Weekender XLBS: Kickstarter Making Better Games; Your Feedback & Comments!
June 17, 2018 by crew
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Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!!!
Happy Sunday Everyone 🙂 it looks like we are having some technical difficulties this morning with a video conversion.
With it being fathers day I’m going to have to find one of the other chaps to try and fix this (or 4 little ones will kick my ass) so bear with me! 🙂
LOL! I feel your pain…I have 3 of my own that I need to be with or I’m in dog doodoo! Happy Father’s Day!
Just an update I’ve come into the studio and have reset the upload to start again. Could take a couple of hours to upload and process (some of you might remember the last time this happened lol)
So I recommend…
1) If your a father go have a lie in
2) If you know a father go and spoil him by telling him to have a lie in
3) If your working on becoming a father, the show could wait any way … have fun! 😉
Ha ha 😀 well them i will, just watch the Soul Wars unboxing again 😉 I already spoiled my old man, but thats a couple of weeks ago, we have fathers day the 5 of June in Denmark (I bought him a new model train)
I hope you will have nice fathersday, and….. Happy sunday 😀
you can rewatch the Peru game then 😉
But I know that we won 😀
You call that a win?!?
I know technically it was but… 😉
We take what we can get ;D
So everything is uploading, I’m now going to sneak back home for a much over-engineered breakfast in bed 😉 and hand you guys over to the very capable carpenter hands of @dignity, who has drafted in a lorry load of timber and a team of ten men to fix this for us all.
@warzan @dignity So the cathedral will be ready by lunch time then?
Happy Sunday from Saturday here in the states!
Aww, now I have to go to work today without a dose of BoW BS to make the work BS tolerable. Please give the computer a Basil Fawlty style ‘damn good thrashing’.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mv0onXhyLlE
Happy Sunday and happy father’s day. I’ll just have to be patient and get on with some painting instead 🙂
My son just brought me a mug of tea and a bacon sarnie, so at least I’ll have some sustenance whilst we wait for the upload
Bacon sounds great!
Happy Sunday folks
Happy Sunday!
Also, if you are interested in getting more folks into Wrath of Kings you should be able to pick it up from Leodis Games 🙂
https://www.leodisgames.com/product-category/wrath-of-kings/
thanks Dave, I’ll look into them when I get round to digging out my WoK later this year.
@dignity so if you are a carpenter. Can you answer this. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck. If a woodchuck could chuck wood
I don’t have kids but one of the cats just brought me a dead mouse which was lovely
So what are you doing while the video uploads.
I have started to watch the Manhunt Unabomber series. Heard good things about it but hadn’t got round to watching it.
it’s fantastic, Paul Bettany plays a really compelling character and the writing is excellent.
Agreed really enjoying it. Reminds me of Mindhunter
Happy sunday
Do you think if I got out of bed. And turn on my PC to watch XLBS it would make it upload faster. My dad shuffled of this mortal coil about 9 years ago. It miss him on days like today
It’s live now 🙂
And i didn’t even need to get out of bed lol
Ah well these things happen. I’m off out, will catch up when I get back. Happy Sunday, Beasts!
they’re OTTers now, not Beasts 😉
Oh blimey you’re right. I don’t adapt well to change. Still otters are cool.
Seemingly Otters are not very nice, read an article that they can be quite vicious and indulge in necrophilia, cheery stuff 🙂
And next time the sites in maintenance mode and we return it stands to reason we would be rotters…..
When Im on this site I love learning all the new painting and modelling techniques. I soak it all up…Does this make me a blotter?
Indeed, as would anyone consuming porcine products be a trotter
Justins project name is interesting lol
Happy Sunday one n all 😀
Happy Father’s Sunday all!
A cup of tea, Necromunda Gang War 1, Van Saar crew box and dice… not a bad stash. Certainly better than socks or useless crap.
Happy Fathers day and happy Sunday, being spoilt by my four kids this morning given the all clear to order all the new Soul Wars releases, so will be looking forward to that.
RoboBen lets just get a gofundme page for one of these https://telepresencerobots.com/
It’s more fun to make one old monitor broom handle, PS3 joypad a couple of cordless drills, a rasp pi and gaffer tape just need angry Ben face to flash up on collision…
I plan to have a light on the front akin to a PS4 controller which shows when I’m angry and when I’m happy…and when my character’s health is low.
Millions from Millions?. I vote for Warren being the GM with the best character voices
Thanks for the comments @warzan for me at the moment, yes it is changes that I need time to get used to but also whilst I am doing a lot of hobby at the moment it feels a bit mechanical just churning out miniatures.
