Massive Awesome’s Shattered Earth Live On Kickstarter
February 11, 2016 by brennon
Massive Awesome have now launched their Kickstarter for Shattered Earth and it's going great guns! At time of writing they are already half way towards their funding total and there's plenty to check out...
So where does the campaign stand right now? Well lets have a look at some of the aspects of their campaign and how it is coming together...
Pledge Levels
First up we'll look at some of the pledge levels you can aim for. There are a couple of Faction Sets which allow you to snap up the first miniatures to get you started within the world of Shattered Earth. Here we have the UNM...
But they have also sorted out Starter Boxes for both the Cult and the Deathless as well as you can see below. I don't know which one I'd plump for as they all look rather awesome but if pushed to it I reckon I'd have to go for the Cult for something a bit different.
If you fancy getting more people into the game then they are also providing some two player bundles which pack both the Cult and the UNM together into one set allowing you to duke it out with a friend.
Additionally you can pledge that little bit more and also get some of the factions with their additional content like Vampyrs, a Kodiak Tactical Frame and a Biomancer for the various factions. If you want to find out more about those head on over to the Kickstarter page.
Gameplay & Rules
We had a chat with the Shattered Earth guys about the game not long ago on The Weekender but in the mean time they have also given a quick run down of the rules on their funding page AND you can download all of the relevant rules to give them a go.
The game seems streamlined and simple to learn with a real focus on all of the working out happening around the tabletop rather than back in the book consulting charts.
Stretch Goals
Looking ahead they also have plenty of stretch goals planned out. The first ones are new factions which is great to see!
It's great to see that the factions are going to be the focus of these first stretch goals as, if they hit their target and more, they could be adding a lot more depth to the world of Shattered Earth already.
You can find out LOADS about the background of this world too over on their Kickstarter page. They have really gone to town on it!
Will you be backing?
"Looking ahead they also have plenty of stretch goals planned out. The first ones are new factions which is great to see!"
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Way to pricey
For high quality resin the price is fine, but I wonder whether they wouldn’t have been better served promoting a higher buy-in for more minis (and by extension more variety of minis) as the standard pledge. The likes of Mierce and Infamy have done well with similarly pricey resin minis using this approach. It hasn’t stopped me pledging, albeit only for a £1 for now so I can get access later when I’m better able to afford it.
Yep, perhaps that is a good idea. I’d certainly be all over that.
They’ve reduced all the prices across the board. The initial buy in is now much more in line with something like Infinity, or at least fairly close.
All of their miniatures are prices fairly similarly to something like Batman (metal) or the new Marvel miniature starters (metal).
The level of maturity of the game system and miniatures (for example, the way female characters are designed) and the interesting background, which shows a lot of potential – all this adds up to something worth backing.
Compared to a Mantic or a CMON Kickstarter, it’s expensive. But the quality of miniatures is on another level, and I see SE as being a long-term bet. Whereas with many games you feel like they are pumping them out, forgetting about them and then moving on to the next thing.
Everything can be bought as addons. So, despite there being only one ‘all-in’ package, you can pretty much get any combination of miniatures that you like, all at discount on retail.
Sure but that’s not the same as having a standard pledge in which you spend £80 or £100 and get a good discount on a lot of minis. Past experience of other campaigns suggests that people will happily jump in on those and feel like they’re good value. In Mierce’s case those all tend to be from one faction, and Infamy’s it was a selection from the range. SE’s format seems more towards Mierce and I guess that each faction isn’t yet far enough along to make that pledge level something they can offer.
Yep, I get you.
Just like Age of Tyrants and its roaring kickstarter trade.
Great looking miniatures. Can’t comment on quality as not seen one in the flesh. Very bloody expensive (on a per-miniature basis) though, even after they’ve dropped the prices. Compared to other small-force skirmish games they’re not too far away (e.g. Infinity, Malifaux – 6 minis for about £30, Guild Ball – 4 minis for about £22) but still definitely more expensive and once at full retail price will be very pricey.
