Thanks for all the input. I'm based in the US but have worked with printers on CCGs that print Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, etc. They specialize in these kinds of products and I believe they compete with USPCC on quality. USPCC is a lot more expensive than these other printers because they trade heavily on their personal brand. There are also highly regarded card stocks from Germany and France that can be printed by specialized factories in China that also do Collectible Card printing. My main audience is Kickstarter and then it will be hobby distribution at hobby, comic, board game, and tabletop gaming shops. It seems the main audience is collectors on Kickstarter. Of course I want to reach the broadest audience possible so I certainly don't want to alienate collectors. So if collectors only want USPCC I may be required to do that.
The sad but simple fact is that MOST collectors do trade exclusively in USPC, and some limit themselves to one subset of USPC - the Bicycle brand. If you want greater sales, USPC would be the path to take.
But...
If you can accurately gauge your primary audience's level of demand and find that the cost of printing outweighs the potential profit, THEN say "to hell with the collectors, what do they know?" and print with any reasonably-priced company you can find. Honestly, the ratio of card collectors to the general population is probably well under 1%. There have been a number of successful Kickstarter projects that had no appeal whatsoever to the playing card collector, but a segment of backers thought it was cool enough to invest in.
If you don't believe me, there's a kid on here named Reagan who made a steampunk-themed deck - most of the people here had little interest in it, some were openly against the deck even being made. But enough Kickstarter backers jumped in to get him over the top and get the deck made. I'd bet most of them were NOT collectors - he had no plans at all to print with USPC. But in the end, it didn't matter. People liked his idea enough to get it off the ground.
Plus it didn't hurt that he was EVERYWHERE promoting the hell out of it...
That's something many failed Kickstarter project lacked - the project creators had no clue and assumed they could build it and that people would come. It's a big reason why most of the failures failed. Regardless of whether you're making the deck with USPC or any other printer, you need to get the bandwagon out and start barking at whoever will listen to entice them to back your project. It's critical with a USPC project because they generally have a much higher goal due to the increased cost of printing.
(Wow, can I ramble or what?
)
Last piece of advice for now: there are alternatives to Kickstarter. The House of Playing Cards (HOPC;
click here) is actively searching for designers and non-designers to find a handful of really, REALLY good deck ideas and get them made. They back you completely for a small percentage after their costs are recovered, while you retain rights to everything but the deck itself (and those rights revert back to you when the deck is no longer being printed). They're very selective about deck ideas (their current plan is to introduce not more than one new deck a month), so you have to have a rock-solid idea, but it's worth a shot and will save you LOTS of hassle if your deck is chosen.
Just mention that I sent you to them! I do some work with them from time to time.
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