[Sorcerer Kickstart] Limited release strategy (split)

[Thunder_God]

Hm, hope it's alright posting here, don't see any big wagging finger in the sticky about it and it is a continuation of this topic directly, so I feel it belongs here.

1. It took me a bit to understand what you meant by the kickstarter not paying for a new book, just the one they purchased - but it reminds me a lot of the issue from before kickstarter. People ran pre-orders for their books on IPR, often for $5 less (out of $20-25), and hoped they'd sell enough to print enough copies - then again, you ran the pre-order, saw how much money it left you, added as much as you were able to spend in addition and printed that many copies.
Kickstarter feels very similar, even for a pre-order setup. The main difference is you don't have the question "Will I get 50-60 pre-orders which will pay for 50 extra copies, or 100 pre-orders which will pay for 150 extra copies." - while you can still be surprised for the better, you're hopefully going to have a minimum number of copies so you can plan break-even costs better, is that not so?

2. I don't know about other people, but in general when I back video games on kickstarter, or most other products,  I expect them to be cheaper than retail - because otherwise why not just get them in retail - where they're also quite likely to get discounted at some point? With video games I can usually expect a 50% sale within half a year of the game coming out - it probably does something to the way I value products, but it is what it is.

One thing that makes me back kickstarters and pay even more than retail is the "Limited" stuff - stuff you can get only through the kickstarter, even if it's just aesthetic. As a member of the anime/anime-figure crowd I think a lot about how the tag "Limited" works on our minds, and it sometimes makes me take a step back, but it still makes impulse purchases, or not-impulse-but-can't-stop-myself purchases happen, and quite a bit more than I'd like.

3. Now, the one thing that does go differently for self-fulfilling RPGs than say, video games, is that you do earn less money on kickstarter than through your other selling method. If I buy a video game in a store, the company earns less than when I buy directly from them, which is likely only ever going to happen through the kickstarter, so they can sell me for less money and still earn more.
But if you self-fulfill your games anyway, kickstarter sales give you less money, and on top of it many people expect a discount on top of it.

4. As a personal data-point, though I was pretty sure you'd get there, I didn't back the project until the print version became live. I have an issue with PDFs, where I am much less likely to get to read them - I love them as reference material, and if I begin reading them then it usually works fine - but I have a hard time getting to begin reading PDFs, which I don't have with hard-format books. Also, even though I have a tablet, I still prefer sitting on the sofa with a hard-copy.

5. Continuing the above - kickstarter that doesn't sell your product is an interesting concept, but how do you make it work with RPGs. I know you sort of did it with the tequilas, but that was a side-dish, the main course was still the game. Perhaps an offer moving older games, but then you again move into the "Needs to pay for more than itself" route, so a kickstarter just for game design advice? Just for signed litographies of art from a game (for companies that own the art)? I'm not sure how you'd go about it and get people to back it.

6. Everyone running things through kickstarter is a bit weird to me, but that's not something for this thread, I feel. I just don't feel I am really "kickstarting" anything.

7. I know it's in point #7, but I kept forgetting it, but it's something I'm really curious over. You've said:
"1. What about all those inventions? They reward backers with the widget, right? But here's the thing: the point of making those widgets is to get them into distribution to a much, much wider paying audience. Same goes for the movies: sure, the backer might get a DVD, but the movie is intended to be marketed to a much, much wider paying audience. In each case, the backers who receive the product are now early adopters and a valuable source of word-of-mouth. That's not the case for most RPGs, especially brand new ones from a first-time publisher."

Why is it less relevant for RPGs, and especially from first-time publishers? Wouldn't it count especially for them, where the early adopters are your word-of-mouth bearers? Aren't fans a lot more likely to form when they feel loyalty as early adopters of a niche product?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Guy, and welcome! I'd like to talk about your games in the Your Stuff forum too.

Your #1: KS vs. ordinary pre-order

The main difference is you don't have the question "Will I get 50-60 pre-orders which will pay for 50 extra copies, or 100 pre-orders which will pay for 150 extra copies." - while you can still be surprised for the better, you're hopefully going to have a minimum number of copies so you can plan break-even costs better, is that not so?

As long as you don't get distracted, yes, I agree. But those extra gimmicks and treats are distracting! And all that planning is full of problems too, most associated with fulfillment costs. In my case, I could not plan well for fulfillment because I had no idea how many backers would be from the domestic U.S. and how many would be international, with what national breakdown. In case anyone's wondering, a solid half of the backers were not in the domestic States. That shit gets expensive, and it actually became signficantly more so during the kickstart itself.

