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ced1106 wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
But the great thing about crowdfunding is that it allows people with an idea to get connected with the people who want to see that idea made into a reality, and who are willing to donate their own money to help make it happen.

Okay, but how about you let *me* make that decision?

Is it okay for me to choose which ideas get made into reality? What if this idea *doesn't* mesh with *your* ideas? Why can't I support a project that gives me tons of zombies or other miniatures at a low price? Because without crowdfunding, the traditional retail-distributor model will take out a chunk of money that does not go to the publisher -- which also means that he will not be able to create more games.

Here's a quote from Seth Hyatt of Mayday games on the FB Best Practices group:

If KS died tomorrow we would survive, we just wouldn't release games as quickly. KS allows us to collect money at higher margins than distributors will pay and all in advance so we can cover the costs to make the product, that is the why.

And where's your supporting evidence and comments from creators? All you're doing is finger-pointing at CMON. Contribute your $1 and comment on Rum and Bones to get your point across.

Well, first, I'm not dictating what you can or cannot do. I am expressing an opinion, and hoping that my argument might influence your decision-making. But you can make whatever decisions you want.

And that quote is starting to be honest about Kickstarter. That's all I am really asking for. Mantic is also pretty honest about what it uses Kickstarter for. Now, I think that quote is only part of the story, but that is at least a legitimate advantage that Kickstarter provides to a mature company.

The question is whether allowing a company to release more products faster is worth giving the company a strings-free gift. If you think it is, fine. I'll disagree with you, and I will also point out that there are lots of sidelong effects of such Kickstarter campaigns, some of which Yodhrin pointed out above.

Of course, the ironic bit is that the customer typically has to wait a year or more to receive a pledge...so you paid upfront for something so that the company could release it sooner, but the extreme volume of stuff that got funded pushed back the release of all of it by a year? And by the time you receive the 'product' it may have been pledged for so long ago that you forgot about it by the time it arrives.

And again, why does the company deserve to get all of the money ahead of time, just so that the 'customer' can get the same products "earlier?" You haven't actually seen the products, the products have not been subjected to industry review. You lose the benefit of judging the product on its actual merits instead of the quality of its marketing, and on top of that, are encouraged to buy in at a 'sweet spot' pledge level that gets you all the stuffs...which would eventually be on the market...unless customers got the first wave of releases, realized they sucked, and stopped buying them.

You are denying yourself the ability to make those choices. You are judging a product that will otherwise see retail release by the merits of its advertising, rather than the merits of the actual product.

weeble1000 wrote:
You are judging a product that will otherwise see retail release by the merits of its advertising, rather than the merits of the actual product.

How do you know this? Do you have any actual research or evidence to back yet another sweeping statement you're trying to pass of as fact??

You're assuming that (nearly) all of the stuff "reached" in a KS could otherwise see market by the time it's released to backers and that is not always (I would say rarely) the case.

While it's common for miniature games and collectible card games to have umpteen releases, this is not true for boardgames. Cthulhu Wars, for example, has something like *nineteen* expansions. How many retail boardgame have that many expansions? FFG couldn't pull this off with their Arkham Horror line or even Descent 1st edition. With Descent 2nd edition, they're doing this with smaller expansions, but Cthulhu Wars has something like five or so boards which replace the main boards. Arkham Horror didn't even do that once (and Descent doesn't use boards). Zombicide has three standalone games... Super Dungeon Explore has two standalone games... how many retail boardgames could support the standalone model?

And how long are you going to wait for content? Yes, with KS you're going to get a ton of stuff and you may wait a year. But the alternative retail takes even longer -- years -- to release it, if the market hasn't already jumped onto the next game in the "cult of the new" queue. FFG's Doom boardgame was going to have a second expansion, but the retail market did not support it. Do you seriously think that all the second expansion needed "merits of its advertising" for it to be published? Or, rather, do you think (or, rather, know) FFG had enough resources to spend on this advertising for each and every game that could have an expansion? I do think that a KS that sends out that third or fourth expansion to its backers is better than a retail model that cuts them short at one or two. Certainly, had Reaper not been able to use KS, their Bones line would be far, far, smaller, and we would have fewer new model painters in the hobby -- and on KS.

BTW, I'm still giving specifics and you're *still* talking in generalities. Links, and articles, da*nit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

weeble1000 wrote:
Well, first, I'm not dictating what you can or cannot do. I am expressing an opinion, and hoping that my argument might influence your decision-making. But you can make whatever decisions you want..

Let's hope so. Because if your "opinion" goes into effect, you will indeed be "dictating" how I can make my purchases.

ced1106 wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
You are judging a product that will otherwise see retail release by the merits of its advertising, rather than the merits of the actual product.

How do you know this?

It is in the quote you just threw at me...

If we were talking about Kickstarter and only games, then some the opinions could actually be true from a certain perspective, however there are a lot of other projects on KS that just games. There are a lot of projects that never see retail release even after getting funded by Kickstarter. There are also a lot of games that never get a second printing or release. Games only funded 4691 Projects out of 76,315 projects and only accounts for $258 million out of $1.26 billion that KS has generated. Unfortunately the games section is also the category though that is most concerned about "How many shinnies do I get for my money" or "How much of a better deal do I get than retail".

 Dark Severance wrote:
If we were talking about Kickstarter and only games, then some the opinions could actually be true from a certain perspective, however there are a lot of other projects on KS that just games. There are a lot of projects that never see retail release even after getting funded by Kickstarter. There are also a lot of games that never get a second printing or release. Games only funded 4691 Projects out of 76,315 projects and only accounts for $258 million out of $1.26 billion that KS has generated. Unfortunately the games section is also the category though that is most concerned about "How many shinnies do I get for my money" or "How much of a better deal do I get than retail".

Following this some hours now. Really interesting discussion, and some very clearly stated opinions and facts.

