Author Topic: A detailed example: kickstarter  (Read 15062 times)

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Offline Scoutzout

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2012, 12:05:37 AM »
I remember the miniatures selling very well, but dont recall a lot of playing of the game. Out of the 2-3 groups in my area, people were buying them for RPGs.

I still have several of them for my Dark Elf forces for D&D games I run

Offline TheTraitorJacobson

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #16 on: August 28, 2012, 07:04:44 AM »
I seem to remember reading that Inferno sold really well, and what spiked Global Games was tooling up for a Star Wars game and then having the license-holder lose the license, thus torpedoing the entire thing.

It was mentioned somewhere here that the Inferno return policy, where stores could return product at no cost, was a disaster that turned the company into a zombie like state.  The West End Bankruptcy was the double tap.

I would love to support a Kickstarter for LOS.  Without looking at production costs,  $75 for a traditional box set, maybe $35 for a small set akin to the old "Demo Machine" that they released around '94?  Twenty bucks nets a tshirt or some poster map of one of the scenarios and makes you eligible to buy extras. 

And once we hit the $1 million stretch goal, everyone pledging $100 or more gets an added UNE Fast Attack Vehicle, $2 million a unit of Infranite Jet Bikes, $3 million an Archfiend, $4 million UNE Superfortress in Resin. and $5 million is a revival of the X Game.

Okay, skip the $5 million goal...

Offline smokingwreckage

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #17 on: August 31, 2012, 10:18:29 PM »
$100 gets you a box with UNE blasters and G1 Nightmares. Stretch goals: NCOs, heavy weapons, fiends. The FAV would be an unlocked buy option.

I wonder about trying to kickstart the vehicles in urethane, as per this:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dreamforge-games/something-wicked-this-way-comes-crusader-plastic-m

Offline rcbecker1

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #18 on: October 10, 2012, 08:55:53 PM »
I agree Kickstarter would be the way to start up the 3.0 edititon.

Offline eypyeash

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #19 on: February 08, 2013, 06:31:04 AM »
Warning: This post is largely fueled by pure personal opinion and no business savvy:

Hell, there's all that fervor out there about Space Hulk still, high demand for a reprint of the 3rd edition. I was introduced to Legions of Steel by a buddy who, while a Space Hulk fan, also liked doing more than having a GM spawn genestealers while the "good guys" got to make all the relevent tactical decisions. You can definitely hit that sweet spot of the market. How many copies did they release? And it completely sold out how quickly? But a big draw was the new miniatures, fancier tiles, redesigned rules back to the original 1st edition style in many aspects. It was solid.

People are miniatures snobs. CAD has made it cost effective to design and release huge amounts of very detailed figures in a short turnaround, so that's a complete must - start with the basic models, the UNE troops with blaster and plasma projector and the Nightmares/Fiends. Hell, give all the weapons options for both sets from the get-go. It'd be a good time. Increase the thickness of the card stock, redesign the tile images (but DON'T redesign everything interlocking with everything!), get some new art. 50 images or so... that's what, maybe 5000 for high-end digital art?

On the miniatures, I don't understand why everyone sticks with the 25mm square on their dungeons. Go for 30. Modellers love those round lips. I understand every square being 5mm larger adds up over a map, but it seems like it'd be worth it at the end.

I need to drop some redesign sketches onto the forum here. Been thinking about CADing them myself as a learning experience, but outside opinions are always a good thing.

Offline Dave Chase

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2013, 10:43:42 AM »
I concur that miniatures are still popular. Look at Mongoose in the last several months.

They are releasing 2 with 2 more on the way this year miniature games and both have been fueled (started) using Kickstarter.

With the rules being free pdf, or pay for a hardbound.

As for 30mm vs 25mm, I want miniatures and the size does not matter that much to me.

I do greatly prefer 25mm and up to 15mm because I want detail. 15mm is good for large armies, but I don't play much of those any more.

Dave Chase
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Offline eypyeash

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #21 on: February 08, 2013, 06:03:39 PM »
I meant more the base size being 30mm. Ha. 28mm figures, or 32mm heroic or whatever they say. Straight 28mm would be better if people want to stick with some of their original figures before future releases.

