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Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts whereas the company who is doing the grunt work (Ninja Division/Soda Pop) just announced a 6 month delay in their previous very successful Relic Knights kickstarter. How did other tabletop gaming kickstarters that hit major success (somewhat arbitrarily defined in this thread as over $500k USD) do in terms of meeting their delivery deadlines? I know the first zombiecide came out but I don't recall if it was on time or whether the second season has been delivered yet. I believe Mantic hit 500k+ on some of their kickstarters.. did they make their delivery dates on time? The robotech kickstarter is scheduled for Dec 2013 and I'm trying to gauge the likelihood of that even remotely being the date I get it.

Nearly so.

Though I guess that would depend on whether or not their goal was $500K to start with.

Every stretch goal that gets added which features a new product adds to the time. Whether it is time to sculpt and design, time to tool, time to manufacture or time to pack and ship...it all adds up, and it can add up pretty fast.

When you go ahead and plan these things out - especially things which will require external contractors (printers, machinists, factory workers) - you give a WAG to the management of the contractor. They estimate how long it might take to complete the job, and hopefully everything falls into place.

However, if you tell your machinist you will need 20 molds tooled and then at the end of the campaign you need 50 molds - you might get your first 20 when you ask, and due to scheduling issues...they might not get your next 30 till a couple of months later as they work through their other customers jobs. These then go off to manufacturing, where you told them you would need 50,000 units...but you now need 500,000 units. They only have onsite storage for 100,000 units, so they have to stop after every 100,000 and ship those to you or warehouse them offsite (another contractor). Once everything is put together and stuffed in shipping containers - you find out that you missed out on your first choice shipping contractor...so you need to find another slow boat from China to get your load on - only that boat doesn't come to your nearest port...it goes to Baltimore (or San Diego...or some other inconvenient location). Now you need to arrange for an agent to deal with customs and find a rail or trucking company to ship your stuff across country.

Now you finally have your stuff, and initially you planned to throw a BBQ and get some friends and family to sort the orders. Instead, you end up having to rent a small warehouse and go down to the local temp service to hire some day labor types to sort through everything. Since you are doing 10 times as much work with people who are half drunk or otherwise ineffective it takes 3 times longer than you expected it too even though you have 50 people slinging boxes.

Now you have to figure out how to actually ship those boxes. The post office and UPS are not fans of you showing up with a U Haul truck worth of stuff to drop off at the counter, so you need to arrange for one of their bulk pick up services. They show up with the truck, pull load everything up, you sign over a shipping bill that would put someone through a trade school and it is done.

6 months behind schedule would actually be pretty good in the grand scheme of things. If they hit their target dead on, or if there is relatively little additional work (book being printed going from 150 pages to 160 pages for example), you might get it pretty close to the target - but in most cases, the target will be busted...unless of course the actual goal itself wasn't the real goal and it was just a teaser.

Sean pretty much nailed this.

I wouldnt say its the $500k mark that signifies it, but is rather the amount over their expectation that drives the delays.

Sean's number of moulds example is really great; most companies work their production plans on a quarterly, bi-annually, or annual basis. It wouldn't surprise me if, in the case of Relic Knights, that Soda Pop may in fact have their "planned" models far ahead of the total. However, were they to send them out as separate packages, they'd absolutely lose money on that unexpected cost.

I know Reaper Mini's Bones Kickstarter, the largest mini kickstarter so far I believe, started delivering in the promised month (March), but because they have 18,000 kickstarter orders, they're going to take a full two months just to actually send things out. Whether you count that as "on time" or "two months late" depends on your point of view, of course, but that's about as good as you can ever expect from kickstarters, and most are far further behind. (Note, as a backer of the Reaper kickstarter who's going to get their package near the end of the line, nearly two months after the expected delivery, I find this perfectly fine, and quite expected considering everything).

I think most of the kickstarter stuff underestimates their delivery dates by several months, whether just because of unforseen production problems (even a single model having a problem could delay orders, as two lots of postage and packing for backers just isn't feasible most of the time), or a lack of understanding just how much time it takes to fill the large orders and stretch goals these kickstarters sometimes generate, or an underestimation of popularity for the kickstarter (these things can be very hard to gauge), or a little bit of creative calculating (A kickstarter promising delivery in 6 months is probably going to be more popular than one delivering in over a year, so promising delivery earlier and then apologizing for delays later on is probably going to sell more product than just giving an accurate delivery date... not saying that's what anyone is doing, but I'm sure there's some pressure to underestimate delivery time/overestimate speed of production even if it is just honest optimism). Basically, if you want delivery within a timely manner, don't go for kickstarter, and if you do go with kickstarter, take the delivery dates with a grain of salt.

