Darkest Dungeon Board Game Disaster: Why Kickstarter is Killing Tabletop Companies

Description

In this episode of No Plot Only Lore, Josh and Chris dive into the recent collapse of the Darkest Dungeon board game by Mythic Games. We discuss the $5 million failure, the "wave two" cancellation, and the broader crisis facing tabletop crowdfunding.

Topics covered:

• The Darkest Dungeon Debacle: How overconfidence and poor math led to one of the biggest Kickstarter flops in recent history.

• The "Infinite Kickstarter" Trap: Why companies like Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) failed by using new projects to fund old debts.

• Brick & Mortar vs. Digital Noise: The vital role of local game stores as filters for quality in an era of social media hype and AI-generated shovelware.

• Success as a Double-Edged Sword: How overextending through stretch goals and secondary locations can sink even established brands.

• Wormwood’s Pivot: Why industry leaders are moving away from the "perpetual Kickstarter" model toward sustainable retail.

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Transcript!

You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a podcast about games and the tables we play them at. Your DMs tonight and every

night are Josh and Chris. You can find us on all podcast platforms or check us out at noplotonlore.com.

If you like what you hear today, please rate and review the show and share it with everyone you've ever met.

Welcome back to No Plot Only Lore. This week brought to you by Darkest Dungeon,

the board game. Most dungeon crawlers make you feel like an invincible hero. This game, it wants

to break you. It's a one to four cooperative campaign that perfectly captures the

Oh, no. Oh. Oh, yeah. Never mind. Yeah. So, if you got lucky and you were

in the first wave, congratulations. Otherwise, print and play time. Uh,

hi. Yep. Yeah. So, irony of irony is we we were briefly talking about disastrous

Kickstarters the other day and then two days ago uh the the people at Mythic

were just like, "Yeah, we it's not going to happen. The costs went crazy and we

can't do wave two and uh oopsie. Thanks for the money by." Um, and then they

contacted the people who make Darkest Dungeon. We're like, "Do we have your permission to just like send all of these files out for the game just to

every backer to just say like, good luck." Uh, and they're like, "Well, yeah. Uh, thanks for just like totally

smearing our name, but okay." Um, so yeah, they they had to Can we talk about the irony, like the

pure pure irony of the tagline being overconfidence is a slow and insidious

killer? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny that they were like,

"Yeah, we can do this for sure." And then they got one round of it done and we're like, "Never mind. We don't know."

I love it so much. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, was it Red Hook or something like that behind Dark S? Was

like, "Well, we don't know how to make a board game, and if they can't do it, we can't do it. So, I don't know. Have

these files for the game, and good luck, I guess. Like, see you later." So, I don't know. I'm going to and like it

they sent all the files out from like literally like darkest dungeon game

files atgmail.com. Like it was just like the sketchiest thing.

Uh so yeah. Do you have the game files now? I don't. I didn't back it. Thank god. But I'm going to find them. I guarantee

they're somewhere on the internet right now. Um but yeah, it was uh $5 million down the

drain. Holy [ __ ] Yep. This is a big one. And that company

has Kickstarters that are going for a couple of other popular IPs right now that people are like, "So, are none of

these getting done? What happened?" How could you possibly trust backing a

project by a company that flopped that hard? You can't. You can't. It's like if Tasty

Minstrel ever gets themselves out of receiverhip, would I ever trust one of their Kickstarters again? Not in your

life. But I guarantee if they do, they're going to try. Well, I mean, yeah, they have to.

Cuz where else do you get funding from, right? Uh, GoFundMe. Well, no, that's and I

think that's kind of what leads into part two of this discussion we're having is that like the way people expect to

fund things has changed radically over the last 5 to 10 years. Um, board games

used to be a passion project that you sunk your retirement savings into to produce one time and then it it kicked

off and you're like, "Oh my god, it worked. I was right." And then you roll from there and you just kind of snowball. Now you got to come in with

your best idea first and then you're going to get a whole bunch of money to make it happen. even though you've never done it before and you don't know how to make it happen. Uh, and then you're

going to have situations like this again where it's like, okay, you hit it out of the park and then you're like, "What park?" And then now you have a bunch of

money that just disappears from underneath you and at the end of the day, nobody's happy. Um,