Offline Dave Chase

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #22 on: February 09, 2013, 03:57:45 PM »
I meant more the base size being 30mm. Ha. 28mm figures, or 32mm heroic or whatever they say. Straight 28mm would be better if people want to stick with some of their original figures before future releases.

Yes, you did. Sorry about that, I didn't catch that the first time reading it. :)

Dave Chase
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Offline bobloblah

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #23 on: February 24, 2013, 01:01:03 AM »
Missed most of the discussion on this...been offline for a while dealing with a new baby and a crazy work schedule. Unfortunately, the only thing that's given me the time to post is messing up my back badly enough to lay me out flat for a few weeks. Saw this thread and really wanted to jump in.

A while back I started pinging Clark on here with some PMs. The reason is that I noticed in one of the forum threads that the original masters for the Legions of Steel/Planetstorm minis were still in existence, and owned by Marco. My intent was to try and cook up a deal with Clark/Marco where I would fund the cost of creating new moulds for the standard miniatures (Commando with Blaster, G1 Nightmare and Mk I Assault Fiend), and in return I would want access to several of the other masters to have new moulds made for some of the remaining miniatures I was still interested in that have become impossible to find.

My reasons for this (beyond the obvious of obtaining miniatures which can't be found) were somewhat altruistic: I'd like others to be able to get the miniatures and play the game. I think LoS was (and is) a very good minis game. It may need some polish, but, at its core, it's a rock solid system. Coupled with that is the selfish (if a bit pie-in-the-sky) idea that more people playing means better chances of finding willing players.

During this process I realised that Clark also still had or had access to the original die for the LoS tiles. This got the gears turning in my head, as I have access to a die press. I have also scanned the unpunched tilesets, and I had been intending to take those scans into GIMP (an open-source Photoshop-type software) and colour correct the differing tilesets (Black Box/Blue Box/Template Pack 1 are a different hue than Advanced Rules/Junction Point/Template Packs 2-5) so I could reprint them for myself. Suddenly, the idea of re-printing the Black Box game didn't seem so far-fetched.

Now, let me be clear: I am not so misty-eyed with nostalgia that I think a direct re-print of the game could be commercially successful! There have been massive changes in the boardgaming industry since Global Games folded, and the production values of modern boardgames (and miniature games, for that matter) have gone through the roof in the interim. However, if interest in the game could be re-kindled, then perhaps some sort of true re-launch could be feasible. This is where several seemingly unrelated but very interesting developments come in.

The first of these is Kickstarter. Now, this has already been discussed by several people in this very thread, and I don't want to get into it too deeply just yet, but, suffice it to say that this is an obvious vehicle for the relaunch of a game like this. There are a number of challenges involved with that, the first of which is that Kickstarter cannot operate in Canada, where I believe Clark is located. Another potential problem is simply the question of how munch brand recognition LoS still carries; successful Kickstarter campaigns rely on reputation (at some level) for their success (Ogre still had a dedicated following; Sedition Wars had McVey's name which is well know in the miniatures industry; Reaper is an existing, successful company). Finally, a campaign that looks for all of its capital (e.g. has no seed money) from the Kickstater itself appears far riskier than one that simply wants money to pretty itself up. That perceived risk (whether due to reputation or lack of financial backing) heavily affects peoples' decisions to back Kickstarter campaigns.

