You got downvoted, but I did find it strange that established publishers with a catalogue of commercial successes are still doing kickstarters.

Kickstarter stopped being about crowdfunding and became a marketing and fundraiser, where the owner doesn't have to pay any interest or return the money or even deliver a product  Somehow they managed to force all the risk onto backers

Zero interest loans with only a loose accountability structure if nothing is delivered! Genius!

Kickstarter is often used as a tool by investment firms to do cheap market research. Publishers or investors will say that they will join the project with an investment if they can prove, through Kickstarter, that there is a market for the product. The big red flags for something like this is a Kickstarter goal that is well under what it would reasonably take to accomplish something. For board games, this is less of an issue, for video games it's a big one. With a board game, game itself is often already completed and the kickstarter is more about manufacturing. But if a board game has a Kickstarter goal of less than $25,000 and a team of four or more people working full-time with the delivery date more than a year out, those people are not funding the game with Kickstarter. They are funding the game with an external investor.

> For board games, this is less of an issue, for video games it's a big one. Another reason that board games are less risky on kickstaster than video games is that a designer can have a working prototype that's fun to play by the time they bring it to kickstarter and need money for artists and designers to come up with the final components and actually produce it. Video games are rarely more than a design doc by the the time of their kickstarter campaign and all the challenges and pitfalls of designing a workable game are yet to come.

> But if a board game has a Kickstarter goal of less than 25,000 and a team of four or more people working full-time with the delivery date more than a year out, those people are not funding the game with Kickstarter. It might take a full year to release the finished game, but the team might be working on the next game while the process is ongoing. The game designer might start working on the next game while the artist is finishing all of the art and visual design, for example. There are also delays in manufacturing and shipping where the team can only wait. So the end-to-end process for making the game might take a full year, but the team might be able to work on another game at the same time. A low Kickstarter target might also be to make sure to recoup at least some of the cost of developing the game even if it ends up unprofitable. Let's say that the developers have spent $150K to make the game ready for Kickstarter. The game is complete enough that only some minor details and the final manufacturing are left to manage. At that point, they know that if they sell for at least $25K, it'll pay for the basic costs of finalizing the game and manufacturing. So that's what they set as their target; any money above that amount is better than no money at all. Sure, barely hitting the target won't make the project profitable but it'll be a smaller loss than not making any revenue at all.

Unfortunately, the all-or-nothing style of Kickstarter means that companies are *heavily* incentivized to create a lower-than-cost target, just to get the money. It's *extremely* common for board-game-Kickstarters to have a target of $20k-$50k, and if they hit that exact target, the game will fail. The magic is in the "stretch goals": one of those goals is the *real* "we can make the game" number. Because people don't back a game that's sitting at $1k funding and needs $100k funding, they back a game that's sitting at $15k funding and "only" needs $20k funding. (Or they back games after the initial goal is hit, because then they're "guaranteed" to get the game.) The numbers behind Kickstarter are a bit of a mess.

Kickstarter experts recommend setting a low funding goal so you find faster. Funding early boosts momentum, helps the algorithms, and makes it more likely the project will get the “Projects We Love” tag, which is also supposed to boost visibility/lead to more money. (Whether it actually does that is debatable, but I’ve never run a board game campaign. In at least some other categories, it doesn’t.)

I mean I blame the people who support these Kickstarter campaigns. It's not really the companies who are at fault. They're just following the money to make their businesses succeed. Why shouldn't they take an easier financial risk free model if people are prepared to fund it? Don't get me wrong, I hate that this is a thing but I really really hate the people who are prepared to give their money this way.

I feel this is blaming the victim. I totally understand the sentiment 'faceless corporations gonna profit seek nothin bout it' but if we're gonna assign *blame* here, we shouldn't assign it to the people being taken advantage of, even if we think they ought to know better.

Why do we feel they're being taken advantage of? If a company goes on Kickstarter and says. "We're raising money for a new game. You can support us there if you want to." There's absolutely nothing stopping those people from saying, "No I won't. I'll just buy your game when it comes out." You know, like most of us do. Why do we feel somehow these people using Kickstarter are unable to make rational decisions and MUST be being taken advantage of? Maybe they're not at all. Maybe they like an opportunity to get something other people can't and they feel prefectly happy to do that.

Because the choice isn’t either to just “support them” or just wait until retail, it’s about missing out on “exclusive stuff” that may or may not make the product better or more interesting. Literally the definition of FOMO and it’s often hard to tell if it is actually worth it to pay more for something that won’t be available later or just wait to buy the retail version that doesn’t have those things but maybe never needed them. Personal example, Thunder Road Vendetta was on KS with all this extra stuff, extra maps, cards with abilities, etc. I decided to wait though, just got the “normal” game once it was released. Someone brought the KS version to game night. It has a ton of things mine doesn’t. Although I’m still not entirely sure I’m actually missing anything because with the extra stuff one player had an ability that they weren’t able to repair (because they could do something else instead) but turned out they needed to repair and wound up being eliminated very early because of it. I got an ability on one of my cars that it couldn’t take damage from being shot, and I managed to get out in the lead and no one could do anything because the only way to stop me would be to bump me, but they were too far behind and I just cruised to an easy victory. So it kinda seemed like the abilities which came with the kickstarter version made the game worse? But hard to know that during pledge stage.

Fwiw, I agree with the idea that Kickstarter needs to do better at rooting out scams, protecting consumers in egregious cases, and at least do a little bit of due diligence on some of these companies. But on the other hand, we're not talking about scams that are trying to catch you out with clever tricks, or pressure you into buying because otherwise they'll send your hacked webcam photos to your mother. We're talking about products that cost a lot of money, have been clearly advertised as a risk, being sold on a site that is up-front about the idea that backing does not guarantee that things will work the way you expect. We're also talking about typically niche products — it's not like these companies are targeting your grandmother who thinks you might like a nice CMON birthday present! Back projects that you either trust (because the creators have been consistent before), or where you're willing to accept the risk of losing money. If it costs an amount of money that you're not willing to risk, then don't back — maybe wait for retail, maybe wait for the second hand market. If you don't think there's any benefit to be won from backing a project on Kickstarter vs being patient and buying the game later, then just be patient. I agree that many of these projects prey on people's FOMO and hype, but we as consumers need to be discerning about what we spend our money on. We aren't children in a playground that need to have an iPhone because all the cool kids have one, we're grown adults...

Why do you hate people who spend their money in a way they want to? How are you harmed?

By changing the availability of new games. Lots of stuff just can’t be found retail anymore

That's my biggest hate about KS. You do not want to back our project? You are not going all-in? Too bad for you, you will (most probably) never get your hand on our game / extensions.

There’s no guarantee those games would necessarily be produced otherwise. eBay, BGG, the game steward, there are ways you can get games that were kickstarted. It’s ironic that you “hate the people” who are willing to finance a game that you could later get your hands on at no risk yourself.

Why do people hate the companies just trying to make money? It's a bit hypocritical of people to downvote me for blaming people but in the same breath they'll happily go all hate on the compnanies doing this? Maybe people should take a look at their own biasis and hatreds before criticising others.

I don't find it too surprising. It is quick cash for a pre-order a year or more in advance for the most part. Also, it's probably more cost-effective than taking a loan if needed. That being said, I wish these bigger publishers would not use crowdfunding. Stonemiare did it right, crowdfund a couple of games, and then become self sufficient.