well, yeah, cuz it's it's such a like I have it written down here is a double-edged sword,

right? Success creates obligations that companies are in no way ready for. Like

not just in the product itself, right? Like if you have a particularly successful Kickstarter, now you're

looking at like every single stretch goal. And if you already weren't capable of making the game,

how are you going to handle all of the stretch goals, too? Yeah. I mean, I we've I've mentioned Tasty Menstrual a couple of times, but

the reality is that the success of their early Kickstarters started them on a

downward spiral because like Yokohama did incredibly well. Um,

uh, Crusaders did really well and then, you know, it came to like Bellfort for

this anniversary edition and they they like this is a game that was already made, right? Like they didn't have to do

any work on it. They were just like, "Hey, we're going to do this 10th anniversary edition and some upgraded components." And I was one of the

backers on it. Luckily, I managed to get my money out because I actually backed through a retail location, which was

like a whole other weird thing. But what wound up happening is um and I believe

it started as far back as Yokohama, but like you said, there were stretch goals and there were like improved pieces and

upgrades and then they just didn't do the math correctly on those things instead of doing what had already. So,

funnily enough, uh, Darkest Dungeon actually went back and asked for more money from people to get this made.

Um, they didn't do that at TMG. And what the the their plan was is, well, we know

what it costs now. Let's slightly overpric the next Kickstarter so we can

siphon some money from that back into fulfilling this. And then

they got that wrong again. And so they had to use the next Kickstarter to fund what they needed to fulfill on. And it

just it was perpetually chasing money from the next Kickstarter to pay for commitments they'd already made that

they screwed up on. Um, and it ultimately sunk the company.

The the thing that it reminds me of the most is every

brickandmortar store eventually hits a point where they're like, "We should open a second

location." Yep. Yep. And it's never prepared for

properly. Never. Like even the company that I worked for previously, they have three locations

and that is a fluke beyond flukes. Yes. And I think it's just overextension. I I

I've I worked for a company uh it was an internet cafe and they were near the

university and they were like I know let's open up a second location on the north side for some reason.

Yeah. And like it was just like oh okay. Yeah. And it just sunk it sucked every

dollar out of the main location to keep it alive and killed both of them. Um,

there's a a a tabletop related store in town that has tried

twice now to open secondary locations. Um, one in what they thought would be a

good hightraic area. I could have told you it will not be because uh, revitalization is a scam. Uh, so

yeah. And so, yeah, they they tried and like they straight up said in order to make sure that it doesn't because I will

give him credit for this when he did his expansions, he kept them completely

separate as their own business entity and said it had to survive on its own.

Um, and yeah, he was like, "Yep, it's not making money. It's not even breaking even. I have to shut it down." And then

he tried a smaller version of it at in a a dying mall. And that had to shut down

too. Like it's just expansion is so tough to do. And it feels like some

of these production companies, these publishers are starting in

the expansion phase. They haven't gotten their feet under them yet. Well, and it's the the big thing I think

is that like Kickstarter is going to represent like a successful Kickstarter, a particularly successful

Kickstarter is going to represent a fundamental shift in your business. Yeah. Right. Like you're taking the core

business like let's let's assume that you're not a business that's 100% Kickstarter, which is kind of a big assumption to be honest. Right.

These days, it's insane. Yeah. If you're not coming out the gate

Kickstarter, then you already have an established business. You already have

products that you're putting out there. And now you have this Kickstarter. You make $6 million

on this Kickstarter. Your entire business is now that thing. Yeah. Yeah.

That that has got to like swim for everyone. Yeah. Because if it doesn't, then the rest of

the company is going with it. Yeah. Right. And it has to be treated, I think, in

a different way than people expect it to be. Like I I think that there is an expectation when you come to Kickstarter that you're just going to put up your

product, people are going to buy it or not, and it's just going to be like a an offshoot of the main business, but it

often isn't, right? That it has to be treated like an expansion. It has to be treated like an extension of the

business in a bigger and more robust way or it's going to fail. Yeah. And it's going to bring your company

with it. Well, and and the pro like people forget that your your business can't be one

project forever. You like there's the first project, but after that you need to like Okay, so

your first project went well. You need to keep that running on its own in some way. Otherwise, you're just jumping from

project to project. And if like like you said, if you don't have

that severability in your project and in its funding, it's

just going to drag the rest of you down. I mean, dead. It almost requires a whole team. Yeah.

