Rarity and Set Design : Money

Scrye #48 Jan/Feb 2002 Issue "a minimum of $250,000" per print run. No estimate on what you should make in return for that investment. White Wolf has therefore placed almost three quarters of million dollars worth of trust in L. Scott Johnson as the design team. Wow. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com -- Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

"The Lasombra" <thela...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:5545d0b06b9635c1fc6...@mygate.mailgate.org... > Scrye #48 > Jan/Feb 2002 Issue > > "a minimum of $250,000" per print run. > > No estimate on what you should make in return for that > investment. White Wolf has therefore placed almost > three quarters of million dollars worth of trust in > L. Scott Johnson as the design team. > > Wow. Yeah no doubt wow, what kinda pressure is that eh! Errol

"The Lasombra" <thela...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:5545d0b06b9635c1fc6...@mygate.mailgate.org... > Scrye #48 > Jan/Feb 2002 Issue > > "a minimum of $250,000" per print run. > > No estimate on what you should make in return for that > investment. White Wolf has therefore placed almost > three quarters of million dollars worth of trust in > L. Scott Johnson as the design team. Where did this number come from?(whats the rest of the article about?) A minimum *what* of $250,000? A minimum a company has to spend to get cards printed, thats insane. White wolf must ship boxes to distributers for around $40 a box, because the distributers(potomac) sell them to retailers(or vtes players) for $55-60, who sell them in the store for $99(gotta love those middle men) Assuming that the cost of printing cards is about $20 a box(roughly .05 a card) white wolf makes $20 off of each box...but thats still a minimum order of 12,500 boxes of cards to equal $250,000. I find it very hard to believe that sabbat war sold out of 12,500 boxes(a minimum order) in a week. Making enough money for a second 12,500 box print run. 25,000 boxes of Vtes? At last estimate there were only 3000 Vtes players in the world.^ That would mean every player in the world bought an average of 8.3 boxes. Not likely. If you want to say printing costs are higher, more like $30 a box(which I doubt) then you are still talking 17,000 boxes of VTES averaging 5.5 boxes per player world wide to make up an order totaling $250,000 Do you think this is possible? I cannot see productions costing more then $30 a box, and potomac still selling them for only $60. In that huge margin the distributer has to make their cash, and white wolf has to pay design team, marketing/promotions, and art. Doesn't anyone know if white wolf pays royalties or just a flat $X per art work? -- Aaron The Nosferatu Stuff ^ Taken from the survey done recently about CL/NCL where Carl asked princes if they play with/without card limits. He said there were about 2500 people listed, I figure another 500 are hiding out somewhere? For a world VTES population of 3000 or so.

"The Nosferatu Stuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de... [clip] > Where did this number come from?(whats the rest of the article about?) > A minimum *what* of $250,000? A minimum a company has to spend to get cards > printed, thats insane. Coincidentally, I had once read that FRPG spend $250,000 to get the first print run of L5R produced. That figure was enough to have a bunch of pallets full of cards in a warehouse. They had to go to the well again for more capital (IIRC, someone's parents mortgaged their home) to get them distributed. -Robert rob...@vtesinla.org

The Nosferatu Stuff <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de... >snip > White wolf must ship boxes to distributers for around $40 a box, because the > distributers(potomac) sell them to retailers(or vtes players) for $55-60, > who sell them in the store for $99(gotta love those middle men) Assuming > that the cost of printing cards is about $20 a box(roughly .05 a card) white > wolf makes $20 off of each box...but thats still a minimum order of 12,500 > boxes of cards to equal $250,000. I find it very hard to believe that > sabbat war sold out of 12,500 boxes(a minimum order) in a week. Making > enough money for a second 12,500 box print run. 25,000 boxes of Vtes? At > last estimate there were only 3000 Vtes players in the world.^ That would > mean every player in the world bought an average of 8.3 boxes. Not likely. > According to the Scrye article, the $250,000 price tag listed is for a 300+ card set, including not only printing, but also art commission, design, marketing, etc... the whole thing. For Sabbat War, I'd think that there were not as much development costs and it was mostly just printing costs, as most of the art had been previously commissioned and a large portion of the cards had been previously designed. Of course, this does not include whatever deal WW made with WotC to get the game, and the costs associated with that. Cheers, Jason Liang [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de>, The Nosferatu Stuff <roans...@yahoo.com> writes: >^ Taken from the survey done recently about CL/NCL where Carl asked princes >if they play with/without card limits. He said there were about 2500 people >listed, I figure another 500 are hiding out somewhere? For a world VTES >population of 3000 or so. Whilst I am in no way representative, the number of people I know or vaguely know who have practically no contact with the V:TES world but who bought boxes of Final Nights or Bloodlines (for instance) is not zero. -- James Coupe but I lust after the raw pow0r of c. PGP 0x5D623D5D together with the humping great EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 elephant arse of gnome. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D - Vashti

