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I agree that it's off, but maybe this is that whole, "We don't want to treat it like a store." thing they were talking about. I'm all for adventures, pdf or otherwise, and I can see how it might "drive" up pledges, but at the same time, waiting till the middle of the week to announce it seemed kind of dumb. Announce the early thank yous on Monday, give a few days for people to let it sink in, and decide if they want to pledge. I mean that Dining Room is looking better and better with each week. I get the books I need to run the game, 3 minis (either 2 male 1 female or vice versa), a fate deck, and special edition mini that could be used for a villain (if you don't play Malifaux), and a mini adventure. Take a pack of terraclips you might already have, and you're ready to run some Through the Breach.

Also did anyone else enjoy the mini adventures being called Penny Dreadfuls?


Edit: They're still averaging 4k a day since the initial drop off of Miss Terious, but that number went down on Tuesday, but up again yesterday. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. I would love to see us hit 250k, so many of the fencesitters can jump in (probably waiting for a pdf), and we can surge a few more 10s of thousands of dollars lol.

I certainly like that they are using that term, does fit well with the setting.

 Alfndrate wrote:
I agree that it's off, but maybe this is that whole, "We don't want to treat it like a store." thing they were talking about. I'm all for adventures, pdf or otherwise, and I can see how it might "drive" up pledges, but at the same time, waiting till the middle of the week to announce it seemed kind of dumb.

Well. It feels a lot like they think Kickstarter is a bit "icky". They wanna be there for the seen, but at the same time that don't really wanna do a "Kickstarter" in a classic sense.

But yeah, the logic is kinda odd. While some "pledge early" specials are the norm these days, I think it is still Stretch Goals that are the main work horse that drives Kickstarter dynamics.

Stretch Goals essentially mean: The more people get in, the better it will be for everyone. And the better a given Kickstarter gets, the more people will jump in who didn't though it "good enough" before Stretch Goal X was achieved.

This one has pretty much an inverse "incentive logic". It's almost entirely build in a way to give the best deal to the first pledges, and the longer you wait, the less you'll get from it, it seems. With the added complication that you "don't know" what exactly your "early pledge special" fully contains until they are all revealed.

Ironically, I think that could crowd-out precisely the people you'd want to reach through the KS above all.. those not well familiar with Malifaux, etc.. .

The hard-core Wyrd-fans are in on the KS, and would likely be (almost) no matter what. And there's obviously enough of them to make it a runaway-success.

But the effect of "expanding the base" is probably lost to a large degree as the KS doesn't have that escalating "it getting better every day" logic that would draw in precisely the kind of people not yet interested in/familiar with Malifaux, who would've maybe given it "a try" simply for being an enticing deal.

That is - at least in my experience - how Bones got me. I don't think I would've ever bought a Bones miniature in my live, or at least not in the next 20 years or so, without the KS. But now I am looking forward to having a truck-load of them. New customer (and possibly a new fan if the stuff is good).

The bones stuff is pretty good, got to play with them at GenCon...

As to the KS stuff, the only thing that's really frustrating me at the moment is the BreachSideChats. I haven't been able to catch either of them, so I'm left here with half information. They apparently have talked about "Pursuits" and "Dispositions" but idk what they are because they don't record the UStreams so I'm left feeling like I'm missing major chunks of the information, and it's making my job here hard because I can't provide updates about what we know...

I think Zweischneid perfectly described my thoughts. I'm not unfamliar with Malifaux: I've played a game with my Guild, and I own three of the books. I'm not even an active player, let alone a fanatic.

I'm also not an RPG gamer, but I do like source books for reading material.

I don't feel like I'm really the target for this KS, and so I won't tell Wyrd how to run it. Just from my view, I'm getting used to getting an amazing return on my investment with kickstarter, especially when deliverty is so distant. I know they say to just wait to buy retail if I don't like the KS, but that misses the point of using a KS to drum up interest: I'm not gonna buy it retail! If anything, I'll grab a used copy a few years after the game implodes for pennies on the dollar, or trade for a copy on the Swap Shop.

I'm not excited by a free extra pdf for backing earlier. I would have rather seen them commit to putting out the Penny Dreadfuls as a softcover booklet much like Pathfinder does.

I don't see their weekly rewards being a game changer unless they offer up more rewards like the model from the first week.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:
I think Zweischneid perfectly described my thoughts. I'm not unfamliar with Malifaux: I've played a game with my Guild, and I own three of the books. I'm not even an active player, let alone a fanatic.

I'm also not an RPG gamer, but I do like source books for reading material.

