What’s Gone Up In Price?

So, I think we need to start by talking about what is costing more. The simple answer is that everything costs more. Shipping across the ocean, costs more. Getting a container, costs more. Shipping across the US (or anywhere in the world) from local hubs, costs more. Buying wood, plastic, cardboard all of those things costs more.

There is not really any area of the board game hobby that isn’t costing more. That is why we’re seeing even companies who don’t use Kickstarter or Gamefound increase the price of their games. An example is that prices for the packs for Marvel Champions, both heroes and villains has increased. I also think that the prices likely lead to the rework of the Arkham Horror LCG distribution model.

Reducing Crowdfunding Costs

One thing I want to say is that I think too many gamers are trying to ignore the rising costs. The expectation for a game is that it will cost as much as it did at the start of the pandemic or pre-pandemic. And while prices likely will stabilize and possible reduce some over time. I expect that gaming prices and what you get for your dollar or euro will not return to that point. That is true for games or for almost everything.

But there are things that game companies should consider doing, in my opinion. Some is because their fans deserve their best effort. And you never want to alienate fans. And for better or worse, as prices increase, fans will be alienated if they get too much less for the same price as before.

Remove Deluxe Pledge Options or Simply Options

Firstly, one way to save is to get rid of your deluxe pledge level or simplify the options. If you produce three different versions of the game, one with minis, one with upgraded metal coins, an insert, and things like that. Instead, limit it to a single level of the game. You can even do a deluxe one that is all you can get via Kickstarter, and do a separate retail version later with funds raised.

By limiting the different versions, now that means the print run can be simplified. You need not machine for as many mini sculpts, or work with as many locations to get the work done. The downside is that it reduces some of the appeal of getting a game on Kickstarter. What is the advantage if my version is just going to be like the retail version? Though, it also returns crowdfunding to what it should be, about helping get a game made.

No Mini Pledges

To follow up, offer levels with no minis. If you think that minis matter so much to your game, I’d question that. It might be a selling point, but offer an option without minis. I know I do not need a game to come with minis always. For example, I backed standees for Oathsworn. I love the minis, but it increased the cost so much.

Plus I want to paint, but I do not paint. So for me, standees are often nicer. And if you make acrylic standees, those are basically always going to be preferred to minis, at least for me. I get a more vibrant pop than just cardboard. And I like that aesthetic a lot.

Print and Play

Now, this is not an option for some games. Frosthaven, ISS Vanguard, Oathsworn, none of those will ever be able to offer a print and play. But Fliptown, which I am not backing at the print and play level, but I could, makes great sense. If you produce a roll and write game and it does not need custom cards, or dice, so something like Welcome To… wouldn’t work as a print and play easily, offer a print and play level.

I keep on backing games at a $5 level for a print and play copy. I think it is something like 5 thus far. But that level makes it easy for me to back it. And it costs you nothing more to send out that PDF. Obviously, legal disclaimer that it is not to share, but most people won’t. And it is going to be fairly obvious if someone is selling your game on Etsy or something like that. So I understand it might be a concern for some developers and designers, but it is a good way to attract more gamers as prices are high.

Fewer Stretch Goals

Finally, offer fewer stretch goals. Again, this goes against everything we know for Kickstarter and Crowdfunding in general. It is why CMON always does so well, they give you so many stretch goals. But that makes your game more expensive. And I think we see that too many stretch goals, adding to shipping costs, can cause games to be priced out of where some backers are comfortable at.

But how do you keep funding moving? One important thing for a crowdfunding campaign is to keep your forward momentum. Stretch goals getting unlocked helps with that. I think that now add-ons, for the people who want will be equally as important. They are important now, but doing staged reveals of those is going to drive up interest in your game throughout the campaign.

Downside is that some people will be annoyed they don’t get as much without raising their pledge. I mean, for a CMON Kickstarter, there will always be a ton of add-ons that raise the price a lot. So it might not be that different than normal. But to get less for “free” will annoy some backers. But also allow backers to pick what extra they want to pay for.

Crowdfunding Production Location

Now, I put this in it’s own section. I think a lot of people believe this is going to be the biggest way to save on costs. And it might eventually be the case. But do no hold your breath on any changes soon. It’d be amazing to produce the games in the United States for the United States. Nothing travels across the oceans, shipping is much simpler. But how feasible is it?

The answer is, right now it is not that feasible. Maybe for a smaller card game or a very basic roll and write it would work. But the infrastructure is simple not in place. And infrastructure is not something that ends up in place easily.