"The Nosferatu Stuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de>... > "The Lasombra" <thela...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > news:5545d0b06b9635c1fc6...@mygate.mailgate.org... > > Scrye #48 > > Jan/Feb 2002 Issue > > > > "a minimum of $250,000" per print run. > > > > No estimate on what you should make in return for that > > investment. White Wolf has therefore placed almost > > three quarters of million dollars worth of trust in > > L. Scott Johnson as the design team. > > Where did this number come from?(whats the rest of the article about?) I also would like to read that article. Can someone post it? Carl

"Jason Liang" <jli...@uclink4.berkeley.edu> wrote: > According to the Scrye article, the $250,000 price tag listed is for a 300+ > card set, including not only printing, but also art commission, design, > marketing, etc... the whole thing. For Sabbat War, I'd think that there were > not as much development costs and it was mostly just printing costs, as most > of the art had been previously commissioned and a large portion of the cards > had been previously designed. Of course, this does not include whatever deal > WW made with WotC to get the game, and the costs associated with that. > > Cheers, > > Jason Liang That is good to know. I can see where buying 300+ pieces of origional art could get way up there real fast. Easily 60,000 and up. Maybe they should look into that game 'Dog poo the eternal struggle' Once you are through with art, designing, figure in promotions and advertising, you could be at 120,000 or more. [ quoted text not captured ]

Carl Pilhatsch wrote: > "The Nosferatu Stuff" <roans...@yahoo.com> wrote in message > > "The Lasombra" <thela...@hotmail.com> wrote in message > > > Scrye #48 > > > Jan/Feb 2002 Issue > > > > > > "a minimum of $250,000" per print run. > > > > Where did this number come from?(whats the rest of the article about?) > > I also would like to read that article. Can someone post it? I'm guessing that doing so would violate some copyright issues, since the article is in the current Scrye. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

carl.pi...@chello.at (Carl Pilhatsch) wrote in message news:<e7883b0c.0202...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I could fax it to you Carl. Just give me your fax number! Btw: White Wolf released 1.800 Starter Displays and 6.000 Booster Displays on their first run! Not 12.500. Andreas

> Btw: White Wolf released 1.800 Starter Displays and 6.000 Booster > Displays on their first run! Not 12.500. 1.8!!!! 6.0!!!! Man, I have all the Sabbat War in the world!!! DH

In message <a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de>, The Nosferatu Stuff <roans...@yahoo.com> writes: >^ Taken from the survey done recently about CL/NCL where Carl asked princes >if they play with/without card limits. He said there were about 2500 people >listed, I figure another 500 are hiding out somewhere? For a world VTES >population of 3000 or so. That's gotta be low. I'll bet there are more players in the V:EKN database. Plus, I know more people who have played Jyhad unlinked to the "system" than actually go to tournaments, etc. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

"CurtAdams" <curt...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20020206154745...@mb-cv.aol.com... > In message <a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de>, The Nosferatu > Stuff <roans...@yahoo.com> writes: > >^ Taken from the survey done recently about CL/NCL where Carl asked princes > >if they play with/without card limits. He said there were about 2500 people > >listed, I figure another 500 are hiding out somewhere? For a world VTES > >population of 3000 or so. > > That's gotta be low. I'll bet there are more players in the V:EKN database. > Plus, I know more people who have played Jyhad unlinked to the "system" > than actually go to tournaments, etc. > I know far more people (who play VTES) who have no link to the "system" than do. I would guess that the listing could be anywhere from 5%-50% of all players, leaving anywhere from 5000-50,000 VTES players worldwide. Hell, there might even be more. Guessing, I'd probably put the number at around 10,000, but who knows?