Like, you kind of need to have your Kickstarter team, your crew of people who are going to be responsible for just the Kickstarter project.

Sure. And then it's sink or swim on its own. Yeah. Abs. Yeah. I can totally agree with that. Like

the I guess the the the problem and the temptation that people run into is that they see other companies that do

Kickstarters as part of their overall goal and

are able to do it without completely divorcing the company from what's going on. They're just like, "Oh, here's just

this little like alternative income stream." And what they're forgetting is that the foundation of that company is

already so rock solid and the the use of Kickstarter for them is frankly so

negligible that it won't completely bring the house down if that goes under.

Um, you know, you see it now. I mean, Wormwood is pivoting away from

Kickstarter as much as they can. They're like, you know what, we've we've had a good run with it, but let's get people into our online store. It's got

recurring revenue and regular sales through our own owned channel. Um, yeah,

they do conventions. Yeah, they've done they they're still not completely abandoning Kickstarter just yet. They're

going to use it for special projects, but their main thing like it used to be

if you want to buy a Wormwood table, you would have to wait for the next campaign and then buy it in the campaign. And now

it's like, well, we have stock, just buy it through our online store. Um, and so they'll use the Kickstarter for weird

things that they want to see if like that like a desk or something if there's a market for it. Well, and even then like Wormwood is

such a outlier in so many ways. Like the

the fact that they were able to leverage the infinite Kickstarter model for as

long as they have without a major failure is huge, right? Because like one big

failure of a project can lead to the death of your company.

Sure. Sure. Right. And so that there's a huge amount of risk that they had utilizing that

model. Um did we have another section for that? We talked about it a bit last week.

Well, I was just like I I know we'll never get it. I want to I would love to

know more about the actual financials of those early years from Wormwood because I know there was a big chunk of time

like Doug has been very open with the fact that like he has not made his money from Wormwood. His money has all come

from Bitcoin and so no he's he's serious. He's like I bought a bunch of Bitcoin for like no reason years ago and

it made me a millionaire. Like oops. That reminds me of your game designer

friend who Oh yeah. initial money on poker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You just had a nest egg. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's It's real easy to become a game designer when you've got your own money and you don't have to worry about where your rent's coming

from. Well, and that's just it. I mean, and you know, his idea was at the time where he should have sunk a bunch of his own savings into getting it published. And

maybe smarter not, but he was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go shop this around to Hasbro or whatever, which like, hey, knock yourself out. But

yeah, Wormwood I think was able to stand on its own because there was so few people drawing on it at the start. Like

the people who were making the project were like, I can focus all my time and attention on this, but I also don't need

the Kickstarter to pay my rent. Um, and so they could keep, like you said, that

money was stayed severable and got reinvested back into the company over and over, whether it was infrastructure

or hiring people that needed to do specific roles. So yeah, that I think that's what kept them

able to keep it rolling is because at the end of the day, they didn't need to

use all of the money that the Kickstarter brought in to fulfill the Kickstarter. It could it could be spent

on, you know, oh well, here's here's this extra chunk of money. Like we we made the thing, we know what our profit

margin is. Now we could take that extra chunk of money and get even better prepared for the next Kickstarter,

right? Are they looking at like retail options? Yes. Like obviously they do

conventions, obviously they do like their own website, but like are is your store going to be able to buy a table

and sell it? So there's short answer, yes. Uh this is something

that they have been uh exploring and I

think they were hiring one person specifically to deal with um whether

they wanted to do like one showroom on their own in Pennsylvania right now and

then what could they do for retail partnerships with uh other existing hobby stores and stuff like that. Um,

I don't know how far along the process that is, but it's something they've been actively exploring for a couple years.

And now that they've seen another competitor open a retail space, I think,

well, I think it's one of those things that's actually kind of good for them where Oh, yeah.

