Naive me, I thought that not only did they take care of the website and marketing, but also liaised with companies who created the actual game components. Now after seeing the crash and burn of insane space game girl and her plan to print cards out herself on an inkjet she had at home, I see I'm wrong.

How does it work then, how on earth do randoms on the street who think they can make a game work out how much to ask for, how much they need, how many copies they will print, how to source all the material and stuff. I would have thought (again probably naive) that all the practical matters of putting the components and art together are exactly the things that random guy on the street has no fucking idea how to get going (I mean, design and testing too but random street guy probably thinks he CAN do that, and I guess backers will decide if he has a point or not). But its like, isnt the biggest barrier to publishing a game finding a way to produce the game itself, so erm, kickstarter doesnt do that but asks you to randomly select an amount and then you still have to figure all that out yourself

I'd like to say wow, but I guess I just had no fucking clue thats how it worked.

Ok, first of all, Kickstarter isn't quite what the boardgaming community made it out to be (a big P500). It's just crowdsourcing the fund any kind of artistic endeavor. If I wanted, I could start up a kickstarter to staple my balls to a dollar bill on video. Or ask for money for my garage band to record a single so we can one day make it big and OD on heroine.

Kickstarter is just a middleman to make these transactions happen. There is no official patronage or demand for a good to be finished, and many projects don't promise shit for contributing. If people used some common fucking sense and looked into the people they were contributing to and only funding projects will well structured goals, there wouldn't be fewer problems. The problem is dumb people.

LSDS: Click on the link in my "Consumerism" article. That goes to a big piece describing Kickstarter.

What a non-issue this is. Anyone stupid enough to back a totally random project from a totally random bro or bro-ette gets exactly what they deserve.

Like every single other part of life that deals with some sort of transaction, caveat emptor is the rule of the day at Kickstarter.

I backed the latest Mantic offering on kickstarter, which would be my first.

I hope it doesn't turn into a fairy fart

I didnt post to discuss crazy girl, but just, how are people finding the contacts, pricing and supplies to actually produce the game and decide on costing levels to ask for in support. I'm amazed there's been so many since I would have thought all that stuff is a huge undertaking on its own

ldsdbomber wrote:

I think your problem is that you're assuming even the most basic level of professionalism. I'll bet you anything you like that that's not the case with about 95% of Kickstarter game projects.

Bullwinkle wrote:
I've received a few Kickstarter board games so far, and I'll say the production quality so far has been good to really good. My copy of Castle Dash is pretty basic, but it was a cheap game and nothing was screwed up (except for some extra plastic tokens to be used as treasures which are crap, and wouldn't use anyways because the cardboard treasure tokens are better). If you look at Empires of the Void, the components are quite good. And the metal coins that came with Omen were kick ass.

I haven't seen components as being a major problem with Kickstarters, rather it's schedule. Games will often be late (extremely late in the case of some, IE. Glory to Rome). And of course, the games can be shit, let us not forget.

Basically, just listen to what TheDukester said, caveat emptor.

ldsdbomber wrote:


Where can I read about this?

Mad Dog wrote:


Right here.