No idea on how many miniatures you need for a game (i.e. whether you just need a starter set or whether you need say 10 men for a “full” game) so not sure what the “full buy-in” is for the game.
From a game point of view, would also have made more sense to make all starter sets the same price, although discrepancy is understandable as some have larger miniatures. Maybe they should have thought about that earlier.
All of Infinity’s starter sets are the same price, granted. But they have enough miniatures to field full armies with just 28mm figures. If they priced all the SE starter sets the same, then they would have to just use the smaller miniatures (or make potentially make a loss on the sets with larger figures).
A full-size game up to about 15 miniatures per side, the bulk of them will be standard-sized, I would imagine.
It’s early days for SE, they are Kickstarting in order to get moving. It’s definitely on the higher-quality, more expensive side of the market. But they aren’t pretending to be anything else.
If you watch the BoW Weekender video, you can get a pretty good idea of the quality of the miniatures.
Malifaux has starter sets that contain large models. They are all very similar prices (between £30 and £34). Where you see a loss on the larger minis, I see higher profits on the ones which contain only smaller minis.
Alternatively, they could put an extra mini in the ones with only small miniatures in them. Maybe they don’t feel they need to and that people will buy the minis they want anyway, regardless of price. I don’t know. All I know is that a lot of players I know would plump for the cheaper set (and would certainly balk at an average cost of £7-8 per 32mm infantry miniature).
The Malifaux starters are now all plastic as far as I’m aware, which makes the cost there related to the number of sprues rather than the number and size of the minis. There’ll be a huge up-front cost to tool the sprues, but Wyrd obviously sell enough of them to make it cost effective with the minimal manufacturing costs. Hand-poured resin is a different beast, and the costs are different.
Hand-poured resin isn’t that expensive to produce. If that is the case, how is it Anvil Industry can manage to produce starter sets for £39 that contain 14 miniatures (3 of which are larger than a standard infantry miniature), dice, counters and even a box to store them all in? They have some of the highest casting quality I have seen in resin miniatures.
Also, I don’t get how its ok to slag off GW’s prices (not meaning you necessarily @redben but generally among the community), yet as soon as some small company makes overpriced miniatures, you get a negative rating for even mentioning it.
I can’t speak to Anvil as I’m not familiar with their product. I am familiar in general with the economics of producing miniatures by this method and the prices of SE are in line with that. I don’t complain about GW minis being overpriced (and realise you’re not saying that I do 🙂 )though the conversation is slightly different in their regard as they’re pretty unique economically in the industry.
I appreciate you don’t believe it to be that expensive and would be interested to know how much it does cost as I don’t know enough @lunchbox oh and which company your price comes from? I may need someone who produces cheap models after all with art, render, master, mould, production, etc… It must add up.
The “Economics” of resin miniature production are fairly simple.
Materials and mould costs are extremely low compared to sprued styrene and metal (approximately 10-20p per 28mm miniature). Time investment per casting is extremely high (must be poured by hand and manually placed in vacuum / pressure / centrifuge machines, then manually demoulded).
This actually means that the larger miniatures should cost only a small amount more than the smaller ones as time invesment will be similar and only the materials cost changes, which even if it costs 10x as much in materials is still only £1-2, which added to the time to produce means they should only be technically £1-2 more expensive. Obviously if the miniature requires multiple molds and hence multiple casts to produce a single item, the time cost will increase also.
Anyway, this is entirely off the point now. My original point of standardising prices across starter sets was more about ensuring an even spread of sales across lines and ensuring that every player doesn’t pick up the cheaper factions.
@noyjatat
I was referring to Anvil Industry’s pricing in my previous post.
http://www.anvilindustry.co.uk/AFTERLIFE/FACTION-STARTER-SET
Cheers for the link buddy. I see what you mean.
Only problem is they are just reposed not new sculpts. A digital repose costs less than a third of a new sculpt. They are nice quality though and something I haven’t seen before so cheers again for the link.
