Why I Don’t Back Kickstarters!

Matt: Today is a special day (Woop!), we have a guest post written by Chris Marling from the Go Play Listen blog. Chris not only writes about games, he is also a published designer, with Empire Engine and upcoming Pioneer Days from Tasty Minstrel Games. Also, he kind of doesn’t like Kickstarter…

 

Chris: It’s a bit like curry houses. You can go to one for years and get nice meals, but one bad curry and you’re immediately looking for a new place to get your spicy fix. Having said that there’s one problem with that analogy: in that I didn’t get good games from Kickstarter for years. In fact, I’ve only ever had one good game experience from Kickstarter (and that was made by friends).

I should caveat that by saying I’ve only backed three failures, while also having had good experiences from Kickstarter in other fields. It’s not Kickstarter, per se – its bullshit pop-up board game companies I have no faith in. One hit in four is a pretty pitiful return in anyone’s books, surely? And one of those was from a ‘proper’ company (or were until they went bust).

I won’t repeat my tales of woe here as you can read all about them over on my blog. The most important thing is that that’s only part of the reason. I do still kick myself for falling for the KS hype for a while, but now I’ve stepped back there are myriad reasons for steering well clear.

Name me a classic that’s come through Kickstarter

And I’m not talking reprints, or companies such as Queen and Cool Mini or Not who use Kickstarter as a marketing tool (and would go back to traditional ways if KS went tits-up tomorrow). I’m talking ‘proper’ Kickstarter games.

There’s nothing in the BGG top 50. Star Realms is the first genuine contender (67), with the criminally overrated Viticulture (76) and genuine contender Alien Frontiers (108) just behind. And even this is on a heavily US biased website where KS campaigners are well known for asking backers to rate games 10 during campaigns to increase buzz – and so sales and stretch goals.

Leave it to the professionals

More importantly, I’m a firm believer in publishers. Star Realms and Alien Frontiers would’ve been picked up if they’d been pitched around to the right companies, while Viticulture (and every other half-finished Stonemaier game) would’ve benefitted enormously from having proper development from people that do it for a living. If a game is good enough, it will make it to the shelves without you needing to whittle it in your own garage.

There’s an unpleasant arrogance to thinking you can do on your own what a whole string of experienced specialists do as a team (and sometimes still screw up). But worse than that is making fictional videos and half-baked (even if genuinely meant) promises to a bunch of your peers who you think it’s OK to take money from – even though you know full well that you may screw it all up and leave them with nothing.

But of course the fault really lies at the door of those people who back these projects and then come back for more – Glory to Rome (me included!), Up Front, Odin’s Ravens (saved by Osprey), Drake, Myth, Gripmats… the list of failures and disappointments goes on and on (and on etc). Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt – and I’m out. I’ll wait for games to be released, read the reviews, maybe try them, and then buy them. Why on earth would I gamble instead – especially with these odds?

 

Matt: Phwoar! Shots fired people! Now, I quite disagree (as can be read over on Chris’ blog). I am much more pro-Kickstarter (not sure I could be less!) but I can totally see where you’re coming from. There are a large number of Kickstarters coming from inexperienced designers/publishers, many of which would benefit from a more experienced hand at development. However, that’s not all that different from regularly published games. There are plenty of bad games out there.

Kickstarter is maturing, with its designers and publishers gaining experience with each project. It has created companies that probably would not have existed without it, companies like Red Raven Games (Above & Below, 8 Minute Empire), Tasty Minstrel Games (Gold West, Flip City), Gamelyn Games (the Tiny Epic series), Roxley Games (Steampunk Rally) and, yes, Stonemaier Games (Viticulture, Scythe). We’ve also seen 4 Kickstarter winners of the Mensa Select Award, a couple of Golden Geeks, and I’m convinced it’s only a matter of time before a Kickstarter game takes home a Spiel des Jahres.

Maybe their games could have been slightly better with more people working on them, but then maybe they would have lost elements that people love at the same time. Kickstarter allows people to publish something with complete creative control, and it allows us as backers to be a part of that process. Accusing creators of ignorantly taking money from backers is incredibly unfair, the number of funded projects that have failed to deliver their game is a tiny proportion of the whole.

It seems like you’ve had some pretty bad experiences on Kickstarter. I note that many of those were from first time creators, with whom you are always taking the biggest risk. They are also from a number of years ago, before it became standard practice to solicit reviews. Now, the trustworthiness of those reviews might be up for debate, but they tend to feature a valuable overview of the gameplay, allowing backers to make much more reasonable decisions. The hype has died down somewhat, untested games and publishers have a harder time than before. While there’s always an argument for waiting for retail, Kickstarter is as much about engaging with the passion of a creator as it is with getting a product, and that’s something you don’t get to experience after the fact.

 

Chris: You may find this hard to believe, but people do start games companies outside of Kickstarter! I know, right? They’ve been doing it for years. Sure, it’s a bit harder and you have to really make sure your game is good before you release it as you need to make the money back but hey – that’s called proper development and running a proper business. I’d be happy if the companies you mention hadn’t existed thanks to Kickstarter, because the good games – and good companies – would’ve happened anyway, just as they have been doing for years.

You keep mentioning a few publishers and games (even some of them I don’t agree with) but you well know the crap on KS far outweighs even the average, let alone good; that metric ton of poor games that backers have wasted good money on. And therein lies the rub – most gamers have a limited budget and it’s heart breaking to see them throwing it away on dreadful games they’ve never played or seen properly reviewed beforehand. And it’s especially galling when you see great games selling less copies purely because they missed the KS hype train that is barrelling along totally out of control.

I was sent a Kickstarter pre-release last week. Four of us sat down with it and gave up half way. If they’d brought it to the Cambridge design meet up in this state they’d have got hours of feedback about where they should start to try and make it better – and it would mostly be stripping it back to its few good core elements and practically starting again. Yet it will go probably hit Kickstarter soon as-is. And, because it looks pretty and the designers have probably read the ‘How to make a successful KS campaign even if your game is crap’ blogs, it will fund.

That’s not a healthy place for this industry to be, especially as more people arrive in the hobby. We should be celebrating the best, not the mediocre and often downright broken. And people who want to start businesses should be getting funding, making business plans and creating something sustainable – or selling their games to other people who can.

Finally, I don’t buy that you can’t engage with creators outside of Kickstarter. There are board game design groups in most towns and we’re always looking for willing play testers! Game designers put calls for testers up on Board Game Geek every day, while print and play and file sharing of prototypes has never been more active – let alone sharing files on the likes of Tabletop Simulator. Those are some genuine ways to get involved, rather than pseudo ones.

 

Matt: … and I really wish I could respond to this! But we had an agreed structure so I can only beseech you to go read my guest post, over on Chris’ blog, where I give rather more positive spin on the Kickstarter process!

But what, dear reader, do you think? Is Kickstarter a despicable money sink that the industry would be better off without? Or do you think that there is something more positive to be experienced with Kickstarter?