This segues nicely into the failed Kickstarter for Vor: the Maelstrom 2.0: the original Vor was another tabletop miniatures wargame, from the now defunct FASA Corporation, and it was aimed directly at GW's blackened corporate heart. It was also a better game (mechanically speaking) than 40k (once again, my opinion, but also shared by an awful lot of people familiar with both). The original creator of Vor (Mike "Skuzzy" Nielsen, coincidentally a Canadian like Clark), who still held the rights to it, opened his own website and slowly gathered the remains of the hardcore Vor fanbase around him. After a year or more of ongoing discussions, he announced that he would be running a Kickstarter to fund the production of Vor 2.0, and there was much rejoicing! What this meant was that he would write the new Vor 2.0 Rulebook, and possibly stretch that into the various Forcebooks. All he needed was $25,000 for cool new art (there are still miniatures in production for the game from IronWind Metals). Let me run that by you again: he wanted $25,000 for a new rulebook for which noone had seen a manuscript, and he had no previous Kickstarter (or other) successes. Needless to say, the campaign flopped. Now, I'm not saying that $25,000 was necessarily too much money for all the art needed in a new book of the scope proposed; I haven't priced out artwork like that, and have really no idea. The problem was that Mike had no current reputation for success on a project like this, had nothing showing what work had been done thus far, and in the end was relying entirely on the nostalgia of gamers that already knew the original game. As an aside, he also badly mismanaged his website, with many people reporting problems joining and posting, along with dropping off for long periods of time. The site has now been nothing but an "under construction" landing page for more than a couple years, and I've seen even the most diehard fans admit on other sites that the game is well and truly dead. This is an object lesson on what not to do for Legions of Steel. Remember: if you can't be a good example, you can always be a terrible warning!

The next seemingly unrelated event was the release of Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster via Kickstarter. For those of you who don't know what a quick Google can tell you, SW:BforA is a game in the mould of Space Hulk or Legions of Steel, with two assymetric forces battling it out through various missions in a sci-fi dungeon. The Kickstarter was hugely successful, in no small part due to Mike McVey being attached to (and championing) the project as a sculptor. As it turns out, the game itself kinda sucks (my opinion, but increasingly shared by others), but boy! Are those minis cool, or what? Regardless, I believe that the success of this Kickstarter shows that there is still a strong desire amongst boardgamers for something that scratches a Space Hulk kind of an itch. Games like Incursion and Earth Reborn are attempting to capitalize on that.

Number three (or is it four, counting Vor?) of my list of unrelateds happened while I was spending a few minutes in a bookstore, trying to kill some time. I walked through the gaming section (read: past the single gaming shelf) thinking I'd conduct a little research on which RPGs actually get sold in big chain bookstores these days. What instead caught my eye was a beautiful little hardcover, gorgeously produced, titled Tomorrow's War. Once again, for those that can't work a search engine, it's a tabletop miniatures wargame. I browsed through the book for five or so minutes before deciding to head straight for the cash register with it in hand. This is the first gaming impulse buy I have made in a very, very long time. The proliferation of online information sources now means that it's never actually necessary to buy any game without knowing pretty much everything there is to know about it in advance. In this case it was quite lucky for Osprey books that their graphic design worked; online reviews (read after I got it home) that turned up when I decided to see if there was much of a player base tear the book to shreds. Some of that is well-deserved, as the rulebook does a terrible job of presenting the rules - had I read the reviews first, I wouldn't have bought it - but underneath the mess is a very good game. The point to this particular rambling anecdote is twofold: first, graphic presentation is crucial, and some of that means adapting to the different (from when LoS was released) aesthetics of the day, as that can make all the difference between a purchase and an indifferent shrug; second, making sure there's nothing as silly as rampant typos, a missing index, or poorly laid-out rules helps minimize the odds of scathing reviews that kill the game's chances before it can get a toehold. What does all this have to do with Legions of Steel? Tomorrow's War bears more than a passing similarity to Stargrunt II, a more than 15 year-old game.