I have yet to jump into projects probably because it feels quite formal rather than the ad-hoc-ness of just WAYPN and I don’t believe I am at the level where it warrants or is worthy of a project thread. I know that is my hangup and I am sure I will get over it.
I continue to enjoy the community and the content so no fear there, but sometimes it feels like I am outside looking in so I just need to be more involved.
Have a great weekend all.
Martin
Unless it’s a miniature only KS I do agree with @brennon especially with historical games and it would be equally true I think with a lot of sci-fi and fantasy Kickstarters why companies feel the need to produce what I am sure is an expensive process miniatures ranges as well. There are hundreds of companies producing miniature out there already that are more than up to the job
It was brought up that a lot of the bigger companies are coming to Kickstarter almost ready to go with artwork and digital sculpts. I wonder if this is making it harder for the truly small companies that can’t do this to get funded? They may have a great idea but people may be getting turned off by this as they have become more used to seeing a more ready to go product.
I agree that the cult of more is a bad thing in Kickstarter. I would rather receive a compact and polished product than an overwhelming amount of stuff that inevitably delays and complicates things.
No doubt smaller creators are being overshadowed. But it’s all about what equates as success too.
We see so many first time creators come to us expecting to make a million on KS.
The expectations of both creators and backers really needs to come back into line.
My advise to creators is start small and fail fast, if you want to go all in then by all means do that but understand it’s an all or nothing gamble and be prepared to lose big time. Ie you need to roll a 9+ on a d10 kind of gamble.
I still think it’s while not a perfect platform for small creators it is pretty much the only platform for them 🙂
I agree with you both. Every month there is a big project on KS (like Myhtic battles pantheon 1.5 and Solomon Kane) and others are already announced for this year and next year. These come fully prepared with minis, art, boards, … and people already know that they will get a lot of free stuff. A small creator his best change is going to KS but then they have to compete with these big boys it will be hard and they can’t ask for too much as there will be a big change that they won’t make it.
But the other problem is that a lot of people just want so much that it gets harder for the small projects as they can’t handle these big demands.
Happy Sunday!
I’ve now sworn myself off Kickstarter.
I only backed 4 in my short KS career, but I realised that the system just didn’t work for me.
Exploding Kittens:
Small buy-in, arrived on time, easy to pic and up play with my wife, nieces and nephews whenever. Probably my one success out of it all
WWX Unfinished Business / Shattered Earth:
Whilst they achieved their goals and arrived on time, the retail industry was giving me other shiny things to buy whilst these were being produced. The end result, months later after backing them, I have no real interest in them any more as I’ve moved on to other things or refocused on existing projects. That’s not a detriment to what I received, but just showed the pace of life outside KS.
AVP:
Enough said….
To start off with Yes I also agree with @warzan ! But believe it or not I feel no need to go and shower!
There is no doubt that Kickstarter has brought innovation to the hobby for sure and yes that may not equate to quality improvement in every aspect of the hobby.
One thing it has done for me I think may be unique or maybe not:
I have never backed a Kickstarter as there has been nothing that really interested me. (Although I do agree with Ben that the map kickstarter campaign idea is VERY interesting to me).
What I have done is link up with buddies of mine in the gaming community that have jumped into some kickstarters. When they have walked me through the sites and all the stretch goals and add ons I found several things that I definitely wanted to get my hands on. As a result they just ordered them within their pledge and once they come in I’ll just pay him for those items.
I’ve done this with the Terrain crate dungeon stuff from Mantic and that absolutely flipping AWESOME! Dragon from Joan of Arc.
So for me who doesn’t plan on playing something like Joan of Arc the ability to pick a couple of items from a friends kickstarter has really given me the ability to get some very reasonably priced items without having to jump in full hog! Again another innovation in my way of thinking as far as purchasing options.
I do agree that it is flooding the market with lots of product but that’s easy enough for me to screen out. Its not to different than certain aspects of BOW that don’t appeal to me, I just don’t participate in them or watch them. What I can do is just focus on what interest me.
All it takes often times is watching the first 10-15 seconds of a new kickstarter discussion for me on BOW to know I’m not interested and I fast forward to the next one. That’s not a ding on the BOW team its just me using my time to focus on those things im interested. Thus most Kickstarters don’t even register with me as there are so many out there.
Enough Rambling! Great show guys realy enjoyed it, gots lots of painting done on a couple of LOTR Haradrim Raiders. Think I will have to post some pictures and start two project logs One for my Battle Companies painting progress (I’m up to 10 starter warbands completed) and my Helms Deep project. Yes I’m still slowly plugging away at it!
Cheers!
