a bonus when you had three "properties" of the same color. You could then "develop" the "properties" with houses or hotels and charge other players rent when they landed on your space. There was also an element of "chance" to the game - I called it the "Random Choice" card. Players could also draw from the "community chest" - or, as I called it, the "Collective Box". I called the game "Control the Supply".

It never really took off. Probably because I couldn't figure out what I wanted the game pieces to be. My friends and I ended up playing with objects I had lying around the house, like an iron, a top hat, and my dog.

steephie, one question for you: why is your first concern whenever you ask about something like this how much money you're getting from it? if i was really eager to design a board game (or whatever you currently do), money would be the last thing i'm worried about. if you say that you're already developing the rules, know a bit about web design and are surrounded by a huge group of people who would be more than happy to playtest your game, why don't you let people try it first?

I've explained this several times lately and I don't like repetition so you're getting a novel explanation:

You know how people always say you should do what you love doing to make a living? I already do what I love doing, so to do what I love doing for a living, I need to make a living of what I'm doing now.
Makes sense so far?

Now let me clarify that, by far, money was not my first concern. In fact, it only concerns me indirectly, more on that later.

I had to think of an 80-hour project for school and while most do some sort of simple, not-so-original research that has probably been done a few hundred times, I wanted something with a real result that wasn't there yet before, be that new knowledge, a new theory or a board game.

Since I'm in high school, it might be a bit early for me to discover actual new knowledge through research, since in amy discipline, there are many researchers who know so much more and it's just out of my league. I then thought: maybe put a product on the market. I have a novel product in my head and I've been unable to find the time to really make work of it. Sadly I don't have business administration classes because I couldn't take those with my other classes.

Then I hesitated between writing a book or creating a board game. I wasn't even sure whether writing a book was allowed since it needs some sort of research-aspect I believe and 80 hours doesn't seem close to enough anyway so I went with the board game. The research aspect will be in an interesting take on chance calculation, which I haven't had any classes in.

Then I made lots of progress, now I've got a solid game in my head and I'm working on getting all of it on paper, which is extra time-consuming since I need to write down the whole process for school as well.

Now I'm arriving at a point where I can start deciding what the units look like and in this case it's mostly a money question.

So that is why I am, only now, looking into the money aspect: it's relevant to development for me, not the other way around.

Why do I seem to care about money so much?
It has a lot to do with securing my future. There's enough people who don't want a job, want to start for themselves, produce stuff, invent stuff, whatever.

I'm no fool; most of them fail and can only pray they can get a job.

I want this, but before I can really commit to not getting a job, I need to know I can pull it off. I need to know I can make a living my way, so I no longer have to keep all those options open.
Maybe I don't need to, but it seems sensible to test my skill, perseverance and success in the 'career' I'm following in my spare time before really throwing myself in.

So it is not my first concern, but why is how much money I'm getting from it something I'm looking into?
Because the certainty with which I turn down jobs so I can continue on this path depends on it. This path is important to me.

Does that answer your question?

I also don't recall saying I'm surrounded by a huge group of people who would be more than happy to playtest my game, but it isn't ready for playtesting yet, although I want to be able to start 'pre-alpha' tests fairly soon.

I just want to reiterate that whether I make money or not is irrelevant to my success or failure in my mind and I don't need it to make money. It would just be nice to have reassurance if I ever get a good job offer.

Yessir, if you produce a novel and original board game I will buy a copy. Must be priced appropriately in accordance with similar games such as 'Control the Supply' AKA Monopsony. When can I expect a youtube preview appetizer?

A youtube preview appetizer? Hmm, non planned but maybe I can in fact film when people are playing and stuff, since some people just love media to convince them..

And so cheap shots lead to fine ideas!

Feel free to PM your e-mail adress if you want to know when/how you can buy it.