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Hmm. This and a couple other pieces of artwork suggest the may be going with a sort of "evil woods" theme which I'm not sure I'm as excited about as the old subterranean gateway to hell setting...

 Original Timmy wrote:
Im not that impressed at all, its an abuse of what crowdfunding is all about, its nothing but a pre-order and of cause KS wont have a problem with it, as all they care about is their $$$ cut, What KS does is different to what KS TOS/U say is allowed, ie not having an already produced product to sell on KS, creators are not allowed to have more than 1 project going at 1 time, KS will not follow up on failling/failed campaigns etc etc.

Sorry for the rant but im getting fed up with these big companies using KS as a pre-ordering system, its hurting the "little guys" who are using KS for the crowdfunding idea the platform was set up for

How does this hurt the little guys? I see people complain about this all the time, and I've never once seen a genuine convincing argument to support this. If, as a company, you have access to a Kickstarter style promotion, you're almost stupid to not use it. It's not "abuse" it's just good business.

 Elbows wrote:
If, as a company, you have access to a Kickstarter style promotion, you're almost stupid to not use it. It's not "abuse" it's just good business.

True it is good business, but the perceived abuse of the system comes from the fact that larger companies with more assets fundamentally change the way Kickstarters are viewed by backers. Larger companies can and have altered the perception of what is needed for a campaign to fund successfully. Think about a CMON campaign versus a non-CMON campaign run by a couple of people out of their garage. The CMON campaign has slick graphics, videos (often multiple with high production values going over game play, testimonials, etc.) renders of completed models and often physical test samples of components. Basically, they have a lot of the production done before ever going to the public for funding.

How can the creators working out of their garage compete with that level of glitz and presentation? How can their project get attention when companies who have sunk thousands upon thousands of dollars in pre-production suck the oxygen out of the room, so to speak?

IMO, it’s the failure of small companies to deliver on their promises that fundamentally changed how consumers view Kickstarter projects.

> Nice Walmart strawman

That wasn't a strawman. That was sarcasm.

> the perceived abuse of the system comes from the fact that larger companies with more assets fundamentally change the way Kickstarters are viewed by backers.

You might want to notify KS about this abuse of the system. I'm sure they will want to know and will take your comments seriously.

BTW, That was also sarcasm.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
If, as a company, you have access to a Kickstarter style promotion, you're almost stupid to not use it. It's not "abuse" it's just good business.

True it is good business, but the perceived abuse of the system comes from the fact that larger companies with more assets fundamentally change the way Kickstarters are viewed by backers. Larger companies can and have altered the perception of what is needed for a campaign to fund successfully. Think about a CMON campaign versus a non-CMON campaign run by a couple of people out of their garage. The CMON campaign has slick graphics, videos (often multiple with high production values going over game play, testimonials, etc.) renders of completed models and often physical test samples of components. Basically, they have a lot of the production done before ever going to the public for funding.

How can the creators working out of their garage compete with that level of glitz and presentation? How can their project get attention when companies who have sunk thousands upon thousands of dollars in pre-production suck the oxygen out of the room, so to speak?

Sorry, I don't buy this as there are many "people in the garage" companies that started small with metals and resin, proved Themselves and worked up to CMoN styled campaigns. Steam Forged Games, Poots, Hint the game just to name a few. Even monolith was this was with Conan, like 4 people at first, they just happen to have a lot of experience in the industry.

These companies didn't start in a void, CMoN was in full stride when all of them but Poots did their first kickstsrter and managed to be big players for exactly the reasons you said the small guys can't do. They had good art, competent presentations, some completed sculpts and they worked themselves to the top by being hard working, with good products that people wanted.

There are even breakout games like Gloom haven and Scythe that first game tore up KS. They also had good art and presentations. There are so many examples that prove your argument wrong.

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
If, as a company, you have access to a Kickstarter style promotion, you're almost stupid to not use it. It's not "abuse" it's just good business.

True it is good business, but the perceived abuse of the system comes from the fact that larger companies with more assets fundamentally change the way Kickstarters are viewed by backers. Larger companies can and have altered the perception of what is needed for a campaign to fund successfully. Think about a CMON campaign versus a non-CMON campaign run by a couple of people out of their garage. The CMON campaign has slick graphics, videos (often multiple with high production values going over game play, testimonials, etc.) renders of completed models and often physical test samples of components. Basically, they have a lot of the production done before ever going to the public for funding.

