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Can someone explain to me why it needed to raise $1.8 Million dollars via Kickstarter? Does that cover production costs as well as development time? Wouldn't i

Can someone explain to me why it needed to raise $1.8 Million dollars via Kickstarter? Does that cover production costs as well as development time? Wouldn't it be more fair to consumers if only development cost was covered by the kickstarter and then production costs were covered by actual pre-orders?

viach 10y ago
It's not needed to raise that much. It's just people liked it. From the Kickstarted campaign: $1,810,294 pledged of $33,000 goal
lincolnq 10y ago
Kickstarted board games are almost exclusively preorders for the game. So it didn't "need" to raise that money -- in fact it looks like their original target was about $33k. It's an interesting question about fairness to consumers. Honestly I don't know that fairness is relevant here, as the Kickstarter boardgame scene is thriving -- many new board games exist through kickstarter than would otherwise exist in the world, and the consumers know this and participate in the ecosystem. If the kickstarter was limited to raising money for development costs then it's not clear that the producers would be quite as incentivized to put projects up there.
dogma1138 10y ago
Why are people downvoting this? This is a honest question, they had multiple tiers with some pretty damn silly stretch goals, or at least it can be considered a stretch as far as the actual costs go. Kickstarter backers are getting the game now, for the rest of us we can preorder it for 48 GBP in the UK[1], on average each backer payed 104$ into the campaign, non backers can get a copy of the game now for 63$ (only 4$ more than the cheapest get a copy of the game option on kickstarter). It's not that surprising that some people question what the money is actually being spent on during those KS campaigns, and with how many of them fail all the time due to mismanagement not to mention being potentially fraud cases to begin with I think it's a question worth asking. I also think it's about time that Kickstarter forces companies to be more open and transparent about how they spend the money, Kickstarter already takes power from consumers because they become effectively investors but without any of the perks that come with being a shareholder and it just might be the time we get some of that power back. [1]https://www.theboardgamehut.co.uk/preorders/116-scythe-preorder.html https://www.theboardgamehut.co.uk/preorders/116-scythe-preor...
- cianmm 10y ago
  I backed the $119 edition, as well as many other Kickstarter campaigns over the last few years (along with almost every campaign that Stonemaier Games has done) and I actually mostly agree with your comment, except for a few specific points regarding this project in particular. Kickstarter really needs to reign in on projects taking in a whole load of money, and then remaining completely silent as they pass deadline after deadline without shipping. I'm not sure how they can do this though, I hope they have people figuring it out! For the cost of this project specifically, the cheapest version of Scythe on Kickstarter comes with quite a few extra things (extra game cards, better tokens, that kind of thing) that the retail version won't (maybe about $30 worth, although I haven't done the calculations). In addition, the project owner has been the best example of an owner keeping their backers up-to-date with production - check out the 39 updates on the Kickstarter! I think it's fair to say that I've learned a huge amount about the board game industry through his campaigns (although him supplying backers with the names of the ships that were carrying containers of the game from factory to distribution points brought me to new levels of shipping-anxiety), and I think that his price points have always been fair. I have had some bad experiences with Kickstarter of course (Pebble's first Kickstarter was a farce even though they delivered eventually, Hello Sense haven't delivered on their promise), but Jamey's projects have never been one of them.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    I don't have any opinion or experience with this project specifically, I thought the stretch goals were a bit silly but then again what can you do with board game. I was just surprised that the original comment I've replied was done voted because the OP also made no assertions (negative or otherwise) towards this project but asked a question about how the kickstarter board game scene operates in general. It's good to hear that your experience with this project was a good one, I still do not like crowdfunding, I more or less see it as capitalism at it's worst which allows for opportunistic people to operate without the most important restriction of the free market - responsibility towards your investors. And while I do see the appeal in crowdfunding and I do understand that it might be the only way to grinlight certain projects or products, it seems to be used too much these days, and in many cases by individuals or companies that would not have issues getting funding through traditional channels which means they either want to profit more of their product (kickstarter funding is considerably cheaper than any other source of funding bar government grants) or the actual risk of that project is too high for any sensible investor to invest in it in the first place. Whats worse is that Kickstarter has very little incentive to combat this type of behaviour since it's their source of revenue, they get their cut regardless if the project succeeds or not, they do not inherit any (or very little) of the risk, and without actual legislation that will define rules for crowdfunding I don't see them enforcing any real restrictions by themselves unless we as consumers stop playing their game, and based on the fact that Kickstarter only seems to get more popular with every disaster I don't think that day would arrive any time soon.
