I'm sick of Kickstarters

[Mercurius]

I miss the old days where books just came out, you could buy them on a shelf, or even Amazon. Now it seems that there is this labyrinthine process where you have to shell out a ton of money to get a book or, once it is released, hope you can find a copy somewhere, somehow.

And yes, I know I sound like "Old man yells at cloud." And yes, I know there are many positives that out-weigh the negatives. It may even be that the negatives are all in my head, or so minor to be nothing more than the bio-chemical gurglings of an aging Gen X brain. But it is how I feel and for some reason I felt the need to express it, so there you have it.

And don't get me started on chip readers...

Now all that said, if we want to have a serious conversation from this, my question would be: what next? Will the kickstarter bubble burst or is this simply how things are done now and for the foreseeable future? Or will there be another approach on the near horizon?

 

[JeffB]

In the overall sense I do not like them. It took me a long time to finally give in and back one. I've backed 7 now, and was only really happy with 3 of them, and of those Only one of them was fulfilled on time.

I stopped backing them as well as Patreon. I was really disappointed in content with several of them. Did not feel it was worth the money or wait. I want to see what I'm buying first, which was my initial reservation about funding people up front. And now with most of them, the prices for an upfront blind purchase are getting out of control..

Back to square one.

 

[Morrus]

They mean products which would never have existed can now exist. I love it. Without KS, our choice of gaming products would be far smaller and less interesting.

But, if you're sick of them, most become available later for purchase. So you can do it that way if you prefer. You don't have to engage with the KS process.

 

[BrockBallingdark]

The Kickstarter bubble will not burst for a while, it's still strong. I like Kickstarters, are they all good? No, I've been in many and 3 of them busted. I've been smarter in choosing Kickstart projects to pledge the last couple of years.

I use to like to go into a store and look at the new products but back then I also wished a certain product had "this" or "that" and they usually never did. Kickstarter has give me the missing "this" or "that" plus me saying, hey.. I want this, here is my support. People are still thinking Kickstarters are "pre-orders", they are not! I except them to be late a couple of months, things happen. It's once they go over 6 months and having no updates that drive me crazy.

I also like to see what I'm buying, that's when I just go to the book store, Kickstarter is about making an idea come to life. Prices are starting to get crazier in KS, so I go for the basics, not the super KS only book covers or special dice or t-shirts. That's hype that I don't care about.

p.s.- I'm a Gen X'er and I LOVE Chip readers!

 

[L R Ballard]

I've backed 7 now, and was only really happy with 3 of them, and of those Only one of them was fulfilled on time.

Back to square one.

What did the three successful ones do or not do that set them apart from the others?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

No one likes getting burnt on a Kickstarter, I think we’ll all agree to that. But they have enabled any number of RPG products to come to being. In some ways, it’s taking us back to the hobbyist roots of gaming, where anyone that could get the cash somehow could produce something and enrich (hopefully) the tapestry of RPGs.

So far (knock on wood), I’ve only been burned on one Kickstarter, The Great Kingdom documentary, which was suspended due to the ongoing legal dispute.

All that being said, I think the Kickstarter model is here to stay, though the specific platform could very well change.

 

[Greenmtn]

I have only backed 3 projects and only 2 of them were ever fully funded. My experiences have all been positive. I like that you can have a cool idea and run it by your customers to make sure they think it is as cool as you do rather than by a bank and try to convince them that people will buy it.

 

[JeffB]

What did the three successful ones do or not do that set them apart from the others?

Keep in mind all that I have backed have been competely fulfilled, except for one which has had the major print items fulfilled and I am just waiting on a couple of PDFs of some extras. Luckily I have not been burned by projects gone bad.

In the ones I am happy with I felt like the majority of the material was useful to me from a playing/actual table use aspect. I got alot of value for my $

Some of the disappointing ones, I got a goodly amount of material and after reading it, had little to no desire to actually use any of it (this problem occured with the two separate 5E adventure KS projects I backed among other projects). OTOH -One project of OSR adventures I absolutely loved all 3 adventures and have used them all in whole or part. All three cases, I was buying "blind" on adventure details and relying on previous adventure products as measure of quality. Its put me off those two companies from buying blind ever again.

On the two other positive experiences (which were complete games plus lots of extras)

1) One project was reprints and PDFs of old materials I used to own, and so I knew exactly what I was getting.

2) One was a super duper deluxe reprint of a very old product I was familiar with (but did not own) along with a heap of newly designed play content (through stretch goals and all in print format) It was a massive amount of material, plus some trinkets and dice. It took awhile to fulfill, a bit longer than they stated- but the quality and amount of material for the $ spend was big. The company realized they could no longer offer that much in the future (and interestingly enough- they later produced one of the 5e adventure KSers that soured me on KS'ing any future products I would be going into blind).

My disappointments essentially boil down to- took awhile to receive something I didn't end up thinking was very good and wouldn't use. Had I seen the products in a store, and gave them a preview? They would have been re-shelved.

 

[Parmandur]

Describing the Kickstarter phenomenon as a "bubble" assumes too much: it is a new business model, enables by modern communications. For small hobbyist companies like Kobold Press or Goodman Games, taking preorders through Kickstarter gets them the finds to actually make a product, that they likely wouldn't be able to convince a single or small number of investors would be worthwhile. By going straight to the customers, risks are reduced on the business end so risks can be taken creatively instead.

 

[KahlessNestor]

I hate chip readers too! I just want to swipe and go!

Never done a Kickstarter though, so can't comment on that.

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