Kickstarter - Why Should You Care?

Kickstarter has the tech world all a-flutter; what can it do for us as tabletop wargamers? Atom gives a brief explanation, some of the pros and cons, and shows off some of his Kickstarted loot.
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[@Breland1976]

Love your content, delivery, and production value. Keep it up, your channel is awesome.

[@tabletopminions]

Thank you, I appreciate it. And thanks for watching!

[@scottbeil2646]

Glad to see that you touched on some of the short comings of Kickstarter. Not just the rainbows and gum drop.

[@GuntherTheMad]

A very nice rundown of the subject and I really appreciate your comments on delivery timelines. My personal record is for a Blood Bowl team that was 3 1/2 years late on delivery. I got my minis and they are gorgeous, but were more than a little behind the promised delivery date. This isn't a complaint, just a cautionary message to your viewers that sometimes things happen and it takes a very long time for pledge fulfillment. Keep the faith and any reputable manufacturer will deliver.

[@tabletopminions]

Very sound advice. Thanks for watching!

[@revanjg]

Great vid as usual. Keep up the good work.

[@zandosdwarf-king]

For $10,000, you will be NPC featured in my role-playing book. :D

[@tabletopminions]

I actually got to put a monster into an RPG called 'Mistrunner' for only a Kickstarter pledge of $50. Seems like a better deal. Thanks for watching!

[@yearofshorty]

Great view of what could be the best thing for niche ideas and products

[@bakilleen]

Great video as always. I hopped on the Foldio smartphone light setup, as I believe you did. Also something only possible through Kickstarter. Been in the game for 10 years now and just want to step my hobby up.

[@tabletopminions]

Yeah, I'll be getting a Foldio in a month or two as well. I'm really looking forward to using it for taking better "quickie" photos of my work-in-progress shots on my painting. Thanks for watching!

[@jerryo6489]

I'm here for the darker, more neatly trimmed hair.

[@ChuckstaGaming]

Better scratch that "nitch"! :D I have pledged on 2 Kickstarters, Pimax 8k (VR system) and Ashes of Creation (MMORPG) The Pimax 8K was originally supposed to go out to backers in January of this year (2018), but it keeps on being put back. This is actually a good thing (so far), as it means they are constantly working on it to make it the best it can be (hopefully) and therefore will not put out a low quality product (I/we hope). I've actually bought an 8K X pledge and a 5K pledge. The X will probably not be out until late next year, if that, but us X backers will receive a normal 8K to tide us over until the X is out. The Ashes of Creation game is on schedule, so far. I believe it might actually be slightly ahead of schedule, but I could be wrong. I haven't really been following the development of the game that much. :D

[@Wild1chevy]

In my research for some future projects I've found out that only 40% of Kickstarter projects actually arrive on estimated time. Success on these projects can be a good thing and bad thing at the same time.

[@blktom]

Do you know if you find a Kickstarter that has already completed if they will still take orders?

[@tabletopminions]

Not usually through Kickstarter, but sometimes through their website. Thanks for watching!

[@isaiahfurrow7414]

I wish I'd have gotten in on the Wild West Exodus kickstarter. I'll keep my eyes out for these, if you find any good ones, let us all know....

[@TheGamerZapocalypse]

To this day, SJGs OGRE KS has not delivered on the promised OGRE Miniatures Line being redone in plastic. What made it worse, they actually made CAR WARS minis instead of using that time to complete the OGRE minis line. -_-

[@TripleDiamonds13]

Interesting video... I have backed a single project on Kickstarter, and unfortunately it is one of the ones that has run into a ton of setbacks during manufacturing. That is the risk you take when you fund a project I guess...

[@gregoryroth5527]

OGRE re-release? I still have the 1980s chits boxed version...

[@robdrew376]

Great stuff as always. Maybe you saw one that was on the Malifaux forums a little while ago, and went through funding on Indiegogo. www.indiegogo.com/projects/po-boys-terrain It's over now unfortunately, but the stuff looks great, and when this round is done, he's got other stuff including some gothic-Victorian pieces planned. Thought you might want to keep an eye open for that, too.

