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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 6758634" data-attributes="member: 8461">You don't seem to realize that you're the one who has confused the issue by thinking that Kickstarter is at all &quot;closer&quot; to direct competition. In fact, that's not the case at all.You're asking the wrong question here. It's more germane to ask why you have such an issue with pointing out that Kickstarter isn't unfriendly to retailers, at least no more than anything else that requires (discretionary) spending.Everything you've stated here is incorrect. You do not have a separate channel for creating or distributing gaming products - the creation aspect is not &quot;separate&quot; because brick-and-mortar stores do not facilitate the creation of game products, they only sell them. Likewise, the distribution aspect is also not &quot;separate,&quot; because Kickstarter is not a distributor. Most Kickstarters have reward pledges that do not include a copy of the final product, nor can you &quot;order&quot; a product from them after the funding period has closed.The retailers, in other words, are not cut out of the loop because they were never in that loop to begin with. Kickstarter only allows for gathering the capital to create a product in the first place; if that product is one that will be distributed to FLGS's, then they're not losing out since otherwise that product that they're selling would never have been made in the first place. If the product is one that isn't given to FLGs's after it's funded, then it's not a question of competition, since sales for that book could never have happened at the FLGS anyway. (I suppose you could cite that as &quot;indirect competition,&quot; but again, that means that Kickstarter is no more &quot;retailer-unfriendly&quot; than anything else.)Kickstarter is about as likely to drive FLGS's out of business as iPods are.It's not any more competition than anything else that's not a necessity and costs money. In that regard, talking about the impact that Kickstarter is having on local game stores makes no more sense than talking about the impact that Starbucks is having on local game stores.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 6758634, member: 8461"] You don't seem to realize that you're the one who has confused the issue by thinking that Kickstarter is at all "closer" to direct competition. In fact, that's not the case at all. You're asking the wrong question here. It's more germane to ask why you have such an issue with pointing out that Kickstarter isn't unfriendly to retailers, at least no more than anything else that requires (discretionary) spending. Everything you've stated here is incorrect. You do [i]not[/i] have a separate channel for creating or distributing gaming products - the creation aspect is not "separate" because brick-and-mortar stores do not facilitate the creation of game products, they only sell them. Likewise, the distribution aspect is also not "separate," because Kickstarter is not a distributor. Most Kickstarters have reward pledges that do not include a copy of the final product, nor can you "order" a product from them after the funding period has closed. The retailers, in other words, are not cut out of the loop because they were never in that loop to begin with. Kickstarter only allows for gathering the capital to create a product in the first place; if that product is one that will be distributed to FLGS's, then they're not losing out since otherwise that product that they're selling would never have been made in the first place. If the product is one that isn't given to FLGs's after it's funded, then it's not a question of competition, since sales for that book could never have happened at the FLGS anyway. (I suppose you could cite that as "indirect competition," but again, that means that Kickstarter is no more "retailer-unfriendly" than anything else.) Kickstarter is about as likely to drive FLGS's out of business as iPods are. It's not any more competition than anything else that's not a necessity and costs money. In that regard, talking about the impact that Kickstarter is having on local game stores makes no more sense than talking about the impact that Starbucks is having on local game stores. [/QUOTE]

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