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fr0id posted:If it’s good, you’ll be able to buy it with some delay. that is a good point. i'm trying to think of any answer to your question and all the well received ones seem to have or be having reprints the only ones I can think of is maybe some of the early CMON games? HATE maybe? idk if its great though
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Aug 21, 2023 08:05
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CODChimera posted:that is a good point. i'm trying to think of any answer to your question and all the well received ones seem to have or be having reprints HATE is widely regarded as the worst CMON minis game, as I recall. I'm looking at my Kickstarters and trying to find one that never went to retail, but I'm failing. Either they had a retail pledge level or the project profit was used to cover production of additional stock for retail sale. Even tiny publishers like Capital Gains Studio, who only have a few hundred backers for games costing less than £25, still have a webstore.
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Aug 21, 2023 09:37
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Unless you're a wildly successful Kickstarter it just makes sense to bump your production up a tier and sell at retail (and budget your initial pitch accordingly) and if you're a wildly successful Kickstarter it makes even more sense unless you think you've reached the limit of your audience.
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Aug 21, 2023 19:48
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The main company I can think of that does KS only releases still is Awaken Realms. I have several of their games and like them, but I know a lot of folks think they're garbage.
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Aug 21, 2023 19:51
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Kwyndig posted:Unless you're a wildly successful Kickstarter it just makes sense to bump your production up a tier and sell at retail (and budget your initial pitch accordingly) and if you're a wildly successful Kickstarter it makes even more sense unless you think you've reached the limit of your audience. This is not as easy to do as you make it sound. Sure, making an extra 1000+ copies of your game is easy enough if you can afford it, but you can't just make your game appear in retail. You need to do a lot of ground work to do that happen and you also likely need to work with a distributor. Retailers have to know about your game and think its going to sell to want to stock it. You can't just magically make that happen because you funded a kickstarter and printed extra games.
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Aug 21, 2023 19:52
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The difference between "this will never appear at retail, it's KS exclusive" and "this could appear at retail" is a promise in the former case, and that promise costs nothing. The only reason to make that promise is because you think it will get more people to pledge, now, out of FOMO. The reason not to make that promise is to not foreclose against the possibility that your game proves wildly successful and the market creates an opportunity for you to get your game into retail outlets, with a reprint if nothing else. Of course, a third option is to make the promise but with the intention of breaking it if the world starts throwing money at you. A fourth option is to offer kickstarter-exclusive premium features or freebies or whatever, but leave open the possibility of selling your "base game" or "non-KS-exclusive version" of your game at retail. I think it's reasonable to be suspicious that folks running an explicitly kickstarter-exclusive game, with no caveats, because that seems to be a naked marketing ploy; and of course, fulfilling the pledges only requires actually shipping a thing, and not making it be a genuinely good game, if you have no plans for it to survive and do well in a competitive retail game marketplace. On the other hand, I think it's possible that some newbie game makers aren't thinking clearly about the long term and just randomly believe that making the game KS-exclusive is "the done thing." There's a ton of cargo cult behavior in kickstarting, lots of received wisdom and weird ideas and so forth, so I don't think it's fair to say with 100% certainty that every KS-exclusive project is just a cynical money grab with no intentions towards quality.
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Aug 21, 2023 19:58
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fr0id posted:Question for the thread: has there ever been a truly great kickstarted game that was only available on its initial Kickstarter and never had any other editions made or sold or re kickstarted? People don't make games that way. Retailers will back campaigns directly and print runs will cover more than is strictly needed for the backers so that some can be sold at cons or from webstores etc. Game that haven't been reprinted could, in theory, get one. Something like Pax Pamir 2E has been reprinted and is available in stores but all of those copies were ultimately from crowdfunded print runs.
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Aug 21, 2023 20:19
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Just to clarify for this Ascendancy game, the creator did not say the game will only ever be kickstarter exclusive, just that this campaign will focus strictly on direct kickstarter fulfillment of backers. There is no additional excess stock being created for retail distribution (out of individual shops backing the kickstarter itself directly). Maybe that's a FOMO ploy. Or maybe it's prudence on their part to limit the scope of campaign. Maybe a bit of both. If the game is good and successful, I have no doubt there would be additional campaigns for expansions and 2nd printings and whatnot. But such realities are several additional years away from the initial fulfillment. I recall Gloomhaven's first kickstarter. It was from a largely untested creator (at the time, Issac only made 1 kickstarter game before that of so-so success). It seemed overly ambitious too with just a ridiculous amount of content. But it proved to be insanely good and copies were initially in very short supply. There were of course additional printings and eventual wide retail distribution, but that took considerable time. I was naive enough to have dumbly backed it at the time and lucked into one of the best gaming experiences of my life.
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Aug 21, 2023 20:26
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iceyman posted:Just to clarify for this Ascendancy game, the creator did not say the game will only ever be kickstarter exclusive, just that this campaign will focus strictly on direct kickstarter fulfillment of backers. There is no additional excess stock being created for retail distribution (out of individual shops backing the kickstarter itself directly). Maybe that's a FOMO ploy. Or maybe it's prudence on their part to limit the scope of campaign. Maybe a bit of both. Yeah this is very normal, and not IMO cause for alarm.