Yes, as much as I love IV Studios games, it feels like there’s no need for them to crowdfund anything other than they make more money this way with the hype. They have what appears to be a final version of the game made by the time they launch the kickstarter, which allows them to deliver their final products on time just 7-9 months later, but it ends up feeling like an expensive preorder, and not that we are helping a designer get their game published. Still no clue why they aren’t selling their games in retail stores, tbh.

You kind if answered why they should. 1. They want to control pricing, make the most money possible, and most importantly order the right amount of games 2. They respect their audience by delivering on time 3. They basically want their customers to come to them to cut out the middle man and make more money. This is basically how you run a stable business

But why not run preorders through their own website and eliminate the fees they have to pay to KS?

Because running e-commerce and crowdfunding is difficult and requires a full-time staff. Why not just use an established platform?

Easy way to get you to spend $500 instead of $50 on a game you’ve never played. With no risk to the publisher.

And that you'll only play like 6 times before paying them another 500 for the next game they're selling you!

I’d wager most deluxified kickstarters don’t get played even 6 times.

Why not, it’s 0% interest loan. Why not take advantage of it

Better than that! You're supposed to repay your loan at some point. In KS if you don't. If you fail to pay (don't send the games) it stops there.

It's not a loan. It's a money gift. You pinky-promise-for-realsies-this-time-trust-me-bro that you'll gift them something else in return in an unspecified time (I mean you say one, but everyone knows ahead of time it's meaningless waht you say). But you never have to. You can just take the money, go "lulz" and spend it on a nice holiday trip.

[Once in a blue moon project creators can be sued for scamming people](https://www.geekwire.com/2014/attorney-general-asylum-playing-cards-crowdfunded-project/), but even then Kickstarter itself has no liability and no obligation. It's all on you or the AG.

Established publishers are probably the only safe ones to go with on Kickstarter. With the completely lack of any consumer protection whatsoever the publisher and its own reputation itself is the only thing you can rely on. I’ve been burned by 2 projects on Kickstarter but the vast majority with major companies like CMON have been fine.

Yeah my Kickstarter experiences have overall been quite meh. Falling roughly into the following categories: * Delivery so late I long no longer care and/or have by now found games that cover these aspects better. I would guess this was like 25% of them. * Genuine non-delivery. Only one, two if I count the clear scam that RUSE delivered. * Genuinely good game and I am entirely happy even though there was a delay. Only **one**, Jagged Earth for Spirit Island. The base game I bought retail, the first expansion, too. The second expansion is **still** delayed in the EU, and I by now could buy it retail including the bling bling bits far cheaper than the backing, so I cancelled my pledge. * Good, but retail is far cheaper and the KS-bits are rubbish or there are none anyways. I think it's 2 where I had this, although by now this is how I always handle Kickstarters now that I've stopped using it. * Delivery, and only moderately late, but game turns out meh if I ignore my post-purchase-rationalization for a moment. ~25% immediately fall into this, ~50% (meaning the remainder of all KS backings) fall into this once the rationalization wears off. Seriously, Nature Incarnate was my one big exception to the no-KS-rule in a while. And wow did that immediately burn me. Back to no kickstarting it is. If a game is actually good, it'll go to retail. And then be **far** cheaper to get, here in the EU.

Lol there was a game called "RUSE" up on Kickstarter and people didn't catch that it was a scam? The only way it could be more obvious is if the game was called "SCAM".

There was a game controller called Grifter that also never delivered.

Mythic Games *was* an established publisher.

You do realize you are the problem? An established publisher on kickstarter? Do you understand the irony of this? You, the poor little man/woman helping out the greedy corp? If all you people stopped funding these money grabs today, you would find all these cmon products available at stores WITHOUT having to pay ridiculous shipping fees. I simply cannot understand how they ve tricked you into this loop. Its sad.

They’re not talking about if it should be done or not. They’re literally just saying that the reality is it’s often the safest Kickstarter to fund vs untested designers.  There is no irony here. 

Yeah, people romanticize the small developer but forget there's a reason those people can't just get business funding through more standard channels- they're unknown, small, and a big risk. I've KSed a few games like this but only when the cost was low enough I was willing to gamble it, and they were developing something modest and very reasonable to complete for newcomers (therefore unlikely to get in over their heads).

Because it has become far more about marketing than actually fundraising. To be fair though, if used properly Kickstarters can be helpful as a way for designers to allow fans to be a part of the dev process, and allow for more feedback throughout the process. Also fun bonuses for supporters, that usually aren’t available later.

Not downvoted enough it seems. Because OP is just over the top ranting about a non-problem. (I guess I'll get downvoted now ;-) ). Why do you find it strange? Crowdfundinging on KS not only greatly reduced the risk of publishing the game, it also provides great information about the demand. Publishing directly to retail entails guessing demand. And getting it wrong, either way, is costly for the publisher. Game publishing is a risky business. Guess wrong one time too many and your company is bankrupt. Plenty of publishers don't make much money. For many game designers this is a badly paid second job they do out if passion for the hobby. The few that are making real bucks are often at risk to become victims of their success, because it's tough to keep up the high volume and keep paying rent, marketing and employees. Crowdfunding has obvious advantages for publishers, so why would it be strange to do this, regardless of what you can later sell via retail? Also, something can serve more than 1 purpose. Yes, crowdfunding allows new, unknown, indie publishers to get a project off the ground in a way and at a volume that they could not get a bank loan for (or have enough money to do out of pocket). But that doesn't preclude a company to use it as a pre-order site at the same time. The software, size recognition, etc... already exist. And if it's advantageous to use this - why wouldn't they do it? Can we please not treat backers as helpless kids? AFAIK most backers are adults and should be treated as such. Don't like Kickstarter? No problem, don't back anything. If you do, accept that it was your decision to accept the offer. In a lot of these threads people assume that every worthwhile game would just as well exist and be available via retail without crowdfunding. That is highly unlikely. Anyway, we don't have the data to know how many games would exist in just retail and how many wouldn't. Anybody who doesn't like Kickstarter for whatever reason - your opinions are valid for you and totally fine. Just ignore Kickstarter. You voted with your dollars. You made a decision that is right for you. What I don't quite understand is this urge to hate on Kickstarter. Why is ignoring it not enough? Obviously publishers have good reasons to opt for it when they do. And enough backers are willing to participate. And for customers it does have some advantages. They get to voice their opinions about various features and what they would prefer, which sometimes results in changes to satisfy their wishes. They get games or deluxification that would often otherwise not be available. Many enjoy the campaign itself as a fun experience. It's a free choice. Nobody is forced to participate.

People really overestimate how much cash these "big companies" actually have on hand.

100%. I have backed a number of projects that friends of mine launched (such as Omicron Protocol and Aerodrome) along with some massive ones (Sanderson's Secret Novels and Battletech Mercenaries). I also got some wonderful games (Flamecraft and Merchant's Cove) that I'm not sure I would have seen made without KS. Have I gotten some meh games? Sure. But I've done that retail too. I get excited for these projects, I feel I'm getting a good deal (particularly with Battletech), and I love that there is a way for my friends to get support for their crazy dreams. Do some "big" corporations take advantage of KS? I guess. I've never seen an Asmodee or Hasbro KS. Board game publishers tend to be shoestring operations if they aren't a part of one of the big boys. But I am happy choosing to back the campaigns I do and appreciate what I get for them. I'm glad the platform exists.

There's actually a good reason for that: They can reach their target-consumers ahead of time, instead of merely having to guess at how many copies of an expansion they should be producing.