I do wonder if people get quality of a product or quantity of a product with innovation although very occasionally you get all 3 in the same game/ruleset
To me innovation is something I look for in rulesets. I have played rulesets that are maybe 2 or 3 pages long hand typed and either photocopied or done on a Gestetner machine which have had some really interesting mechanics in them but has no quality in the production whatsoever
To me the flowchart damage system in renegade legion or the use of the plebs in Gangs of Rome or the battleboards in Saga would be examples of innovative
Great discussion again. I was trying to resist commenting but just had to dip in, much like my attitude on Kickstarter ironically.
Firstly, I also agree with @warzan (but that doesn’t mean I would vote for you to be deputy prime minister).
For me looking at Kickstarter as a business model there is a problem for companies who use it exclusively without either their own or “traditional” distribution. Companies need income. With Kickstarter you get a single massive injection of cash and then nothing but expenses until you run the next campaign. So, the need to bring out the next thing which is just as big as the last thing creates an enormous pressure on such KS exclusive companies. To grow your company the tendency will therefore be to need each new project presented to KS to get bigger than the last. If it doesn’t the company will see itself going backward financially. This isn’t helped by the fact that the rest of the world doesn’t work on this ‘giant income but not very often’ model. Fixed and variable costs to a business have to be paid when they arise and can’t be held over to be settled when the money comes in. To see what this model means for a market I tried to think of equivalent business models and I came up with farming. Farmers generally get the majority of their income at one point in the year (harvest) and therefore rely on careful money management and quite often a bank to see them through between times. They are subject to the variances of the price their harvest will fetch. If lots of other farmers are also selling their harvest at the same time in a market with static demand the price will drop and pull down everyone’s annual income accordingly. So going back to KS is this effect starting to happen in the miniature boardgames market? Are there too many offers for big games that are starting to get in each others way? Zombicide, Batman, MB:P 1.5, Hate, Solomon Kane have all hit so far this year and that is in a market where FFG have brought out SW Legion and GW AOS 2.0 at the same time. I’m sure KS has helped expand the market but can it take this kind of strain? As it happens I think it can as the trajectory is still upward in terms of backer numbers and money through KS. Personally I’m a backer of Batman, MB:P 1.5 and Solomon Kane so I’m still very happy with the financial position of these companies and the quality of their products. In fact I think quality is, as @brennon pointed out, starting to feature much more highly in the course of these campaigns. Solomon Kane is a clear example of this. The issue will be if companies can’t keep up with the need to innovate and stay relevant when each campaign needs to deliver the next big cash injection to sustain their business.
Fantastic insight!!! (Really really spot on)
If anything the risks are even greater than farming as you can judge demand of agriculture products much easier than a completely new miniatures game.
Thanks and you are right about farming. I did wonder if it is more like shipbuilding, but then thought, no. If it were shipbuilding it would be like having to design and build about half a ship before seeing if anyone is interested in buying it. If too many are you might need to rebuild it bigger on the fly!
Cash flow is king. Businesses that end up needing the next kickstarter injection to complete an earlier project are on a very slippery slope. Not seen it happen yet but if it does it will be a bit of a shock to the KS only model. Companies that fall flat on their face in KS because they don’t know what they are getting into (AVP, Hawk, etc.) are one thing but companies that are misjudging the business model even though they have proven successful on KS before are still at risk.
Good Sunday morning and Happy Father’s Day to everyone out there!
Let me start by saying that I have been a long-time follower of Beasts of War (On Table Top) and love what you all do to promote and inform about the gaming community in all its myriad forms. While the new site is taking time to get used to, I appreciate the efforts you are making to improve on it for the future.
On the topic of Android: Netrunner, my understanding so far is that the intellectual property of “Netrunner” and its mechanics belong to Wizards of the Coast based on the original CCG called, simply, Netrunner. The android universe and its ideas of Corporations and Runners set in a dystopian, high-tech near future is owned by FFG/Asmodee. From what I understand, this means that WotC can take the Netrunner IP at any time the original license was to expire, but not the Android IP. Therefore, any game released by WotC in the future cannot ustilize the various entities that many people have come to love in the Android universe. By the same token, FFG, I assume, cannot utilize the mechanics that are the IP of Netrunner.
The loss of the license was disappointing news because I had just gotten in to the game after years of trying to resist, due in no small part to Ben’s praise for the game and the guys over at Team Covenant who created an excellent “Learning to Play Netrunner” series of tutorials. Although no one knows for sure, I am guessing that one of two things happened…
1. WotC saw the potential for earning more money from the license and simply took it from FFG so that they could use it with another IP (e.g. Cyberpunk) or
2. WotC asked for more money than FFG/Asmodee either could or was willing to pay (especially given the fact that they already pay for the Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings licenses).
