The Game Crafter

The Game Crafter is a print-on-demand manufacturer of board games, card games, custom playing cards and game components, run from its manufacturing facility in Madison, Wisconsin. It is built for independent game designers: you upload your artwork and rules, choose the parts, pick a box, and order one copy or many. Its site title calls it "The world leader in print on demand board games," and the homepage says the company has "been proudly building games for our customers for over 15 years." Alongside manufacturing, it runs an open marketplace where designers can self-publish their games and sell them to a worldwide audience.

What a designer gets

The homepage describes the offer as "an easy-to-use system to make a board game, card game, or custom playing cards," and breaks the process into four steps:

• Upload your artwork and rules
• Choose the parts in your game
• Select the game box you want
• Buy 1 copy or as many as you need

That last step is the core of the model. The homepage is explicit: "There is no minimum order size when you design a game at The Game Crafter. Buy 1 copy or as many as you need. We offer bulk discounts starting at just 10 copies!" It adds that the same applies to game pieces and game accessories. For a designer, that means a single prototype for playtesting and a larger run for sale go through the same system and the same files.

The site's two top sections summarize the business in a line each. "Make" covers games, art, playing cards and components. "Buy" covers games, upgrades, tarot, art and game pieces. The Make menu lists Getting Started, Products, Pricing, Services, Games, Playing Cards, Design Assets, Designers, Coupons, Sales, Payouts, Concierge and Warehouse, which shows how much of the workflow sits inside a designer's account: building products, selling them, tracking sales and collecting payouts.

The component catalog

The products page describes itself as a catalog of "all of the customizable game components made by The Game Crafter," grouped by category, each with a sample photo and links to the individual products. For stock pieces rather than printed ones, it points to a separate online parts shop.

The pricing page shows which printed categories the company makes. It has example pricing tables for Boards, Books, Cards, Dials, Mats, Packaging, Parts, Punchouts, Score Pads, Screens and Stickers. Each table lists the example item, cost per item, items per sheet, cost per sheet, and a bulk cost column priced "@ 100 games," along with maximum pages, image size in pixels, and finished and interior sizes.

Most categories carry the note "Priced by the sheet." Books are the exception: the page says "Books are priced by how many pages they use. Less pages means less cost." For Punchouts and Stickers, the page adds that "These components can mix-n-match with each other on the same sheet for better pricing," which is useful for designers who want to fill a sheet with several token or sticker designs. Every category also carries the same tip: "If you need a custom shape try our Concierge service."

Pricing

The Game Crafter prices every game from its components, so there is no single price per game. The pricing page says so directly: "The prices are only examples as every product is configurable and as such may cost more or less than what is displayed here." A Build a Quote button lets you price a specific configuration.

Three figures are fixed and printed on that page. You can add UV Coating for $0.25 per sheet and Linen Texture for $0.25 per sheet, and "there is also a handling fee of $0.89 per game copy." That handling fee applies per copy, so it belongs in any per-unit calculation a designer makes before setting a retail price.

The marketplace and other ways to earn

The homepage describes the shop as "an open marketplace for indie tabletop games," where "Products are created by game designers around the world that use our print on demand game manufacturing to produce their games." Once a game is created, "the designer can choose to self-publish it in our online shop and sell it to a worldwide audience."

The shop is broad. Its categories include Board Games, Card Games, Dice Games, Playing Cards, RPGs, Self Improvement, Tarot and Oracles, and Wargames, plus Game Upgrades, Game Pieces and Game Accessories. Deal sections cover Deal of the Day, a Bargain Bin, Clearance Items, Gift Certificates and Crowd Sales.

Under "Make Money With Us" the footer lists three routes: Sell Games, Sell Game Design Assets and Sell Game Upgrades. So a designer can sell finished games, but also artwork and templates for other designers, and add-ons for existing games. The Sales and Payouts sections in the Make menu are where that income is tracked.

Shipping and delivery

The shipping page says: "We ship all our packages via the United States Postal Service (USPS) and United Parcel Service (UPS). All your shipments are insured against damage, loss, or defects." Every delivery time is counted after production. The main options:

• Will Call: pick up your order at the manufacturing facility in Madison, Wisconsin
• USPS First-Class Package and USPS Ground Advantage: 14 to 30 days, not trackable
• USPS Priority Mail: 5 to 15 days, trackable
• USPS Priority Mail Express: 2-5 business days to most U.S. locations, including Saturday delivery, trackable
• UPS Ground: usually 1-5 business days, trackable
• UPS Saver: usually 1 to 3 business days, trackable
• UPS Next Day Air options: by 12pm, 9am (Early A.M.) or 3pm (Saver) the next day
• UPS Surepost and Surepost Lightweight: usually 2-10 business days, trackable

For international buyers the page lists USPS Priority Mail International and APC Priority International DDU at 15 to 30 business days, both trackable; UPS Worldwide Expedited at usually 2 to 5 business days; UPS Worldwide Express and Express Plus with next day delivery by 10:30am or 12:00 noon; USPS First Class Package International Service at 30 to 60 days, not trackable; and UPS Mail Innovations at usually 20-45 business days, not trackable and "Delivered by the local postal service in the destination country." For most UPS services the page notes that delivery "does not include weekends."

Support and community

Support has two tiers in the footer, Free Support and Premium Support, along with a Help section and a Forum. A Production section links to a Current Status page, which gives designers a view of where production stands. The community side is large: Community Chat, a Discord, a Facebook Group, Reddit, a Podcast, a Newsletter, Contests, Art Tests, Auctions and a Hall of Fame. The footer also links to a Developer API.

The careers page describes the company as "The Game Crafter of Madison, Wisconsin" and says its team works "together to create custom board games for individuals and companies around the world."

Who it suits

The Game Crafter suits indie tabletop designers who want to go from files to a boxed game without a factory minimum. One copy for a playtest, a handful for a convention, and a bulk run at the discount from 10 copies all use the same process. The marketplace suits designers who want an audience of tabletop buyers without building their own store, and the design asset and upgrade routes suit artists and designers who sell to other creators.

It is also a fit for anyone making non-game printed products the shop already carries, such as tarot and oracle decks or custom playing cards.

The caveats are practical. Prices are configuration-based examples, so you need to build a quote to know your unit cost, and the $0.89 handling fee comes on top of each copy. The company manufactures in Madison, Wisconsin, and the slower international services run to weeks, and budget options like USPS First Class Package International Service are not trackable. Designers selling mainly outside the US should price a faster tracked service into their plans.