Which to be fair, is what other businesses have been doing before. Calling it pre-order.   Using kickstarter gives off the impression some of the publishers are small and struggling. Intended I'm sure.

No, it's to avoid legislation in many many countries in regards to pre-orders. Over here, I would be able to do the following things: * If the product arrives more than 12 months or 15% the expected the delivery time late, I can get my money back. I can alternatively agree in writing to a partial refund while still getting my product. * When the product arrives, if it does not match **exactly** what was sold and I was not informed before hand and - in theory - agreed to it in writing, I can request an immediate refund in full, including shipping back being paid by the seller. * As a result of the above, product specifications need to be detailed enough to fully describe the product including all intricacies of it, hence the buyer is able to judge whether the delivered product matches what was sold. So on request, full card lists need to be available at time of payment and so on. Good luck running a pre-order Kickstarter. :P

It's a lot of words to suggest publishers are low key trying to scum their way out of consumer rights that in all intents and purposes, should be protected.   I specifically mentioned established publishers. So I would gather you do agree that perhaps these publishers are taking advantage of consumers?

Oh sorry, I should have worded that differently. I bet what you say is a nice benefit. However I firmly believe the primary appeal to big publishers is that they get to avoid all the annoying parts of being a publisher, like having to actually pay for shit to, well, publish it. And be subject to laws regulating publishers.

Oh I agree with you. I crossed read yours with another aggro reply, and tone got cross wired. All good with what you said.

>Using kickstarter gives off the impression some of the publishers are small and struggling. No, I think that ship sailed long ago. I don't think most boardgamers see Kickstarter like that anymore. It's where you get to see games early, and get extras for preordering. For some games, it might be the only way to get them because they don't go to retail, or at you can't get all of it at retail.

As a software developer, I too like developing software without having to actually develop software, yes.

Of course they do. **They'd be stupid not to**. It's so brilliant. It's all the benefits of doing your sales through pre-orders, like knowing the actual interest and being able to completely skew the perception with marketing as no one can have an unbiased take on the product yet, partially because you provide them with specific for-product-preview prototypes. **But**, **on top of that**, the customers also **happily** carry the actual business risk. Which is just ludicrous of the you think about. If shit hits the fan, you (as the company) aren't the one in the hole! The customers are just shit out of luck and there's fuck all they can do about it. And on top of **that**, since it's not an actual preorder but a "kickstarter", in jurisdictions where laws exist to protect customers during preorders, those don't apply! It's brilliant! No requirement for the final product be even remotely what was advertised, even assuming you deliver! No need to be even remotely on-time with your production, again, if you even do because there's just nothing happening to you if you do not. Kickstarter is **entirely** anti-consumer. The consumer carries: * The actual monetary cost for the purchase. * The decision risk of being unable to judge a product before paying for it. * Has to voluntarily agree to have no legal recompense in regards to timely delivery, product quality, product fitness, product fitness-for-purpose or if they get sent a pile of dog poop in a box. * On top of that, has no actual guarantee **or** legal avenue if they get delivered nothing at all and the money is just stolen. Are there small creators who could absolutely not have made what they did with out it? Of course. Is the big game by now big publishers just happily dropping their entire business risk on the consumers so the execs can stuff bonuses up their arses? Hell yeah! Fuck Kickstarter!

>**They'd be stupid not to**. They certainly would. I know a lot of people just like to hate big corporations, and they definitely do a lot of scummy things, but if I were a big game designer I would absolutely be using KS, as would basically everyone. Anyone who runs a business and customers tell you "please let us shoulder your financial risks!" And they DON'T do it, better have a good reason to take a voluntary risk.

Crowdfunding allows them to cut out the middleman in terms of stores, so the projects can be more ambitious than what they'd normally be due to retail costs, and reduce risks as they know upfront the exact demand they need to meet. Sure, they could also host their own pre-orders, but Kickstarter has a massive established audience by now so companies don't need to spend as much on marketing. With recent EU vat changes and shipping costs increase it has become less of a good deal for many consumers tho. I now only back projects that have lots of exclusives to make up for additional costs, otherwise I wait for retail release or secondhand market.

It is not strange, it is appalling. CMON and other big publishers do not need KS at all, but it's a quick way to raise more money and exploit FOMO for glorified preorders.

People look at the KS exclusive things as a bad thing (FOMO, making it exclusive on purpose) but they forget the good things about it. The truth is that it allows them to produce and release stuff that would never get made in retail. Look at Marvel United and the more obscure expansions they release. Anyone believes an Age of Apocalypse expansion could hit retail? But some people love them and KS allows that content to be made small-scale (relatively). So in the case of CMON, you could argue that the crowdfunding part is not for the basegame, but rather for the range of expansions.

KS exclusives are not a bad thing a priori, but I would argue that the crowfunding part of CMON is most of the time simply to exploit FOMO.

Who is going to fund the game?  These companies spend almost all their profit on operating expenses.  They don’t have large cash reserves to self fund a game start to finish and hope it sells.

CMON for one is a public company, they can sell stocks or bonds. https://cmon-files.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/cmon_file/file/814/CMON_Limited_-_interim_report_2023.pdf

Here's the thing. You would think established publishers should probably operate like established businesses in other industries.  Either sell stocks to get investors, or take loans. Treating consumers like a zero interest piggy bank is a really odd take. To put it mildly. 

The thing that gets me is that companies have seemingly no penalties for not delivering a product. If you back something innovative and the company attempts to produce it but essentially brings themselves to the point of bankruptcy in their efforts, then fair enough. But companies like Mythic have MULTIPLE failed kickstarters where they just carry on afterwards. It seems likely that they're just moving money between projects too and clearly have not even made substantial efforts to fulfil some of them. If they've still got obligations to customers who have spent hundreds of pounds on a product, how can they be allowed to just write that off and continue operating presumably profitably without spending every effort to fulfil?

Possibly those games aren't good enough to publish then.

Why are you calling people who back kickstarters “investors?” They aren’t investors, they’re ”consumers” who are willing to agree to buy an unreleased product.

EU regulations from 2021 define backers of crowdfunding as such to grant them a fair amount of rights over their investment.

I imagine scalpers are into kickstaters like with most FOMO or limited products. Seems weird though to wait two years on an eBay profit turn.

It's only two years wait if you're doing it once. If you have a whole pipeline going on, it can be quite steady.

Because they're providing the capital required to being an untested product to market. I understand your confusion, since this has historically meant that they would also be entitled to the proceeds if that product turned out to be worth a damn. My central point is that Kickstarter has turned this expectation onto its head.

>Because they're providing the capital required to being an untested product to market That doesn't make one an investor. Investors specifically provide capital with expectations of profit in return. If you're just paying upfront for a product, you're simply a customer regardless if the product is made yet or not.

Giving someone money doesn't mean you are an investor. Investor means you have some ownership.

But you also said "if you want to be an investor, be a REAL investor" and told people to buy stock, and the only point of that is to get dividends and/or sell later, which is definitely not why people back Kickstarters. Nobody is confused here, that's the point you were making.

I don’t expect any “proceeds” other than the game I promised to buy. And FWIW, I, personally, haven’t been any more disappointed in the Kickstarter games I’ve backed than in the games I bought at retail, percentagewise. Sorry if your experiences were different.

Someday my Patreon investments will pay off

kickstarter backers dont fit the definition of investor, nothing has been turned on its head

On the other hand, I paid $100 for Frosthaven, waited a while, and got my box with extra goodies I didn’t pay for. And FH released with a $250 MSRP and is available for ~$200.

