Kickstarter Top Ten Tabletop Game Kickstarters: Why So Successful?

So this is a thread about a post by Matt Forbeck about an article on icV2. "It's clear that tabletop game projects are among Kickstarter's most successful categories, with five projects at over $1 million, and three over $2 million." I mean, this list is so epic that Monte Cook's half-million-dollar Numenera doesn't feature on it!

Interesting. Why do you think tabetop gaming Kickstarters perform so well? Is it the nature of the audience to collect things? Is the format of a tabletop game something that lends itself towards the Kickstarter model? Is it related to the tabletop gaming community and networks? Or do we just love the idea of crowdfunding?

Rank	Title	Total	Date	Backers	$/backer
1	Dark Heaven: Bones minis by Reaper Miniatures	$3,429,235	08/25/12	17,744	$193.26
2	Zombicide: Season 2 by CoolMiniOrNot	$2,255,018	03/31/13	8,944	$252.13
3	Kingdom Death: Monster by Kingdom Death	$2,049,721	01/07/12	5,410	$378.88
4	Game Tiles by Dwarven Forge	$1,908,155	04/30/13	5,398	$353.49
5	Robotech RPG Tactics by Palladium Books	$1,442,312	05/20/13	5,342	$270.00
6	Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster by CoolMiniOrNot	$951,254	06/30/12	4,278	$222.36
7	Myth miniatures by MERCS Miniatures	$926,112	04/24/13	5,360	$172.78
8	Ogre Designer’s Edition by Steve Jackson Games	$923,680	05/11/12	5,512	$167.58
9	Relic Knights by CoolMiniOrNot	$909,537	09/09/12	3,459	$262.95
10	Zombicide by CoolMiniOrNot	$781,597	05/06/12	5,258	$148.65

 

[MerricB]

Will we see a Kickstarter that "breaks" Merric's Law?

*pre-painted plastic minis can only have 2 of the following: (1) non-blind purchase, (2) low prices, and (3) wide variety

Actually, it's a law of all minis, not just pre-painted ones. And no, Kickstarter isn't going to break it - although it might not appear that way. Bones looks to have all three, but the "non-blind purchase" isn't identical, as you don't have a choice of the miniatures you buy with the Kickstarter (yes, there's a few optionals, but most of it is all or nothing). Once they get into retail stores, the price will be much higher than the kickstarter, and the problems with stocking and production will resume.

 

[darjr]

But the bones don't really count cause they are not pre-painted. In the store aren't they still cheaper than their pre painted equivalents?

I do think your law is rock solid. I'd love for it to be proven wrong. I wonder how someone might use kickstarter to try?

 

[MerricB]

But the bones don't really count cause they are not pre-painted. In the store aren't they still cheaper than their pre painted equivalents?

You can apply the law to prepainted OR unpainted minis. But you can't use it to compare the prices of painted AND unpainted minis. The latter should always be cheaper than the former! (Assuming comparable materials).

The idea behind the law is that figures that don't sell cost the company money. Their manufacturing/distributing/etc. cost thus needs to be covered by the price of the other figures. So, the larger range of figures you have, the more individual figures might not sell and thus have to be covered by the others. (And, as you generally don't know which figures will sell more, you end up pricing all the figures the same...) However, if figures are purchased blind in random packs, then the buyer doesn't have a choice about which figures he buys, so all of the figures get sold - presuming you have enough desirable figures in the line to make it worth it.

The Kickstarter doesn't allow people to cherry-pick minis; it's much like one SKU (even though visible). And then you're getting people to preorder the minis, so that lowers the price greatly: you don't need to guess which minis the Kickstarter people will buy, so you can sell them at the minimum possible cost. But when the minis are made available for people in the retail world, the law kicks back into effect.

Cheers!