Kickstarter Too many Kickstarter projects? Is Kickstarter the new d20 glut?

Mark CMG · Aug 8, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
It just so happens that kickstarter is the particular glut being discussed here.

And that's the problem I realized right there. They aren't "Kickstarter" News. They are news stories about new projects from dozens of different sources that are RPG related and just happen to use Kickstarter as a crowdfunding aparatus. It wouldn't make any sense to shunt off a bunch of RPG News items that all used RPGNow as their sales location nor to bundle and pigeonhole all RPG News items of products that use PDF or Print as their format. If anything, the news pages of EN World have become more diverse since the advent of Kickstarter rather than the opposite.

Crazy Jerome · Aug 8, 2012

Mark CMG said:
And that's the problem I realized right there. They aren't "Kickstarter" News. They are news stories about new projects from dozens of different sources that are RPG related and just happen to use Kickstarter as a crowdfunding aparatus. It wouldn't make any sense to shunt off a bunch of RPG News items that all used RPGNow as their sales location nor to bundle and pigeonhole all RPG News items of products that use PDF or Print as their format. If anything, the news pages of EN World have become more diverse since the advent of Kickstarter rather than the opposite.

Sure. Some people that would be very interested in, say, new hard sci-fi themed projects would like to see all such projects, no matter how funded--while ignoring other stuff. Kickstarter is irrelevant to them, but heavy traffic in epic fantasy materials is a glut for them. OTOH, kickstarters could be perceived as glut because it is coming across as very much a fad (or heavy trend, if you prefer). I think that is where the d20 glut comparison comes in, since there was then very much a sense of "Joe's Garage, Pizza, and now RPG Company" putting out a quick d20 product to ride the wave. Yet, definitively identifying fads or trends while they are happening is tricky.

Ideally, we'd have several filter categories that we could include/exclude on ourselves, individually as users. What might be a bit controversial is why "Kickstarter" is something that people would want as a filter to include or exclude.

Mark CMG · Aug 8, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
OTOH, kickstarters could be perceived as glut because it is coming across as very much a fad (or heavy trend, if you prefer).

Naw. A couple/few dozen new projects a month is not even close to a glut when they span across RPG genres and formats, as well as including text materials, miniatures, tabletop accessories, programs, etc. I think some are just overreacting to the fact that the word "Kickstarter" figures prominently in them which gives a convenient focus to "type" them and dismiss them since they aren't in someone's personal area of interest. I suppose someone could just as easily take all of the "News" items that have to do with Fantasy RPG design and make the same assertion, though in that case all of the items falling under that header would have a lot more in common and would likely be more justified.

gamerprinter · Aug 8, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
OTOH, kickstarters could be perceived as glut because it is coming across as very much a fad (or heavy trend, if you prefer).

It's only a fad because Morrus just started posting them to ENWorld News, however Kickstarter has been around for 7 years - longer than I have even been a member here. Had Morrus added Kickstarters to the news 7 years ago, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Just because you've suddenly noticed, doesn't make it new or fad-dish.

ShinHakkaider · Aug 8, 2012

Gonna add my two-cents in and then keep it moving...

I LIKE the Kickstarter stuff on the front page. It's not news related to D&D (Which I have very little to no interest in) or Pathfinder (which I AM interested in but I get my Pathfinder related news from the Paizo site and not here).

It gives me a reason to come here. There are a lot of RPG and miniature related kickstarters out there. It's good that there's a place I can come to see what's crackin' as far as those Kickstarters go.

Crazy Jerome · Aug 8, 2012

Mark CMG said:
I think some are just overreacting to the fact that the word "Kickstarter" figures prominently in them which gives a convenient focus to "type" them and dismiss them since they aren't in someone's personal area of interest.

Well, that may be true for some, but it's not my reaction. I'm ignoring them because they are kickstarters. If a kickstarter product that I might be interested in otherwise is released later in the more traditional path, I'll check it out then. For me, "kickstarter" is roughly a synonym for "vapor ware". I'm not interested in vapor--or more correctly picking the vapor out from the real stuff.

If I had the money, I'd have jumped on the Ogre kickstarter, precisely because I don't think SJG would make that kind of commitment to vapor, and thus I wouldn't need to make such a determination. As with Ptolus, it's something that I knew I wanted as soon as I found out about it (though that was preorder instead of kickstarter). Obviously, if I'm not interested in the product for its own sake, it doesn't matter whether it's vapor or not. But the point is, for those products that I might be interested in, until this all shakes out, if it's kickstarter, I'm not even going to consider it.

Mark CMG · Aug 8, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
Well, that may be true for some, but it's not my reaction. I'm ignoring them because they are kickstarters.

Certainly your right but that really has little to do with whether or not they are RPG News items. And of course they are much more than "Kickstarter" projects. They are all individual projects that use Kickstarter for their initial funding and then continue to be products after that. If it makes it any easier, just think of each of those announcements with "Kickstarter" in the text as product press releases, ignore the word "Kickstarter" and think about whether or not they are products you might be interested in after the "Kickstarter" aspect is over and they become more widely released. I don't know that many, if even any, have become vaporware in any sense of the word. Of course, anytime a company puts out PR about a product that isn't finished and plans to release it down the road there is a chance it will never come to market or to market in a form as suggested by the early PR, though that is less so when the company crowdsources money and has some obligation to produce what folks have pre-paid to acquire. Still, the bottom line is that all of the RPG-related Kickstarter announcements are still RPG News. Clearly you undersand that despite your general distrust of all but a few companies and that's the real thrust of this discussion even if none of the announcements appeals to you personally.

GrimGent · Aug 9, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
I'm ignoring them because they are kickstarters. If a kickstarter product that I might be interested in otherwise is released later in the more traditional path, I'll check it out then.

Of course, the downside with this approach is that even a potentially interesting idea by some enterprising newcomer could well end up neglected and never reach the market in any form for want of funds and encouragement. Then again, I admittedly do treat Kickstarter mainly as a way of preordering from established companies. White Wolf (or Onyx Path, as the case may be) apparently intends to make extensive use of its services in the future.

(The project that recently got me looking into this whole newfangled crowdsourcing business, Soda Pop's Tentacle Bento, was actually dropped by Kickstarter after already reaching its funding, but then moved to the company's own site and completed the pledge drive without any further hitches.)

Oh, and I've been meaning to ask... The Hulks & Horrors project over at IndieGoGo (here) shows up on the tumblr page but I can't seem to find it on this forum. What's up with that?

gamerprinter · Aug 10, 2012

Crazy Jerome said:
For me, "kickstarter" is roughly a synonym for "vapor ware". I'm not interested in vapor--or more correctly picking the vapor out from the real stuff.

I have no idea whether the majority of Kickstarters are start-up companies having no history of any products before. Looking at the various project creators, many are existing publishers, many have existing products. If it were only start-up 'nobody' companies, you might have a point, but of course, most of the companies are known publishers.

My own Kickstarter project follows a year of 10 released products for the same setting, some as print products available across the globe, many highly acclaimed products. I asure you that my Kickstarter is not 'vaporware'. In fact my Kickstarter is already funded - so a product is guaranteed to be released from this - and not just one.

I've only chosen to use Kickstarter to fund a project that is currently outside my budget - everything within budget gets produced without outside financing. A 200 page printed book is outside my normal budget.