Kickstarter: What game(s) are you currently Kickstarting?

[MegaSilver]

Originally Posted by Hahma

When it comes to kickstarters anything, there are always people getting upset no matter what.

Fixed.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by MegaSilver

Fixed.

Thanks for the fix Mega

[Dad_Scaper]

His stretch goal system looked like shenanigans. It may not have been, but that is 100% what it looked like.

His fans said otherwise and I applaud their loyalty, but the critics, myself included, were right. If you're going to have stretch goals, you should not let it look like you're making it up as you go and like the backers will never get to the end. And that's what it looked like.

More tomorrow when I'm not phone posting at bedtime, if there's interest. Suffice it to say that, for myself, I am fully invested in this project and I have complete confidence in its future.

[Hahma]

Basically some people believed he suddenly turned into a real sumbag and wanted to cheat backers by setting the SG threshold to make most of them unattainable due to the early huge pledge amount received in the first day.

Others didn't think he suddenly turned into a big scumbag trying to cheat people.

He learned his lesson that people don't want daily surprises, but want to know upfront what can be unlocked, so they can hold onto their pledge until just the right moment where it will matter most. He will certainly
go back to using the standard SG format for future KS projects. That way people can wait until the 4 new encounter cards are unlocked before pledging.

People probably are also mad that there were no early bird discount pledge levels or KS exclusives that they can sell for big money on ebay.

[Dad_Scaper]

Well, I see we are going to have this conversation.

First of all, it was all clouded because some people - such as yourself, Hahma - assumed that the criticism was based on some distrust for Jamey. Or, as you suggest, an active dislike: "some people believed he suddenly turned into a scumbag."

Other people said that the critics were being unreasonably entitled, because they were saying that the contents of the box weren't good enough, and they don't understand how KS works, etc. Just another way of attacking the other guy, rather than listening before responding.

That kind of attack against the motives of the critics, as opposed to an attempt to honestly understand and exchange ideas, makes it difficult to have a serious conversation.

Second, let's be clear about how the Stretch Goals were structured. This was how he was doing it: On the KS page, when it went up, he said there would be Stretch Goals, and they would be revealed daily. Great! That's fine. No complaint. At the time, I *thought* that meant that he had already figured out what they would be and the step value for each one. So, based on the fabulous Day 1, the first few daily SG reveals would be already reached, because this was an unprecedented Day 1 for a board game with relatively few minis. We would find out on Days 2, 3, and maybe 4, what had already been unlocked with a historic Day 1.

But it turned out that the way it *actually* worked was that, on Day 2, the SG was the product of a formula: [Day 1 total] + $30,000 (or whatever it was). So, for the purpose of calculating stretch goals, all the investment on Day 1 didn't matter.

Jamey explained that the purpose of doing it that way was to encourage the building of community, but I think for some, including myself, the effect was the *opposite*. The community's enthusiasm was not rewarded. On the contrary, for the purpose of stretch goals, which many perceive as benchmarks for the community's support of a project, the Day 1 backers were taken for granted. For the purpose of stretch goals, their money was a sunk cost.

Moreover, the structure was unseemly. If the formula was [Day Before] + $x0,000, then it looks almost like a Ponzi Scheme, or a hamster on a wheel, or a greyhound on a track chasing a rabbit it would never catch. It was a tease, a taunt. Would a scumbag do that? Sure. Might a person who was *not* a scumbag, but hadn't realized how such a system would be perceived also do that? Maybe. I think I'd probably like Jamey, I really do, but his likeability didn't figure into my thinking.

Finally, this system created an incentive to withhold putting your money down until some combination of (1) as late as possible, (2) when something you want is the next SG, and (3) when support for the project is flagging. I suppose some people want to play those sorts of games with their pledges, but all I want is to put down a number that works for me and be happy for whatever SG's become available. Some of you might not care about that incentive, but it's tangible, and I think it's reasonable to say that some people - reasonable people, nice people, friends of ours - would actually want to maximize SG value.