I don't feel like I'm really the target for this KS, and so I won't tell Wyrd how to run it. Just from my view, I'm getting used to getting an amazing return on my investment with kickstarter, especially when deliverty is so distant. I know they say to just wait to buy retail if I don't like the KS, but that misses the point of using a KS to drum up interest: I'm not gonna buy it retail! If anything, I'll grab a used copy a few years after the game implodes for pennies on the dollar, or trade for a copy on the Swap Shop.

I agree with you on this, I've backed alot of things on Kickstarter that I probably wouldn't buy from a store, partly because I have a hard time passing up a great deal but also partly because I kinda like being the buy that has all the cool swag that others don't.

The only thing I want out of the KS is the Wicked Doll. I've got a 14 year old daughter who would love the creepy thing.

Am I correct in my estimation that there's no way for someone who's supporting the KS to order extra copies of the doll? I can't seem to find a way.

Eric

 MagickalMemories wrote:
The only thing I want out of the KS is the Wicked Doll. I've got a 14 year old daughter who would love the creepy thing.

Am I correct in my estimation that there's no way for someone who's supporting the KS to order extra copies of the doll? I can't seem to find a way.

Eric

I remember them saying somewhere that they weren't going to be offering Add-Ons, but by the end of the campaign they might be changing their tune.

Hopefully, they do... and the doll will be one of the tunes... and it won't be exorbitant. LOL

Thanks for the info.


Eric

 MagickalMemories wrote:
Hopefully, they do... and the doll will be one of the tunes... and it won't be exorbitant. LOL

Thanks for the info.


Eric

You might be able to talk someone at a lower level into uping their pledge for you if your willing to pay the difference. I'd offer to do it myself but I'm already at the $225 level and I want my dollie!

 MagickalMemories wrote:
The only thing I want out of the KS is the Wicked Doll. I've got a 14 year old daughter who would love the creepy thing.

Am I correct in my estimation that there's no way for someone who's supporting the KS to order extra copies of the doll? I can't seem to find a way.

Eric

Hi, I've been considering getting the combo, but it's rather pricey for me. If you're just interested in the doll, I might be up for splitting off the doll for the right price. (So as to not derail the thread) PM me if you want to talk.

Edit: what Catyrpelius said!

 Catyrpelius wrote:
I...

I don't see their weekly rewards being a game changer unless they offer up more rewards like the model from the first week. ...

I actually see the weekly rewards as potentially backfiring rather spectacularly: it exerts a powerful incentive against the kind of last-few-days surge that most campaigns rely on to make a good chunk of their money.

Think about it, " Everyone who has already pledged and everyone else who makes a pledge ($60 and up) by Friday 5 p.m. PST (12/7) will automatically earn a bonus reward": so the rewards are entirely oriented towards people that pledged early. If you pledged the first day, you got the special miniature. If you pledged by this week, you get the adventure, while the first day pledger gets the adventure in addition to the first week goal.

Now walk this out to January and the end of the campaign: presuming the trend continues, people that knew about the kickstarter and could spare the cash in the holiday shopping season* will have accrued a half dozen or so "bonus rewards" that late pledgers will not be able to get. As people are pointing out, a huge amount of kickstarter is psychology: who wants to jump onto a campaign knowing that people pledging the same amount of money are getting twice the stuff you are?

With every passing week, this kickstarter becomes less psychologically attractive to new backers, not more. The guy who finds out about the campaign at 6PM Friday has missed out on 2 "bonus rewards", and he can't get them. Not just can't get them free, but flat out can't buy them anywhere but the secondary market.

*I would also point out that this group of people are almost certainly the group least in need of incentives, since they were the big Wyrd fans. Giving your fans something extra is great, until it makes your product so "exclusive" that it is unattractive to the uninitiated.

I didn't see anywhere that the Penny Dreadful PDF scenerio wasn't going to be offerend later on...

I can see where your coming from and if this weeks early backer reward had been more substantial I'd probably agree with you. Unfortunatly the pdf is a bit underwhelming when compared to some of the limited edition models being offered as stretch rewards. Unless the early backer rewards get more substantial in the future I don't think its going to have that big an effect on the last day bump. I also think this project is going to receive a significant after Christmas bump once people start spending the cash they got as gifts for the holidays. I could be wrong, and I actually look forward to finding out which one of use is right.

I'm getting Through the Breach, 3 minis worth roughly 11 dollars each, a 12 dollar fate deck (when compared to the other plastic decks), a LE mini worth about 20 to 40 (by ebay standards), which means that if Hannah's normal sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I'll have made out in the positive for 125 bucks...

Regardless of what happens while the KS is live, I win in some regard.