They don't have to take the risk. They can see what happens there. This is a competitor that is doing their own

product, plus they're also carrying another more bespoke uh woodworkers

products. Um, okay. I'm I'm deliberately not using names

just cuz I don't want to like blow up their spot or whatever. Um, but like there's there's a guy out of out of

Maine who um he's gone pretty viral with some really cool table designs, but they

are super intricate and like low volume. And then he's got other like and and the thing is this guy has also partnered

with Warmwood in the past. So his stuff is like really good for like

yeah cool oneoff stuff but like I think it's hard to produce at scale. Um it's

just so labor intensive. Yeah. At any time. Not even close. Um the number of magnets

and stuff he uses it just takes a lot of time to assemble these things. So, um,

but I think they're they're taking the opportunity to say, "Hey, let's see how this goes for them. Like, let's see if

there's the return that they were hoping for there, cuz I'm sure they'd love to expand their

business even more, but they're doing just fine without it. So, if they don't have to take that risk and get to

Yeah. do a do a viability study through someone else. One of the things that I always liked to

do at the store was whenever I went to a convention, I would find somebody who didn't have like retail distribution

Yeah. going on. And I would reach out to them specifically to start selling their stuff in the store.

Yeah. And so like that that's how I got like a bunch of weird [ __ ] like the uh the

Cthulhu plushies. Yeah. That came in that were like only available through our store in as far as

I could tell all of Alberta. Yeah. like this person didn't even have an online store. I got their card and I

called their phone number. Yeah. Yeah. So, and and I think like that's that's

maybe one of the big impacts that we're seeing from Kickstarter that is like

distinctly negative, which is that it is cutting out brickandmortar stores almost

entirely because retail is entirely optional. Yeah. if you're selling direct

to your client with again like the the caveat that Kickstarter is not supposed

to be a sales platform. Yeah. Not supposed to and what it is are two completely different things at this point.

Yeah. Um this is like this is a conversation I've had a few

times I've sort of railed against um what has been happening is that like and

this is not just like because of like there's a lot of accusations that got leveled at companies of like greedy

capitalism and whatever where they're just like trying to maxim maximize their profits. It is um and I see this happen

time and again is like people who are

sort of perpetually online have this problem with remembering how

the rest of the world functions and why their hobbies and interests were able to

like take root and grow in the first p place. And it for the vast majority of

these things it comes down to community. And as much as people like to pretend

that Discord and chat rooms are a real community, they are a

supplementary tool for genuine human connection. And what surrogacy?

Yeah. what what perpetuates and builds these communities

that that wind up spending money and and getting into these hobbies is actual

human contact. I if I was just playing board games on

board game arena, I wouldn't own 600 of them. The reason I do is because I have

a regular weekly group and I get together with those guys and play them all the time. And that's that's not

something that's like restricted to board games. Like I I like Warhammer. I

was out of it for a long time because I didn't have anyone I was playing with.

And Tabletop Simulator is no substitute for rolling real dice with people. Um,

Dn D would not be around if it was just Roll 20. Even just like the

the discoverability. Yes, I was going to get to that. Yeah. From like walking into a store and

talking to the people there, right? I think that was one of the the things that I really brought to Warp that we hadn't

really seen in that space before is that like people would ask me about games and I would give them games.

Yeah. That didn't suck. Yeah. and I had like a repertoire and like

ideas of what types of games would appeal to which types of people based on my personal experience. And that's not

something that you're able to get from an online seller. Like if I look at the front page of drive-through RPG,

I'm just going to see the stuff that's most recent and the stuff that's most popular. Yeah. Right. Like that isn't going to tell me

anything about games that are going to appeal to me. I can type in a bunch of keywords. and maybe get some things that

are aligned with my interests. Sure. But no guarantee that one that game is

actually any good or two that game is actually aligned with the way that I

want to play because I haven't had an opportunity to talk to the person who's selling it. Yeah. And or anybody who's played it.

Like I think that's the big difference between like I can stalk a game or I can sell a game, you know? Like people are I

want to say people are generally like immune to advertisement these days. Like when I look at

vehemently averse. Yeah. Yeah. When I look at like if you advertise at me I am going to be

mad at you. Yeah. Yeah. So like I'll I'll get a solicitation from a distributor who's like, "Hey,

here's the new board games I got this month and you should try this." and and like he tells me what he thinks he wants

me to buy and I know the only reason he wants me to buy those because he's got the biggest margin on those. Um and then

