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The Kickstarter Effect
Kickstarter launched in 2009. The hobby game industry has grown every year since 2008, had 14% growth last year and is 2.25 times bigger than it was in 2008 which was the last year with recorded decline. ( source )
It has been predicted that Kickstarter would be the downfall of hobby gaming yet during the time since it's launch the market has more than doubled. So, has Kickstarter aided the market growth? Has the market grown in spite of Kickstarter? Non factor?
Other factors at work during this time is the rise of online discounters. Not to mention the vastly accelerated release schedule for game companies. Also the quality of licensed games has dramatically increased since that time. There has also been an increased presence in locations such as Target and Barnes and Nobel. Has the TableTop web series and other cultural references (Big Bang Theory) had an impact? The rise of quality miniatures and prepaints? Others factors that I may be missing?
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As for the prediction that Kickstarter would be the downfall (and I'm one who fell into that mindset), in some ways it's already come true. Prices are up, quality is down (when talking generally about KS). Everybody who has an idea sticks it out there. At some point, enough people will get burned that the cycle will start spinning the other way. No one will take chances, stores will stop stocking them, and people (normal people, not us) will stop talking about them.
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- Colorcrayons
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KS inst killing anything, but there is a lot of dross offerred on that site. The signal to noise ratio is not really beneficial, since it creates cynicism in consumers in the long run.
KS does it job, which is for creative people to make their thoughts into reality. Though there is an effect where too many options has a detrimental effect on the subject matter.
I still look for KS games, but rarely am tempted into backing one. I still hold out hope for good designs to pop up there.
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- SuperflyPete
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It, however, has hurt the industry from an EXPECTATION OF QUALITY and PRICE perspective. It caused huge price creep, and lowered the bar of outrage against high-priced games. Plastic is FAR cheaper than it was even 2 years ago, yet the price of games has risen exponentially. Sea freight is much cheaper. Land freight is much cheaper. There's no reason that a 5000-unit order of games is more expensive now than it was, but alas, we're paying. So, the "outrage bar" has been lowered exponentially. The HOLY FUCK 100$ GAME has become the KICKSTARTER NORMALLY PRICED GAME.
Also, the quality expectation is much lower, as so many "meh" (read: Solid 7) games come out that it's really quite interesting. From the amateur market analyst perspective, I'm seeing the market being completely fine with lower quality games at greatly higher prices. Not even RECREATIONAL DRUGS can boast a higher price at a lower quality and higher supply.
I think a lot of the price thing has to do with a sort of illusionary scarcity - people feel that if they don't buy now, and pay huge prices, they may never get a chance to own it later. This is compounded by the huge industry of PAID PREVIEWS that has fed the hype machine. It's like the old review payola game "I will either give a good review or not review it at all because I just don't have time to play a bad game enough to 'understand it'", but now, it's compounded by the fact that people are PAYING for the promotional value of having a well known reviewer with a huge subscriber base providing an infomercial. It's the industry equivalent of "native advertising". I fear the next thing is "Check out this WEIRD TRICK to play so-and-so better" videos appearing in my window as I watch a BGG review.
It's the most peculiar, and fascinating, industry, from a marketing and sales perspective.
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My gut says not really. I think there's as many Solid 7's as their are hits and missed in both channels.
The price of games has gone up naturally though during this period. I remember taking days to decide if I should get Silverton which was $42 in a field of $30 games (give or take $5). But, consider, is there much difference between the "completionist" on Kickstarter than in Arkham? A full run of Arkham now costs what...$300? Pandemic for a complete set is $100+. Robinson Crusoe I've dropped at least $100+ on the game, first expansion and other misc stuff from Portal. So is there much different between buying a whole like at Kickstarter all at once? Or spreading it out over the course of months? Is this a Kickstarter thing? Or natural?
As far as getting dropped from traditional retail channels, I think that's already happening, especially with Cool Mini or Not games. When people know that there's tons of exclusives they can't get they go to secondary markets. When people know there are customers in the secondary market, they'll pump up their pledges.
A new thing that I haven't seen before is happening with Thunderbirds. Sometime today (if they haven't already), they're locking the current pledge level and opening up a new one with a higher price. Kind of like an early bird but more flexible. I got in at 65 Pounds, but that's going to lock and move up to 70 or 75 Pounds I think.
