All Kolossal and Maple Games Kickstarters shut down

I had a friend raving about making money on his last two pledges. He made roughly a $100.00 mark up on each. Over beers we covered the process, and we can safely say he could have made $100 in less time and effort mowing lawns in the neighborhood.

The idea that the good I'm buying might hold its resale value is only attractive to me if I'm planning on reselling it.

A lot of the ks shenanigans remind me of the foil comic book covers and game jersey cards of the 90's. Just a big neon sign pointing to an impending clearance bin of a hobby.

Another thing to think about in regard to this idea that some great games would “never” be made...there was a time when there were visionary folks working at publishers- like Jennifer Schlickbernd At Avalon Hill,
Jay at Mayfair/RGG, Zev or even to some extent Mr. Petersen- folks that took chances and had an eye for the next big game. They didn’t always hit the mark, but they also made hits and very influential decisions.

With Kickstarter, all of that is replaced and dictated by people scrambling to get one of a limited number of 3 foot tall Cthulhu miniatures.

So I don’t think the whole “we’d never get Gloomhaven, Root, Cthulhu Wars, and Scythe” argument holds much water.

Michael Barnes wrote: Charlie made an interesting point- non-KS games in the aftermarket are barely worth 1/3 MSRP now. But the KS shit you can -profit- on.

Only until it actually comes out. Then the FOMO shine goes away and you can't move most of that shit with a shovel. Just like everything else.

Buyers are addicted to the thrill of the chase.

Not Sure wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Charlie made an interesting point- non-KS games in the aftermarket are barely worth 1/3 MSRP now. But the KS shit you can -profit- on.

Only until it actually comes out. Then the FOMO shine goes away and you can't move most of that shit with a shovel. Just like everything else.

Buyers are addicted to the thrill of the chase.

Nah, the quality Kickstarter games hold their value tremendously. Stuff like 7th Continent, City of Kings, Conan, Cthulhu Wars, Batman, Lords of Hellas, Kingdom Death: Monster are all worth way more once they deliver than when they were up during the campaign.

Many games do drop in value over time, but those are clunkers like B-Seiged or Rum and Bones.

charlest wrote:

Not Sure wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Charlie made an interesting point- non-KS games in the aftermarket are barely worth 1/3 MSRP now. But the KS shit you can -profit- on.

Only until it actually comes out. Then the FOMO shine goes away and you can't move most of that shit with a shovel. Just like everything else.

Buyers are addicted to the thrill of the chase.

Nah, the quality Kickstarter games hold their value tremendously. Stuff like 7th Continent, City of Kings, Conan, Cthulhu Wars, Batman, Lords of Hellas, Kingdom Death: Monster are all worth way more once they deliver than when they were up during the campaign.

Many games do drop in value over time, but those are clunkers like B-Seiged or Rum and Bones.

Could you please provide me with a list of games not yet delivered that are guaranteed to go up in value. I have four kids to get through college.

Sagrilarus wrote:

charlest wrote:

Not Sure wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Charlie made an interesting point- non-KS games in the aftermarket are barely worth 1/3 MSRP now. But the KS shit you can -profit- on.

Only until it actually comes out. Then the FOMO shine goes away and you can't move most of that shit with a shovel. Just like everything else.

Buyers are addicted to the thrill of the chase.

Nah, the quality Kickstarter games hold their value tremendously. Stuff like 7th Continent, City of Kings, Conan, Cthulhu Wars, Batman, Lords of Hellas, Kingdom Death: Monster are all worth way more once they deliver than when they were up during the campaign.

Many games do drop in value over time, but those are clunkers like B-Seiged or Rum and Bones.

Could you please provide me with a list of games not yet delivered that are guaranteed to go up in value. I have four kids to get through college.

Despite the facetiousness, sure.

Tainted Grail
Nemesis
Batman: Gotham City Chronicles
Mythic Battles: Pantheon 1.5

May be too late to get in on those now. The Daemon Sultan faction for Cthulhu Wars just launched, guaranteed to make your money back +50% on Ebay with that one. Never buy add-ons, just stick with core pledges plus stretch goals. I don't recommend doing this with the intention of making tons of money, but it's a solid way to minimize risk if you want to back something and don't mind flipping it if you change your mind.

I backed 7th Continent not sure if I actually wanted it, but knowing it was now or never (so the very definition of FOMO). But, I was pretty much 100% sure I wouldn't lose money on it and could make that decision 1.5 years later. However, if I buy a game at retail, odds are, even for good games, I'll be lucky to get 20% of what I paid at discount. The only exception to this is if it's out-of-print and still popular.