Either way, I really think it was a shock to FFG/Asmodee. They had just rebooted the system with a revised core set (NOT 2.0!) and had instituted the idea of rotation for older cards/sets. Also, FFG had already printed the new Reign and Reverie deluxe expansion that is coming out in a couple of weeks (here in the US) and introduces new cards for both the various Corps and the Runners. Finally, they had been showing for some time that the three older deluxe boxes were awaiting reprint. Now, if you check the site, these are no longer listed on the upcoming page. When I spoke to someone at FFG/Asmodee, they said it was because there was not way, with their current production system, to print the cards, package them, ship them by boat, receive and distribute them before the license expires on October 22nd. All of this makes me think that WotC was the primary force behind the loss of the license by FFG/Asmodee.
Now, while upsetting, I do think there is a silver lining. With the success of the Lord of the Rings and the Arkham Horror Cooperative LCGs (both of which are stellar co-op games with fantastic story-telling in either a high fantasy or horror setting), I am hoping that FFG/Asmodee will be able to develop a co-op version of their Android IP using the rich background that already exists for the universe.
As for WotC, perhaps they will be able to do something interesting with the Netrunner IP using a different universe and make another great LCG that benefits from the mechanics that Richard Garfield created years ago. My only hesitation is that I am afraid that they will try to go the CCG route and, frankly, that is something that is likely a hard pass for me since I am already so invested in Star Wars: Destiny with its phenomenal card and dice mechanics that is so much more appealing to me than the “tired” Magic: The Gathering mechanics. I prefer the idea that I still have a chance at success given the more random nature of dice rolls than simply “can I pull the right card at the right time” (which is still part of Destiny to be sure).
Anyway, I wanted to weigh in to give more of what I understand to be the reasoning behind what happened with Android: Netrunner and where this MAY go in the future.
Keep of the great work and game on!!!!
Really interesting take on things and makes a lot of sense.
Certainly feels like something has went wrong somewhere 🙁
As you can imagine there has been a lot of talk of this on Android: NetRunner ( ANR ) forums. The long and short of the IP situation is that, yes, FFG own the Android universe and WotC own Netrunner. However, some interested IP enthusiasts and lawyers on those forums have been digging around and they report back that there isn’t actually a lot by way of IP and copyright for Netrunner, and the consensus of opinion is that the agreement between FFG and WotC is more of a gentleman’s agreement to avoid the potentially costly, long and protracted possibility of a legal dispute.
As to who pulled the plug, the consensus of opinion is that it was probably WotC that did so for one of the two reasons you point out, though it’s possible that it was FFG, alas deciding to do so for some reason, perhaps due to sales, before the Revised Core set, rotation, and the use of the banned and restricted list reinvigorated the game. Either way it seems the decision was made during the design process of Reign And Reverie, as ( the word on the grapevine is that ) that was going to be a full cycle of data packs that got cut short and made the best of by redesigning it as a deluxe box.
From what i can see most avid ANR players are not looking forward to a WotC version, in large part because a WotC version is anticipated to be released as a CCG ( data packs of random cards ) rather than an LCG ( data packs of a known set of cards ), and the WotC CCG model would likely change the nature of the game.
I would still recommend getting a Revised Core or an original Core set, as they are excellent self contained games and it isn’t necessary to get into buying expansions ( deluxe boxes or data packs ) to get a good amount of gaming out of them.
I think it may also be worth mentioning that there have been any number of companies who have not produced a game per say but simply produced products for a popular game that the parent companies decided not to do. So things like dice, templates, scenery to name a few.
Some of these kickstarters were targeted to produce items for a specific game often allowing that company to move forward without having to find the funds for these items.
These small and shiny items capture peoples attention and allow players another level of immersion through physical coins, stylized buildings, dice, templates and any number of other nice little add ons to those games we all have a soft spot for.
From kits to build hex layout tables to items for holding a model while painting these little gems keep appearing and using the crowdfunding platform to get the items on the market and available. Rarely do we see these items enter the brick and mortar establishments as the margins for production, shipping and retailer discounts leave little for the maker but in those small companies online stores normally made up of back rooms, garden sheds and garages they wait in a dark corner for someone to place an order.
I think these items which generally have a lower initial set up cost would have less chance of being developed and manufactured without crowdfunding. Building a Kickstarter is money out of the pocket regardless of what your project is. Most of the time those of us who have an idea for Kickstarter are spending our money buying games or things for games we already have or know are coming soon. We all love our games and most of the time are happy for someone else to do the work.
