Is The One Ring 2E Kickstarter going to break the records?

At over $140K in the first half hour and shooting quickly past the $200K mark before the first hour was up, the numbers on Free League's Kickstarter for the 2nd Edition of The One Ring are whizzing up faster than the eye can see!

THE ONE RING™ Roleplaying Game, Second Edition

A new edition of the roleplaying game set in the world of The Lord of the Rings™ by J.R.R. Tolkien, designed by Francesco Nepitello.

www.kickstarter.com

The record for a TTRPG Kickstarter is Matt Colville, at over $2M for his Strongholds & Followers project (and a followup $1.3M campaign). The next highest was John Wick's 7th Sea at about $1.2M.

There were over 6,000 people who were following the pre-launch page for this Kickstarter, which runs for three weeks.

 

[Ethawyn]

Quite a few people are using shorter kickstarters as in the middle period not much happens. I’m doing 2-week campaigns a lot these days, and I’ve seen a few 3-weekers. I’m actually considering dropping to one-week campaigns.

Interesting that it looks like past Free League Kickstarters have seen a pretty steady rise after the initial flurry to around twice the first day's take (via Kicktraq). There's definitely an upswing at the end, but that slow and steady isn't negligible.

 

[Morrus]

Interesting that it looks like past Free League Kickstarters have seen a pretty steady rise after the initial flurry to around twice the first day's take (via Kicktraq). There's definitely an upswing at the end, but that slow and steady isn't negligible.

Same pattern as every Kickstarter. The daily pledges tab on Kicktraq always shows that same U shape.

 

[Ethawyn]

Same pattern as every Kickstarter. The daily pledges tab on Kicktraq always shows that same U shape.

So then why would one cut out the middle part? It's not a flurry of activity but it's still significant.

 

[Morrus]

So then why would one cut out the middle part? It's not a flurry of activity but it's still significant.

Kickstarters are in the phase right now where lots of people are experimenting with the standard model to see just how much difference it makes or whether the same people pledge just at different times. The same question could be asked — why a month when you can do two months? Or three?

For me, doing a lot of sequential quick starters those two weeks at low activity can be replaced by a different Kickstarter’s first and last week again. It’s better for me to do two short campaigns every 6 weeks than say two long ones every three months.

 

[Ethawyn]

Kickstarters are in the phase right now where lots of people are experimenting with the standard model to see just how much difference it makes or whether the same people pledge just at different times. The same question could be asked — why a month when you can do two months? Or three?

For me, doing a lot of sequential quick starters those two weeks at low activity can be replaced by a different Kickstarter’s first and last week again. It’s better for me to do two short campaigns every 6 weeks than say two long ones every three months.

That makes sense.

 

[Paragon Lost]

Quite a few people are using shorter kickstarters as in the middle period not much happens. I’m doing 2-week campaigns a lot these days, and I’ve seen a few 3-weekers. I’m actually considering dropping to one-week campaigns.

Yeah but this one Russ isn't that type of Kickstarter, if I'm making sense. This one should have been earmarked to be a big deal. In my opinion giving it a full 30 days to raise as much money as possible.

On the Quickstarters, I'm actually not a big fan of them personally. To make my wife happy I tend to set a limit on my hobby expenditures. Quickstarter's tempt me to violate my monthly self limit and that makes me unhappy. I start having FOMO feelings and that irks me. I usually average around $3,000 to $4,000 a year on my tabletop gaming hobby as an aside. My online gaming (mmorpgs) adds another $500.00 to $1,000.00 depending on what I'm doing . I keep a log to keep myself honest. lol.

Anyhow just offering feedback on the Quickstarter's, I've passed on quite a few that I might have done had they not been Quickstarters. When you're tossing $200.00 to $400.00 on individual Kicktarters (Ptolus comes to mind on the high end, and I did $300.00 on The One Ring and $325.00 on the Savage Pathfinder Kickstarter), you end up eating up your monthly limit quickly.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah but this one Russ isn't that type of Kickstarter, if I'm making sense. This one should have been earmarked to be a big deal. In my opinion giving it a full 30 days to raise as much money as possible.

Then why not 2 months? Why not 6? A year? What’s so magical about 30 days, specifically?*



*the answer is nothing as we creators are starting to discover

 

[Paragon Lost]

Then why not 2 months? Why not 6? A year? What’s so magical about 30 days, specifically?*



*the answer is nothing as we creators are starting to discover

Yeah I guess I'm not explaining myself well and I'm just not in the mood to break down if you don't see why.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah I guess I'm not explaining myself well and I'm just not in the mood to break down if you don't see why.

OK. Good chat.

 

[Ghal Maraz]

As a rule of thumb, for what is worth from a non-project creator like me, a 30-days campaign seems a lot of wasted time, effort, and energy, if you've made enough of a marketing campaign before it. The long, silent middle part is only really useful to campaigns started with a low profile, i.e. the campaigns that need the time in-between to rise some real awareness on its existence.