How to create a Miniatures Games Kickstarter - Setting up.

[@proteanfabricator9410]

Incredibly interesting insight into KS, not something I’ve looked into much and I’ve not backed anything yet. Looking forward to hearing more about Space Gits and seeing it go live! 🎲

[@RuleofCarnage]

Thanks. Personally, I don't often back things myself and didn't before frequenting the site prior to putting up my own project. If you know what you like in the way of games and rarely buy generally, its a good way to be able to browse new ideas.

[@thatblastedsamophlange]

I wish kickstarter was more about the speculative projects, and small creators trying to break into it, instead thanks to larger companies like CMON, they've become a pre-order service.

[@RuleofCarnage]

As a smaller creator who repeatedly uses Kickstarter I would say that it is absolutely both, but that the main thing that keeps it being for smaller creators is if people interested in smaller creators keep going there and supporting it. If you stop going there because you think its only for big companies and is a pre-order service, that's exactly what you'll make it.

[@gav-gf7cr]

I actually support more small than big creators on kickstarter nowadays, but the project has to be believable and offer something distinctive. More small creators need to watch this mini-series 🙂

[@RuleofCarnage]

@@gav-gf7cr Well, hopefully. Personally, I do struggle to justify backing if I honestly think the game is going to end up available in retail, so it tends to be smaller creators for me. I mean, I consider Redwood one of the most interesting games of 2024 and I still picked it up retail.

[@gav-gf7cr]

So... how does that work, commissioning art? Talk about it! In detail 😁

[@RuleofCarnage]

Yeah, we should probably try and go through that in detail. Its tough because a lot of the time finding an artist is somewhat random, but I'm sure we can get specific.

[@gav-gf7cr]

@@RuleofCarnage Finding an artist... but also getting your project brief right, the business arrangements, and then managing the relationship until completion... Not the same thing, but I once paid some commission painter to paint some miniatures for me. I gave him complete artistic freedom except for one thing: the skin had to be white. He got carried away by his artistic vision and did it blue 😂

[@RuleofCarnage]

@@gav-gf7cr Yeah, I've had varied experiences with artists and have built up some ways of communicating and shorthands. I think its easier, maybe counter intuitively, to make tweaks to artists than minis painters.

[@Ched80]

KS is an interesting choice for miniature games, especially agnostic ones. I'm curious why you would choose KS over a POD service. Additionally I think successful KSs seem to be based on a strong initial following so if you don't have any sort of social media presence you are really at a disadvantage when it comes to KS campaigns. Personally I have a game I'm wanting to release, but I was planning to go down the POD route as that seemed less risky than KS.

[@RuleofCarnage]

Social media certainly can give you a boost, but Kickstarter inherently brings a huge amount of attention to a project. If you have a solid offering and you're not aiming for a thousand backers, it really can be the thing that gets things moving. The thing with PoD is while its very low risk all the promotion ends up being on your own shoulders, and its a huge amount of effort to get that boulder rolling.

[@Ched80]

Id be interested to hear your thoughts on Gamefound and if you think it's a potential option for small creators. Obviously KS has a larger audience, but i see more and more games using GF for their projects.

[@RuleofCarnage]

I'll probably mention Gamefound in later videos in this series. I think a few things in general: 1) You can launch a project on KS and then pledge manage it on GameFound, but you can't do the same thing the other way around, each platform gives you access to an audience, so it seems wasteful not to go KS then GF. 2) I honestly don't think you necessarily need to bring your own crowd to KS, it has enough footfall to fund smaller projects needing up to 500 or so backers entirely internally, that really isn't true for GameFound, you do need to bring your own crowd. GameFound has worse natural discovery options. At any given time KS has something like 300 live tabletop projects while GameFound has more like 15, that's a big difference in how many projects are dragging eyes to the platform. In short, I can't think of a single good reason not to go with Kickstarter for launch and GameFound for pledge manager.

[@steeldrac]

So far, I think this is not the product for me. Maybe the models and also the work put in building a relationship with customers through the Discord(s) communities will make me pledge if I have the cash. I discovered one of the reasons I use KS is when I like the people involved.

[@RuleofCarnage]

Not entirely sure how I feel about the comment that you're not interested in our project when you're interested if you like the people involved.

[@steeldrac]

@@RuleofCarnage Basically I don't like the game mechanics, but since I like the people involved it might get it to put it in my shelf :P

[@RuleofCarnage]

@@steeldrac Yeah, performative uncertainty isn't for everyone. Still, hopefully it'll be a cool enough thing to get you interested despite that.