Now, at some point in time it might be in place. But for that to happen some company needs to build up a factory (or factories) that can handle this mass production. And that is a large expense itself. And in general production costs of most goods make them more expensive than making them in China. But, with shipping and overall costs, that might eventually reach a tipping point where that is not the case.

For this to happen, though, things need to get worse. And that means that shipping delays would need to get worse. Prices on everything would need to go higher. And there needs to be no end in sight to that. So do you really want all of your games to costs more in the time being? Do you want companies to potentially go out of business because it costs too much to fulfill?

That is likely what it will take for games to be produced consistently not in China. This might be a better thing for the world in general if that happens, it can be debated and I’m not going to do that right now or on this site. But it is important to understand the cost that getting to producing games in the United States or other locations might cost. At least on a large scale.

Final Thoughts

I think it bears repeating here. Crowdfunding companies, if you are going to put up a game right now, do not lock in your shipping costs. Either say, this is the current estimate but shipping will lock when the pledge manager opens. Or completely forgo them.

I know that a lot of people are mad because shipping is higher in pledge managers than stated on the site. And that is not fair, but also is fair. Communication often is not up to par. Communicate well, early, and often, and people will be more forgiving.

And for companies going forward, I know this is not an easy time. I want to be understanding with that as I look at prices, as I do previews, and as I write my Back or Brick articles. All consumer costs are higher right now, and most will likely stay higher, so communicate with me and with your backers, and we will be much more understanding.

What other solutions might you have for Crowdfunding campaigns to help offset costs or keep costs reasonable on upcoming Kickstarter and Gamefound campaigns?

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Demonstrating The Problem

Why am I thinking about this now? Well, I just had my CMON Marvel Zombies pledge manager open. And I thought about getting Galactus, I really did. But when one wave shipping for what I got, and now it is a ton of stuff, is $90, and it’d be over $100 adding Galactus, I couldn’t pull the trigger on that. That is almost double of what the original shipping projections were. So, now can companies who were funded before the price hike make it work?

And I don’t want this to be a negative on CMON, Marvel Zombies any of these things. Shipping is completely crazy right now. And with parts of China being closed for chunks of time, including ports, because of COVID cases, it is going to get worse. And even though it might not make that much sense, anything that is getting worked on now or soon, you have to start to think about holiday shipping as well.

Basically, even massive companies that can ship a ton at once, Marvel Zombies had 29,000 backers and more will late pledge, shipping is still expensive. There is no volume discount. Then you think about smaller companies out there for shipping. What does something like Grimlord Games do with Village Attacks. Now, they messed up for another reason, they took too long and producing it. But what is a solution for them since they did?

Possible Solutions

Wait on Shipping

So, one option is for a company just to wait. I dislike this solution a lot. Backers rightfully do expect you to try and get the game out in a given time frame. Now, smart backers understand that the time frame is probably 6 months to a year longer than expected. And maybe even slightly over that right now. But as I said, I don’t think shipping is going to improve. It might stabilize or improve slightly, but not majorly. So waiting means that either it’ll cost you more, or it’ll ship for the same cost they are seeing now.

Eat The Cost

Next up the company could just eat the cost. There are massive problems with this one as well. The main thing is that some companies cannot eat the cost of $100,000 or more in additional shipping charges. So, let’s look at Grimlord Games. They are not printing right now because of costs, but like I said, the costs probably won’t go down. And they are a small operation that is not the designers fulltime gig, so they can’t eat the costs without going under. Shipping to 50% of the people and saying tough luck to the other 50% and shutting your doors is a horrible option.

Raise More Money

I have seen this option out there. Another one that I don’t love because it doesn’t incentivize the backers to join in. Setting up a GoFundMe might be what you need to do, though. And I think for a company that can offset some of the costs, but having that little bit extra to help, this is a solid option. Especially if you have good will in the community. A company that is always open and transparent, plus has delivered on time with products people like, you can probably get people to chip in.

On the flip side, I do think that Grimlord Games is going to have issues if they want people to support for more shipping via a GoFundMe sort of things. I might toss in a few bucks to help offset new shipping costs. But their inability to do regular updates on their projects, plus then the massive delays on their projects, they don’t have the good will. And to be fair, this is on them, not the community having undue expectations. Delays are fine, but then you need to communicate, so what other options are there.