Ive backed a few campaigns over the years. Some I regret (Star Citizen. I mean, come on!) and others I’ve loved. The most education was Dropfleet. I love the game but it was somewhat discouraging that Retail got their deliveries before me and I was missing a few bits! You guys defo helped with that and having Dave appear to explain what was going on made me much more forgiving. In the end, Hawk got my stuff to me and I’m quite pleased that TTCombat absorbed Hawk to help Dave get back to working on his games!
A result of this is Itend to be quite cautious. However, this did not stop me backing Nemesis, where they basically fleshed out a new expansion DURING the KS. I’m still optimistic but am oh so ready for delays to be announced. I mean, it took them an extra month to get the Pledge Manager up and running! Still, fingers crossed.
Great video as always ?
Kickstarter – I’ve done a few over the last couple of years, mainly board games such as Mythic Battles Panteon, Dark Souls etc. Main draw is I’m a sucker for a nice miniature!
Whilst not the greatest painter I do like the idea of playing a board game with painted minis.
As for the concept of Kickstarter I like the idea of seeing a game develop during the campaign, being able to feedback during the campaign and of course seeing those stretch goals unlock.
Whilst extra minis are good I also like the ability to upgrade cards/tokens to give a better quality game. That said too many minis can be a little off putting, I’m only halfway through Mythic battles (and I only did the base pledge) and two thirds of my Dropfleet Commander are still on the sprues!
First XLBS after I rejoined Backstage. Don’t really have much to comment on the video, but just felt like sharing that fact nonetheless lol.
Don’t have much opinion in the Kickstarter discussion, so can’t comment on it really.
On @dracs mug – “Nobody tosses a Dwarf”; I immediately thought “Good thing you’re a Hobbit then” ? Then for some reason my mind immediately jumped to the other use of tossing and suddenly that sounded kinda smutty ? Good thing we’re never going to see that sort of Hobbit tossing on BoW ?
Welcome back mate 🙂
@dracs idea for a series here? 😉
Thanks @warzan.
Think it can’t be a series here; you’ll have to start a sister channel on OTT called ‘BoW After Dark’ to air it on first. ?
Besides, I think Hobbit Tossing is something that should stay between Sam and his boyfriend/girlfriend/etc really. ?
His dwarf 😉
I don’t know Hobbit tossing as an activity might be a hard one to pull off Be good excuse for more merch though . OTT raincoats and umbrellas
@torros : and OTT night vision binoculars.
I’m flattered you think they’d be necessary.
@warzan – sounds like that’s a yes from @dracs . So when can we expect to see it online guys?
?
Happy sunday!
Well, i think in the next few weeks i’ll try the “Project” system and resurect my Frostgrave blog. Thanks to hard times at work, i haven’t been painting much in the last few months but, i’ve been assembling stuff at least (SW Legion and KoW stuff). With vacation time coming up (finally :)! ), i’ll try the to start the project to keep myself going…
First up – thanks very much for the Golden Button all the kind words regarding the Darkstar project. 😀 😀 😀
I agree with @warzan about keeping the traditional forum topics going in parallel with the projects feature on BoW. Case in point – the Valor & Victory 1918 Edition project I’m running for the Great War, and the Centennial Gaming in the Great War thread still going from the Campaigns of 1918 article series a while back.
The projects feature gives us the ability to feature what we’re doing in a way that can be creatively presented, customized, edited, rearranged, re-ordered … pretty much perfect.
But while other people can certainly add comments or “smash those buttons” – they don’t really participate or collaborate with their own work, photos, documents, resources, etc.
This is where the forums come in. For every article series, I always ran a support thread because I wanted to give people a chance to add their own materials to the discussion. So we get great battle reports, game photos, maps, video links, etc … from lots of people across the community about the topic with which the articles were dealing.
Conversely, on threads, especially the really big ones like WAYPaN, peoples’ work was being buried with startling speed. So the Projects are a great way of keeping things organized in a “vertical” user-focused basis, while the forums are more widespread in their “lateral” inclusion of input and collaboration from more community members.
Eloquently put as ever mate 🙂
I have an idea for a new miniature game and was thinking of putting it up on Kickstarter, but after seeing this video I’m a little scared now.
Ok. I am now in a small dilema…
First off, I still agree with Warren *shudders*… BUT!!!!!!!
I was having a chat with a mate during the week and he made a comment that I cannot shake and I am hoping someone either in the community or BoW/OTT themselves can either clear-up/correct or confirm…
With Kickstarter games…. Is there a tournament scene?