How can the creators working out of their garage compete with that level of glitz and presentation? How can their project get attention when companies who have sunk thousands upon thousands of dollars in pre-production suck the oxygen out of the room, so to speak?

Sorry, I don't buy this as there are many "people in the garage" companies that started small with metals and resin, proved Themselves and worked up to CMoN styled campaigns. Steam Forged Games, Poots, Hint the game just to name a few. Even monolith was this was with Conan, like 4 people at first, they just happen to have a lot of experience in the industry.

These companies didn't start in a void, CMoN was in full stride when all of them but Poots did their first kickstsrter and managed to be big players for exactly the reasons you said the small guys can't do. They had good art, competent presentations, some completed sculpts and they worked themselves to the top by being hard working, with good products that people wanted.

There are even breakout games like Gloom haven and Scythe that first game tore up KS. They also had good art and presentations. There are so many examples that prove your argument wrong.

Are there? You've named 7 games or companies out of 9 years of Kickstarter campaigns. I think you are pointing out the exceptions that prove the rule.

Let's look at Scythe, because when that campaign started I was very impressed with the production values on it. So who was involved and what resources did they have available?

Jamey Stegmaier is the designer of Scythe, Viticulture, Tuscany, and Euphoria. He's also the co-founder and president of Stonemaier Games, and he's written a book about crowdfunding.

Jakub Rozalski is the artist, worldbuilder, and creative director of Scythe. Art prints of his work are available for purchase from him here.

Morten Monrad Pedersen is Stonemaier's development specialist. He designed the Automa solo variant for Scythe as detailed on his BGG blog.

Carsten Biernat & Jozsef Szollosi of Unique Voodoo Studio are the 3D modelers for Scythe's miniatures.

Christine Santana is the lead graphic designer for Stonemaier Games.

Chris Matthew is the Panda Game Manufacturing project manager for Scythe.

Scott Wadyko is the the sculptor of the realistic resource tokens found in the collector's edition and in our new treasure chests.

Video: The project video was created by Josh McDowell, narrated by A.T. Chandler, and features original Scythe music composed by Michał Woźniak. The gif explaining the board extension was designed by Bryce Walter and reduced in size for faster loading times by Bruce Alcorn.

Playtesters: The development process for Scythe featured over 750 blind playtests and 628 individual playtesters. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of them, especially to Barry Schmaling (who built the playtester forum) and all of the lead playtesters.

Oh, gak, look at that. All people already in the industry, or involved in industries that helped make that campaign pop. Yep, surely a plucky little garage start up there.

It's more win, win for everyone. The publisher doesn't need a warehouse to hold all their unsold stock.
We game a game at almost half the retail cost.
And if retailers are switched on, they will back some copy's and sell them on.

Beware that this is old and you WON'T get the KS for christmas

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
If, as a company, you have access to a Kickstarter style promotion, you're almost stupid to not use it. It's not "abuse" it's just good business.

True it is good business, but the perceived abuse of the system comes from the fact that larger companies with more assets fundamentally change the way Kickstarters are viewed by backers. Larger companies can and have altered the perception of what is needed for a campaign to fund successfully. Think about a CMON campaign versus a non-CMON campaign run by a couple of people out of their garage. The CMON campaign has slick graphics, videos (often multiple with high production values going over game play, testimonials, etc.) renders of completed models and often physical test samples of components. Basically, they have a lot of the production done before ever going to the public for funding.

How can the creators working out of their garage compete with that level of glitz and presentation? How can their project get attention when companies who have sunk thousands upon thousands of dollars in pre-production suck the oxygen out of the room, so to speak?

Sorry, I don't buy this as there are many "people in the garage" companies that started small with metals and resin, proved Themselves and worked up to CMoN styled campaigns. Steam Forged Games, Poots, Hint the game just to name a few. Even monolith was this was with Conan, like 4 people at first, they just happen to have a lot of experience in the industry.

