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Cosmic Encounter is selling for whopping $60. Is that an ingenious way to guarantee darling reviews and a stellar rating? It just may be.
Okay, let's back up for a minute. Sixty dollars? What happened to the "global economy" thing where the price of everything goes down over time and we don't ask questions about how the Chinese do it so cheaply? Shouldn't I be able to buy this at a discount retailer for $18?
Well, maybe you should. Board games pretty much fall into two categories, and the prices in one of them are doing just what you'd expect in the new economy, while the other seems to be in flux. Let's clear up that first one in short order --
Prices on games designed to appeal to Joe Six-pack and his little six-packlets have all but dropped through the floor in the past decade. Printing costs for games ordered in groups of 100,000 or more have plummeted, largely due to Chinese production and an artificially depressed Chinese currency. Kid games that cost our parents $15 in 1974 are costing us $15 in 2008, which is nothing short of astounding. That's good news for us consumers, right? Sure! Good news as long as you like Clue, Monopoly, and Life, and one great big pile of us game-playing people do. These old titles require almost no additional R&D, the companies that produce them are profitable, the people that play them are happy, and they cost a bit less in real dollars every year. Everybody wins.
Except us. Remember us? We're the market for that second category of games. We're the fickle bastards that want something more. We don't just expect something more, hell we demand something more, and it better be new and different. And we aren't going to merely get all whiney with our friends when that new game doesn't knock us off our feet, we're going to take the time and effort to publish harsh comments on a worldwide forum that is quickly read by all the other fickle bastards like us in the world. "Fickle Bastards" has a certain cachet to it, but fundamentally we play a bunch of "elite games" so I've often used the phrase "elite gamers" to describe us, since it's a genre-neutral term that carries enough derogatory aroma on it keep me aware of where I stand in the world's pecking order of hobbies.
Now, the"elite game" publishers refer to us by a different name. They call us their "target market," and they have a bit of a problem that didn't exist just a few short years ago. Any one of us, should we decide to, can have a very measurable effect on the perception of their product by taking just thirty minutes out of our day (perhaps on company time) to put a knife in its back just as it's coming onto the market.
And this isn't just games. Movie producers hope to cover their production costs in the first weekend in case word gets out that their film isn't that good. In the film or consumer electronic industry the effect of a negative review is perceptible, but manageable. In a market as tight as ours, the effect is magnified. A passionately-written, negative review can result in some real damage to a new product, especially since we virtually all communicate on a single unified channel.
Hang on Sag, those negative comments get shouted down, right? You trash one of the darling games of the "elite gamers" on a well-known Internet boardgaming site and you're going to hear about it, and mighty quick. Indeed that's true. But fear, uncertainty and doubt don't depend upon the careful reading of well supported arguments or even a correct measurement of the facts in order to have an impact. The correction in paragraph 3 of the seventh rebuttal is likely to be overlooked. Short for time, a reader goes to a new game's page to "scan" the subject lines, or maybe reads the bottom paragraph of a few choice reviews. Damage done. This unified channel is a lovely little corner of the Internet but the game publishers have little control of the message, and a fair slice of their product's fate may be in its hands. I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing they're not fully comfortable with that. Salesmen very much like to control the message reaching the customer, so this is a risk that they have to actively manage. There's some options.
They buy some good reviews! A few choice reviewers out there that are prolific if not stunning in their work, and appropriate efforts are made to get them copies of the game at no cost and make sure all their questions are answered. Often this is made easier when the reviewer contacts them with a mailing address. I make it sound really seedy, but what's a publisher to do? They send out promotional copies because they feel their product is ready for prime time, and like it or not these talking heads are a part of the business.
What else? How do you manage the risks posed to your business by negative dialogue that can damage sales early in your delivery cycle? For lack of better options, you manage it with your market mix. In this case, you manage initial financial outlay by limiting copies, and you manage your audience selection with price.
This is where Cosmic Encounter comes back into the picture. $60. If it's anything like the copy I've played there's just not a lot of materials there. You can kill a man with a sealed copy of PitchCar -- there's some physical content in the box and that costs money. Cosmic Encounter is pretty much playing cards, a board, and some bits. But value is fundamentally about perception, not costs, and Cosmic Encounter has a street cred that most games can't match. By bringing it on to the market in a short, expensive run, FFG has effectively done three things to simultaneously maximize their ROI and minimize their message risk:
1. The shorter run has reduced their initial cost of production, if not the cost per copy.
2. The shorter run has raised the perceived value by limiting availability, likely enough to gently cover the additional cost per copy.
3. The higher price has changed the market segment that will purchase the game. They will likely be a more stable, receptive, emotionally invested group of people than a $30 strike point would have attracted.
The first two are relatively straightforward concepts, and the short run also helps to keep the delivery chain more healthy because deep discounting isn't fruitful when quantities are scarce. But the third is a bit more subtle. Less copies means less discussion overall -- likely a good thing since bad comments are so much more noticeable than good. Those copies are more likely to go to people that are a bit more comfortable with adversity, i.e., people that don't expect something of value to be handed to them for free. And as importantly, people who will to reach to that higher price point very likely have been truly interested in the game from day one, and have made a certain level of emotional investment prior to the game's arrival. To a large extent they're on the team before they've even seen it.
Are these high-quality patrons immune to disappointment? Hardly. They have more skin in the game than the guy that scores a copy for $18 from an online retailer. But the comments you read from this more rarefied group have a feel of disappointment, not anger, and that can be a pretty significant difference in the message that is passing through the ultra-thin transmission line that unites virtually all us "elite gamers."
I've spent all this time picking on Cosmic Encounter, but frankly it's just the latest title to come down the path. More than a few games in the last two years have been designed to sell in the $60 - $90 price range instead of the more traditional $25 - $40 price range, and the quality of the product was designed to support the change. The publisher has consciously decided to upgrade the materials so that the package can bear the weight of the higher MSRP. This business decision was made prior to any feedback from the customer base on how the product would be received -- largely a gut call made with little or no relevant data. I don't envy the guys that make these calls in such a small, fickle part of the retail market.
And I'm trying to decide for myself if I should congratulate them for their business genius or merely give them recognition for unconsciously evolving towards the more accommodating niche of their environment. It's not uncommon for business decisions to be made based upon what seems least likely to draw the anger of the boss down upon you, and the success of a Tide of Iron or Galaxy Trucker at this higher price point (each driven there by forces other than market selection) may have just given the decision makers a comfortable feeling in their belly that they didn't fully understand. Success begot success for whatever reason, data was accumulated, and their approach naturally moved itself to the more stable ground. Their revenue may not have changed, but if their ability to manage risk has increased then they have significantly improved their business model.
And that's a good thing for all of us, right?
