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Kickstarters create a weird herd mindset with people I've noticed. It's not okay for a Kickstarter to be a huge success and not to be a part of it, so if its not personally appealing people need to see it as a failure to justify not jumping in. Personally I find this kind of disappointing and I'm not particularly interested in it, but its certainly not a failure. I think a lot of people are really asking if it will be a successfully miniatures game with an active playerbase, but ultimately funding level hasn't been a very good indication of that regardless.

RoninXiC wrote:
just stop calling more than 1 million dollars a failure please.

Really?
$5M on Green Horde.
$4M on Rising Sun
$3.5M of Massive Darkness

World of Smog was $1.1M, and that's a completely unknown property compared to A Game of Thrones.

Relative to CMoN's track record, and what might otherwise expect, this is a clear and glaring failure.

It's like DC fanboys arguing that Batman vs Superman making $850M globally was a "success" when it was clearly budgeted and marketed to make Avengers money.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

RoninXiC wrote:
just stop calling more than 1 million dollars a failure please.

Really?
$5M on Green Horde.
$4M on Rising Sun
$3.5M of Massive Darkness

World of Smog was $1.1M, and that's a completely unknown property compared to A Game of Thrones.

Relative to CMoN's track record, and what might otherwise expect, this is a clear and glaring failure.

It's like DC fanboys arguing that Batman vs Superman making $850M globally was a "success" when it was clearly budgeted and marketed to make Avengers money.

Except those are all board games, not wargames. The only thing they have in common is they were by CMoN and have miniatures. A board game will always sell better than a wargame just based on the fact that there are tons more board gamers out there than wargamers.

A better comparison would be to CMoN's other wargame they did, Wrath of Kings, which finished at around $720K. And like was said earlier, this is already the second highest amount for a miniatures wargame ever on Kickstarter, and this amount probably wouldn't even crack the top 50 for board games

That just means that CMoN F'd up by not making a GoT miniatures board game.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That just means that CMoN F'd up by not making a GoT miniatures board game.

FFG have the Song of Ice and Fire board game licence, Dark Sword have the miniature licence which they have shared with CMON to make this game.

I think a skirmish game would have done significantly better than a unit based wargame but less true to the source material.

I wasn't aware of the FFG game. It looks great, aside from the total lack of miniatures! Throw a couple hundred bases of multi-based 5-8mm miniatures on the map, and it's a winner.

But if it can't be like that, it could certainly have been done like CMoN's Dogs of War. Or a revamp of Diplomacy / Machiavelli.

If CMON had the wisdom of the crowds to tell them nobody plays miniature wargames they wouldn't have bothered. It's beyond all debate that they assumed this game would be far larger than it is. Why this is so hard to accept as an objective fact, who knows? Why are people willing to buy minis from Kickstarters with no rules more than they are this game? Can't figure out to do with the rulebook and it frightens them, probably.

For my part I don't view this KS as a failure, but it's probably 3 to 5 million dollars lighter than CMON was expecting. And given that top miniature games like 40K, X-Wing, and Armada individually make more money than CMON does with everything it sells, I don't think their expectations were unreasonable.

Aeneades wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
That just means that CMoN F'd up by not making a GoT miniatures board game.

FFG have the Song of Ice and Fire board game licence, Dark Sword have the miniature licence which they have shared with CMON to make this game.

I think a skirmish game would have done significantly better than a unit based wargame but less true to the source material.

Well if they're so smart why don't they build a time machine, get the board game license, and then not have this UTTER FAILURE of a project! What a bunch of clowns!

The game was going to be limited by not having the show likenesses (or being called Game of Thrones), so this is more targeting the book readers who ALSO want a rank and file wargame, which seem to be less favored than skirmish ones anyways. Niche within a niche within a niche. They seem to have done OK all things considered.

