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Post by waysoftheearth on Jul 2, 2021 9:04:50 GMT -6
All right. I'm a dinosaur.
Can somebody please explain what the pros and cons of this whole "kickstarter" business is about?
Why would it be a good idea, and why would it be a bad idea?
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Post by mgtremaine on Jul 2, 2021 9:42:59 GMT -6
PRO:
1) Advertising Platform built in. (Email followups, next projects, plus visibility on Kickstarter itself
2) Allows publisher to gather the funds to publish upfront which can help drives costs down by ordering in bulk.
3) Motivation enforced by deadlines.
CON:
1) Over promising can lead to failure and reputation damage
2) Increase in Shipping costs from time of start to fulfillment can eat your profits. Must people exclude shipping costs and wait until the final survey to get these calculated.
3) Turn off to some people who have either never used or have been burned by a bad kickstart.
The ones that seem to do the best are those where the creative is already done and they are really justin the marketing, production, fulfillment stage by the time they open the KickStart.
-Mike
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2021 10:39:49 GMT -6
Yep. It's a big gamble. I'd only give money to a Kickstarter ran by people established as delivering or to a project I'm strongly interested in, as was the case with "Secrets of Blackmoor." There's way too many horror stories and failed promises for me to trust Joe Blow Game Dev on KS.
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Post by stevemitchell on Jul 2, 2021 11:33:19 GMT -6
I've never backed a Kickstarter that failed to deliver, either for wargames or RPGs, but I've had a few that ran really, really late.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2021 11:33:39 GMT -6
Why would it be a good idea, and why would it be a bad idea? Are we talking about the pros/cons of selling a product on Kickstarter as a seller, or the pros/cons of purchasing products on Kickstarter as a buyer? My personal experience is only as a buyer. I've pledged maybe a dozen or more in the last several years. I've mostly been happy with it. I've only pledged one bona fide disaster (Marmoreal Tomb), and that's my fault. The warning signs were all there. I made the mistake of assuming the reputational harm to someone with a particular name would mitigate the risks. I've pledged a couple of other Kickstarters that are significantly late with some of the materials promised, but I'm not dissatisfied with these ones because the principal products have been delivered and it seems that the product sellers are serious about finishing the rest of the promised supplemental materials. All the rest were smooth sailing (apart from a little lateness here and there). As a buyer of RPG hobby stuff, I'd say my takeaways are: (1) Don't pledge Kickstarters where the writing isn't already complete. Incomplete editing and layout, waiting on illustrations from artists, etc. tends not to be a big problem. But if the writing is not already done, there's a serious risk that the product will never be delivered. (2) Don't pledge Kickstarters that promise a lot of bonus materials and rewards based on how much the Kickstarter eventually rakes in. Although all those bonuses seem like a good thing, few other than established publishers have the wherewithal to get that much done. Less is more with Kickstarters. (3) Don't pledge complicated Kickstarters unless the seller has an established brand or has past successful Kickstarters of comparable scope. Here, I'm thinking less of RPGs and more about board and wargame makers. It takes a lot of work to produce a game with tons of high-quality components. |
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Post by jeffb on Jul 2, 2021 11:51:46 GMT -6
I've never backed a Kickstarter that failed to deliver, either for wargames or RPGs, but I've had a few that ran really, really late. This. |
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Post by acodispo on Jul 2, 2021 11:57:24 GMT -6
I think I agree with all of the above. It can be a gamble but as has been mentioned you need to consider what's at stake. A board game is higher stakes than an RPG. A tech product is higher stakes still. The one time I backed a kickstarter that didn't get fulfilled it was a case of high stakes: it was a tech product (some kind of car accessory) with a complicated supply chain and manufacturing. The company had successfully delivered a kickstarted single-board computer previously, so I figured they could probably get this one out the door. They ended up going bankrupt. Oh well! I don't back that kind of thing anymore. Comparatively RPGs are low stakes. If it's something I'm interested in I'm very happy to pledge $5-10 for a PDF, or $30 or so for a print copy, assuming the rules are mostly written (as previously mentioned), and it looks like they have their act together. As to why a creator would do one, from the looks of my "backed projects" list, it looks like they were all 1) doing a big print run, and/or 2) wanted to do really nice editing / layout / artwork on a mostly-or-completely-written game. I note one of the things I kickstarted was Blueholme, so Vile Traveller may have some input on this topic!  |
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 2, 2021 14:43:56 GMT -6
I've never backed a Kickstarter that failed to deliver, either for wargames or RPGs, but I've had a few that ran really, really late. I had one I backed years ago that I figured was never going to fulfill. The book arrived this week on my doorstep. The vast majority of creators who use KS are sincere, and then some are caught by surprise at how difficult bringing a physical product into fruition really is. But, KS really is a beautiful thing it allows products that never would have been made to be made, it kills ideas that never should have been made before money and production is wasted on a product that won't sell, and it allows the little guy to tap into the bigger market. |
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 2, 2021 16:12:20 GMT -6
If I ever do a kickstarter:
1. The writing will be 100% complete. No further editing, layout, etc. needed. All done.
2. The kickstarter funds will be to cover A) art and B) printing.
3. I will way over-estimate the amount of time it will take to ship the completed product. Better early than late!
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Post by Vile Traveller on Jul 2, 2021 16:18:12 GMT -6
I note one of the things I kickstarted was Blueholme, so Vile Traveller may have some input on this topic! I'm alive! Yes, for the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules it was basically to (almost) pay for art. The book and most of the stretch goals were written, some of the latter needed layout, but the bulk of the work was done. But it's still late! The last stretch goal has been stuck in development limb for a while, which just goes to show you can never be sure with this stuff. It was going well, then we moved campus. I got promoted to programme leader, tripling my workload. Then Hong Kong went into full-scale police-state meltdown, so we sold everything, retired early, and came back to the UK. Straight into endless lockdowns, during which we bought the house of our dreams(cape). This, being 143 years old with the last owners living here for 40 years, needs serious renovation. We're currently living mostly in the kitchen while we have windows fitted, damp walls dried out and waterproofed, a new heating system installed (once the ground source heat pump contractors get a new drill bit from Italy), etc., etc., ... optimistically I expect to finish off the Blueholme Brochure by Christmas this year. Kickstarter has definitely been wonderful for the indie publishing industry, and even some of the "big kids". It allows you to do things that would never be possible otherwise, and the publicity it generates doesn't hurt, either. But if (when) I do another, I will make sure that everything on my side of the production is done and dusted right from the start. Why would it be a good idea, and why would it be a bad idea? When you finish Delving Deeper v5, it would be a very, very good idea to do a Kickstarter to A) get some awesome art by people like Russ Nicholson in there, and B) spread the word about the awesomeness of DD and OD&D.  |
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 2, 2021 16:22:27 GMT -6
The thing about kickstart is that it can be a gamble. Some folks try to start a kickstart but haven't even started the product yet, and often they have no idea about publishing and such. If you don't know much about the world of publishing, you probably are going to encounter surprises that slow down the project or derail it entirely. The number of kickstarted projects is (to me) one of the first things I look at.
I think that the secret is to pick carefully. I do most of my kickstarters through Goodman Games or Troll Lord Games because I know that they playtest the product and have it mostly written BEFORE the kickstart ever goes live. I did some playtesting for Goodman Games and it was something like 6-8 months before the kickstart happened. Mutant Crawl Classics was played at GaryCon a couple of years before it was a kickstart and Dying Earth has been in playtest for years.
