Reply To: Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game – Shipping surcharge

[limburger 21711xp 1]

Can we blame backers as well ?
Whenever I see kickstarters that don’t go overboard with add-ons, stretchgoals and such crap the comment sections are flooded with backers demanding “more”.

Backers also ‘demand’ priority and exclusives to justify the money they’re burning to themselves …

@jamescutts Mythic have pretty much said that they are going to re-focus their projects on smaller efforts, because it’s become obvious that large scale projects simply aren’t predictable enough with the infrastructure and logistics as they exist.

The successrate of kickstarters is kind of the problem here. Once a kickstarter reaches its funding goal the vast majority succeeds in delivering a product. They may not always hit the deadline they’ve set, but on average they do.
Net result is that a lot of pre-funding failure is hidden from view. This makes it look like backing a kickstarter is about as safe as pre-ordering from a shop.

I think that there’s no amount of disclaimers/reminders that can fix this.

*People simply can’t put a value on a risk if there is no real immediate danger. *

Kickstarters & crowdfunding in general are IMHO a loophole that was needed to allow people with no real access to investors the opportunity to start a business.

The real problem is that (as always) the people who need to listen never do.
It’s like buying crap at a store and then complaining that it doesn’t work as advertised … when you could have read the reviews to know that it was most likely going to be crap.

If one doesn’t make the effort to ensure some basic safety for the money you’re investing/donating … then one should complain if things do go pear shaped.

A simple checklist will work wonders :
(1) how do I feel if I don’t get anything after giving money to X ? and how much extra money am I willing to give ?
(2) how do I feel if I don’t get anything at the given deadline ? and how much extra time am I going to give them ?
(3) what options do I have if either thing happens ? (and can I rely on those options ?)
(4) assuming those options don’t work out either … would I still invest the money and time ?

Write your answers on a piece of paper and keep it with your kickstarter.
I bet that if you are honest … then you are likely going to avoid more kickstarters, because your answer to the last question will be ‘nope’.
And even if you’re investing you will have a reminder of what you thought at the start and you can reassess your thoughts with less emotions and more cold hard logic.

We shouldn’t blame others for not thinking of our needs if we don’t learn to think for ourselves.
There is no incentive for others to think of our needs, because the reward for them is likely not to our benefit.

/ramble