All that said, I would be wary about companies who are starting new kickstarters if they're already backed up on a previous kickstarter, and take their time estimates with a large grain of salt.

I think they all get delayed - regardless of how much money they take in.

I backed a good half-dozen last year - all are delayed.

In fact, oddly enough, the most recent one that I backed (Freebooter's Fate - on Indiegogo ) is the first one that's getting ready to ship. (starting Monday!) Even that is a month behind what was projected.

If the efficient Germans can't keep a timetable - what hope do the rest of them have?!?!

No, not all of them.

Mantic's Dreadball has been/ still is shipping exactly on time with nearly $800k raised.

They take their shipping dates very seriously, and will pull all-nighters and fill their office space with boxes and temp staff to meet deadlines if they have to.

They don't take the lazy "we'll get around to it at some point" approach that is unfortunately the default in the wargaming industry.

I backed a small film project last year; it completed on time. Reaper has already been mentioned - how you choose to count that is up to you. Steve Jackson's Ogre is way late, but they do an excellent job of keeping their backers up to date.

I don't mind delays, provided there is good communication.

 Maddermax wrote:
I know Reaper Mini's Bones Kickstarter, the largest mini kickstarter so far I believe, started delivering in the promised month (March), but because they have 18,000 kickstarter orders, they're going to take a full two months just to actually send things out. Whether you count that as "on time" or "two months late" depends on your point of view, of course,

I don't have mine! Grrrr!!!

(I'm in the middle of a Chaos Space Marines project, so if I don't get them until May, I really don't care. ) Also, they've at least been communicating on their website and facebook page, so I'm not worried. Also, also, I chose to have 6 add-ons, and they mentioned they were sending the simplest orders first. No biggie.

scarletsquig wrote:No, not all of them.

Mantic's Dreadball has been/ still is shipping exactly on time with nearly $800k raised.

They take their shipping dates very seriously, and will pull all-nighters and fill their office space with boxes and temp staff to meet deadlines if they have to.

They don't take the lazy "we'll get around to it at some point" approach that is unfortunately the default in the wargaming industry.

LOL, since game companies are largely staffed with gamers, I guess it's no surprise that the typical "I'll get around to painting my figs at some point" approach extends to making them. Nice to hear that mantic treats it as a business and not a hobby.

Janthkin wrote:I backed a small film project last year; it completed on time. Reaper has already been mentioned - how you choose to count that is up to you. Steve Jackson's Ogre is way late, but they do an excellent job of keeping their backers up to date.

I don't mind delays, provided there is good communication.

I forgot about Ogre and that is actually one of the first megasuccessful wargaming KS's that came out IIRC. (although it's total now pales next to CMONs zombie totals but it exceeds all expectations at the time it was originally offered). It's sad to hear that the trailblazer is delayed as well.

Maddermax wrote:I know Reaper Mini's Bones Kickstarter, the largest mini kickstarter so far I believe, started delivering in the promised month (March), but because they have 18,000 kickstarter orders, they're going to take a full two months just to actually send things out. Whether you count that as "on time" or "two months late" depends on your point of view, of course, but that's about as good as you can ever expect from kickstarters, and most are far further behind.

Nah, I'd be ok with that as they're obviously trying and at least some people are getting their stuff on time. As mentioned above, this would be a situation where good communication makes up almost completely for the delay. Once you start getting to the 6 month delays people are posting in the relic knights thread, that good communication just makes irate customers calm down to simply mad. It still helps but it isn't enough by itself.

Actually, almost none of the KS I have backed have been delayed.

The thing is a lot of these guys don't plan for scalable growth, and then their funding blows up and they are like 'oh, we can sculpt this new model and that new model, stretch, stretch!'

Going from 1000 boxes to 5000 is scalable. They are just using the planned 20 molds to run them long enough to produce everything. Running off more units is not usually a large delay.

Going from 20 molds to 50 molds, they end up in a horrible bottleneck with the caster because every mold needing to be machined is work, and depending on the company they may be unwilling or unable to machine out 50 molds all at once. Which means there is a linear process which pushes stuff back.

It is easy to sketch out concepts and add units, and design rules for the units. The backup really is getting the molds made for most of these (with the occasional shipping long boat ride issue)

One thing I like about specifically the Robotech KS is this little quote:

"To help ensure realistic deadlines, we have completed the vast majority of our development before launching the Kickstarter. Sculpts for the game pieces are almost entirely complete. The rulebook and game components are deep in development and will be ready for layout soon. Our manufacturers are also ready and have reserved factory time for the project. This means that as soon as the project is funded, we can lock down a timeline with our manufacturers to get the game produced."

nkelsch wrote:
Actually, almost none of the KS I have backed have been delayed.

