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]

​

 

[Morrus]

their own website indicates that they used a kickstarter to fund publication of an author's (Norman Lafave) book... Think about that for a second. A publisher. Whose job it is to publish. Doesn't have the funding to publish.

Publishers using Kickstarter to fund publication of books is very common in this industry.

 

[3catcircus]

Publishers using Kickstarter to fund publication of books is very common in this industry.

While KS may be common for RPG publishing, it really isn't all that common for traditional book publishers. The "about us" on their Trapdoor Books website (which is selling novels, not RPGs) states the following:

"An important note about Trapdoor Books: We do not provide literary agency services, editing services, for-fee-publications, vanity publishing services, vanity anthology services, critiques, marketability analyses, awards banquet scams, etc. In other words, Trapdoor Books is a traditional publisher – period. For any author we select for publication, we pay real cash advances and a real percentage of sales. Additionally, Trapdoor Books respects your privacy and will never provide your name or access to your manuscripts to other companies."

The bolded part of that paragraph is what I am referring to. Traditional publishers don't require their authors to go begging for donations in order to publish their books for them...

Looking at their titles, the MSRP is roughly $26 (hardback), $17 (trade paperback) and $10 (ebook). At those price points, if this company was actually doing well, they wouldn't need to have their authors use KS to get them to publish.

Again, I have to go back to my gut instinct. They took a gamble on morningstar and dumped everything into it, resulting in being unable to continue operating their book publishing company and now they need $400k+ in order to keep everything afloat across their entire company, rather than actually paying a small number of developers to continue developing/porting morningstar for Pathfinder. For a small company, 16 employees is likely the entirety of their employees. In other words, I think they are attempting to rob Peter to pay Paul...

 

[ced1106]

As a reviewer on DriveThruRPG, I see the "status quo" as individuals continuing to create new and imaginative content at prices affordable -- even free -- to fellow gamers.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Overall, I have several reasons I won't fund this kickstarter.

1) Kickstarter- I've seen too many failed projects on it, so I will only fund ones from people I know will come through. If Pinnacle Entertainment, ENWorld, Beamdog, or Monte Cook made a kickstarter to ask for money to develop a game, I wouldn't hesitate; these are people who have proven, time and again, that they know what they are doing. Even if that kickstarter were a game about pigtossing, I'd still fund it just to see what they'd come up with.

If Paizo formed one, I'd be a bit iffy; what I've seen of their MMO has left me questioning if they have any common sense related to MMOs at all (world-wide PVP reminds me way too much of Runescape and Eve Online, which I suspect will ultimately sink the MMO once the final version is released), and the majority of their successful projects seem to be the ones they fund themselves.

If WotC formed one, I would tell them in no uncertain terms where they could put their request. They did extremely well with 5E, and their tools in the past showed some promise, but at the end of the day these people are simply not reliable.

This kickstarter is by people that failed by WotC's standards.

2) Their wording... there is a massive usage of buzzwords and marketing hype without actually demonstrating, well, anything. This comes across as a scam.

3) Their product: I tried the 5e Alpha they released. To say it did not impress would be an understatement.

Ultimately, I do not trust these people, and they've given me plenty of reason not to trust them. And I feel sorry for the suckers that fell for it and have pledged.

 

[Adammar]

They seem to be giving up on the kickstarter themselves. The last update was the 23rd. It's been weeks since they commented on the Paizo forums (unless it is someplace different from their initial pose). I don't think I ever saw anything on RPG.Net but nothing current. They should be hitting hard the last 10 days and there is barely more then a peep. It is also to late to do anything besides let the Kickstarter fail. If they close it down now it is sour grapes. They boxed themselves in and now they are stuck with it. (Unless they wait a couple of months for our attention span to wander...)

 

[Hollow Man]

I think even they finally realized it wasn't going to happen, but I still think their backers deserve regular updates. They'll probably be at 75 or 80k when done, which while far short of their goal, sure seems like it would've been enough to do SOMETHING if they could keep it.

Their comments indicate they're not going to give up completely, so we'll wait and see what they do. Personally, I'm still more interested in seeing what WotC does about electronic versions of the 5e rules, and hope they announce something soon.

-HM

 

[Nikosandros]

And I feel sorry for the suckers that fell for it and have pledged.

No reason to feel sorry. Especially since this KS won't fund and no one will spend a single cent.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

No reason to feel sorry. Especially since this KS won't fund and no one will spend a single cent.

I feel sorry because they invested with the hope that it would come about and they would get the program advertised. And, instead, they get nothing except a guilt trip and disappointment.

 

[Morrus]

I feel sorry because they invested with the hope that it would come about and they would get the program advertised. And, instead, they get nothing except a guilt trip and disappointment.

I think Kickstarter backers accept that a project might not fund and fully understand the nature of Kickstarter.

Whatever the case, that in no way makes them "suckers that fell for it", a statement which not only implies accusation of deliberate fraud on Trapdoor's side, but also sheer gullibility on the backer's side, managing to insult everyone involved in one fell swoop.

 

[Nikosandros]

I agree with [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION]. I choose not to back this project, but I don't think that Trapdoor was out to swindle anybody or that those who backed the project made a mistake. I actually hope that Trapdoor can re-think a bit their strategy and come up with another way of bringing this project to fruition. I've already written it, but the level of venom against this project has been really surprising.