It is very difficult to say. Personally I felt a little burned by the Mythic Darkest Dungeon issues. Then we had the He-Man Archon Studio kickstarter only for them to launch another He-Man game straight to retail with the same characters before we are even close to getting our He-Man kickstarter. I am still pretty angry at the way both these kickstarters have gone lord knows when I will get them now. Infact all the major ones I have backed have had issues, they are always late not just weeks but months in some cases years. It is honestly not been a great experience other than simple models ones which are 2-3 months in scope hats of to crooked dice team as never had an issue with them.

I think at that  point I was ready to give up on kickstarters but I have recently backed the grail expansion and I am in two minds on the oathsworn reprint at this point. I have passed on a good few i would have done otherwise perhaps a year ago.

I am considering the value of them and if it is worth the stress and pain of backing a kickstarter. If games are coming to retail anyway is it worth the risk of backing the game why not just wait ? Do the additional goals really add value, do I really care about an additional model or a different pose of the same character that much to take the risk ?

In general terms that seem to be the case people are looking more at what they money buys rather than just throwing money at the game. Oathsworn for example has had rave reviews even tho it had a troubled first kickstarter just a re-print has raised over 2 million so money is clearly there.

I suppose we should talk about the opposite which is Warcrow ? I assume that is the consideration here I cannot be the only one to feel a shock at how little backing it has so far. 245,000 seems a lot but you cannot think that covers the game production let alone to turn a profit. I was expecting 500,000 at least if not close to 1 million Infinity Defiance got.

I think the difference between the two is people have the money if your product is compelling enough. If your product comes some some risks and doubts, if it does not really offer something quite unique, or the value does not feel like it is an amazing deal it is really going to struggle in a difficult market.

Companies are really going to have knock the product out of the park to get the sort of funding we have seen in the past.

I think the age of taking more risks with kickstarters, or people just throwing money at them is at an end. I think companies are going to focus a lot more on the products before launch. Do smaller kickstarters, with a lower buyin value and much shorter turn around times than we have seen.

I actually think it passed its peak several years ago.  However I also think that current* world events have given it a real sucker punch.  I think it will pick up again in the future but I don’t think it will get back to where it was say, 6-8 years ago.  I’m certainly a lot more choosy about what I buy on Kickstarter these days owing to the huge volumes of stuff I bought and ended up not playing.

*for current, read “last three years and counting”

I’ve just looked at CMON’s new Kickstarter for Cthulhu: Death May Die. After adding shipping and VAT to the $100 price tag I’d be paying over £150 total. I’ll wait for retail and pick up for £80 or so. All I will be missing out on are some lackluster stretch goals. Surely a company like CMON have other funding options available than the KS model of letting the consumer take the majority of the risk.

Sadly I think companies these days treat it as a glorified pre-order system so they don’t sit about with unsold stock. I understand it, but that’s the point of business – you take the risk, not the customer. It reverses the paradigm.

Sadly, all too many folk think kickstarter (as a general term) is the same as a traditional transaction with all the legal protections. It isn’t, quite deliberately. That’s why companies use it.

> Sadly I think companies these days treat it as a glorified pre-order system so they don’t sit about with unsold stock. I understand it, but that’s the point of business – you take the risk, not the customer. It reverses the paradigm.

Well, the more you can offload risk, the more additional risk you can take. Now, whether that means a) you can offer more things that wouldn’t survive retail or b) you spread yourself too thin so the whole house can fall crumbling down depends on… things. (: As Buffet said, “A Rising Tide Tends To Lift All Boats But You Find Out Whose Swimming Naked When The Tide Goes Out” and, boy, that tide sure went out when the shipping prices did.

fwiw, Pre-orders allow a seller to maximize their profits with minimal risk — at least until they use the wrong multiplier to estimate retail sales, like I think Palladium did with Robotech. Businesses want to tie up as little cash in inventory that nobody wants at a profitable price, so pre-orders allow companies to sell their products efficiently. That means fewer sales and clearances us customers have (or at least sales that cost the company money — I hear distributors start off with a 40% discount off of MSRP and the MSRP of a product is 10x the cost to make it?), but more profit for a company so it can last longer and put out more stuff we just have to buy.

That still doesn’t mean I’m gonna back KS, because Humble Bundle is selling *both* the Starfinder and Pathfinder 2e Beginner Boxes for five bucks! 😀