Someone asked earlier what a project creator thought about this, we will be more than happy to share our experience here at Dakka once we have (succesfully or unsuccesfully) completed our campaign. And by that we mean -if succesfully- once we have delivered what we promised. Kickstarter is a very new experience for us and we have no problem repeating very openly that we feel it was dictated to us from the competition.
We are not familiar with the numbers above, but if we got this correctly, you are saying that category Games had 4691 projects from the 76,315 funded (which accounts for only 6%). From the total of $1.26 billion it should be thus receiving something like $76 million. But instead that's more than 3 times as much as you yourself noted. Shinies, huh? *marks that down* Probably shinies from one point on forward will not matter that much though, and that's valid for any project ;-)

We have come to learn a lot of things for KS during our research -and we have done a lot of research, many times we saw things that made us rub our eyes in disbelief!-we found a pile of interesting things that is best not to share at this point, also because we don't want to interfere with other project creators ideas/policies. However, it is safe to say that in our opinion in the end KS will be funding only 2 types of projects; First type will be from established manufacturers who instead of abbandoning the crowdfunding campaigns (which for the record we believe is the right thing to do, you can quote us on that) will be doing almost all their bussiness via these platforms. The ground is still very fertile but this will become ever more difficult since there will not be but a handful of choices -quite the opposite. We have in mind a couple that under different circumstances would/should never receive a single dime from any following KS they ever launch again, yet sure enough all will be funded. No doubt whatsoever.
The second type will be from small and original project creators, without the funds to invest any serious amount of money in their presentation however. These will also succeed (lots of times), but inevitably drawing very small amounts of money compared to the first category.
That's our point of view, we'll be very very happy for all of us to be here in a decade or so to verify whether we got this right or not! Why not?... :-D

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
We are not familiar with numbers, but if we got this correctly, you are saying that category Games had 4691 projects from the 76,315 funded (which accounts for only 6%). From the total of $1.26 billion it should be thus receiving something like $76 million. But instead that's more than 3 times as much as you yourself noted. Shinies, huh? *marks that down* Probably shinies from one point on forward will not matter that much though, and that's valid for any project ;-)

Stats as tracked by Kickstarter can be seen here. That wouldn't be entirely accurate as we don't have a measurement of how much money was needed to be a 'successfully funded' project. The way the dollars were broken down on a per project in the Games category was:

Less than $1,000 Raised: 308
$1,000 - $9,999 Raised: 1801
$10,000 - $19,999 Raised: 864
$20,000 - $99,999 Raised: 1281
$100K - $999,999 Raised: 401
$1M Raised: 36

Unfortunately those stats do not tell us or compare how much a given project needed to become funded vs being overfunded. It only shows successfull projects, how many projects failed and the dollars collected vs uncollected dollars.

*For these metrics, pledges not made in US dollars are converted using the exchange rate in effect when the project was live. Last updated: Wed, Dec 24 2014 8:07 AM PST*

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
First type will be from established manufacturers who instead of abbandoning the crowdfunding campaigns (which for the record we believe is the right thing to do, you can quote us on that) will be doing almost all their bussiness via these platforms.

I was actually happy that KrosMaster which launched from KS has started to actually move to a Pre-Order method and have abandoned KS for the most part. There will be business that will never leave it. For example Stonemaier Games is based and created to be run from Kickstarter, then continuing to market their existing game market afterwards. It isn't so much that I mind commercial or existing companies to launch or even use it as pre-order method or even to enhance an existing line (Reaper bulking up their Bones lines) but that is where some backer understanding needs to come in. Backers can't expect every project to be like those big companies when they come demanding free things. There are certain expectations that those larger companies set up, which does make it harder for smaller projects but that isn't so much necessarily the larger companies fault as it is the communities fault. There are a lot of people that assume a project will go retail so I'll get it then, but many projects that fail never make retail. Even projects that do succeed, never make it retail (not just talking about Games category). I admit we get a little spoiled, I sometimes have to catch myself from comparing every KS to X/Y/Z in terms of what do I get for my dollars.

In Total there have been 196,238 Kickstarter projects across all categories to date. Of that 14,048 were games but only 4,691 were successful leaving 8,364 as unsuccessful, leaving another 389 currently active and the 604 rest created, approved but not launched (approximately). Of the 196,238 launched projects generated $1.26 billion, the amount of pledges that have been collected. Of those projects 114,946 were unsuccessful and would have resulted in another $180 million if they were funded. Leaving 4,975 active projects with $20 million pledged towards them. The Games category is the 5th largest category in terms of most projects launched, 1st going to Film & Video, Music, Publishing and 4th to Art. It is also still the 5th in ranking compared to the amount of successful projects, 1st going to Music, Film & Video, Art and 4th to Publishing. It is the 4th in ranking in the amount of unsuccessfully funded projects, 1st being Film & Video, Music, and 4th to Publishing.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:

We have come to learn a lot of things for KS during our research -and we have done a lot of research, many times we saw things that made us rub our eyes in disbelief!-we found a pile of interesting things that is best not to share at this point, also because we don't want to interfere with other project creators ideas/policies. However, it is safe to say that in our opinion in the end KS will be funding only 2 types of projects; First type will be from established manufacturers who instead of abbandoning the crowdfunding campaigns (which for the record we believe is the right thing to do, you can quote us on that) will be doing almost all their bussiness via these platforms. The ground is still very fertile but this will become ever more difficult since there will not be but a handful of choices -quite the opposite. We have in mind a couple that under different circumstances would/should never receive a single dime from any following KS they ever launch again, yet sure enough all will be funded. No doubt whatsoever.
The second type will be from small and original project creators, without the funds to invest any serious amount of money in their presentation however. These will also succeed (lots of times), but inevitably drawing very small amounts of money compared to the first category.
That's our point of view, we'll be very very happy for all of us to be here in a decade or so to verify whether we got this right or not! Why not?... :-D

This is pretty much the conclusion that I have come to as well. The way that things have begun to shake out, smaller, less mature/startup companies are having to do very tight, very focused campaigns with low initial funding goals in the hopes of raising $10K-$40K in pledge dollars. Campaigns like Mecha Front, Aetherium, and the RPG projects come immediately to mind.

It strikes me as a way to help manage the risks inherent in the platform, but it tends to confine the project to a small, typically loyal customer base. It is essentailly writing off the way in which larger, more mature companies are running Kickstarter campaigns. The difficulty with this is that it works to reduce the potential benefits of the platform at the same time that it helps mitigate risks. The marketing reach of these smaller projects tends to be much more narrow, and markleting is one of the principle benefits of Kickstarter.

The trouble is that you can put a huge amount of time and effort into running a splashy Kickstarter campaign and come away with comparatively modest funding. The Infamy Minitures Kickstarter campaign is a good example, in my opinion. Infamy threw a great deal at the project and came away with about 150K. That's good funding, don't get me wrong, but it is also at a level that can be fraught with risk, as big might easily wind up being not big enough; big enough to require a different class of resources but not big enough to properly cover the requisite expenditures, especially if one encounters a hiccup in any part of the supply chain. I think Infamy is probably fine, mind, but it is an example of a project with a whole lot of support and effort behind it that one might have expected to get a lot more funding than it came away with.

My own research led me to the conclusion that Kickstarter just isn't worth the risk, especially for a startup. I discovered that I would wind up putting a wole lot of investment in (in terms of both time and money) for a gamble with too many volatile variables. Heck, if your campaign winds up launching around the same time as a large, splashy campaign, that alone can be a shot below the water line. And a Kickstarter campaign really needs to be properly husbanded from day one to the final minutes of the campaign. You've got to be able to dedicate several 80+ hour weeks just to run the campaign itself, let alone the months of prep ahead of time and the post-funding fullfilment period.