I expected more but as others have stated, it's a wargame not a boardgame. And afaik, the top wargame funded on KS was Robotech for 1.4 mill? And that was during they heyday of KS

If they had raised 3 to 4 million, they would have definitely killed this game for retail. They already did that with Wrath of Kings.

Sining wrote:
I expected more but as others have stated, it's a wargame not a boardgame. And afaik, the top wargame funded on KS was Robotech for 1.4 mill? And that was during they heyday of KS

A total which this will beat comfortably. It is at 1.35 million now and has been adding more than 5,000 an hour for the last couple of days. It will probably reach about 1.5 million in the end which is a very healthy number, just not the Smash hit coolminiornot hoped for.

Sythica wrote:
If they had raised 3 to 4 million, they would have definitely killed this game for retail. They already did that with Wrath of Kings.

Wrath of Kings only raised 700k though.

Exactly. It doesn't take much to kill a minis game for retail. 5 fully playable factions already delivered before retail? Finished.

frankelee wrote:
If CMON had the wisdom of the crowds to tell them nobody plays miniature wargames they wouldn't have bothered. It's beyond all debate that they assumed this game would be far larger than it is. Why this is so hard to accept as an objective fact, who knows? Why are people willing to buy minis from Kickstarters with no rules more than they are this game? Can't figure out to do with the rulebook and it frightens them, probably.

For my part I don't view this KS as a failure, but it's probably 3 to 5 million dollars lighter than CMON was expecting. And given that top miniature games like 40K, X-Wing, and Armada individually make more money than CMON does with everything it sells, I don't think their expectations were unreasonable.

Having backed numerous Kickstarters I can say that the Kickstarter crowd is in it to get some value for their money but dont get the instant gratification. When I backed Raging Heroes Toughest Girls in the Galaxy 2, I did so to get a Sisters of Battle Army. Raging Heroes has absolutely no rules for their models. Given the track record for TGG1 which I also backed and was somewhere close to 2 years behind their estimated schedule I knew going in that TGG2 was going to be way past their release schedule. When GW did a partial release of their 30k sisters during the ever failing claim at trying to revive their failing 40k from the disaster of 6th and lingering 7th edition they did what everyone expected and released sister models that were very blah. So even though I spent a small mint for TGG2 sisters and waited for Raging Heroes to fall massively behind schedule at the end of the day I got a very nice sisters army which GW just doesn't offer and they made the models sexy without going overboard, which GW just has never been able to do with most of it's female models. The mega downside is the fact that Raging Heroes used resin which is the biggest pain to work with in the world. Aside from that they still beat GW to the punch and did it better then GW ever could.

CMON offers everything up front and gives a lot of models and limited edition kickstarter exclusives that drive their product up and people order them up in bulk to resale. GW marks all their stuff up to rediculous levels and puts out more publications then models. I thought 8th was going to be the time for change but looks like they are reverting back to their rules on top of rules with publishing more codexes in less then a year then most book companies at college text book prices. $50 for a book from which about 5-10 pages are actually useful for gaming is rediculous. GW owns the table top miniature games market because much like Xfinity there is no real competition so people just accept it. The wargamers know this and just accept their high price rises and rediculousness because they like miniature war games.

Had CMON went Game of Thrones to follow suit with the ever popular television series they would have killed it because most people can easily recognize the characters and people would have bought into it just for that. It was like when thy put out two walking dead kickstarters. Mantic didn't have the television version or else it would have knocked it out of the ball park. Instead their competition got it and while Mantic's released two waves their competition has yet to deliver the initial game. Had Mantic have bought and did a Game of Thrones miniature war game I think it would have really took off but Mantic just doesn't seem willing to pay the money for the proper licensing to really take them to the next level.

Alternate KS exclusive Assault Veteran and Bronn have now been unlocked.

Next up are the remaining plastic tokens (in one goal) and a Maimed Hostage version of Jaime which you deploy to an opposing players unit as a debuff.

Now unlocked:










Up next:

More minis for my D&D game.