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Aug 21, 2023 20:29
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Broken Anvil Miniatures gossip Standard "had a massively successful Kickstarter, never delivered, ran another Kickstarter to pay for the first Kickstarter, math didn't work out, company spirals" story. This might be BS, but it lines up with everything I've heard from within the company.
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Aug 21, 2023 21:03
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armorer posted:The main company I can think of that does KS only releases still is Awaken Realms. I have several of their games and like them, but I know a lot of folks think they're garbage. Well, Gamefound-only releases, right? ;-) AR games aren't garbage -- overproduced and occasionally undercooked, but far from garbage. I own a few myself. ;-)
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Aug 21, 2023 22:12
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iceyman posted:
Forge War is the definition of "fine." Nothing in that game prepared me for Gloomhaven, but back then I was KS'ing things willy-nilly and thought "I KS'ed Forge War and enjoyed it the twice I played it! Why not?" Still one of the best KS'es in terms of explosion into "bigger than I ever, ever imagined" that I've backed. It and Grim Dawn are on a perch for their respective mediums that I honestly don't expect any other crowdfunding startup to approach any time soon.
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Aug 21, 2023 22:15
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Yeah, Gloomhaven first printing was the first game I ever kickstarted and I don't think anything else has come close in terms of value for money or how much it fit my taste as a player. The only other game I've backed that was KS exclusive and I've felt was 100% worth the risk in the end was Aeon Trespass which like GH original printing is both a great game and insane value for money.
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Aug 21, 2023 22:36
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rydiafan posted:Broken Anvil Miniatures gossip This is a real shame to hear. I was kind of optimistic about a little Privateer Press spiritual successor and a chunky reasonably sized high fantasy skirmish game. I'm glad I was leery of backing. I didn't even realize there was a supposedly good paint line that got squandered too.
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Aug 21, 2023 22:50
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armorer posted:The main company I can think of that does KS only releases still is Awaken Realms. I have several of their games and like them, but I know a lot of folks think they're garbage. I'm thinking that the best idea for most AR games and maybe just campaign games in general is to just get the base game, play as much as possible over a few months and then sell it, they seem to very easy to sell I love Nemesis though, def a top 3 kickstarter for me
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Aug 21, 2023 23:24
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I think actually explicitly promising to keep stuff KS only sucks and folks shouldn't do it but in my experience it's usually promos and bling and maybe expansions, not entire games. What is way more common is, as is the case with Ascendancy (and most Awaken Realms games, and once upon a time Chip Theory, etc) is that the game either doesn't make sense for retail or retailers aren't biting and the creators can't reasonably promise that retail will happen or that they'll be able to do expansions or reprints at the point where they're funding it in the first place. Which has the effect of things being more or less crowdfunding exclusive, but not necessarily the intent. And I have a lot of great crowdfunded games that I've never seen at retail and even if they officially had retail distribution may not have actually been practically available for long. (Although I do also have a few that I did find that way, like Spirit Island, though I've backed all the subsequent expansions.) You do usually have a second or third bite at the apple with reprint/expansion projects if things have been at all successful, but not always. And I wouldn't be surprised if I have one or two games that haven't come back into availability because either the company went out of business or came under new ownership. I think Darkest Night is a fantastic game, for example, and as far as I know the new owners of the Victory Point Games brand have made no attempt to reprint the Second Edition that was Kickstarted several years back nor does it appear to be commercially available. Anyway. Like I say, in this case you can play the game on TTS right now, which I think is a pretty solid sign that the creators are confident in the game itself and what I have seen in play is, while not enough to make a full prognosis, does suggest it's at least functional and quite possibly cool. I just don't know that first time creators will know WTF they're doing as far as the actual logistics of getting it made and shipped. Which, most of the time, just means late and possibly out of pocket, but sometimes...
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Aug 22, 2023 00:51
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Frozen Peach posted:I can definitely imagine a version with unique art of each card of each suit, but I love these heckin pups and would die for them. Having unique art of each card would have so many more pups, which would be great, but I love the idea of them being 6 very specific pups. So much so that I'm working on a thematic sequel game. My only real issue with the game (I haven't played it yet, so there's that) is that the box is extremely small for the components that go in it. Those wooden card stands take up all the space!
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Aug 22, 2023 02:50
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Kerro posted:Yeah, Gloomhaven first printing was the first game I ever kickstarted and I don't think anything else has come close in terms of value for money or how much it fit my taste as a player. I was on the fence so I made a PnP of the play test kit they had and that made me buy it. So good.
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Aug 22, 2023 09:24
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I threw $1 at the Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated 2 campaign a while back, hoping to be able to order some of the older games at a discount in the pledge manager. Now that it's up, all I see in there is the original Acquisitions Incorporated for $100, when it's available on Amazon for ~$80. Am I missing something, or is there really no deal to be had there?