[@Pinsofwar]

Where do you get that Kickstarter Inc. is owned by Amazon? It's not. Amazon is a publicly listed company. They'd have to declare that. Kickstarter Inc. is a New York Registered Company owned by the founders and early investors such as Union Square Ventures.

[@Pinsofwar]

Here's a nice article: www.fastcompany.com/3006694/where-are-they-now/true-to-its-roots-why-kickstarter-wont-sell "Chen and his cofounders own a majority of the equity, and he controls the board. "This is a founder-controlled company," he says. "Our investors understand that we want to stay independent forever. We have no intention of selling this company or doing an IPO."

[@tabletopminions]

Well, I guess I was wrong. I just know that the payments are handled through Amazon, and my Kickstarter login is the same as my Amazon login, so I just assumed that Amazon owned them. I guess it would be better to say they're "affiliates" or "partners" then. Thanks for watching!

[@Pinsofwar]

tabletopminions Sure thing. Great videos ;) They handle payments. True. Usually, Amazon isn't shy of putting their brand on things if they do own in (e.g. www.lovefilm.com, our European netflix competitor). It's got a rather obvious "An Amazon company" all over the site since they sold.

[@chezratte1357]

But be careful. Kickstarter can get pretty addictive, especially if you include boardgames.

[@lantznefflen2333]

4.09 Damn straight

[@magunra3k]

kick starters are a good idea in principle, but i hate how its become a way for Mantic and the like to just pre sell games they should be funding themselves.

[@JMcMillen]

There are two issues with your comment: 1. The metal molds required to make plastic injection mini's are insanely expensive. Thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars just to carve a single mold out of a block of steel. 2. Except for the biggest of companies (GW, Wizards), most game companies don't have the capitol (money) lying around to just make the kind of financial gamble that a big, new game release can cost. Without Kickstarter, even some of the larger tabletop game companies wouldn't easily be able to release new products on a large scale. Like being able to add a new faction to a war game and having a descent number of models available at launch. Or release a board game with lots of plastic pieces instead of cardboard ones. Even if they did, the could be risking the future of their entire company on a single release with no guarantee that it would sell. I'm old enough to remember the heyday of tabletop gaming from the 1980's and still have gaming magazines from back then. Magazines littered with articles and ads for games and companies that no longer exist. Some quietly faded away, others took big chances and watched it blow up in their face. Some lost all their capitol and folded because they couldn't produce more products to sell. Others had to file bankruptcy because their big chance was financed by loans that they couldn't pay back. To me, Kickstarter is a great way for even an established game company to put an idea out there for it's audience and basically say "If you really like this idea, put your money where your mouth is and support it". Because there is a big difference between saying a game looks cool vs actually buying it.

[@josh1674]

Presales are a tried and true small niche business model. GMT makers of Twilight Struggle only make games this way. Also, established companies know how to put out playtested high quality games.

[@zzeegermantube]

It's pronounced "neesh" not "nitch" lol.

[@kyle857]

Zzee German both pronunciations are accepted.

[@zzeegermantube]

Seriously? Never heard "nitch" before! Or is that an American thing?

[@kyle857]

Idk. Watched a video short about the different pronunciations of the word Orion (I live in a place called Orion Township, but it's pronounced Ore-eon Township) and it got a bit sidetracked talking about the two pronunciations of neich. Basically, even online dictionaries and audiobooks will use either or pronunciation. Even some British voice actors use both. Another cool point about British vs America English. America English is actually much closer to how the English themselves would have spoken during the 1600s and 1700s. When I learned about that it blew my mind. But it kind of makes sense when you learn about the origins of the current English accent.

[@IONATVS]

The word comes from French, but entered English in the late medieval-renaissance period. “nitch” is the fully assimilated English pronunciation, and was the standard in the US, Australia, and more “Saxon” low-class urban dialects of British English for centuries, while “neesh” is closer to the original French pronunciation, and is the standard in “Norman” dialects of English (ie, British “received pronunciation” and Canadian English). I’ve been hearing “neesh” more and more frequently in on the US West coast in recent years as well.

[@TheCrushenator]

It's pronounced Ee-jus not Age-iz...

[@Bacxaber]

No.