Some kickstarters results puzzle me

I suspect that a lot of people are looking at the high target & thinking that it will be unlikely to reach its goal. There's more & more games being put up on Kickstarter, all trying to draw from the same limited pool of funds. This basically means that except for those few outliers that do exceptionally well most games will be needing a smaller target to convince punters that they will be able to reach it.

Personally, I wouldn't back it as it looks far to large to fit on our table & has way to many fiddley pieces on that play space for anyone I game with to be willing to play it.

High funding goal + no concise gameplay demo + no trusted reviews + unknown designer/publisher = recipe for failure.

Well, you don't have to go far - http://www.bgdf.com/node/17878

I think one of the reasons is that running a KS might seem to be "easy", while the collected sum appears "big". Unless of course you have at least some understanding of how it actually works.

Hence people often get this impression that KS is a place to get easy money without much investment and effort.

And then they meet the stark reality.

It looks to me that the project linked in the OP has probably gone to quite a bit of effort in the preparation of their game, but the effort has not necessarily been in the right areas. So often the case.

I decided to release several products instead of just one. Originally I was going to do one BIG Kickstarter and have backers wait over 1 YEAR for the artwork to be done...

Now everyone on BGDF (At least the honest people - like ElKobold) said that that was TOO MUCH time to wait. Backers are not going to want to wait OVER 1 year - just because my artist is busy with teaching 3 days out of the week.

And I took that advice to heart.

But I still wanted to GET THE GAME OUT... As soon as possible. So I did some analysis of the game to see if I could REDUCE the number of cards and have triples of each card. Now the artwork would still be *real nice* - but there would be LESS of it.

And if I could offer it at a LOWER price than the complete game - maybe we have an avenue to SELL the game in July 2016. And have the games delivered in August 2016... That's a WHOLE YEAR in ADVANCE (over the KS campaign).

Functionally people will be getting the SAME game - with less artwork. And IF we can get enough sales (100+ Game Sets), the price drops by 40%!!! We've already discounted the game by $5.00 for sale on "The Game Crafter". Combine with a 40% discount - the game is VERY AFFORDABLE.

And we are committed to SELL this game in ALL ITS GLORY - and that's why we will continue to deliver an "Art Bundle" which will feature 40 unique pieces of artwork to complement the original game. And again with 100+ sales, we are talking about another 40% discount. What this does is make buying BOTH the Early Release + Art Bundle the about the same price as the KS Version ($35.00).

This "Art Bundle" will be release in December 2016 and we will FEATURE a "Standard" Game set with all the unique artwork for sale at $29.99 on TGC. Again you will get the complete game EARLIER than KS Backers.

All this to ask: "What is the purpose of the Kickstarter?"

We hope to feature a CUSTOM game for KS Backers. This will include a foldable Game Mat, Custom Size box allow cards with Sleeves, place to store expansions (Vac-Tray), and an additional game Scenario ("Days of Glory").

And meanwhile, during this whole time (from today) to the KS in 2017, we are building AWARENESS about our game. Not only will we get in touch with our community - we will take time to solidify it. I'm not sure how successful I will be at this, but at least *I will TRY*!

So by the time the 2017 KS campaign is launched, we will already have SOLD Game Sets to Early Backers and tried to recoup some, if not all, of the money we have invested.

Hopefully we get some recognition along the way...

Cheers.