Replacement Longbox Case Kickstarter

[bittraderetro]

Hello, Our names are Christopher Chandler and Justin Fish. And we are the co-owners of BitTRADE; A company here in Toledo, Ohio that focuses on retro video game sales and restoration. We do our best to restore these retro classics, and at times things that are needed to make this happen just do not exist which is what brings me here today. One major thing we have noticed is missing from the landscape is a replacement for longbox cd cases. We have started a kickstarter campaign to recreate these cases. We have gotten numerous quotes on this project and this one we have is the best quality for the best price. The tools (molds) alone to make these cost almost 175,000 dollars to make. The rest of the money in this campaign is to provide rewards and order an initial run of 10,000 cases, everyone who donates to this project in the amount of ten dollars will receive one or more cases. The community has been clamoring for these for years, We are trying to provide a way to make this happen. These cases after production will be sold on bittraderetro.com (excuse the site it is in a redesign), and possibly on our ebay store (if people want that option), and locally of course. This new run of cases will be made out of strengthened acrylic instead of crystal styrene which adds a lot more strength, which makes them a lot less prone to breaking.

This campaign is not live yet, we are only posting this at this point to guage the response, we are open to suggestions (we know we have amateur video skills) LOL. Please any comments are welcome, We are aware that this is a large project, but we are ready to take it on for the community.
Thank You for checking this out and reading it
Christopher D. Chandler Co- Founder Bittrade LLC
Justin M. Fish Co-Founder Bittrade LLC/Chief Retro Officer
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/449713938/70143109?token=ddf1d420

[Polygon]

I am interested depending on what the final price will be and what the cases will look like compared to the original jewel cases. I'll keep my eye on this.

[xelement5x]

Interesting concept, I wondered when someone would do a Kickstarter for this. I've personally done work looking into the feasibility of this myself, but with a new baby time is at a premium so meh. I know it is a rough draft up on KS but here are my concerns:

1) $10 per case is quite high.

2) Are you doing the whole case or just the front, the back, and are you including the tray? Reducing parts means reducing costs and increases the chance of actually getting funded (and costs less in initial tooling). My figures showed the smartest thing to do is just mold the front since it breaks the most and has less material required in the actual injection process.

3) Are you making big or small hole diameter hinges? If you didn't know already, there were two iterations of the longbox made.


I'm sure I could think of more but my lunch is getting cold. Also, you might want to talk with SeymorOnion (http://seymoronion.com/index.html) since he has already created retro accessories before.

[Bojay1997]

Interesting concept, I wondered when someone would do a Kickstarter for this. I've personally done work looking into the feasibility of this myself, but with a new baby time is at a premium so meh. I know it is a rough draft up on KS but here are my concerns:

1) $10 per case is quite high.

2) Are you doing the whole case or just the front, the back, and are you including the tray? Reducing parts means reducing costs and increases the chance of actually getting funded (and costs less in initial tooling). My figures showed the smartest thing to do is just mold the front since it breaks the most and has less material required in the actual injection process.

3) Are you making big or small hole diameter hinges? If you didn't know already, there were two iterations of the longbox made.


I'm sure I could think of more but my lunch is getting cold. Also, you might want to talk with SeymorOnion (http://seymoronion.com/index.html) since he has already created retro accessories before.

Agree with all of your points. Of course, they are talking about using a different plastic material, so it wouldn't match the back of the case unfortunately. I also wonder what happened to all the tooling that was used to make the original cases. In any event, that goal has to come way down if this thing has any chance of success and I think anyone that donates at a certain level should be entitled to buy cases at cost for life as they would have already contributed to the purchase of the tooling.

[Greg2600]

Finally I say! My only concern is the goal amount, and whether it's realistic.

[goodtofufriday]

To a degree I'm interested. 10$ per case sounds ok depending on the games. I don't know if there is much of a shortage honestly.

My personal concern would bethat a lot of collectors are looking for complete cases. so unless these included the manual and back paper of said games this would be a rather nitch thing only for people needing replacement who currently own broken long box cases.

I think that if you made the back paper along with the cases you'd be good.

[Polygon]

I don't think you realize how hard it is to find games with nice long box cases.

[xelement5x]

Agree with all of your points. Of course, they are talking about using a different plastic material, so it wouldn't match the back of the case unfortunately. I also wonder what happened to all the tooling that was used to make the original cases. In any event, that goal has to come way down if this thing has any chance of success and I think anyone that donates at a certain level should be entitled to buy cases at cost for life as they would have already contributed to the purchase of the tooling.