I look at them and I have developed the ability through like experience uh to

see through the marketing layer of these games and say, "Oh, that might actually have something. That has nothing. That

has nothing. That's fluff. That's fluff." Um and that has to happen again

for people coming into the building, right? like they they wander in, they

see a wall full of options, and they need to know what's actually worth their

attention. Now, I think we're pretty good at and continually improving at not

stocking trash, but every once in a while, something slips through. You know, it just happens when you have like

three or four different people who are putting orders through for different things. We have we have one guy in

particular who is susceptible to being tricked by by certain things, but like

you know what, you take some shots and and you see what happens. I mean, we we

took a risk on loot and bomb busters because they were nominated for uh Spiel

Dejar's uh awards and

Bomb Busters has sold really well for us and loot is like we have crammed it into

every hole we can on the shelf just to get maximum exposure to try and get this off of our [ __ ] pans. like it's not

gone as well. But like that's funny. It's like I think that like even even trash games have a

market. Sure. Right. Like the the amount of Munchkin that I have sold is far more munchkin than I ever

should have sold. Right. And I think that's true for anybody who has ever sold Munchkin.

Yeah. I I own Munchkin and I'm like this is garbage. But like it has it is a trash game. But it has its place

in certain things, right? Like sometimes you really do just need a beer and pretzels game that, you know, is

more about annoying your friends than actually playing the game. Somebody is going to come into the store

and be like, "Oh my god, you guys have loot. It's my favorite." And you're going to be like, "Cool. Well, we shouldn't talk." That's I can guarantee

you right now that's not going to happen cuz it's it's not it's not light enough

to be like a haha this is I have fond memories of playing this with friends at a party and it's also not deep enough to

be like oh yeah I love the the real intricate it's just like it's just it is

a nothing burger with extra cheese. Uh

but no, like getting back to the the main point here is that like brick and mortar in this industry in particular, I

think more than any other is so essential for because there's so much noise coming at

the consumer these days. Um and because like

nerd culture and hobbies are have have come to the forefront a lot more now.

There's just like a lot of [ __ ] out there and people need filters and brick

and mortar are the filter for a lot of people and I get why the Kickstarter

model has been appealing to people who want to like sidestep the filter or feel

that they like don't get the traditional amplification because they're just like not part of the main stream which like

that's another like totally viable argument is like hey my thing will never get published by the regular person but

like the days of that being the reality for Kickstarter are just so far gone. Like you're just part of the chaff now.

You can you can absolutely just self-publish, right? Like the the self-publishing options have never been

easier on basically every platform. Like board games maybe a little less because

you do have like a higher startup costs and you do have to like stock stuff, but

like you want to make a role playing game, it's print on demand. You can put it up as a PDF for free on Drive-Through

RPG. Yeah. and just sit back and wait for money to happen. Yeah. And you just you just spend all your

time marketing it. You don't have to have any costs. You just, hey, I made the thing. Please go buy the thing. I

mean, that being said, like that's that's the other function of the

brick and mortar stores, too. Like, I've purchased a locally made game at Mission

that was like produced by a guy who's like a professor at the University of Edmonton. Uh, and like

I don't know if this man's ever heard of China because like he as far as I can tell was like glue stick and scissors

putting this thing together, right? Oh, I thought that was going in a very

different direction about like the theme of this game. No, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying like it is very very indie, but like

yeah, I gave it a shot. Cool. Like good for him. he got someone to stalk it. He can

start there and and build on that. Well, I think like part part of the the

misinformation chunk of it, right? And like the the discoverability chunk of it is that so

much of the stuff that's happening like even just on Kickstarter, right? Like when you're talking about the noise, it's also

like the social media noise that people are making about their games, right? They're making claims about their games. They're

trying to sell them. They're trying to get you to buy them and it's [ __ ] right? Like the the whole like funded in

10 minutes. They're like funded immediately. Y thing where you like you made your initial ask like 150 bucks and then your

like mom pledged. Well, what's funny is like so much of

that like taking a a statistics course in like the first year of college made you realize

that like numbers don't mean anything because people can just manipulate them however they want. So like seeing a

phrase like funded in 10 minutes. I'm like oh so what lever did they pull to get the number down low enough that one

backer pushed them over, right? Like stuff like that. How much how much money

did they give somebody to pledge? Did they did they just give all of their

friends like 500 bucks to pledge and then just like sit back and be like,

"Yeah, I'll fund it in 10 minutes. Now it's all stretch goals." I wouldn't even I wouldn't even be

surprised if some guy was just like, "Okay, well, I made my my Kickstarter and now I spend $1,000 of my own money

backing it five times and then now it's funded. Hooray." Yay me.