Cheers for the info again. What company was that with because the two I have had quotes from ranged from 50p to a £1 per 32mm model. So if I could use the company you got your figures from that would save me a lot of money over the range?
I am talking about the cost to the actual company producing the casts, not the cost of outsourcing to another company. Obviously once you start outsourcing casting, costs go up as two companies need to see a profit.
That’s cool so the pricing you mentioned above which would effect the required stretch goals to be set for a KS start up didn’t take this into account? If not and the fact that each is not a repose but an original sculpt would surely change your original concerns of the price per unit slightly.
I’m not sure which price that I have mentioned would be affected by stretch goals.
SE starter boxes don’t come with any stretch goals. Nor do the packs available as addons (which the individual infantry are £7+ each).
If you mean the cost of resin production, its cost per mini in materials to produce and it would obviously be up to the company making / selling them to account for stretch goals.
Apologies I wasn’t very clear with that one.
I guess what I am asking is with your original concerns at each SE models cost, be it as apart of a deal or as an add on. Does the cost seem high to you even with having to outsource various elements and not just re posing models but producing an individual sculpt for the models as well as everything else involved in producing a miniature from scratch?
In one respect it is fair to compare SE to those games as it’s competing for gaming budgets with them, at least so some degree. In another respect it isn’t because the miniatures aren’t the same, and the costs aren’t the same. SE minis are best compared to the likes of Forge World, Kingdom Death, Infamy, and Mierce Miniatures, and against those the prices stand up.
Personally, when it comes to this type of mini, I prefer not to have generic troopers. I prefer to have a smaller number of minis and each stand out as it’s own thing. It’s part of the reason that Darklands doesn’t appeal, but Infamy does. SE isn’t on the scale of Darklands, but it is still fifteen minis and some of them are generic. Getting three generic minis out of four in a starter does diminish the appeal for me somewhat, and it’s what I mean when I mention in an earlier comment that a larger and good value pledge has the advantage of more variety.
I hear you. To be fair the only miniatures I’d say were generic are the Deathless Drekavacs – every other basic trooper miniature is unique. And you get 4 of those in the set, rather than the 3 of the other starters. And the Drekavacs are necessarily generic, it’s part of their character.
Very difficult to get the balance right. I think that they’ll do everything necessary to keep folk happy and bring them along, whilst not hobbling the whole project like we’ve seen in the past.
Ultimately, the game has to be sustainable – so enough folk jump on, play and enjoy, to grow at a reasonable rate, whilst growing profitability enough to re-invest. Very difficult.
The basic troopers are about as non generic as Forgeworld DKoK. They cost £4 a miniature as opposed to £7-8.
Again an interesting comparison. I had a look at the anew products on Forgeworld to see what a new model from them is going for and the only complete ones of a similar scale are £38 for 5. The other require you to buys various things such as legs or guns. These all being new products this would put SE on par.
You’re right if you look at anything other than generic guardsmen.
e.g.
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Solar-Auxilia-Veletaris-Storm-Section
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Death-Korps-of-Krieg-Grenadier-Squad
Which compared to the generic infantrymen of SE are about half the price per mini.
Agreed, anything that resembles a space marine is similarly priced to SE, but since when has being “similar” to FW prices been a good thing?
Love those Death Korp models and have always been a huge fan. Not so much a fan or the Solar Auxilia .
These again are all reposed though not individual sculpts which does save. In addition as you mentioned above FW will use the GW production facilities and not need to out source and I imagine that will save some pennies here and there.
Although based on your comparisons here and your earlier references to other games that are cheaper “the prices. Compared to other small-force skirmish games they’re not too far away (e.g. Infinity, Malifaux – 6 minis for about £30, Guild Ball – 4 minis for about £22)” if what your saying is true you two links show that FW are actually cheap models after all when you get 10 for £41. Maybe being like FW is a good thing.
“SE minis are best compared to the likes of Forge World, Kingdom Death, Infamy, and Mierce Miniatures, and against those the prices stand up.”
People bitch non stop about FW prices yet as soon as someone else does it, all of a sudden its ok?