I feel practicality and value aren't good headlines. As a retailer my favorite kickstarters are ones that provide more content for your dollar rather than luxury, and a product accessible to everyone at one point is neat.

Sure, but for every example like this there are numerous counterexamples. I think spending an extra $100 on Frosthaven post-release (after you can watch reviews and confirm it's good!) is more than canceled out by the thousands of dollars saved on games that fell through, extra shipping charges, or games that just turned out to not be fun.

how many games have you backed, how many didn't deliver? i've got something like 200 kickstarters with 2 partial failures, no total failures (partial failure meaning some of the product promised was delivered but not all)

shhhh, the mob wants to weild pitchforks and work itself into a frenzy

Kickstarter doesn't care. There's a board game table project that's so clearly a scam, lots of people reported the project but KS is saying it's not a violation of their terms.

Really? How so?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toyzzo/toyzzo-gametable

Isn't that just Ikea Quality "Wood"?

Lmao it's from China. I'm wondering how people are this stupid and giving them money.

What are the red flags that it is a scam? Not being sarcastic I just want to be informed on what to look out for

A lot of these were being discussed in the comments. Keen eyed backers noticed that the fulfillment addresses don't exist, the company has a barebones website, does the marketing director even exist, the timeline doesn't seem to be feasible (they're promising February 2024 delivery when the KS just got funded in October I believe) They'd pin long comments at the top of the Comments section so the discussion of all red flags would be buried and wouldn't be obvious. Any company running a KS would update their backers in the Updates section.

Is it this one? https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/17w73o0/unintentially_hilarious_ad_for_table_shows_people/

It's Toyzzo https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toyzzo/toyzzo-gametable

You’re gonna have to explain to me how this is a scene. Shipping looks way too cheap, but other than that, I don’t see the obvious red flags

See my other comment

I have never thought of Kickstarter as investing or buying products, but as supporting the development of something you are passionate about - more like patreon than an actual shop. I like the concept in general, but on the other hand I never felt the urge to back anything on Kickstarter.

I got caught up in it early on and spent a lot of money on a lot of very mediocre (at best) products. I stopped backing KS's 5 or 6 years ago and I've been happy with that decision. I like the GMT P500 model, where they kind of run a KS for every game they want to publish, but they don't take your money until it's ready to go out the door. it's an honour system. If 500 people say they want it and sign up, they print it. Some may jump ship but most don't. Really it's like a giant voting booth for their entire print queue.

You’re a donor, not an investor.

If we're nitpicking semantics anyways, you're neither. Backing a project is not a donation, as those are done without expectation of anything in return. Nor is it an investment, as that requires expectation of a profit, with kickstarter after shipping and taxes you'll likely to break even at best. Paying money for a product (or a promise of one) is simply a purchase, if anything, backing a project is closest to a pre-order regardless how much the Kickstarter's PR team tries to make it look otherwise. You're a customer, but without any traditional customer protection or rights. This whole "backing a project is a donation" is a nonsense anti consumer rhetoric that just deflects responsibilities from the creators.

> This whole "backing a project is a donation" is a nonsense anti consumer rhetoric that just deflects responsibilities from the creators. Are there then any cases where Kickstarter (the company) was forced to make their content creators abide by the pre-order laws pertaining to the purchase? Because it's a global system, and many jurisdictions have customer-protections for pre-orders.

There are cases [where creators were held liable](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/state-court-orders-kickstarted-game-creator-to-pay-54k-for-failing-to-deliver), yes. However in most cases, companies that fail to deliver go bankrupt so there's no point in legal actions, or it's too complex to try and sue them due to international logistics.

Have you ever heard of a pledge drive where you get a reward for donating?

Yes, there are edge cases but the point remains. If the reward is not the primary motivation then it's a donation. If the reward is the primary motivation of the transaction then it's a purchase.

A lot of larger donations to non profits 100% come with expectations of returns. The org gets the money because they promise a certain measurable result that must be reported on. That's also a side effect of the capitalist machine, but real none the less.

The difference between donor and investor (or donor and consumer) is not semantic, nor is highlighting that difference nitpicking. “You’re a customer, but without any traditional customer protection or rights,” is just a long-winded way of saying, “You’re not a customer.” A customer with the rights of a donor is a donor, no matter how much the platform and creator make it look like a commercial transaction. You can claim that creators have a moral end ethical responsibility to deliver all day long. But they don’t have a legal responsibility. The only recourse you have when you’ve lost your “purchase price” is social-media shaming. And the first thing you’ll hear when you start complaining about the con man who took your money is, “Have you tried not giving money to con men?” And those people will be right. Saying this is “anti-consumer rhetoric” the way that saying, “the police won’t help you” is anti-victim rhetoric. The creators may have a responsibility to deliver, but they don’t have an obligation. Downplaying this distinction, that’s as anti-consumer as Reagan’s FTC.

>“You’re a customer, but without any traditional customer protection or rights,” is just a long-winded way of saying, “You’re not a customer.” A customer with the rights of a donor is a donor, no matter how much the platform and creator make it look like a commercial transaction. This isn't true though, is it? Because if you donated money to me and it was clearly a donation without any promise made, and I said "Thanks for the donation, I'll make sure you get a copy of my game!" and I develop and release the game, but then don't send you a copy, you have no rights. I do not believe that if someone ran a Kickstarter than clearly said "everyone who paid £60 gets the game", used the money to develop the game *and then didn't send it to any of the backers* wouldn't be legally liable. I would in fact bet money that in that scenario a backer would win a court case saying they should be sent the product. So the truth is that backers aren't consumers (as they aren't entitled to a refund), they aren't investors (as they get no equity), and they aren't donors or patrons (because IF the product is made they are legally entitled to it). Really backers in crowd sourcing are their own legal grey area that will probably be defined by individual countries through legislation or case law.

>“You’re a customer, but without any traditional customer protection or rights,” is just a long-winded way of saying, “You’re not a customer.” A customer with the rights of a donor is a donor, no matter how much the platform and creator make it look like a commercial transaction. You are confusing linguistic and legal definitions. You are making a purchase when you're paying for a product, existing or a future one, full stop. Whether you have any rights while doing so varies wildly depending on the context and location, but doesn't make it any less of a purchase. Donations, on the other hand, are made without consideration of rewards as the primary motivation behind the transaction, which is obviously not the case for Kickstarter. >You can claim that creators have a moral end ethical responsibility to deliver all day long. But they don’t have a legal responsibility. Except [that they evidently do](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/state-court-orders-kickstarted-game-creator-to-pay-54k-for-failing-to-deliver). However in most cases, companies that fail to deliver go bankrupt so there's no point in legal actions, or it's too complex to try and sue them due to international logistics or the nature of the failure.

I'm a donër

You mean Döner.

At this point I think we are Diner

Cool opinion. But I'm curious if you have a list of these board game companies and their stock listings. There are definitely some such companies I'd like to support via more than just Kickstarter. 

The only one I know is 1792.HK, CMON Limited. Well HAS for Hasbro but thankfully they’re not on Kickstarter.

Right, they run their own Kickstarter copy website to fund their limited edition toys and games. Not sure why you would consider that any better?

Can you give me examples of companies that are publicly traded and make games? Aside from the Asmodees of this world I never thought companies - although Big as they are - that run Kickstarter projects would have stock available to purchase.

