Initial Opinions

This has been a mixed bag of opinions from people in the board gaming community. A number of people are kind of balking at it because “is that what a crowdfunding site is for”. And some people, myself included are kind of “meh” on it either way. I think the big complaint from some people is that it’s on a crowdfunding site. Now, keep in mind this isn’t being crowdfunded, it isn’t having stretch goals. This is a product and game that are going to happen.

And I think it is worth pointing out, these people don’t have an issue when Stonemaier games does preorders for their games. Or really any company does preorders for their games, it’s more that it is on Gamefound. So it’s a bit hypocritical, and generally comes across more as an issue with how they think CMON operates versus a preorder system. I’m not going to get into that part of it, but I’m going to call it out as what it is.

But Why Does Gamefound do Preorders

So what is the advantage of having Gamefound do their preorders versus a company doing it on their own site. Firstly, that means that you don’t need to maintain as much of an eCommerce site as you would otherwise. There is inherent security with financial transactions that you need to think about. Gamefound is built to handle those transactions. Actually, that’s the main point of the site. Yes, it’s a crowdfunding and pledge manager site. But when it comes down to it the main point is to get you to put money into a game and run that transaction. When that happens, that is when a game can be made.

Now Gamefound just offers a function that most publishers were doing on their own anyways. The difference is, the site is built for providing updates, it’s built for collecting and protecting the transactions. And I, as someone who has done software and web development, am all for a company specializing in what they are good at. CMON should make board games.

Gamefound and other like sites, if they can provide a preorder service or storefront services even, should. Because I don’t trust a board game company to run security like they should. This isn’t a knock against them, it’s more just a statement of fact, it’s a bigger liability to spread yourself too thin or not have the correct resources. And with my money, I’d prefer to have it better handled.

Why Should Game Companies Use It For Preorders

I kind of went over one reason. It allows a game company to focus on what they know how to do. They know how to make games. They don’t need to worry about security and other things. But that isn’t the only reason.

I think more companies should run preorders and push preorders. And on their own site, that’s sometimes hard to drive the traffic there. People look for new games on something like a Gamefound or a Kickstarter or other crowdfunding site. So it automatically gets more eyes on it. And doing preorders is useful for a company because they know how much to order.

Stonemaier and Lorcana

Let’s look at two examples of Stonemaier, even with preorders generally can’t produce enough to keep up with what they have coming out. So it creates a scarcity and panic around tracking it down. Or Lorcana, Ravensburger should have known it’d be bigger than what they printed, but they created a scarcity that if they hadn’t fixed quickly could have killed off Lorcana. A good preorder system can help with that.

The other reason, and this might be an issue with CMON doing it, but again, we don’t know CMON’s finances fully, so how much money they have sitting around who knows. But if a game doesn’t need stretch goals, a preorder is better than crowdfunding. It, again, gives you an idea of how many copies you need. If you sell 10,000 copies in preorder you know to order another 10,000 copies, or something like that, for retail. You probably also know that if you only get 1,000 preorders not to order 200,000 copies.

But it also helps in that it doesn’t create unneeded bloat. There is no need for a stretch goal. It is just a game your game as it is. No need for expansions with 10 extra minis that add nothing. No need for linen card and box finish. And for a company like CMON, I think that’s a good thing. It helps them know how much to order, but it also helps them create and keep a focused game.

Final Thoughts on Gamefound Preorders

For me, I believe that the positives heavily outweigh any negative. This is a practice that a ton of companies already do. It is just now on Gamefound. And for me, that is a great thing. It means that a game gets more eyes on it, it means that a game company can probably sell more preorders. There is less risk involved for the end user because it’s a secure system built for financial transactions. Overall, I think it’s a win win for the companies and the consumers.

In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say, I want other companies to do this. And I want Gamefound to offer a storefront option to board game companies. Instead of them using whatever other third party options are out there for them, build it into a company that knows how to work with board game companies. And a company that can increase the visibility of it. But even if they don’t, I hope that more companies start to use them for preorders.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you see an issue with Gamefound having a preorder system?

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Why Is This Happening?

Firstly, because there is money in board games. Maybe not as much as some people speculate and hope. But for crowdfunding platforms, there is money in board games. Board games have made up almost $2 billion for Kickstarter. So if Kickstarter takes 10%, I believe, that’s $200 million just on board games. And $2 billion is out of $7 billion total for Kickstarter.

So you can see why Gamefound, IndieGoGo, and Backerkit would want to get in on things. Add in Kickstarters stagnancy it created opportunity. Kickstarter, while having a smooth interface, hasn’t updated their navigation or anything in several years. And with the advent of pledge managers, ways to collect shipping, do add-ons and allow people to find it later, Kickstarter just didn’t keep up.