 Alfndrate wrote:
I'm getting Through the Breach, 3 minis worth roughly 11 dollars each, a 12 dollar fate deck (when compared to the other plastic decks), a LE mini worth about 20 to 40 (by ebay standards), which means that if Hannah's normal sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I'll have made out in the positive for 125 bucks...

Regardless of what happens while the KS is live, I win in some regard.

True enough.

It is just puzzling as to "why" it's on Kickstarter at all.

They seem to go almost out of their way to not use the Kickstarter-infrastructure / features.

- The have early pledger exclusives, but don't use Kickstarter limited pledges.
- The make it a point to not be present in the Kickstarter comment-feed and move the "news" elsewhere.
- The make it a point not to have (relevant) stretch goals or any form of escalating campaign dynamic, despite clearing having stuff up their sleeve to hand out.
- etc..

For all their talk about "not doing a pre-order-store"; I cannot think of a single Kickstarter that felt more like one.
What stopped them from just saying on the Wyrd site... hey.. we're doing a Malifaux RPG next summer. Here's our online shop. If pre-order before day X, you get a free mini on top! -?

I'd wager they'd capture at least 95% of those "in" the Kickstarter just the same, probabyl 100%,, mainly because the vast majority of pledges is from those early pledges who have been F5'ing the Wyrd/Kickstarter site ever since they announced the RPG in the first place. And they seem to take no effort to "spread the word" and entice newcomers, if not - as Buzzsaw notes - actively discourage those that arrive late to the campaign through a long chain of viral info.

 Catyrpelius wrote:
I didn't see anywhere that the Penny Dreadful PDF scenerio wasn't going to be offerend later on...

I'm not sure what you mean: do you mean you think it will be offered as a stretch goal? There seems to be indication you will be allowed to buy it, certainly. It's quite clearly a time limited reward in it's current incarnation, recycling it would seem very likely to cause bad PR.

Given the structure of this campaign, I don't see any easy way for the rewards to be made more available without backlash.

 Catyrpelius wrote:
I can see where your coming from and if this weeks early backer reward had been more substantial I'd probably agree with you. Unfortunatly the pdf is a bit underwhelming when compared to some of the limited edition models being offered as stretch rewards. Unless the early backer rewards get more substantial in the future I don't think its going to have that big an effect on the last day bump. I also think this project is going to receive a significant after Christmas bump once people start spending the cash they got as gifts for the holidays. I could be wrong, and I actually look forward to finding out which one of use is right.

Remember, my point is as to the cumulative nature of these rewards: is a single PDF underwhelming? Of course (though they apparently disagree, since an entirely redundant PDF is the $250,000 stretch... along with a tree, of course...). But it's not just a single PDF.

Pledged the first week? You got an LE miniature, and now a PDF adventure, and you'll get something next week (since they confirm there will be a bonus next week as well).

Suppose the further "bonus rewards" are just PDFs (which seems unlikely), there are 4 fulls weeks left to accrue these: do you really think that late backers won't feel a bit cheated to see that early backers get up to a half-dozen free rewards?

Alfndrate wrote:I'm getting Through the Breach, 3 [random] minis worth roughly 11 dollars each, a 12 dollar fate deck (when compared to the other plastic decks), a LE mini* worth about 20 to 40 (by ebay standards), which means that if Hannah's normal sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I'll have made out in the positive for 125 bucks...

Regardless of what happens while the KS is live, I win in some regard.

This is actually an excellent example of what I'm talking about: Alf lists the $125 items*, but of course (since he pledged early), he is quite up on the deal, since he's also getting,
-A "Miss Terious" LE from the first week bonus,
-A PDF from this week,
-Something from next week...

And so on. Pledge the week after Christmas and you've missed out on an LE, a PDF and 2 other bonuses. For Alf and others that felt the initial deal was good, the deal just keeps getting better. For people that either couldn't pledge early or simply didn't think the deal without the stretches was worth it, the deal keeps getting worse by comparison. Again, by comparison, this is the psychology of marketing we're talking about here.

*My presumption from the way this is phrased that the LE in question is the Hanna, not the Miss T.

Sorry buzz, I'm only considering the Miss Terious model as a value and not the pdf, simply based on what I can and cannot physically spend cash on. If the penny dreadfuls will be released outside the KS then that adds to my value, and does increase the chances of me playing the game (since I suck when it comes to creating adventures). Miss T is going for 20 to 40 bucks on ebay, which is why I mentioned the price of the normal hannah sculpt because if that sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I make out like a bandit.

