What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

Ah_Pook wrote: ...but also the main appeal of SR imo is that it's a super fast and easy to play deck builder. Adding a bunch of complexity and overhead seems to run directly counter to what I like about SR in the first place...

Star Realms does tick a lot of boxes for "things I dislike about boardgaming" when they take a likeable $10 deck-of-cards game and proceed to:

A) Bloat the hell out of it with annoying $5 packs of cards... errr... "expansions"
Flog the hell out of it with multiple Kickstarters featuring slightly tweaked tacked-on ideas that are there just so they can have more KS cash
C) FOMO the hell out of it by cramming a stack of KS-only promos in there with every new bite of the KS apple
D) Chrome the hell out of it with a pointless "deluxe edition" that runs counter to the idea of a $10 card game
E) Port the hell out of it by creating a clone fantasy version (Hero Realms)
F) Franchise the hell out of it with new games no one asked for, like turning a $10 card game into a "legacy" game

I file Star Realms under the same bin as anything with "Tiny Epic" in the title. Total shovelware that continues to exist because X-amount of gamers have always bought the old stuff, so they feel locked into buying the new stuff.

I think the 3 core decks of Star Realms are great. Theyre cheap and differentiated enough to be with owning all three. A few of the booster packs are okay but most aren't worth fooling with. Anything beyond that they can keep.

I'm kinda interested in War of the Spice, but I fully expect to be priced out of that by cmon.

With shipping charges, I'll bet you the top tier of the new CMON Dune Kickstarter costs as much as a Limited Edition War of the Ring.

If anyone's feeling FOMO, you can preorder the Galactus Zombicide pledge from Game Steward for a cool $900. But at least you'll know what shipping costs (free).

At that price you can't afford NOT to buy it!

Here's a fun KS shitstorm... welcome to the saga of Blacklist Games!

Blacklist Games (publisher behind such minis-intensive games as Street Masters, Brook City, and the Sadler Bros.) has run many KS, one of which was for a new series of fantasy minis (estimated to be delivered December 2020). These were done and shipped in every region except North America, where they arrived in QML's (fulfillment partner) warehouse in the Fall of 2021. From there Blacklist has lied repeatedly about their financial situation with QML, and unless QML gets paid what they're owed the product is going nowhere.

The Blacklist folks (which is also an interesting mystery, as no one really knows who owns it, they claim to be "Chris Tsang" but the name "Alex Lim" is shown on official documents, which is a whole other shady aspect) attempted 2 days ago to start a GoFundMe to raise a reported $300,000+ that is needed to basically pay off QML to ship the product. This resulted in an unholy shitstorm of buyers crying FRAUD and the GoFundMe being shut down (GoFundMe's terms state you cannot offer rewards for donations, because it ain't Patreon.) The kicker was you could "donate" at either the $30, $60, or $120 level, and you would get a few digital rewards, STL files, and credit for future Kickstarters. You can imagine how this went down, as at this point Blacklist has absolutely poisoned their ability to run future KS, so this went over incredibly poorly with the 8,000+ backers who sit without product.

So this Fantasy minis campaign seems dead in the water, which also stands to affect the two further KS that Blacklist completed after the Fantasy minis KS. So a company that previously had at least a notable name in minis boardgaming might be staring down the barrel of defaulting on the delivery of 3 different consecutive KS.

That Blacklist games situation was surprising considering how smooth Street Masters seemed to go. That was the only one I backed, but then sold immediately. Looked fun but would not have gotten to the table.

I did see a new KS coming up for Dead Reckoning and am on the fence about it. My group likes Merchants & Marauders so I am unsure if another pirate game is needed.

I'm not surprised these things are happening. We've spent the last couple decades "rethinking" business so that everything operates as close to the bone as possible with regards to staffing, warehousing, and shipping. It was only supposed to be a problem if something really unfortunate happened but then oopsy daisy something REALLY unfortunate happened. And every one of these systems just shattered.

It's not unexpected, and it's affecting everyone (see Sony's attempts to actually be able to exchange their very popular game consoles for money or the baby formula situation).

It sucks but this isn't the specific fault of this company, they just don't have the deep pockets and connections to mitigate it like bigger companies do.