Where Did Backerkit and Gamefound Come From?

Both Backerkit and Gamefound started out as pledge managers. With Backerkit, I’m not sure it was really their intention to ever start being a crowdfunding platform. For Gamefound, I do believe it was. But basically, they are already doing a lot of the heavy lifting needed.

They could process cards, they had ability to do add-ons, get people’s addresses. Work with the board game companies and the logistics and distribution companies that handle sending out crowdfunding games. So for them, it was a fairly simple shift to add in, now, some features that track money, that track stretch goals, and that add conversations, a piece they might have already had in progress.

Which is the Best Crowdfunding Site?

Right now, I do not think that there is clearly a best one. And Backerkit is just getting into the crowdfunding side of things. So we haven’t seen a pledge, but we can talk about what they do have in the limited pictures and pieces in place.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter does well at letting you see everything, fairly easily. Yes, for me to get exactly where I want to be – games sorted by newest – it takes a few clicks from the home page. I wish that their system allowed you to pick how you default looked at things, none of this “magic” I want newest. I dislike “magic” whenever it’s an option, and I’m talking about Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram doing that as well.

But I can easily bookmark the page that I want and I know that I’m just going to see active projects in order that they are coming out. It’s great for on Tuesday, I can see what the newest things are and if any big things have dropped.

Gamefound

On the page, though, Gamefound destroys Kickstarter. Kickstarter offers no navigation. And Gamefound lets you put in headers for sections and creates navigation to get to them. That means if I want to see game play, it can be all the way at the bottom and I can easily get to it.

Their development for pulling up pledge levels and seeing everything in them is a lot better as well. There are more single page features that they have without you needed to reload something. On Kickstarter it takes you to the pledge page where you can do add-ons. For Gamefound it is more like a shopping card and you can add everything from that one page.

On the flip side, though, I have yet to find a great link that I can save for projects. The big issue with it is that I want to filter to just active crowdfunding projects. I can get to active projects but that also has anything that is available to late pledge in the pledge manager. Sometimes I want to see what I can late pledge, but not all the time. Or make it really obvious which ones are active and which ones are late pledges.

Backerkit

Now, finally we have Backerkit, and like I said, I can’t tell you much about it. Mainly because there aren’t any active projects yet on it. But I will say that out of all of them, I think that currently Backerkit is the most dated. Now, that doesn’t mean that they might not have more features than Kickstarter, I fully expect them to. Their pledge manager piece has more features than Kickstarter does.

But speaking from a purely aesthetic point of view, the site is dated. It looks like it was created about 2010 and hasn’t been updated much since. Now the page that they used to announce their partnerships or first projects is nice. But the rest of the site, the notification for when things are going live, the emails you get when you sign up to get notified, all of those look bad.

Backerkit had an nice announcement. And I am guessing they are working on updating the aesthetic before things launch. But the pieces that they did show off still needed work. Like I said their upcoming projects page, the notifications page, the notifications email. So I hope it looks better because right now it is the worst of the three.

Will You Need to Use All Three?

Most likely yes. Kickstarter still has CMON and a few other big companies on it. Gamefound has Awaken Realms and Lucky Duck and a few others. And Backerkit already has upcoming projects from Cephalofair (Gloomhaven and Frosthaven’s company) and Restoration Games. If you want to keep abreast of crowdfunding, I think that you will need to keep an eye on all of them.

But with there being three now, I think this is an opportunity for people like myself as well as then others Tantrum House, BoardGameCo, Liege of Games, and more to be a resource for you. I think I’m going to start covering more crowdfunding on Malts and Meeples. In particular looking at projects. Why, because you shouldn’t need to look on all the sites. Not if all of us are putting out content to help with that. And it will make it less likely that you’ll miss the next Leder Games expansion for Root because it was on Backerkit and not Kickstarter.

Final Thoughts on Crowdfunding Platforms

As a consumer this is going to be good. It should force companies, all of them, to put out better and better products to entice creators to come to their platform. But I know that it is a bit of a struggle as well because as consumers we are used to just going to Kickstarter.

Overall, I think that Kickstarter has shown, to this point, that it won’t do the quality of life improvements that it should. Stuff like navigation for their pages. Instead they are focusing on the blockchain and more secure transactions but costly in other ways. And also means more likely to encourage fraud because of how that all works. Now, not fraud in someone getting access to your accounts but someone taking the money and leaving.

I hope that Gamefound and Backerkit don’t reach that point where they are become lax. I doubt that they will for a while, but it is certainly a concern that it could happen. And I think it behooves them to remember why this is happening to Kickstarter in the first place. But competition should be good, and hopefully good for the consumer and for the smaller companies that are having troubles now with Kickstarter.