Note: Idk if anyone else has noticed this, but the second through sixth updates are not backers only, so anyone can see this and see, "Hey if I pledge now" I can get x, y, and z, sadly I do miss out on c though. It is definitely not a surprise as to a backer backing late and missing this stuff (not that anyone has said it was a surprise...)

@Buzz - From what I understand this weeks "Weekly Reward" is just a free copy of their first encounter. I entirely expect to see this released for a fee in the future.

I'd actually like to see some form of analysis of kickstarter projects that focuses on the increases seen in the final few days. From what I've seen alot of the final days rush is people who got in early adjusting their pledge levels to get the best deal for their money. I have nothing to back that up with though.

Regardless though there isn't a reason not to back a project early through Kickstarter, it costs you litterly nothing to back a project before it closes and kickstarter doesn't care if you cancel your pledge.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Sorry buzz, I'm only considering the Miss Terious model as a value and not the pdf, simply based on what I can and cannot physically spend cash on. If the penny dreadfuls will be released outside the KS then that adds to my value, and does increase the chances of me playing the game (since I suck when it comes to creating adventures). Miss T is going for 20 to 40 bucks on ebay, which is why I mentioned the price of the normal hannah sculpt because if that sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I make out like a bandit.

Ahhh, I didn't want to assume that, it seemed to make my point unnecessarily strong: that is, the $125 is a decent value, if it includes the second LE.

Which if you pledge today (or any point hence), you can't get.

I just don't get it. As Zwei said, why even bother putting this on Kickstarter instead of just putting up a very long term pre-order? What have they done to make this appeal to people that haven't already backed? They seem almost actively hostile towards the idea of people jumping on this later.

HERP DERP >_< Alf, reading comprehension is a good thing.

Caty is right, In Defense of Innocence is the first official adventure for Through the Breach, meaning that it might be a good fifty pages, we'll see though. So add another 15 to 20 bucks to that estimate of value...

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Sorry buzz, I'm only considering the Miss Terious model as a value and not the pdf, simply based on what I can and cannot physically spend cash on. If the penny dreadfuls will be released outside the KS then that adds to my value, and does increase the chances of me playing the game (since I suck when it comes to creating adventures). Miss T is going for 20 to 40 bucks on ebay, which is why I mentioned the price of the normal hannah sculpt because if that sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I make out like a bandit.

Ahhh, I didn't want to assume that, it seemed to make my point unnecessarily strong: that is, the $125 is a decent value, if it includes the second LE.

Which if you pledge today (or any point hence), you can't get.

I just don't get it. As Zwei said, why even bother putting this on Kickstarter instead of just putting up a very long term pre-order? What have they done to make this appeal to people that haven't already backed? They seem almost actively hostile towards the idea of people jumping on this later.

Because if they put it up for preorder on their website they miss out on all the cheap advertising that Kickstarter gives.

Unfortunatly in my eyes PDF's have zero value for me.

 Catyrpelius wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
Sorry buzz, I'm only considering the Miss Terious model as a value and not the pdf, simply based on what I can and cannot physically spend cash on. If the penny dreadfuls will be released outside the KS then that adds to my value, and does increase the chances of me playing the game (since I suck when it comes to creating adventures). Miss T is going for 20 to 40 bucks on ebay, which is why I mentioned the price of the normal hannah sculpt because if that sculpt is worth at least 21 dollars, I make out like a bandit.

Ahhh, I didn't want to assume that, it seemed to make my point unnecessarily strong: that is, the $125 is a decent value, if it includes the second LE.

Which if you pledge today (or any point hence), you can't get.

I just don't get it. As Zwei said, why even bother putting this on Kickstarter instead of just putting up a very long term pre-order? What have they done to make this appeal to people that haven't already backed? They seem almost actively hostile towards the idea of people jumping on this later.

Because if they put it up for preorder on their website they miss out on all the cheap advertising that Kickstarter gives.

Unfortunatly in my eyes PDF's have zero value for me.

Agreed, I'd consider a 5 dollar value if it was printed and bound like one of those cheap intro adventures you get on free RPG day.

 Catyrpelius wrote:
@Buzz - From what I understand this weeks "Weekly Reward" is just a free copy of their first encounter. I entirely expect to see this released for a fee in the future.

Of course. I'm not sure how that detracts from the point I made about it though. Whatever value you assign to the adventure PDF is value that a late backer is "robbed" of. If you value it as Alf does (" add another 15 to 20 bucks to that estimate of value... "), $15-20, of a level with the first week LE, then by the end, the difference in value between a pledge in the first week and a pledge in the last week is an extra ~$100! Who would be happy to see that? Who wouldn't be prompted to take their holiday money elsewhere?

