What Happens If CODENAME: MORNINGSTAR Doesn't Fund?

With 2 weeks to go, and only 13% of the $425,000 raised, and those two weeks being Christmas, the odds are that Codename: Morningstar won't fund. There might be a last-minute turnaround, of course, but the prognosis right now does not look hopeful. Trapdoor Technologies leader Chris Matney addressed the possibility, saying that "not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo."
[lq]...if there does not appear to be a sufficient market interest our continued investment in the gaming industry is not assured.[/lq]

Below is what Chris Matney said on the subject. You can find the Kickstarter here.

What If We Don't Fund?

Yesterday, I addressed the question about why Trapdoor needs $425,000 to fund the completion of Morningstar. Today, I want to chat briefly about what happens if we don't fund via our Kickstarter campaign. The answer is somewhat more complex than you might imagine, so please bear with me.

First, we need to assess whether the gaming community has a real interest in our technology. The response to our Kickstarter is part of that answer - and I won't deny that the role player in me will be disappointed if we don't fund.

Our decision to jump into the gaming market was not made lightly. Trapdoor is a software company that builds interactive publishing applications. This technology is at work in commerce, education, and other fields. Role-playing games are complex and thus a perfect showcase for our interactive technology which simplifies prep and play. This is a greenfield opportunity for us and the industry. No other gaming company provides digital distribution beyond PDFs.

Your pledge to our Kickstarter campaign is the best way to express interest in bringing a remarkable, captivating and new experience to our hobby. It is the only way to 100% guarantee the success of Morningstar.

If we don't fund (and assuming there is demonstrable interest in the technology), we will need to reevaluate the current gaming ecosystem: looking for publishers who are interested in leveraging Morningstar into their gaming system, assessing the OGL for D&D 5e (if any), combing the feature set in Morningstar to see what can be pushed back, etc. With $1.2M invested in the project to date, we would obviously like to see Morningstar launch. However, as with any business if there does not appear to be a sufficient market interest our continued investment in the gaming industry is not assured.

The community and you have some decisions to make in the next two weeks. If you share our vision, pledge. Even if you don't think we will fund - throw your support behind our cause. Kickstarter collects pledges only if the funding is successful. It's a no risk proposition - at worst, you will show your support. Not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo. Hopefully, you elect to be on the ground floor of a truly remarkable journey.

Respectfully submitted.
Chris Matney
Managing Director
Trapdoor Technologies


[lq]...not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo.[/lq]


morningstar.jpg
 

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Trapdoor Technologies said:
First, we need to assess whether the gaming community has a real interest in our technology.

In this statement, Trapdoor shows a fundamental misunderstanding of something: By in large, consumers aren't interested in technology. They are interested in *products*.

Yes, there are some folks who, in order to support long-term development of technology, will buy something. This helps sell things like Tesla cars (or the early Toyota Prius), and solar energy systems for your home - products which are not quite at the point of being an economic no-brainer. But those sales are small, compared to what is available from the overall market. Most folks wait until the purchase makes sense in terms of actual, delivered functionality, and won't buy just to support tech development.

So, no, the gaming community doesn't care about your technology.

I personally don't care for the accusative tone in the, "...you are happy with the status quo." They should not presume to tell me what I am happy with. PR fail, there.
 

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If this had come around after Christmas I could justify it, but all my money is spoken for. Pathfinder is the main game my group plays, but they couldn't have picked a worse time to ask me for money.
 

If you ignore the initial asking goal, their Kickstarter is actually doing very well. It's at nearly $60K after two weeks, which is way better than any Kickstarter I've ever run, and on track to rival things like [MENTION=2]Piratecat[/MENTION]'s TimeWatch - over Christmas, no less, and despite all the timing issues; it's just the perspective is distorted by that big number on the right. I'd wager that if that number wasn't there, the current total would be higher.
 

Incidentally, is that Lone Wolf's Liz Theis posting on Trapdoor's Kickstarter comments page? Does that mean she's backed it? Or am I mistaking that for someone else?
 

Incidentally, is that Lone Wolf's Liz Theis posting on Trapdoor's Kickstarter comments page? Does that mean she's backed it? Or am I mistaking that for someone else?

It appears to be. Hard to know how much she threw in. One can throw in a dollar just so they get the ability to post (as poster Jake Cotter over there did).

-HM
 

I found this quote from http://finance.yahoo.com/news/shark-tank-investor-daymond-john-174709987.html interesting:

"...whether you're running a Fortune 100 company or you are just starting out, you have to be creative and determined, and you have to make sure that — instead of other people's money — you use other people's marketing, mind power, manpower, [and] manufacturing. And if you can't prove your concept when you're broke, you won't be able to prove it with money either."

-HM
 

There's a definite 'art' to crowdfunding via Kickstart and similar sites...and it's an art that Trapdoor seems to have yet to master. Things like starting with fairly low (as low as you can get away with) initial requirements, but incentivizing higher bids via incremental rewards. Things like a lot of information about products, with frequent updates and constant attention. And of course, things like maintaining that delicate and hard-to-find balance between trustworthily professional and friendly/chummy that engages people's goodwill.

I'd really like to see digital tools for 5e. But since I'm not entirely sure that's what Morningstar IS...that kind of inhibits my willingness to throw money at it. That's the killer for me. Especially for 5e, which is for the moment very easy to make characters with manually.

I'm sure someone, somewhere, sometime, will come up with something that has more concrete, definable goals that I can get excited about and maybe contribute to the success of. Maybe even Trapdoor, should they try again. We will see.
 

Tell you what I would like to see...scrap this thing and concentrate on the Moddable Map Builder I saw posted. Forget rulesets and and licenses, make something system neutral that simplifies battlemaps that can be printed or used in Roll20. Customizable from a large database, and then shareable with an online community. It's like Campaign Cartographer made for 8 year olds. Drag and drop interface, but have really advanced options for those modders who love to get into the nuts and bolts and really make changes.

They mention it as part of the suite, and it's the only part of this whole thing that interests me. But, i 'm afraid that killing one will kill the other and we'll get nothing. Then again, maybe they're not the best ones to do this anyway. I still love the idea though.
 



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