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First off, though, let’s define what a stretch goal is. A stretch goal is a funding goal to get additional content or improvements added to a game. For example, in Marvel United, there are stretch goals to unlock additional characters for the game. Or there are some where it’s less game play focused or additional game play focused and it’ll be something like linen finish for the cards or a Game Trayz insert for the game. So something that is going to make the game feel more special or complete. Another example would be Tainted Grail, they did two expansions that were for added into the Kickstarter pledge but if it goes to retail, you’d have to buy them separately. Basically, they are to add extras into the game, sometimes for the Kickstarter backers only and sometimes for everyone. What is cool about stretch goals is what it can bring the community of board gamers into help something be fully realized. The downside is of course FOMO, that you might be missing out on a bit for the game because it wasn’t unlocked, or because something is exclusive to Kickstarter.

That is one of the toughest things about Kickstarter, the FOMO, not just from stretch goals. If you’re not familiar with the term, FOMO stands for “Fear of Missing Out”. Basically, it’s the idea that you need to do and get everything in order that you don’t miss out on something great. When it’s doing things, it can be a bit paralyzing, because you don’t know which thing is going to be the best or how you’re going to do everything. With buying a Kickstarter, it’s less paralyzing, because it’s money not your time, which isn’t a great thing. There are two ways that Kickstarters can create FOMO for users.

The first is what I mentioned above, Kickstarter exclusive things. Now, going back to Marvel United, a lot of the Marvel characters are going to be Kickstarter exclusive, it isn’t the main characters, but if you wanted Beta-Ray Bill or Spider-Ham, you need to get them through the Kickstarter. So while the game will likely be hitting retail, and I expect it to be pushed big in retail, you’re going to have a more limited number of things that you can get, and to track down those characters later could be spendy. So do you risk missing out on those exclusives? That’s how they get your FOMO going with Kickstarter exclusives.

The other way is technically not a Kickstarter exclusive, but it is pretty similar because it could just be that the game itself is exclusive or not hitting retail for sure. For example, Tainted Grail might not hit retail, and probably the expansions won’t even if the base game does. So do you risk it not hitting retail and having to find it on the secondary market, possibly costing a lot? And some games will only ever be on Kickstarter because they are too large and expensive to stock in stores, or because it is such a small indie project that the person doesn’t have connections to get it into stores. Those I think are easier, but the ones where it might go to retail, how do you handle that? Do you wait and hope that everything makes it to retail or that it isn’t a lesser retail version or do you still go in on the Kickstarter. Add in the fact that deservedly so Kickstarter backers who are making the project happen most of the time get their games first, do you want to wait the extra two months to a year to get the game in retail?

So, is there a good way to avoid FOMO with Kickstarter? I don’t really think that there is. At least nothing that you can do without treating FOMO as a whole. Kickstarter and sales in a brick and mortar store are all built around making you feel like you have to decide now and fast and that you’re going to miss out if you don’t decide fast. I can go into, maybe, in a future article about FOMO and how you can cope with FOMO, but Kickstarter is built to cause FOMO and without just avoiding Kickstarter, I think that FOMO is going to just be a part of it for a lot of people. So, if I were to have a few tips and tricks for helping deal with it with Kickstarter, I can think of a couple.

A lot of Kickstarters allow you to back for $1. You aren’t going to get a game just backing for $1, but it can give you access to the pledge manager quite often. In the pledge manager you basically can always get the same deals as you did on the Kickstarter. What that does is it allows you to consider it for a small amount of money. Get a regular coffee instead of a fancy coffee and you can do 2-3 $1 pledges. This allows you to feel not as rushed about making the decision. The Kickstarter will run for a month, fairly often, then it might be a month setting up the pledge manager and the pledge manager will stay open for another month. In that month between the Kickstarter campaign and the pledge manager, did you think about the game, if you don’t, you’ve just spent $1.

Similar to this, Kickstarter has a final 48 hour notification. That means that they send out an e-mail and notify you when a campaign is ending. I use this all the time. If I think something looks interesting, I save it, I get notified, and generally, if I haven’t backed it before then, I ignore it, because the FOMO wasn’t that strong. But it could be a good reminder or maybe I got some money for spending on games so I might consider it again at that point.

In both of the cases, it’s about seeing how much you actually think about it. In the games that I’ve been interested in and been all in on, I generally look at it, consider it and sleep on it, but if I’m still thinking about it the next day, I know if I’m going to back it, so I do right away. Otherwise, it’s probably isn’t one that I’d back. These can techniques buy you the time to decide that you might not feel like you have otherwise with a Kickstarter, and hopefully can help your budget and your FOMO.

Do you have FOMO with any games? Has it come back to bite you ever?

