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Post by ooiittee on Aug 27, 2015 6:49:28 GMT
How many of you have supported a kickstarter project?
What was it for?
Did you feel you got your money worth?
If you havent supported what was stopping you?
Thinking of launching a campaign and looking for some general experiences from war gamers.
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Post by Richard on Aug 27, 2015 10:14:00 GMT
What are you kickstarting maybe email me always interested , I haven't joined In one yet but have seen some very interesting projects have thought about doing one myself I no onslaught miniatures use it a lot to bring new ranges out
Richard
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Post by tim on Aug 27, 2015 11:57:17 GMT
Never backed one but never seen one that the end product was anything I would need. Might be tempted if the product would be usefull.
Tim
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Post by steve on Aug 29, 2015 17:16:09 GMT
I have done it twice for board games. I have found from my experience and reading comments it is terrible for established companies. The take your money and then get it to shops before backers, and was cheaper in shops, and generally have poor communication. just feels like they are making their cash flow better and don't give a damn about the backers. So on my first experience and reading comments I would steer clear. However, I joined a second one before the first delivered and the experience was very different. It was for a new game designer and his first large scale commercial game. His communication was very good and constantly updated everyone about what was going one, throughout development and once dispatch started. Some people had problems in some areas of the world during dispatch but he was always finding out what was going on and telling people. The game came before it was in the shops - he did not send to shops until all kickstarters filled. Also the value was good, cheaper than the shops but just generally felt like a good price for a very good quality product. So if you want some tips:
communicate constantly - every week ideally with update emails; don't sell to shops before backers; make sure the cost ends up cheaper than shops (if you plan on it being in shops); price it so that it feels good value but still gives you the support needed
Steve
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Post by ooiittee on Aug 30, 2015 20:19:40 GMT
Thanks Steve. Some good sound advice there. Thank you for sharing your experience.
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Post by ian on Sept 13, 2015 17:20:14 GMT
I've backed two miniature projects
one promised the world with loads of extras free and delivered poor quality castings. Still not fully supplied the figures and it's over two years too late
Second give much smaller discount off price, only a few free additions and also was about 9 months late. The difference was very high quality figures and well worth the investment.
My recommendations is to do the math very well and work out realistic goals both for rewards and supply. Will x success push back the delivery date and if so don't be afraid to update your backers.
When things go wrong or time frames stretch then inform your backers giving realistic time frames. Consistently failing to deliver on promises that were unrealistic really annoy backers.
It's a difficult balance between offering enough enticements to get the funding and giving so much away the project can't make a profit.
Profit the dirty word in our hobby. Be realistic, you need to charge enough that not only do you make a profit off this wave of purchases but when the backers and new customers want to buy in the future it's a realistic price that gives you a return whilst not being or seeming to be too high. backers will not want to pay double what they paid in the first place whilst forgetting that it was too good to miss then, now it's viewed as expensive.
Your future price has to be competitive, if you have to sell at £10 to make a reasonable return whilst company x can charge £6 your business won't work unless your product is at least twice as good as the other guys.
Always work back from how much will you sell the item for to how much will it cost to produce. If you can't make that work your product will not sell. You would be amazed how many professional companies fail to do this! My last company worked the opposite way round and produced hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of items that had to be sold heavily discounted due to this error even though I had pointed out the error before production!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good luck on this as it's not at all easy to get right
Ian
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Post by ooiittee on Sept 13, 2015 21:20:13 GMT
Thanks Ian more good advice.
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Post by jambo1 on Sept 14, 2015 4:56:53 GMT
Never supported one before, never too sure of them to be honest.
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Post by Richard on Sept 18, 2015 10:25:43 GMT
When will the kickstarted be announced really want to see your product ?
Richard
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Post by ooiittee on Sept 18, 2015 11:26:16 GMT
Its been a while since I posted this. I am keen to launch but I am really taking the advice posted here to heart. I want to ensure that our plan is solid and we can sincerely achieve what we say we can and stretch goals.
It has been a massive endeavour consuming well over 200 hours effort to date.
The next step requires the funds we plan to raise. So my plan is to launch a product we had planned to follow the major project first so that we can get it right kickstarter wise. Apply those lessons and move onto the big projects final step.
The last thing I want to do is let down anyone how takes the time to get involved. That starts, for me, in ensuring I listen to this community and get it right.
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Post by Richard on Sept 18, 2015 14:32:39 GMT
Well your marketing is good I'm sooo intrigued now!!!
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Post by Orlog Subedai on Sept 18, 2015 15:26:28 GMT
I backed a miniatures project, but only because it was made by a reputable company and was a range of figures in the scale I was interested in. They delivered everything they said they would although afterwards admitted that they had lost money on the deal because some of the backers reneged on their promised amounts or dropped out completely. This cold be something to look out for, maybe -if feasible- a percentage deposit first.
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Post by ooiittee on Sept 21, 2015 7:10:00 GMT
Thanks subedai i did not think of that. Will give that consideration.
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