The Crowdfunding Thread

A quick look and Orbit is the only one that interests me

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Iā€™m sure theyā€™re all fun, but I am not backing any of them. Got to get more of my already owned games played.

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Cowardly change in art.

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Steamforged Games are launching a new Bardsung game out, if anyone is interested in oversized mini heavy long campaign games that will collapse your shelves like me.

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Thereā€™s a new Discworld RPG coming from Modiphius:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modiphius/terry-pratchetts-discworld-rpg

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Thibaud de la Touanne (V-Commandos/V-Sabotage, Assassinā€™s Creed) and Triton Noir have a new game coming out: Gods Heist. (The lack of apostrophe is apparently deliberate.)

I do very much enjoy the mechanics of V-Commandos, but I also like it because itā€™s such a good fit for the setting, and this takes it from a setting I quite like (WWII special operations) to one that sparks no interest in me at all (generic fantasy). Also the card play feels from the trailer as though itā€™s trying to be in the Gloomhaven or Wildlands sort of space. So Iā€™ll give this one a miss.

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This reminds me I need to get Assassinā€™s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice to the table. Got it as I like the IP and enjoyed our forum plays of V-Commandos. Also need to run through the V-Sabotage: Ghost campaign expansion. Itā€™s solo anyway, so just need to make some time to do it, while Iā€™m hoping I can get my wife and brother-in-law to join me on Assassinā€™s Creed. He likes the IP, too, at least.

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I thought I would be backing the new Root campaign. But I think Iā€™ll just wait for the next one, since I primarily have played solo and there doesnā€™t seem to be much in the way of solo content in this round.

I think theyā€™ll be releasing a PnP at some point and Iā€™ll use that to guide a decision to jump in on a late pledge later.

http://kck.st/3YvyUFo


I also thought I might be interested in the new Empire Builder gameā€¦ butā€¦ Iā€™m not. Looks fine. But itā€™s awfully expensive. If I didnā€™t own Eurorails already, Iā€™d probably be interested.

http://kck.st/3Yz3I8u


For whatever reason, itā€™s a busy day for crowdfunding projects. Iā€™ve gotten notified about 4 other projects launching today that I donā€™t even recognize (but somehow got on a mailing list or something)

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I get the feeling sometimes that thereā€™s an algorithm for ā€œbest day to launch this type of projectā€ and a lot pf people are paying for access to it.

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Yeah, some market research company out there did a study once and are selling the results to many companies.

Here in my part of the US, we have two major chains of drug store/pharmacy (the exact business model these stores use is probably strange to someone in Europe, so I wonā€™t try to explain further), Walgreens and CVS. Jokingly, I always mention that if you need to know where the nearest CVS is, just look across the street from the Walgreens; and vice versa. Almost always there will be both within a mile of each other all around town.

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I heard thatā€™s because of Nash Equilibrium, no?

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Well, yes.

A: ā€œIf we donā€™t move in there, our competitor will take all of the local business!ā€
B: ā€œBut if we do move in there, weā€™re only going to take half of it.ā€
A: ā€œBut thatā€™s half more than we would get if we donā€™tā€

A bit prisonerā€™s dilemma-y, really.

In reality, they should collaborate and split up the territory, thus shaving the cost of fixed overhead (building rent, utilities, staffing, etc), butā€¦ what if the other guy gets a better half of the territory? Then, suddenly weā€™re in a gerrymandering puzzle

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Does this get you busted under anti-competition laws?

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Absolutely!

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I wonder if just over half way in the month or so is the right lead up time to a payday.

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Probably not, but you would definitely violate them.

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I think the right amount of days before Christmas, plus the right amount of time after summer holidays, plus Halloween, Black Friday shenanigans may be the answer to the algorithm questionā€¦

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Every year I predict the end of the crowdfunding boom, and Iā€™m wrong (often thankfully), but thereā€™s been a whole bunch of crowdfunders recently which make me think this year I might be right:

A ā€˜Tā€™ game by Tascini illustrated by Bosley from Everdell, cancelled after funding because it was nowhere near as popular as they needed it to be.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liriusgames/timeless-journeys-the-italian-grand-tour?ref=android_project_share
A really professional page with decent footage or a nice looking game from a successful publisher. Cancelled with only 364 backers.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crowdgames/fabled-the-spirit-lands-and-expansion
A messy page this one, and unclear, which is suprising given itā€™s a reprint with an expansion of game apparently well received. Not cancelled, but I expect it to be.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/teetotum/restart
Cancelled despite funding, illustrative of just how much money was sunk into it.

In addition there are a number of games from which arenā€™t funding as quickly or as much as I would expect which Iā€™ve seen on Facebook, but canā€™t find them now. Obviously there are always games which donā€™t fund, but even just a year ago I would have been confident all the above would have funded well. Especially those with a ā€œProject we Loveā€ KS badge, which used to guarantee funding. Similary, whilst there are always games which draw all the money and oxygen from the room (such as the Root expansion), normally these games would co-exist side by side much more comfortably. Brutal times ahead.

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This sounds a tad subjective, I feel. Old farts find what they prefer preferable to what young fools prefer. Is either one more or less right or wrong than the other?

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If the game was designed with the average family/everyone rating in mind - which old games from the 90s and early 00s do - then the art direction/production of these kind of reprints should complement that.

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