Once a company has an established customer base, even if it is small, Kickstarter becomes a bit less of a risk because you can more reliably count of a certain level of support. But at the end of the day, I'd rather start small, control costs very carefully, and expand slowly. Kickstarter in its current incarnation is way too fast and loose.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dark Severance wrote:
There are certain expectations that those larger companies set up, which does make it harder for smaller projects but that isn't so much necessarily the larger companies fault as it is the communities fault. There are a lot of people that assume a project will go retail so I'll get it then, but many projects that fail never make retail. Even projects that do succeed, never make it retail (not just talking about Games category). I admit we get a little spoiled, I sometimes have to catch myself from comparing every KS to X/Y/Z in terms of what do I get for my dollars.

The caveat I will add is that lots of these 'larger companies' that we have been referring to are actively encouraging consumers to develop those expectations, and are encouraging consumers to be misinformed about what Kickstarter is and why it is being used. Hence I think it behooves members of the community to push back on that a bit.

In short, I don't think these expectations and misperceptions are developing 'naturally', so to speak, but rather have been actively cultivated.

weeble1000 wrote:
The trouble is that you can put a huge amount of time and effort into running a splashy Kickstarter campaign and come away with comparatively modest funding. The Infamy Minitures Kickstarter campaign is a good example, in my opinion. Infamy threw a great deal at the project and came away with about 150K. That's good funding, don't get me wrong, but it is also at a level that can be fraught with risk, as big might easily wind up being not big enough. I think Infamy is probably fine, mind, but it is an example of a project with a whole lot of support and effort behind it that one might have expected to get a lot more support than it came away with.

My own research led me to the conclusion that Kickstarter just isn't worth the risk, especially for a startup. I discovered that I would wind up putting a wole lot of investment in (in terms of both time and money) for a gamble with too many volatile variables. Heck, if your campaign winds up launching around the same time a large, splashy campaign, that alone is a shot below the water line. Once a company has an established customer base, even if it is small, Kickstarter becomes a bit less of a risk because you can more reliably count of a certain level of support. But at the end of the day, I'd rather start small, control costs very carefully, and expand slowly. Kickstarter in its current incarnation is way too fast and loose.

The risks vary from campaign to campaign and really has to deal with who is doing the manufacturing. If you are having it done locally, there is less risk and if you deal with metal vs resin less risk in losses (ie: resin miscasts are lost money, metal miscasts can be remelted back down). If you deal with someone overseas then there are delays, unexpected costs with customs, shipping and manufacturing. The same can be said for any campaign even traditional ones that aren't on KS, the difference is the visibility. What I mean is that, while a small company can invest X dollars, do a small run and then sell vs KS where you invest, watch and see the process. People would never realize the smaller company had a 8 month delay because of costs, funding or shipping because they weren't watching or aware of that process at the time.

That is a definite risk with KS where it can explode and while a campaign might of been successful with $100K, when they get $300-500K suddenly they've hit into a red zone which usually means frequent delays. Time and cost estimates were based on a small run, now there could be other costs if they were only slotted for 500 copies and need to now do more. One KS I know would have been fine but their stretch goals completely shot their budget as they miscalculated time and costs. However you can run a controlled KS campaign and some smaller companies have done that. You may have $1 pledge but all the other pledges would have a set amount. I don't mean Early Birds, I mean that is all you are looking for 200 customers at X dollars. Then if you decide you can handle more, you can add another duplicate pledge level controlling the amount of pledges. It doesn't have to be fast and loose. It can be very controlled and slow going if you want it.... but that does then bring up that most people may not understand that ideology. Another KS I know only wants to get funded and maybe a couple stretch goals, he hasn't been overall advertising it hugely because he doesn't want it to get hugely out of control and impact his normal everyday business because he's trying to meet KS campaign. That would be a perfect example of someone who is still starting small, controlling the costs carefully and expanding slowly.

 Dark Severance wrote:

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
First type will be from established manufacturers who instead of abbandoning the crowdfunding campaigns (which for the record we believe is the right thing to do, you can quote us on that) will be doing almost all their bussiness via these platforms.

I was actually happy that KrosMaster which launched from KS has started to actually move to a Pre-Order method and have abandoned KS for the most part. There will be business that will never leave it.

We agree on this, we are saying the same thing, some companies will never leave it since it offers too many benefits to pass out from. But it does kill direct marketing approaches, where you take an actual risk in creating something before you sell it. It forces creators to do something well, otherwise it will -very simply- not sell. KS projects on the "no-strings-attached" (IIRC the term used earlier) give way too many safety cushions to irresponsible creators that have created -and probably will keep on creating- bad product/service.
I believe established manufacturers should be taken out of the equation from the backers themselves. But that is not likely to happen any time soon..
E.g. a boardgame very recenlty launched would have made retail anyway, too much money invested, we are in the industry and we know. It would not have included maybe an additional 10-20 "free" plastic minis in each box -I'll give you that- but there is also no need for all that anyway. It only serves to pull more money out form the market on actual product that is already available ).

 Dark Severance wrote:
Backers can't expect every project to be like those big companies when they come demanding free things. There are certain expectations that those larger companies set up, which does make it harder for smaller projects but that isn't so much necessarily the larger companies fault as it is the communities fault. There are a lot of people that assume a project will go retail so I'll get it then, but many projects that fail never make retail.

And that's exactly the reason problems are created. Backers do expect that, because as you yourself very honestly admit, compare "how much do I get for my dollar?"
While we were doing the math and crunching our numbers (materials, labor hours, taxes etc), what we faced as the more difficult part of our project was... P&P expenses. With companies offering free shipping(?!) to backers, it makes it very difficult for small adventurers to compete. Thankfully our boat may not be huge but it's definitely not tiny either, the fact is not being a KS company (with hundreds or thousands of previous backers ready to jump in), could put a whole project in jeopardy with companies like SWM. Exactly because of attitudes like the one above!
(don't get me wrong, you were very straight forward in saying you make comparisons and that's both only honest and normal, even backers who may say that they don't, they unconsciuosly do)

I agree that you can be very tight and controlled with a Kickstarter campaign, but doing that puts an immediate stranglehold on the campaign, if you take my meaning.

In trying to run a controlled campaign, you might wind up choking off your campaign to the point that it is unsuccessful. And an unsuccessful campaign absolutely causes harm to a company's goodwill.

Projects have bounced back from failed campaigns, sure, but not without tangible harm to the company's goodwill. That's another risk you are taking with Kickstarter, and as you pointed out, another risk is back end visibility.

Ultimately, with Kickstarter, you are putting a wole lot of eggs into one very unstable basket, and your competitors are going to be kicking that basket every chance they get.

And as for manufacturing, it isn't so much local versus overseas, unless you mean in-house versus contract. With any contract work you've got a problem of balancing availability, setup costs versus production run size, minimum order quantity, shipping costs, deposits, contracts, etc. That just is what it is.