VLM 10y ago
The board game market is strangely bifurcating where one biz model is $100 and up at seemingly ever higher prices via kickstarter, and the other model is something like the gmtgames p500 model where you preorder at a considerable discount to list price. So I got a copy of MBT last week for about 40% off because I preordered on the P500 a long time ago, at the same time as the kickstarter people were getting scythe for their $100 or whatever. DVG is in more or less the same market as gmtgames and has run some expensive kickstarters I've participated in, so its not merely a eurogames vs grognard thing or whatever. The most interesting consumer side effect is one model has prices drop after launch, and the other has prices increase after launch. One similarity is both models require extreme levels of customer participation, not a mere casual search at amazon for any game and expect it to arrive in two days, its a multi-month (year?) commitment of planning ahead and keeping up with the marketplace. From having participated in some RPG kickstarters (admittedly slightly off topic) I sometimes think they aren't even beginning product development until some time after the kickstarter is funded, which will eventually lead to some spectacular inevitable fails.
- twic 10y ago
  Some Cliff's Notes on VLM's post for anyone who, like me, didn't fully get it at first: GMT Games are a wargame company. They specialise in the classic style of wargames, with hexes and tokens with attack and defence strength and whatnot. That said, they have also published things like Reiner Knizia's 'Battle Line', and the famous Cold War geopolitics game 'Twilight Struggle'. GMT Games release games using their 'Project 500' model. They develop games, and once one is nearly finished, they make it available for pre-order, at a discount. If they get 500 pre-orders, they produce it. If they don't get 500 pre-orders, they don't produce it, and the people who pre-ordered don't get charged [1]. MBT is a modern rewrite [2] of a classic hex-and-counter wargame from 1987 [3] which models tank warfare in Europe during the version of World War 3 which looked most likely at the time. DVG is Dan Verssen Games, also primarily a wargame company. They have done a number of kickstarters. Some just sell the game at a modest discount, like Warfighter - World War II [4]. Some upsell pricey vanity options, like The Cards of Cthulhu [5]. Eurogames are a hard-to-define genre which, IMHO, emphasise mechanics giving rise to involving, complex play rather than realism. Settlers of Catan is the godfather. Further examples are Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Alhambra, Kingdom Builder, etc. Grognards are players of classic hex-and-counter wargames [6], and, metonymically, such games themselves. [1] https://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTP500Details.aspx https://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTP500Details.aspx [2] http://www.insidegmt.com/?p=498 http://www.insidegmt.com/?p=498 [3] https://boardgamegeek.com/image/87628/mbt https://boardgamegeek.com/image/87628/mbt [4] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11606594/warfighter-world-war-ii/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11606594/warfighter-wor... [5] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dvgames/the-cards-of-cthulhu/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dvgames/the-cards-of-ct... [6] https://grognard.com/About.aspx#pageTop https://grognard.com/About.aspx#pageTop
detaro 10y ago
A lot of the kickstarter money goes towards the pledge rewards: Only ~500 people got a tier that doesn't include the final game, for all others the game + goodies have to be produced and paid for. The 33k minimum amount probably was calculated to be enough to set up production and making the game for the people pledging. Kickstarters that do not offer rewards, just to cover some development process, generally do not work as well. People want to get stuff.
jldugger 10y ago
Stonemeier uses Kickstarter more or less a preorder system, with some higher level donation tiers for absurd perks like your face in the game. KS does not require that your project finish, but it does require backer rewards delivered. The most popular backer reward tiers includes the actual game, priced at basically MSRP. It's absolutely true that consumers are taking more risks than your average GameStop preorder. Stonemeier has an impeccable record, and so his company reaps the ongoing benefits of that lower delivery risk profile by using KS. Another way to think of this is that you are completely free to avoid project risk by purchasing from a backer via BGG/ebay, but will likely have to pay a premium for it. I imagine some people intentionally preorder two, just to pop one up for sale.
lmm 10y ago
It didn't need to raise $1.8m - the goal was $33k. For a game like this where a big part of the appeal is the artwork there isn't really a clean divide between development and production, but it's fair to say a decent chunk of the money could be attributed to "production", sure. What's the distinction you're drawing between kickstarter and preorder? Legally and practically they're the same thing, no? In any case I don't see what you could be considering "unfair".

