Hello. Team 1089 is thinking about creating a version of trivial pursuit with FIRST specific knowledge to sell for a fundraiser. Before finding out the logistics and costs and such of doing so, we were wondering what the interest would be in buying such a game. So would you guys buy this game if we made it or do you guys have any suggestions? Thanks a ton!
In an honest opinion, as creative as this would be and really cool, I think the overhead cost would exceed profits as I know a couple people who have invested in boardgames before and failed (games that were open to a wider audience.) You would be lucky to break even.
Sorry to sound so negative. Its a very cool idea though.
I could see this game becoming a great team building/FIRST learning exercise. I do not know how many people would want to buy the game outside of the FIRST community though. If you end up making the game I would love to buy a copy of it! Good luck with your awesome idea!
~Evan
i agree here, i dont think you would make enough profit
How professional are you aiming to make these? You could feasibly make the game boards, cards, etc. as an ongoing team project or something and have people order them (if you only make games on an order basis then you could potentially save a lot of money in materials and such). They might not end up being professional grade, but you would be able to do it.
We basically have two ideas going on here.
First we need to figure out if there’s even a MARKET for this product. Who would buy it? Teams? Coaches? Teams as gifts for coaches? Individual students who think it’s cool?
What would you all say a reasonable price to charge would be? What would you be willing to spend on a game like this?
Second, we’re looking at costs for manufacturing - as in an ACTUAL board game - we don’t want to make a low quality product, we want something awesome. We already know that costs are probably going to be high, but we’re still investigating. That includes contacting game companies to find out if they’ll donate materials/products. Also, I’m a design major, so I’m going to be using my network to find out what kind of custom ordering we can do that’s not necessarily GAME standard (like printing each question as boxes of 50+ business cards and having students sort them into the final game boxes).
We’ve also considered doing an “Expansion Pack” for the existing Trivial Pursuit, where people would only have to buy the box of cards and could use any trivial pursuit game board they already have.
So now, with all that additional information, let us know if you’re interested, why/why not, and what you would like to see us charge for it. Of course, you can also post suggestion questions! 
An expansion pack seems to make more sense, cost-wise. The cards could be low-cost produced (with high donated labor; where might you get that? :rolleyes: ) but you’d still have to figure out the boxes.
One other thing you’d have to investigate, is what kind of legal requirements there might be. I’m not sure if the Trivial Pursuit makers could ask you for a licensing fee for an expansion pack.
To me it seems the attractiveness of such a game would be whether it has universal recognition questions or too many local recognition questions. I know a lot about MI teams and some about the acknowledged powerhouses. But I don’t know much about teams in GA or MN or NJ, just to pick a few examples. Would I be getting a whole lot of questions wrong? I wouldn’t play it very often then.
check out CheapA$$ games. They do low cost games by making reasonable boards and then having the users supply the game pieces.
I have to agree with Gary that it might be tough to keep it from being too local. How many sections does trivial pursuit have? 6? Possible topics might include trivia about previous games. Questions about Hall of Fame, National Chairman’s, and Woody Flowers. National Champions (best way i can think of keeping it broad). General Robotics category. General STEM category. I would also include a set of cards that would allow for a team specific write in questions so that they could use this as a tool to promote team history.
Why not make this computer based. Write code and make it dissimialer enough to Trivial Persuit that you need not pay the marketing fees.
your over head would be time to write the program and make CD’s
You can gather 8 people around a screen or barrow a projector when you know your going to play the game.
In disagreement, I once saw an on-campus group make a monopoly game themed towards the college. It was the most successful fundraiser in the group’s history.
I don’t know if they have it for TrivPursuit, but it’s worth researching. Would I purchase it? Depends on the price point and it’s portability.
Monopoly is easier to scale because most person understand the premise, and it doesn’t require a lot of outside knowledge to play. A non-stars wars fan could play the star wars version and likely do very well. Ever play a 1970s edition trivial pursuit. What was the best picture for 1965? While probably an interesting and slightly difficult question in 1970, it is crazy tough in 2009!
Monopoly could be a really good one. You could have alliances instead of Monopolies. The toughest part would be deciding which teams go where? You could do a new edition each year with the previous years National teams filling out the respective positions.
Just a general question: Does FIRST allow advertising at competitions? They would seem like a great time/place to market your game once you get it off the ground.
I really like the monopoly idea as it would open the game to a larger audience.
Companies have been sued (or at least sent a cease-and-desist letter) by Monopoly’s maker (Parker Brothers?) for using a likeness too close to the Monopoly board. I know my former employer was one of them.
Parker Brothers is happy to sell you a customized version of Monopoly: http://www.mymonopoly.com/home.php
You can’t really buy it in bulk though for any sort of reasonable profit, I think.
I’m pretty sure of all the people I know in various robotics teams (that’s about a dozen outside of my team) only one of my friends would buy it and play it on a somewhat regular basis. You’d only get the hardcore FIRSTers…
I sorta have to agree with Chris and most of the previous posters, while the monopoly/Trivial Pursuit is a good idea, The profit margin would either be so small that you have to sell a lot of boards to make a profit, or if from scratch, you would have to sell a lot to break even.
We found a pretty decent way (price wise) of getting game boards a few days ago actually, and cards are easy to get too 
but we’re more interested in who’s interested in trivial pursuit for FIRST specifically.
While I agree monopoly would be AMAZING, it’d be extremely biased toward team’s that we know, which is better at a state/region basis. And picking only certain teams would be hard because it’d be on a partnership or well-known (chairman’s winners/national champions) basis. So, in that case, a lot of teams would be missed in some form of a judging process. Which is why i feel its unfair to teams, especially rookies.
With that in mind, I feel its better to explain our trivial pursuit in a little more detail:
Our plan is to have questions about FIRST in general, and some other categories (there are six total), but MOST IMPORTANTLY, a question about EVERY TEAM out there.
And we’re willing to do the research on it; we basically are curious of who’s interested. And how much you would be willing to spend on it. This will help us to know if we should order bulk supplies with a custom game board or create an expansion deck.
So, post below if any of those ideas appeal to you. Thank you
I would probably be interested in just buying the expansion deck to quiz myself or my team. Maybe divide the teams into regions? I am not sure if I would paid 10 dollars more for a board.
Actually, right now cards are the problem. I think I’ve found a way around it but I won’t know for a few days. We’ve found out that we can actually get vinyl game boards for pretty cheap (depending on how many are ordered) and then they would be easy to take along with you too. Any one like the idea?
The categories we are considering are listed below:
**Pop Culture: **Questions about FIRST teams and the “FIRST culture”; example: What company does Dean Kamen work for? (DEKA)
FIRST (in general): Questions about/relating to FIRST; example: What year was FIRST founded in? (1989)
FIRST in the Media: All about FIRST gaining recognition by society; example: What national champion team had a guest appearance on the popular Canadian show, Degrassi? (Team 1114: Simbotics)
Teams: All about teams (one for each); example: Name the team that hosts and manages the “unofficial FIRST forums.” (Team 47: Chief Delphi)
**Technical :**Questions about engineering and programming concepts (aka super-nerd-stuff); example: Robots are programmed through this computer software program. (LabVIEW)
**Non-Technical: **Questions about anything not relating to the robot, including common knowledge, awards criteria, and anything else FIRST related; example: What percentage must your website score to get website excellence? (80%)
Does anyone see this as fun for you and your team or anyone in particular that you know (like your coach)?