Board Games - The Kickstartering
schild:
So, I think we can all agree that the effect Kickstarter has had on the board game industry has been absolutely immense. Between just raw knowledge that something exists and the way it's brought straight up art quality to the forefront, it's fairly reasonable to say that the net effect has been good. Advertising, in a way, has become cheaper (just give up a cut to Amazon / Kickstarter). Hell, now you CAN advertise board games. I don't think I ever saw an advertised board game before Kickstarter. I'm not even sure I saw a worker placement game without hot garbage art before Kickstarter.
Anyway, a lot of people here have bought 10, 20, 30+ games on Kickstarter and I'd like to know how you come to the decisions you come to. Or what immediately turns you off. As an example, here's something I typically would have bought but it contained something so deal-breaking that I didn't even put it on my "saved projects." I present to you, Tradewarz: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/480710422/tradewarz-a-game-of-kings
Minis were unique, fun and didn't REALLY need to be painted.
Art in general was good.
Tiny bit of the ruleset/gameplay I read about seemed ok.
But the name, should I see something called Tradewarz sitting on the shelf, I'd regret the purchase until the sun burnt out. Given that its failing (in a world where total garbage... doesn't fail), maybe others couldn't get past the name?
Moving on, in addition to what you like and don't like, what purchases have you all made that you regret?
Mostly, I'd like to narrow down not so much "what makes a good kickstarter" but "what presentation makes a game seem good enough to throw money at." For the sake of argument, let's ignore CMON and Zombicide or whatever the fuck. Yeah, it's a lot of minis. I get "value," this isn't about "value." Also, those games suck and are ugly.
in b4 "nice try, Seth Hiatt"
Ard:
My normal process depends heavily on how much the kickstarter is. If it's less than $30 and looks interesting, a fool and his money are parted. If it's less than like $60, I'll read the pitch in full and make a call based on that. Below $100 I start looking at the gameplay videos, mostly to see how the actual gameplay plays out. Above $100 I have not bought first editions, and I read the shit out of reviews of the first editions before buying them. So far that only includes gloomhaven and city of kings which both pushed my buttons hard after the reviews.
That said, there is some simplicity to Teleku's version: "Hey Teleku, look, something shiny" *a year later* "Oh right, i bought this".
As far as Tradewarz goes, the name is what made me open up the page. I wanted to see what sort of trainwreck would name itself that. Then I saw what they made and temporarily lost my mind. Then I read the rules and noped out hard on the first page when it was as wishy washy as the name. Names matter folks.
So far the only thing i regret buying is Founders of Gloomhaven. It clearly needed a few more design passes, and in the future I'm not going to be backing anything that looks like an unfinished rules set because of it.
All that said, this looks amazing and fit my < $30 criteria, yet I still read the rules due to the theming and name. Everyone should buy this though :awesome_for_real: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socialsloth/gem-hens-a-real-time-dice-rolling-eggstravaganza?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=gem%20hens
edit: It looks like they're taking the name change recommendations seriously, although maybe not seriously enough.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/480710422/tradewarz-a-game-of-kings/posts/2279103
schild:
i am not buying gem hens
Goldenmean:
I'm an outlier data point here, as I've got 721 backed projects in the games category, and at least 90% of those are board games, so clearly I'm a little indiscriminate, though I'm basically completely out of space, and have been trying to be better about what makes me pull the trigger. Off the top of my head, the things that matter most to me in some sort of roughly ordered list of importance are
1) Name recognition of the designer. Board games aren't quite a single auteur endeavor in most instances, but they're pretty damned close. It's rare that I really enjoy one game a designer puts out and can't find at least something interesting to think about in another one of their designs.
2) My hot button interests from the mechanics side. I like co-ops and legacy or campaign mechanics. Any game touting those is going to at least get a detailed investigation. This also works the other way. Are you dice chucker dudes on a map game without much else going? You're probably getting a pass.
3) Name recognition of the publisher. This is more of an anti-indicator that I should back then anything else. CMON miniature heavy products are largely crap, so if it's one of those and it's not also an Eric Lang design, it's probably getting ignored. The Horizon Zero Dawn game is another one. If I'd attached Steamforged as "The Dark Souls people" earlier, it wouldn't have gotten a second glance.
4) Innovation. If I read through a description and can't immediately pigeonhole it as "Oh, that's a lot like $FOO", I'll probably back it just to see what's going on under the hood. I've ended up with a lot of pretty blah projects that didn't quite come together as a result of this, but I've ended up with a ton of hidden gems as well. To me this is really what's amazing about kickstarter. It let's things that are risky or niche enough that a publisher won't go for them see the light of day.
5) Cost. I'm fortunate enough that money isn't much of a concern (thanks Bay Area tech bubble), but I'm not completely stupid. I'll think a bit more about something that costs triple digits than something that doesn't. However because most games that do end up costing that much are miniatures heavy dice chucker type games, they probably already got weeded out by section 2.
As for games I was disappointed with, the biggest ones are practically all of the CMON miniatures fests before I made a rule about that. I think Dogs of War is the only good one they kickstarted, and while that has miniatures for absolutely no good reason, they're not really the thrust of the project.
schild:
721 backed projects? I thought I had a problem.
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