marketing/demand question

[rockyr]

How many OTHER players might be interested in being able to order individual ship cards (with the usual private copy use only copyright restrictions). Options I can imagine asking ABD/SFU to provide might include:

color (or B/W) pdf via email or print
laminated cards, mailed

for either $5 or more likely $10 a piece, plus a healthy S&H, of course.

I, for one, would like to get the TOS CA and D7 (and maybe the Romulan curiser) that way, and $10 or $20 seems worth it to me.

Now, I expect there are other players who might one of these, or of those, or this or that, but not an entire expansion kit or booster, or briefing, or whatever. Others want everything, I know.

If enough interest were shown in "on demand" singles, perhaps the publishers would consider such a service...

Perhaps they have, and perhaps this is not news, but is to me, so please forgive me in advance for suggesting this. I do not want them nibbled to death by ducks, but perhaps there is a happy medium of demand, price, and reward.

But I might also be alone in this... I often am out on a limb by myself.

Rocky

(I am encouraged to hear that the Briefing 2 design work is being done in color).
________
Oregon marijuana dispensary

[wedge_hammersteel]

Perhaps its a logistical reason why the ship cards are not sold like that.

I would like to be able to order 10 laminated ship cards at a set price which I could choose from a master list.

[Wolverin61]

I don't really like having to buy a booster to get one specific ship card I want, knowing I'll never use the others, but that's modern marketing I guess. I know Games Workshop is especially big on it.

[Dal Downing]

There is a little secrets that control Products at ADB SVC has stated before. That is Product Schedule use to be driven by Double Sided Counters. Now I know you are thinking to yourself why is he babbling about counters. It is because the reason counters usually drove product development and release dates is because they were controlled by Off site Printing and Die Cutting. With the event of the Laminated Ship Cards in FedCom there is another factor that will be driving Product releases because they are also a off site process for ADB.

I am not sure how many cards are run on a sheet and then die cut to separate the Ship Cards but it is enough that I am dubious you will ever see Special or individual Ship Cards.

I don't really like having to buy a booster to get one specific ship card I want, knowing I'll never use the others, but that's modern marketing I guess. I know Games Workshop is especially big on it.

I am pretty sure ADB will sell you almost any individual Ship Card that they already have in general production from their Online Store as a Special Order. Some of the Special Cards on avaialble in Booster may not be up for Special Ordering yet but who know they might sell them to you if you ask nicely in the future. But getting to the point where you could order a Ship Card of a individually name ship maybe some time away. Besides 10 Dollar to pick up a booster to get one Special Card is not that bad when you think about the fact that if you direct order that card it may get close to 2 or 3 Dollars if you Special Ordered just that one Card.

As far as color PDF being sold that is a issue that has been raised numerous time by several different people here are a few of SVC post on it from:

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 6:16 pm

Leanna has approved the idea of doing briefings books for Early Years, Middle Years, Magellanics, Omega, and possibly Borders of Madness (and presumably more than one book of some of those due to the number of ships). She will consider ways that color might become available, such as having short runs of color copies made, buying a color printer, or selling color PDfs.

Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 3:59 pm

Given print on demand (we own our printers and bookbinders, for those who don't know), we don't print copies we cannot sell, so there is no benefit to us to sell PDFs as the primary model.

I'm still liking the idea of "Sell the book" and "Offer the color PDF on a basis of when X many people pay Y dollars, we will start shipping them".

Yes, the vast majority of you guys are extremely honest and extremely loyal. It only takes one idiot, one thief, one pink fluffy bunny to ruin the party for all of us.

Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:12 pm

Maybe. Color is expensive, and you either pay a dollar a page for short runs or you pay tens of thousands of dollars for thousands of copies. I don't see us selling thouands of copies of a $125 middle years book.

At some point, we might be able to offer very expensive short runs of color stuff, or sell color PDFs and let you go pay Kinkos a fortune to print and laminate them.

What does all this mean... it means they are considering it and will let us know when they buy a new Color Printer.

[Jon Lawson]

I actually tried to get a batch of laminated Freighters a while back, but the response was that they never sell individual ship cards as they simply don't have any spares as such as all the cards have their homes in designated boosters etc.

'Switch on the laminator love, we 're having a romantic night in.'

[OGOPTIMUS]

Plus, if you're talking about certain ships, like the D7 or Fed CA then, at $5 or $10, you can buy booster 1 or 2 and get two of them (1 will be the command variant).

