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Warpgate

Hey everyone,

I wasn't posting often lately due to simple reason. The KS for Warpgate is launching in about 17 hours from now so I was super-busy the last couple of weeks.

If you have a spare moment to take a look at the presentation I would be very grateful.

I'd like to also say thanks to all the BGDF-ers who have helped test various iterations of the game. Your help was invaluable!

Here's the link (the campaign is unlisted at the moment):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wolffdesigna/162192905?ref=353259&t...

Tabletopia link is live, and so is the rules download, so you can try it if you like. There's also a full play-through by Jon (from JonGetsGames)

Any comments are very much welcome.

Cheers!
Arty

Comments

Well, we're live! :)

Well, we're live! :)

Video looks great! I wouldn't

Video looks great! I wouldn't even have minded a bit more, as the game looks intriguing!

Rick L wrote:Video looks

Rick L wrote:
Video looks great! I wouldn't even have minded a bit more, as the game looks intriguing!

Thank you!

Congrats to you!

It's great to see other BGDF folks out on Kickstarter!

All the best to you and all of your Backers.

The Professor wrote:It's

The Professor wrote:
It's great to see other BGDF folks out on Kickstarter!

All the best to you and all of your Backers.

Thanks, Joe!

congrats and good luck!

congrats and good luck!

Sorry you felt you needed to CANCEL!

It seems lately that Kickstarters are less successful... Well technically this is not accurate, MOST Kickstarters are less successful. It seems the high production stuff with miniatures, 3d terrain tiles, etc. Seem to be doing just fine.

How many of those "miniature" game can one possibly OWN???

And I'm not talking about "Game" minis... I'm talking about those FANCY looking Warriors with different poses and different equipment. Ya they look pretty cool... But like I said, how many of these game can you own...?

I mean first they are EXPENSIVE; higher priced than your average game. And two they take up a TON of space; game boxes are relatively small in comparison.

I was going to send you some money down your way. But I opted to invest in my publisher's (Outer Limit Games) Trench... Since they KS-ed my game, I figured I'd support their initiatives.

What I think was the problem with the campaign was "Shipping is EXTRA". People (think gamers) in the USA want FREE shipping. And you saying that the game is 35% off and then add another $10 shipping ... is well kinda frowned upon. It's not really a 35% discount once you ADD the shipping.

There was the fact that there were no updates; you should have had an update after the first 48 hours saying how much was funded, "we got X% funded but we still need more backers", etc.

Another point was your goal of $18k USD was HIGH... I know some campaigns ask for $25k and they make like $300k... Wonder what it takes (honestly I feel it is part LUCK - or Karma).

So there were (IMHO) some things that could be done better... Coming back for another try is okay too. But OLG tried the same with Trench... And to be honest they are probably going to get the SAME figures as before. The difference, they lowered the goal and funded in 3 hours. But financially they are headed for about $20k - $25k tops.

Just be aware that my comments are not criticism, just areas in which you can improve upon to improve your odds of success.

Also I've been told there have been a LOT of games Kickstarting around now and the money is running a little THIN too...

Hope you relaunch

Arty,

Good luck and I hope you do relaunch! With any luck, we'll have a chance to sit, have a beer, an discuss Warpgate when we're in Philly.

Cheers,
Joe

:(

Well this is unfortunate, I thought the presentation of everything looked very well done. I have noticed that myself that it seems funding has been a little scattershot lately. I noticed Guardian's Call looks like it barely made it with funding as well. I wonder if there are just better times during the year to actually launch a game?

Sign of the times...

Well usually September-November is good. August is usually "Back To School" and June-July people are on Holidays/Take time off. December is normally not that good (because people are shopping for Christmas gifts) and January (people pay their bills - for Christmas)... So February-May is the second window ... which is good.

But remember everyone wants to get into those good times.

This means increased traffic in terms of volume of Kickstarters. So while you are in a "good period", you may have a lot of competition too.

You also have to factor in that Chinese New Year can affect production and Tax Season (April) when people get returns ... might want to spend some of their returns on a new game...