CMON

Whoah, no need to be so aggressive. 😉

Wait until the thing [whatever that thing is] launches, had been truly reviewed, and has made it to the shelves of stores. I'd rather pay the MSRP than go through anyone's campaign and the inevitable delays and apologies and whatnot. There are plenty of great games already out there that you could be playing while you wait for the new one to find it's footing or while it dies on the vine.

If you look into the project and its creator, don’t mind waiting, and limit your spending, Kickstarter can be a fun way to get cool things. Personally, I don’t back anything for more than $200. Each person’s limit will be different, but set it to an amount you won’t miss. For first time creators, I only back projects with a low barrier to success. Digital projects, like rulebooks for RPGs or wargames, are fairly safe. I only back manufactured projects from creators who have successfully navigated the manufacturing, import and distribution pipelines before. Anything with new tech or would require new outfitting for a manufacturing facility is a bad bet.

The problem with that plan is if the game is actually good it will be sold out forever and you'll never get a copy More than once I've been kicking myself for not backing something.

I've had really good luck with the KS projects I've backed but over the years, I've started to agree with Tom Vasel. If the game is good, it'll almost always eventually be available retail/second hand market or have a second printing.

if it's *really* good, then 90% of the time there will be copies available. 

More like 99%. If a kickstarter did really well they will almost always do additional print runs.

There are more games than I could ever possibly play. I don't care if I miss some.  You are literally describing FOMO. 

I’ve yet to see a game in the recent years be sold out when it hits retail. In fact, all games I ever backed were on the shelves roughly the same time I got my backed copy.

>I’ve yet to see a game in the recent years be sold out when it hits retail. Feed the Kraken, Dwellings of Eldervale and Wonderland's Wars are just a few examples off the top of my head.

Sleeping Gods Took me years to get a copy of that at retail price.

But there are publishers like WolffDesigna that intentionally never go to retail. You have exactly one way to buy their games.

You could say "I have to back X so I have secured a copy if it turns out great and gets sold out" about every game, which makes it the essence of FOMO.

You and OP are right but can y'all stop telling everyone? SOMEONE needs to fund these games for the rest of us.

A lot of you are in abject denial that the board game hobby wouldn't be nearly as big as it is today without kickstarter. Kickstarter has done *so much* for this hobby it's not even in dispute. Board games, even today, operate on *very* thin margins. Mitigating risk is *the point*. But it does still mean risk. If every board game had to launch with 100% certainty, no board games would ever be released. And you don't have to be part of that risk! KS is entirely voluntary. But saying the system KS operates under is somehow fundamentally flawed is, quite frankly, bullshit. You may not like how KS operates, but they aren't scamming anyone. Everything is up front about what you are doing. No one is pulling the wool over anyone's eyes. Every single project explicitly states exactly what the risks are. If you don't want to risk it, don't. It's also allowed niche and unusual games to thrive. If you want the same fantasy deckbuilders over and over again, by all means, let the same people making games in the hobby keep making games and shut out anyone else who has an idea that's risky but different. I know people are going to say "the industry was fine before KS" and that just tells me you only want the games that were launched 20 years ago. *Fuck* all those people who aren't 50 year old white dudes, amirite? I also get annoyed at "established companies shouldn't use KS" as if they also don't have risk. More importantly, they're more likely to have experience. So newcomers can't use KS because they'll probably fail, but established people can't, either, because they shouldn't be using it. Who *can*, then? It's a stupid opinion that doesn't pass the sniff test. At the end of the day, it's voluntary. It's not KS's fault you have FOMO. It's not marketing geniuses sneaking into your house and taking money from your wallet. Don't blame other people for your own impulse control problems. Don't shit on a mechanism that can innovate in the hobby because you are weak. The *vast, vast* majority of board game KS fulfill with little to no problem. KS is almost always a decent deal if you like a product--it gets games you like into the market, at the very least. Now, I'm not saying KS is perfect; there's a lot I don't like about it. But the problems are overblown. At the end of the day, **a lot of you wouldn't even be in the hobby if it weren't for Kickstarter**. It's been *that integral* to the growth of the hobby. Anyone claiming otherwise is an idiot.

Oh look, still only the same one person getting it right. I've never seen so many people so personally aggrieved over the thought that they might be swindled out of $200. I think you should copy the text of this https://old.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/17s9y30/cole_wehrle_on_the_nuances_between_backing_a_game/k8owzrf/ And post it with the title like "In case you haven't noticed, Kickstarter is the singular most important, successful..."

I get that but also I got some if my favorite games through it. Also, not a single campaign out of 40 has failed to this day only maybe delivered later. Just watch out for red flags and you should be ok

Same, been backing Kickstarters for 7 years and have never had a game not deliver. Only two of the 50+ projects I've backed I regretted backing, and was able to sell them for close to what I paid.

I can think of 3 that didn't deliver out of the 254 I've backed. One ghosted, another encountered a technical issue that meant the product couldn't be made as envisioned, and the last was exacerbated by toxic backers abusing the creator. The only one I'm salty about was the last one. Thanks to some "backers" with the "investment" mindset, "very late game" has most likely become "no game".

And then again Stonemaier games or Cephalofair games would not exist without Kickstarter.   Investors often can't gage the interest of the community in particular projects well. Kickstarter can.   Incidentally that's what established publishers are using Kickstarter for. 

It's crowd funding it's not an investment. You are funding the development or production of a product.  Instead of people just asking for free money you instead get a modest reward which for this sub would be a board game in exchange for funding. 

A "reward" implies something extra or of additional value. The Kickstarter model is that you get a $50 game I'm exchange for a $50 investment: but with the risk that it might not show up at all, or not be what you were sold/ expected.

In my experience, there usually is some sort of reward. I don't tend to back big-box games, I tend to back smaller games that usually come out to retail eventually. In those cases, assuming shipping is low enough, it's usually cheaper on Kickstarter than in shops when it's released, and they often sell it with more deluxe components. For me, that's sufficient motivation to back on Kickstarter rather than waiting. Obviously there are also risks, but it's not too hard to look mainly for games from established companies, games where the risk is relatively minimal (i.e. where I'm going to be out max 30-40€ instead of hundreds), and games where I'm confident I'm actually going to enjoy the game. I find a lot of the responses here seem kind of wild to me. To be clear, I'm fully onboard with the idea that Kickstarter as a company can and should take more responsibility for preventing outright scams, and I think there are alternative models that smaller publishers could be using. Hollandspiele have carved out a solid niche for themselves with games that usually end up a lot more expensive, but are made-to-order, and that might be a viable path for games that aren't expecting to end up in physical stores. On the other hand, there's comments talking about dropping 100s of dollars/euros/pounds on some massive box that they've never seen a playtest for from a completely unknown publisher. Maybe don't do that? Or only do that if that's completely disposable income for you? That just seems so wild to me...

I think one of the benefits of fundraising is it is meant to be cheaper. A company borrowing money or selling shares needs to provide a benefit to the lender/shareholders. This benefit will be priced into the cost of the game. If you take this to its furthest conclusion the company won't even make enough profit to be able to self fund future projects. However, as a consumer this price reduction does come with risks.

I'm like 9/10 crowdfunding so no complaints here. That stinker still shipped, it was just a bad game. I forgot the name of it.