Have they been the 500k+ ones I mentioned in the subject? I imagine like you said that simply meeting your intial goal a few times over wouldn't delay the project (assuming the initial estimate was realistic) but getting 10x-20x your goal with its associated extra stretch goals might.

 warboss wrote:
Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts

It helps to know the company behind the Kickstarter - Palladium for example, is a chronically mismanaged pen and paper RPG company whose owner's mouth tends to get ahead of everything else. For example, they had one popular setting that they started taking pre-orders for the next book back in 1998, and it's still not out yet (IIRC - it's been more than a decade since I've played their games). Even without that, in short, Palladium has never been a company able to make deadlines.

 warboss wrote:

nkelsch wrote:
Actually, almost none of the KS I have backed have been delayed.

Have they been the 500k+ ones I mentioned in the subject? I imagine like you said that simply meeting your intial goal a few times over wouldn't delay the project (assuming the initial estimate was realistic) but getting 10x-20x your goal with its associated extra stretch goals might.

Yeah, Dreadball was over 500K. Other ones over 500k were not miniature-based ones, but other Mini-based ones all seem to be on track or were on time.

I am just super particular about who I back. When I see something too good to be true and they don't have a track record, it becomes risky.

 judgedoug wrote:
One thing I like about specifically the Robotech KS is this little quote:

"To help ensure realistic deadlines, we have completed the vast majority of our development before launching the Kickstarter. Sculpts for the game pieces are almost entirely complete. The rulebook and game components are deep in development and will be ready for layout soon. Our manufacturers are also ready and have reserved factory time for the project. This means that as soon as the project is funded, we can lock down a timeline with our manufacturers to get the game produced."

Since the Head of soda pop is also working with ninja division, I'm sure they learned from the relic knights mistake.

 cincydooley wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:
One thing I like about specifically the Robotech KS is this little quote:

"To help ensure realistic deadlines, we have completed the vast majority of our development before launching the Kickstarter. Sculpts for the game pieces are almost entirely complete. The rulebook and game components are deep in development and will be ready for layout soon. Our manufacturers are also ready and have reserved factory time for the project. This means that as soon as the project is funded, we can lock down a timeline with our manufacturers to get the game produced."

Since the Head of soda pop is also working with ninja division, I'm sure they learned from the relic knights mistake.

And since Palladium is working on it as well and they offered ZERO stretch benefits in their three homemade amateur crowdfunding efforts, I'd suspect they're a moderating influence advocating against overly generous stretch goals as well. I don't think that overly generous goals will be an issue in the Robotech kickstarter but rather issues out of their control like getting bumped at the factory for a bigger client.

The two of my backed projects that have done best are

Reaper Bones:

Paint that should have gone out in September Delayed till March,

Shipping of the bulk of the project started on time in March but may to finish till May

Mantic Dreadball (the Kings of War pattern is the same)

Shipment 1 on time

Shipment 2 on time (a few minis slipped to shipment 3)

Shipment 3 we're told all is going ok for this

so not perfect in either case, but better than any of the small companies

So it's not down to scale, so much as a combination of good planning, hard work and crucially I suspect, good luck

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts

It helps to know the company behind the Kickstarter - Palladium for example, is a chronically mismanaged pen and paper RPG company whose owner's mouth tends to get ahead of everything else. For example, they had one popular setting that they started taking pre-orders for the next book back in 1998, and it's still not out yet (IIRC - it's been more than a decade since I've played their games). Even without that, in short, Palladium has never been a company able to make deadlines.

That's great, but Palladium is not involved at all in the KS. Hell, in the interviews, Kevin Siembieda admitted to having played the game like once and barely even knowing what is going on with it. Palladium are the license holders, and the publishers. It appears quite literally everything else is being handled by Soda Pop / Ninja Division, which is just fine with me.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts

It helps to know the company behind the Kickstarter - Palladium for example, is a chronically mismanaged pen and paper RPG company whose owner's mouth tends to get ahead of everything else. For example, they had one popular setting that they started taking pre-orders for the next book back in 1998, and it's still not out yet (IIRC - it's been more than a decade since I've played their games). Even without that, in short, Palladium has never been a company able to make deadlines.

That's great, but Palladium is not involved at all in the KS. Hell, in the interviews, Kevin Siembieda admitted to having played the game like once and barely even knowing what is going on with it. Palladium are the license holders, and the publishers. It appears quite literally everything else is being handled by Soda Pop / Ninja Division, which is just fine with me.

Actually, in the MTV interview they flat out stated that they have final approval over everything. Ninja does the heavy lifting but palladium decrees from on high.

 judgedoug wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts

It helps to know the company behind the Kickstarter - Palladium for example, is a chronically mismanaged pen and paper RPG company whose owner's mouth tends to get ahead of everything else. For example, they had one popular setting that they started taking pre-orders for the next book back in 1998, and it's still not out yet (IIRC - it's been more than a decade since I've played their games). Even without that, in short, Palladium has never been a company able to make deadlines.