Also, if you compare the basic trooper minis, FW ones are half the price (per mini vs DKoK).
Mierce are nice but way overpriced. Infamy are also beautiful minis and also hideously expensive, but appear to be display pieces for the most part, not starter sets for gaming. Kingdom Death produce injection moulded styrene minis for much lower price ($25 for 4).
I’m referring to KD’s resin minis. The economics of plastic are different.
They are different until they reach the consumer. If you’re buying miniatures to play a game, it doesn’t really matter what they’re made from as long as you’re happy with them and how much they cost.
It’s while back now but I acknowledge that in an earlier comment. It makes a difference, though, in that the material cost affects the final product and the price. Kingdom Death’s plastics are very good for plastic models, but not as good as their resin models, and they can do them because of the $2 million+ they raised on KS. Without that they can’t do cheaper plastic versions.
This kickstarter looked so good and i was ready to back it but after seeing the price i just cant bring myself to do it.
Is that Arny with a beard in the UNM unit?
Hey guys, I actually posted a blog update about miniature costs a while ago. Probably very relevant to this discussion right now!
http://www.massiveawesome.com/massive-awesome/miniature-myth-busting/
We’re going to expand on the whole issue of cost in next week’s Road to Kickstarter article but, for now, I thought I’d clarify some of the figures being suggested with what we know from making Shattered Earth – I’ll use Jormungandr as an example as he’s a comparatively expensive piece. Warning: honesty incoming!
Discounting the time John and I have spent developing the character and his backstory, Jormungandr has cost us roughly £2,000 to develop. Every time we cast him, it costs us nearly £12, and it’s about another £2 for the packaging, card, base, etc. We’re currently charging £27 for him on the Kickstarter, which leaves us about £13 from every one sold. If we had no other costs to pay (which we do, unfortunately), we would need to sell about 154 copies in order to break even on our initial investment.
However, that’s not the full story. We started this Kickstarter not to make a profit, but to fund the development of the rest of the range, so any ‘profit’ we make is pumped directly back into the business. Effectively, those 154 copies of Jormungandr sold let us make another amazing model for the range. Taking everything into account we are about £38,000 deep after our first year, all out of our own pockets. Add on the running costs, corporation tax, bank charges, inter-business postal costs, etc. and it’s clear that we won’t be buying Ferraris any time soon! In fact, we’ll be lucky if we see even half of that come back over the next twelve months.
Ultimately we are doing this because we love this hobby, and it’s been a long-standing dream of ours to create our own miniatures game. If we can put out a fantastic range of miniatures, an interesting story line, and great rules, we’ll be happy. And that’s all we ever really wanted from this 🙂
I’m backing this because I can’t pass up some of the models, but the price knocked me off buying much more than a single starter set. Sorry guys.
I’ve been waiting for this kickstarter but with Twisted coming this month I’m going to have to pass. The quality of SE looks top notch. White metal would be more economical though. Hand poured resin is just too expensive. ArenaRex is the same way. I’m super interested but the price has kept me away so far.
Waaay too expensive, even after the discount. I could point to another successful KS (Afterlife: Shards of Liberty) where we got literally more than 3x the number of high quality resin minis for the same price. But they were modeling and producing in-house, that must be the main difference.
Even then, I must say I’ve developed a strong dislike of resin. Sure, you get high details, but the minis are lighter than air and feel sooo fragile. Metal just feels so much better.
Had a look at their KS and to be fair the sculpts are not really on par they are a good average though don’t get me wrong. In addition there seem to be a lot of them reposed rather than individual sculpts which saves a lot of money. Like you mentioned in house too which supports what I was saying in my discussions with lunchbox.
Serious question then guys: if we could produce cheaper, metal miniatures for Shattered Earth would that be something you would be interested in? Because that’s absolutely something we can work on if it’s a real sticking point for potential backers.