I know that's why I don't buy Wrath of Kings minis, they did too well at Kickstarter. Oh wait, no it's not.

frankelee wrote:
I know that's why I don't buy Wrath of Kings minis, they did too well at Kickstarter. Oh wait, no it's not.

I'd buy more Shael Han stuff if it was ever released or in stock.

It's passed Robotechs $1,442,312 now.

New stretchgoals
Mounted Blackfish 1.5
Mounted Mountain 1.55
The Iron Throne 1.6

IN for $1. If the pledge manager opens at an opportune time, I'll get the sweet spot pledge. I'll most likely sell off the rules and chits for cheap, though, and maybe some of the more boring minis.

Are the rules at all worth having for gamers who don't need the minis?

 infinite_array wrote:

frankelee wrote:
I know that's why I don't buy Wrath of Kings minis, they did too well at Kickstarter. Oh wait, no it's not.

I'd buy more Shael Han stuff if it was ever released or in stock.

As someone who adores Wrath of Kings - I'm currently painting up my 3rd army and playing in a tournament later this month - CMON's treatment of it and the lack of distribution brings me tremendous sadness.

Anyway, I backed this for $1. I love the models but starting another wargame just isn't on the docket for me right now. I'll have to play a demo before the pledge manager opens up.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wasn't aware of the FFG game. It looks great, aside from the total lack of miniatures! Throw a couple hundred bases of multi-based 5-8mm miniatures on the map, and it's a winner.

But if it can't be like that, it could certainly have been done like CMoN's Dogs of War. Or a revamp of Diplomacy / Machiavelli.

Hahah hahhha a Diplomacy reskin haha haha and you think it would make any money at all

frankelee wrote:
If CMON had the wisdom of the crowds to tell them nobody plays miniature wargames they wouldn't have bothered. It's beyond all debate that they assumed this game would be far larger than it is. Why this is so hard to accept as an objective fact, who knows? Why are people willing to buy minis from Kickstarters with no rules more than they are this game? Can't figure out to do with the rulebook and it frightens them, probably.

For my part I don't view this KS as a failure, but it's probably 3 to 5 million dollars lighter than CMON was expecting. And given that top miniature games like 40K, X-Wing, and Armada individually make more money than CMON does with everything it sells, I don't think their expectations were unreasonable.

You got any sources for that hyperbole or those "objective" facts just based on your feelings?

 judgedoug wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wasn't aware of the FFG game. It looks great, aside from the total lack of miniatures! Throw a couple hundred bases of multi-based 5-8mm miniatures on the map, and it's a winner.

But if it can't be like that, it could certainly have been done like CMoN's Dogs of War. Or a revamp of Diplomacy / Machiavelli.

Hahah hahhha a Diplomacy reskin haha haha and you think it would make any money at all

A plain Dip reskin? No.

But then, you forget this is CMoN.

An uber-Ameritrash Machiavelli-based "GoT"-branded game with boatloads of minis on a oversized deluxe printed board and cards for orders? Yes, yes it would. Easily.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
An uber-Ameritrash Machiavelli-based "GoT"-branded game with boatloads of minis on a oversized deluxe printed board and cards for orders? Yes, yes it would. Easily.

So it would be competing against FFG's Game of Thrones which is literally what you are asking for, sans minis.

Do you even know the market you are attempting to project your wisdom on?

 DrNo172000 wrote:

frankelee wrote:
If CMON had the wisdom of the crowds to tell them nobody plays miniature wargames they wouldn't have bothered. It's beyond all debate that they assumed this game would be far larger than it is. Why this is so hard to accept as an objective fact, who knows? Why are people willing to buy minis from Kickstarters with no rules more than they are this game? Can't figure out to do with the rulebook and it frightens them, probably.

For my part I don't view this KS as a failure, but it's probably 3 to 5 million dollars lighter than CMON was expecting. And given that top miniature games like 40K, X-Wing, and Armada individually make more money than CMON does with everything it sells, I don't think their expectations were unreasonable.