But if you walk into Kickstarter, even with a modest, controlled campaign, you have to pull the trigger (and be prepared ahead of time to do so) all at once because you get all of your 'orders' in one go. But you don't really know what sort of volume you will get.

Is it enough to pay for the MOQ on all requisite production runs? If your initial goal is too low, it might not be, but if your initial goal is too high, you might scare off potential backers. Is it enough to pay for the MOQ, but not enough to be profitable? Do you have a cash reserve to get surplus units into retail release post fulfillment? Have you already saturated the market? To some extent these are problems you will face off of Kickstarter, but with Kickstarter, in trying to meet consumer expectations, you can very easily make mistakes, over-extend, miscalculate, etc. The platform encourages you to grab a tiger by the tail; you dare not let go once you've got hold of it, and you can eaily pour more and more resources into trying to make something work to the point that you sink your own ship. (did I put in anough metaphors?)

And in terms of manufacturing, the industry is growing much faster than production capacity is growing. That's a fact. It is one reason why some companies feel that they have to use Kickstarter, because getting restocks can frankly take too long to sustain a viable retail business.

weeble1000 wrote:
The caveat I will add is that lots of these 'larger companies' that we have been referring to are actively encouraging consumers to develop those expectations, and are encouraging consumers to be misinformed about what Kickstarter is and why it is being used. Hence I think it behooves members of the community to push back on that a bit.

In short, I don't think these expectations and misperceptions are developing 'naturally', so to speak, but rather have been actively cultivated.

Yes and no, yes that does involve marketing in that method as that is what marketing does, encourages and misinforms to some degree. They are after all selling a product, even through KS, they are selling a project and they want you to back it. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with the members of the community pushing back either. KoW I backed because it had a lot of miniatures for the dollars but ultimately I dropped my EB to a $1 pledge because there were smaller KS I wanted to see successful. I still have the option to go into it, but ultimately I don't have a real interest in playing it. I like some of the miniatures but I'm more of a scifi/modern player than fantasy. I saw it as an opportunity to get into fantasy but at the end of the day I probably will let it pass. I made the determination that my dollars aren't really contributing so it wasn't needed. Not every person will be that way, some just back to get miniatures to kitbash or sell.

It is probably a mix of both naturally and companies encouraging it. It develops naturally in other categories from projects I've backed but it comes to a more 'heated' discussion in the games category. At the end of the day, for companies that started on Kickstarter, it is the best advertising platform for them. They have an established player-base, they have multiple projects which means when they launch a new project they can blast an announcement to each of those project backers quick, easily and free. It works out better than any mailing list and they've already set expectations of "we get you a lot of stuff for your dollars" so people come back. It however doesn't technically mean it is their fault, people have to actually do their own research and understand costs of a project. Honestly the gaming community is probably one of the closest communities to at least understanding the process and costs of miniatures gaming. It also makes it a tough market because at the end of the day if the consumer doesn't think they are getting a good deal (doesn't necessarily mean lots of stuff), they'll wait to retail which then results in the project may never get to retail. It doesn't help that some things in retail have actually resulted in cheaper costs than KS, although that isn't really because of traditional LGS retail though but because of online retailers. That is a completely different story and topic. I love my LGS but I can get everything for cheaper at a 10-30% discount compared to them. Since I do play in the shop though I still support them, so I go out of my way to still make certain purchases from them. The Board Game community on KS is also different than Miniatures game community, so it is often interesting when they mix and listening to the conversations.

I am torn in different directions as it is a tough line with a large gray area. There are a few projects or games I would have normally never bought if they weren't on Kickstarter. I also would never of got them in retail. It wasn't because I backed necessarily because there was a great value or lots of free stuff, I backed because marketing wise I was pulled in. People on KS are actively looking at something to fund or back normally, which means they are looking for something to buy. It is like walking a convention floor, without being at the convention as you go through each booth looking for something to catch your eye. Someone threw a game at me with some great art, good looking miniatures, game play and explanations. Ending in my making a purchase of something that I probably would have never got just by walking into a LGS and simply looking at a box. Some games I have waited until retail but that is mostly because I already have a lot on my plate as it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
KS projects on the "no-strings-attached" (IIRC the term used earlier) give way too many safety cushions to irresponsible creators that have created -and probably will keep on creating- bad product/service.

I think that can change but it does need an active effort from the community. The biggest issue is there is a lot of information about 'irresponsible creators' and projects, the problem is it is spaced out all over from KS comments to other forums. Something I'm working on is a website but I want to track KS campaigns from start to finish. Not just as a backer but as a means to keep information in a centralized area to also educate backers. That means analysis of their campaign how it did while it was launched, then reviewing how they communicated through out and then finally the product. Then 30 days later another 'final words' review after some time has gone by to settle into the product. Unfortunately that requires backers to also submit their own articles, so it probably won't take off but something to do at least for a bit.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
I believe established manufacturers should be taken out of the equation from the backers themselves. But that is not likely to happen any time soon..

Yeah that unfortunately won't happen because when you look at the risks/costs for the advertising alone through KS vs traditional methods, it is free advertising in a way. You are already connected to multiple groups of backers and a community that you can broadcast at any given time, reaching thousands of backers faster and more efficiently than any email SPAM.

 Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote:
With companies offering free shipping(?!) to backers, it makes it very difficult for small adventurers to compete. Thankfully our boat may not be huge but it's definitely not tiny either, the fact is not being a KS company (with hundreds or thousands of previous backers ready to jump in), could put a whole project in jeopardy with companies like SWM. Exactly because of attitudes like the one above!
(don't get me wrong, you were very straight forward in saying you make comparisons and that's both only honest and normal, even backers who may say that they don't, they unconsciously do)

I'm a devils advocate type of person. ^_^ I like to debate and discuss all sides. Don't get me wrong I still ask "What am I getting for my dollars" but that may or may not translate the same way as someone asking the same question. What I mean is I'm not necessarily interested in getting a great deal but I am interested in making sure I'm not paying more for something I should. I can also make the determination when comparing that I shouldn't obviously compare 1-2 man operation to CMON or Mantic and when I should. Like I said I ended up pulling out of KoW which would of been a good number of miniatures for my dollars and ended up funding up a couple smaller games instead. I ended up getting much less for my dollars, paying more in the end but ultimately made the decision to help a smaller company that could use the funding vs someone that didn't. It isn't completely one sided with me, although there are probably a lot of backers that are that way. When I notice who is talking about what they get for the dollars, you can usually spot them by looking at the projects they've backed. The real bad part is those people can be potentially toxic to a campaign, that in itself is what ultimately becomes the biggest issue. Although to be fair that is mostly among miniatures gamers and not seen so much in the board game projects. Miniature gamers would scoff at paying $100 for only 10-20 miniatures, expecting to get 30-40 minis, but board gamers would drop $100 easily for a board game that probably only costs about $25 to print and would eventually retail online for $80-90. Now if that board game had miniatures, that is where the line blurs and the heated discussions start up.

