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 ironicsilence wrote:
so basically KS 1 returned a 54k profit that they used to reinvest in the business?

Which included $2.1m worth of new figure tooling paid for. Kickstarter's not "supposed" to be about raw profit. It's about things like that crowdfunded investment into new tooling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ironicsilence wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Oh I agree. The profit margin was ridiculously tiny on this. The gains are all long term, not something they could show as revenue last year. I'm shocked by the nearly half a million they spent to ship to less than 20k people.

im guessing that likely also including charges to move materials around the world, maybe even the cost to get new machines delivered? Reaper makes all there stuff outside of the country right? So they would have had to pay to get the stuff sent to the warehouse?

Yeah, "freight" would also include moving all the product from China to Texas.

UK Bones stockists are

as above SNM stuff - great to deal with, usually get all my vallejo paints from them

Miniature heroes http://miniature-heroes.co.uk/ -good mail order place with lots of bones available

Spirit Games http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/ -more of a B+M shop than an internet operation and the website looks like it, having said that, this is where I bought my one and only bones model from last week to see what its actually like (Frost Giant , £6 and a bit) , my brother went into the shop to buy it for me, they are still waiting on stocks for some of it but it does end up on the website and they are great people.

Glenmorray wrote:
I dont think the miniatures look very nice at all. That obviously must just be me then as they're doing so well.

Yeah, they really suck.

 Azazelx wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
so basically KS 1 returned a 54k profit that they used to reinvest in the business?

Which included $2.1m worth of new figure tooling paid for. Kickstarter's not "supposed" to be about raw profit. It's about things like that crowdfunded investment into new tooling.

Yeah, this is the big deal. They got 2.1m in investment capital for $0 financing costs. That's huge in business. Without kickstarter, that would all have been a loan which would have had financing, etc.

So, as backers, we basically helped them increase the size of their business dramatically in exchange for a bunch of cheap minis. That is win-win for everyone. It also pushes against the claim that people like Reaper shouldn't kickstart. No, they are a small business that is growing because they use this medium. I imagine that creating this kind of increase of capacity would not be possible through traditional means.

I'm shocked by how drastic the rate of new backers dropped off. I expected them to be at 10k by now. It's still a success and I'm sure there'll be another 10k joining by the time this is over, but it'll be a MUCH slower climb.

 pretre wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
so basically KS 1 returned a 54k profit that they used to reinvest in the business?

Which included $2.1m worth of new figure tooling paid for. Kickstarter's not "supposed" to be about raw profit. It's about things like that crowdfunded investment into new tooling.

Yeah, this is the big deal. They got 2.1m in investment capital for $0 financing costs. That's huge in business. Without kickstarter, that would all have been a loan which would have had financing, etc.

So, as backers, we basically helped them increase the size of their business dramatically in exchange for a bunch of cheap minis. That is win-win for everyone. It also pushes against the claim that people like Reaper shouldn't kickstart. No, they are a small business that is growing because they use this medium. I imagine that creating this kind of increase of capacity would not be possible through traditional means.

Its a shame more companies dont release similar KS data, its neat to see a company use the money for what it should be used and not run the kickstarter as a vehicle for preorders

 bbb wrote:
I'm shocked by how drastic the rate of new backers dropped off. I expected them to be at 10k by now. It's still a success and I'm sure there'll be another 10k joining by the time this is over, but it'll be a MUCH slower climb.

The population of people crazy enough to do this is only so big. We get a huge spike when it launches, then a slow climb to the end and then a frenzy of backers in the last 24-48.

 ironicsilence wrote:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Oh I agree. The profit margin was ridiculously tiny on this. The gains are all long term, not something they could show as revenue last year. I'm shocked by the nearly half a million they spent to ship to less than 20k people.

im guessing that likely also including charges to move materials around the world, maybe even the cost to get new machines delivered? Reaper makes all there stuff outside of the country right? So they would have had to pay to get the stuff sent to the warehouse?