Me and my mate sat for a while and couldn’t think of any big, successful KS games that were actively promoting or hosting tournaments. All the tournaments we could think of were for existing systems that (as far as we know) didn’t come through KS. WH40k, AoS, all the FFG Star Wars ranges and more.
Can anyone help us and think of a KS funded game that has a tournament scene or is the grim fact that KS might actually be the first step on the road to limited to no tournaments?
My thoughts are that, while other games are in the mainstream, there will be tournaments, but is KS starting to limit them? Or is the industry at its peak with tournament play games and too many more would be detramental?
I know this is a slight deviation from @warzan ‘s original question, but I would love to hear others thoughts.
Cheers. 🙂
I know that during the mythic battles pantheon they were talking about tournaments but I don’t know if they have done any.
How many Kickstarter games are tourney suitable though? In the case of board games maybe comparing to things like 40k isn’t the best metric; maybe it’d be better to compare to Monopoly and Cluedo – do those have prolific tournament scenes?
guild ball is the only one i can think of but it also has a retail presence. not saying it can’t be done but the way KS is currently being used makes it tough.
Monopoly has a pretty big competitive scene, as does Carcassonne for that matter. Not that I have an opinion either way on how KS affects this, don’t know enough about it. Just thought it might be relevant.
Isn’t Monopoly’s competitive scene real life business/property development? ?
lol! I was thinking more about what get’s covered here… https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-enter-official-monopoly-tournament-411915
Tsk, spoil the joke why don’t you; next you’ll be telling us that competitive Cluedo isn’t actual police officers engaging in real life police work to find out who can catch the most crooks and win an award for doing so. ?
If it wasn’t so depressingly dystopian that would be a great idea for a TV show! Although like some kind of competitive LARP with Poirot vs Sherlock Holmes, that could be very watchable. Controversially perhaps, I think I’d back Poirot in that match-up.
Mantics games do progress to the tournament scence . I have seen tournies for KOW and to a lesser extent Dreadball.
Relic knights had a very small but committed screen until the V2 Kickstart when it seemed that new was killing the drive to play old which was a shame. When product gets to use I will be resurrecting it. Have talked directly to John from Ninja Devisionat at UK games expo and they’re very keen to help promote and support.
I agree with the guys from BOW. I have seen this in some KS lately. A lot of people want more at the same price or for free. It goes even so far that backers demand this in the comments. But all the stuff costs money and they have to pay a percent to KS to.
Yeah, it’s a really tough one this. I can fully understand the economics are tricky, and I would have thought the solution Justin proposed around unlocking purchasable add-ons would be fair, however, I’ve known people who’ve pulled pledges when that sort of things has been announced because they think it’s a rip-off. I like to think the customer is always right as much as possible, and a lot of people have pretty much come to expect that, if you are going way past your goal, you can afford to give things away for free. Even more, that not doing so, is somehow cheating consumers. Though economies of scale are a thing, it doesn’t always work that way, as the guys were explaining in the show, it can hurt a project to keep trying to add free things to satisfy backers who hold that view.
Happy Sunday!
It’s so good to be back 🙂
Holy shit, @yavasa, where have you been? So glad to see you back, I hope you’re doing better. 😀
Hello, @oriskany I’ve been away painting Cygnar 😉 and healing 🙂 but I am trying to slowly get back to BoW 🙂 I need to start taking photos of all my Cygnar miniatures in order to begin this new fancy project thing available on the site 🙂
Welcome back mate!!!! Great to see you 🙂
The Boss has spoken! 🙂 Hello @warzan thanks for the warm welcome 🙂
don’t worry guy’s the new system was a bit confusing at first but I was just putting that down to being a trainee old dotary gitt not just the new site getting started up.
I’m not sure how i feel about the response to my ranty counter arguments. the response was well tempered if a little defensive, you closed ranks on me pretty quickly their gents. which in all honesty was probably fair given my comments.
Just for clarity just because i didn’t mention any of the positives doesn’t meen i don’t believe there are any.
i had no way of knowing you were going to follow it up with a show covering the counter arguments or my response would have been different. i think it’s very time consuming to have this debate properly online and the topic would be better served face to face.
on the topic of hobby burnout, although it’s more a case of comment burnout, i think i need a rest. i’ll still post the odd comment but need to take a step back for awhile.
a fab show guys on kickstarters I think this is a good way of seeing if a concept has any weight by throwing the idea into the public eye with minimal expense I think.
Happy Sunday! Fantastic video as ever.
Again I have to point out how fantastic I think it is that we discuss these issues as a community, and we politely and respectfully share conflicting ideas. Debate is healthy, and it’s a tremendous credit to the team and the community that it is conducted such as it is here.