With the example of free shipping, I don't believe companies should be offering free shipping because of the added risk. It used to be one cost for shipping, you needed the backer to enter it but that is slowly changing at least. You can set regions for shipping but not all USA, EU, RoW shipping breaks out into 3 costs, there is a large discrepancy. It cost me $25 to send a box that was fairly small, less than 2lbs to London the other day. That same box coming back only cost them $8. It would cost me $25 to send it to Canada (I'm in the US) but I can send it overseas to Guam for $5. I actually believe the safest method is to give estimate of shipping costs, let your backers know, but then charge the actual amount after the KS campaign ends. I've seen too many campaigns get inflated because of 30% of the dollars is just shipping costs from backers but the project looks like they are getting much more money. As a small company when someone asks for free shipping, they should be upfront and honest that they can't but will try to reduce costs as much as they can and meet people half way. It isn't an unreasonable request and I do understand larger companies and some companies 'masking free shipping' into their costs, makes customers not understand that. It shouldn't force a company to make a bad decision and eat unwarranted costs though, potentially putting them in a bad situation. If it means a project didn't fund because of it... then those may not be the target backers a company would really want or would help grow the business in the end.

weeble1000 wrote:
My own research led me to the conclusion that Kickstarter just isn't worth the risk, especially for a startup. I discovered that I would wind up putting a wole lot of investment in (in terms of both time and money) for a gamble with too many volatile variables. Heck, if your campaign winds up launching around the same time as a large, splashy campaign, that alone can be a shot below the water line. And a Kickstarter campaign really needs to be properly husbanded from day one to the final minutes of the campaign. You've got to be able to dedicate several 80+ hour weeks just to run the campaign itself, let alone the months of prep ahead of time and the post-funding fullfilment period.

Once a company has an established customer base, even if it is small, Kickstarter becomes a bit less of a risk because you can more reliably count of a certain level of support. But at the end of the day, I'd rather start small, control costs very carefully, and expand slowly. Kickstarter in its current incarnation is way too fast and loose.

Good discussion here. Still catching up. Christmas Eve y'know and need to do more shopping.

I follow the James Mathe's "Kickstarter Best Practices" FB group, and two take home messages:
* You DO need to make a great deal of investing before KS, and you should delay your KS because of outside variables. Black Friday's certainly not going to care about anyone's KS.
* An established customer base is *essential*. You need to have buyers lined up long before you start the KS.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/KickstarterBestPractices/

That being said, "Dungeon Tiles by Walter" only asked for 1k funding and made it. I'm seeing this not as the usual "if we don't make it we fail" KS, but hopefully a stepping stone to his next KS. Because, by then, he will have more KS and business experience than if his first KS was more ambitious and splashy. Small companies, small targets -- but not small futures!

 Yodhrin wrote:
as long as the specific subset of the community that likes spending large sums of money on a system that voids their consumer rights are happy that's all that matters hey?

What nonsense.

Kickstarter is a platform for legal contracts of quid pro quo. At no point were any consumer rights voided - consumers may always seek redress via legal means (i.e. small claims court and/or class action lawsuit).

If you can show where in the Kickstarter TOS they claim to supersede legal rights and remedies, I would be most interested in that.

Particularly when companies sell add-ons out of their back catalog (e.g. Zombicide Season 3 allowing backers to add non-exclusive original and Season 2 items) - those are straight pre-orders of existing product with a deferred delivery date.

As for spending "large sums", $100 to $300 isn't that much. I doubt there is any poster here who has spent less than that on their 40k or Warhammer stuff. Backers need to manage their own risk levels, and not pledge more than what they can afford.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
as long as the specific subset of the community that likes spending large sums of money on a system that voids their consumer rights are happy that's all that matters hey?

What nonsense.

Kickstarter is a platform for legal contracts of quid pro quo. At no point were any consumer rights voided - consumers may always seek redress via legal means (i.e. small claims court and/or class action lawsuit).

If you can show where in the Kickstarter TOS they claim to supersede legal rights and remedies, I would be most interested in that.

Particularly when companies sell add-ons out of their back catalog (e.g. Zombicide Season 3 allowing backers to add non-exclusive original and Season 2 items) - those are straight pre-orders of existing product with a deferred delivery date.

As for spending "large sums", $100 to $300 isn't that much. I doubt there is any poster here who has spent less than that on their 40k or Warhammer stuff. Backers need to manage their own risk levels, and not pledge more than what they can afford.

Thus far, no one has be successful in a formal assertion of consumer rights against either a project creator or Kickstarter. At least not that I am aware of.

Kickstarter provides a funding platform for creative projects. When a creator posts a project on Kickstarter, they’re inviting other people to form a contract with them. Anyone who backs a project is accepting the creator’s offer, and forming that contract.

Kickstarter is not a part of this contract — the contract is a direct legal agreement between creators and their backers. Here are the terms that govern that agreement:

When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers.

Throughout the process, creators owe their backers a high standard of effort, honest communication, and a dedication to bringing the project to life. At the same time, backers must understand that when they back a project, they’re helping to create something new — not ordering something that already exists. There may be changes or delays, and there’s a chance something could happen that prevents the creator from being able to finish the project as promised.

If a creator is unable to complete their project and fulfill rewards, they’ve failed to live up to the basic obligations of this agreement. To right this, they must make every reasonable effort to find another way of bringing the project to the best possible conclusion for backers. A creator in this position has only remedied the situation and met their obligations to backers if:

they post an update that explains what work has been done, how funds were used, and what prevents them from finishing the project as planned;
they work diligently and in good faith to bring the project to the best possible conclusion in a timeframe that’s communicated to backers;
they’re able to demonstrate that they’ve used funds appropriately and made every reasonable effort to complete the project as promised;
they’ve been honest, and have made no material misrepresentations in their communication to backers; and
they offer to return any remaining funds to backers who have not received their reward (in proportion to the amounts pledged), or else explain how those funds will be used to complete the project in some alternate form.
The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers.

In good faith...best possible conclusion...every reasonable effort...no material misrepresentation.

No, you don't really have much recourse if a project fails to deliver. The Kickstarter TOS contemplates that you are not "ordering something that already exists," and that therefore you might not ever receive it. So long as the project creator does not deliberately defraud backers, you may not get any pledge reward and you may not receive a reward in the condition described by the project creator. And as we have seen, even persuing action against obviously fradulent projects has prooved futile.