 Catyrpelius wrote:
I'd actually like to see some form of analysis of kickstarter projects that focuses on the increases seen in the final few days. From what I've seen alot of the final days rush is people who got in early adjusting their pledge levels to get the best deal for their money. I have nothing to back that up with though.

The available information doesn't seem to support that: consider a few recent kickstarters;

-Bombshell babes: 287 out of 1126 backers pledged in the final 3 day spike (~25%),

-Relic Knights: 1129 out of 3459 backers in the last few days (arguably the spike started 4-5 days out on that one), (~33%).

-Dreamforge Games: 224 out of 782 in the final four (I have a vague recollection this ended lat at night, causing wonkyness with the stats), (~29%).

-Sedition Wars: 1477 out of 4277 (~35%).

-Reaper: 9430 out of 17682, a whopping ~53%(!) of backers in the last 3 days.

The available information seems prima facia to support the notion that the really big campaigns work by convincing the late deciders that their deal is "too good to refuse".

 Polonius wrote:
I know they say to just wait to buy retail if I don't like the KS, but that misses the point of using a KS to drum up interest: I'm not gonna buy it retail! If anything, I'll grab a used copy a few years after the game implodes for pennies on the dollar, or trade for a copy on the Swap Shop.

This does seem to be the logical conclusion to their KS-related actions. Unless this is some kind of revolutionary RPG, I bet it will only be remembered by the gaming community at large for the terrible kickstarter.

 Buzzsaw wrote:

 Catyrpelius wrote:
@Buzz - From what I understand this weeks "Weekly Reward" is just a free copy of their first encounter. I entirely expect to see this released for a fee in the future.

Of course. I'm not sure how that detracts from the point I made about it though. Whatever value you assign to the adventure PDF is value that a late backer is "robbed" of. If you value it as Alf does (" add another 15 to 20 bucks to that estimate of value... "), $15-20, of a level with the first week LE, then by the end, the difference in value between a pledge in the first week and a pledge in the last week is an extra ~$100! Who would be happy to see that? Who wouldn't be prompted to take their holiday money elsewhere?

I'm not trying to say that I agree with what Wyrd is doing in their kickstarter, I never think its a good thing to alieanate backers at any point. What I was trying to get across was simply that I don't think it's going to make that big of a difference one way or another. I personally think that Wyrd had a plan going into this, a few days in I think they realised that their plan wasn't going to work. The things they've done recently have been them trying to put out the fires that they started and keep some momentum to their project.

To put an actual value on a Penny Dreadful I'd have to know wether they are going to be like the Pathfinder Adventure Paths or if their going to be like the one night campaigns you can download for a few dollars through the Pathfinder Society.

I think in the end though, the rewards your going to get for backing early are going to be small when compared with what you get with the main stretch goals.

I think as we hit more of the stretch goals we'll see a lot of $60 backers turning their backing into $125. I know I'm certainly considering that...

 Catyrpelius wrote:

I'm not trying to say that I agree with what Wyrd is doing in their kickstarter, I never think its a good thing to alieanate backers at any point. What I was trying to get across was simply that I don't think it's going to make that big of a difference one way or another.

I think it WILL make a difference. I think Wyrd would see a higher total without alienating people. Myself, even if I did decide it was worth it to me, I wouldn't back it now, just out of disappointment from feeling that my late support was penalized by the lack of swag that others got.

@ everyone: Again... my FEELING... I didn't say it was their intent to penalize me.

Personally, I don't see WHY they would limit it. It should matter to them WHEN I support it, just THAT I support it.

Eric

Just a neutral remark here, not taking sides, but that's the beauty with Kickstarter, you can pledge now but don't pay until it is over.

 BrookM wrote:
Just a neutral remark here, not taking sides, but that's the beauty with Kickstarter, you can pledge now but don't pay until it is over.

^ This, I've never really seen the point of waiting with kickstarter...

 Catyrpelius wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Just a neutral remark here, not taking sides, but that's the beauty with Kickstarter, you can pledge now but don't pay until it is over.

^ This, I've never really seen the point of waiting with kickstarter...

I pledged early and will likely leave my pledge unchanged until the last few days. During that time, I'll reevaluate my pledge to see if the money is still worth what I'll be receiving or not. That's when I'll make my final decision to stay or pull out.

While I've been critical of a perceived (rightly or not) entitlement mentality, I must agree with other who point out that this kickstarter could certainly have been handled much better than what Wyrd is doing. I certainly can't point to this and use the word "genius". Oh, well, like the old saying goes, "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance..."