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

Lwaxy · Jul 29, 2012

I'd prefer a forum for kickstarters and the very promising/cool/prominent ones to be in the news only.

DaveMage · Jul 29, 2012

Morrus said:
Ah, well you see that would involve me doing it manually rather than automating it as I do at present.

Yeah, that's not gonna work unless you're really, really bored.

Maybe then a separate kickstarter page that's automated like the front news page, but a "permanent block" on the front news page that says "Click here for the latest Kickstarters!" that automatically rises when a new one is posted to the separate Kickstarter page?

And if so, can it count new posts automatically? If the above was adopted, could the front page say something like "6 new kickstarters today!" or somesuch?

Morrus · Jul 29, 2012

6 out of 16 of the news items on the front page right now are Kickstarter projects. So I guess the question could be rephrased as: "Is a full third of the news being Kickstarter announcements too much?"

ShadowDenizen · Jul 29, 2012

Interesting topic, and thanks for posting, Morrus.

I think there is a current glut of KickstarterProjects, personally. And it's apt to compare it to the early days of the D20 glut.

But we're in the very early stages of this fad, and I think, as with the D20 glut, this will tend to even itself out, where quality will eventually prevail over quantity.

I do think that the site would be benefited by having a "Kickstarter" page or forum, as some peolple have mentioned, as an inordinately large amount of the "news" items are about these projects. (Though I certainly don't object to some of the more innovate/important/promising ones make the newsfeed.)

jaerdaph · Jul 29, 2012

Morrus said:
6 out of 16 of the news items on the front page right now are Kickstarter projects. So I guess the question could be rephrased as: "Is a full third of the news being Kickstarter announcements too much?"

I wonder if the reason for this is simply because Kickstarter is becoming the new dominant model for RPG product development now over the traditional one? It makes sense for an RPG publisher - any RPG publisher regardless of size or years of experience - to Kickstart because a) they have to spend less money up front, b) they learn if there is a demand for a particular product or not, and c) they lose less up front money if there is no demand. At the end of the (successful) Kickstarter, they then have a product they can then sell in the traditional venues as well. I've only contributed to three Kickstarters and one IndieGoGo, but I have purchased several products that were initially crowd funded from RPGNow after the fact.

At the end of the day, you still need to offer something people want, and crowd funders need to be smart consumers (caveat vendor).

jaerdaph · Jul 29, 2012

Oh, and I don't think comparing the growing number of Kickstarters to the d20 glut is entirely accurate. The d20 glut was essentially an excessive amount of product for a single system. Kickstarter RPG products cover a wider range of game systems, both new ones and existing ones.

Ahnehnois · Jul 29, 2012

I don't buy things without getting a read on them first. Paging through a book, reading some reviews. I don't usually buy things after doing that. I'm a discriminating consumer.

There aren't many things at all that I would do in Kickstarter form. I don't really want to see them as news items this much.

Lwaxy · Jul 29, 2012

Yes, too much.

ahayford · Jul 30, 2012

Cergorach said:
What's this CoolMiniOrNot website that was supposed to fund a removed KS project? Haven't heard anything about it, haven't seen anything about it, and can't find anything about it. The only projects I know about 'that CMON did are Zombicide and Sedition Wars, both on KS. And I seriously doubt that they would have been that successful if they were done on a private website instead of KS, the same goes for Ogre, Order of the Stick, Reaper Bones, etc.

My mistake, Soda Pop Miniatures was the company, and Tentacle Bento was the project.

wrightdjohn · Jul 30, 2012

It will be interesting to see how the wheat is separated from the chaff over time. Eventually the number (maybe it's now for me) will overwhelm people's ability to review what's out there. It will definitely lead to more discernment. I've participated in a few. I always ask myself the question - what is the money needed for? Some things are such a low start up cost that I believe the kickstart isn't necessary.

I prefer a project that needs the money to pay vendors and not the primary author. So on a module the art requires an artist be hired so thats fine. I don't expect the module writer to use it as income.

Anyway. I think kickstart is here to stay and it performs a great service. It needs to work hard to keep the right projects under the right eyes. If they can pull this off then they are doing well.