What people need to be doing at this point is realizing, okay, if well established companies like Sony and Asmodee and whoever are encountering this, then what are the odds that "Joe's Games and Bait Shop" is going to avoid it and pledge accordingly.

the_jake_1973 wrote: That Blacklist games situation was surprising considering how smooth Street Masters seemed to go. That was the only one I backed, but then sold immediately. Looked fun but would not have gotten to the table.

The whole saga has done a number on the Sadler Bros. reputation as well, given that they basically designed everything Blacklist has ever published. So when Blacklist started not paying partners, issuing conflicting statements (aka lying), and generally giving paying customers the runaround, people turned on Adam & Brady. Last thing I read they both walked away from Blacklist, and have been trying to sell the systems they created for Blacklist, even going so far as to imply they have no idea who actually runs Blacklist Games.

I can confirm that neither Sadler works there anymore.

At one point I was contracted to make a game for Blacklist, and for various reasons, the project fell apart. I was pretty upset about it at the time, but now I'm actually glad, because I would have been caught up in all of this.

southernman wrote: ...
I will be having a look at Silver Coin: Age of Monster Hunters next Tuesday, I like the look of the game's design and not being full of minis it could be in at a decent price.
silvercoinaomh.com/
...

Well that didn't last long for me, at approx £108 after shipping and tax it is really a bit much for me for just one adventure board game, admittedly a seemingly well designed one. But as I'm having to sell games (just said goodbye to Zombicide BP, Earth Reborn, Machina Arcana 2E, Specter Ops, and with a lot of others on the block) so I have shelf space for kickstarters arriving it probably isn't a bad thing.

Mythic Games just set the rooster in the hen house last week with their Darkest Dungeon kickstarter. After many design screw-ups that have upset many who wanted everything it appears that they have royally failed on their project planning and budgeting and are asking (initial demanding with inferred threat of you game would remain in China but quickly updated to 'will remain in China until we get it too you at some time') for more cash to cover shipping and increased manufacturing costs - and this is at a time when container prices are dropping reasonably fast and other mid-sized companies have just eaten the costs (Ares games just finished shipping Sword & Sorcery and basically said one of the reasons they ate the costs was that their own delays contributed).
I've taken the 'keep it in China until you can ship it cheaper option (probably with their Wave 2)' as I have had a four kickstarters arrive this year with another four probably arriving before their Wave 2 is due in 2023, or whenever, so it's not as if I will miss out in playing it this year.
Will be interested in seeing how this plays out in the next six months ...

In hindsight, The past couple years seem like a great time to have stopped backing boardgame Kickstarters

fightcitymayor wrote: You can imagine how this went down, as at this point Blacklist has absolutely poisoned their ability to run future KS,

One might almost say they've been... blacklisted. (I'll show myself out.)

Ah_Pook's attitude is probably the right one. In addition to having too much shit on the shelves that already doesn't get played enough, I'm not interested in risking any more of my coin on the inability of smaller companies to handle the logistics. There are only a couple places I get involved with either KS or Gamefound now and that's Leder & Wehlegig and Gamelyn; not only because they contain two of my favorite designers, but also because they run tight campaigns with no real excess (stretch goals are not a thing) and, thus, their respective track records are spotless.

Of course, right now I'm on the hook like a few thousand others for one of the scions of the KS era, Petersen Games and a project that has now taken over three years to come to fruition and remains unfulfilled. Arthur sent out an update yesterday saying that another update (a video with Sandy) would be coming soon to explain why they fired everyone but themselves ("reorganized") and, presumably, how that impacts whether Cthulhu Wars or Petersen Games is still a thing or will be in the future.

Copied over from BGG, where it was copied over from the PG discord:

Discord, Sandy (later than Arthur's comment): "It's no secret we have been less communicative of late. This has basically been because we have been super-focused on saving Petersen Games and getting out the kickstarters. The bottom line is we have succeeded and have a plan to do so, which will be posted I hope tomorrow. We will be able to be far more open going on."

so we'll see what they post tomorrow. Personally I think it's self evident what their statements are worth at this point (hint: it rhymes with "hack spit"), and anyone giving them more money is throwing good money after bad, but hey I've been wrong before. Maybe Dinosaur 1944 will actually exist and turn out to be the best game ever made, who could know.