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 2, 2021 21:04:35 GMT -6
If I ever do a kickstarter: 1. The writing will be 100% complete. No further editing, layout, etc. needed. All done. 2. The kickstarter funds will be to cover A) art and B) printing. 3. I will way over-estimate the amount of time it will take to ship the completed product. Better early than late! Same here. I've kicked around the idea (hardy har har) but if, when I do one I'll have all my ducks in a row. The files will be at the press all proofed and ready to go. Any stretch goals will be definitely manageable, for example no t-shirts because apparently size management is a nightmare I've heard from friends who've tried that. And like you suggest; better to underpromise and overdeliver. Too many do the opposite. |
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Post by hamurai on Jul 3, 2021 0:43:27 GMT -6
I've never backed a Kickstarter that failed to deliver, either for wargames or RPGs, but I've had a few that ran really, really late. Same here. "Really late" being about 3 years late, in one case. As a backer, I like Kickstarter because you often get the chance to get items with great discounts and/or exclusive stuff. That said, this is a temptation which may lead to backing more projects than have room on my shelf  They tend to sell off well, though. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 3, 2021 4:27:52 GMT -6
One other bonus is that sometimes I get a package full of stuff that I totally forgot I backed. I sort of feel like it's like my birthday!
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Post by thegreyelf on Jul 3, 2021 8:34:42 GMT -6
Speaking as a professional designer of about 22 years, now, a staff writer and line developer for Troll Lord Games, and a small publisher unto myself, here are some facts that people either don't realize or often overlook.
Before the d20 crash in the early 2000s, publishers relied on distributor pre-orders to determine how large a print run they should make of a given book (or even if it should be printed at all). This was their barometer of how well the book would sell. After the d20 crash, when entire dumpsters of d20 books were destroyed, this simply stopped. Distributors were no longer willing to risk pre-orders on books that might just sit. Remember that unlike the major book trade, game distribution doesn't permit returns when books don't sell--distributors buy the books, and are stuck with them if they don't sell.
When pre-orders simply stopped, publishers were left in the cold. Suddenly creating a print run was a SEVERE risk, and one that often wouldn't pay off.
Now, along comes Kickstarter. Suddenly, not only did publishers have a way to gauge the sales potential of a book again, they could create books without taking a risk. The Kickstarter pays for your books and whatever you make after that is profit. This has a side effect of reducing the cover prices of books (to a degree; unfortunately printing costs have significantly risen so that's become an issue). If a book costs $7 per unit to produce, you need to make at least $8 on that book to show a profit, $7 to break even. The problem here is that distributors get anywhere from a 50-70% discount on what they buy from publishers so they can in turn sell to retailers at a 40-50% discount. This leaves publishers making as little as 30% of the cover price on each book sold through distribution. Common sense dictates that even if your entire run was paid for by the Kickstarter, you should still try to make back your per unit costs plus so you can continue to pay the costs of business (overhead and whatnot). But the economics of kickstarter allow for some wiggle room. If I had to pay for Night Shift out of pocket, for example, the cover price would probably be $50 rather than $40, because of what I have to eat in distribution costs.
But back to Kickstarter. You'd be surprised how many publishers wish it wasn't a thing, but it's replaced the distribution pre-order model as the only concrete way to judge the sales potential of a book, and has made it possible for publishers to survive and even thrive in a way they couldn't before. Even among publishers who can afford to do print runs on their own, the KS model is what enables them to know how BIG of a print run to do. You might be surprised at how many supposedly major publishers would stop if they didn't have this benchmark. It's just the basic economics of the industry in this day and age. It also may not be what Kickstarter was intended for originally, but it is what Kickstarter has evolved into (at least in our industry).
The real problem is now we're seeing Kickstarters regularly pull in hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars, and to get that high these publishers are making promises they can't keep. Backpacks, notebooks, canvas maps, even miniatures, all those high-end stretch goals that people are starting to demand often are the reason why Kickstarters don't fill. You're actually better off to back kickstarters whose major product interests you, but whose stretch goals are, say, additional material in the product itself (another chapter in a book, for example) rather than fancy luxury items. You're more likely to see the KS filled in that case.
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Post by jeffb on Jul 3, 2021 9:05:51 GMT -6
One other bonus is that sometimes I get a package full of stuff that I totally forgot I backed. I sort of feel like it's like my birthday! MetAlpha was like that with all the little trinkets that were stretch goals. The ID bands, Dice, pins, etc. |
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They tend to sell off well, though.