 The last two things I'm going to string together, as they both have to do with production of miniatures. One was already mentioned in another thread (see here), and that's a new plastic that can be spin-cast, and apparently with some pretty funky undercuts (the significance of which is too complicated to explain in detail). Here's the background: metal miniatures for gaming are made by various casting processes, mostly spin-casting. The advantage to spin-casting and metal miniatures are that the startup costs are very small (in the hundreds of dollars per miniature). The major disadvantages are that production is much slower, vastly more expensive per part (the larger the production run the worse this gets), and cannot hold as much detail on the miniature. Plastic miniatures, on the other hand, are typically moulded in some type of runner mould. The advantages here are many: speed of production (once the mould runs), amount of detail possible on the model, ease of assembly, and ridiculously low cost per part (that only gets better the higher the production run). The disadvantage is mostly about one thing: the capital outlay to build and run the mould are enourmous in comparison, as much as a couple orders of magnitude higher. Being able to do this could allow new, improved plastic miniatures to be made for the game without the massive capital requirement that plastic moulds normally require. Similarly, a recent announcement that Mutant Chronicles has been picked up and a new Kickstarter launched revealed that they are using very new versions of rapid prototyping machines to create the miniatures (unless the Kickstarter raises enough funds for plastic molds to be made). Previously this wasn't feasible, as the plastic 3D prototyping machines that were affordable (you could get a Dimension model the size of a stove that would sit in your office for $30,000 even 8 years ago) couldn't produce the detail required for 25mm figures. They were basically 3-axis hot glue guns, and prototypes had a ridged appearance, as they were built in layers (which is what all rapid prototyping does). The images shown of the early miniature builds for Mutant Chronicles show none of this, and look amazing for prototyped components. If this is on the level, it's a watershed moment for 3D printing, and potentially opens up another avenue for getting the (new) miniatures into production.

Okay, this post has turned into a novel, so I'll string all this together and lay out where I'm going in another post later.






Best Regards,
Bobloblah

Offline Warchariot

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #24 on: February 24, 2013, 10:19:55 AM »
All of your points are well taken. I read the other posts a couple of weeks ago, so forgive me if I repeat any points already made.

First, Vor Kickstarter wasn’t pushed on the obvious sites as this is the first I heard of them doing a kickstarter. I check TMP and Tabletop News at least five times a week and have for years, didn’t see it there.

Second, Kickstarter is a misnomer; it real isn’t about kickstarting a project as the failed Beyond the Gates of Antares shows. It doesn’t matter how big your name is, if you don’t have an almost finished produce to show, the kickstarter will flop. It also didn’t help that they wanted a huge amount of money for a game that was a year or more away.

Finally, you need lots of rewards and stretch goals to build the excitement and keep people adding to their pledge. I’m supporting a couple of kickstarters right now. The Hell Dorado: Inferno Expansion only has 300 backers (on Feb 24th @ 7:30am MST) yet has over $35,000. This means the average pledge is about $120. If you just want the new book and cards, plus a new fig, you only need to pledge $50. I’m in at the $100 level because I can trade stuff in from that level for new stuff which may or may not unlock. I’m willing to take the chance because of what I see and what has already been released. I’m also watching Mutant Chronicles as a game I played back in the LOS days. I haven’t jumped in because I don’t like the computer gen figs. I want to see real ready for production figs that look like what they are showing.

I know I said finally already, but one last point. The kickstarters I have backed are ones where all the above is true, and the owner is on the site a lot. They answer comments continual and up-date ASAP after a goal is reached. I checked The Hell Dorado site just as it went over 35,000 and got an update while I was watching the site! Now that is showing interest in your kickstarter. If LOS does a kickstarter, it must be ready to go, or this will truly kill the game.   
Larry
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Offline bobloblah

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2013, 11:19:20 AM »
I largely agree with most of what you've said here, but I'll speak to a few specific points if you don't mind me fisking your post...

First, Vor Kickstarter wasn’t pushed on the obvious sites as this is the first I heard of them doing a kickstarter. I check TMP and Tabletop News at least five times a week and have for years, didn’t see it there.
It was "announced" there, if you can call it that, by which I mean it was mentioned it in the Sci-Fi forums. One can debate whether it was the lack of exposure the Kickstarter had (although it was a couple years ago, so that might be why you missed it) or lack of manuscript that killed it, but even with far more exposure I suspect it would have failed because of the latter; Mike was simply asking people to give him $25,000 with a vague promise of eventually delivering something.
Second, Kickstarter is a misnomer; it real isn’t about kickstarting a project...<snip>...It doesn’t matter how big your name is, if you don’t have an almost finished produce to show, the kickstarter will flop.
Agreed, and, again, I think this was the real problem with the Vor 2.0 Kickstarter.
Finally, you need lots of rewards and stretch goals to build the excitement and keep people adding to their pledge.
Agreed. This was another major problem with the Vor effort. There was minimal incentive for people to pledge more. Sure, you could get varying levels of your name in the book, or a planet named after you, or a character...but really, who cares? These things are neat, but ephemeral. You want people to throw money at you, offer them something tangible.