Thanks for the insight

questccg wrote:
Well usually September-November is good. August is usually "Back To School" and June-July people are on Holidays/Take time off. December is normally not that good (because people are shopping for Christmas gifts) and January (people pay their bills - for Christmas)... So February-May is the second window ... which is good.

But remember everyone wants to get into those good times.

This means increased traffic in terms of volume of Kickstarters. So while you are in a "good period", you may have a lot of competition too.

You also have to factor in that Chinese New Year can affect production and Tax Season (April) when people get returns ... might want to spend some of their returns on a new game...

Thanks for the insight Quest, you are definitely the God of Kickstarter knowledge. I will have to plan my release accordingly.

I just read a lot about it and ask people who know more than I

Thanks for the flattery, to be honest I discuss KS-ing and have bought and read Jamey's book... I've had numerous discussions with my Publisher (Outer Limit Games) and even with my Developer Joseph Pilkus. It's on our minds, we talk about OLG's KS-ing efforts since they are Publishing multiple games, etc. And I ask a lot of questions! (LOL)

No I mean I like to learn and see where this stuff leads me. And to be real honest, we're planning an IndieGoGo campaign in Mid-November extending into Mid-December. Not certain how well it will go (because of Christmas) ... I may ask Mike to create a "TradeWorlds" POSTCARD and people can put it in an Christmas card: "We bought you TradeWorlds for Christmas", delivery in July/August 2018... We'll see.

But we still have to correct some "images" and "rulebooks" with the NEW name "TradeWorlds" (instead of Tradewars - Homeworld). But that shouldn't take too much effort (maybe a day or two). The number of corrections I believe is 5 or 6 images.

I'll be certain to report back how it goes, lessons learned, etc.

Well, as I've said in the

Well, as I've said in the update we can't just blame the timing.
We've also overestimated existing backers + KS subscriptions + BGG followers when trying to judge how many people will actually see the game.

Guards of Atlantis had 7K+ views on the campaign video. Warpgate has 1.5
It's hard to expect people to make a pledge if they haven't seen it :)

But no worries. We will regroup and relaunch successfully.

Progress on Warpgate

Sooo, it’s been a month now, where are we at?

I’ve sent out somewhat around 40 emails to youtube channels of various sizes (including small ones). Got a responce from about 15.

1 said that it’s not his kind of game after looking at the playthrough. Fair enough. No game is for everyone. I’m also rather happy with this %.

4 of them responded that they are only doing paid content for KS.
This is where I’d like to rant for just a bit. As a publisher, we have no issues with paid content as long as it’s clearly mentioned in the video that it is sponsored and we can see the value in the investment in the form of production quality and the number of subscribers/views the channel has. There’s a distinct difference between sponsoring a channel like JonGetsGames (highly recommend to everyone) with 13K+ views, making long detailed playthroughs of great quality and when a tiny channel with 40 views per video and subpar presentation wants money. Expecting somebody to pay $5+ per view is insane.

So after some more back and forth emailing we’ve got about 10 or so addresses and these review copies are going to be sent out on Monday.

We’ve also contacted Man VS Meeple some time ago, so this one is supposed to be filmed today.

Assuming all goes well, we should have around 60K combined subsribers to see a Warpgate video when we launch in mid January. I hope it will do the trick of getting enough people aware of our existence :)

So what’s next?

We’re leaving for Pax on Wednesday. Going to be my first time in US. Haven’t really left “this” hemisphere before. Can’t wait! If you are reading this post and are planning to be at Pax, please drop by - the booth number is 756.

Meanwhile, the work on Warpgate continues. I’m polishing the actions, combat and tech decks. Visual design is being improved (Essen brought quite a few great comments on how to upgrade usability). Remaining artwork is being completed. E.t.c.

And this is it for now.
If this was even remotely interesting to read, let me know :)

Cheers,
Arty

See you at PAX

Arty,

I'll be by to check out Warpgate, so get ready to play and discuss.

Cheers,
Joe

Pax Bound

I'm also planning to be at PAX on Saturday. Hope to track you down and see Warpgate. :)

Game on!

Let-off studios,

We have to get together to play Warpgate!

Cheers,
Joe

Sounds great, guys :) See you

Sounds great, guys :) See you there.

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