Your #2: Cheaper vs. more expensive - i.e. patronage vs. shopping

That's definitely something crowdfunding project starters should know and be prepared to deal with. Your #3 ties into this point completely. For my part, I'm happy to say that backing my project really isn't a savings. It's a way to get it as soon as it's available, to enjoy the social scene, and to help me in the difficult moments of the process.

I agree with you that "Limited" can be a good idea. My only problem with it is, if the limited thing is really good and is economically sound to produce, then why not keep making and selling it? It does seem right for something that's economically sound but not something I want to provide forever.

Your #4: Print vs. PDF

My current thought is that my basic model for the pre-order was sound: the PDF as product is guaranteed, not a Kickstart goal at all; the goal is some degree of production value it might receive. Now that I understand the interface better, I'd include a pledge level that upgraded the backer to receive a book as well, which would become available once the goal was reached. That pledge level would definitely pay for that book's printing and fulfillment on top of the "basic" pledge directed toward the goal's cost, and I'd explain that. And I'd abandon the stretch goal concept entirely. So the effect is that the book is available for those who want it, which I suspect would be most backers, but it's neither the precise goal of the Kickstart or an unfunded add-on which would threaten to become an albatross.

This model works especially well if the kickstart is not supposed to fund the existence of stock beyond what the backers get. That's my situation, and it's a good one. I think one of the biggest traps is running a Kickstart in which the total funds collected are intended to pay for (i) the books the backers get and (ii) a pile of books that will serve as stock, especially for a planned event like an upcoming convention. Add expensive goodies to that in the form of stretch goals and/or pledge levels, and you have a clusterfuck on toast. I have not communicated with either Elizabeth or Shreyas about their experience, but some version of that problem seems to be at the heart of their troubles, exacerbated by real life making things difficult.

Your #5: non-product kickstarts

kickstarter that doesn't sell your product is an interesting concept, but how do you make it work with RPGs. ... I'm not sure how you'd go about it and get people to back it.

Me neither. I really like what the trumpet guy did. I helped pay for him to go perform in a particular venue, but my reward was to receive a recording, not to pay for me to go too. It was a really pretty recording, as it turned out, and I feel good that he was able to perform there, and for backing him. But whether that model could even begin to apply to publishing, I have no idea.

Your #6: Why do it?

I just don't feel I am really "kickstarting" anything.

Your point is crucial, and I agree wholeheartedly; it's the main reason I've held off from doing it for so long. For RPG publishing, I really think that crowdfunding should be treated as a tactic, preferably occasional and special, and not as a grand strategy. I'm especially wincing every time I talk to someone considering publishing their first game and saying "And then we run the Kickstart!" as if it were a business plan. And from last year at Lucca, hearing a publisher exhausted by the supplement treadmill casting about desperately for something to restore excitement, "Maybe a Kickstart," as if it were easy money.

This particular Kickstart helped me in a lot of ways, because I was in a trap of too many things getting in one another's way. The Kickstart cleared my desk of a lot of logistic problems, in part by throwing money at a couple of them, and now I am looking at a very clear and fun year of writing and promotion. I would definitely not have run a Kickstart as an ordinary feature of ongoing publishing.

I don't plan to do another Kickstart for a long time. Certainly not until everyone has received his or her books, and possibly not until every last scrap and bit of reward has been fulfilled. When I do, it will be for something special and fun. As I came to realize in the Story Games thread, doing a Sorcerer kickstart is fine, but trying to make it the Sorcerer kickstart is asking for trouble.

I'm still thinking about the #7 point, and I don't have an answer yet. Something seems different - perhaps the size of the intended eventual audience being so big, whereas in the case of RPGs, the kickstart backers are probably most of the eventual audience fot the book anyway.

Best, Ron

[Thunder_God]

Hi Ron, I've been reading now and then for a while, but I mostly lurked since I didn't have a lot to say.

I agree with you that "Limited" can be a good idea. My only problem with it is, if the limited thing is really good and is economically sound to produce, then why not keep making and selling it? It does seem right for something that's economically sound but not something I want to provide forever.

I'm going to ramble about this for a while, but I believe I'm going to tie it all back to what we're talking about, so bear with me. I do plan to make a long post about this issue for my geeky anime-centric blog in July-August, and it feels especially appropriate for that crowd.