viach 10y ago

It's not needed to raise that much. It's just people liked it. From the Kickstarted campaign: $1,810,294 pledged of $33,000 goal

lincolnq 10y ago

Kickstarted board games are almost exclusively preorders for the game. So it didn't "need" to raise that money -- in fact it looks like their original target was about $33k. It's an interesting question about fairness to consumers. Honestly I don't know that fairness is relevant here, as the Kickstarter boardgame scene is thriving -- many new board games exist through kickstarter than would otherwise exist in the world, and the consumers know this and participate in the ecosystem. If the kickstarter was limited to raising money for development costs then it's not clear that the producers would be quite as incentivized to put projects up there.

dogma1138 10y ago

Why are people downvoting this? This is a honest question, they had multiple tiers with some pretty damn silly stretch goals, or at least it can be considered a stretch as far as the actual costs go. Kickstarter backers are getting the game now, for the rest of us we can preorder it for 48 GBP in the UK[1], on average each backer payed 104$ into the campaign, non backers can get a copy of the game now for 63$ (only 4$ more than the cheapest get a copy of the game option on kickstarter). It's not that surprising that some people question what the money is actually being spent on during those KS campaigns, and with how many of them fail all the time due to mismanagement not to mention being potentially fraud cases to begin with I think it's a question worth asking. I also think it's about time that Kickstarter forces companies to be more open and transparent about how they spend the money, Kickstarter already takes power from consumers because they become effectively investors but without any of the perks that come with being a shareholder and it just might be the time we get some of that power back. [1]https://www.theboardgamehut.co.uk/preorders/116-scythe-preorder.html https://www.theboardgamehut.co.uk/preorders/116-scythe-preor...

cianmm 10y ago
I backed the $119 edition, as well as many other Kickstarter campaigns over the last few years (along with almost every campaign that Stonemaier Games has done) and I actually mostly agree with your comment, except for a few specific points regarding this project in particular. Kickstarter really needs to reign in on projects taking in a whole load of money, and then remaining completely silent as they pass deadline after deadline without shipping. I'm not sure how they can do this though, I hope they have people figuring it out! For the cost of this project specifically, the cheapest version of Scythe on Kickstarter comes with quite a few extra things (extra game cards, better tokens, that kind of thing) that the retail version won't (maybe about $30 worth, although I haven't done the calculations). In addition, the project owner has been the best example of an owner keeping their backers up-to-date with production - check out the 39 updates on the Kickstarter! I think it's fair to say that I've learned a huge amount about the board game industry through his campaigns (although him supplying backers with the names of the ships that were carrying containers of the game from factory to distribution points brought me to new levels of shipping-anxiety), and I think that his price points have always been fair. I have had some bad experiences with Kickstarter of course (Pebble's first Kickstarter was a farce even though they delivered eventually, Hello Sense haven't delivered on their promise), but Jamey's projects have never been one of them.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  I don't have any opinion or experience with this project specifically, I thought the stretch goals were a bit silly but then again what can you do with board game. I was just surprised that the original comment I've replied was done voted because the OP also made no assertions (negative or otherwise) towards this project but asked a question about how the kickstarter board game scene operates in general. It's good to hear that your experience with this project was a good one, I still do not like crowdfunding, I more or less see it as capitalism at it's worst which allows for opportunistic people to operate without the most important restriction of the free market - responsibility towards your investors. And while I do see the appeal in crowdfunding and I do understand that it might be the only way to grinlight certain projects or products, it seems to be used too much these days, and in many cases by individuals or companies that would not have issues getting funding through traditional channels which means they either want to profit more of their product (kickstarter funding is considerably cheaper than any other source of funding bar government grants) or the actual risk of that project is too high for any sensible investor to invest in it in the first place. Whats worse is that Kickstarter has very little incentive to combat this type of behaviour since it's their source of revenue, they get their cut regardless if the project succeeds or not, they do not inherit any (or very little) of the risk, and without actual legislation that will define rules for crowdfunding I don't see them enforcing any real restrictions by themselves unless we as consumers stop playing their game, and based on the fact that Kickstarter only seems to get more popular with every disaster I don't think that day would arrive any time soon.

