Quote from: JRT;1063459Any thoughts?

Something about how books are published now seems to make Kickstarter more attractive to RPG companies big and small. If I was running such a company, Kickstarter would give me a target number of units to produce for customers, and a webpage to communicate to customers with. First, I'd have to know unit price before even doing a Kickstarter, as well as have a prototype already made.

Some start-ups think that Kickstarter will magically make their business financially sound for some reason.

No.

It's a flawed platform for any sort of venture.  It promotes paying for a dream that often does not come fulfilled as intended.  In any other business, if you were to be late, just late, delivering on a product, you'd be out of business.  But Kickstarter and other methods of payment for goods yet to be delivered, you can and often get away with month to multiple year long delays.  This is BAD business, but because 'eventually' most of the consumers get their products, they don't care.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1063610No.

It's a flawed platform for any sort of venture.  It promotes paying for a dream that often does not come fulfilled as intended.  In any other business, if you were to be late, just late, delivering on a product, you'd be out of business.  But Kickstarter and other methods of payment for goods yet to be delivered, you can and often get away with month to multiple year long delays.  This is BAD business, but because 'eventually' most of the consumers get their products, they don't care.

Id have to disagree. The failures are way eclipsed by the number of successes. Problem is the failures have at times been monsterous ones and that stands out. The scams stand out too like Doom that came to Atlantic city. And in that one the designers and artists were scammed too.

As for the consumer not caring. Its not that. Its the time factor and the same old damn song and dance 90% of the late ones give like its some sort of boilerplate now.
coming soon! Working on it! Coming soon! Working on it! on and on and on.

But at the end of the day most of the KS succeed. but when they fail. whooo. It can be nasty.

A real issue is how ubiquitous Kickstarter is and how they lack competition outside of something like Patreon (which is about as good of competition as Twitch is to YouTube and that hasn't prevented YouTube from going nuts either).

If I have any question on a KS I'm willing to forego all the meaningless flair/fluff stretch goals and pay the extra $5-$10 risk avoidance fee that is retail, and wait to see if the dream does actually see print.

If someone has put in their own elbow grease by writing it out on their own time, such that they can show they took the project as far as they possibly could on a shoestring, and now are only looking for funding to pay bills to 3rd parties required to make a physical object, then I'll back it.

I think particularly with RPGs, I want to wait and hear about what it is like in actual play, read detailed reviews, and so forth. A new RPG system is a big time investment for me, and it seems weird to me to pay sight unseen.

Pretty much the only Kickstarters I've backed have been when I personally know the creators - and even then it's unlikely for me.

Quote from: Omega;1063629Id have to disagree. The failures are way eclipsed by the number of successes. Problem is the failures have at times been monsterous ones and that stands out. The scams stand out too like Doom that came to Atlantic city. And in that one the designers and artists were scammed too.

As for the consumer not caring. Its not that. Its the time factor and the same old damn song and dance 90% of the late ones give like its some sort of boilerplate now.
coming soon! Working on it! Coming soon! Working on it! on and on and on.

But at the end of the day most of the KS succeed. but when they fail. whooo. It can be nasty.

How are they successes, when most of them cannot deliver on time?  In any other business that would cripple, but not KS or IGGs.  Those are failures.  And they teach businesses that it's OK to lie to the customer.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1063732How are they successes, when most of them cannot deliver on time?  In any other business that would cripple, but not KS or IGGs.  Those are failures.  And they teach businesses that it's OK to lie to the customer.

Everything is so very dark in Brady World....

I think KS is revolutionary for the RPG industry (and likely even bigger for the boardgame industry). Obviously there have been some high-profile disasters, but even Far West and Dwimmermount delivered in the end (YMMV as to the quality of what showed up).

There is murkiness on both sides (or all three sides if you include Kickstarter themselves) as to what constitutes an R&D gamble as opposed to a guaranteed pre-order service.

I didn't back either of those, and actually haven't have had a single RPG KS completely die on me. (I only have one like that, and it is a computer game that I was so sad to see fail). I have one (a cardgame / language tool thingy) that is almost exactly four years overdue, and I am still more confident than not that I will see it in the end (new management on board, regular FaceBook updates, etc).

I was very unhappy with the way that Arc Dream rolled out their recent KS for Delta Green (two KSs, actually), avoidably messy. From their perspective, they were paranoid about generating the kinds of risks and problems that others have faced.

