What KICKSTARTER(S) are you BACKING and WHY?

OK, a co-op Cthulhu Roll and Write, Roll for the Great Old Ones - I'm interested at the moment

www.kickstarter.com/projects/hodari-spie...and-play/description

southernman wrote: OK, a co-op Cthulhu Roll and Write, Roll for the Great Old Ones - I'm interested at the moment

www.kickstarter.com/projects/hodari-spie...and-play/description

Wow, another $30 game. Maybe this Kickstarter thing isn’t such a bad idea after all.

A real shit show happening with whatever the hell this game is... www.kickstarter.com/projects/itbboardgam...s-edge/posts/3718451

From what little I can infer, the company owner just quit paying people. The comments from backers who are more concerned about their missing game than the fact that employees are getting screwed... that's peak board gamer.

hotseatgames wrote: A real shit show happening with whatever the hell this game is... www.kickstarter.com/projects/itbboardgam...s-edge/posts/3718451

From what little I can infer, the company owner just quit paying people. The comments from backers who are more concerned about their missing game than the fact that employees are getting screwed... that's peak board gamer.

Earlier today, I saw a post from someone selling this exact game and the kickstarter expansions, on a Facebook group called Minnesota Board Game Exchange. The game boxes were all still in shrink wrap. The only comment was someone asking how in the hell they got these when the Kickstarter hadn't even shipped. Just now, I went looking for that post and it was gone. Either the games were already sold or the seller was up to something shady.

I'm one of the unfortunate people that pre-ordered ST2.

It's hard to tell what's going on at the moment. There are definitely English-language copies in the wild. To my knowledge they are retail versions without Kickstarter expansions. So that makes me think that your local seller is up to no good, maybe trying to sell a drop-shipped version.

How the copies have gotten to stores is unknown. It seems that either the publisher is selling them, trying to raise money to do the Kickstarter addons, or the publisher has run out of money to pay for warehousing and the warehouse has auctioned them off.

I don't know the specific numbers in this case, but I suspect that Kickstarted games tend to have a relatively small profit margin unless the backers come through in large numbers. One of the few games that I got via Kickstarter (The Vesuvius Incident) ended up with some surprise production and shipping hassles that caused the guy who did the Kickstarter to lose some money. Just a few thousand dollars, but enough to probably discourage him from ever doing another Kickstarter. To his credit, he still made damned sure to ship the games to every single backer. It wouldn't surprise me in this case if this Peter Subterra guy (lead singer of Chicago?) was staring down a loss and decided to sell at least some of the backer copies to retailers instead. Didn't something similar happen with Sandy Petersen and Cthulhu Wars?

The folks who did Incursion KS lost a bunch of money, underestimating shipping iirc, but to my knoweldge they shipped to every backer. They were out of a garage.

Yeah, I was in on the Incursion KS. What a nightmare. I think it was enough to convince them to leave the industry altogether.

Shellhead wrote: Didn't something similar happen with Sandy Petersen and Cthulhu Wars?

Not quite. They pushed back completion of the KS (coming up on 5 years since the campaign started now!) so that they could find more financing to produce more copies to fill retailer orders, since it would be more profitable for them to produce a larger order then, rather than get the KS backers' copies out earlier and then go back to produce more for retailer orders. Of course, they didn't tell anyone that this was happening and, instead, used the backers' money to run their company while they looked for more money. Oh, they also couldn't afford the shipping costs, so they produced yet another expansion as part of the overall print run in order to entice people to give them yet more money in order to get things across the ponds. It wasn't required of each backer, but the impression was firmly given that everything would be sitting in a warehouse unless people coughed up more.

In the process, they ended up delivering to retailers in Germany before backers got their copies there, which also means that German retailers had them long before backers in the UK and North America, as well. I think that was waved away as just one of the logistical snafus that they were encountering. All of the backers in Europe, East Asia, Australia, and the UK should have their copies by now. North America, the biggest order, is still sitting in a warehouse because they weren't able to get things completed before CNY. I'm not a huge KS user in the first place but, needless to say, this will be the last time I'm ever involved in one with Petersen Games.

hotseatgames wrote: Yeah, I was in on the Incursion KS. What a nightmare. I think it was enough to convince them to leave the industry altogether.

This is the Incursion that came out in 2009 and was (supposed to) have a revised version come out?

Yes, the original had standees, then they printed a fancy version with minis. It took FOREVER to finally ship. And they didn't have COVID to blame, just shitty management.

Oranienburger Canal (new 2p Rosenberg game) and the new expansion for 51st State should both be shipping in the next week or two, those are my only outstanding crowd funds ATM.

But! I did just back the new stuff in the Dungeon Degenerates 5th printing Kickstarter that just launched. 2 new mission books is extremely exciting, as it will double the number of missions in the base game (!). Plus there are new booster packs of 20ish encounter cards for each terrain type, which is awesome too. Bigger stacks is a big plus for this kind of game, especially when it's not just more monsters y'know.

My only outstanding KS is still Rallyman Dirt. Apparently they can't afford to pay the shipper for past work let alone the invoice for this so nobody in US is getting shit.

Pledges were still being sent out in Europe last week, but the situation with Bolloré is now at a standstill for both hubs. This is because they are now refusing to continue, demanding that we pay in full for our previous shipping projects, which were not only extremely late and of an unacceptable level of service, but are still unfinished. There are a large number of outstanding shipping problems, from backers having received the wrong items to having received nothing at all. They have also lost tens of thousands of euros worth of our merchandise through repeated mistakes and doing little to nothing to correct them.

Additionally, the shipping costs are far above what we were expecting due to very high fuel surcharges.

If it makes you feel better, DIRT is in alpha on BGA and is not very good. There's barely any interaction because cars start so staggered.

I backed Earthborne Rangers, a new LCG-style game from a new studio set up by Andrew Navarro, former Head of Studio at FFG and staffed by a fair chunk of ex-FFG types. They've attempted to make the game as sustainably as possible and the world/setting reflects that.

It's set in the far future after humanity has banded together to survive a catastrophic event. The game has you exploring a vast valley, running into its inhabitants, interacting with the strange, evolved wildlife and fauna, and discovering ancient tech that was used to save the earth. They've described it as an open-world card game in that you can travel wherever you want in the valley, choose (or not) to do sidequests you discover and approach the main quest however you please etc.

The art is awesome and as I only really play Marvel Champions and Arkham Horror LCG these days I'm fairly certain I'll be into the gameplay. I've been following their journey and listening to their podcast since the start so feel confident the game is for me. I also feel fairly invested in their success having been along for the ride for over a year now.

The game is at the sustainability-certified factory now and should be with backers in March/April if all goes to plan. It's my first Kickstarter project so I'm jazzed to get it on the table.