Yeah, I'm so good at games. That and like the the algorithm boost y

that we see from like the the things that are funded really quickly. Um small

projects that are done fast get on front pages more often. So you're going to see

like worse projects with less investment in them

on the front page more often than you're going to see quality products that take a while and actually have like some love

and thought about them. This is this is a problem that we have on drive-through RPG too, right? Like having been a

person who has put schllock on drive-through RPG, handwritten, handdrawn [ __ ] RPGs,

um they got views, people downloaded that [ __ ] I've made some money.

Yeah, it's if I were if I were the type of person who was willing to publish AI

stuff and pretend that it wasn't AI stuff, I would be on the front page of Drive-Through RPG literally every

[ __ ] day. Oh, so easy. And like then that you dovetail that with like so

I that thing that I backed I just started getting ads again on Facebook where they're like, "Hey, late pledge is

now open." like the the uh what is the name of the pledge manager? They're

like, "Okay, well, we opened up pledge manager, so now you could be a late backer cuz you know this thing is definitely going to happen." So like

they go for their like second round of funding. I'm I'm I've still got like

three more payments on this thing and it's not delivering till October and they're like, "Let's go get more money

right now." like do on the one hand I'm like cool people that had the ch like

that missed out because there's so much coming through have the chance to like hop on um people who were like skeptical

or like oh well okay maybe I'll give this another shot but part of me is also like yeah this is just them like just

driving number up and using it as well to promote their next project or their

other simultaneous projects. Um, and it's it's frustrating cuz I'm like,

well, are they taking time away from just getting this thing getting this thing done and sending it to me cuz like

for a while I was getting regular updates where it's like, okay, hey, we're going to reveal like this new thing. Oh, you know what? We're actually

going to add this like it wasn't even like a stretch goal. It's like, hey, we're just like adding this other option that didn't exist before because like it

turns out at some point they were like, hey, we had like a little bit of extra money. We're just like adding these two extra minis in for you. Like, here you

go. Cool. I'm like, all right, whatever. And then now it's been a few months and I'm like there's nothing else to add. Like they haven't given me an update

other they said merry Christmas to me and that was it. Like there's no project update.

Those two extra minis are just like Doug in character design managed to put a couple of things together in his spare

time. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're they're absolutely nothing. So then so now I'm like well then what are you doing right

now that's actually getting this product into my hands? Like could you bump the timeline up a few months? Maybe. But

they're not doing that. Fill in those backer orders. Fill in the stretch goals. Yeah. So they're, you know, so I look at

that and I'm like, well, I know I know what I would do to make this Kickstarter not be asked. And it would it's number

one is not make me wait a year to get the thing that I wanted, right? Like 6 months, fine. 8 months,

okay, a year? Why? Like I know what production timelines are like. Like um

Okay, great example. Apparently, uh, Bandai just lost a massive shipment of,

uh, One Piece, like not just One Piece, but a bunch of different things on the way over from

from Japan on like a tanker that like a shipping container that got caught on fire. 80% of this shipment is toast,

including like what appears to be at least half of the supply of dual packs

for OP14, which is like just came out, new hotness. They want to get in people's hands. It's toast. They're

saying 3 months and they'll have it all reprinted. And that's high quality card stock, like crazy good stuff. And that's

them also having to like think about so like they they are very careful about

like not overprinting certain things like they do the god packs that you can open and it's like hey we want to make

sure that we're actually printing the right numbers not like they're just like oh make machine go burr like

they put a lot of thought into it only take them a couple months to do it. So to tell me it takes like a year to get

China to make you some plastic minis like come on. So like I mean you got Bondi money right? Yeah.

Yeah. Like and and Bondi influence and Bondi like connections. Yeah. And

like you you already have a relationship with your printer and all of that. But like Okay, let's let's segue off of this. How

do we make Kickstarter not suck? Well, yeah. That's what I was going to say is like the the solution to Kickstarter problems

can't just be throw more money at it. Like, but it works for so many other

like Bondi is willing to risk screwing with releases for all of their other

games and products right now as well. They should to fix this shipping problem that's not theirs. And they could kind

of do it by throwing money at the problem. But how does an independent

publisher or a firsttime game designer utilize Kickstarter in a way that

doesn't mean that they're never going to see success again?