First, let's begin with one set of two examples that answer your question "If it's so profitable, why don't you keep on doing it?"
Back in the late 90s the comic magazine Wizard would release 1/2 issues for popular series - you'd have to send them a slip, pay extra money, and it was a one-off chance to get these issues. Likewise, the anime figure world has a same setup, a couple of years ago I used a deputy service to obtain a limited figure that you had to send a magazine a note to obtain. I've paid about $140 for it, I think.

So, if these figures, which are often the highest quality figures are so appealing, why not release them as regular releases, right? First, for both of these specific limited venues, it's about collaboration - a magazine with a specific comic company/figure manufacturer, or the anime/comic studio and the magazine - it keeps both the media franchise and the magazine running the promotion in the spotlight. This is slightly weirder in the case of the Wizard magazine because of only 4 comic companies (at the time) and one magazine, whereas Japan has a plethora of either. And often the deals run on specific internet shops.

Ok, that's less interesting, especially for us on Kickstarter, but there's another reason it makes sense, which you touched on as something you do not wish to do - Kickstarter/Limited as your business model, with regular releases. Wizard ran these promotions every month or every other month, there are several such sales every month for anime figures, and let us not get started on Blu-Rays and other merchandise with limited editions.
You don't keep on releasing it because you move on to the next thing you produce.

And this is why my example of anime figures/comics is so important. That you can buy "limited" comics and "Non-limited" comics is a lie. Let's say they print 5,000 copies of a Superman issue and 200 copies with a special cover as "Limited". Those 5,000 copies they print are a one-off, if for some reason 6k people want the issue - a thousand will stay without any copy. The amount they printed is the amount that's going to be out there. Why? Because they move on to the next issue. Limited as a business model.
Also, in a manner similar to Kickstarter as a pre-order, the number of issues released is often based on the amount of issues pre-ordered from various retailers/distributors, for comics.

If you want to keep releasing games, and your goal is to just pay for those games and move on to the next game (perhaps using PDF/PoD as the only other "Stock" you keep of previous games), then the model of limited such as in comics works well.
And this brings me to my next point - kickstarter is limited like a comic issue release is.
A kickstarter happens and then it's over. That something is limited works on us psychologically - even if you keep releasing the book, the kickstarter is limited - so you answer your own question, something is profitable, but you begin it with a limited edition endeavor, the real question at this point becomes not why you do it (you do it because it works) - but why do I back the project, why does it work?

It works because it is limited. I pay $30 for a game that's $15 MSRP for limited edition content that will not be available later, though the logical decision for me would be to wait 3 months and get a $7.5 version and just say screw it about the limited goods.
The other limited within limited is "X backers only", often saved for early adopters - we talked of discounts earlier, and some kickstarts have their discounts here, or deeper ones. This is smart, because it gets people backing as early as possible - if a project has a good early spurt I'm more likely to support it. Often I only back a project after it's funded or the stretch goal I'm interested in had been reached, and by talking around with others it seems I'm not alone in this - the early adopters help spread the word, it helps discussion of the project if it's high profile enough on other sites ("See how much they've earned in such a short time!"), triumphant tweets, etc.

Limited gets us to act, how often do I back a project just before the time you can do so runs out? A lot, and this is how limited works, because we're afraid of being left out. You slap the word "limited" to get people to buy in, and kickstarters are by their nature limited sales, even if the product will be available later. I suspect this is why people make the actual kickstarter limited - by limited options being available, or by discounts who supposedly won't be available later. Does it actually help them get their goal of getting the product out and paying for an extra stack of books? Not necessarily, but it also doesn't hinder it, it's all about how you plan.

I think the video games have the model that works with kickstarter. Most sales are digital only, so selling to more people doesn't seem to increase costs as much. Stretch goals are either DLC which can later help the game, and might have taken a lot longer to complete otherwise, or additional content for the finished game, and for video games this can increase reviewer scores, leading to more money.

Furthermore, many "limited" rewards for video games are also digital only, and the cost is the time invested in making them. If I pay $15 extra for 3-4 weapons that are never going to be available again, and so do 200 other people, you just need the man-hours to be worth less than $3k minus Kickstarter/amazon's cut, and this seems to almost certainly be the case with the many projects I've seen.
So, why not just keep selling these 3-4 weapons for $15? Because it's worth it now - you get the money you want/need, you've paid for the work you needed for the reward and got a bunch of other money regardless.
And, because it wouldn't work post-kickstarter. Most of us who pay this extra money only do so because of "Limited" and the clock ticking down affecting us. Or we want to "Back" the project that doesn't need backing (it already passed the goal, after all!).

