Preview copies

A preview copy is a high-quality, hand-assembled version of your game made before mass production, usually through print-on-demand services or a short run from your manufacturer. It exists for three jobs: to be photographed and filmed for your campaign page, to be sent to content creators for previews, and to be played at conventions in the months before launch. It is the physical proof that your game is real, and it is one of the best marketing investments a campaign can make.

Expect to need somewhere between five and fifteen copies, and expect them to be expensive per unit, often 5 to 10 times the cost of the eventual mass-produced copy. Print-on-demand card services and short-run manufacturers can produce respectable quality, and many creators combine printed cards with hand-finished boards and off-the-shelf pieces. The copies do not need final art everywhere, but the closer they look to the finished game, the more convincing every preview video becomes.

Plan the timeline backward from launch. Content creators often have queues of one to three months, and you want their previews publishing in the two weeks before and after your launch day. That means preview copies need to ship two to four months before launch, which means the near-final art, graphic design, and rules those copies require must be done even earlier. Preview copies are the deadline that drags the whole pre-launch schedule into focus.

Track every copy. Keep a spreadsheet of who has which copy, what they agreed to produce, and when. Ask creators to disclose that they received a preview copy of a pre-production game, which is both standard practice and legally required disclosure in many jurisdictions. Some creators recirculate copies from one previewer to the next to stretch a small budget, which works if you build shipping time between them into the schedule.