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(All games are Kickstarter games in images)

What is Kickstarter?
Starting out with the basics here, but Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website. What’s a crowdfunding website, it’s a site where someone asks for money to help fund a project, that could be something like Go Fund Me with helping someone with medical expenses or whatever need they might have, but on Kickstarter, you’re almost always Kickstarting a project that is going to create some sort of end product. It might be a play, it might be a comic, a chair, a video game, or, as I’m going to be talking about board game or an RPG. Normally, when you help fund something, the company or creator gives you something in return for helping them.

How Does a Project Work?
I’m going to be tackling this from the consumer side, I’ve never run my own kickstarter, and I doubt I ever would or will. But, the creator makes their project, so they create a video (ideally), and write up information on the game, showing images of prototypes or of what they are planning on the components looking like. They explain how the game works, what sort of game it is, and why you should help them fund it. They also talk about what shipping costs might be and what they could see as risks for their campaign so the people who fund them know what they are getting into.

The final big thing they create though is the reward levels and funding level. These are how much they are asking people and how much money they need for it to actually happen. For example, if they think they can make the game that the whole cost of production is $20 but they need to 2,000 people to back them to get that production cost, they can make their funding goal $40,000. And there would be a reward level of $20 where people can back them and get a copy of the game as a reward. But what is more likely to happen is that production costs $20, so they offer a reward level of $30 for the game, because they need to pay themselves and kickstarter takes some of it, and they set their funding goal at $30,000. The reason for that is that while they want to hit 2,000 people, they can go over their funding goal, and if they do, more people are apt to back it, because they know the project is happening, and that’ll help them get to 2,000 people.

Then, with the Kickstarter up and running at kickstarter.com, they wait through their campaign, however many days it is, and that’s where we step in as the consumer. I look at the page, decide if it’s a game that I find interesting, and then if I do, I can back it. Now, maybe I just like the idea, but I don’t want the game myself or I know the creator of the game or like their company, whatever it might be. I can back it for however much I want without a reward, or I can select the option to back for $30, in our example, and get the game. So I back it, but I don’t get the game right away, this isn’t a store, they don’t have the games yet (most of the time, future Kickstarter lesson), they are getting the funding to then make the games. So they’ll send out updates to everyone who has backed them thanking them for backing and letting us know what their plans are and most often, letting us know about stretch goals. Stretch goals are extra things added to the game if it reaches a certain funding level. So in our cast, they really need the level to hit $40,000, but let’s say it’s doing well, and the game hits $50,000 or $60,000, they might add in some extra cards, a cool first player maker, an extra scenario, an extra character class (for an RPG), whatever it might be at certain points in the campaign based on how much they’ve made, because now they can afford to do that. This helps encourage people to back it because some of these things might be exclusive to Kickstarter (future lesson).

So, they’ve funded their campaign, now they get the money, but not all the money, Kickstarter is going to take some as well, because Kickstarter is a business and they need to make money as well. So even though they Kickstarter made, let’s say $80,000, the creator maybe sees around $72, 000 to $76,000. Now that it’s funded, they’ll send you the game, right? Not quite yet, they need to still get it made, so they get the money from Kickstarter, now they need to schedule with factories to get the game made, and most of the time, they also will be sending out a backer survey, this might be done through Kickstarter, but most often through another company, because $30 pledge for the game didn’t cover shipping. So you’ll have to pay a bit more to cover shipping, but the good thing is that this should basically just be the shipping cost because Kickstarter isn’t taking money from them for it. Though, the other site might be. Now you’ve paid shipping, let’s say $10, and for the game $30, it’ll get shipped soon. Almost, first, it gets into a production queue for some factory somewhere that is probably making a lot more and different board games throughout the year as well. So it might be 6-12 months before production begins, if not more. So production has happened, now it gets shipped, literally shipped on a boat, around the world, this can take a few weeks and up to a couple of months if there are delays at customs. From the ships it goes to a fulfillment company or to the creator to fulfill. They’ll be the ones sending you the actual game. So probably around a year after you Kickstarted it, you’ll get the game.

And that’s the general life cycle of a Kickstarer, it can take longer than a year, and it can be shorter than a year. But the cool part is that you can help small companies (or buy more of a sure thing from a big company) get their games out to the market.

I’m going to be talking about various things, such as what happens when a Kickstarter fails, what happens if it doesn’t deliver, what makes a good Kickstarter, what to watch out for, what stretch goals are, and how to avoid Kickstarter FOMO (if it’s even possible).

What are some of your best experiences with Kickstarter? Have you had any that have failed or not ever come? Are there any other topics I should cover around Kickstarter? Let me know in the comments below.

(All the images are of games that were brought to life on Kickstarter)

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