Kickstarter still sucks...

And this article sums up nicely why it sucks for creators as well, though the focus is more on general projects than any sort of gaming: An Ambitious Plan For Putting Kickstarter Out of Business

The thing though is that in the context of games, people are dumb sheep and now that "kickstarter" is hot, people want to be a part of "this kickstarter thing" and won't take alternatives that do the same thing as seriously.

Hunh... didn't know all that- coudn't be arsed about this whole kickstarter business to tell the truth, but this is a good article. Me likey.

Log, fire, &c.

a.wholelottanothing.org/2012/01/lessons-...-on-kickstarter.html

Certainly food for thought, but I would say John Clowdus might be in the best position to provide insight as to why he chose to use Kickstarter to fun a second printing of Omens after publishing several games through his company. What the exact advantage of Kickstarter is for a designer.

I like the concept of Kickstarter, but if they don't find a way to police their site, Kickstarter will eventually end up with a bad reputation and most potential backers will hang on to their money. Right now, it seems all to easy for somebody to take the money and run.

There's no technical magic in what Kickstarter is doing. But there's social magic in it. They're bringing people with capital to a central location to fund startup projects.

I'd be on Kickstarter right now if I was starting a new product just because of the cachet. It's all about exposure when you're getting off the ground and that's the truly valuable part of the Kickstarter package. The rest is just nickels and dimes.

Kickstarter lets you assemble a customer list quickly. It lets you establish a relationship. That's incredibly valuable to small companies.

Facebook or eBay could put Kickstarter out of business in 12 hours. They haven't, so for the moment Kickstarter is a good place to be even if it costs.

S.

Could be worse. The banner ads on here for the "unfolding CCG" point to IndieGogo instead of Kickstarter. At a guess, it is more non-US friendly.

Instead of the 5%, they ask 4%, plus you have to pay CC transaction fees (3%), and you can do partial funding, in which case you pay 9%.

That sounds like highway robbery.

fuck kickstarter.

Both those links hang Safari and I give up. Are they taking ages to load for anyone else?

The quick summary of the first article is that Kickstarter doesn't give you much and is vastly overpriced.

I disagree (and I may be wrong here) as what it gives you is something to handle the money side of things, by charging lots of people for you and giving you the money in one big lump sum. This saves a hell of a lot of admin work, and allows you to focus on getting the damn thing made.

I don't think that it should be necessary for more than 3-5 projects for each person/company though. At that point you should have enough track record and capital to run a p500 style list for yourself. Thus I am surprised that established companies like Small Box Games have used it, when they should have 90% of the infrastructure already and thus can save that 5% fee.

When Zev first decided to bring Agricola to North America, he put together something a lot like Kickstarter. He said he wouldn't handle the game unless he could pre-sell a certain number of copies. I think he offered an exclusive set of animeeples to those that committed.

It worked...and while it's not my kind of game, Agricola became a pretty big hit. Kickstarter takes some of the risk out of producing a new game...especially if you're a small company. But like the goose that laid the golden egg, it can be killed by greed.

If enough sloppy products get hyped, backed and bomb, then it won't take long to end the Kickstarter craze. Personally I don't see anything wrong with it. We buy games on hype all the time and if you're into the Cult of the New (I'm not) or just want a special deal on a game you think you're going to love (D-Day dice anyone?)then it's a useful alternative.

I'm pretty much for anything that expands or facilitates our hobby.

There's nothing wrong with doing pre-funding projects or using community based fund raising approaches at all. Kickstarter specifically sucks though for a number of reasons.

What I find interesting is that I was under the impression that the Kickstarter haters here were primarily against the fact that it allowed substandard board games to be funded, thus crowding the game market with crap and potentially taking gamers' dollars away from better projects. But the article in the OP had really nothing to do with that, basically saying that Kickstarter was overpriced for what you get. So why exactly do you hate Kickstarter again? Are you simply grabbing whatever negative publicity you can find to continue to prove that you are right and that Kickstarter sucks?

Me personally, I'm a capitalist pig. If Kickstarter is such a rip-off and adds little value, then the market will take care of that. If someone can do a better job for cheaper, then I think you will see more competition in this space. The fact that Kickstarter doesn't do shit to either vet projects or enforce the agreements means that they will likely take a black eye soon. If some of the Kickstarter projects start bombing (as in not delivering on promises), the brand name will be tarnished and you may see someone rise up to take over that spot. Competition rocks.

As for bad games being made, well I've seen some publishers do the same. Again, the capitalist in me says buyer beware. If people fund projects that produce shit, well it's their loss, really. Chances are that most will not enjoy the taste of shit in their mouth and will stop feeding the Kickstarter shit machine. Those that don't can point and laugh.

I'm curious if Kickstarter will have staying power or if this will be a fad. Many people that have funded Kickstarter projects haven't actually seen the end results yet. I suspect by the middle of this year we'll have a better idea if this is working or if it producing crap after this first big wave of board games come out.

I kickstarted three projects and have only gotten Flash Point: Fire Rescue. The only reason I invested money in that project is it plays solo and I heard great things on the Fort about the game. Alas, I have yet to play (another issue).