I back a lot of projects on
Kickstarter, and a few of them arrived in the mail this week. Most of
what I back are board games, but a few are miniatures, or video
games, or other geeky things. Crowd funding is a strange format; you
pay for a thing, then have to wait for months (or in some cases
years) before you get anything. The joke is that you pay to read
endless updates about production delays, and that's not far off from
the truth.
The projects with the most delays are
usually the ones that are incredibly over-funded; they hit all of
their stretch goals, and the project balloons well beyond its
original scope. Creators now have learned from their predecessors,
and are much better at tempering their enthusiasm with stretch goals,
and at estimating how long a project is going to take, but this was
certainly not the case a few years ago.
While these
big projects do have a lot more to look
forward to, several projects also compensate for the
inevitable delays by providing regular updates showing their
progress. Not only do these projects reassure backers that they are
still working on their project, but they also provide a fascinating
look behind the scenes; videos of the cards being printed (like
updates for The Agents) or work-in-progress images of miniatures with
notes on what changes are being made (like updates for Kingdom Death)
really help show what the process is to develop and to publish a
board game from start to finish. These snapshots are, for me, one of
the more rewarding aspects of Kickstarter, and one of the reasons I
keep coming back to it, even if I'm still waiting on projects I
backed well over a year ago to finish.
One project that I feel has excellent
updates like this was Xia: Legends of a Drift System. While this game
was delayed by several months, the game designer posted regular
updates detailing everything that he was doing to get the game made.
Moreover, he would regularly ask for feedback from the backers to
make decisions about the game. By including us, I was far more
excited for this game to arrive than most other projects I've backed.
I was not just a backer but was part of the team, voting on what to
name certain ships, or what the logo should look like, and so on. It
was not just a behind the scenes look at the making of a board game;
Xia invited backers in to get involved. And it was fantastic.
All of this talk of delays is not to
say that projects cannot ever ship on schedule. As I said before,
project creators are getting much better at anticipating exactly how
long it will take to finalize everything with their printers, and how
long to expect shipping to take. I was taken aback at how quickly my
copy of Stuff and Nonsense arrived, and I have found that the Dwarven
Forge projects (Dungeon Tiles and Cavern Tiles) shipped in a timely
fashion as well, especially given their scope.
At the end of the day, I back projects
because I'm excited about them. The updates let me peek behind the
curtain to see how the gears turn, and when I get a chance to
contribute, even if it's just a vote, I'm all the more excited. And
as time goes on for these larger projects, and the delays seem
endless, it becomes less about receiving something in the mail, and
more about hearing what the current hurdle is. And I mean that in a
positive way; even if it's an update explaining why printing was
delayed (again), I find it interesting to see what problems can arise
when making something like a board game. The updates tell a story,
and I'm eager to hear what happens next.
Plus, future me will be really happy
when he finally sees what I got for him.
13/13
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