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Six Month Crowdfunding Plan

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danielbishop56
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Joined: 12/29/2013

Hi all. I am putting together a six month plan in the lead up to my card game Kickstarter campaign and would love any ideas and advice (especially around the community building aspect).

Me: I teach 4th grade and write. The past summer I ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for a comic book I wrote the script for.

The Game: A Living Card Game with similar mechanics to Pokemon Cards with a necromancer theme.

A first draft of my plan looks something like this:

Weekly…
Listen to Board Game podcasts (please name some).
Post in relevant forums (not advertising, just being social and engaged).
Write short blog post on a design topic.
Write a short development diary post.
Look at new Kickstarter campaigns and make notes.

Monthly…
Accumulate at least 30 hours of play-testing.
Commission 4 pieces of card art.
Attend a game design meetup group.
Help someone with their project.

2 Months Before Launching Kickstarter…
Each week promote a new piece of art in relevant places.
Run weekly polls for community to choose which creatures is illustrated next.
Make gameplay tutorial videos.
Contact YouTube reviewers.
Finalize box art.
Finalize rules.
Make Kickstarter video.
Build Kickstarter page.

Thank you for your time!

Soulfinger
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danielbishop56 wrote:Help

danielbishop56 wrote:
Help someone with their project.

I love this step. I wish more people thought this way. Best of luck!

radioactivemouse
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Soulfinger

Soulfinger wrote:
danielbishop56 wrote:
Help someone with their project.

I love this step. I wish more people thought this way. Best of luck!

Well, I can definitely respect that he's successfully done a Kickstarter campaign before, those kind of steps are far more respectable than some guy that comes from nowhere and thanks they've got what it takes.

questccg
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Forum contributions = active members

Soulfinger wrote:
danielbishop56 wrote:
Help someone with their project.

I love this step. I wish more people thought this way. Best of luck!

Hmm... I agree - but the active members of this forum do this every single day! So helping someone once a month - should not be overly-glorified. That kind of diminishes the efforts active members put in on a more "regular" basis.

P.S.: And that includes you Soulfinger!

Soulfinger
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questccg wrote:Hmm... I agree

questccg wrote:
Hmm... I agree - but the active members of this forum do this every single day! So helping someone once a month - should not be overly-glorified. That kind of diminishes the efforts active members put in on a more "regular" basis.

I read it more in the sense of hand-holding one individual per month. That's more than I do. What I admire is that it is built into his business plan.

danielbishop56
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Joined: 12/29/2013
Ah yeah the once a month

Ah yeah the once a month helping with someone's project could be something smaller like proofreading a rulebook or a little bigger like in depth play-testing someone else's game.

It is a minimum though, if I end up helping 10 people a month then that's totally fine, it's mostly there as a reminder for me to actively do it :D

Maybe you are right and it deserves to be in the "once a week" category.

questccg
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Just sharing your thoughts can offer up NEW possibilities

Small contributions - like commenting on another designers Threads or Blog (on BGDF) is positive and constructive feedback.

Reading over a rulebook - is probably in that once a month category. It takes a lot of effort. But some people are good at it like Calvin. He took a couple of hours and had proofed my entire rulebook with suggestions and all (@Calvin: big thanks - it came as a surprise!)

Playing someone PnP game - that IS a BIG investment. So if you do help in this manner, well I doubt you'd do it often - maybe only when the game peeks your interest... We don't get many people who actually do invest time in printing and cutting PnPs. Hamish has done some wonderful Japanese Samurai/Ninja PnP with really nice artwork and all... Not many takers. We also collaborated on a Mech-type game made for solo play (it too was PnP). Again not many takers...

So come and visit us ... as often as you like. Share your comments / feedback / suggestions / ideas, etc.

The Professor
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Joined: 10/25/2014
Great Plan

My only recommendation as someone who has run a few successful KS campaigns and has developed a working relationship with one of the more successful game designers using KS today is to review Jamey Stegmaier's Blog (http://stonemaiergames.com/?p=8330) and his book, entitled, A Crowdfunder's Strategy Guide: Build a Better Business by Building Community.

Cheers,
Joe

mcobb83
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Joined: 06/07/2016
I second what Joe (above)

I second what Joe (above) says. Go study what Jamey has done.

Your steps look good, and it is significant how you intend to be active in and help build up the community, because it's the community that's going to be buying most of your project.

danielbishop56
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Joined: 12/29/2013
Thank you for the resources

Thank you for the resources and encouragement, I've always been curious to why tabletop games seem to have a way higher success rate than other categories of Kickstarter, do you think that there is something about the tabletop community that allows for that, or another reason?

The Professor
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Pure conjecture

Daniel,

Last year, the board and card game industry saw impressive numbers with folks spending $1.8B (yes, that's with a "B")! While it's nowhere near the lofty heights of the video game industry (currently sitting at around $17B/year, but forecasted to exceed $20B by 2020), it's doing exceptionally well. While I can't point to specific reasons for the surge, I'll simply note that when I visit a number of Game Nights in the D.C. area they're always packed (we're talking about 25-30 folks coming out for an evening of gaming), and the demographic skews younger (I'm toward the older end in my late 40s).

Another reason for the success is the perceived ease of entry unlike other areas on Kickstarter...meaning, you actually have to know something about Technology or Journalism. Unfortunately, when the barriers came down, we never set in place a proper Gatekeeper (the role previously held by leading publishers). There's clearly good and bad elements to that effect. With the barriers, we may never have seen a Jamey Stegmaier. However, without the barriers, anyone with an idea feels "ready" to publish.

Also, there are the numbers. On average, the combined number of "live" projects on Kickstarter for Comics, Crafts, Dance, Journalism, Photography, and Theater (or 40% of all KS categories) at any given time equals the total number of "Games" projects. So, in part, there's a more vibrant community surrounding tabletop games than many other areas.

As a developer and now a published game designer, I'm ecstatic about the changes...but I also fear that we'll continue to see really poorly made/play-tested board and card games on KS. The saving grace, by and large, is that the community decides what does and what does not get published. Moreover, the broader community decides what ends up in the top 500 games on BGG and what's relegated to a place much further down the list.

Cheers,
Joe

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