These companies didn't start in a void, CMoN was in full stride when all of them but Poots did their first kickstsrter and managed to be big players for exactly the reasons you said the small guys can't do. They had good art, competent presentations, some completed sculpts and they worked themselves to the top by being hard working, with good products that people wanted.

There are even breakout games like Gloom haven and Scythe that first game tore up KS. They also had good art and presentations. There are so many examples that prove your argument wrong.

Are there? You've named 7 games or companies out of 9 years of Kickstarter campaigns. I think you are pointing out the exceptions that prove the rule.

Let's look at Scythe, because when that campaign started I was very impressed with the production values on it. So who was involved and what resources did they have available?

Jamey Stegmaier is the designer of Scythe, Viticulture, Tuscany, and Euphoria. He's also the co-founder and president of Stonemaier Games, and he's written a book about crowdfunding.

Jakub Rozalski is the artist, worldbuilder, and creative director of Scythe. Art prints of his work are available for purchase from him here.

Morten Monrad Pedersen is Stonemaier's development specialist. He designed the Automa solo variant for Scythe as detailed on his BGG blog.

Carsten Biernat & Jozsef Szollosi of Unique Voodoo Studio are the 3D modelers for Scythe's miniatures.

Christine Santana is the lead graphic designer for Stonemaier Games.

Chris Matthew is the Panda Game Manufacturing project manager for Scythe.

Scott Wadyko is the the sculptor of the realistic resource tokens found in the collector's edition and in our new treasure chests.

Video: The project video was created by Josh McDowell, narrated by A.T. Chandler, and features original Scythe music composed by Michał Woźniak. The gif explaining the board extension was designed by Bryce Walter and reduced in size for faster loading times by Bruce Alcorn.

Playtesters: The development process for Scythe featured over 750 blind playtests and 628 individual playtesters. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all of them, especially to Barry Schmaling (who built the playtester forum) and all of the lead playtesters.

Oh, gak, look at that. All people already in the industry, or involved in industries that helped make that campaign pop. Yep, surely a plucky little garage start up there.

I work in the tech field, I know people that with years of experience went out and started their own company just with their savings, a few even in their garage, and have done quite well. Just because you have experience doesn't mean you're not a garage start up. I'm glad Kickstarter isn't the way you think it should be as it would mean anyone with any experience doing anything relating to what they want to crowd fund should be denied as it would be "unfair" to anyone else. Same with anyone that puts any effort into their presentation, hires artists, or is an artist themselves is unfair to those that can't. Sorry, but if you want to raise a couple hundred thousand you had better put some effort in including spending some money. No one is entitled to people backing their half-assed campaign.

Also as to me cherry picking. There are a lot of people that run successful kickstarters that allow them to quit their day job and run a business, I see posts on r/boardgames about this often enough, and I've seen many miniature games still going after 5+ years being on Kickstarter. You don't have to be huge million dollar campaigns to be successful, you don't even have to make a living off of what you're doing to be successful -- just depends on what you want out of the platform. But a lot will fail or not fund. It's just how life is. A well put together campaign can still fail horribly for any number of reasons. I chose the ones I did to call out that there are many companies jumping to the top of their industry in terms of scale very quickly via Kickstarter still, a few a year. In the US less then 5% of businesses make it past their first year and less make it to their second. Of those that survive how many climb to the top to be a big player? Not many. How long does it take them to do so especially with physical products and manufacturing times? Years and years. Kickstarter is still showing that people that put in hard work, earn a good reputation and take some financial risk by doing some prep work can move very quickly to be a larger player.

But none of this really matters to you does it? You just want to argue, or be mad, or to troll. Whatever your reason it's clear you're in the extreme minority and that you really don't have anything to back up your argument by showing all the KSers that have failed due to CMoN, Monolith, SFG, Kingdom Death, Reaper, Mythic and all the others also being on the platform.

The real point of Kickstarter is risk reduction. It always has been. Normally a company that preorders something is subject to the full weight of laws related to retailing products online. With Kickstarter you get your customers to waive those rights and agree to much looser terms. And that what can be delivered doesn't have to match what was originally described. As long as a company satisfies the five steps required in the KS terms, they can drastically change how things end up being delivered. They can even charge additional surprise shipping costs or totally change the material of the items. As long as they follow the steps outlined in the terms.