Kickstarter, and crowdfunding in general, is the Wild West. There's no solid precedent. It is not a transaction that falls neatly into the Uniform Commercial Code. A backer is accepting a contract in which a pledge is characterized as inherently speculative, with no guarantee to the backer, and obligations on the project creator only to make a good faith effort to fulfill pledge rewards.

That is not in the same ballpark as a retail transaction. The TOS even states that the project creator may be subject to legal action by backers if they are unable to satisfy the terms of the agreement as quoted, in full, above. Absent that, tough cookies. Try proving that a project creator did not make a 'good faith attempt' to bring a project to fruition. Good luck with that.

This is not a situation in which the common law doctrine of "fair value for money spent" unambiguously applies.

Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) dictates that items are "merchantable" if they meet the following criteria:

Must conform to the standards of the trade as applicable to the contract for sale

See the Kickstarter TOS above. In short, good luck man. If you try to enforce your consumer rights against a crowdfunding project creator, let me know how it turns out.

Now, there are states (Alabama; Connecticut; Kansas; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Minnesota; Mississippi; New Hampshire; Vermont; Washington; West Virginia; District of Columbia) that do not allow a seller to disclaim an implied warranty. However, implied warranties are not a matter of Federal law in the US, which governs only written and verbal warranties, so you would be dealing with state laws, which varry by state. Conceivably, one might argue in any of the above states that the Kickstarter TOS does not allow the project creator to disclaim an implied warranty. But then you'd have to prove that a product was not "merchantable," which is a fairly easy standard to meet as long as something was delivered. That said, where does a speculative "pledge" fall in terms of commercial code? Is there any applicable precedent? At the very least, the Kickstarter TOS means that any backer has been told that the transaction is atypical in some way.

Again, good luck with that, and let me know how it turns out.

Thus far, I've not been in a situation whereby legal action would be warranted, and I hope not to be there.

Legalism aside, the offer and acceptance of backer payment makes for a very straightforward contract. To claim otherwise, is patently false.

Whether it makes sense to go to court over $100-ish is questionable, but then, that's what class action is for. The tools do exist, if the situation warrants.

At some point, I would not be surprised to see a major screwup result in legal action and resolution. Heck, I wonder if the backers could crowdfund the legal fees in order to drive the point home with respect to accountability. That might be worthwhile.

Looking at those numbers of games beeing released through kickstarter some times makes me wonder if we are in the middle of a TTG bubble. Do people really have the time and money to play all those games? Is the consumer base big enough to keep all those gaming companies alive? Is the consumer base growing fast enough?

On that note, it will be interesting to see how Kingdom Death Monster will do once they've (finally) released their products.

Also, what kind of an idiot lets his dog near a KS in the first place?

 jorny wrote:
Looking at those numbers of games beeing released through kickstarter some times makes me wonder if we are in the middle of a TTG bubble. Do people really have the time and money to play all those games? Is the consumer base big enough to keep all those gaming companies alive? Is the consumer base growing fast enough?

Yeah, that ought to be interesting. While it's obvious crowdfunding is maturing (eg. slicker projects), I doubt it's near its peak. Will more backers keep coming in? How are the online retailers going to react? What if backers get tired of having to make $300+ pledges for plastic and cardboard?

And forget games -- an inside joke around the Reaper Miniatures boards refers the explosion of miniatures KS has brought to market, primarily through small companies (eg. Red Box Games, Stonehaven Miniatures, etc.). Think boardgamers can't find to get their second play of a game? How about miniatures painters with their backlog of plastic, resin, and metal!

Oh, and as for dogs, Kictraq found 1250 projects. The dog not only ate my KS, but what got pooped got funded!

Merry Christmas, all!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Thus far, I've not been in a situation whereby legal action would be warranted, and I hope not to be there.

Legalism aside, the offer and acceptance of backer payment makes for a very straightforward contract. To claim otherwise, is patently false.

Whether it makes sense to go to court over $100-ish is questionable, but then, that's what class action is for. The tools do exist, if the situation warrants.

At some point, I would not be surprised to see a major screwup result in legal action and resolution. Heck, I wonder if the backers could crowdfund the legal fees in order to drive the point home with respect to accountability. That might be worthwhile.

Wait, what? "Legalism aside"? "Yeah, you made all those factual arguments which relate directly to the claim I'm making, but ignore those and I'm totally right!"

When I buy a product from a company, I have rights under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Consumer Rights Directive(previously Distance Selling Regulations); goods which are not fit for purpose, not as advertised, or faulty can be returned at the retailer's cost, and I can return goods for no reason at all within 14 days providing they're in the condition in which they were received and I pay the shipping. But that can't be applied to Kickstarter because I'm not buying a product, I am pledging money on the understanding that I may, providing circumstances allow receive some specific reward at some future date.

I'm not an "investor", so financial regulations don't apply. I'm not contracting a service, so the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 doesn't apply. The Kickstarter ToS are quite clear and unambiguous, so there's no way to argue the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 should apply. It is marginally within the realm of possibility that you could pursue a case under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, but that would require me to prove that the implied contract was "significantly imbalanced" in the project creator's favour and that it took away my consumer rights, which it's not even clear I have in the case of Kickstarter because I can't find a legal definition of "consumer" that accounts for the peculiarities of Kickstarter pledges.

If I have to go to court and create entirely new precedent that would apply(or not, as there's no guarantee of victory) consumer rights legislation to Kickstarter in future, how on earth can you seriously argue that it's "patently false" to claim I don't actually have those rights at the moment?

No, that's legal minutiate, which I'm not going to bother with. At a very basic level, KS is Contracts 101.

When you buy a gift card, is that not covered?

What about when you put down a deposit for something?

Or pre-order merchandise?

All standard contract of offer and payment accepted for goods & services to be delivered at a later date.

I agree with some of what Weeble says, the whole Dust Tactics mass sale Kickstarter is in the misuse of Kickstarter book IMHO.

But hey, in any new platform there are those that will misuse it or flat out scam (like defiance or those play-doh animals).

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I agree with some of what Weeble says, the whole Dust Tactics mass sale Kickstarter is in the misuse of Kickstarter book IMHO.

Wasn't it also used to fund new stuff further down the road?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, that's legal minutiate, which I'm not going to bother with. At a very basic level, KS is Contracts 101.

When you buy a gift card, is that not covered?

What about when you put down a deposit for something?

Or pre-order merchandise?

All standard contract of offer and payment accepted for goods & services to be delivered at a later date.

While I generally agree with the concept that on a macro level the law mostly turns on broad concepts of fairness and equity, you have to have some sort of peg to hang your hat on or you don't get anywhere.

As Yodhrin and I have been explaining, where that peg is, and whether it exists at all, in the case of Kickstarter is frankly highly ambiguous. And broad equity concepts cut both ways with Kickstarter because crowdfunding, at least in concept, is something that one can argue an individual walks into with eyes wide open.

