Goodman Games

There is a week-old kickstarter for a documentary on the history of D&D. The producers seem to be pursuing a "social network" type of vibe, stealing IP, fortunes lost, etc. The documentary will cover D&D history up to the sale of TSR to WotC. It looks promising, but they need some help...

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Terry Olson

Yeah, I saw the clips and thought it looked great. Definitely want to see this movie happen.
Even if you can't donate much (or anything at all) support it spreading the word on your blogs, forums and in your social networks.

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Hmm, right now they're at $32k out of $150k with 19 days to go. They've been "leveled out" for for a few days now; hopefully they regain some of their initial momentum.

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Terry Olson

I pledged money to the Reaper Kickstarter & have no more funds for 2012. I may not be the only one in this situation. I personally find this D&D movie to be an expensive Kickstarter & the options are of no interest to me at the current prices. $55 to receive a DVD delivered to me in Europe from America is not something I'd buy.

Yeah, I'm approaching that stage myself. That Reaper Kickstarter was amazing: good company, great deal. You certainly picked a good one to back!

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Terry Olson

Crowd funding for games has definitely shifted where a lot of the money I can spend ends up. There's a lot of really great new games out there and a lot of great deals too.

I do think it's kind of unfortunate that established game companies are using Kickstarter and Indie-Go-Go to fund their projects. They have an established clientele and presence in brick and mortar stores, I think they are an unfortunate distraction from what I thought was the true spirit of crowd funding: helping people with great ideas and concepts but no access to investors get the start up money to launch their projects. In my mind, companies like Mantic and Reaper for example, are already established well enough. Their use of Kickstarter is to just quickly generate massive preorders by offering 'level up' incentives, something they really couldn't do under normal circumstances through a company advertised 6 month(?) long preorder campaign.

Consequently, this has turned the spirit of involvement from 'wow, I want to help this person/organization get this project off the ground' into, 'wow, look at all the stuff I get'. I don't mean to sound like I'm criticizing anyone for pledging just to get a great deal...that's fine, you're getting a great new game w/ tons of extras or more minis then one person could possibly paint in a lifetime. That's great for pledgers and I full on think the same way. But that's now a problem for the truly new start up companies (for example, Hyacinth Games w/ their Wreck-Age Kickstarter going on right now). They don't have the experience, volume, established track record, inside contacts...they have nothing to start with...so their projects, even though they're smaller, are more expensive in terms of what you get for a pledge. Consider Hyacinth is offering a starter box of 9(?) minis for a $50 pledge. I want to pledge at the $155 level to get 2 starter factions and the rule book, but I don't think I'll be able to...but I really want to help them get this off the ground. Contrast this to Soda Pop Miniatures/Cool Mini Or Not's Relic Knights campaign (which I also want to pledge to). Relic Knights is offering a 'Honking Truck Load' of incentives (minis, book, tokens, cards...blah, blah, blah) for a $100 pledge. They are already established and therefore have the means to do it. Good for them, but bad for the new guys who really need the help, because the perception of the Kickstarter has changed to "Honking Truck Loads" of incentives, not the original spirit of "I wanna help a new guy".

Then you have a project like the D&D film...This is purely an "I'm helping to make the film because I want to see it happen for the hobby, not because there's a bunch of awesome incentives". Unfortunately, it's probably being promoted heavily to gamers who have quickly gotten used to the idea that for $50 bucks they should be getting: a t-shirt, exclusive deck of premium cards, special Kickstarter only logo inscribed dice, tokens, miniature sculpts of the directors, and access to foot massages from the directors at an exclusive kickstarter contributor only area at Gen Con. As much as I want to see the movie happen, I'm probably only going to contribute $25 because I really want to contribute $155 to get WreckAge and as badly as I want Relic knights for $100, I'm going to have to pass (gotta save SOME $ for DCC adventures and 2nd ed foil cover rule book!).

Sorry that I'm getting all preachy on a soap box. I'm just disappointed how crowd funding for games has become a preorder frenzy for medium sized companies. I'm sensitive to it because I've been working on 2 games (Meeple Lords-a board game and Suicide Six - a modern era miniatures skirmish game) both of which I'm hoping to have ready for Kickstarter campaigns in the first half of 2013. I'm worried about reaching funding goals if I'm up against McVeigh, Reaper, Mantic, and Cool Mini Or Not, and offering smaller, less eye popping pledge incentives.

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Quality Kickstarter projects which are structured well & offer a good deal to pledgers will be more likely to get funded, than amateurish projects with unappealing product & a badly thought out pledge/goal structure. I will only pledge my cash to projects that appeal to me, look like they know what they are doing & that offer a decent product.

You raise a great point. However, I'm not sure if a "true spirit of crowd funding" exists. Ultimately, it is up to the individual investor if the return is worth the money he/she has put down. For some, the bringing into existence of a doomed-without-help project is enough of a reward in itself; for others, somehting more personal and tangible is required. From my limited scanning of these projects, both camps seem well represented. I was blown away by the Tesla Museum project, which raised $800k in the first two days! This has minimal "material" perks, yet the community really responded to it.


Just to be fair, the film has raised $34373 with 637 backers, so that's an average of $53 per backer.

Sign me up!

You don't seem preachy, thanks for the cool thoughts! Good luck with your kickstarters when you kick them off.

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Terry Olson

A bit off topic but here's an interesting article from Wired about Reaper's mega successful Kickstarter.

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/08/reaper-miniatures-bones-kickstarter-success/

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Just got an email from Paizo.com asking folks to rally to help out this documentary. This email is coming rather late in the game (only 6 days left). I hope it isn't too late:

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Terry Olson

They added a $15 option for the digital download which was both a better price point for me. Apparently it worked for a a lot of other people as well since it has nearly doubled it's total from this morning!!!

Yeah, that is a great option and hopefully it wasn't added too late. I think lots of folks are jumping on that. Amazingly, someone ponied up $10k as well as $8k, so the average pledge per backer is still pretty high. Right now they're at $101,807 with 1,763 backers, so that's about $58 per backer...not bad at all. I will be thrilled if they hit the $160k target in these final 5 days!

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Terry Olson

Just got funded! Woohoo!

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Terry Olson