I don't back KS games to try and profit off of them, but it's nice to know if I get a stinker I can usually flip it without losing too much other than interest on my KS "loan."

Sag, just buy the next pile of minis CMON or Awaken Realms puts out, you'll never lose money on those. I think I read about professional speculators buying CMON games (buying like a dozen copies) to make some money. It's not a good way to get rich, but it can pay for your Kickstarter habit...

Well then I hope KS goes after Worthington next. Ten years ago Worthington was a nice little poor man's GMT, producing low-complexity workmanlike wargames like Hold The Line. Then they caught a whiff of that sweet, sweet, no-strings-attached KS money spigot, and suddenly everything they made had to get funneled through KS. They had one good Holdfast game (Eastfront Russia) which then got franchised into a series of bad-to-worse Holdfast games that no one asked for. Then they proceeded to create entire news "series" of games (that again, no one wanted nor asked for), quickly dumped onto KS with little to no explanation of mechanics or inspiration, and all of them involving basically no worthwhile stretch goals. AND everyone started realizing they should just wait because every one of them would end up cheaper at Miniature Market upon retail release. Worthington even started doing "LIMITED EDITION" games ("only 250 will ever be printed!") which makes a mockery of the KS FOMO rubes even further. Now they just flood the lane with KS stuff, and have absolutely no regard for fulfilling anything before starting anew, then they blame the shipping company when stuff is late with lame excuses like, "Well, they want the shipping containers to be full before they ship them out... that's why we are going to wait until 3 of our games are done at once to actually take delivery of them."

I guess people vote with their wallets, but it REALLY speaks poorly of boardgamers in general that they haven't hoisted the proverbial black flag and started slitting throats over this constant con-job that is Kickstarter.

They don’t fucking care as long as there is something new to buy.

Michael Barnes wrote: They don’t fucking care as long as there is something new to buy.

That does seem to be the driving force. It's about the acquisition, not the actual gameplay. Maybe those 15 Worthington games will come off the shelf one day in the future, but it's more about the possession than the usage. That latter quandary is how I talk myself OUT of most purchases these days. I just stop and ask: "When am I actually going to get to play this and with whom?" The answers "Likely never" and "No one" frequently come up and save me money. In my case, this isn't unique to board games, as I'm really good at talking myself out of spending money on just about anything material. This is usually when my girlfriend asks: "Um, how long have you owned those shoes?"
I shrug and say: "15 years. Why?"
"Don't you think it's time for some new ones?"
[Looks at shoes with the soles basically gone.]
"These still work and they're comfortable."

I've owned games for longer than that and gotten much less use out of them, so I'm not sure that I need more.

Michael Barnes wrote: They don’t fucking care as long as there is something new to buy.

True.
Boardgame players have been supplanted by boardgame consumers.

ubarose wrote: Also, Kickstarter has resulted in a shake-up of the traditional designer/publisher contract, with designers negotiating for a bigger percentage of Kickstarter sales.

That's a great point. When Eric Lang left FFG a few years back, I was confused at the move, since CitOW had been a huge hit and FFG was one of the most dynamic publishers at the time and it seemed like he could write his own ticket with them. But signing on to publishers like CMON and getting a bigger share of his own designs like Blood Rage, The Others, and Rising Sun makes a lot of sense in that respect.

Kickstarters - P500 system with, as Charlie mentioned, astounding marketing. If you're a half decent company you get cash up front and a guaranteed minimum sales number before you even need to commit to a project. As someone else also mentioned, board games seem to be a pretty good product for this business model.

I find the entire anti-kickstarter position interesting. At some level, agitating against kickstarter can be seen as advocating for:

- corporate control of artists
- suppression of designers salary, etc.
- inherent limiting of choices, which decreases competition, which slows down board game innovation

That is not to say that editorial oversight is not important, but it does come with its own baggage and ramifications. While there is a bunch of shit produced each year, some of the best games (and hence innovations) have come out of kickstarter.

When a game is well-made and innovative, it is easy to say, in hindsight, that an established company would have green-lit the project; however, that is a counterfactual that impossible to explore. Additionally, it suffers from confirmation bias as we saw the finished product and already liked it. If we accept that premise, then we would also say that there would be a fair number of shitty games that were green-lit by companies, and we would probably be operating at near the same ratio of great:shitty games. The overall volume would just be less.

Is the ratio important or the overall raw number of great games. What if I decrease the ratio, but still increase the number of great games? I imagine that will be very subjective -- personally, I would rather have more great games and then rely on my own discernment to figure out if I want to pursue a particular game or not.