I think part of it is only funding

the stuff that you can't make otherwise, right? Like have a thing. Okay, have a thing that you already have, right? Like

if I were to kickstart a role playing game, sure, I would have like a little folio.

Y that is the the basic rules and then the stuff that I would be funding would be expanding on that, right? So like have a

thing and then fund what you need to make it bigger and better.

Is that Well, I just Okay. So you've you sat you've spent the time to design this

thing. Sure. and you've thrown it up online and it's available on like print on demand.

Um, sure. Yeah. I mean, we could do it that way. You could also just like make the thing and have it ready to go and

then use Kickstarter to make it better. Well, that's that's what I'm saying. Like, what are you doing? Okay. So, my

thought was, okay, I've got this RPG. I It's available out there for people to

check out and test and print on their own. I want to give it a proper book

treatment where I have art, I have actual print runs, and I can look at getting it into

brick and mortar. I can't do that without some startup cost, but I already have the thing made. I need to pay for

some artists and I need to pay for some printing, right? Yeah.

That seems like a reasonable extension of I already have proof of concept.

Well, and if you don't get those things, you can still publish. Sure. Right. Like it's not going to be as

good, right? Like you're going to have a book that has less art or no art. Like

there are games out there that don't have art or that have very little or

minimal art or just like icons for art is something that I've seen. Right. So like it isn't unheard of to have a game that

doesn't have those things attached to it and the game still gets published and the game still gets picked up.

Sure. Sure. Right. So design the game and then Yeah. use Kickstarter to make the game better,

make it prettier, make it like more appealing. do all of the like sales stuff attached to that. Be like, "Hey,

uh, Johnny [ __ ] from Edmonton, who was a great artist, I want you to be my cover

artist." Yeah. How many dollars is that going to take me? Yeah. Right. And then you make that a goal or

a stretch goal. Yeah. And then you you That's fair. My thought was more along

the lines of like I think you need to start

with the the concept of a minimum viable

product and stick to that as hard as you can. Make your Kickstarter about

not delivering like your wildest dreams, but just delivering on

the exact thing you said you were going to do. Be extremely conservative with

your campaign. Um, and by conservative, I mean like

one, you ask for more money than you actually need. Like you look at these

costs and you've done your work on like pairing them down as much as you can,

but like in this case being conservative doesn't mean like you're just trying to shave off cost and get it as cheaply out

to the consumer as you can. You take that number and then you double it and then you ask for that and then like I've

I've seen campaigns out there that straight up said, "I'm asking you for $100 for shipping and if it's anything

less, I'll send you the money back, but I'd rather not ask you for more money."

Right. So just and and I think that's a conservative approach to take is and and

when I say conservative I mean just being safe being you know um extremely

like risk averse right and also politically conservatively

right as much as no what I'm saying is like

to be conservative in this sense means like being extremely cognizant of

the like um consequences of failure and wanting

to make sure that you are a good steward of not only the money that you receive

but the attention and the energy that you get from people for these projects.

Um and I feel like it's important too to like set those expectations. Right.

Like why is it taking me a year, right? Like what are we looking at between this thing and when I get the thing in my

hands? What is happening in there that needs to get done and like what is the failure

state? What is the thing that's going to stop this from getting into my hands?

Like a darkest dungeons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like when do we start looking at like sorry the idea just

didn't work? Well, that's just it. Like when it comes to like campaign like that to see a

first wave that's like yeah we made it and it's like well now what? What happened? Like doing something for the

second time is just like magn orders of magnitude easier than

doing it the first time. It should be. Right. So that's just that's what's so freaking confusing about what happened

over there. Like some people have this game in their hands. How you know how

how come you can't do it again? Just ballooning costs suddenly tariffs

or something. That's literally my only explanation. Like but I mean

actually it's a real one. Like you could straight up just say, "Hey, this is the product we had." And then uh Trump put 140%

tariffs on products from China, so now you can't have it. Like just be honest. Like, yep, it

exists. We made it. And then we're just going to warehouse it until either the tariffs disappear or we can pay the

tariffs. Like I don't know what to tell you. And and be like honest about it. Like

communicate like you you were saying we need to communicate better for these things. is just be like, "Look, I'll give you a price breakdown. It's $100

added just from the tariffs." Okay. Like,

and like speaking of honesty, I do think that like we need to start labeling a pre-order as a

pre-order. Yeah. Right. Like it it can't be a standard Kickstarter campaign, right?