Hard agree. As someone who funded and delivered 4 Kickstarter games - the whole system is beyond recognition from what it's supposed to be. Like Airbnb is supposed to be a way for you to rent out spare room for a few nights- and has no becomes a giant business model of people buying and essentially acting as a hotel with no legal oversight - tabletop game KS are the most polished, upfront heavy, marketing oriented space possible. The actual indie creators are pushed out and all that's left are the big players. I'm so grateful for my backers who somehow found my campaign despite the lack of advertising and somehow are okay with my basic video and my less that perfect presentation.

I, too, have decided to let other people play test kickstarters. I’ll buy them if they turn out to be something people like.

My mindset for the last 4 years! I only made 1 exception last year to support a real tiny publisher for a game that costs less than 50 bucks shipping included.

I don't back Kickstarter projects anymore. If the game is good enough it will go retail.

Guards of Atlantis 2 is an extremely good game that won multiple GotY awards along with being widely well regarded in general. And it will *never* see a retail release. That's from the mouth of the publisher. There's only one way to get and play this game, and it is via crowdfunding. I think it is a huge shame. The game is amazing and *deserves* a wider release.

It's FOMO that is being used as a marketing tactic. In cases like this I keep an eye on the 2nd hand market.

Normally, I'd agree. But WolffDesigna genuinely just doesn't believe that their games would perform well at retail. I don't agree with that assessment, but it isn't my business. I find the decision to be unfortunate. But since I know GoA2 is so good, I happily backed the second run of it. I wouldn't want to pay 2nd hand prices for that one.

Yep, none of my games have gone retail. Most publisher don't even take a look at abstract strategy games unless you're known designer or you have a great theme attached. They're all well loved by a small enthusiastic crowd which Kickstarter is perfect for.

Oh well. Game mechanics can't be copyrighted, someone else will re-use the mechanics if they are so revolutionary. Or the publisher will sell the rights because they're worth enough. In the meantime there are hundreds of other world-class board games out there. So many amazing games you couldn't play them all.

It depends how you define "retail release". Some games end up in stores because a retailer backed a kickstarter, not because there was a print run done for retail distribution.

The truth honestly. Little point besides the usual junk trinkets that come with it if you KS. Edit: if it isn’t apparent, most of the “add-ons” or backer bonuses add little value and don’t enhance the game. If anything, it can often bog a game down.

Those trinkets are just marketing hooks that add no value to the game. TBH they just drive up the cost so that publishers can make more profit.

Totally agree. Got quite a few games where the added junk just takes up space. Hardly ever did it enhance my enjoyment of a game.

Definitely, metal coins and other common extras instead of cardboard tokens may be nice but they don’t change the value of the game for me.

KS is what it is because people put money into it. It hasn't come out of nowhere, people are actively engaging with it in huge numbers. Like everything complained about on Reddit, nothing is going to change unless people stop. Which they're not going to.

Just curious. How does my FOMO buying affect your bank account so positively?

I think he's saying he took his own advice and owns stock of the publicly listed companies who use kickstarter to fund projects

>Keep buying into FOMO. My bank account will thank you. What is this supposed to mean? How will *you* make money because *other people* are backing games on KS unless you yourself own stock in the companies using KS that you're supposedly criticizing? I'm betting this is meaningless snark.

>Nowhere else in the Western world will you find a place where investors are asked to assume all the risk of an uncertain project, but not share proportionally in the rewards if that project turns out to be successful. Erm, no? The history of crowd funding is centuries old. How do you think most grand works received funding? You think that the 15th century economies of Europe could support artists? No, they had wealthy sponsors. If you want to read more try this: https://smallbrooks.com/history-of-crowdfunding/ >Most of the board game projects you see on KS that have any chance of being successful are run by companies you can purchase ownership of on major stock exchanges What??? CMON, yes but last I checked Hasbro and Games Workshop don't use Kickstarter. Asmodee is owned by Embracer Group AB which is mostly video games >If you back a KS product from an established company, you're a rube. Define established? Still this is a completely unnecessary accusation, when I back a kickstarter its because either, the project is not available through traditional means, or it comes with enough benefits to put up capital early. You're talking like this is some megabucks industry where you're being fleeced by suits. The biggest kickstarter beast is CMON, by a huge margin, and its market cap is barely over $4mil, thats literally chump change, GW is literally 1000x the size of CMON.

Well, it's a casino basically * The product is the dopamine rush the backers get for backing a project (if you're only 50% sure of what you'll get your dopamine rewards will double that if you're sure what you'll get). * the house always wins >Kickstarter is the most anti-consumer, anti-accountability, anti-success funding model It's not really a funding model anymore. You don't buy products on KS. You are the product on KS. But the point is - KS didn't have to be this way, addicted consumers made it this way.

I had very good experiences with the kickstarters for exploding kittens, gloomhaven, and fireball island. Delivered on time, and much cheaper than their retail versions that followed (exploding kittens is now cheaper though, but that's many years later) So the value of Kickstarter is too get games cheaper, with potentially some free add ons, while being able to follow the development and hype yourself with the news and progress around the project. Back in the day, that was exciting The pandemic threw a wrench in their already weak business model. Many projects were considerably delayed or cancelled, which exacerbated the issues of the platform. It now feels a bit like a gamble.

Waiting for your dissertation on all other funding models that you studied to conclude this, OP.

There's an assumption underlying your entire rant that's completely off base where these products would exist without Kickstarter/crowdfunding. That established publishers are offloading risk to customers *instead* of publishing games via more traditional routes. That's nonsense. A tiny fraction, if any, successfully kickstarted and fulfilled games would exist without it, so whether you like it or not, it is a major contributing factor to the board game renaissance we're in right now. Yes, it requires customers to be a bit savvier. You're making a decision not only about whether you like the pitch, but also whether you think it will get fulfilled. They are often too good to be true, and therefore aren't true. Sometimes they're intentionally a con. Those are easier to spot. Sometimes they're just people who have no idea what they're doing or the costs they're signing themselves up for. The trickiest are probably the stretch goals that blows up the per unit cost (especially shipping) where *too* much success puts the project at risk. I have some bad Kickstarters I've backed, but they taught me lessons. I have rules for myself, and research that I do, but to write off the entire concept is an overreaction. Do I wish Kickstarter took better care to prevent scams and delusional projects? Absolutely. I still wouldn't wish to lose all the awesome stuff they've made possible over it. You do you, but this rant is an overreaction if I ever saw one.

I *am* an actual investor. Yes many big companies do what you describe, but also smaller companies do the same. A 95% disappointment rate taught me that I need to stay far away from crowdfunding, and nowadays I set an alert for second editions and take my sweet time tracking them on the secondary market. I already have too many boxes (unplayed) in my house anyway. So, done with that crowdfunding crap, and as an investor, those companies aren't really a good investment btw.

Kickstarter is charity not investment.

So… don’t?

He doesn't! He's sharing his opinions on the Internet. It's quite common a lot of people do it on this subreddit specifically.

Just think about it as a pre-order system. If you think you're investing you're getting it very wrong and your point isn't really that well made.

It isn't a pre-order system! It's not an order system at all, an order is an exchange that the company has to try to fulfill in good faith. It's a donation of money to a company that might decide to give you something, if they feel like it, later.

Yes, that is what KS is in effect. Which is essentially a pre-order system with poor consumer protections. So, outside of explicitly stating that KS has poor consumer protections... what I said.