Or you go the personal lamination route, but that can get expensive, and it can be time consuming.

[Kang]

I actually tried to get a batch of laminated Freighters a while back, but the response was that they never sell individual ship cards as they simply don't have any spares as such as all the cards have their homes in designated boosters etc.

'Switch on the laminator love, we 're having a romantic night in.'

I still don't understand why that happened, Jon - I always understood that 'spares' [ie spare parts to replace damaged/destroyed parts] were available for purchase. Most odd. Surely there must be some system for replacing at least missing parts from one's set? If a set is defective [ie has parts missing]. I'm sure they must have some sort of system in place. Perhaps buying a bunch of freighters didn't count as replacements.... We'll have to wait until Booster 95 comes out. Or find out where Michaela has hidden the laminator....

And did anyone else notice that there is only one Klingon C7 card anywhere in the entire FC game system, namely in Klingon Border?

Again, most odd. You can have a squadron of Fed DDGs, or at least two DDGs with a heavy dreadnought as leader.

You can have two battleships in a fleet. You can have loads of things like that, but only one C7.

Now that really is odd! The C7 is my favourite ship; what if my ship card is damaged? Do I have to get an entirely new KB set? Suppose I'll have to learn to fly another ship type, then.....

[djdood]

...or just print yourself a free one from Communique (3, 9-F, 16)...

[Kang]

....duh....

[Steve Cole]

Various comments....

If you're talking about a new card not in a regular product, that becomes kind of tricky. There is the SVC time to create and the staff time proof it (perhaps it could be done on a "sponsorship" basis). Once the file exists, getting a few copies printed isn't that big an issue, but getting them laminated is another matter I have never looked into. Selling them as a PDF file is a separate issue.

If you're talking about a regular production card (such as a freighter) and it's not a "B" card (say, the D7C in Booster 2) then I wouldn't think that would be much of an issue. If anybody wants to do that, email me and I'll bring it up at a meeting. The issue would be the hand labor to go pull a set of cards, so they might cost more per card.

The "B" cards we won't sell separately (at least, not at less than the cost of the entire booster). The way the game is set up, you DO NEED the rest of the booster to fly any kind of fleet or squadron, so it's not like we're forcing you to buy cards you will never use.

The PDF thing is an issue I do want to delve into at a time when i'm not buried in scheduled products that are not finished. Right this moment, I need to be working on Briefing #2 a heck of a lot more than I need to be working on PDF sales.

[Wolverin61]

The "B" cards we won't sell separately (at least, not at less than the cost of the entire booster). The way the game is set up, you DO NEED the rest of the booster to fly any kind of fleet or squadron, so it's not like we're forcing you to buy cards you will never use.

I'd love to have a Fed CF card, which is only available in Booster #4 afaik. It appears to also contain two Fed POLs, two Orion ships, two Tholian ships, and a Kzinti ship (not sure of the specific types). When my friends and I play it's Fed vs. Klingons so the other cards in that booster I would probably never use, especially the Tholians. I have played in SFB games where we used Orions or Kzintis (back when we used to play SFB), but even then it was Fed vs. Klingons 99% of the time. We've never used POLs in either game.

That's what I was thinking about in my previous post in this topic.

[Steve Cole]

I discussed the thing about selling individual cards with Leanna. This is a complex issue and comes in multiple parts.

CARDS IN GENERAL: She remains concerned about "unbalancing the inventory". Can you guys tell me (by email) what cards you are so desperate to buy and how many you want? As noted, the high manpower cost of pulling such orders would mean each card would cost $2.50, a premium over the nominal cost of $1.50-$1.75 each.

FREIGHTER CARDS: She's also concerned that there may be no point in doing a "convoy booster" if the few of you who want more freighters just buy them. She suggested we define this booster and just go ahead and make it available by mail order.

BONUS CARDS: It defeats the purpose of having these if they're sold separately, and would cost us a lot of sales, far more than is logically justified. The stores just won't stock boosters AT ALL if we're selling the bonus cards separately on the cart.

[djdood]

SVC - Email sent. Let's see if it survives the spam-filter this time. Subject line was:
SFU: Thoughts on FedCom Boosters, Bonus Cards, Individual Cards (from FedCom board)

Thanks.

[rockyr]

Which email should we use?

Rocky
________
Ultimate Fighters

[Kang]

Which email should we use?

Rocky

There's an email button at the bottom of each of Steve's posts. Use that one; I do.