Days of Wonder Using Kickstarter for Small World 2

I got an email today indicating that Days of Wonder will be using Kickstarter to launch Small World 2, their next game for the iPad.

On the boardgame side, we've got some insanely fun game components that we've been dreaming of producing for years, but simply couldn't justify producing, including Philippe Keyaerts' very own deluxe tokens; an over-the-top, over-sized Small World Designer Edition; finely detailed 3D figures of our favorite Small World races; and more...

But the only way we can produce these expensive add-ons is if we know precisely how many to make. And your Kickstarter pledge levels will tell us exactly that, as well as how many additional digital expansions and platforms we can justify supporting.

I don't know about you, but "deluxe tokens" sounds pretty damn expensive.

Ah, the rest of the gaming world is now on P500 as well. That can only be a good thing.

S.


static.daysofwonder.com/c/0109kst/en/

Nope, fuck this. I am fine with Kickstarter in general, but this is a bullshit move. DoW, who's got two of the most popular and highly rated boardgames on iOS/Steam/Droid needs my $$ to make another? Fucking money grab is a money grab.

Whoa -- don't panic. This is just their way of making sure there's enough interest to make the game worthwhile to print. As long as 500 people sign up it will be fine. How long can that take? A week? Maybe a month. Four years on the very outside. But once they hit their number they'll start finishing the game and it will be available just 18 months later.

This is how we all work together to get games published.

S.

I am going to send McDonald's $5 today, so I can be assured they have the McRib some time next year.

NO.

It's one thing to kickstart an entrepreneur's good idea and get that ball rolling. That's practically charitable. See ACE DETECTIVE or the like. It's another for one of the most established companies in the industry to come hat-in-hand for iOS dev money. Hire a market researcher, DoW, or rely on your scads of internal metrics from your horde of successful ventures in the field. They want money NOW for something you get THEN. Not cool.

I could echo whats already been said but honestly I wouldnt support this just because I dont care about a deluxe version. The current editions conponents seem pretty durable and work well enough.

Mad Dog wrote: I could echo whats already been said but honestly I wouldnt support this just because I dont care about a deluxe version. The current editions conponents seem pretty durable and work well enough.

But but but, isn't everything better with minis?

Yeah, what they're saying really doesn't sound sincere. The idea that you don't want to print too many of a mini or deluxe chit that you use in the boardgame doesn't sync up very well with the project being for an iPad version of the game. You don't get a copy of the boardgame until the $180 level.

By the way, March 14 delivery date (that 14 is the year, not the day) for the new iPad version and the new deluxe cardboard version, so this is more than a year out and it appears it's going to clear its number in a couple of days. So what is likely the best financed board game publisher short of Hasbro is going to get $190K in interest-free seed money for 14 months.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: I don't know about you, but "deluxe tokens" sounds pretty damn expensive.

Yea, that would be $400 for the "full megilleh" package. It also looks like it weighs about 40 lbs. I like the game a heck of a lot, but I'm not so sure it's $400 a lot... (Although that puts it right in the same ballpark with the deluxe Settlers set and half the price of the Deluxe WoTR.]

Fuck this. I'm a customer, not a financier.

I'm a doctor, not a brick layer!

Oh wait...I'm not even a Doctor.

In other news, I'm going to kickstart the new tow truck I want to buy. At the $500 level you get a free T-shirt, trucker hat, and tiny toy truck made out of nerf material.

I think I could make my $80,000 goal in about a week.

Dogmatix wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: I don't know about you, but "deluxe tokens" sounds pretty damn expensive.

Yea, that would be $400 for the "full megilleh" package. It also looks like it weighs about 40 lbs. I like the game a heck of a lot, but I'm not so sure it's $400 a lot... (Although that puts it right in the same ballpark with the deluxe Settlers set and half the price of the Deluxe WoTR.]

Originally, deluxe WotR was $400, actually $300 at online retailers. Y'all were saying "who would pay such an exorbitant price for a board game", fools.

Personally I thought WotR was underpriced...

I think Small World is a fucking boring slog to play so I'd never pay 400 cents for it let alone 400 bucks.

If DoW was really serious about using Kickstarter*just* to see if the IoS game is viable, they'd determine what their initial development cost is, and cap/close the Kickstarter when they reached the goal.

If Big Daddy Creations can afford to take a flyer on a relatively ( compared to SW ) obscure game like Neuroshima Hex, then DoW should be able to afford it given all the money they've made on SW and its 752 different expansions.

I hope this gets folks to look more critically at Kickstarter and the effect it's having on the market. I mean come the fuck on, all of this hat-in-hand crap about "we need you to promise to buy this or we *sob* _can't_ make it!"

Bull fucking shit.

Because DoW was afraid or financially unable to take a risk on publishing Ticket to Ride, Shadows over Camelot, Memoir '44, or Small World, right? They can't possibly develop and market a product without being paid for it up front? They need US to pay for something? Where's all of the money from sales of the previously mentioned titles, licensed IOS games, and all of their other revenue?

This is a marketing stunt and not much else. Everybody is doing Kickstarter, and there's a LOT of hobby market dollars going to Kickstarter to pay for all kinds of nonsense crap. So they're doing the same thing as when Warner Brothers and Sony started setting up those "sham indies" in the 1990s.

It's a shame, because DoW is a very capable, very established, and industry-leading company that has previously worked on a successful, traditional business model.

If other companies move to doing things like this to bankroll their productions, I'm not buying anything else and I'll just be happy with the games that I own. Like I said, I want to be treated and respected as a customer, not as a financier. It is not my responsibility to help pay the company's development and production costs before they sell me an unteseted, unproven, and uncertain product.

I do sincerely hope that big companies jumping on the Kickstarter boat sinks it.

My guess is, that Cargo Noir didn't do as well as Days of Wonder expected. Their business model appears to be, have few game titles/series, that sell very well for long periods of time. Cargo failed to do this. Certainly not in the manner, memoire, or ticket to ride has etc.

So their solution is market test all their products in KS. I recon they are less interested in the start up cash, and more have cold feet about investing in new or semi new IP/designs with out lots of folks promising them (with money) that it'l all be ok.

Makes DoW look like a pretty spineless company imo. Its an established and popular IP, it will sell. And even if the KS is massively successful, it won't validate their business model, because KS only tells you initial interest, not whether you'l be selling copies in 2 years time.

Most war game companies have adopted the pre-order system (although no money actually changes hands until the product is finished). The key difference is p500 supports low print runs for companies that could easily go bust if they foul up a few times a year interms of estimating demand. Im not sure DoW is in danger of going bust simply because Cargo Noir wasn't the next big euro game.

jeb wrote: Nope, fuck this. I am fine with Kickstarter in general, but this is a bullshit move. DoW, who's got two of the most popular and highly rated boardgames on iOS/Steam/Droid needs my $$ to make another? Fucking money grab is a money grab.

I said the same thing, essentially, a year ago and was villified as a heretic by the BGG crowd. As I said recently, 80% of BGG folks seem to have "Lemming" in their CV somewhere.