I've been toying around with the idea of doing some 3D design and realisation for a while, and I was wondering if it'd be of any use to the CE to have some merchandise items, like 3D sculpted CE badges, maybe keyrings or even necklaces for on the stall at conventions. Get 'em cast in brass or maybe pewter and they probably wouldn't cost too much to produce after the initial cost of the mould. Dunno if it's a good idea or not, but I thought I'd broach the subject anyway.
What's everyone else think? Any other non-book merchandise we could come up with? CE dice? Shirts? Playing Cards? Bookmarks?
Ash
Whilst a nice idea, I have
Submitted by Andrew Kenrick on Wed, 10/09/2008 - 19:01.
Whilst a nice idea, I have to ask - what would the point be? Our stated aim is to foster indie games design in the UK, so I'm not sure how necklaces etc would further that, any more than acting as advertising (which badges and postcards probably accomplish far cheaper).
Playing Cards
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Wed, 10/09/2008 - 19:38.
...are the one thing that might be practical as a game aid/advert/useful thing. I thought Iain looked at the costing of them when he was looking at B-Movie.
They might be handy since we have games that use cards (I wonder if we could get square decks like Joe Prince has?).
But I'm less interested in the bling, though, and it's something people would do more at an individual publisher level.
How about a little brochure?
Submitted by Greg Saunders on Thu, 11/09/2008 - 07:32.
Would there be any milage in a little printed brochure highlighting the CE games and giving a little bit of info on each one? You could have them as a give away on the stall for folks to take home and peruse.
Just a thought.
Greg
Replies and Stuff
Submitted by Ashok Desai on Thu, 11/09/2008 - 08:05.
Whilst a nice idea, I have to ask - what would the point be?
Advertising would be the main gist of the idea, primarily to attract interested folks to the stall who might not otherwise have given it a second look (shiny things get peoples' attention) but also, while simple pin badges and postcards may be cheaper to produce for certain, they aren't the kind of things that people really keep around for very long. A more attractive alternative would be more likely to stay in the pocket / on the lapel longer and attract more attention from people. I guess another usage might be to have official CE convention badges.
Playing Cards are the one thing that might be practical as a game aid/advert/useful thing. I thought Iain looked at the costing of them when he was looking at B-Movie.
They might be handy since we have games that use cards (I wonder if we could get square decks like Joe Prince has?).
Didn't the CE look at having some dice made a while back too? I seem to have some vague memory about that but I have no idea where from.
Anyway, the cards. Those are probably pretty easy to source as well, although I don't think the guys at GoB do square cards at the moment so if we really wanted some like that the best bet is to ask Joe where he got his from but we may have to buy in quantities that make it unviable. I do like the idea of CE cards though.
But I'm less interested in the bling, though, and it's something people would do more at an individual publisher level.
Yeah, I could see it making an interesting sideline to have your own custom badges and things for the symbols in your game, assuming there are any. Incidentally, I'm happy to help people make that kind of stuff too, if there ARE any individual publishers that'd like to experiment with jewellery. Shame though, I kinda like the idea of a CE keyring.
Oh Gregor, a thought strikes, but a very silly one :) Maybe you could borrow a dogtag making machine from somewhere and use it to make promotional 3:16 tags at conventions? I remember they did that once for a previous release of Mark Miller's Traveller and it was pretty popular.
Ash
Dog Tags
Submitted by Matt on Thu, 11/09/2008 - 13:04.
The Ashcan Front did some for GenCon and everybody thought they were awesome. I think they are ideal 3:16 fodder.
As Gregor says, most promo trinkets are individual publisher level things.
-Matt
Realms Publishing
If we wanted to do cards
Submitted by David Donachie on Fri, 12/09/2008 - 07:24.
If we wanted to do cards then I see Guild of Blades is offereing very short run (like 10 packs) orders of custom playing cards. They could be a shared resource, with cards for each game?
http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/ - http://cubicle-7.com/starblazer/