Reply To: Has tabletop Kickstarter passed its peak?

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 1]

> 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! 😀