No stretch goals would have been fine, too! I'm very happy with Epic, which had no SG's at all. But if you're going to have them, don't set it up in such a way that, if I want to maximize that value, there's an incentive for me to delay backing until I think, of the 24 (or whatever) days left, it's the right time to strike.

You might respond that the plan was all along that all the SG's would be unlocked. First of all, I don't accept that. I just don't accept that as a premise and I don't think that this new structure would have been more likely to cause that to happen. Second of all, this is an arm's length transaction. I don't distrust Jamey, I think he's great. This games looks terrific, and he has a track record of success. But he's not a personal friend of mine, and I want some transparency in the calculations.

I think the project looks great and I think he seems like a great designer & a good person. I also don't misunderstand Kickstarter in general or Stretch Goals in particular. If you're going to have them, though, I think the system should be set up so that the goals are clear, and don't (protests notwithstanding) take for granted every backer who's pledged on days before.

I don't understand why I should treat this as anything other than an arm's length transaction with someone I think I'd like & respect if I knew him in real life. It's Kickstarter; it's still an arms-length transaction.

Anyway. His current model is more traditional but still gives him the peiodic surprise effect he wanted, which is to tell us what the value of the "on deck" goal is, without saying what the reward itself will be. I hope he's happy with this model, which is more concrete. I know I am.

[Hahma]

Everyone has their views @Dadscaper and I agree that perhaps the original SG seemed kind of funky. I saw attacks on Jamey from more places than just the KS comments or BGG, but on the BGG FB page as well. So while I don't know Jamey at all, I have followed the Scythe project for a while and read some of his interviews as well as watched a video interview, playthrough videos, and seen his involvement on BGG and seemed like what people would want designers to be, kind of like Colby. So from the impression that I had, I didn't see the original SG system as something with nefarious intent. Don't know why I cared to defend the guy, as I don't know him. But I guess it would be like if people called out Colby for generating a hype machine for PH games and then only releasing small amounts to create a setup for ebay sellers to profit off the system because of limited supply and demand. I mean, DoW and Ashes get all kinds of hype and then people can't find them anywhere after first release. I only met Colby once, but don't know him. But I would defend him as not the type to do such a thing on purpose because he seems like such a stand up guy. Then again, some people may think otherwise

People can choose to back KS projects in any way they want, get in right away, or wait until the last day to see what's unlocked.

I'm sure Jamey will totally go with the standard SG system next time, to avoid this mess that came up. Though I can't imagine he could have envisioned getting that much come in on the first day.

At least he didn't do like a lot of other publishers do and start out with real crap components and then take several SG levels just to get linen finish cards, or go from cheap plastic to start and then use up several SG to get top quality hard plastic. He went with the good stuff from the beginning.

Didn't really want this to be contentious DS. I guess I just got pretty annoyed with it for some reason, and then seeing people continually want this different or want that different. I mean, the guy was trying to do what people want from designers, put out real good quality and have the game be tested a lot. The game was tested a lot and all the stretch goals were tested, and that's all that is coming.

So many times, games aren't tested enough and it shows in either game play, ambiguity in the rules or both. In fact, I stopped backing a certain small time designer because of that.

Anyway, people had the right to be upset, just as much as people had the right to not get upset.

[Dad_Scaper]

Well, I didn't see anything other than what was on the KS comments page. I wasn't looking on BGG, which can be a needlessly nasty place, or FB.

I know he (literally) wrote the book on Kickstarter. I think, however, that this SG system was flawed, for the reasons I wrote above.

[Hahma]

Like I said, I'm pretty certain he won't try it again. Didn't work out and caused decisiveness.