Ask For People To Buy Directly From You

Let me explain what I mean here. When I backed Roll Player Adventures as a late pledge and had backed Cartographers Heroes, Thunderworks Games reached out to say that shipping was more expensive than expected. But they could eat the costs, things would be shipped no matter what. However, they asked that if people wanted to help offset the cost, they order something directly from their webstore. Why, because that is product that had already shipped more cheaply and selling it at MSRP would give them some influx of cash for shipping the new stuff.

So I got a few things from them, not much, but some to help support them. Now, this only works for some companies. Some companies do not have webstores. That means that even if their stuff is at retail, they are seeing less of the money on an MSRP sale. Because whole sale to the retailer is already the price they get, a sale doesn’t do anything more for them. This can be a solution for some companies to help offset but not all of them will it work.

Offer Merchandise

So, then, you could do what Boardcubator did, which is offer merchandise, hoodies, t-shirts, things like that. And I do think that this is a clever enough solution, but not one without it’s flaws. The main flaw for me is that I don’t do too many branded t-shirts. And when I do, it is fairly specific. I have a Marvel one and Dragonball Z. And having Boardcubator branded gear didn’t interest me, nor did it look that great.

But I do think this is a decent solution. And using some of the more print on demand sorts of services for shirts or things like that could work. But, and I think this is important, offer more than just apparel items. Like I said, I don’t generally want a branded t-shirt or hoodie. And depending on the person’s figure, a print on demand t-shirt might not fit well. For me, I generally should wear a t-shirt that is a tall.

So offer other things. There was no Boardcubator coffee cup, but had their been one, I might have ordered that. Do I need more coffee cups, no, but it’s something I don’t need less of, so I might have backed it. Instead, they only offered apparel, so I passed. But merchandise is a solid idea.

Offer A Bonus

Finally, and this is my top option, offer a bonus item. Two examples of this, El Dorado Games is printing a pack of cards. Why, because for their games, like Legends Academy, shipping is about $240,000 more than expected. That is insane. So they are offering a pack of 10-20 cards of promos for their games. $20 for a pack of cards, or so, but you get something extra for a game you are getting, albeit two cards, and you can help offset the shipping. Similar to that, Nemesis Games, who did Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor, asked their backers to help the same way. I supported them by picking up their bonus pack of cards for $20.

Now is this a good way because cards are more cost? Well, yes, it is good, in my opinion. Firstly, you are giving the backers the option to get something more. This is an add-on basically but done outside of a pledge manager in the came of Nemesis Games. So printing cards is cheap, doesn’t add much cost for them. Air shipping 2000, let’s say, packs of 20 cards is also cheap. And then distributing those cards after the fact via post is cheap. So of those $20, most went to help offset shipping.

Final Thoughts on Crowdfunding Shipping

Like I keep saying, shipping is not going to get better. It might ebb a little and stabilize or spike once in a while depending on the time of the year. But pre-pandemic shipping prices are not reasonable. And I worry when I see shipping numbers that seem too low.

I see more and more games of Kickstarter and Crowdfunding that will give a very general ballpark for shipping. Or it will be stated as, shipping right now is $X, but it is presented not as a price for what my shipping cost will be. That is going to be determined later in the pledge manager when closer to the date for shipping. Chronicles of Drunagor did this. Edgeguard is doing this. And I believe all crowdfunding campaigns for the next year should do this.

Does that suck for me as a backer? Yes. I want to know what I need to set aside for shipping right now. However, I prefer that you give me that ballpark for what the shipping is right now. Then, not locking yourself into the price, calculate a more specific shipping at the time you open the pledge manager. I want to get my product, and I don’t want to wait or even lose my money, because shipping went too high and you can’t print without going under. I want more board game companies and more small ones. But setting your shipping can be the thing that puts a company under if they aren’t careful.

What is a creative solution you’ve seen, if you’ve seen any I haven’t mentioned?

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There are a few things to notice that might be different there now. And for the consumer, not all of them are for the better. Or at least not changes that we wanted to happen. And honestly, it’s not going to go back to the way it was before the pandemic even as more and more things are opening up. So, let’s talk about the changes.

More Companies Going to Crowdfunding

This is one of the maybe better things that happened. Now, for some, they might see this as a negative, but companies going to crowdfunding means that those companies survived. There were certainly companies that went under during the pandemic. I don’t know how much that played into TMG going under, or getting out of board gaming, but that sucks to have a bigger company no longer there. And other game companies as well did.