>It's a donation of money to a company that might decide to give you something, if they feel like it, later. I wish people would stop spreading this anti-consumer bullshit, it's not a donation in any shape or form. A donation is done without any financial motivations of something in return. Paying money for a product is a purchase, or a pre-order in this case for a promised product. Nobody would "donate" anything to Kickstarter projects if not for the promised products. > It isn't a pre-order system! It's not an order system at all, an order is an exchange that the company has to try to fulfill in good faith. Which is exactly what the Kickstarter projects are obliged to do according to their own terms. The fact that customers forfeit their typical consumer rights doesn't make backing any less of a pre-order semantically.

From the [Kickstarter TOU](https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use): >When a project is successfully funded, the creator must complete the project and fulfill each reward. Once a creator has done so, they’ve satisfied their obligation to their backers. What about this reads like a donation to you?

It's not what in that, it's what's *not* in it, which is consumer protections to ensure that one actually gets either the product or a refund.

Yeah. Crowdfounding for the consumer site has basicly just been pre-orders for most of Kickstarters existance. You don't get any return on Investment like if you gave the Projekt a loan. What you will get is the produkt on, or sometimes before, Release. No different than preordering say a new Videogame through Steam. But on the creator site of things it let's them also know more about their produkts demographic, at what scale they can expect Sales. And maybe even allow them to fund additional content if there is enough funding.

It also removes any responsibility for the developer to actually deliver. In the case of a preorder the game has already been made, it might be unfinished and shitty but the company already invested the money to make the game so it’s much lower risk for the consumer.

>People will say the intent of this system is to allow unknown creators with great ideas to obtain the capital required to get their products to market. That may or may not have been true in the good ol' days, but it's a farce in modern times. The unknown creators are still there. But people find it hard to care about projects in the $2000-$8000 range when there are projects in the $50,000-$100,000 range. Additionally, Kickstarter is obviously going to push the bigger projects just cause their pay out is proportional to the project money raised. That being said, if you search through the table top section in Kickstarter a bit you'll occasionally find small indie games out there worth supporting

I think people overstate Kickstarter pushing big projects. I think it's social media that actually does a lot of that. I just clicked on the Kickstarter banner/home page. The top project it's showing me is https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thorncoyle/some-gathered-magic?ref=section-homepage-featured-project three fantasy books with $2,756 raised and 3 days left (I don't think I've ever backed fiction on Kickstarter so this isn't something hyperspecific to me). Clicking on the other projects in their featured categories the current funding of them is: 1216 9984 7817 4955 271012 350890 84022 804744 11 1 2324 1 871 426 1200 1305 The 5-6 digit products are from the "taking off" category and were mostly board games. But everything else is pretty modest projects. At the end of the day kickstarter lives off word of mouth and social media. No one is promoting the $1 projects outside of kickstarter because no one is backing them.

KS nowadays is exploiting FOMO in it´s purest form. Plain and simple. It started as a good idea, and still is somewhere deep down, if you look for SMALL companies / projects from a niche. But OP is absolutely right when pointing out most big companies don´t need to do KS, they just want MORE money by exploiting the FOMO and no responsibility, if their project turns out to be a mess.

If I spend 100$ and get a cool game out of it, I would say I have shared proportionally in the reward. I have done zero of the work, none of the play testing, no proofreading. I have only spend a hundred bucks. I don't expect to earn millions of dollars in case the game is a commercial success...

I back the little guys and spend the rest at my FLGS.

There's definitely abuse, and I have two games that I've been waiting for over year. One of them is 9 months late on a 6 month delivery schedule. That's why with my first crowdfunding launch, I am actually planning to start production before the campaign runs. My final assets should be 100% ready to submit March 1st and I launch April 25th. I even hope to have an unboxing video of my digital proofs as one of the videos on my campaign site. If all goes well, freight is on the water less than 8 weeks after funding. I also joined GameFound's stable pledge to guarantee I won't just inflate shipping costs through the roof. I'm taking on a bunch of risk by doing this, but I want people to know that I'm not some fly-by-night scammer. Besides my game is about penguins and penguins don't fly. Oh, and I've spent a year testing my product BEFORE launching it.

> If all goes well, freight is on the water less than 8 weeks after funding. This seems incredibly ambitious for your first product. I don't know what you're going to say on the campaign page but remember the mantra "under promise, over deliver" if you want to win points from backers for shipping on time.

That sounds like you won't be able to scale, though?

Scale how? You mean volume? I've got a 1500 unit MOQ and if I sell more than that as a first time publisher, on my first campaign, that would be amazing. If that happens, I will ask my manufacturer to increase the order size. I am already discussing with them how that would impact schedule. I have 450 followers thus far with 90 days to go before launch. If I have to apologize to everyone with a 1 or 2 month schedule slip because somehow 5000 people want my game, then they'll still be getting product in hand sooner than most campaigns actually submit their game for production.

You were doing ok until you made the ridiculous claim the publishers are publicly traded companies. Which tells me you’re ranting emotionally with no basis in actual fact. Most of the kickstarters are by small publishers and those that are established use Kickstarter because the game can’t have a large print run for normal distribution. So their choice is to either use Kickstarter or not publish at all. And if I is a commercially distributed product, you participate in the benefits by getting it earlier, for less, and sometimes with exclusive content. Your cheaper price is equivalent to getting a piece of the profit.

You forgot anti-union. Blight of our hobby.

I got fleeced for almost 300€ on KS once. Turns our KS DOES NOT CHECK THE IDENTITY or even the address or, what is worse, the existence of the address of the scammers. The campaign looked very believable since they actually built the apparatus (a 3d-printing thing) and started selling it on Ali Baba. KS sent me an identical poorly-veiled automated bot response (exact same text, changing name) five times. After two years of silence from the scammers after delivery-date and 30 tries to contact the scammers, KS still suggested I should contact them and be patient. Nobody at KS will check if you exist. Call yourself Santa Claus from Rome, China, collect half a mil. KS DOES NOT READ BACKERS' EMAILS. They don't give a fuck. But the worst part are the people who will defend KS' actions, claiming they're jUsT a pLaTfOrM and *you* should do your due diligence. We're talking hundreds of Thousands, often Millions of $. KS reeks in a nice fee on all projects. But they don't even check the address or identity. As a backer, do I have the power to do that? No. KS does nothing for backers.

As someone who’s had products on kickstarter, they 100% verify. You even need your SSN/TIN for tax purposes.

Thanks for sharing. That's crazy. How in the world did they ever accept a campaign from Dover, Germany then? And why do they ignore hundreds of complaints about the same project?

True I just use it because I want to fund my two tarot decks because I'm too poor to afford the upfront costs, but if I had the money to buy it on my own I would have.

You're right. Kickstarter protects frauds and punishes their victims. But I still want to back creators' projects. Where do I do that, then? Any suggestions are very welcome!

I agree, but it's more often cheaper to back the game than to wait for the release... It's not only a problem of consumer, it's more of a Kickstarter issue. They make money doing nothing, they will never shut down such a good business.