VLM 10y ago

The board game market is strangely bifurcating where one biz model is $100 and up at seemingly ever higher prices via kickstarter, and the other model is something like the gmtgames p500 model where you preorder at a considerable discount to list price. So I got a copy of MBT last week for about 40% off because I preordered on the P500 a long time ago, at the same time as the kickstarter people were getting scythe for their $100 or whatever. DVG is in more or less the same market as gmtgames and has run some expensive kickstarters I've participated in, so its not merely a eurogames vs grognard thing or whatever. The most interesting consumer side effect is one model has prices drop after launch, and the other has prices increase after launch. One similarity is both models require extreme levels of customer participation, not a mere casual search at amazon for any game and expect it to arrive in two days, its a multi-month (year?) commitment of planning ahead and keeping up with the marketplace. From having participated in some RPG kickstarters (admittedly slightly off topic) I sometimes think they aren't even beginning product development until some time after the kickstarter is funded, which will eventually lead to some spectacular inevitable fails.

twic 10y ago
Some Cliff's Notes on VLM's post for anyone who, like me, didn't fully get it at first: GMT Games are a wargame company. They specialise in the classic style of wargames, with hexes and tokens with attack and defence strength and whatnot. That said, they have also published things like Reiner Knizia's 'Battle Line', and the famous Cold War geopolitics game 'Twilight Struggle'. GMT Games release games using their 'Project 500' model. They develop games, and once one is nearly finished, they make it available for pre-order, at a discount. If they get 500 pre-orders, they produce it. If they don't get 500 pre-orders, they don't produce it, and the people who pre-ordered don't get charged [1]. MBT is a modern rewrite [2] of a classic hex-and-counter wargame from 1987 [3] which models tank warfare in Europe during the version of World War 3 which looked most likely at the time. DVG is Dan Verssen Games, also primarily a wargame company. They have done a number of kickstarters. Some just sell the game at a modest discount, like Warfighter - World War II [4]. Some upsell pricey vanity options, like The Cards of Cthulhu [5]. Eurogames are a hard-to-define genre which, IMHO, emphasise mechanics giving rise to involving, complex play rather than realism. Settlers of Catan is the godfather. Further examples are Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Alhambra, Kingdom Builder, etc. Grognards are players of classic hex-and-counter wargames [6], and, metonymically, such games themselves. [1] https://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTP500Details.aspx https://www.gmtgames.com/t-GMTP500Details.aspx [2] http://www.insidegmt.com/?p=498 http://www.insidegmt.com/?p=498 [3] https://boardgamegeek.com/image/87628/mbt https://boardgamegeek.com/image/87628/mbt [4] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11606594/warfighter-world-war-ii/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11606594/warfighter-wor... [5] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dvgames/the-cards-of-cthulhu/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dvgames/the-cards-of-ct... [6] https://grognard.com/About.aspx#pageTop https://grognard.com/About.aspx#pageTop

detaro 10y ago

A lot of the kickstarter money goes towards the pledge rewards: Only ~500 people got a tier that doesn't include the final game, for all others the game + goodies have to be produced and paid for. The 33k minimum amount probably was calculated to be enough to set up production and making the game for the people pledging. Kickstarters that do not offer rewards, just to cover some development process, generally do not work as well. People want to get stuff.

jldugger 10y ago

Stonemeier uses Kickstarter more or less a preorder system, with some higher level donation tiers for absurd perks like your face in the game. KS does not require that your project finish, but it does require backer rewards delivered. The most popular backer reward tiers includes the actual game, priced at basically MSRP. It's absolutely true that consumers are taking more risks than your average GameStop preorder. Stonemeier has an impeccable record, and so his company reaps the ongoing benefits of that lower delivery risk profile by using KS. Another way to think of this is that you are completely free to avoid project risk by purchasing from a backer via BGG/ebay, but will likely have to pay a premium for it. I imagine some people intentionally preorder two, just to pop one up for sale.

lmm 10y ago

It didn't need to raise $1.8m - the goal was $33k. For a game like this where a big part of the appeal is the artwork there isn't really a clean divide between development and production, but it's fair to say a decent chunk of the money could be attributed to "production", sure. What's the distinction you're drawing between kickstarter and preorder? Legally and practically they're the same thing, no? In any case I don't see what you could be considering "unfair".