Testing the Waters

[Nepenthe]

For a while now I've been tossing around the idea of designing and building high quality gaming accessories. The problem is that I just can't tell if there's a market for it. So I thought I'd throw out some feelers.

Example: Dice towers. Every one I've found online is either ugly (http://www.geekchichq.com/the-labs/GC-Labs-Tower.png), poorly constructed (http://chessex.com/images/diceboot.jpg) or both (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_56C-ixCTGN4/Spohi7RKLBI/AAAAAAAACbM/8B45Ewm4L7c/s400/DiceTowerFinished.jpg).

I want to build (among other things) dice towers that are both elegant and functional; constructed using solid techniques and the finest hard woods, and lined with felt or leather. I don't want to share my designs, but the goal is to have them stand alone as art in addition to being a functioning tower.

I know there are gamers who would drop $200 for this kind of quality, but I don't know if there are enough to recoup my investment and turn a profit. I had to abandon my workshop when I moved, so I'd need to purchase all new tools as well as rent space to work. The goal is to sell these online at first then move into bigger pieces (desks, tables, etc.) and eventually open a store front that doubles as a game shop.

Thoughts?

[turkishproverb]

If you can find a way to avoid renting space, you might try working on a commission basis to start.

[OracleofWuffing]

Well, I mean, I wouldn't take my own advice on this, 'cause I don't even use a dice tower.* :smalltongue: At first, what came to mind was something like Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/), so you can just set up a front right away that people could use to buy stuff (or eBay if you want to be a bit more mainstream about things, whatever). Then you said that you didn't have a workplace, which, um, wrenches that idea, 'cause you don't have a product to sell until you make it. If you could narrow it down to a more specific end-goal (Less "Launch a career" and more "make x units"), the project might possibly qualify for a Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/) whatchamacallit, which would let you feel for how hard it is to fish for interested parties, what those parties are like, and how much you can expect from your initial audience, while possibly getting funds towards actually launching the idea.

*For curiosity's sake, would you mind sharing what's wrong with the second tower? I mean, I think I can guess the issue with the first one, and the third one is, well, yeah, but I'm at a loss for the middle one.

[Eloel]

This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VTE6ErZ3EQ)looks relevant

[Nepenthe]

^^ Etsy was the plan, probably some ebay too. I'm not too worried about distribution, as long as I have a market to distribute to.

The second tower is plastic and just tabbed together. Seems flimsy, but I've never used one so I guess I shouldn't judge.

^ Yeah, that lego one is definitely the coolest. The question stands though:

Does anyone think there's a market for high-end, deluxe gaming gear?

[turkishproverb]

The fact fossil dice sell says yes.

[Tyndmyr]

I buy this sort of thing...I have bought $50 sets of dice made of funky metals, I own a $200 set of Catan...and so does my roommate. I've noted the same thing about dice towers...and it's why I don't own one yet.

Additionally, I've noted that a lot of them are one directional. As if everyone at a table is going to have their own or pass it around. Seems awkward. There's got to be a better design for that.

I'd say, you've identified a good niche, go with that for starters. Get known for having high end dice towers. Add the occasional related high end thing like crazy dice, and branch out from there. Get a good site, take paypal(not that hard), use kickstarter to get going if need be, and once it's sorted, advertise lots. Keep an eye out for other interesting, obscure things to resell.

[Erloas]

I don't see what you think is ugly about the first one. Its not amazing by any means, but I think its pretty good for a fairly easy to produce design. The highly contrasting pins I think is an odd choice, but it was clearly as design decision rather then a requirement, so someone must like it.

As for the Chessex one, I'm pretty sure it uses tabs so it can be broken down into a flat, making it much easy to take with you, which I think is a great feature for many people. As for durability, the plexiglas looks fairly thick, to where even the biggest metal dice you can find isn't going to do anything to it, probably can't fall on it, but I think it would stand up to most things.

For high end gaming accessories though, yes there is a market. You can see from the terrain making kits; metal, stone, and other expensive dice; and all sorts of other products that are out there.

The biggest issue with any art/craft sort of thing though is the time required to make it versus what someone will pay for it. Most of that stuff just takes too much time to make if you are putting much creativity or personalization into them.
For instance in high school (12-14 years ago) I made some wooden Adirondack chairs, they were well made and finished nicely but not highly intricate, and I couldn't sell them for enough to make it worth my time when I didn't have a job. And right now I'm working on a wooden bike (maybe 6" tall) and picture frame for my friend for Christmas, and I doubt I could sell it for $200, at least in any reasonable amount of time, $100 would probably sell after not too long. Even if I could get $200 for it, and the relatively small material cost (maybe $30, its hard to say as I'm using small parts of different types of wood, and things like sand paper and wear and tear (ie eventual replacement) of my tools is hard to figure) I would be lucky to get minimum wage sort of return on my time. Of course making a lot of them will decrease my time, but never to the point where its really "worth" doing as a job.

At this point though, its fun. But really only because I'm making it for a friend. If I was making this for some random person for money, it wouldn't be worth it.

[OracleofWuffing]

I don't see what you think is ugly about the first one.
Can't speak for Nepenthe, but in my opinion, it's big and opaque enough to use as a DM screen for a low-level, low-depth campaign. This size is punctuated by being very boring to look at, and the tiny area for customization can only be seen if you're looking perpendicular to the player's point of view. Heck, when the player's using it, they won't be able to see it unless they use it sideways, and good luck showing that flag off to people on the opposite side of the table. </target_audience="no"> :smalltongue:

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here, though... Shipping. If you plan to have an internet audience, you're going to decide if you want to even deal with international orders and the nightmare those are going to be (as well as whether that's going to be included in your $200 price point). Even intranationally, I could see a good-quality-anything-art justifying an aditional $15-25.

Overall, though, in hindsight I'm kind of confused about your long-term goals. If your ultimate goal is to open a game shop, you're targeting the wrong audience right now- we can't tell you what the local preference for game expenditures are in your area (well, okay, hypothetically there could be another poster that lives in your area that could, but generally speaking). As has been said before, other folks have been able to market to this niche with some measurement of success. But I'd be willing to bet most of their sales go online rather than local.

If you want to go local game store with this, track down what sort of people play what sort of games in your world, and see what they play with. Possibly, make a cheap but good looking prototype for yourself out of borrowed tools, and see if you can trigger any envy glands. An alternative, if you can't find good local audiences but want to be a local store, is to primarily craft other, more common, items that aren't RPG-based (end tables, clocks, whatever), and sell RPG stuff on the side.

And, I guess again this is mostly worthless since I'm not the target audience, if you're concerned about being too limited to your audience, the general strategy is to appeal to other audiences. Say you have a $200 good quality pumahide-lined tower, that's good. Maybe you want to have a few do-it-yourself-kits for thinner towers with less woodwork done for $65. As long as you make profit and don't drive yourself too-crazy, having more sales isn't going to hurt too much.

[Zeb The Troll]

Personally, I think both the Geek Chic ones are gorgeous and if someone gave me one I'd be super excited. I don't have the disposable income to be in your target audience though.

Here's something to consider for your long term plans. Geek Chic is already out there and doing a steady business (I presume anyway, because they're still in business) in this niche. Do you think there's enough of a market to support two such businesses? What if you were to go a different way and provide something in between "cheap but functional" and "gorgeous but prohibitively expensive"? I mean, they want $2000 for a coffee table. Couldn't it be done, for, say, $250-$500 instead? (Note that I am not a furniture maker nor do I know anyone with the skills, so I don't actually know if it's possible to do or not.)