Like there should be a division between you're pre-ordering the thing Yeah. and this is the amount of money that it

is going to cost. And I haven't made the thing. This is what I need to

potentially make the thing. Yeah. Right. Like one of these is gambling. One of these is a pre-order. Yes. Well, and you know, like to that

point, I just got an email. Hey, Tiny Epic, uh, Tiny Epic Invincible is up on

Kickstarter now. I'm like, that's a pre-order. That company knows how to make Tiny Epics. They've been making them for a decade. That is 100% winding

up in my pocket if I want it. I don't, but it could. That's a pre-order, right? like

uh whereas like you know Joemo's new idea that's a Kickstarter and that's a

it might not get made cuz I don't know what I'm doing right now. At the same time I ain't never made minis before but I'm

going to make a lot of minis. You at the same time your campaign should really work hard to establish that you kind of do know what you're

doing but like maybe you don't. Maybe you just don't. Maybe you don't. And like I don't know,

maybe maybe on like the backers side of things. Like sometimes I think we need to back people.

Yeah. More than we're backing a product. Yeah. Right. Like if Joemo,

potential mini creator, has never made minis before. Yeah. But he has a cool idea

and he's willing to work at it and you think there's an okay chance that it's going to happen. Throw some

money at him. Sure. like have the the idea of Kickstarter is

that you are kickstarting an idea towards reality. Right. Right. Like you're you're giving it a

little bit of a boost towards becoming a thing. Yeah. Right. And sometimes that means starting

with people who don't know what the [ __ ] they're doing. Right. And I think that's okay.

Again, it's just it's gambling. Well, I you know what? Like you see it so much more outside of this particular

like hobby space on those like weird c Kickstarter campaigns where it was like especially like technology related like

as a as a terrible example like Theronos tried to like IRL Kickstarter

their whole deal I was absolutely about to do right they're like we could do the thing they're like are you sure like

absolutely so then they kickstarted from like angel investors who were like yeah definitely and people don't have access

to those that's what Kickstarter was four is like essentially trying to like crowdsource angel investment, right? So,

at the end of the day, a lot of people lost a lot of money and someone went to jail. That's probably not going to

happen with your RPG, but you should be prepared for blood without actually piercing your

skin. But, I'm just saying you should be prepared to be Theronos on every Kickstarter.

Everything. Every Kickstarter. Every every Kickstarter is that chick in a

turtleneck. Yeah. artificially lowering her voice to sound more like Steve Jobs.

Well, and and like frankly every you should you should expect that

every time you throw money at Kickstarter it's like I don't think you can actually do this,

but I really hope you do, right? Like just be skeptical and be pleasantly

surprised every time something winds up in your lap. And don't

don't kickstart things with the belief or the understanding that you're going

to get something out of it. Yeah. Right. Like it it isn't it it's more of a gift.

Sure. Yeah. Right. Like it it it's something that you're not expecting to get back. Yeah. You have put it out into the world. this

is your intent that you are providing with your dollars to see this thing become reality. It might not.

Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. I mean I think I think at the end of the day, you know, the biblical idea

of give expecting nothing in return is going to be the healthiest headspace to

be in for these. So like as consumers, that's exactly what happened to Theros. Yeah.

Well, the reason she went to jail is because they expected something in return and then did not get it.

But no, for for real, for I think the big takeaway for us on the consumer

side, stop treating Kickstarters like guarantees and start remembering that

they are gambling and they are taking a long shot on things. And for creators,

stop abusing Kickstarter as this free money hack and stop

assuming that you're going to stretch goal your way to success. Make sure that

you can absolutely deliver the minimum thing and keep your freaking promise on

it. Hey, thanks for making it all the way through this episode of No Plotton Only

Lore. If you're looking for more, you can always find us at noplotonlore.com and on all the very best podcast

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