Plus, I think it allows companies to more correctly judge demand. If you’ve ever notice with Stonemaier Games, their games are always impossible to find when they release. The print run isn’t that big. That is something that Kickstarter or Gamefound takes care of. You have a better idea of demand. And if it does well there, you know to order more copies for retail locations. If those companies only stick on Crowdfunding, though, then it can be a bit of a negative. But I think Kickstarter and Gamefound were a lifeline for some companies.

Higher Shipping

Now, to a negative, shipping is higher. And I fully expect that won’t come down. Now, it might fluctuate over time, but it’s going to take years for shipping to sort itself out. With inflation as well, it’s never going to be as cheap as it was.

Now, some of this is the container shortage, or more containers going from one side and not back to the other side of the ocean. So they build up in different spots. Some of it is that it’s been harder to staff positions right now. And some of it is with the pandemic generally people order more for delivery. So that means that there is a higher demand for shipping products and not yet catching up on space and employees for shipping those products.

Higher Production Costs

With that, there is also a higher cost of production right now. That is more that there are fewer resources going around. It’s not an obvious thing, but when a lot of those places that create the resources, farm the trees, things like that, cut back or shut down for a period of time, we’re now at a product shortage.

Things like cardboard, plastic, and wood all cost more than they did before. If you have tried to do a house project or know someone who did in the past couple of years, it’s more expensive now than it was. Will these prices come back down, I feel like it is doubtful. Right now there is inflation happening and that means that prices are going to stay higher.

Long Delays

Finally, there were a lot more delays. And these delays happened for a few reasons. The most obvious would be delays in shipping. Everything takes longer to cross the ocean and unloaded. Now, crossing the ocean, that part is the same amount of time, but getting containers then getting them onto a ship, and unloaded on the other side, and onto trucks or trains, there is a lot of reasons why shipping is delayed.

But it is not just shipping. Production can be delayed if the factories have to work limited hours, or limited capacity due to brownouts or COVID. So production locations are delayed and that takes longer than normal. Though, often times that can be estimated, especially for smaller Kickstarters or Gamefounds with short print runs.

Finally, there are also delays when it comes to things like designing the game. It is much harder to playtest a game these days. I have playtested a few, Rogue Angels which is playtesting and coverage, and it has to be done via Table Top Simulator. That is not as good as in person. And even designing, things are slower when you are working remote. So there have been a lot of big delays.

Crowdfunding Expectations Going Forward

So, what does that mean? Firstly, it means that your Kickstarter and Gamefound games are going to be more expensive. Shipping and production costs might come down a little, but don’t expect pre-pandemic pricing on your games. Even in retail games are going up in price. So no, it won’t get cheaper again, which is a shame, but also necessary at points in time. It probably means that we all can’t back as much so need to pick and choose more.

But I don’t think it’s all negative. I think that delays will lessen over time. And I think that with the delays going on, most new crowdfunding games are pushing their timelines out a bit. Now, that isn’t to say it won’t be much later, it certainly might be. Eventually shipping and staffing and everything is going to even out as things return towards equilibrium.

Finally, I hope that there will be a few things coming from this. Firstly, I’d like to see, eventually, more localized production. I know Rogue Angels was originally looking to do German production but that made the cost point too high. But I’d love to see more productions based in the areas that buy more of the board games to help keep times shorter. I’m not sure it’d be a massive difference in price, but timelines, getting a product from the US to the US is much faster than across the ocean

I also hope we’ll see a pull back on big minis games. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want my campaign games. But the size of those games makes shipping exceedingly expensive. To go with Rogue Angels again here, the game works well with standees and giving optional minis, that’s cool. But I don’t need every game to come with a million minis, minus Marvel games, or something like that where it adds so much to it. Games with minis for minis sake, I hope we see fewer to help keep costs down.

Final Thoughts

It isn’t all good news when it comes to crowdfunding, obviously. We’re still going to be in a world where there are a lot of delays. Factories are going to shutdown for a week or work at limited capacity. It is going to take longer to get your games.

I do hope that there will be some things that can happen to help improve the situation over time. Like I said, I do think shipping will get better, but I don’t expect it to happen over night. And when I say shipping, I mean, shipping times, costs are likely stuck where they are at. So, maybe don’t plan on backing as many games. I might go through and talk about Kickstarter and Gamefound again and what to know about projects.

But what do you think will happen in the world of crowdfunding?

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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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