All metal is done in house. They have a single machine in house, which as far as I know has not been put to use for production yet as they are still in the learning process of figuring out the ins and outs of operating plastic manufacturing. Long term goals are to move production (most, all...) to Texas - but as they mentioned in their notes on the bottom, that one machine would need to run 24/7 for almost 2 years in order to complete the production on KS1.

fun stuff coming up

The Egyptian stuff is starting to draw me- also the lion and lioness. More zombies are also useful, but I'll have to think about whether or not to up my pledge. The dragon turtle still turns me off from that whole level- I don't think I'd even want to open it in a box.

Glenmorray wrote:
I dont think the miniatures look very nice at all. That obviously must just be me then as they're doing so well.

It depends - do you mean in terms of sculpt quality or material quality? The material's crispness is comparable to metal, it just photographs terribly. Also far too flexible and subject to a lot of bending in transit (that has to be fixed by boiling). A good comparison: http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/47477-bathalian-bones-vs-metal-challenge/

The sculpts really are just a mixed bag - a huge number of sculptors across several genres over a great many years! I do quite like the variety, but even I'd say there were a few duds in wave 1. They are also mostly single-piece (apart from some of the larger ones, which still have a relatively small number of pieces), which limits the sculpting possibilities somewhat. As someone who hates messing around with superglue, pins, puttying cracks etc. I rather welcome it!

Part of the S&H issue for international backers is just the difference between "actual shipping" (as in a personally addressed box, weighed and sized individually) or "however much a flat rate box of that size costs".

I've had a package half the size of a shoebox sent to me from the US for $6, which contained a couple dozen figures.

A flat rate *medium* box from the US to Canada is $40.

Add in the possibility of getting further dinged at the boarder, and I don't think it's unreasonable for S&H to be a consideration.

I'm glad to hear a calculator is coming, that should alleviate at least some of the concerns.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
The Egyptian stuff is starting to draw me- also the lion and lioness.

With the new Of Gods and Mortals rule set coming out, those Egyptians could prove very useful.

 pretre wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
so basically KS 1 returned a 54k profit that they used to reinvest in the business?

Which included $2.1m worth of new figure tooling paid for. Kickstarter's not "supposed" to be about raw profit. It's about things like that crowdfunded investment into new tooling.

Yeah, this is the big deal. They got 2.1m in investment capital for $0 financing costs. That's huge in business. Without kickstarter, that would all have been a loan which would have had financing, etc.

So, as backers, we basically helped them increase the size of their business dramatically in exchange for a bunch of cheap minis. That is win-win for everyone. It also pushes against the claim that people like Reaper shouldn't kickstart. No, they are a small business that is growing because they use this medium. I imagine that creating this kind of increase of capacity would not be possible through traditional means.

I agree fully. Bones was/is exactly the kind of thing KS should be used for (in contrast to the glorified preorder system that KS has largely become). We didn't just buy a discounted product that was going to be released in any case, we funded a major expansion of manufacturing capacity.

 Azazelx wrote:

Glenmorray wrote:
I dont think the miniatures look very nice at all. That obviously must just be me then as they're doing so well.

Yeah, they really suck.

That's a bit melodramatic, Azazel . People are allowed to not like the figures! I looked at the Bugbear from KS1 in Bones material in a blister in the store... then went and ordered 2 metal ones online. It's not for everybody, but I agree that the purple wurm in particular that you posted a pic of is a good fit for it, as well as some other large / organic figures.

 bbb wrote:
fun stuff coming up

Spoiler:

And don't forget about Cinder coming too:



Another one of their big metal dragons making the switch to Bones. It looks like they are definitely looking to swap all of those over by the time this is done with.

Yowza...projecting from core expansion #1 to Cinder, looks like it will be almost $400,000 between free goals ($1M to slightly less than $1.4M).

Yeah.. the distance is getting pretty crazy.

See, I want that Dragon Turtle, but I don't want most of the other stuff in that random assortment. Especially that stone giant or whatever that skinny dude is.
The Nefsokar avatar or whatever is cool. Wanted to get one of those for a while.

Stretch goals seem like they are going to SLLLLOOOOOWWWW down at this point.

Not too worried yet. Most the pledges are still at only $115 - base line package and one option. The last campaign the average pledge was $194 - so even with just that figure and no additional backers it would add in another $752,317 - enough to cover two more freebie stretch goals and probably 3 or 4 more option stretch goals.