I’m also watching Mutant Chronicles as a game I played back in the LOS days. I haven’t jumped in because I don’t like the computer gen figs. I want to see real ready for production figs that look like what they are showing.
Have a look at the kickstarter page, there are pictures there of physical production figures.

The kickstarters I have backed are ones where all the above is true, and the owner is on the site a lot. They answer comments continual and up-date ASAP after a goal is reached. I checked The Hell Dorado site just as it went over 35,000 and got an update while I was watching the site! Now that is showing interest in your kickstarter.
Yeah, this can be a real problem. I don't mean to call Clark out here, as I have no idea what's going on in his life. But if you actually want a project to get anywhere, there needs to be someone handling the day-to-day, hands-on community involvement. That's not to say it needs to be Clark himself, but if any LoS project eventually gets serious, someone will need to flll that role. One of the reasons I've been off the site for so long (well before the new baby) was the fact that I felt my posting efforts were simply falling into a black hole, and I was getting little or nothing back. That kind of thing kills a community.

If LOS does a kickstarter, it must be ready to go, or this will truly kill the game.
I don't totally agree with this. It doesn't need to be totally ready to go, but there needs to be enough real work already done that it looks like more than just smoke and mirrors. Anyway, great points you've raised.
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Bobloblah

Offline Warchariot

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2013, 12:11:47 PM »
Thanks for your feedback. In regards to...

Quote
Have a look at the kickstarter page, there are pictures there of physical production figures.

You're right, I just want to see more figs that look done. I'm glad they are getting input from comments and changing the look of some figs, but this makes me wonder how long I would have to wait to see them in my hands.

I do think if LoS started a Kickstarter that failed, it would kill any chance of restarting the game short of someone else buying it up. It sounds like that is what happened to Vor 2.0, they started to ask for money before they were ready with a produce someone could hold in the next few months.

Good chatting ;)
Larry
Cheyenne, WY

Offline Dave Chase

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2013, 12:42:49 PM »
Well I do check daily but I did drop off the radar a bit spending 40 days in the hospital.

Then the Chemo kicks my butt every two weeks.

Back on topic,

Yes there needs to be some activity and focus on the game if it is going to be revived.

Mongoose is an example of a company that finally after much pushing from many of us, has jumped into the miniature games with kickstarter and are doing well.

Their Judge Dredd kickstarter took off wonderfully and the Rogue Trooper stalled a bit because everyone expected the same type of stretched goals like Judge Dredd.

They have adjusted a bit and seem to slowly gaining again.

I will help were I can, I am not fully up to date and off the top of my head rule knowledgable at this moment but I can definately help out some.

Dave Chase
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Offline Warchariot

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #28 on: February 24, 2013, 03:07:17 PM »
Good luck to you. my wife as had 25 rounds of chemo and a stem cell transplant over the last two years. It is a long hard road. She is just now growing some hair back.
Larry
Cheyenne, WY

Offline bobloblah

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Re: A detailed example: kickstarter
« Reply #29 on: February 24, 2013, 04:27:05 PM »
That's a long, hard road...best of luck to both you, Dave, and your wife, Larry!

Back on topic, I think Larry hit the nail on the head: a failed revival campaign can kill any chance of another attempt. It's important Clark keeps this in mind, as his initial attempt at a rule re-write derailed due to personal issues. I understand it, it totally happens, but it doesn't change the fact that this kind of thing buries games.

I will help were I can, I am not fully up to date and off the top of my head rule knowledgable at this moment but I can definately help out some.

Dave Chase
I think that much from a handful of people is all it takes to keep things moving. As for rules knowledge, I doubt that's such a concern unless you're actively playtesting, or are the line editor. As I discovered when I posted some battle reports a while back, my own memory of the rules was fairly flawed, even on major points like Initiative.
 :P







Best Regards,
Bobloblah