Wood vs Plastic: The Facts About Game Components

 “Always do things right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” – Mark Twain

The greatest concern–and, ultimately, the greatest misconception–is about the environmental impact of plastic pieces. The fact is that manufacturing anything at scale in a factory has an impact on the environment. Wood, plastic, etc you have machines and people creating waste. Wooden and Plastic game pieces manufacturers have control over what they input into those factories. Though, wooden game components and wooden game components use recycled plastic and repurposed wood

Today I thought I’d do a side-by-side comparison of creating custom plastic miniatures for board games vs wooden game components. Which would help new companies to set up a factory and  target the right customers based on their need and wants

Wood Components:

Price: comparable in price to plastic

Setup: minimal setup time/costs

Speed: normal manufacturing speed

Consistency: Even at scale, wooden components often have small variances in size, shape, and color, some of which is the result of the thickness of the paint on the components. This rarely matters, but it’s something to consider if you need the components to fit into specific slots (e.g., dual-layered player mats).

Customization: At a significant added expense, wood components can be deluxified by adding silkscreen printing. Due to undercut constraints, wooden components can’t be as intricate as plastic components.

Environment: Environment: Standard manufacturing impact on the environment. Any factory has a carbon footprint. Sometimes, the pine, cherry wood and repurposed wood was used by Wooden game components manufacturers.

 

Perception: It seems that gamers prefer wooden meeples and custom resources over plastic, but they generally don’t care about the composition of other shapes (cubes).

Plastic components:

Price: comparable in price to wood

Setup: slightly longer setup time (due to mold making)

Speed: normal manufacturing speed

Consistency: Plastic offers a  high level of consistency in size and color, and it doesn’t break like wood can. However, plastic has thickness constraints–if you make it too thick, it can bend in the middle. So thicker plastic components are often multiple pieces glued together, and sometimes the mold lines are visible.

Customization: Plastic components can be silkscreen printed, as well as pad printed and heat transferred. Shapes can be more intricate than laser cut wood, and the variety of different plastics offer weight and density options (at higher costs).

Environment: Standard manufacturing impact on the environment–but any factory has a carbon footprint. plastic game pieces manufacturers reuse recycled plastic for their plastic components and minimize the impact on the environment.

Perception: It seems that gamers prefer plastic for detailed miniatures, but otherwise, they are either ambivalent or prefer wood (for custom meeples/resources).

Ultimately, it’s up to new companies to decide if wood or plastic is a better fit for the components in card games. Hopefully, these facts about the differences between the two materials are helpful for new companies .

For more info :- manufacturers of board games