My concerns are not with the price of the larger miniatures (they are really high but would assume most forces will only need one of them) but more with the individual trooper minis. Even in a force with all troops, assuming 15 men @ £7.33 a pop (at a “discount, no less), that’s £110 to play the game which is a little steep. Once you replace some of those with the more expensive character minis it gets even more expensive. You’re basically looking at £150 to play. If the game works fine with 5-8 men (maybe it doesn’t, not read any rules yet), it may be worth explaining that the game can be played with a lower investment.
My other (and main) concern is the variation in price between the starter sets. IMO (and it is only an opinion), in order for a game to work as anything other than a collection of miniatures, starter sets should be balanced against one another both in terms of on-table functionality and also cost.
As I said previously, these are beautiful, beautiful miniatures. As collectors pieces they are well priced compared to similar miniatures on the market but as soon as you make them game pieces where you need 15 of them to play, they become a little steep compared to other similar games, which may use styrene mins, or metals. As a first foray into miniatures production, a £38,000 pre-crowdfunding investment is admirable and has allowed you to hit the ground with some amazing products but it is a lot to have to recoup when you are competing with so many other games out there and when it has obviously meant that you have had to push prices to the very highest end of high.
I am sure you will reach your goal with this kickstarter as there are obviously plenty of people willing to drop a lot of money on nice miniatures. I just wonder whether you would do better with more conservative pricing if you are trying to appeal to gamers as opposed to collectors. I may be entirely wrong and the adage “don’t be a busy fool” may apply. You may be better selling less minis for more profit and having a boutique game with only a comparative handful of players.
I find it kind of ironic that they make several articals about running a KickStarter but fail to investigate the most important aspect, pricing 🙂
I’m not sure it’s the pricing specifically that we’ve got wrong as there is a market out there for more boutique resin figures demonstrated by the fact that it looks like we’ll fund very soon.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the ratio of ‘people who want highest end resin’ to ‘people who are happier with metal at a lower cost’, is not where our research suggested it was.
Our options now are to do continue on our original path and produce a resin only range for a smaller audience or look into options for providing what the market wants, which seems to be a lower prices range in metal along side the resin.
The purpose of our article series is to show the community all the steps we’ve taken, both good and bad, so I hope people get benefit from us being completely transparent about what we’re doing.
For a boutique miniatures line, the prices are fine. For a line of miniatures to support a game, it isn’t.
If your dream is to make a line of the nicest miniatures you possibly can and then add rules to make them into a game, then you’re on the right path. It doesn’t matter whether gamers buy them or not as you’ve got the line of miniatures.
If the dream is to make a miniatures game that you want to see masses of people playing and talking about for years to come, the price of the miniatures as gaming pieces really do become a factor.
Thirdly if the dream is to make a miniatures game with a line of miniatures that makes you the most profit possible, there is also a different range of factors to consider.
I for one am glad of the transparency and the community engagement. Something that most companies are simply unwilling to do. Also, while many of my comments on this thread may seem negative, they are purely out of desire to see SE do well as for me it is aesthetically fantastic and very tempting as a game system but is not something I would want to buy into only to see it flop through lack of player base.
Points to consider:
Is 10-20% cheaper minis in metal going to cut it?
I find that most people who loudly demand cheaper minis are 1.) usually not even satisfied with half price, and 2) when presented with the half priced minis that necessarily are of lower quality, are not satisfied with the quality.
Catch 22.
I expect the good stuff such as Jørmundgand and that Pans labyrinth-winged thingy (don’t eat the grapes!) would probably still need to be the more expensive resin because of material weight would make the minis too heavy to stand on their own without support/redesign. On the other hand, the “generic” minis, your basic baker’s dozen trooper mooks, might be better off in somewhat cheaper metal rather than resin to lower the overall buy in somewhat. Look at Infinity for some good metal examples.
So…How much cheaper would “cheaper” metal minis actually be?
Will this perhaps also cheapen the entire range quality wise? (but I expect not nearly enough to drop to the “ok for sloppyfast panting” that would open up the larger market as it probably still will be out of many peoples’ price range.)