Just wanted to touch on a couple of points, both related to things @brennon has said. With the deepest respect, I did disagree, at least a little, on these points.
Firstly, the “rules first, mini’s later” idea. If you’d asked me a year or so ago, I would have totally agreed with this point! I’ve said before I am way more into rules and lore than I am into miniatures, though I do like mini’s a lot. So when I was first working on Deneb, it was all around the rules and lore, and I figured “I’ll sort the mini’s later”. I had playable rules, ran play-tests with standees, and so on. When I started sharing in communities online to get feedback, I struggled to get much initially (and you’ll always want more feedback, so no amount is ever enough!). A few people told me quite honestly, they would never bother even downloading a free PDF of rules, even nicely produced with art, unless I showed them the miniatures. This was very useful feedback, however much it went against my instincts. Ultimately, this rang true with conversations I had with others in the industry, that for a lot of people, a game will only get considered if they like the miniatures.
I think historical games are the exception to this rule, partly because there are so many great miniature lines out there for people to use already. What they are looking for specifically is a ruleset that solves their problem X with playing that historical period, they have the miniatures already. I got tons more feedback, once I got the miniature sculpts sorted. That is not meant as a criticism of anyone, it was just a misconception I had borne out of my personal preferences, and not understanding that the community I wanted to get engaged in this game, had different priorities. It’s also very possible that I am wrong in that I’ve just been talking in the wrong circles for feedback for my interest! Also, it was no bad thing either to get me motivated to solve that part of the whole process.
Secondly on the private investors’ thing. There is a world of difference between a bank manager and a VC, or another form of investor. Also, no two VC’s are going to operate exactly the same either. I am sure it is a lot of pressure dealing with feedback from comments and e-mails from backers. I’ve experienced that kind of thing first hand working on community management stuff in the video game world (and posted about it on a previous XLBS!). However, an investor might well send you e-mails like that throughout the week (especially if things are falling behind), but they might also be in the office with you one-day a week in extreme cases. That can be a very high-pressure, high-stress environment. Some investment is much more distant and you might not see them for months at a time, but my point is, it’s not automatically going to be easier (or for that matter harder) than public KS pressures.
It’s very possible I’ve missed something obvious on these points! So as ever happy to hear counter-points.
Also meant to say I have a lot of sympathy with @avernos and others regarding Wrath of Kings. Great game, I finally got my starter set into a state where enough models were painted and assembled and I could play a few games. It is a bit disappointing that you don’t get enough in the box to field a legal minimum size battle, but basically just enough to play one or two tutorial battles. That might be fine if I could pop to my local store and grab a couple of boxes to get up to that patrol size game, but I can’t. Even if I could, I’d have no one to play against, so I’d be back to collect at least two factions. Something I am ok with a lot of the time, but without easily available distribution it does make it tough.
To add to something Sam said about going for the miniature focused approach – one of the first Kickstarters I ever backed was Panzerfauste. I loved the concept and they had some lovely mini designs – but I backed that in Nov 2015 – and the whole thing was supposed to be delivered by Sept 2016 with 2 different rulesets, a skirmish version and a mass battle syystem.
Now to be fair – they have shipped quite a few of the minis (not all of them) – but they are *still* “working” on the rules – so I have some lovely minis but no rule set to actually play them with. It’s extremely frustrating!!!
That’s been 3 years – I can only conclude they had no idea what the rules might be before they launched the KS
I know it might seem like bigger companies are crowding out the smaller ones but I don’t think that’s any different to any other business. I also for a fact that most of the companies people see as “large” are still very much small businesses by the UK legal definition. It’s easy to see companies as being large through the lens of BoW when they have a popular game that gets lots of media attention on sites like this. But companies like Monolith and even Mantic are actually very small with a small number of staff. Their revenue and turnover aren’t as high as we might think and the investment needed to get many of the products to market outside of Kickstarter is a significant risk that they simply cannot afford to take.
Also I don’t think I really explained my point about innovation. My only real point was that the innovation isn’t specific to Kickstarter, it’s purely a consequence of where those companies are in their life-cycles. All companies tend to innovate with new products at the start of their lifecycles but more on quality and logistics once established. With Kickstarter you are seeing lots of new companies just setting up so lots of innovative products. With GW and WotC you are seeing two established giants with established product ranges and so their innovation is less obvious because it’s focused behind the scenes. And I think KDM and Monolith are two very good examples of companies who made it on Kickstarter and have themselves become established – their innovation cycles match those of an established company.