This idea that Kickstarter was ever about the little guy or the backers is silly. A crowd funding platform that didn't create the conditions to attract these larger obviously pre order projects wouldn't work for smaller projects either.

EDIT: Sorry, don't want to clog this thread with discussions over the merits of Kickstarter. Let's concentrate on the game itself.

 Original Timmy wrote:
Im not that impressed at all, its an abuse of what crowdfunding is all about, its nothing but a pre-order and of cause KS wont have a problem with it, as all they care about is their $$$ cut, What KS does is different to what KS TOS/U say is allowed, ie not having an already produced product to sell on KS, creators are not allowed to have more than 1 project going at 1 time, KS will not follow up on failling/failed campaigns etc etc.

Sorry for the rant but im getting fed up with these big companies using KS as a pre-ordering system, its hurting the "little guys" who are using KS for the crowdfunding idea the platform was set up for

You know what hurt the "little guys"? Their overall ineptness as a group and the fact that so many of them do not deliver, or deliver multiple years late due to overpromising and underdelivering. The number of projects I've backed that have not delivered anything at all to me, have delivered garbage, or delivered only part or a fraction of what was promised has almost entirely dried up my willingness to support anyone new on the platform. Yes, the risk is (somehow) on me as a backer, but I've lost hundreds if not thousands of dollars across the years, and so at this point I'm only willing to back for a relatively small amount of money, outside of the places I've purchased from before, or (closest to) "sure thing" creators like Monolith.

See, the thing is that it's not a zero-sum game for everyone. At this point, money I'll spend with Monolith or CMON is money that I will never make available to a small producer who may or may not crash and burn. Monolith and CMON are in competition with, say, GW or Warlord for my $$$ - not other small KS creators that I haven't personally gotten stuff from before.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

True it is good business, but the perceived abuse of the system comes from the fact that larger companies with more assets fundamentally change the way Kickstarters are viewed by backers. Larger companies can and have altered the perception of what is needed for a campaign to fund successfully. Think about a CMON campaign versus a non-CMON campaign run by a couple of people out of their garage. The CMON campaign has slick graphics, videos (often multiple with high production values going over game play, testimonials, etc.) renders of completed models and often physical test samples of components. Basically, they have a lot of the production done before ever going to the public for funding.

How can the creators working out of their garage compete with that level of glitz and presentation? How can their project get attention when companies who have sunk thousands upon thousands of dollars in pre-production suck the oxygen out of the room, so to speak?

It's not a zero-sum game. I don't have, say, $500 to spend ON KICKSTARTER this month. Your guys working out of their garage don't even get a look in. They don't get considered. I don't care about them or their product until it's been proven. Sorry. I'm not an angel investor nor a charity. If I'm going to donate money to a cause, there are plenty of worthwhile local charities that need my money more than some guy who may or may not know how to run a small business on the other side of the globe.

I backed the reprint of Gloomhaven.
Would I have backed the original campaign?
No. No I would not.
But I got the reprint.
So yes, if a creator proves themselves first then I'll consider them. And I'm 100% aware that it took other people to take that risk. Good for them, they make their money and they take their own chances. I'm personally done with doing that at this point in time.

After being lied to and ripped off (too) many times, I am strongly risk averse when it comes to KS.

MattW wrote:
IMO, it’s the failure of small companies to deliver on their promises that fundamentally changed how consumers view Kickstarter projects.

This.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
EDIT: Sorry, don't want to clog this thread with discussions over the merits of Kickstarter. Let's concentrate on the game itself.

Not much to discuss at this stage. I'm concerned by their apparent choice to completely ignore ANZ/Oceana/Asia, though.

 Gallahad wrote:
Hmm. This and a couple other pieces of artwork suggest the may be going with a sort of "evil woods" theme which I'm not sure I'm as excited about as the old subterranean gateway to hell setting...

It does seem kinda odd. They might be from the Wood of the Suicides (from the Inferno), but those trees aren't supposed to be moving around at all.

In any case I'm glad to see any life in the Hell Dorado setting, so I'll be buying a copy.

Those look like stone columns to me, rather than woods. Like stalagmites and stalagtites meeting and merging into a column... So, tunnels.

