Next week Wednesday The Game Crafter is going to attempt a bold new experiment: we’re going to run a Kickstarter bundle project. Basically, we hand picked 8 games that we really like and are putting them together as a bundle for a very low price. This is an experiment, because we’re testing out both the bundle concept, and the methodology for running a campaign to see how the larger gaming community likes it. If it does well, we’ll do more in the future.
In our first ever bundle, there are 8 games, starting with our favorite game in the bundle Village in a Box.
We’re working with the designer of Village in a Box, Peter Jackson, to develop some new expansions as stretch goals.
The other games in the bundle (in no particular order) are: Trade Fleet, Noueni, Dungeoneering Dolls, Railroads, Monster City Planners, Starship Battles, and Overlords. We feel they’re all great games in their own right, but you don’t have to take our word for it. Over the next few weeks Gamer’s Remorse will be releasing reviews on each one of these games so you can get a better feel for them.
We’ll post more details soon. We just wanted to give you a heads up that this was happening. We’d love to hear your feedback on this little experiment of ours. Leave some comments below!
Official announcement: http://news.thegamecrafter.com/post/72667820123/tgcs-kickstarter-experiment-village-in-a-box
Comments
I'm confused?!
How is this *Kickstarter* supposed to work?
Are you going to divide the profit earned by the games by 8??? Does each game receive 1/8th of the profits from the Kickstarter??? Minus perhaps the cost to make the games (which is TGC profit)...
I mean you are combining 8 different games (by different authors I assume)... Is TGC going to offer some discount volume pricing on the games such that they price to purchase 8 games is lower than usual?
Each game costs $14.99 (or more) to buy on TGC, what will the price be for all 8??? That would cost people about $120 (or more) to buy...
I guess I'll need to wait for the Kickstarter to understand what your pricing structure will look like... Or is it something like "Buy 1" and pay $14.99, "Buy 2" and pay $24,99, "Buy 3" and pay $34.99, etc.
To be blunt, this seems
To be blunt, this seems contrary to the mission of Kickstarter. Completely. These products are already "in print" at a readily available price and you can go buy them *right now*. What creative project is being brought to life here? Kickstarter staff have expressed in person multiple times that Kickstarter is not a pre-order system.
My guess is Kickstarter still won't deny the project, because money is still money and where do they start to draw the line for this kind of thing?
I'll continue to use and support both The GameCrafter and new Kickstarter projects, but I won't support this use of them. Sorry, TGC; stick to indiegogo for this kind of crowdfunding.
cool!
Sweet! Count me in! Sounds like a great idea.
*edit* and BTW: I wouldnt consider the games "in print" because TGC is making them. That's on a per game basis for the most part I thought...
I will definately be backing if at a decent price!
two POVs
From an outside perspective I can see how people may feel TGC is just trying to drive traffic (to make $$) to their website, which can be construed as anti-Kickstarter mission.
However, if you are a game designer with a game developed and published on TGC, these kinds of Kickstarter/TGC projects could get your game more views, potentially catching the eye of a mainstream publisher.
There are pros and cons to this campaign idea, but IMO it serves both Kickstarter and TGC missions. TGC is acting more as an avenue to indie games whereas, mainstream publishers using Kickstarter are more of an end-all-be-all, standing to make much more money off of their games than the developers. I think this campaign has much more justification for existence than big-time publisher campaigns using public money instead of their own.
Both Kickstarter and TGC support the indie developer and teaming them up could be fantastic!
P.S. I am not knocking on publishers using Kickstarter. In fact I support a lot of the crowd funded games. I am merely stating that IMO TGC and Kickstarter's mission align more effectively.
As GuruForge said, there are
As GuruForge said, there are two sides to a KS attempt like this: The ones who are supposed to buy this bundle (count me out on this one, its just not my cup of tea). And the designers who get their names out there (from a "wanna be published" designers point of view this is actually a very good idea).
But, i wanted to share my 2 cents about KS and TGC "how i see it":
They did this KS with shrink-wrap if i remember it right. of course you have to pay to get your game shrink-wrapped, but they financed the machine (more or less) through KS. This sounds like a cool idea to me. And something TGC should seriously consider for future KS campaigns.
For me, the role of TGC is not to boost or promote the games their designers did via a KS campaign. KS should instead be a platform to make TGC even better and enable them to offer new designs/techniques.
What about "testing the waters" with a KS that features goals like:
* Boxes with a texture on them, that makes them feel like leather/parchment
* Foil cards
* new components like differently shaped meeples, shards and other stuff
* more customizing options for existing components
of course, a KS like this targets only the game designers who are active on TGC and not the broad public. and designers have to pay for the stuff too (this could be neatly packaged into pledge level awards, like 100 free foil cards or 25 boxes with a texture etc.) - but it would allow TGC to check out what designers really want, and let the community decide what features will be added next to the TGC product range.
Leave marketing games to your designers. Stick to your profession - and use KS to make it better.
Fhizban over and out!
For clarification
The campaign TGC ran to get the shrinkwrapping machine was on Indiegogo, which has no limits on what you can raise money for. This is why I suggested a bundle project go there, instead.
However, more money flows through kickstarter, so it makes sense to try crowd funding projects there. And it makes sense as a designer to want to do this since people who don't frequent TGC will see the kickstarter. This is just as it makes sense that we as consumers will want to use kickstarter as a pre-order system on products. As frankly a lot of great things have found reality because of this; games that needed funding to pay for art, technology that needed startup capital, and films that needed budgets.
But in this case, it's just a sale. There are sites out there that sell bundles of existing products (primarily software, since distribution is easier). There are crowd funding sites that let you raise money for ANYTHING (like indiegogo, gofundme, etc), but kickstarter isn't that. This is why they've added more rules over the last few years like prohibiting "retailer perk levels" where a game retailer could buy many multiple copies of the game at a bigger discount than perk levels that only got one. The stated reason for this rule and other was that Kickstarter is not a store or pre-order system.
These games exist and you can order them all from TGC now and have then on your doorstep in a month. This bundle is just a sale on existing products.
The reason I'm against it in principle is because I fear the long term effects of diluting kickstarter's purpose. If companies had the go ahead to post existing products and simply sell them (bundled, or at discount, or whatever) then all the artists and inventors seeking patrons for unfinished works will lose eyes and dollars to stuff that already exists.
The designers get the
The designers get the profits. You can preview our Kickstarter here so you can see how it all fits together: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thegamecrafter/1831022886?token=a5e1...
The primary game that is this
The primary game that is this in this Kickstarter is getting new stuff that wouldn't normally have been brought to life if it weren't for this project. As will there be some improvements to TGC as a result of this Kickstarter. All of this will be done through stretch goals. And that is very much in the spirit of Kickstarter.