For me I think the interesting thing for Kickstarter is where is it going? I love Monolith’s games but I so have some concerns about the Kickstarter only business model. Without Kickstarter they have no revenue stream so they are quite vulnerable. However from what I can see there doesn’t seem to be any real focus on developing their own internal logistics (storage and distribution) that would allow them to sell products themselves via a webstore or any shift to producing a product that is perhaps easier to ship and distribute. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love Conan and Mythic Battles (I just backed the reprint KS to get some more add-ons) but I do wonder how long can Kickstarter sustain a company?
I guess the other question might be whether the market outside of Kickstarter can support all these companies? I would have to lean towards No at the moment. For example if you knew that you could buy something like Mythic Battles any time at your local FLGS, how many people would actually get around to buying it or going “All In” and buying all the add ons in any given month? The Kickstarter Exclusive model also appeals to the collector bug. When you know you won’t have another chance to buy, you are more likely to spend more to get it.
I keep repeating myself, but another great show. Thanks all 🙂 It was a really interesting discussion.
I must admit that I just don’t understand the “moral outrage” that many claim when they complain that Kickstarter has become a tool for big companies at the expense of small ones. Its a market place, not a morality show. If someone offers something that is wanted at a cost they are prepared to shoulder and with a convincing likelihood of fulfilment, people will pay, if they don’t they won’t. No small business has a right to customers’ cash “just because” they are small – that’s charity not business. By all means support the little guy if you want to, but it seems silly to make it a moral crusade. After all, I have seen many campaigns fail for the so-called “big guys” too over the years.
One thing I’d still like to see added to projects is adding entries as private or as drafts. So you can work on an entry over time. Also for adding many pictures to a certain entry, the current site has issues uploading many pictures at once.
Personally I’m not a fan of pre-build or pre-painted mini’s. I like how Fallout: Wasteland Warfare is doing it, you can get the starter set as either pre-build coloured plastics or in resin components. I definitely think that kickstarter has led a rise of innovations in gameplay mechanics and production methods. I don’t think Modiphius would ever have done these two starter sets for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare without this development ever having happened. I prefer building miniatures and putting time in building and painting it. It gives them value for me. But I want people to play the games with and not everyone is interested in building and painting as much as I am and for them pre-build or even easy-build miniatures that Games Workshop are doing needs to be there.
My problem is not that I have to put in an investment, but the kickstarter launches and I’d have a month to get the money together, which I know I often can’t. Some announce their kickstarters ahead of time and that’s good, but usually they don’t give an idea of the what it will cost.
More companies need more high street peasants!
Kickstarter pulls away funds that you might otherwise use on your main hobby. With me, I like to support these ventures but after piles and piles of self-contained board games build up in my closet, backing kickstarter after kickstarter due to support syndrome & SHINY SYNDROME.
It’s financial exhausting, I’ll never get around to these games, all I can do is unbox them and make sure the goods are there.
Solution? Possibly buy and then sell and play as you go, problem is a lot of these flash in the pan kickstarters are hard sells on the third party market unless they’re boutique.
I mean c’mon Beasts of War crew, could you imagine having to just watch an entire 6 months of Kickstarters go by without having to unbox, play or back anything? That’d be a nightmare! lol!
TLDR: It seems things were simpler back then, now there’s too many games, too many releases and everything wants your hobby tenners!
Kickstarter is killing friendly local gaming stores. We already struggle with ever increasing ranges to try and there are literally thousands of games released every month by established companies before you even consider KS.
KS takes money from our customers that we never see, and usually provides a single, one off product. They rarely have any follow up and only the really successful ones have ongoing support for FAQs or community.
The other thing is that as a retailer I have really struggled to sell some companies games like CMON despite beautiful miniatures. The bulk of players bought it during the KS or alternatively potential owners get turned off when they realize there are KS exclusives they simply can’t get without paying a fortune.
The few companies that have attempted to include retailers in KS handle us poorly. Product release is often after the KS and ultimately retails for more than purchasing via KS. I heard Sam mention Walking Dead/Mantic. It’s been a disaster. Only the dedicated few players that purchased the original KS continue to buy product, and most will order direct from Mantic, so in effect, a fraction of a fraction go through retailers.
Ultimately I have had to refused to give a number of gamers play space in my stores for KS games simply because the game contributes nothing to my shops bottom line. I’d rather have people playing 40K, AoS, Magic or some other game they have purchased in store and the reality is that GW supports retailers far better than anyone else in the industry.
I mainly come to the site to watch videos. I usually just pick whatever there is at the top. Nothing disappoints me more than clicking on something thinking, “alright. something to watch/listen,” then seeing it’s an article or something else.
Is there any way to label the stuff on the top bar to be “Video,” “Article,” and so on?