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Aug 22, 2023 22:38
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Leperflesh posted:The difference between "this will never appear at retail, it's KS exclusive" and "this could appear at retail" is a promise in the former case, and that promise costs nothing. The only reason to make that promise is because you think it will get more people to pledge, now, out of FOMO. The reason not to make that promise is to not foreclose against the possibility that your game proves wildly successful and the market creates an opportunity for you to get your game into retail outlets, with a reprint if nothing else. Or they just think their game's going to be so niche that the KS backers are pretty much the full potential audience. This is super common with kickstarters for creatives outside of the TTRPG space.
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Aug 23, 2023 02:31
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Liquid Communism posted:Or they just think their game's going to be so niche that the KS backers are pretty much the full potential audience. There's a difference between "we don't think there's any chance this'll be at retail: buy it now, it's your only chance" and "we promise this Kickstarter Only game will never be sold! Buy it now, we guarantee it's your only chance!"
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Aug 23, 2023 07:20
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Yeah, but the second's marketing spin if you think the first is true.
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Aug 23, 2023 13:29
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I thought the thread's wisdom was that kickstarter was going to be the future for everything because KS creators keep seventy cents to the dollar versus like thirty for retailers
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Aug 23, 2023 21:41
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There are plenty of companies that built their business model on exactly that, yes. And it's more than 70, it's about 86% (before production, purely processing fees and KS take). A fun part about this though is that you pay taxes on the 100% even though you never see that 14%. KS reports the full 100.
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Aug 23, 2023 22:01
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So there's a campaign up on backerkit that's been going for a while - Asmadi's Ultimate Edition of Innovation. Features:
Sample plays over on their youtube channel if you've a mind. Glazius fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 22:30
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Asmadi are really committed to awful graphic design. Gotta admire the consistency I guess.
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Aug 23, 2023 22:52
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Bottom Liner posted:There are plenty of companies that built their business model on exactly that, yes. And it's more than 70, it's about 86% (before production, purely processing fees and KS take). You can’t deduct the fees against the business income? Hmm.
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Aug 24, 2023 02:17
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I mean , that makes sense. They probably deduct the fees KS take as an operational expense but my expectations of a KS business running everything correctly is slim to lol.
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Aug 24, 2023 03:27
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Kickstarter fees, fees associated with pledge managers, pretty much every cost associated with the campaign will be deductible, and it is not a complex tax process to deduct it.
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Aug 24, 2023 04:56
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Yeah, fees and such are totally deductible  Like OK, kickstarter sux or whatever but it's not somehow weirdly shady & incorrect for KS to tell the IRS you made 100k when you raised 100k but they only cut you a check for 85k because they charged you 5% for payment processing and 10% for services rendered off the top instead of, idk, billing you later or whatever else one is imagining.
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Aug 24, 2023 05:30
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I wonder how many dummies are doing kickstarters without registering for an LLC.
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Aug 24, 2023 11:44
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Lord_Hambrose posted:I wonder how many dummies are doing kickstarters without registering for an LLC. I would hope not many, although you can still deduct business expenses without an LLC, you will be taxed as a sole proprietor business.
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Aug 24, 2023 15:20
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I'm definitely done buying special edition board games. I just got my order of the Castles of Burgundy SE and the box size just gave me anxiety. Between that and Everdell complete, it's just a hassle to store all these giant game boxes.
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Aug 24, 2023 16:01
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Echophonic posted:I'm definitely done buying special edition board games. I just got my order of the Castles of Burgundy SE and the box size just gave me anxiety. Between that and Everdell complete, it's just a hassle to store all these giant game boxes. Yeah, I also picked up Castles of Burgundy SE and it is huge. It also has a similar problem for me; I purchased all the piece and tile upgrades so it is hard to fit everything in the box, but there is just something that prevents me from throwing out the stock pieces, even though I won't use them.
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Aug 24, 2023 17:22
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IncredibleIgloo posted:Yeah, I also picked up Castles of Burgundy SE and it is huge. It also has a similar problem for me; I purchased all the piece and tile upgrades so it is hard to fit everything in the box, but there is just something that prevents me from throwing out the stock pieces, even though I won't use them. Can you actually fit the 3d tiles in the box? That part seemed excessive, so I just did the acrylic hexes.
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Aug 24, 2023 19:06
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Echophonic posted:Can you actually fit the 3d tiles in the box? That part seemed excessive, so I just did the acrylic hexes. I could not, no, so they live in their own little box. Which is unfortunate as part of the appeal was an all in one box solution.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:11
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IncredibleIgloo posted:I could not, no, so they live in their own little box. Which is unfortunate as part of the appeal was an all in one box solution.  Love when KS do this. My guy I am giving you EXTRA MONEY to make sure it all fits in the one box.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:29
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Infinitum posted:
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Aug 24, 2023 20:31
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Now that I have a laser cutter I could probably make my own box thing out of wood. It would not look as nice, but I could make it perfectly fit whatever. But it would be a lot of effort.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:32
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Debating getting a copy of algomancy, even though I don't think it'll take off too well and have noone to play with
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Aug 25, 2023 00:00
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