It is painfully easy to argue that when you donate money to someone to fund the development of a consumer good, it is unfair to complain about not getting something in return. As Kickstarter becomes, ahem, more commercialized, equities will start to shift more strongly in the favor of backers for sure. But there needs to be a test case, or two, or three. Or congress needs to get its hands dirty and pass some new laws, which (again ahem) is not likely to happen anytime soon.

As for pre-ordering, Kickstarter is explicitly not a pre-order platform. It says so in the TOS. As for a deposit, you are putting in money with the understanding that you might not get anything and that your money might be spent before that fact becomes clear. As for a contract for goods and services to be delivered at a later date, what are the goods and services? Arguably, it is the backer that is providing the service, and Kickstarter that is providing the service, not the project creator.

And in terms of Contracts 101, the contract is essentially this:

I give you some money and you try your best to create the thing that you told me you would try to create. If you successfully create it, you said that you would do X, Y, Z for me.

The key there is if you successfully create it.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
No, that's legal minutiate, which I'm not going to bother with. At a very basic level, KS is Contracts 101.

Yep, so again when presented with an argument that refutes yours, you dismiss it out of hand and refuse to address it. "Contracts 101" is exactly the stuff those laws relate to, my post above includes literally all the applicable current UK statutes regarding consumer rights, contracts between buyers and sellers of goods and services, terms of sale etc.

When you buy a gift card, is that not covered?

Nope. Several large retail chains went under since 2008, in all cases where the business wasn't saved at the last moment by a rescue package, everyone with outstanding gift cards lost out. The gift card itself is the product being sold, companies have very broad latitude when it comes to actually giving people the supposed "value" of the card in other goods.

What about when you put down a deposit for something?

Kickstarter is not a deposit.

Or pre-order merchandise?

Kickstarter is not a pre-order.

All standard contract of offer and payment accepted for goods & services to be delivered at a later date.

And Kickstarter is not a standard contract by any stretch. I've told you why, I even directly cited the relevant laws; the kind of contractual relationship, if one exists to any meaningful degree, between pledgers and creators on Kickstarter is not adequately covered in any existing statutes. That means a court case would have to be brought and won by a consumer, in which the judge would determine which laws if any apply, and by so doing create precedent that would establish specific rights and protections for pledgers. It necessarily follows, then, that those rights do not currently exist in any meaningful sense, ie exactly what I've been saying for several posts.

You are all technically wrong and correct at the same time. Kickstarter is not a standard contract, it can however be used as a contract but really falls under small claims (possibly class action). It isn't signed but it can be used as an agreement, which does require you to do the ground work. KS won't get involved because if they do for one case no matter how big or small, they'll start precedent for needing to be involved in all cases. If KS was setup as an Escrow, then they could do something but it is more they are a finder. They find buyers (backers) for a seller (creator) and get paid their finders fee and then back away from the project.

In terms of gift card, deposit or a business going under you could still take the company to court via small claims. If a company did went under then they probably filed bankruptcy and as such would probably add you as a list of debtors in their bankruptcy. This is something that I'm currently going through right now with a company who contracted out to me, then didn't pay. Unfortunately there is a list and I'm at the bottom so by the time liquidation is finished I probably will not receive much of anything.

Still haven't caught up with the thread but would say CMON model doesn't always work for their games, specifically Dogs of War, a direct confrontation Eurogame. Sure, they met their funding goal, but when your boardgame project that should appeal to the Eurogamer audience pulls in less money than the niche miniatures base accessory, you've done something wrong. I'm not entirely ready to say that DoW should have been retail-only, but I think it was not a good fit for their "exclusives and mini's and crowdfunding, oh my" model.

Gonna repost my two bits from the DoW BGG forum.

barbarianprince wrote:I find it amusing that so many people criticize kickstarter campaigns for putting out exclusives, especially for games that they really like but refuse to back ... what most of you are saying is I want the game for next to nothing with all the extras and exclusives ...

Actually, I think DoW should have been made "next to nothing" without the miniatures. Sure, I wouldn't play Zombicide with only meeples, but DoW is a direct-confrontation Eurogame, and thus, imo, its target audience doesn't expect the plastic -- unless its target audience are CMON KS backers rather than Eurogamers. Each plastic miniature sculpt requires its own mold, costing anywhere between 5K and 10K. With the KS pulling in 66K, a fair amount of that money went to molds. I counted ten (?) sculpts. That could be at least 50K or more right there. Who knows if CMON made money on the KS.

DoW, in fact, is CMON's LOWEST fundraised KS. DoW funded at 66K, and its next higher project, a highly niche plastic miniatures base project, funded at 88K, or 33% higher. It's when you release a miniatures accessory and raised less money than a Eurogame, you've done something wrong. As a data point, Queen Games raised 60K with 724 backers for its cardboard-standee Orcs Orcs Orc, while CMON raised 66k with 1124 backers for DoW. I'm not sure if those miniatures were really worth the cost.

Ameritrashers need their pretty little bits of plastic -- and will buy expansions ad infinitum, but I'm sure Eurogamers would prefer gaming content instead. While DoW hit its funding goal, I'm thinking Eurogamers really did say "No" to CMON's KS with DoW.

EDIT: DoW on sale for $25 on CoolStuffInc! Those exclusives and SGs cost $25 + shipping to backers.

ced1106 wrote:
Still haven't caught up with the thread but say CMON model doesn't always work for their games, specifically Dogs of War, a direct confrontation Eurogame. Sure, they met their funding goal, but when your boardgame project that should appeal to the Eurogamer audience pulls in less money than the niche miniatures base accessory, you've done something wrong. I'm not entirely ready to say that DoW should have been retail-only, but I think it was not a good fit for their "exclusives and mini's and crowdfunding, oh my" model.

Gonna repost my two bits from the DoW BGG forum.

barbarianprince wrote:I find it amusing that so many people criticize kickstarter campaigns for putting out exclusives, especially for games that they really like but refuse to back ... what most of you are saying is I want the game for next to nothing with all the extras and exclusives ...

Actually, I think DoW should have been made "next to nothing" without the miniatures. Sure, I wouldn't play Zombicide with only meeples, but DoW is a direct-confrontation Eurogame, and thus, imo, its target audience doesn't expect the plastic -- unless its target audience are CMON KS backers rather than Eurogamers. Each plastic miniature sculpt requires its own mold, costing anywhere between 5K and 10K. With the KS pulling in 66K, a fair amount of that money went to molds. I counted ten (?) sculpts. That could be at least 50K or more right there. Who knows if CMON made money on the KS.

DoW, in fact, is CMON's LOWEST fundraised KS. DoW funded at 66K, and its next higher project, a highly niche plastic miniatures base project, funded at 88K, or 33% higher. It's when you release a miniatures accessory and raised less money than a Eurogame, you've done something wrong. As a data point, Queen Games raised 60K with 724 backers for its cardboard-standee Orcs Orcs Orc, while CMON raised 66kC with 1124 backers for DoW. I'm not sure if those miniatures were really worth the cost.