 Azazelx wrote:


Not much to discuss at this stage. I'm concerned by their apparent choice to completely ignore ANZ/Oceana/Asia, though.

That does seem a shame,

but since they're risking their own cash they may feel the approx. 1000 or less (5-700 to Australia which was the biggest supporter) or so sales they got from their previous projects was insufficient to justify the extra logistical spend?

The actual Australian deliveries previously seemed to go well enough, but the costs for getting stuff from there to NZ seemed to be sky high so may well have resulted in lots of people chasing refunds, and the shipping from china to the rest of Asia seems to have been as much of a mess as most KS projects that try to do it are (a shame as it should, in theory, be reletively simple even if it isn't fast

Dunno. We'll see what happens, I recall they allocated us something like 90 Books of Set for the Conan campaign which sold out pretty much instantly.

One thing I can say is that if they cut us out of this, I won't back anything of theirs again. Not that they'll give two gaks, apparently. It's not like they couldn't ship a couple of hundred out to Aetherworks.

This goes live today (i'll add a link when it does)




unboxing of the game

(now if you want tiles for a dungeon crawl this looks a good deal)

 Col Hammer wrote:
There are still plenty of projects in KS that wouldn't be produced via the normal way.

For example all of the big boardgames that would be too expensive to sell in shops, but got done because of KS. I don't think Kingdom Death would be a thing without KS money (for one example). Or Cthulhu Wars. Or Mythic Battles: Pantheon. Or 7th continent.

(or Exploding Kittens... )

getting the original funding for KD probably wouldn't have happened if not for Kickstarter, but now Monolith aren't even doing it to offload the risk; if they can't sell through distribution channels, they could sell direct. All KS is doing is providing marketing. If this is already manufactured at the point the KS campaign starts and delivery is weeks rather than months, I'm tempted - I was a big fan of Hell Dorado.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Why would Kickstarter protecting its customers (the backers) be a bad thing?

Ah, you've misunderstood Kickstarter, it seems. Kickstarter's customers are not the backers. Kickstarter's customers are the people funding projects. The backers are the service they're paying Kickstarter to provide.

As for why KS don't want to get too involved, that exposes them to liability. If they police one campaign, then they can become liable to police all campaigns, or become open to lawsuits alleging they treated one campaign differently to another (from backers if one campaign fails with no intervention, or from a project designer if their campaign is interfered with for unsound reasons). KS want to limit themselves to putting campaign creators in contact with backers, nothing more.

I think they said this will deliver in 2 months? Or something like that. But not a year (or more) like normal KS games.

My only issue with KS-only products is that it's the supplier forcing their schedule onto the consumer. I don't want to buy this game now, as I've got no money this month. I might want to buy it in February, but that's too late.

Yes, the plan is to have it out in January

Minis are not pre-painted?

Not for this new version, they're nicer but you'll have to do the painting yourself

My Conan minis painted up really, really nicely. Detail is good and deep enough to work with easily. I had no problems working with the material: mouldlines were easily dealt with, and I washed, primed and painted as normal.

I'm excited for this to launch so we can finally see high res photos of the actual minis.

The original Claustrophobia is a great game and my favorite dungeon crawler.

I'm also curious to see if the whole "BOOM This is everything you get in two months!" thing works. Much of the excitement around Kickstarters comes from the pageantry and the dopamine trigger of stretch goal reveals.

We now have a start time

#Claustrophobia1643 At 3pm EST (21:00 GMT+1) on Kickstarter.


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(and I want to see the postage costs)

Right!

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:

Yep shipping, and the current exchange rate , along with potential Brexit hilarity if it runs late for UK backers are all potential issues.

Will still be amazed if this actually ships out by April, Kickstarters are usually bait and switch ....

I'd agree with earlier comments that the greatest damage to what the original point of KS was has been done by the small guys who failed to deliver.

I mean what it's become is like some kind of Mr Burns Simpsons wet dream. A preorder system with payment up front and no real obligation to provide anything! Do it right and anyone who comes after you legally finds you aren't even personally liable as the creator... some creators continually pour out changed/bad / misleading value/late items yet still suck enough in time after time.

Production cost interview on Reddit (:
https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/9g0075/claustrophobia_the_cardboard_costs_more_than_the/