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<blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 8310287" data-attributes="member: 11760"><p>Why did they need to cross $40k? That more than covered their printing costs and they don't have anything special they were unlocking beyond that.</p><p></p><p>Blue Rose 5E has been available as a PDF from Drive Thru RPG for months and it's a Silver seller there. The new version has been dissected and praised by folks over at RPG.net, where there's more of an audience for the game than here at ENWorld. (Green Ronin in general has diminished in prominence here, since it went all-in on Pathfinder and AGE.)</p><p></p><p>More importantly, most fans of Blue Rose are playing the two previous versions (True20 and AGE), both of which continue to chug along just fine. Blue Rose 5E is a niche product, although a well-respected one with some additions to the game, like narrative wealth, that lots of groups might find worth incorporating. (As many 5E groups agree, wealth in 5E is kind of pointless. Blue Rose 5E stops screwing around and says "yeah, break your characters into wealth bands and just let them have anything in their economic tier without counting copper pieces.")</p><p></p><p>While I'm sure Green Ronin would have been fine with a million-dollar campaign, it's not at all necessary and raising $40k for a product that has been out, in various versions, for months or years, is only a "failure" in a very weird, specific sense.</p><p></p><p>If you look at the comments from supporters, both on Kickstarter and on message boards (we have to different threads on this campaign here at ENWorld), you'll see this is a product that appeals to old-school Oz fans. It's a small but passionate fanbase and many of us -- I'm part of the fanbase -- have been waiting for public domain content vultures to knock it off with the "it's Oz, but <em>edgy</em>" nonsense of the past few years. A pure, Baum-only take on the setting is very, very exciting for a very specific group of nerds, many of whom are happy to drop money on Oz stuff. (My biggest Oz expense is a complete run of the Books of Wonder recreations of the first runs of the series from a few decades ago, and I love 'em.)</p><p></p><p>Why is soda not a sure fire winner? Why are action movies not a sure fire winner? Why are pizza places not a sure fire winner?</p><p></p><p>There's a bunch of reasons, and cherry-picking two campaigns to create a trend doesn't really work. </p><p></p><p>Sometimes campaigns are run by people who clearly will not be able to deliver what they're saying. Sometimes their ideas are terrible. Sometimes the people involved are toxic pieces of crap and word has gotten around. Sometimes their ideas are great and their implementation is crap. Sometimes people are running wildly unrealistic campaigns (I have a friend who's trying to charge $45+ for a book of photos of a niche celebrity without any communication with backers or explanations of why he needs to collect $50k to start production). Sometimes the campaigns are for things that are basically duplicates of what's already out there (a whole lot of dice makers, this means you).</p><p></p><p>This is a hell of a leap, man. I've Kickstarted more game stuff than I care to think about, am nowhere near the most prolific backer even in my personal gaming circles, and all gaming spending is in the same bucket for me. WotC has three whole books I'm buying this fall, the most I've ever purchased in a row other than the core books from them, but that in no way impacts what I Kickstart or don't. I've got four Kickstarted books coming between now and next March.</p><p></p><p>If there <em>is</em> a downturn in overall Kickstarter numbers, it would likely be due to larger economic factors relating to the pandemic or a general maturing of the 5E market and folks looking at their straining book shelves and saying "yeah, this is probably enough for now, unless something amazing comes along." But that latter factor would impact WotC, too, and from what we in the public can see, it certainly doesn't look like sales are slowing down.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Whizbang Dustyboots, post: 8310287, member: 11760"] Why did they need to cross $40k? That more than covered their printing costs and they don't have anything special they were unlocking beyond that. Blue Rose 5E has been available as a PDF from Drive Thru RPG for months and it's a Silver seller there. The new version has been dissected and praised by folks over at RPG.net, where there's more of an audience for the game than here at ENWorld. (Green Ronin in general has diminished in prominence here, since it went all-in on Pathfinder and AGE.) More importantly, most fans of Blue Rose are playing the two previous versions (True20 and AGE), both of which continue to chug along just fine. Blue Rose 5E is a niche product, although a well-respected one with some additions to the game, like narrative wealth, that lots of groups might find worth incorporating. (As many 5E groups agree, wealth in 5E is kind of pointless. Blue Rose 5E stops screwing around and says "yeah, break your characters into wealth bands and just let them have anything in their economic tier without counting copper pieces.") While I'm sure Green Ronin would have been fine with a million-dollar campaign, it's not at all necessary and raising $40k for a product that has been out, in various versions, for months or years, is only a "failure" in a very weird, specific sense. If you look at the comments from supporters, both on Kickstarter and on message boards (we have to different threads on this campaign here at ENWorld), you'll see this is a product that appeals to old-school Oz fans. It's a small but passionate fanbase and many of us -- I'm part of the fanbase -- have been waiting for public domain content vultures to knock it off with the "it's Oz, but [I]edgy[/I]" nonsense of the past few years. A pure, Baum-only take on the setting is very, very exciting for a very specific group of nerds, many of whom are happy to drop money on Oz stuff. (My biggest Oz expense is a complete run of the Books of Wonder recreations of the first runs of the series from a few decades ago, and I love 'em.) Why is soda not a sure fire winner? Why are action movies not a sure fire winner? Why are pizza places not a sure fire winner? There's a bunch of reasons, and cherry-picking two campaigns to create a trend doesn't really work. Sometimes campaigns are run by people who clearly will not be able to deliver what they're saying. Sometimes their ideas are terrible. Sometimes the people involved are toxic pieces of crap and word has gotten around. Sometimes their ideas are great and their implementation is crap. Sometimes people are running wildly unrealistic campaigns (I have a friend who's trying to charge $45+ for a book of photos of a niche celebrity without any communication with backers or explanations of why he needs to collect $50k to start production). Sometimes the campaigns are for things that are basically duplicates of what's already out there (a whole lot of dice makers, this means you). This is a hell of a leap, man. I've Kickstarted more game stuff than I care to think about, am nowhere near the most prolific backer even in my personal gaming circles, and all gaming spending is in the same bucket for me. WotC has three whole books I'm buying this fall, the most I've ever purchased in a row other than the core books from them, but that in no way impacts what I Kickstart or don't. I've got four Kickstarted books coming between now and next March. If there [I]is[/I] a downturn in overall Kickstarter numbers, it would likely be due to larger economic factors relating to the pandemic or a general maturing of the 5E market and folks looking at their straining book shelves and saying "yeah, this is probably enough for now, unless something amazing comes along." But that latter factor would impact WotC, too, and from what we in the public can see, it certainly doesn't look like sales are slowing down. [/QUOTE]
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