For my part, I generally do not buy this kind of high end minis so I am not really your target audience. But I am going to tell you why:
There are some really nice sculpts here I would like to have, but the high end quality in itself is some of the problem for me. It’s not really because of the price (I can afford it if I want it enough to prioritize them over other things…as I think most minigamers/collectors can),
But because I am rather intimidated by this class of high end mini…I simply never have had the patience to, nor do I find pleasure in, spending that much of what little free time I have on a single mini to do the high enough quality paint job it deserves. Which also means that I never have acquired the necessary skill set to do all that blending and what not. Maybe it is just me being afraid to step out of my comfort zone and rather wanting to stay wallowing in my own mediocrity (Boo me! But at least I am being honest about it.), or maybe I am just a cheapskate.
But then -what if the minis were in PVC such as Blood Rage, Dust or Dungeon Saga? or -dare I say it -restic such as Wrath of Kings?
If they were in PVC, plastic or even restic the percieved quality (in part based upon the much cheaper cost of each mini) would be so much lower that that I no longer would be intimidated by them. I mean I have spent huge sums on, and have been enjoying painting Bones, Shadows of Brimstone, Mars attacks and Dungeon Saga minis. I probably would do so here as well. Big time!
(wrath of kings make a restic oriental dragon that is just sweet!)
And I am probably not the only one who thinks like this.
My point is, you cannot satisfy everyone, I say stick to your guns and do what you do well, The quality seems to be there, and quality costs what it costs. If it appeals to enough high end gamers/collectors it will be a success. How many do you really need to sell to make a living? Do you really need be the market leader?
If you do, the entire concept of the minis might need to be redesigned and quality lowered to meet the price point expectations for the mass market.
But is that what you want to make? If not, don’t try to go halfsies.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t want the larger minis in metal. I would guess that from the exact same masters that are being used now, spin cast moulds can be made which will produce metal minis close to the quality of the resin for a cheaper price. Switching to plastic would be an entirely different proposition and probably not something which could be done. The question is will any price reduction gained by switching to metal motivate those complaining about the price to pledge? As I’m already pledged then I can’t answer that. It might mean I pick up a few extra things to get more bang for my pledging buck. If I wasn’t already inclined to pledge, I think the price reduction would have to be significant to get me on board. If I want something I tend to find the money for it, which means if I’m not pledging I don’t want it enough to begin with.
In my case, the it’s not the price reduction gained by going to metal that would motivate me to pledge, but the fact that I like this material so much better. I love my metal Infinity and Beyond the Gates of Antares more than any resin I own. I’d pledge at the same current prices if it was (well cast) metal!
Cheers, some great points here. We don’t need to appeal to absolutely everyone and would be happy with a customer base big enough to support the continuation of the game for years to come. We aimed to do this in resin, possibly moving to HIPS if we decade big enough but the debacle we’re getting suggests that we’d expand our customer base if we made metal an option alongside resin.
While we would only do this if we could keep the quality as high as possible, and while Simon and I both love resin, the main reason we created the game was for people to enjoy playing it and burying themselves in the universe. So anything we can do to expand the initial reach is something we’ll consider looking at, including adding metal and adjusting the stretch goals.
^ Debacle=debate
I basically had a reply nearly typed up and John beat me to it! All I will add is that we appreciate your honesty, and we hope you appreciate ours.
Also John, I think you meant to say debate instead of debacle – Freudian slip? 🙂
Also, quick points about the number of troops needed for a battle. I’ve played with four troops vs four and this will last 20 to 40 min depending on scenario. Most of my playtesting has been with 7 or 8 models per side and the game scales up and down nicely. So if you’re happy with a skirmish game and don’t need each battle to last 2+ hours, you absolutely don’t need 15 figures to get started.
And on the painting side, I am also not the greatest painter but I do enjoy painting the more detailed models with more texture on the flat surfaces. It takes a little longer but I find the extra detail on the model makes the paint job look better. You certainly don’t need advanced blending techniques to make the figures look good.
