If you’re a board game creator looking to understand more about how your games are made, it can be both fun and educational to visit a board game factory.
You can likely imagine rows of machines producing the cards and meeples you’ve spent months designing, and the thrill of finally seeing your game go from an idea and plan into a finished and sales-ready physical product.
But what’s it really like to step inside a board game factory? And what can you expect to get out of the visit?
We often get emails from game creators looking to visit our factory, either to learn more about the general process of creating a game, or to talk to us about moving their game’s production from another manufacturer to Hero Time.
If you’re a growing game publisher, a factory visit can be a key step in choosing the right game manufacturer to support your growth. Feel free to contact us if you’d like to visit our factory and we can give you more information about the process of organizing a visit.
Below, we’ve explained what you can expect, as well as key things to do to make sure you get the most from your visit.
Why Visit a Board Game Factory in the First Place?
Visiting a board game factory is less about spectacle and more about understanding how games are made, building trust with your game manufacturer and noticing all of the key details that can make or break your final product.
Game creators and publishers make factory visits for a few key reasons:
- Quality reassurance. Seeing machines and workers handling your game components helps you understand the level of precision and control in the process. It’s one thing to look at photos of printing presses; it’s another to stand next to one in person.
- Building relationships. An in-person factory visit shows you’re serious and committed to making your game. Manufacturers appreciate the effort, and you’ll usually find staff are more invested in your project once they’ve met you in person.
- Learning the process. When you see the process of production, from printing, cutting, collating to boxing, you realize why certain requests are easy while others are difficult or expensive.
- Troubleshooting and faster decisions. If you visit during your own game’s production, you may be able to resolve small issues quickly by seeing samples and giving feedback on the spot.
Ultimately, a factory visit isn’t required, but it’s a powerful way to strengthen your knowledge and confidence in the production side of publishing, especially if you’re scaling production and need to understand the process from your manufacturer’s perspective.
What You’ll See When You Arrive
When you walk into a board game factory, don’t expect Willy Wonka. A well-designed factory is a practical, industrial space designed for efficiency and safety.
In terms of factory layout, you’ll typically see printing areas, stacks of cardboard sheets, cutting and punching areas, and assembly lines where workers put together boxes.
You’ll meet line workers handling machines, quality control staff checking products, and factory management who explain the process. In our Yiwu, China factory, our team can show you how our factory works and help you to visit key suppliers involved in making your game.
Many factories have a sample room filled with games they’ve produced for other publishers. We are happy to show you examples of games we’ve manufactured to show you what we can do for your game and how we can help you get the best possible results.
Overall, you can expect a board game factory to be busy but organized; a place where a variety of unique, high quality games flow through on tight schedules.
Step by Step Through the Game Manufacturing Process
A good factory tour takes you through the main stages of board game production:
- Printing. Cards, boards and rulebooks are printed. You’ll see massive sheets being fed into machines, with staff checking color consistency. Varnishing, lamination, and special finishes are applied to materials after they’re printed to produce the final game.
- Component making. Tokens are cut out of thick cardboard. Card collation machines shuffle and sort decks automatically. For games that use wood or plastic components, we can arrange a visit to these suppliers so you can view the process first-hand.
- Assembly and packing. Workers or semi-automated lines collect all the components, place them into the box and shrink-wrap the final game. This step is more manual than most visitors expect due to the complexity of small board game components.
- Quality control. At multiple stages, components and other pieces are checked to verify that they meet standards. As a manufacturer, our goal is to ensure every game leaving our factory matches the agreed standards.
Seeing these steps firsthand helps you to understand why board game manufacturing timelines are measured in weeks, not days, and why precision in your design files is so important for fast, efficient production.
How to Get the Most Value From Your Visit
Visiting a factory is a significant endeavor, especially if you’re flying long-distance to visit us or another manufacturer in China. To make your trip worthwhile:
- Prepare questions ahead of time. Before your visit, list the aspects of production you want to understand better. We’re happy to provide information and context so you get a full understanding of how your game is made.
- Observe quality details. A good manufacturer will happily show you key factors of your game’s quality. Let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like to look into, and we can give you full transparency into how your game is made and its finished standards.
- Build relationships. We’re happy to introduce you to the key people and suppliers that bring your games to life. The more involved you are, the better we can connect with you and go the extra mile to bring your project to life.
In addition to visiting our factory itself, we recommend looking around Yiwu, our factory location, to understand more about the environment that makes board game manufacturing possible.
The Bottom Line on a Factory Visit
Visiting your manufacturer is a great way to strengthen your relationship and learn more about how your game is made. During a visit, you can see things first-hand, get fast answers to your production questions, check quality, and gain a new perspective on game manufacturing.
If you’re a growth-focused board game publisher, we’re happy to arrange a factory visit for you so you can better understand how we can support your business. Please feel free to contact us and our staff will answer your questions and assist you.
