The P500 Program: Overview

Basically, P500 is designed to create a steady cash flow as well as to produce the products that our customers want to buy. As long-time gamers, you guys know all too well that many game companies have come and gone after guessing wrong about a product.

The nature of this beast is that we, as a company, must invest thousands of dollars to conceptualize, develop, record, edit, print, package and distribute a product.

If that product doesn’t explode out of the sales gate when it hits the market, no matter what the reason, the company loses. Have that happen a few times, and the company dies. And, as we’ve seen in this market, we all end up losing sources of new gaming products

Now, Toxic Bag is not a big company with deep pockets (though we’re working on it!), so the consequences we face for guessing wrong on new product ideas can be pretty dire, even fatal. Ever since 1996 when we first released the 20th Century disc, our plan has been to create a product, release it and trust that it will sell…a lot. Even though the positive response you have given us has been overwhelming, and we had more hits than misses, we’ve always felt that there has to be a better way of doing this.

That’s when we found the P500 concept. Many companies in the gaming industry use this system, or something like it, to guarantee that you get the games and products that you want. So what is it? P500 is an advance-order system that allows a company to know ahead of time that there is a definite interest in a product, before they commit all of the time, cash, and resources. Simply put, it allows us to produce exactly the products that y'all want!

Here's how it works: We design and develop a new game--for example, our first board game, Space Monster. When we feel it's getting ready for prime time, we make the game available for pre-order, discounted approximately 30% for anyone who orders it before a pre-arranged Charge Date. We will update updates order totals and status periodically, so players who order can track the progress of their ordered games. You decide whether you want the game or not. If you do, you order it by credit card, and we add your name to the list of buyers. We DO NOT CHARGE YOUR CARD. Once we get enough buyers that we can reasonably assume we'll make enough to produce the game, we wrap up playtesting and start working on production--final artwork, card layout, etc. Then when the game is ready for final production, we will announce a Charge Date (the date we actually charge your card for the game + shipping). We aim to ship the game in 18 weeks or less from that Charge Date. Sometimes, products will have longer lead times or be delayed in production. We hope this doesn't happen, but if it does, we'll keep you informed with our newsletter. If for some reason we don't get enough interested gamers to commit to purchasing the game, we do not charge you anything. There's absolutely no risk on your end. And you can cancel your P500 order at any time.

P500 allows us to communicate with and hear from our customers on their wants and desires for new products. We can then schedule our releases to get the "most wanted" products turned around and out the door quicker. Essentially, you guys get to determine to a large degree what our future production schedule looks like. That's always been the coolest part of P500; it gives the gamer/hobbyist (you!) a very definite and loud voice in the discussion on which products we produce.