Mark CMG
Creative Mountain Games
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Just to be clear, you're claiming that retailers are harmed by Kickstarter, saying you know there is no hard proof, and further saying that asking for hard evidence of the claim is an unfair argument?
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Wait, you think that the pot calling the "cattle" black is a good rebuttal argument?
It's absolutely not the point, since Kickstarter doesn't work by commission.
That's not even remotely the same. If WotC was funding a particular book via Kickstarter, it would be engaging in crowd-funding, but there'd be no actual sales going on, though there might be options to receive various rewards for various levels of pledges. That's fundamentally different from what goes on on eBay, even if some people can't tell the difference.
It's not.
Crowd-funding is all that Kickstarter does. The platform is not designed, nor is it able to engage, in any sort of retail sales. That's why you can't buy products there, you can only fund the creation of products that don't exist yet, though you might be rewarded for doing so later on.
I believe it's logical that Kickstarter can have a negative effect on stores.Just to be clear, you're claiming that retailers are harmed by Kickstarter,
Until studies are done, there isn't.saying you know there is no hard proof,
No, I'm saying demanding hard evidence when unwilling to offering evidence of your own is a poor means of conducting a debate.and further saying that asking for hard evidence of the claim is an unfair argument?
No, I'm saying demanding hard evidence when unwilling to offering evidence of your own is a poor means of conducting a debate.
It's not a debate of facts. It is you making a claim as factual and offering conjecture then saying someone isn't playing fair when they point out that your claim of it being factual isn't backed by hard evidence, then further saying that if they can't prove the negative you will continue to assert the claim is factual. You've used the term "factually accurate" to bolster your argument. You shouldn't. You also shouldn't say that something is just as easily true without evidence if someone cannot prove it isn't true. That's not how being factually accurate works. That's not how logic works.
I don't think this discussion is going anywhere and is wildly off topic, and is frankly just causing me aggravation and stress. So I'm walking away now. Good day.
You're making a value assumption on my post. I love kickstarter and agree with what you say. I just imagine some companies, like Reaper minis, probably didn't need to do Bones 2 let alone Bones 3 and could just trust the audience to buy the minis if they hyped their release. Kickstarter wasn't needed.
But doing so gave people who wants to buy more a better deal, which is awesome. And I like having more minis and faster.
It's just worth admitting that those sales might have come at the expense of some traditional retail sales. It's not unfair, its just life and sometimes life has consequences.
Like Amazon really. The convenience and better price outweighs the costs to other businesses... Sometimes.
But markets and businesses change all the time. That's life. My FLGS just went under and the Canadian exchange rate was as much to blame as anything.
That said, if a company that *can* afford to publish without Kickstarter and is focused on supporting stores decides to eschew Kickstarter for the desire not to competition with buisnesses, that makes sense and I support that decision. Kickstarter is just another alternative, another option.
As for WotC... They have no shipping department to handle mass distribution and don't take money directly. Financials are handled through Hasbro accounting. They'd be a terrible company to handle a kickstarter. Too many people trying to coordinate and partners hire to handle duties. It'd be terrible.
Heck, a retailer, if they wanted to, could get in on a Kickstarter and then turn around and sell the products. I'd be surprised if retailers hadn't at least considered it. But, I imagine it's not something that's helping retailers very much and it is a kind of competition, even if it isn't 100% direct competition.
Hussar, I didn't say it was "very common" or make any comment one way or the other concerning commonality or representativeness of my experience. Second time I've corrected you on this. One might begin to think you're intentionally misrepresenting other people's positions after a while. Could you please stop doing that?