I mean, it is already crazy town numbers and we are just barely over 24 hours into the campaign.

Also, it still hasn't been picked up by the regular geek news sites other than Bleeding Cool. Their are 3 significant news stories which are on the way, and those should help to elevate the profile of the campaign significantly as well.

Hopefully the current trend doesn't continue:

Free & pay option
pay option
pay option
pay option
???
???

There should be more stuff for core.
I'll be keeping my 100 tier, but if the quantities don't improve, I'll probably drop & get some of them from shops next year.

---

On Bones 1 and Europe: Does anyone know a good online store that carries all / most of the Reapers bones line?
I'm interested in Giants and other big guys, but can't find an Euro-shop that carries them. :(

uhhh...

I'm pledging because it's a good deal, sure. But I'm also pledging because I'd like Reaper to continue to expand their infrastructure in the USA and purchase more machines and hire more US workers. Especially after that Thank You video from the first Kickstarter.

 adhuin wrote:
Hopefully the current trend doesn't continue:

Free & pay option
pay option
pay option
pay option
???
???

There should be more stuff for core.
I'll be keeping my 100 tier, but if the quantities don't improve, I'll probably drop & get some of them from shops next year.

---

On Bones 1 and Europe: Does anyone know a good online store that carries all / most of the Reapers bones line?
I'm interested in Giants and other big guys, but can't find an Euro-shop that carries them. :(

It's actually Free/Paid, Paid, Half-free, Paid...

The Option Expansion is just as important for some people as the regular base package. I know a few people who are skipping the regular $100 package and picking up the $50 instead and adding options on that. Those people would feel left out if the $50 option isn't fleshed out a bit more.

The other option of stuffing the Expansion option into the regular base line would mean more stuff in that package of course, but it would also mean that we would probably be looking at straight $250K stretch goals right now. Instead, they broke things up a bit in order to make each step a little smaller and shift funds around a bit in terms of the overall backing and pledges.

I'm not really worried, its only day 2. I'd assume that the core set will in the end shake out to be similar to the vampire in total models. I'm fine with more paid options. I think Reaper set the bar high with the first KS and have no doubt they will try to match or exceed it in total awesomeness

Also on shipping for ROW, not sure if this was posted anywhere but from reaper:
"Until we get our actual calculator online, here's a little chart we generated from the USPS rate calculator (http://ircalc.usps.com). 5 kg, $300 value:
Poland $80
Australia $80
UK $72
Germany $60
Canada $50

Finally, as a frame of reference the vampire box last year came in at 1.8kg and a single Kaladrax was 1.2kg."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another interesting note from reaper on ROW shipping in regards to KS1 totals
"For a little more clarification, CA/ROW -- about 25% of the backers -- cost about 70% of the shipping number."

70% of the shipping from a quarter of the backers?! That's insane! No wonder they're putting the cost of shipping on the international backers.

Since things have slowed down, in the next day or two I would imagine that the dollar amount will grow faster than the new backer numbers due to people deciding what options to add on.

Even at 100K stretch goals, assuming this at least equals the previous one, there will still be 20+ to be unlocked at least.

It will still have the mad spike at the end and the more media that picks up on it the more the number will rise too.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
70% of the shipping from a quarter of the backers?! That's insane! No wonder they're putting the cost of shipping on the international backers.

Hey, dont blame us for your crappy postal service

I certainly hope that they investigate non-USPS shipping options. Particularly with discounts for shipping huge amounts, it should be possible to ship for much less than the general shipping cost calculator on the USPS website.

 ironicsilence wrote:
"For a little more clarification, CA/ROW -- about 25% of the backers -- cost about 70% of the shipping number."

I feel this is little misleading. US shipping was free last time too, while ROW backers paid $25. So we contributed a lot more into the shipping pot, too.

I'm also wondering how much they ended up spending to try to generate a solution for the Canadian shipping. Seems like they were misled, and had to put a lot more into getting everything sorted, which will have cost money. They also have that all sorted out already this time.

I think the most interesting thing is that 25% of the backers were ROW.