Ameritrashers need their pretty little bits of plastic -- and will buy expansions ad infinitum, but I'm sure Eurogamers would prefer gaming content instead. While DoW hit its funding goal, I'm thinking Eurogamers really did say "No" to CMON's KS with DoW.

I actually won a copy of DoW on BGG. The game looks great but I do wonder if it really fits CMON, or rather if having CMON as a publisher really fit the game.

 Yodhrin wrote:


You can have all the "real-world expectation" you want - when you buy a product from a company you have rights, when you pledge to a KS campaign you have virtually no rights, exactly because you are not buying a product from a company, you are giving a company money and they have promised - with no legal obligation to fulfill that promise - to give you something in return(providing it funds, providing they don't run into any funding problems or other issues, providing they don't get screwed themselves by a supplier or contractor, etc etc etc).

The stuff you're trying to use to disprove weeble's point is exactly the kind of stuff weeble has been talking about; larger companies that don't actually need to crowdfund a project to bring it to market have created the expectation that KS is a guaranteed something for something preorder system, but it is not and never has been, and the fact these companies have created that expectation is exactly what's causing problems for smaller outfits that actually need crowdfunding to develop and release their idea.

Hey, whatever, if you prefer the idea of a few established companies running endless overlapping KS campaigns so you can get their stuff at a discount because you can afford to continually blow ludicrous sums of money on "sweet spot" pledges, that's great. For you. Kind of sucks for the people with great ideas that would have enriched TTG overall, or for people who can't afford to stay on the sweet-spot treadmill, but as long as the specific subset of the community that likes spending large sums of money on a system that voids their consumer rights are happy that's all that matters hey?

Oh get off your sanctimonious high horse. I don't give a flying feth who uses Kickstarter, and a startup isn't intrinsically more noble than CMoN or Mantic. As for myself, at this point I've largely stopped backing new KS projects, from big or small operators, though yes. I can afford to continually blow ludicrous sums of money on "sweet spot" pledges. I also have no desire or obligation to defend whatever my spending habits or ability might be to some random angry guy on the internet. But really - given the way you'e carrying on here, I'm glad that my disposable income apparently enrages you.

At this point I vastly prefer retail. I don't have to wait for a bunch of semi-competent baboons to get my reward to me a year later than promised and in many cases be treated like a second-class backer because I live in Australia. You know what the funny thing is, though?

As far as "Sweet Spots" go - yes, I expect a significant price break from retail if you're asking me to fund a project 6-12(+++) months up front with little recourse instead of waiting for retail and spending my available cash on retail items today. Smaller companies actually created their own set of reasons why I'll no longer back their projects. The only campaigns I'll even consider backing (with very few exceptions) these days are actually run by larger companies, and that's because they do have a much larger degree of accountability. You can thank the various 1-5 man operations like outfits like Imbrian Arts, Bruno Galice, Creature Caster, Trollforged, Avatars of War, the first RBG campaign, Winter War miniatures (or whatever he's called), Bombshell Miniatures for that.

You can bleat about "the true purpose of kickstarter" and all that gak as much as you like, but it changes nothing about how it's used, treated and handled by either creators or backers. I will tell you this much - Kickstarter creators are not charities and I refuse to treat them as such. When I give to charities, I do it on a local level and that's something I'm willing to do without an expectation of something back for it excepting warm fuzzies. If I give money to some guy in Philadelphia or Manchester who wants to make and sell toy soldiers, you can bet I want something back for it. If you want to treat KS like a charity with no expectations, then more power to you - though I'm sure there are generally many more deserving places to give your money with no expectation of a return.

 Azazelx wrote:

I will tell you this much - Kickstarter creators are not charities and I refuse to treat them as such. When I give to charities, I do it on a local level and that's something I'm willing to do without an expectation of something back for it excepting warm fuzzies. If I give money to some guy in Philadelphia or Manchester who wants to make and sell toy soldiers, you can bet I want something back for it. If you want to treat KS like a charity with no expectations, then more power to you - though I'm sure there are generally many more deserving places to give your money with no expectation of a return.

You realise he never said you should do it for the 'warm fuzzies' right? Or even implied it?

If you're going to be snide and generally unpleasant, at least bother to read the other fellow's post. What he's outlining is a perfectly reasonable perspective, and whilst you're free to disagree with it, one can imagine so many more polite ways to do it than the way you did. Panache, manners, and a healthy dose of Rule 1 cost nothing.


More on topic, I can very much see where Yodhrin and Weeble are coming from, but I can't say I entirely agree with them. I think that their hypothesis with regards to how the large scale companies using Kickstarter has made it harder for smaller companies to use it has more than a grain of truth to it; I would also be inclined to agree that some companies are using it who should really be exploring things like bank loans instead.

Having said that, I think that so long as there is still room in the market for some smaller hobby related ventures with no real problems. The days of the 'Hi, I've never done anything hobby related, but want to pitch a multi-million pound PVC project' are gone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm much more interested in ventures by small garage companies using it to expand in scope and scale. For example, the recent collaboration between Zinge Industries and Curious Constructs.

 Ketara wrote:

Having said that, I think that so long as there is still room in the market for some smaller hobby related ventures with no real problems. The days of the 'Hi, I've never done anything hobby related, but want to pitch a multi-million pound PVC project' are gone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm much more interested in ventures by small garage companies using it to expand in scope and scale. For example, the recent collaboration between Zinge Industries and Curious Constructs.

I think there's still a lot of good that comes from Kickstarter. What disappoints me is the combination of companies that do not want to use Kickstarter feeling as though they have to use Kickstarter in order to survive and startup companies that want to use Kickstarter declining to do so because they feel like they can't survive if they use the platform.

But like Azazelx has mentioned, people are free to spend their money wherever they like. And I am very happy about informed consumers making informed choices. What bugs me is consumers making their decisions based on what I feel is incorrect/incomplete information. I think it is perfectly fair for Azazelx to demand a discount over MSRP in exchange for the loss of guarantee that comes with Kickstarter. That's an informed opinion. And if Azazelx doesn't want to float his money out to companies that may not deliver, that's also a perfectly reasonable opinion.

I happen to personally like floating my money out to companies that might not deliver because they are inexperienced. I think a lot of good comes from that. But what I do not like is when folks apply Azazelx's very reasonable MSRP discount expectations to a project that would otherwise not see retail release. (Note I am not saying Azazelx does this)

I think it is a good idea to have in mind who the project creator is and why the project creator is using Kickstarter, and then base one's expectations accordingly. In the end, that's all I am pushing for. I think Azazelx's opinions are perfectly reasonable.