So, this is something that I think some people will read two different ways. The first way is, and the way I’m not intending, is that too many games are going to crowdfunding. I don’t think that is the case. Yes, a lot of a games end up on crowdfunding, but that’s not bad and a topic for another day. The other thing is that too many games add too much stuff for their game on crowdfunding.

What Do I Mean Too Much Stuff in Crowdfunding?

Let’s look at an example. Kingdom Death Monster is a great example of this. Why, because they are still delivering the stretch goals. And they weren’t extremely fast on this timeline, if I remember correctly, but the project was expected to deliver in December of 2020. We’ve had a ton of time since then, why, because they are still designing and delivering stretch goals.

In particular, when I talk about this, I am talking about games that add in so much extra stuff that isn’t planned for in the campaign. The counter to this is CMON who with their Marvel United, they add in a lot of things, but all of them are planned, except maybe the last one or two.

But neither of these examples gets to the meat of the issue. What is it? You can’t play it all. I can’t play it all. Sometimes it is just too much stuff.

Too Much Stuff in Crowdfunding

But more stuff is better, isn’t it? If I get fifty different characters, three add on minis scenarios, miniatures of all the bad guys, that is good, isn’t it?

I do think the answer to this, is sometimes. But honestly, it is not good a lot of the time. Why, there are a couple of different reasons that I want to explore. I think some gamers will resonate more with one or another of them so it is worth calling out both reasons.

Guilt/Must Play It All

The two ideas overall, I think, can be tied to one another. But it’s worth splitting them out, because, they can present themselves in different ways. In this way, I liken it to getting something new or fun and then just looking at it. You get it, and until you use it, you feel bad for getting it.

And with more stretch goals and a bigger all in on the campaign, it is harder to use all of it. Let’s use Marvel United as an example. There are about 200 characters from the first two campaigns. So I own both all in. I play it a few times a year. But I don’t play all 200 characters, and I haven’t yet played all the 200 characters. So I feel bad and guilty for getting all of that even though I enjoy it.

The other reason is going to deal more with not playing it. But with the guilt aspect or the need to play it all, what can hurt is forcing yourself to do that. You feel guilt that you didn’t play with it all, so even though you just played a lot of that game and are done for now, you force yourself to play more. And now a game which is fun, if you play in little doses, becomes a big, heavy drain to play.

Ease To Table

To me, this is the one that I need to work on the most. This idea of get everything because it is awesome, but now I own everything and it makes getting the game to the table harder. And I am not referring to guilt about not playing it and making me apathetic to get it to the table.

This is just that sometimes too much stuff makes it harder to play. An example or two of the opposite of this are Dice Throne and Marvel United. They both go with the grab your characters and go theory. There is little extra set-up or changes to rules because you pick characters. You don’t need to know everything about the game to play with whomever you want.

On the flip side, something like Reichbusters which I might be selling soon and have replaced with a smaller game, is that I own a ton. So I got it all sorted into the boxes. But now to play it, I need own enough that I need to spend a lot of time sorting to get it to the table. It adds a barrier of entry to the game because of how much I own.

And that is where the crux of this issue lies. You want it, because it is awesome. But when you own it, it makes the game harder to get to the table.

The Solution?

To wrap up, I think there are solutions to this. And I’ll talk about a few of them that I like to use. Not all of them work all the time, but they can be good sometimes.

Game Play

First one is one that works well if you feel like there is too much stuff for the game. If you get a box of wooden tokens and metal coins and you need to pull them out to get the real experience of the game. Don’t get them next time.

Marvel United, for example, is a game you can get extra fancy things for. So I get cardboard locations and plastic tokens and a play mat. That isn’t that much, but it’s hard to store the characters already. So if I bought that it would add in even more work to get the game to the table. So just buy stuff for game play.

Retail

Maybe the game play is even too much. Hold off on it and wait until retail. I am not suggesting buying the retail level pledge where it is the base game that will come to stores. You likely can get it cheaper with sales and free shipping. But wait patiently, you can even pre-order it if need be.

Storage Solution

Finally, and this one costs you more money in the long run, get a storage solution. That can be an insert that costs $40-100 depending on the game that makes it easy to play. Or it can be a craft bin for cross stitch thread for $5. Whatever makes it easier to just pull out the game and play. Get something that assists with that, so that when you look at your gaming investment it doesn’t seem too daunting.

What do you find helps you get those monster Crowdfunding games to the table?

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