But I really do think the key lessons have been learned, or offset. Shipping costs, which absolutely sunk more than a few early gaming Kickstarts, are now more manageable via BackerKit and whatnot. People (creators and backers) know better the risks of backing a project which isn't deep into Beta already. Stretch goals - another massive torpedo for several early Kickstarts - are now better identified and linked to the original vision.

Perfect? Far from it. But I am 100% on board with the business model, and I think it is simply fantastic for our hobby.

I should say that while I have little interest in Kickstarter projects personally, I agree it is a great business opportunity for RPGs in general.

If other people want to make Kickstarter projects and/or fund them, then great! I get to buy the game after it has been playtested, released, and reviewed.

I've only backed a couple of kickstarters. Personally I don't really like it. I understand why people use it. I think for Board Games it seems to be a nice fit (it allows for people to make gorgeous pieces and boards, which probably would be less appealing if they were constrained by more caution). But for RPGs, I feel like it is starting to create a cycle that might not be great for the industry.

Yes, it is.

It has shifted the risk from the producers to the consumers. Which results in little to no care about product quality on the side of producers.

Kickstarter I believe is a shortcut that encourages shoddy workmanship.

I bought a boardgame from a Kickstarter. The contents were low quality. And the company only sent out PDF copies of a misprinted card. Instead of actually priinting that card and sending it out complimentary to the backers. It was really crappy for them to do.

Then they turned around and made a new Kickstarter for an upgrade pack for said boardgame. And they almost had me with it. Until I realized that the contents are what they should have given the original backers of the fiirst Kickstarter in the first place for free. So I quickly withdrew my support.

I don't feel comfortable backing any more Kickstarters.

Quote from: jhkim;1063728I think particularly with RPGs, I want to wait and hear about what it is like in actual play, read detailed reviews, and so forth. A new RPG system is a big time investment for me, and it seems weird to me to pay sight unseen.

Pretty much the only Kickstarters I've backed have been when I personally know the creators - and even then it's unlikely for me.

I've only backed kick starters for well established products, Reaper for minis and Steve Jackson for TFT. Both well established companies and products I felt pretty comfortable I knew what I was getting. I'm pretty risk adverse when it comes to spending money.

I have backed a bunch of Kickstarters. I've been burned a couple times. I've also got some pretty amazing things out of it.

I get the perception that a KS would encourage creators to cut corners. At face value it appears the consumers are assuming all the risk. In my experience this has not born out.

From Numerna, to Zweihander, to the bunch of Castles & Crusades books, to Bruce Heard's Calidar... I've received GORGEOUS, wonderfully written, wonderfully designed books that oftentimes BLOW AWAY the quality of anything I could have dreamed of in the days of traditional publishing.

Sure, there's risk. But it's hardly a problem. It's about par with what I would consider standard risk. WAY more of the KS I have backed have a) completed in a reasonable amount of time and b) delivered high quality products that exceeded my expectations. I would not see the low-quality/high risk argument holding nearly as much water as the KS is awesome/fun/rewarding argument. I have way more examples of the later.

I have backed a number of Kickstarters and haven't been burned, yet.
The ones I have backed are mostly single books here and there without crazy stretch goals that are already written OR larger products from trusted sources...ACKS, TFT and Larry Harris' War Room spring to mind...and I have only started using it the last few years.  I'm sure that has decreased my risk factor.
I do like the model for both small press and niche items by larger companies.  I get stuff that may never make it into print otherwise.

@Trechriron
I had missed the previous Calidar KS, so I added on all the back stuff in the latest Kickstarter. It looked beautiful and I really liked Bruce Heard's Princess Ark stuff back in the day.  I am glad to hear it IS as good as it looks.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1063732How are they successes, when most of them cannot deliver on time?  In any other business that would cripple, but not KS or IGGs.

You're not familiar with the software industry, are you?  Having the desired feature set complete on time basically never happens, even if you're using the latest trendy "agile software development" method and only setting deadlines a week or two in advance.  We even have rules of thumb for estimating development time like "take your best estimate, double it, and increase the time scale by one step" (e.g., if you think it will take 3 hours, allocate 6 days), which are meant as jokes, but tend to be disturbingly close to accurate.

So, no, the inability to hit deadlines is not crippling in every line of business, and that applies regardless of whether you're crowdfunded, doing bespoke work at an hourly rate, or a full-time salaried employee.