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I was feeling a little withdrawal myself today, clicked on a story about a project that was ending today, and spent $60 more dollars, so it's not like I'm above it or anything.
I pretty much agree with all of the above. Good -- at least temporarily -- for the bottom line, probably bad in the long run like most any bubble. In the end, though, that *mostly* matters to speculators, because I'll still have what I want to play and probably people to play those things with. I've largely lost interest in whether the rest of the world "gets" the hobby, and while I won't be a reverse snob and say that the hobby was better off before everyone else got in on it, my evangelizing days are behind me.
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- Michael Barnes
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So what if Kickstarter has put a lot more games on the market. More games equals more trash. But all of the above fits perfectly into the BGG mentality where buying and trainspotting games is more important than actually playing them. It's a perfect storm. You can be engaged in the hobby by just WAITING to get a game that you pre-purchased last year.
Sure, there's been a couple of good KS titles. But you know what? I'd have gotten along just fine without them. There are still good games coming from traditional channels where there is an incentive to produce a top-quality game beyond pacifying "backers".
TL;DR- fuck Kickstarter.
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- Sagrilarus
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S.
P.S. My first online purchases were in 2006 so that timing isn't coinciding with the time period covered. I picked up copies of Carc back then for $16.50. Runs $24.00 now.
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- Michael Barnes
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- Michael Barnes
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For there to be less JUNK on the market, for there to be less confusion about what is/isn't worth buying and for there to be lower-priced, more ACCESSIBLE games. Not games with "locked" content available for the whales willing to take the deep dive on day one without much more to go on than some meaningless web marketing.
It's more "good for the hobby" for a game to be on the shelf at Target or talked about like how Settlers was with that ball team or whatever than it is for there to be another god damned bullshit miniatures game with a bunch of "exclusive" shit for the suckers willing to pony up to bankroll a person or company's investment. Kickstarter is and always will be for the die-hard hobbyists more interested in collecting than playing games.
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- Sagrilarus
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Michael Barnes wrote: And how does peak oil figure into all of this?
Oil is cheap again, that may not be a bad question to ask. Just not for this conversation.
In '96 I sat in a meeting with AT&T execs where they came to the following conclusion -- "cell phone penetration is 12%, and we can't expect it to go much higher. We need to focus on getting more dollars out of each subscriber." Sounds kinda stupid, eh? A bit of a miscalculation.
More revenue is good. But if you're grinding four times as much money out of the same customers it's going to peak pretty quickly.
Maybe we should be asking about Peak Kickstarter instead of Peak Oil.
S.
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Sagrilarus wrote: Are those numbers revenue growth, unit growth, or purchaser growth?
They don't go into that detail, in the full publication the probably do. As it is a survey of distributors and retailers my money is on revenue growth. Otherwise unit would be double counted. Purchaser isn't that reliable.
What I find interesting though is contrary to many economic principles the market is growing. And its growing across the whole spectrum. Economic principles say that demand should go down as product prices go up, yet we don't see that in Kickstarter or in regular retail games either as those prices inflate.
We do have more junk, more noise, more variety and less of a chance for individual titles to rise to the top.
I believe I've asked before, but please detail a half dozen Kickstarter Disasters.
I'll start off with Sedation Wars, Myth, Up Front and Airborne in your Pocket. Beyond that there's some that maybe aren't as good as people would like, aren't as polished. But those we're talking about a few thousand units, a pimple on a hogs ass. I guess Glory to Rome lost the guy his house, but the consumer didn't care since they got their products eventually. Now, I don't count long shipping delays a disaster, but maybe I'm forgetting some.
Reading this ICv2 article I was a little surprised to hear over a two fold market increase since '08 because yes I felt saturation would cause an implosion. Higher prices should mean less demand. Then I also read W Eric Martin's stream of consciousness thread (in the horrible 144 character limit Tweet style) but there's interesting points that he makes and I think it makes a bit of sense.
If you agree with Martin's New Games Are for New Gamers premise and theory it does make sense as to why people continue to back multi-hundred dollar games on KS (they haven't before, they aren't the ones with six already backed), they haven't been burnt, they're excited for their first rodeo.
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