One of the most curious things to come out of the internet recently is crowdfunding. The basic idea is you present something – a product, a service, an idea – that you want to provide to a wider audience than you can afford yourself. Through services like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Patreon, and number others, you can present this product/service/idea and have people provide money to get your funding. For most of these sites, you have to set a goal, and if you don’t hit your goal, you get nothing (and all the people who funded you get their money back or don’t get charged).
Crowdfunding has become a hotbed for gaming. Smaller companies, who don’t have the resources of a Hasbro or a Fantasy Flight, can use this to get production runs of games going. Individuals can produce one offs, games with a one-time production run. It can be a very effective means of getting a product out to a wider array of people than someone could do on their own.
There are pitfalls, however. If you back someone, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever see a product. You’re providing your money in good faith to someone, and if they follow-through on their premise, then you will see whatever it is you pay for. But there have been cases where nothing has ever come of what was promised. This doesn’t seem quite as big an issue with board games – the most notorious cases I’ve seen were video games that got hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then returned nothing.
Additionally, even companies that have the best intentions can run afoul of production times, shipping snafus, or any number of other things. This can lead to increased costs, and sometimes they just don’t have the money to make up the difference.
Most of my experience has been through Kickstarter. I’ve backed quite a few games. The lead time on this is large; when you back someone, it’s almost always in the pre-production stages. The fastest turnaround I’ve seen so far was about three months. Others have been much longer – I’ve got one I backed about a year ago, and they’re still in the pre-production phase.
Board games from Kickstarter
The picture above represents all games that I’ve gotten from Kickstarter. You may notice a couple of things. First, eight of those games are from a company called Queen Games. They’re a pretty well known board game company. I had already played some of their games, and they had a well established track record on Kickstarter of fulfilling their promises. Each of these games also includes a number of bonuses that are specifically for the people that backed them. Part of determining what – and who – to back is determining who is trustworthy. All of these games have come from established companies. The one above, that I mentioned has been in pre-production for a year? That was from an unknown company, but the premise of their game was to intriguing for me to pass up. So we’ll have to wait and see if that pans out.
Another thing you may notice is crowdfunding is not limited to new products. The game Metro (top row, second from the left) was a previously produced game that won the Spiel de Jahres in 2000. The Kickstarter campaign for it was to get another printing of a game that had become impossible to find.
Crowdsourcing has its risks and its rewards, just like most things where you provide money for a theoretical later service. As you can see, I’ve gotten quite a few amazing games out of this – the four big box versions of games are worth it alone – and I’ll continue to peruse Kickstarter for interesting games. I highly recommend checking it out. Just make sure you are cautious in who you give your money to, and don’t spend more than you’re willing to outright lose. It’s kind of like the stock market, but less volatile.
Matt W Mitchell 