Twelve Elements Of War Kickstarter Cancelled
December 23, 2013 by brennon
The campaign for Twelve Elements of War has unfortunately had to be cancelled by Sword & Board Games but they are certainly not seeing this as a defeat. The folks behind it have an amazing concept and I think plenty of people were on board to make this one a reality.
We've had a chat with the man behind the campaign and he tells us what happened, what they learned and where Sword & Board Games are going next with this project.
What are the reasons for the cancellation?
It was such a hard decision to make, but one that I think needed to be made. There are a number of reasons that have led to the campaigns cancellation. The Kickstarter campaign and the interest it has developed, has made clear to us that those who want the game would like it to be more realized than we currently have it, and we are receiving contact from retailers who would like levels of stock which we just cannot provide at this time.
The support we have had for the game and the miniatures from all areas has been 95% positive. This is a good sign that we are on the right track.
We will be back in July 2014 with fresh concept art (already underway) and shorter campaign duration. I hope that the loyal backers we had for the campaign will understand and be back in July to support us.
What do you think you've learned from the Kickstarter experience?
I’ve learned so much from running the campaign. Running a Kickstarter is not an easy thing to do. If it was, everyone would be running one. It is mentally and physically exhausting, lots of sleepless nights. It's filled with making sure you have answered all the comments that are coming in on the campaign page to a high level of satisfaction of the backers, answering private messages from interested parties be they retailers or potential backers and also the occasional abusive person who feels it necessary to inform you what they actually think of your campaign and product. This, and making sure your still doing the day to day things for your family, add up to no free time.
Any teething troubles that I may have had in this campaign being my first have been ironed out. I’ve made sure I engaged the backers during the campaign and asked their opinions and took some of the ideas on board.
I certainly don’t see this as a failure. I see it as a learning experience that can only make any future endeavour better.
Where is Sword & Board Games & Twelve Elements going from here?
Only forwards and upwards!!!
After the New Year we will be working on all the new concept art for the July campaign. This art will be for all new miniatures and possibly some new races if the campaign does well. We still want to bring the gaming community the original miniatures ideas we have but also add to the range given the nature and setup of our game.
This is not the end, by a long shot. If anything it’s a new beginning and a brighter future for the game.
We hope to have the Twelve Elements of War rulebook available in our web store in the first half of next year.
Do you think you will be coming back to Kickstarter as your fundraising platform?
We will definitely be coming back to Kickstarter. One of the main issues for this campaign was its length of 45 days and the fact that it was being run over Christmas and New Year. I had done research on Kickstarter to see if running a campaign in this time was viable. Looking at other campaign from the same period in 2012 showed that it can be done, so we were confident that we could make it work as well.
In a perfect world the campaign would have made all of the goals we set for it. However, it’s not a perfect world and mistakes were made. The important thing is to learn from mistakes, overcome them and be successful next time.
Tristan Abdini - Sword & Board Games
So as you can see they are down but not defeated! We at the Beasts of War team were totally behind this fundraiser and really liked the originality of the concept and, as we said in On The Table, the nature of the factions and the way they had been made up.
It would be great to see this game return in the middle of next year and smash through those funding goals. In the mean time we have the rulebook to look forward to so watch out for that one.
Lastly thank you to Tristan for giving us the time and answering these questions!
What do you think of the news?
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A bit surprised they’ve called it a day – not sure what they are expecting to raise for a game from a new company.
Think it is a good example of how the ks landscape has evolved – people are used to the novelty now and there is less of a sense of “missing out on a bargain” as you know the next month someone else will be on there with another good deal… Even with the last mantic and cmon ks it seemed like there was less movement than if they’d been run a year earlier 😉
I agree with that to a point. CMoN ran WoK in a way that it wouldn’t raise as much money as it could have, but at the same time they committed to much less product. Overall I reckon WoK will have been a lot more cost effective than Relic Knights given they raised two-thirds of the money but committed to half the amount of product. For Mars Attacks I just don’t see the brand as being appealing enough to raise any more than it did. If it was anyone other than Mantic I doubt it would have gotten anywhere near… Read more »
Heh, there’s so much KS backer experience here on BoW we could probably write a book!
A bit disappointed, but luckely it’s only delayed! I have time to save then.
Sad but was probably their best course of action. Over the past year KS has become insanely competitive and as stonemonkey mentioned the novelty of KS has worn off. i’ve only backed three projects, all three pretty hardcore, but I may call it in for the most part. I’d be interested in anything new Mantic does and maybe a good looking mini-based boardgame but in general I probably won’t be backing much. As far as actual miniature games go it would have make my jaw hit the floor for me to want to back it. I was backing 12 Elements… Read more »
I don’t think a competitive market was the problem. They only wanted £22,000 to unlock all five factions, there’s no reason they can’t get that with a well run campaign.
Oh, I didn’t mean the amount of money. I meant the amount of content.
People want to see lots of updates…new renders….gameplay demos…etc. etc. The campaign started off well enough but ran out of steam too quickly in terms of new shiny to show people.
Mantic, CMON, and the like tend to be able to throw out new content on an almost daily basis, regardless of whether SGs are broken or not. Smaller companies, especially start-ups, have trouble competing with this onslaught of what is essentially marketing.
I see what you mean. Again, the amount they need is sufficiently low that it shouldn’t be an issue for them. Though as they seem to acknowledge in the interview, they would have benefited from having more product prior to the campaign.
At 10.000 dollars they where funded and every 10.000 on top of that added a new faction untill 40.000.
Then at 46.000 they would’ve added faction weapon sets (5 different) and at 54.000 the would make the heroes for hire.
I thought SBG said that at 80.000 they could make everything ( but I’m not sure about the number) including female/male verslons of every miniature.
That they cancelled whilst at twice the funding total suggests it wasn’t really AU$10,000 that they needed. $40,000 would have given them all five factions to launch the game with.
Maybe you’re right, but if so, why cancel the project now and not wait and see if they get that?
They set the first two factions at the initial target and then the remaining three comprised the first three stretch goals. Partway through the campaign people started cancelling their pledges and the total started to drop. My guess is that people pledged initially in the expectation that their desired faction would be unlocked, and when it became apparent that it wouldn’t they cancelled their pledge. S&B then realised that they weren’t going to raise more than what they had and decided that a relaunch from scratch was better than seeing out the campaign and it launching with only the bare… Read more »
I was surprised by this since obviously funding was achieved along was the first stretch goal, but at the same time I am pleased that they as a company felt they could not provide the product in enough detail and depth the backers wanted within the time frame and constraints they had placed upon themselves so instead of taking our money now and giving us a massive string or delays later – which would be a massive error IMO for a new company to start like, instead have suspending the kickstarter and will come back later which for that alone… Read more »
It’s more than a rumour. Unless something drastically unforseen happens then there will be KoW2 in 2014 🙂
I think that KS will see big peaks and troughs in funding projects. Sure there will always be backers out there that will seek to back lots of projects but, I really believe that when the huge amount of people get so much stuff delivered, they will be reconsidering buying new games etc. Its also true that there will always be fresh blood getting introduced to KS or coming of age and getting their first job, but a lot of KS are becoming less and less value for money (which is another thread all of its own), despite differing view… Read more »
They cancelled with twice the initial fund goal? O, i would have been livid if this was one i had pledged for. Because that would also mean they started out on a lie. Dishonesty is not good, even if it is ‘just tactics’.