"hamdamcwa" <dave...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:9e10847c.02020...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] just in case you don't know Germans use a period as the thousands seperator so that really meant 1,800 and 6,000 (in English punctuation). Ken Shaw

>just in case you don't know Germans use a period as the thousands seperator >so that really meant 1,800 and 6,000 (in English punctuation). So how do they tell the difference between 1,800 and 1.800? Halcyan 2

Halcyan 2 wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Well, the former means 1.800 while the latter means 1,800. Isn't that obvious? [Like math weren't complicated enough if it worked the same everywhere, huh?] Thomas

halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote in message news:<20020209012918...@mb-fd.aol.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] 1,800 (english) is 1.800 or 18000 1.800 english is 1,8000 or 1,8 :) It´s just the exact oposit :)

In article <b57b2dc9.02020...@posting.google.com>, wb...@hotmail.com (Daz) wrote: >halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote in message >news:<20020209012918...@mb-fd.aol.com>... >> >just in case you don't know Germans use a period as the thousands seperator >> >so that really meant 1,800 and 6,000 (in English punctuation). >> >> So how do they tell the difference between 1,800 and 1.800? >> > >1,800 (english) is 1.800 or 18000 > >1.800 english is 1,8000 or 1,8 :) It´s just the exact oposit :) This is why the internationally accepted way to do things is now to not use any punction between thousands, only spaces or nothing at all, and only use punctuation as the decimal seperator. This way, if you see either a period or a comma, it's clear what's meant. That is: 1 800 = 1800 = one thousand eight hundred 1.800 = 1,800 = one and eight tenths --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail: santiago [at] umug [dot] org || Web: http://santiago.umug.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ceci n'est pas un 'sig block'."

> > So how do they tell the difference between 1,800 and 1.800? > > 1,800 (english) is 1.800 or 18000 Wait, is 18000 a typo? I can't imagine 1,800 (english) being equivalent to 18000 (german). You mean "1,800 (english) is 1.800 or 1800" right?

[ quoted text not captured ] It's called inflation. =P Halcyan 2

[ quoted text not captured ] Ah! So the two are actually switched! In that previous statement, it only said that dots were used for thousands. It didn't also mention that commas were used for decimals. Halcyan 2

"Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:<X9n88.3963$Pz4.60297@rwcrnsc53>... > "CurtAdams" <curt...@aol.com> wrote in message > news:20020206154745...@mb-cv.aol.com... > > In message <a3qg2h$1af6hi$1...@ID-125246.news.dfncis.de>, The Nosferatu > > Stuff <roans...@yahoo.com> writes: > > >^ Taken from the survey done recently about CL/NCL where Carl asked > princes > > >if they play with/without card limits. He said there were about 2500 > people > > >listed, I figure another 500 are hiding out somewhere? For a world VTES > > >population of 3000 or so. > > > > That's gotta be low. I'll bet there are more players in the V:EKN > database. > > Plus, I know more people who have played Jyhad unlinked to the "system" > > than actually go to tournaments, etc. Indeed. I live in a small city - Victoria, BC - population about 300 000. We play every Wednesday night at a local game store, and get between 8 and 12 players a night. I know another 8 or 10 active players who don't play as competitively as the guys (and lady) who meet at the game store(and consequently don't enjoy playing against us - how much fun is it to play a Duck and Dimple deck against someone who viciously contests Dimple?), but still buy cards. Additionally, I know another 10 or so players who occasionally play, but haven't bought any cards in a while. There must be some players who play and who I don't know, as well - I simply can't account for the disappearance of Bloodlines booster packs from our stores solely from the players that I know about. Perhaps my city is unusual, but if these proportions held true for North America, there would be at least 20 000 players who brought cards for the game, with a 'reserve' market of at least 10 000 who might start buying cards again if the set caught their imagination. It appears to me from reading this newsgroup that there are probably a few more players in Europe than in North America, so 50 000 players seems quite reasonable to me - based, of course, on purely anecdotal reasoning. [ quoted text not captured ]