That's great, but Palladium is not involved at all in the KS. Hell, in the interviews, Kevin Siembieda admitted to having played the game like once and barely even knowing what is going on with it. Palladium are the license holders, and the publishers. It appears quite literally everything else is being handled by Soda Pop / Ninja Division, which is just fine with me.

Except one important thing, the money. The money is passing through Palladium and being distributed by Kevin Siembieda. How fast and how appropriately is all dependent upon him.

And that is why I'm not participating in this KS.

As much as I've been a part of the palladium issues discussion, I'd rather not derail the thread completely from the original intent of discussing 500k+ kickstarters and the likelihood of delays.

 warboss wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts

It helps to know the company behind the Kickstarter - Palladium for example, is a chronically mismanaged pen and paper RPG company whose owner's mouth tends to get ahead of everything else. For example, they had one popular setting that they started taking pre-orders for the next book back in 1998, and it's still not out yet (IIRC - it's been more than a decade since I've played their games). Even without that, in short, Palladium has never been a company able to make deadlines.

That's great, but Palladium is not involved at all in the KS. Hell, in the interviews, Kevin Siembieda admitted to having played the game like once and barely even knowing what is going on with it. Palladium are the license holders, and the publishers. It appears quite literally everything else is being handled by Soda Pop / Ninja Division, which is just fine with me.

Actually, in the MTV interview they flat out stated that they have final approval over everything. Ninja does the heavy lifting but palladium decrees from on high.

Of course, they hold the license and are the publisher.

 warboss wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 warboss wrote:
Just checking in advance as I'm pledging for my first kickstarter (Robotech). The company coordinating the kickstarter (Palladium) is over 7 months late on their previous amateur crowdfunding attempts

It helps to know the company behind the Kickstarter - Palladium for example, is a chronically mismanaged pen and paper RPG company whose owner's mouth tends to get ahead of everything else. For example, they had one popular setting that they started taking pre-orders for the next book back in 1998, and it's still not out yet (IIRC - it's been more than a decade since I've played their games). Even without that, in short, Palladium has never been a company able to make deadlines.

That's great, but Palladium is not involved at all in the KS. Hell, in the interviews, Kevin Siembieda admitted to having played the game like once and barely even knowing what is going on with it. Palladium are the license holders, and the publishers. It appears quite literally everything else is being handled by Soda Pop / Ninja Division, which is just fine with me.

Actually, in the MTV interview they flat out stated that they have final approval over everything.

Combining "Kevin Siembieda" and "final approval over everything" is the kind of thing that fills me with dread.

Zombicide 1 was on time, wasn't it?

Anyway, hopefully people are learning from their own and others mistakes but... there seems to be little actual real incentive to do so, as there currently isn't anything in place that penalizes anyone for anything.

I think the other thing working against very successful campaigns- they have to pick a delivery date when they set up the reward levels, but just like anything else, demand can outstrip supply!

If they have a goal of 100 boxes, that they can deliver in 2 months' time, and end up selling 5000 boxes, of course the delivery time slips.

So, it's a bit of a catch-22 here...

I guess the key would be to revise delivery dates during the KS if the success really ends up catching them by surprise... but of course that might cost them sales so there is little chance most companies would do the right thing.

Well, they could revise delivery dates in the text area, but they can't adjust the reward levels once they're there (and they list a month for expected delivery).

Even companies that break things up into waves for later delivery of stretch goals, like Dreamforge, often are late... it just seems to be the nature of the beast, with a few notable exceptions like Mantic.

Yeah, I commented about wave shipping ala Mantic in the robotech thread. I'd be ok with that if it prevented a 2 month or greater delay on the whole package. I'd obviously prefer to still have them ship twice at no added cost but I do think giving fans the option of paying nothing extra but waiting till everything is ready to ship or paying $5-10 extra and shipping in two waves is an acceptable alternative.

I've backed 23 projects on Kickstarter.

Zombicide, Season 1, first wave, I received a month earlier than promised. Still waiting on second wave, but it was projected for Q2 and were still in Q2, expected to be on time,

DreadBall, Season 1, received the month it was promised. Still waiting on second wave, but it was projected for Q2 and were still in Q2, expected to be on time.

Outlive Outdead, received as promised.

Parsec RPG, received as promised.

EVERY other successful KS was delayed. Usually the delay has related to vastly exceeding the original goal and the stretch goals requiring extra time.

Interesting.. thanks for the recap. 2-4 projects on time out of 23 doesn't sound like a very optimistic ratio then.