Monday, September 26, 2011

Is that what you called me about, Ja-el?

The problem is most of the really good game companies have good bit replacement services already. The best example is Fantasy Flight. They are totally awesome about replacing parts. One time I bought a board game and the paper had been glued on incorrectly giving it a scrunched appearance in one corner. I emailed them about it and they immediately sent me a new board, no questions asked. The shipping cost on the envelope was like $12.85. Between that, and the labor for whoever fulfilled the order, I'm sure a substantial part of their margin on the $60 game was eaten up.

I think a bit order biz for out of print games or ones from smaller companies might be neat though. For example, my copy of Medieval Merchant is missing one of the dial tokens, which makes the game kinda unplayable (it also doesn't help that it looks like Myke, its previous owner, jizzed coffee all over it). The game's out of print so I'm outta luck getting a new one. If I could pay like $5 with shipping to get that piece replaced, I'd probably do it. Another side line is deluxe bits for popular games. The alternate Agricola bits are a good example. Buying a full set of alternate bits for Agricola costs a lot, probably almost as much as a new copy of the game, and yet many people do it (like Pumpkin). Really any popular game with wooden bits is fair game. Puerto Rico for example, you could do the little coffee, tobacco (cigars), bags of sugar etc. I agree it would never be a big moneymaker, but as a side/fun/hobby business, it could work.

Rude, I would be up for playing Fiasco online for sure. I'm not so sure Wednesday will work out though, my folks are coming up this weekend and there's a lot to do to get the place ready, but I'll see what tomorrow looks like.

- J. Pierpont Flathead