I’m not really keen on so many boardgame publishers now seemingly “relying” on Kickstarter with retail as a place to dump production surplus. Sure, it means they take less risk, but it means I can’t buy anything as it’s all “out of print” a week after being “released”. Instead I have to take a random gamble on their new games, rather than be able to buy games I’ve played and want. (TMG is particularly bad in this regard)
I definitely think the physical nature of things helps here. It’s “less risky” to back a tabletop game because, assuming they actually print something, if they ship a “broken” boardgame you’ve still got a large collection of cardboard you can house-rule into something fun. But if someone farts out a bug ridden video game there’s nothing much you, as a consumer, can do. (Unless you spend 18 years reverse engineering it and adding features)
My experience so far with the video games that fail, they don’t even deliver a bug ridden game. You get pretty much zilch and a sob story, assuming you don’t already know the story since some of these indie’s treat the KS update like a LiveJournal entry. There is a fine line between personable and professional and when projects fall apart it can get… interesting.
I have been quite fortunate that the only Kickstarter that has not delivered was Castle Story. Technically they are working on it but the last time I tried it the game was a horrible buggy mess which had almost no content.
Other than that the only one I am currently waiting on is the Battletech game. Everything else has been delivered. Some of it was quite good (Divinity, Pillars) and much of it has been middling (Torment, Dead State). I have narrowly avoided backing some of the more disastrous projects by sheer luck.
I was really close to backing Castle Story. I wound up doing Stonehearth instead. Stonehearth is definitely getting updates even though it’s pretty… late in terms of being complete. That Which Sleeps… not sure what little drama that dev is doing but it seems like that one might have been an actual scam, hard to say. The only other games I’ve backed are the Divinities which both seem not only well done, 2 so far, but close to schedule actually.
Based on what I’ve read with other projects, and the one issue I’ve encountered my willingness to back software on KS is minimal.
This is really starting to bother me, not least because a buddy of mine got his hands on Gloomhaven and won’t stop talking about how fucking fun it is, but I just couldn’t bring myself to hop onto the KS and now I’ll probably never get a copy at retail prices :-/
Dammit, That Which Sleeps and The Mandate both basically described Ideal Games for my brain to love, and I am reasonably confident neither of them is ever gonna be anything more than dozens of really pretty pictures and very apologetic blog posts.
You guys fail to appreciate that without going direct to consumer for the majority of copies, the retail cost of Gloomhaven would have to be higher (because of the cut distributors take), which would probably make it not feasible to produce the game at all.
Back in the day, the rule of thumb was that the physical cost of goods was supposed to be roughly 1/10th of retail price. No way in hell that game gets made for anything remotely close to that. It could be that hobby distributors are getting less of a cut these days, but I bet it isn’t that much less (of course that is going to vary somewhat with client, but if you aren’t a major company, you get the worst deal).
To be clear, the goal of the reprint Kickstarter for Gloomhaven definitely included printing enough additional copies for a retail presence and there were no exclusives, so you should be able to get it in stores down the road. You will just be paying at least $40 more than the reprint KS pricing and 60-80 more than the original pricing in the first project. And it will still be a bargain for what you get.
Look on the bright side: when people eventually finish the game and start selling second hand copies you’ll be retired and have enough time to play it.
This time around the retail shops might be willing to shell out more for the game too… since it’s proven. We might see some retail stock for that reason too. I think you could order more than one copy.
Multiman Publishing does it, and L2 used to when they existed. It just seems like limiting themselves to the time frame of a kickstarter would hurt. I guess in the case of folks like GMT, and MMP they are already functioning companies so letting something sit on P500 until it hits the goal isn’t as big a deal for them.
Shameless plug for my son’s tabletop RPG supplement Kickstarter. They are taking a cool approach with toolkit adventures. 10 bucks for the PDF. Hardcopy shipped for $25. You can get that plus all their previous supplements (mostly DnD5e but relatively flexible across systems) for $50. They put out really nice stuff.
Though it’s still showing progress am fairly concerned about this. Funding and development started several years before Thimbleweed Park which came out last month (and is fantastic). There’s quite a bit for SpaceVenture to do and still no completion date.
In 2016, video game pledges on Kickstarter were by a clear margin their lowest in five years - their lowest since the Kickstarter fairytale really began. Nearly $18m compared to more than $43m the year before, according to numbers supplied to me by Kickstarter. And the knock-on effect was a first ever year of decline for Kickstarter overall.
For whatever reason I haven’t backed a Kickstarter game in ages. Godus killed it for me (and the other game I backed, Stonehearth, is taking forever). Kind of gave up on it, but then again I have backed 2 games on Fig this year.
Not a shock - video game kickstarter’s tend to miss by years, and there really is almost no way to tell which ones will be delivered on time, and which ones will never land at all.
At least with boardgames you can see if they have a track record of proven printing, distribution, and fulfillment partners… and see the rules before you buy. A lot less risky as you’re backing a developed product that you can usually P&P at home - you’re paying for someone to make a proper version for you.
Not a single mention of Unsung Story. I mean they mentioned Ouya but the failed to deliver campaigns probably have some measure to do with the downturn.