@ freylis & jonnyt, gents, far from a debarcle, only £1,500 to go with 23 days left, it feels like a pretty solid start to me. Opinions, feedback and debate are all very valualable, but so far you have demonstrated a very solid and sound approach to bringing your “baby” to market, my caution would be not to be tempted to any on the fly deviation from the plan. The challenge is of course that your both emotionally invested in this very deeply, and you are trying to bring out an “awesome” game first time at bat, very difficult to do in the best of circumstances. Please don’t leap at shadows, the plan appears to be working, I’m sure the first goal will be reached very soon, There’s always time for tweaking the plan further down the track, but I wouldn’t play with the launch. I think the challenge is you want to deliver three things with exceptional sculpts, great story and first rate game play, the latter two are aimed at gamers, the first more at collectors, hard to satisfy both camps in the one offering, perhaps down the track there’s opportunity to revise the market requirements and produce a gamers version in metal and just sell the resin into the collectors market. I wish you all the very best and hope this is a great success, I have subscribed, I’m a collector so I cannot wait to get my hands on those lovely detail resin baby’s
You’ve pretty much summed up my current state of mind far more eloquently than I could do myself… Cheers.
I haven’t pledged yet. I wasn’t particularly interested in the concepts I’d glanced at in your articles until seeing them on the Weekender, at which point I switched to thinking ‘I’m almost certainly going to pledge’.
I haven’t had time to check your KS page yet, or read what the pledges contain, so it’s possible I may be put off by price. With Kickstarters and new games or miniatures lines I tend to want to go all or nothing. I’m generally willing to pay quite a lot of money for the whole lot – if I really like what the whole lot is. What this means is that if I think the ‘everything’ pledge is good value I’m likely to get it. If I think everything is so expensive that ‘all I can afford is a single starter set’ I probably won’t pledge at all.
That said, I have bought expensive miniatures before and am not necessarily going to be put off by price this time. I’ll let you know once I’ve had a good look!
What I’d also say is that I prefer metal to resin, and have only really bought a fair amount of the latter in recent years becase companies have been switching to it for various reasons and I’ve had no choice. When GW switched to resin I didn’t notice any increase in detail compared with what they were doing in metal (I’m ignoring issues with miscasts for the moment – I’m talking about properly cast resin figures).
I think they’re the only company I’ve ever been able to compare metal with resin, so although there are lots – and I’ve bought lots – of amazingly detailed resin miniatures from other companies, I’m not sure it’s true that those miniatures couldn’t have been made in metal.
It sounds like you might want to shift some of your product lines to metal to bring the price down (the main human troopers look nice, but not especially finickety and so easily doable in metal I’d have thought). Whether you can do this during the Kickstarter or not I don’t know. Given that you look likely to fund, if I was you there are only two reasons to introduce metal at this stage:
1) Although you’ll very likely meet your initial funding goal, if you were expecting / planning to bust lots of stretch goals to really count this as a success and think you might need to lower prices to do it…
2) If you think that switching to metal will convince not so much new people to pledge because it’s cheaper, but convince more people to pledge / existing pledgers to up their pledges because they think that with cheaper prices the game is more likely to take off and reach a wider audience.
I probably _wouldn’t_ introduce metal during the kickstarter and risk all the distraction that could cause you and the opportunities for unplanned mistakes / cost miscalculations, etc. if your main reason for doing so is that you think dropping the price a bit will get loads of people off the fence. I doubt many people who haven’t already pledged or who aren’t going to pledge at some point will do so because of a price drop – unless the price drop signifies that the game is going to be massively popular and something they want to get in on now.
Fantastic post, cheers. As you’ve pointed out, we agree that introducing metal during the campaign would be a distraction to a campaign that we’ve done a lot of planning for so we are not going to do it.
Concentrating on the backers who want resin and delivering them a great product will stay our only priority during the campaign.
That said, we will continue to elicit feedback from the community and if we feel that there is a significant potential audience out there for the game who want metal figures, it is something we will definitely look at alongside the resin production.
Funded, well.done guys.
Onwards and upwards 🙂