I'm pretty sure the molds are just sitting around in a warehouse somewhere, though it's possible at this point almost 20 years later they have been melted down for something else. The best bet would be trying to locate someone at Sega who knows where cases where ordered from, but getting a contact there is outside my professional network and to be honest I'm not sure where I would start.

[chandler_455]

Ok this is Chris one of the co-owners of the comapany working on this, and I figured I would reply to this thread now since there has been some activity. I appreciate all of the suggestions and advice and will consider all of them because the community is who these are for.

1) Unfortunately due to the cost to get these molded, the shipping cost to us, and then to buyers 10 each Is near the lowest we can go on a single case Obviously there would be deals for people who buy more (because shipping could be combined). Additionally we would definitely offer discounts for people who put decent amounts of money into the kickstarter. I also hear everybody about the goal amount, But we are definitely not trying to get rich by doing this, We really cant lower the goal any further , the tooling costs are 174,000$ alone not including production, all costs considered on our end it will come near to the goal. The community really wants these cases and we really want to make them, i guess what we have to find out is does the demand account for that goal amount.

2) These cases would be reverse molded off of a sample i sent them, they should be compatible with existing case parts the only difference is a stronger plastic, as far as the two diameter hinges It would cost way too much to make both so people would have to put their inserts into the new cases.

3) We would be producing whole cases all three parts, I hear you loud and clear about only producing the fronts, but if we did that then what would be there for people with cracked backs, or broken spindle teeth. We figure that if we just produce the whole case that everyone would be covered. We are just trying to fill a void in the community by attempting this, people can find manuals and inserts and put them in a nice new case and it would make many peoples collections be worth a whole lot more...

Any more questions please let me know, I appreciate and consider all suggestions because after all we are doing this for the community

[Greg2600]

Chris, I think you're on the right track in terms of the product itself. I'm still skeptical of the "true" market out there for the cases. In other words, if you had them for sale, today, at say 10 for $50, you'd have buyers. Whether that's feasible or not. However, at $100 the donator is getting just 5 cases at $20 each. The international shipping costs are humongous, which will probably deter most of those collectors.

I wish there was another way to get them made cheaper, because my experience in this hobby is that often people want, want, want, but they want it cheap, cheap, cheap. I'm speaking totally without any background, but there's no way to have someone do a mold with a 3D printer or something, and use that as a mold, or do the tooling/molds cost that much with or without design?

If you go forward, can you do longer than 30 days on Kickstarter? Regardless, I'll donate for sure and I really have no need for cases!

[chandler_455]

I really agree with you, Kickstarter says that 30 days is the recommended length on this but I could go longer, pricing wise 10 cases for 50 is feasible, if you don't include the shipping cost, that's where the price for these things really gets stupid, I am really appreciating your input on this though it is really awesome, I am also thinking of getting rid of the additional cost for international, but I don't want to be stuck in a situation where I have orders and cant fulfill them because the shipping is too high you know what I mean...We are also considering offering a pretty steep discount on purchase price down the road that would be in effect for people who donate to the campaign....Thanks for your feedback and looking for more...

[wiggyx]

Where on Earth are you having the tools built?! That's an insane price. Are they family molds with like 20 instances or something?

[Greg2600]

Where on Earth are you having the tools built?! That's an insane price. Are they family molds with like 20 instances or something?

They wrote about that on their page. Using some company in IL, American Plastics Corp. Said they researched here and overseas...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/449713938/70143109?token=ddf1d420

[wiggyx]

Wow, $8-10 a case! As much as I'd love to have a stock pile of these, there's no way on earth that I would pay more than $4-5 a pop. Have you set up any polls at this point? I'm having a hard time imagining that other gamers are going to fork over that kind of cash for these, especially when it's still relatively easy to find cheap lots of crappy longbox games with cases in decent condition. I don't think the desperation factor is high enough for this project yet :/

[Greg2600]

I didn't even think that far into the future, I just made the point that the Kickstarter goal was (IMO) way too high, with too little rewards (if any), for what is really a niche of a niche product. If they truly need so much money just to have them made, I can't imagine getting that.

Wiggy, was there some other approach they should be taking instead of expensive tooling?

[wiggyx]

Injection molding is really the only viable option here, I just can't wrap my head around the cost of the tooling. I've got a decent amount of experience with injection tool production (as far as submitting models for quotes and such) and I'm really thrown by the estimate. These are REALLY simple parts and they aren't particularly large.

Don't know if you ever saw the mini snes shell I did about a year ago, but that was composed of 9 individual parts and was most definitely more complex and larger than the longbox cases. My tooling quote was $30K.