[Hahma]

I thought this was a pretty good post on BGG by a gentleman named Jeremiah Power:

As someone who's invested hours of playtesting into this game, I hardly have a unbiased position, but I backed on day 1 because I was excited about the game and wanted to be involved with the whole campaign. I liked the idea of unlocking a new stretch goal every day, kind of like way the Tuscany expansions were "uncorked". That said, I can see how people who really enjoy traditional stretch goals were upset, especially due to the gap between days 1 and 2, and there were some fair points made. I understand that you might feel cheated because $500,000 should earn more than 4 cards. I can see your perspective, and I ca't say you're wrong.

But since we're trying to be fair about it, look at it from the other perspective. As someone else in the KS comments pointed out, it wasn't as if Jamey had some nefarious plan to keep the stretch goals from being reached. Who could possibly benefit from that plan? So in my mind, there was no doubt we'd hit every goal; they were as good as unlocked. Did anyone honestly think that after the game raised that much on day 1, and the community showed such an outpouring of support that Jamey would throw away all of the good will he's worked hard to earn for the last few years by setting an unreasonable goal at the end of the campaign? Again, who benefits from that? I can understand the mindset that "my pledge isn't really helping when the project is half a million dollars past funded, and the stretch goals don't matter. But for most of us it was more that we got to be a part of making Scythe a reality than helping upgrade from cardboard to wooden stars.

I will admit when I saw the stretch goal on day 2, it wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped it would be, but I was ok with it, because there were 23 more stretch goals coming! Just because the first one didn't blow me away wasn't justification to take the comments section and argue that the campaign wasn't being run the way I wanted it to be. The beauty of KS is that we're all a part of the campaign, but let's be honest, it's much more of Jamey's campaign than it is ours. I've put over 40 hours and three months gaming budget into this project, which I daresay is more than most. But Jamey's put months into it. If I don't like how he decides it ought to be run, it's not as if I'm obligated to back. There are several other campaigns running right now that look really cool and offer the traditional stretch goals.

That's not to say that there's no room for constructive criticism. If you want to back a project, but think there's room for improvement, by all means, feel free to let the creator know. Just do it in an appropriate and respectful way. There was some of that in the comments, but a lot of the comments were much more vitriolic than they needed to be. And there may have been others that I missed, but this was the first post I saw anywhere that had any sort of gratitude to Jamey for conceding to the demands to switch. That's why I took the time to write this, because I admire the respectful way the OP went about doing it, and him taking the time to say thanks.

If I sound overly impassioned about a really small part of a massive campaign, know that it's less about the stretch goals, and more about how Jamey was treated through the whole thing. Had this been a first time, unknown creator, it would definitely seem fishy and merit all of the warnings of backers pulling their pledge. But Stonemaier's run some of the best KS campaigns ever, and there aren't many people that have done as much for the gaming community in the last few years as he has. And to see all of that ignored and him having to resort to begging people to please talk about something else really struck a nerve with me.

[Dad_Scaper]

Sounds like what he's saying is the critics had a fair point, but shouldn't be @#$%s about it. Which is fine with me.

If anything, he's understating validity of the "critic" position. And in the KS comments thread, the people who were being nasty were not the critics, but those mocking them. So if I, in turn, am a little defensive, it's because I've seen the critics being the ones attacked, despite (from what I saw, in the only place I was looking) their constructive and fair presentation of the issue.

I do agree with this bit that it shouldn't overshadow the campaign, in which I've fully invested.

[Hahma]

I'm in at the $99 Collector's level. I like the feel of metal coins in a game, like in Omen Omega Edition from SBG. And I think the resin resources will be nice, sinice the resources stay on the board until you spend them, instead of just in you play area.

I would like the art book, but I think that at some point, I'd rather put that money towards a nice print or canvas from the artist, Jakob Rozalski.

[Dad_Scaper]

I decided to go in at $99, too.

As for the other thing, I looked at one 4-page thread, which was IMHO BGG at its worst. Some people trying to have a serious conversation, on both sides, and many people (all on one side, as far as I could tell) sneering at them, and being condescending. There's a reason I don't go to that site as often as I come to this one.