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2014/04/09 09:35:32
Subject: Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign (funded)
Hi,
Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day already produced two seasons of the Tabletop show, presenting and discussing board games:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9QtdiRJYro&feature=share&list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C Now they want to finance a 3rd season and try to collect 500k $ for 15 episodes. Good news is that after less than 5 days, the goal is almost reached, with 32 days to go. Other stretch goals are more episodes (750k $) and even an RPG show (1 Mio$)
H.B.M.C. wrote: Why does he need to crowd fund this... wait...
*watches video*
... ok, slight change of question:
Why are they doing this at all?
I mean, if it's been success, why go independent. Is Geek & Sundry leaving YouTube?
They haven't explained it all, but my understanding is the first two series appeared due to youtube funding for these new channels, Felicia was one of the people sponsored by youtube (I think the guild success got her to the top of the list) itself, but I think that sponsorship is now moved on to new channels again and so their funding is cut by a significant margin. I think they had other outside sponsorship funding for season 2 as well, and perhaps that is difficult to get this time. He was getting 1 million plus views on the episodes of the first series, but I confess I haven't really followed the second one so closely, I do know the X-Wing episode got some large numbers, but a lot of the games this time around were a bit too bland for my tastes.
2014/04/09 11:51:38
Subject: Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
Board games have been becoming more popular and more available, much like Tabletop's partnership with Target. I do know that more and more people are playing board games outside of your basic Monopoly and Life. We see Kings of Tokyo and Settlers of Catan pretty much everywhere these days.
3000
4000 Deamons - Mainly a fantasy army now.
Tomb Kings-2500 Escalation League for 2012
href="http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/311987.page ">Painting and Modeling Blog
2014/04/09 17:33:02
Subject: Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
I don't understand how this show, let alone Geek&Sundry make much money at all. I guess this stuff is popular? :s
This is one of those days of your life that you'll look back on and think... Today I learned something new about how the world really is.
Our little plastic and little mans are not really all that popular - no matter how much we love them.
I said that to myself when I looked at their site "How is this stuff popular? I don't get this world anymore" I mean 2 broke geeks? word play etc how is any of this popular?
It would be interesting to see how many wargamers are out there. I thought there'd be at least a million of us?
grefven wrote: TableTop is pretty damn awesome. I am watching every episode of it! It's brilliant, to be honest. They deserve every penny in my opinion.
The more Board Games you play the less awsome Table Top becomes. The games that they show aren't really whats considered the best in the industry, rather it's what they get payed to play and they fairly often get rules wrong.
2014/04/09 18:46:52
Subject: Re:Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
Kroothawk wrote: 1 million gamers, who watch a youtube video for free, don't pay the $500k bills. So I don't see what the question is.
I meant 1 million wargamers.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
grefven wrote: TableTop is pretty damn awesome. I am watching every episode of it! It's brilliant, to be honest. They deserve every penny in my opinion.
What makes it brilliant though?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/09 18:47:36
What the show excels at is showing that the games are fun. I know that this seems somewhat obvious, but there are a lot of people who are leery of games that have "more than a page of rules" (no really, I've heard this exact statement). However, you can show these people an episode of the game being played by people and they'll readily go "oh yeah, that's actually really simple and looks like a lot of fun" and then you can actually get them to play. It is, to steal one of Wil's idioms, an infection vector to get people to see board games as more than just Sorry, Monopoly, Risk and Candyland.
Is it geared at hardcore board gamers? No, because the show is more intent on having fun than on making sure every single rule is followed to the letter (and, if we're being honest, many good games have some incredibly stupid/awkward rules included). It's designed to be accessible and it conveys the broad strokes of how a game plays in the general amount of time viewers will consider "a show." From what Tabletop shows, you can make a pretty solid decision about whether a game is for you or not, which then will get you to go out and buy the ones that are for you and your friends.
As a couple personal anecdotes, a long-time online friend went to one their friend's house to play a game (Forbidden Island as I recall). They loved it, and borrowed that friend's copy to play at home. Tabletop is how that friend knew about the game, and it prompted them to start looking into other similar games because my friend's wife disliked board games because the idea of a "co-op" game was not something she was aware existed (and in fairness, is a somewhat new genre in the scale currently available).
The other was X-Wing, which I had not bought into it prior to seeing it on Tabletop because I was leery of pre-paints and the mechanics. Watching it on the show made it clear that my initial impressions were incorrect, and soon I had a rather insane bunch of fleets around the house. I also sent some stuff to a buddy of mine to play with his kids as he's a huge Star Wars nerd and his kids are as well. They had fun with it, and now their family is looking into starting a board game night together which, as his kids grow older, will likely be a huge bond to survive the teenage years.
