Here you can see a proof of the new edition of Co-opoly, which is half the size of the original. (Note, the colors in the proof are not as vibrant as they will be in the finalized copy.)We are excited to announce that we have managed to lower the price of the second edition of Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives without sacrificing the quality of the game. You can now purchase the game on a newly reduced sliding scale of $28-55 (instead of the previous price of $38-70). Co-opoly will be available for the holidays. You can pre-order your copy here!
One of our goals as we’ve geared up for this second pressing has been to make Co-opoly more accessible, and we couldn’t be happier with the new price. In our efforts to be transparent, we wanted to share with you how this came to be. But first, we want to thank everyone who purchased the first edition of Co-opoly. And thank you to everyone who contributed to the second printing. We wouldn’t be where we are today without your support and it is humbling to be in a position of printing the second edition of our game so soon. The cooperative community really made this all possible.
So how did we manage to lower the cost? To start with, we printed twice as many game components this year–for a total of 2,000 games (which will reach hopefully 20,000 people with the cooperative movement’s message). This allowed us to receive considerable price breaks on the printing costs for the box, board, and cards.
Here is a sample of one of the new Work Cards.Second, we reformatted the Work Cards. Now there are three mini-games on each side of the Work Cards and they are double sided, instead of single sided. On the board, the Work Card space you land on dictates the Work Card game you play (Charades, Drawing, or Unspoken). So we went from printing roughly 375 Work Cards for each game to printing just over 80 Work Cards per game. However, the game will still be played in the same way; we just found a way to be more economical with space per card.
Third, we made the World, Character, and Challenge Cards double sided, instead of single sided, which also cut down on our printing costs. And we re-sized the World, Character, and Work Cards so that they are bigger, which allowed them all to be cut at the same time, and thus cost less.
Finally, we found a new printer in the United States that focuses solely on board and box printing, so they were able to offer a lower cost on what is the most expensive component of the game.
In addition to these changes, the game box will be half the size of the original Co-opoly and it will be about two pounds lighter, which will reduce the cost of shipping. The board is still the same size, it will just be folded up into quarters instead of in half.
Though the final price of the game will be lower, we have not sacrificed any of our standards–the entire game is still made in the United States mostly by other co-ops or ethical businesses and using sustainable materials as much as possible. All of the cards and the paper materials (like instructions, the zine, etc.) were printed by local co-ops in our area. The box and board were printed in Chicago, the hometown of one of our worker owners. We are proud to maintain our ethical standards and we’re excited that we found ways to make the game more affordable.
