D&D General I am so done with kickstarter

[Ruin Explorer]

That’s totally dependent on the creator. We have a campaign ending tonight and the PDFs will go out immediately with the physical books in 2 weeks.

I mean, that is definitely cool, but it serves to illustrate the issue really well. You cannot make safe assumptions about how long a KS will take. Now, that's fine, caveat emptor and all that, but at the same time, it does mean that I too have gradually become more reluctant to use KS (and obviously I will never touch them again if this blockchain naughty word goes anywhere, but that's a separate issue), because it's often not even worth bothering to back something unless it's either in serious need of backing, or going to release stuff early to backers, as it'll come out anyway when its actually ready. Most do, but I dunno, I get that it sort of degrades the utility of KS slightly.

And anything that's multiple years out I'm just not backing (except when I got talked into back Exalted Essence sigh), because I'm skeptical it'll ever come out. And the only things I've backed so far that did take that long were all videogames and all disappointing except the Obsidian ones.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

I've backed a lot of KS (almost 200) and the majority have delivered. I've had 10 just go no shows with my money (but most of those I backed $10 or less). Every KS I have backed that has been delivered has had a delay. Sometimes the delay is minor. Sometimes not so minor. I've learned a few things with KS.

1. Always remember that most companies are small companies that can't just pre-create the product in full until they know it'll be backed and by how many. KS isn't a store, it's a means of finding interest in games and preordering something you may be interested in.

2. Even if a company has the majority of the product ready pre-KS (A few do) what they've put together may, and usually will, change due to stretch goals and customer feedback.

3. Always research the company before backing it. Most KS creators have a history of projects and you can see how they deal with delays/fulfillment. If you don't like how they handle these it may be better to wait till it's funded then buy it after the fact.

4. Life happens. No-one can predict everything and politics, illnesses, wars, supply issues, and stuff happens. It's not the fault of the creator. I'm still waiting on my Level Up books from @Morrus that I ordered back in March and I'm not upset, because life happens.

5. It is exceedingly unfair to compare Amazon and KS. Amazon is a store that sells items already made and has a global distribution system. KS is (as I mentioned in 1) a means of generating interesting in a game and funding pre-orders that has no built in distribution system. They're not the same.

If you want to wait till a product is done go for it. I do that with a lot of products if I don't trust the creator. It's safer tbh, but that doesn't mean that KS is all bad.

 

[Morrus]

4. Life happens. No-one can predict everything and politics, illnesses, wars, supply issues, and stuff happens. It's not the fault of the creator. I'm still waiting on my Level Up books from @Morrus that I ordered back in March and I'm not upset, because life happens.

Our Kickstarter was last year. If you ordered books from us in March, it wasn't anything to do with Kickstarter! I assume you're referring to pre-orders?

 

[Yora]

I do think that, due to Covid, I am going to be more careful about games I back for kickstarter. Small publishers often have no leverage to aid them when manufacturing delays hit. I do feel "Kickstarter is not a store" cuts both ways, with creators needing to know that they are going to draw a great deal of ehat on promises they can't deliver on. Best advice is to avoid projects with dozens of add-ons. Add-ons sink fulfillment imo.

Definitely. When you have reached your goal, be happy that you have reached your goal. If you calculated your required right, all the excess will go straight into your pocket. No need to keep increasing your workload and production costs by expanding the scope of your product.
I can understand how the first people encountering the situation thought they could get more money from people by telling them there's more product for them if they keep giving you more money. But providing more product means more work. More works requires more time. And time is not going to increase no matter how much money people give you.
And you probably should take more than a day or two to calculate the actual costs for the additional product before you commit to delivering it to customers.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

Our Kickstarter was last year. If you ordered books from us in March, it wasn't anything to do with Kickstarter! I assume you're referring to pre-orders?

Absolutely and I apologize for the confusion. I was using that to illustrate that there can even be delays with non-KS orders.

 

[MNblockhead]

2. Even if a company has the majority of the product ready pre-KS (A few do) what they've put together may, and usually will, change due to stretch goals and customer feedback.

This is one reason I'm not a big fan of stretch goals, especially if they are tied to the core product. If it is just some swag or supplements, fine. I don't care if they don't get delivered for a while after the core product. But saying if we make X amount we'll add additional content to our core book, that leaves me with a bad impression. First, it is more likely to lead to delays. Second, and most importantly, I feel you should have a vision for your core product and not add "fluff" to it in the hopes of coaxing more people to back or backers to back at higher tiers.

Related to this, are how many TTRPG creators handle tiers. Its nice to offer deluxe leather bound books to higher pledge levels, but take care of the quality of the material first. There are a number of publishers where they over very expensive, luxury, collector-edition versions of the books for higher pledge levels but have numerous glaring errors in the book.

Frog God Games is one of the worst offenders here. They do a great job publishing "on time" and offer very high quality books in terms of paper quality, binding, etc. (even for the base book) and these great, expensive leather bound versions of the books, for higher tiers, but they do a terrible job with proof-reading. I still back them, because I like their setting and adventure material. But I would never pay the cost for the high-tier levels because why have a beautiful leather bound book with typos in it.

 

[Morrus]

This is one reason I'm not a big fan of stretch goals, especially if they are tied to the core product. If it is just some swag or supplements, fine. I don't care if they don't get delivered for a while after the core product. But saying if we make X amount we'll add additional content to our core book, that leaves me with a bad impression. First, it is more likely to lead to delays. Second, and most importantly, I feel you should have a vision for your core product and not add "fluff" to it in the hopes of coaxing more people to back or backers to back at higher tiers.

Yeah, it's easy to get carried away with stretch goals, and I've seen lots of Kickstarters come undone by overcommitting themselves. I have a very strict policy with stretch goals -- none at all on the mini quickstarters, and nothing that changes the core product on the larger campaigns.

 

[Malmuria]

The younglings hate Amazon. But I love Amazon. Because whatever I order, it arrives tomorrow.

.

But it doesn't seem cool any more, with their cash grab towards blockchain so the world can be destroyed faster by climate change.

I have some bad news for you about Amazon’s impact on the environment…

 

[JarooAshstaff]

I have some bad news for you about Amazon’s impact on the environment…

did you measure the before and after of all the stores it replaced?

and defending bezos was not the point, regardless of whether I like efficient deliveries.

 

[beancounter]

Yea, it seems like a lot of D&D YouTubers are either trying to sell content or imitate the success of Critical Roll.