And now onto Kickstarter.....
So
a couple of people have talked about trying to kickstarter Giant Stone
Head which given the size of my readership is all of 6 people that must
make it the elephant in the room so I’ll talk about it.
This reflects my own personal experience of kickstarter your mileage may vary. This is one I put my money down for…
And very quickly I had a finished product in my hand. Because
what they offered is a pre-order for a very well developed game– with
the art done, the production arranged and them simply waiting for the
money to arrive.
It’s
about getting enough money so that you can cross a production threshold
– probably a 1000 copies - and enough copies pre sold so that you are
not going to be left with a ton of stock to warehouse. And heck if other people paid for them to be made you can ditch them
And
if you don’t make your kickstarter – well – you can head to a publisher
with a design good to go and see if they will take it. Heck you might even be a publisher looking to expand.
Like the guys behind this….
And if you can do it – it’s a good and clever business model. So why am I not interested? Because it’s running before you can walk. Lifted from the write up of the people responsible for that above game
“James
Mathe (Owner of Minion Games) has been a part of the hobby game
business for well over a decade. <snip> We have delivered more
then 5 kickstarter projects to date! More info can be read at my
personal website below”
That’s where I want to be – but that’s a goal – not a first move. But why is it not a first move?
What does kickstarter get you? Kickstarter gets you – a website, a secure way of doing the transactions with people and that is it. That’s all they give you – if I started a kickstarter I’d be responsible for pimping it and driving people towards it. And you know what – I’ve no experience or forum or reputation to help with that. I
don’t see how kickstarter helps me find 500 people to buy my game and I
don’t think I can find me 500 people to buy my game – and without that
an order of 1,000 copies is just not practical.
And even if I was successful I’d be left holding a massive pile of dollars with a lot of international orders. Hardly ideal for me in the UK It
would also up the scale of the whole thing massively – print 100 copies
it’s a hobby – print a 1000 and it’s a business and the tax man
cometh…….
So
production issues aside – I believe that making a 100 copies and
selling them direct is an important first step that I need to undertake. And
with a number of them under my belt – well then I can try and kickstart a proper business going – but there is a lot of ground work that
needs to be done first
I think that actually makes a great deal of sense. The only point that I'd make is if you sell via PayPal it doesn't really matter what currency you get paid in.
ReplyDeleteTrue - and post production one thing I'll have to do is create a website with a shop which almost certainly means paypal - and I won't turn away international orders - and I'm hoping I'll make some sales via that (although I'm expecting most of my sales to be via face to face at a con, then people I already know, and then finally to strangers over the internet......
Delete