Are there shows for the more hardcore audience? Sure, but they don't really do a great job of being ambassadors to the people who would really like gaming but are too cautious with their time and money to give it a shot. Tabletop, in my opinion, succeeds greatly in that role and it does so to the benefit of all those who enjoy gaming as a hobby. More people playing games = more games to play.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/09 19:12:01
2014/04/09 19:23:26
Subject: Re:Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
Well said - I agree with everything - have an exalt!
My local shop owner says that games featured on Tabletop sell out right away and are in high demand for months afterwards. The show often draws in fans from a lot of different geek cultures who tune in to see a favorite actor/actress because they mentioned their appearance on the show on twitter/facebook - a lot of those people are not board gamers - and it's like opening a new world to them.
The owner says one of the most common reactions is people come in and say - "I'm looking for game x because I saw *celebrity* playing it on Tabletop." Then when they see the board game shelf it's always "I had no idea..."
I think that's awesome.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/09 19:24:21
2014/04/09 19:27:43
Subject: Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I do agree some of the videos are good but to me it depends on who is playing. So in my mind anyone could make these videos as long as they have a professional production behind it. So why aren't more doing it?
Do you watch the other vlogers? I really don't understand how they're popular but from what you have said you seem to fit their demographic.
A Kickstarter campaign usually garners more attention, and more pledging, than an IndieGoGo version - I wonder how much they would have made there?
Though this might be one of those instances where the difference was negligible, given that the subject matter here, and word of mouth, has a greater and broader appeal vs. a miniature wargaming campaign.
2014/04/09 20:42:57
Subject: Re:Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I do agree some of the videos are good but to me it depends on who is playing. So in my mind anyone could make these videos as long as they have a professional production behind it. So why aren't more doing it?
Do you watch the other vlogers? I really don't understand how they're popular but from what you have said you seem to fit their demographic.
I've watched shows by other people, and I personally love shows like Dice Tower and Shut Up and Sit Down and the stuff by sites like Beasts of War and MiniWargaming. However, as amusing/interesting as *I* find those shows I could never convince my friends who aren't gamers to watch one. They're not particularly accessible because they're done by hobbyists, for hobbyists. I might find DreadBall Academy from BoW great fun to watch, but I know my friends would be bored to tears. That's a shame because honestly more than a few of them would love the game if they tried it, but the impression they get from that first glance scares them as does the hour-long run time of that particular video.
Where Wil's style succeeds is he isn't aiming at hobbyists, he's aiming at those who COULD be hobbyists. He's the starter set of the tabletop gaming hobby, if you will. He focuses more on the simple joy of gaming than the technical merits of a particular game mechanic vis a vis some other game. That latter discussion is certainly interesting and furthers the hobby as well, but the average person doesn't really care about such minutiae. This does not mean that they wouldn't play a neat game, but they want to be sold on the "fun" rather than "innovative mechanic X" or "impressive production value Y" in the game.
That the various celebrities draw in disparate fanbases doesn't hurt, but that goes back to the idea that the show is about bringing in more people rather than trying to shift the population about. Really, if you get a randomly selected non-gamer to try one or two "unusual" games, you'll quickly get them willing to try more and more. From there, you now have someone else to share your joy with, and that's almost always a good thing.
Tabletop really makes it easy for me, who likes the technical aspects as well, to judge what games I can use to hook which friends. In a sense, I use it to know which forms of gaming crack I can use to hook someone else, because in the end I get to play more games that way.
2014/04/09 22:19:48
Subject: Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
Catyrpelius wrote: The more Board Games you play the less awsome Table Top becomes.
Can't agree with you here. I play a ton of tabletop games; I still greatly enjoy the show. I've used it to introduce non-gamers to specific games, to show gamer friends how to play certain games, and to select new games for myself. It helps that they are usually very funny, too.
The games that they show aren't really whats considered the best in the industry,
As they've explained in a few formats, the primary selection criteria has to be "what makes a good show," rather than "what is the best possible game." They are also looking for games where skill & luck are both factors, because a game with an outcome that is obvious after the first five minutes makes for a bad show.
rather it's what they get payed to play
This part is inaccurate. They aren't paid by any of the game manufacturers, and one of the reasons they are crowdfunding season 3 is that they wish to keep it that way.
and they fairly often get rules wrong.
Don't we all? There have been a couple of episodes with dramatically incorrect rules, a few with some minor slips, and the vast majority, where the game is played correctly.
My only complaint about the campaign is that the $1000 "all the games" tier sold out so quickly.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/04/09 22:20:51
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
2014/04/09 22:27:05
Subject: Tabletop Show Season 3 Indiegogo campaign
3000
4000 Deamons - Mainly a fantasy army now.
