Every month, we advise hundreds of game creators about how to design their board games and card games for efficient production.
Most of the time, this involves discussing strategies to complete the manufacturing process with as few delays as possible, as well as how to get the best value for money on your game without sacrificing quality.
This kind of pre-production preparation is essential, because it helps a game to comply with the 5X rule and reach backers or store shelves on time, without cost overruns.
Recently, we’ve noticed that we’re increasingly talking to creators about an additional factor that should be considered during game production: your game’s weight.
Benefits of Keeping Your Game Lightweight
While the benefits of avoiding delays, reducing costs and maintaining good quality are obvious, many game creators are unaware of the benefits of producing a game that’s lightweight.
Keeping your game lightweight has several key advantages for you as a creator:
- More affordable production. Many lightweight materials are less expensive than their higher-density counterparts. For pieces like tokens, for example, using a slightly thinner token sheet can reduce weight and costs at the same time without sacrificing quality.
- Lower shipping costs. International shipping is usually priced by weight or volumetric weight. The lighter your game, the cheaper your shipping costs will be to your buyers, backers and retail distributors.
- Easier handling and storage. Lighter boxes are easier to carry, ship in bulk, and store in warehouses or game stores. If your game contains relatively light components, they’re also less likely to damage other pieces if they move inside the box.
- Smaller carbon footprint. Lighter board games are environmentally friendly in several key ways. First, they use fewer materials during production. Second, they use less fuel during shipping and thus produce fewer emissions.
- Reduced tariffs and customs fees. Since many weight-saving tactics also reduce the costs of your game, prioritizing a low gross weight can potentially help you to limit your tariffs and import-related expenses, depending on where you’re shipping to.
Designing a game that’s not overly heavy is also good for customers, since they don’t need to lug around a hefty box when they want to play your game. This is especially important if your game is designed for children, or if it’s an all-ages game that might appeal to the elderly.
Easy Ways to Reduce Your Game’s Weight
For most games, a few strategic decisions can shave 10-25% or more off your game’s weight, allowing you to reduce your manufacturing and logistics costs. We’ve shared some tips below based on our manufacturing experience to help you make a lighter, more efficient game.
Strategically Choose Thinner Paper & Card Stock
Choosing the right thickness for your paper and card components can make a surprisingly big difference to your game’s overall weight.
For example, downgrading to a slightly thinner card stock on player aids or rule cards may save a few grams per sheet. However, across hundreds or thousands of games, this can add up to a large weight saving while also reducing your manufacturing costs.
Similarly, using a 1.2 mm token sheet instead of 1.5 mm for tokens can reduce both weight and cost, while still resulting in tokens that feel sturdy in your players’ hands.
The key here is to be strategic. Not every component is suitable for thinner material. Consider how each piece will be handled during gameplay. Important parts like your main game boards should be thick and durable, as they’re the most likely to be accidentally damaged.
However, with lots of components, especially those that are used less often, you can switch to lighter materials without affecting the perceived quality of your game.
Eliminate Redundant or Unnecessary Components
One of the most effective ways to reduce your game’s weight is to include fewer components in your game, especially components that aren’t needed.
Many game creators, especially in early prototypes, include extra pieces to enhance the theme of their game, usually without fully considering how essential those pieces are. Over time, these pieces can become accepted as “core” even when they don’t contribute much to gameplay.
Contrary to what you’d think from some of the ultra-heavy games popular with enthusiasts, most great games don’t use that many pieces.
Before you lock in your final component list, conduct an audit to assess whether each piece is pulling its weight in terms of gameplay vs. cost and weight.
For example, do all of your player aids need to be separate cards, or can rules be summarized in the rulebook? Are duplicate sets of tokens necessary for every player, or could some of your components be shared?
Thinking like this can help you identify wasteful components, allowing you to strategically make removals that make your game lighter, more streamlined, and easier to produce.
Use Multi-Purpose Components
Another effective design technique is to combine functionality across a smaller number of total components. Multi-purpose pieces can fulfill more than one role in your game, which cuts down the total number of parts you need to manufacture and include.
For example, one deck of cards can serve both as a randomizer and as a game phase tracker, depending on how it’s structured.
Try to think of ways to consolidate your game pieces using double-sided printing, color coding, or iconography. Not only can this lighten your game physically — it can also result in a far more elegant, less wasteful design.
Trim Your Rulebook
Your rulebook can be deceptively heavy, particularly if it’s printed on thick stock. If you’ve ever bought several books at once in a store, you will know how heavy they can feel when you carry them back to your car.
Because of the density of books, reducing the length and complexity of your rulebook is one of the easiest ways to reduce weight.
Streamlining your rules into fewer pages results in a lighter booklet that’s cheaper to print and less of a burden during shipping and fulfillment. A shorter rulebook is also less intimidating, as there’s less for players to read and memorize before they start your game.
In addition to shortening your rulebook, you can talk to our team about materials and rulebook printing methods to help you minimize your costs and weight.
Whenever Possible, Re-Evaluate Your Component Materials
Component materials can vary significantly in weight, even for items that serve the exact same function. Metal coins, wooden tokens, and heavy plastic inserts all contribute to a heavier game box and can potentially be replaced by lighter alternatives.
Yes, these materials look and feel cool, but they’re not always the best choice. As well as being heavy, they can greatly increase the production cost of your game.
Consider replacing metal components with high-quality cardboard tokens. Just like with how you print your rulebook, our team can recommend high quality, low-weight alternatives to almost any material to help you make decisions that balance cost, weight, and durability.
Reduce Your Game’s Box Size
A lot of games are over-packaged, with box sizes that leave excess air inside. While a large box may initially seem more impressive and give your game more presence, it also adds much more cardboard and increases shipping volume, all of which add to your game’s weight and costs.
Add to this the fact that it’s much easier for pieces to go missing inside an overly large box with lots of extra space.
In most cases, a smaller, tightly packed box provides a better experience for players and lowers your logistical costs while keeping your game lighter. When your components are organized well inside your box, you can often shrink the box by 10 to 20 percent without affecting usability.
Ask Your Manufacturer for Suggestions
We see hundreds of games pass through our production line every year, giving us a huge level of insight into what works and what doesn’t when it comes to using space effectively.
Our team is happy to help you with efficient design and weight minimization before you go into production. By discussing your goals early, ideally before your files are finalized, we can assist you to reduce your game’s weight using our material and production knowledge.
If you’re in the process of preparing your game for production, feel free to ask us your questions about components and we’ll help you to make a more weight-efficient game.
The Bottom Line on Reducing Your Game’s Weight
Reducing the weight of your game is one of the most overlooked ways to save money, improve your logistics efficiency, and create a smoother production experience. It’s equally as important as every other step in production, but it often goes ignored, resulting in waste and extra costs.
By making small, thoughtful changes to your component list, materials, and packaging, you can cut unnecessary weight without cutting corners on your game or affecting its quality.
As with all aspects of game manufacturing, weight optimization works best when it’s considered early in the process, ideally during the design and prototyping phase.
If you’re unsure where to start, contact us. We’re happy to help you identify ways to save weight and reduce costs while improving your game’s quality, whether you’re preparing your first game, reprinting one of your existing titles, or adding a new game to your portfolio as a publisher.