You got any sources for that hyperbole or those "objective" facts just based on your feelings?

Do you have an intelligent question for me, or are you just a whining fanboy? Also, if you're not smart enough to go look at the campaign and see how it was run, then you're not smart enough to understand my explanation anyway. It's quite a catch-22 you put people who know what they're talking about in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 judgedoug wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I wasn't aware of the FFG game. It looks great, aside from the total lack of miniatures! Throw a couple hundred bases of multi-based 5-8mm miniatures on the map, and it's a winner.

But if it can't be like that, it could certainly have been done like CMoN's Dogs of War. Or a revamp of Diplomacy / Machiavelli.

Hahah hahhha a Diplomacy reskin haha haha and you think it would make any money at all

Everyone called Rising Sun a Diplomacy re-working...

frankelee wrote:

 DrNo172000 wrote:

frankelee wrote:
If CMON had the wisdom of the crowds to tell them nobody plays miniature wargames they wouldn't have bothered. It's beyond all debate that they assumed this game would be far larger than it is. Why this is so hard to accept as an objective fact, who knows? Why are people willing to buy minis from Kickstarters with no rules more than they are this game? Can't figure out to do with the rulebook and it frightens them, probably.

For my part I don't view this KS as a failure, but it's probably 3 to 5 million dollars lighter than CMON was expecting. And given that top miniature games like 40K, X-Wing, and Armada individually make more money than CMON does with everything it sells, I don't think their expectations were unreasonable.

You got any sources for that hyperbole or those "objective" facts just based on your feelings?

Do you have an intelligent question for me, or are you just a whining fanboy? Also, if you're not smart enough to go look at the campaign and see how it was run, then you're not smart enough to understand my explanation anyway. It's quite a catch-22 you put people who know what they're talking about in.

This is amazing - when four logical fallacies are questioned about being hyperbole, they are answered with another logical fallacy.

frankelee wrote:

 DrNo172000 wrote:

frankelee wrote:
If CMON had the wisdom of the crowds to tell them nobody plays miniature wargames they wouldn't have bothered. It's beyond all debate that they assumed this game would be far larger than it is. Why this is so hard to accept as an objective fact, who knows? Why are people willing to buy minis from Kickstarters with no rules more than they are this game? Can't figure out to do with the rulebook and it frightens them, probably.

For my part I don't view this KS as a failure, but it's probably 3 to 5 million dollars lighter than CMON was expecting. And given that top miniature games like 40K, X-Wing, and Armada individually make more money than CMON does with everything it sells, I don't think their expectations were unreasonable.

You got any sources for that hyperbole or those "objective" facts just based on your feelings?

Do you have an intelligent question for me, or are you just a whining fanboy? Also, if you're not smart enough to go look at the campaign and see how it was run, then you're not smart enough to understand my explanation anyway. It's quite a catch-22 you put people who know what they're talking about in.

Fanboy? I don't actually like CMON as a business (own a grand total of two of their games, Zombicide because I got it for 90% off, and Blood Rage cause Eric Lang is a fantastic designer) but you pretend to know what CMON's expected ROI is without any evidence at all other than "look at the Kickstarter hurr durr durr". On the contrary I make no claims to whether this was successful in the eyes of CMON or not, you do. But instead of providing evidence for your points you choose to shift the burden of proof and attack my character. Bravo, I guess by the rules of the internet you win. Truth though, it is you in fact who has no idea what you are talking about, which is why you can produce no evidence. You also claim to know the revenues for sales numbers of specific product lines, but can you actually post them please?

The truth is the people commenting here crack me up as it's been proven time and time again in economics that things like past performance aren't indicators of future performance and product success can not be predicted either. Daniel Kahenman has already shown that monkeys throwing darts are as accurate as the so called expert opinions. Then there are people like you who believe they can glean expected ROI by looking at the how the Kickstarter was run, but refuse to articulate that point as to make it worth it.