What irks me more is companies now just using it as a storefront with basically MSRP prices. They'll claim the game doesn't go retail, they'll claim it will be X% cheaper, they'll claim you'll get the game before retail, but most of the time none of that is true. Some also use made up MSRP prices when the game isn't going retail which is also scummy. I would not have a problem if they actually gave you a good deal on the product since they are cutting out retail, which is usually +60% of the price from their cost total. Then they additionally compare their price to MSRP, while leaving out freight/shipping. The fact freight is not even in the price but is in shipping is mindboggling because that's included in actual retail prices. Claiming your game is done but can't provide a rulebook? Yeah.. Then we haven't talked about how KS just doesn't care people get scammed on their platform since they get their money anyway. How GF created "stretch pay" just so they can squeeze out money you shouldn't be spending on games if you have to use that. I have a lot more issues with those things, and how predatory these platforms/publishers are and just straight up lie while people keep defending them. Wouldn't surprise me at this point some of them actually pay people to defend them because I refuse to believe people are that oblivious

The biggest lie being told by people trying to argue your points is "but these games couldn't exist without KS!!". And I'm sure they believe this, because it makes their 200+ backed games feel like a wise decision. But the truth is, we had decades of success under the traditional publishing model. Anyone can go to the bank and get a loan, if they have a good idea that they think will be successful. *Especially* for these games that have <$20k campaign goals. That's nothing. You shouldn't even need a *loan* to scrounge up that mind of money, in fact. And that is still only the case if you, for some insane reason, want to self-publish. But an even better option is that the traditional publishing model allows someone to *design a game* and license it to an *existing publisher*. This costs almost nothing, and greatly increases the chances of the game's success. Of course, you have to actually design and pitch a *provably good game*, since the publisher will scrutinize this before accepting the project. But no one wants to do that when there's a perfectly good platform where consumers will willfully take all that risk for you. In its current state, it is basically dumb to *not* leverage KS. This is basically the ethical gray area of how con artists believe that it shouldn't be illegal to convince people to give you their money. The marks are doing it willfully and feel good about it, right? And yet, running 3 Card Monte and other such schemes *are* illegal in many places because we *know* it isn't good for the general public. We unfortunately need to protect people from themselves, because they won't. Personally, I think crowdfunding could use some similar regulation.

Despite claims to the contrary, it really is a preorder service, except without the legal guarantees that would usually come with a preorder. Capitalism will always seek to create the most maximally exploitative business practices. :) To think that we used to think preorders were bad...

I have so many questions that I don’t even know where to begin. But let’s start with the 2 big ones… 1. Are you referring to Kickstarter or the projects on Kickstarter? I’m sure you’re aware Kickstarter is just a platform 2. Are any of the things you mentioned not clarified BEFORE you back anything in the platform? Also, are you forced to buy it? Let me give you just 1 example of something that is more anti consumer, anti accountability and anti success: tobacco (you can also replace this with sugar etc)

Actually, the thing that most people dont notice is that it is so intentionally How many times have you heard someone saying "kickstarter problem is the lack of accountability and responsability, I'd back more projects if they worked on that". Sounds like kickstarter is leaving money on the table, right? Wrong. Theres always gonna be a huge line of idiots queing up to throw their money atbthe latest ill-conceived,  ill-produced shit as long as you show them a bunch of cool miniature STLs. Theres never gonna be a shortage of that But if kickstarter became consumer friendly and legally binded project managers to deliver a worthy product , issue refunds when it was demostrably true that it doesnt meet expectations, and actually pursued legal actions when these terms were unfulfiled........ it'd actually be the ruin of it More backers? What good is that going to do to Kickstarter when you see the amount of ongoing projects going from 10,000 to 80 due to the stricter requirements? Kickstarter doesnt give a shit that tons of people will get awful, faulty, inviable or plainly wont be made products from project managers ranging from well intentioned idiots to scam artists. They actually do everything on their hand to foster an environment where these can thrive and feel secure, because the more the merrier for them. How people still give money to Kickstarter knowing this is beyond me. The old saying that a sucker is born every minute its clearly wrong, its more like one every 5 seconds.

Here's why I supported hundreds of projects: I believe crowd funding is the future. I love that someone has an idea that isn't necessarily mass market compatible and/or they would be locked out of realising due to lack of investment; but crowd funding allows them to make it a reality. Companies especially big ones will always focus on maximum profit to the point of detriment to themselves and their customers. They will always go for the larger market. Cool ideas and projects that are only interesting to a smaller group or that don't have mass market appeal have little chance. Crowd funding allows you find the 200 people who want it enough to fund you and make it a reality. Are there issues? Sure. Out of the hundreds of projects I backed only a few were not delivered and only few were complete disappointments/scams. The majority got delivered in good time with good quality. Like I largely wear clothes from a kickstarter brand and it beats any high street brand. All my Italian leather shoes for work are from kickstarter. My wallet, my towels, my sleeping bag, my sheets, my socks, and more ... very happy with all of it. Boardgames I've stopped backing at scale because I can't store them anymore. I have a set wall of shelves and every game in needs another to go out. I only back or buy games if I'm willing to get rid of another. Also boardgames have been more hit and miss initially. I think it's easy to get sucked into the hype and by bad games. Like I learned how to spot and avoid terrible companies and games and so almost everything I backed got delivered (still upset about Era). Seeing people give millions to companies for a generic design with a mountain of miniatures and a random IP despite the company having a bad track record is kind of the kickstarter equivalent of natural selection. You can't even blame the company for taking advantage of the situation.

But plenty of the projects that are crowdfunded are mass market compatible. The backer takes on pretty much all the risks of the project as well as the credit risk associated with the publisher. And in return they only get the product they would have received simply by buying it. Now for projects that wouldn’t happen without kickstarter you could make a reasonable argument that the project existing is the additional benefit. But that’s not the case for a lot of projects now on kickstarter: a) many of those publishers could happily fund their projects through debt or equity instead; and b) there is no further upside for backers if the project does really well - the publisher is essentially using the balance sheet of the backer yet keeping all of the upside.

I am not from the west, but tbh I am so tired of this whole pre-order marketing. Not only for the kickstarter, local localisators do quite the same thing. There are so many predatory practices: buy the most expensive pledge in an hour and get something useless but very exclusive (a plushie, a miniature, an art book), buy our ultra mega VIP premium bundle with all the expansions (which were cut out from the base game, so it would feel like sh*t to play without expansions), take a down payment for 5 years if you have no money (people start taking these payments until they pay more than a half of a salary monthly), exclusive content unlocks if 10000 people pre-order and so on. The market is extremely overwhelmed, I have even become unable to track down new board games, there are hundreds of pre-orders and announcements each month. I am wondering who even buy all of those? How can you find free time to play each one? I've stopped buying and preordering games, I'd like to concentrate on the ones I already have and haven't even played some of them yet

Yep, Kickstarter sucks, that's for sure. I'm still gonna keep all-in-ing way too many games, but I agree. It sucks.

Kickstarter is a suck--- place to go looking for anything. Yeah, you can get lucky and get in on something unique, but I find it is rare. I've lost money twice on KS projects and they even let one of the projects change their original mission statement as so they wouldn't have to fight to give the money back. I will never use crowd sourcing again.

Not only that, it would often be cheaper to buy all the things in the ks when they actually release, you'd often get them about at the same time, pay them when you get them in your hand, and it's probably going to cost you less. I was really excited to back the new earthborne ranger game and the core box itself + shipping would cost me exactly the same as to buy it now. And on top of that i have to add VAT. The all in pledge is going to be an ever greater money loss compared to just buy it retail, so idk what i'm supposed to do lol

Lmao you got the wrong ones. Hope you will feel better soon.

Kickstarter is a pre-order site for stuff that might not exist. And if a funded project dies, you probably won't get your money back.

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Board games are not a good investment and it seems like that is what you were treating your pledge as. If you didn't want it you should have sold it not assumed it would forever be worth the same amount or more money. Any game can get a reprint, a sequel, a spin off, any number of things to drop the price.