Also, sale-cannibalization is not an issue, because they're still earning more than they would when you buy the game from a CD-Key store (legal), or through a sale on steam, or whatever. This would apply to RPGs when we all go digital and printed copies are premium products, and we all sell through DriveThroughRPG rather than direct. So not really applicable for us, but what you point out and what I've noticed is that we follow the same kickstarter model, though it wasn't designed for us.

Ok, I think I've rambled enough about limited.

I'd like to talk about your games in the Your Stuff forum too.

I don't have a lot to say myself, but would love to engage in conversations - due to lack of APs and such on my end. I have stuff to say, but it feels more blog-like, less discussion, so I don't want/know how to frame it as a discussion: Oxident for instance is a game I made to showcase some dissatisfaction with the western work culture, and I modeled the resolution system after casino slot machines - in other words, the death spiral unless you luck out is the core design concept of the game. So I post explaining it and go "So, what do you think?" - feels weak sauce.
It's also my most "The mechanics tell the game" game, in that you can remove the story and sort of play the mechanical game on its own, but that's another point.

[Ron Edwards]

That limited notion is almost certainly what I'm going to go with for a later Kickstart, if I do one. I'd like to shift the bulk of my sales back to PDF if at all possible, and running a Kickstart for limited physical versions or auxiliary stuff for a given game seems perfect. Especially if I actually already have the production budget in hand, and thus am not actually funding the thing with the Kickstart at all. (I wouldn't lie about that either; my goal would actually be for some other thing.)

Guy, thanks. That is a solid model to consider, and I confess it would probably never have occurred to me.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

All of the above were split from [Sorcerer Kickstart] Money over, work starts, not due to forum rules but only because this topic of limited-release strategy strikes me as really important and worthy of spotlighting as its own thread.

Best, Ron

[Thunder_God]

The current Exalted 3ed Kickstarter is a great example of what is being discussed here.

The game will be released anyway, the kickstarter is for the deluxe version, and most of the tiers are for other things - the PDF of the game, the fiction of the game, etc. All in PDF format to boot. You're not really buying the product until $110, and at that point I guess they are making enough to stomach it - and even then, the "product" you're getting is not the simple book, but the high premium deluxe edition.

Now, it seems simple enough, until you look at what levels backers are backing at - when I checked earlier 695 out of 880 backers backed at a level that included a book, meaning at $110 and higher. That's a bit ridiculous, but shows both the effect "limited" and "premium" have on people, and that RPG backers really do come along for the print-version of the game.

I'm going to wait for the simple print version and just buy that, after I see how much shipping is going to get me down for ;-)

There's another thing I've seen on kickstarter before which is interesting, sidesteps fulfillment and rising shipping costs. I've seen someone offer a one-time PoD via DriveThroughRPG voucher to anyone who backed at a certain level, but if my memory serves me right it didn't include shipping.
While there's a cut for the PoD service, it still cuts down on fulfillment, insures you from rising shipping costs, and just removes a lot of headache, so is also an interesting option to consider if you just must have some print option in your kickstarter (and it seems you probably do with the current expectations of the community).

[Ron Edwards]

H'mmm ... let's say my goal is a specific thing that makes it possible for me to get something done ... like hosting a get-together, or traveling somewhere, or putting up a website, or funding a particular advertisement drive. But the pledge levels give the backers specific things which they can't get any way else, or no one else will either.

The filthy secret of course, is that funds over and above what I need for my thing turn into simple income, because after all, the backers are buying product with each pledge. Which I would make crystal clear.

I'm not seeing the downside, apart from the flat-out production cost of the things, whatever they are. The idea is to have those funds in hand, in fact, spent already, without relying on this Kickstart funding them at all. I guess the point is that they'd all have to be cheap, good, and equivalent in value to the consumer (even if individual taste sets precise preferences for which ones you want). The less shipping the better, but I could accept that at least a couple would be tangible things that require it.

In the miniatures kickstart that I backed, I saw that I didn't have to specify the exact miniatures I wanted until later, when the survey came around. That means that I can set mine up simply by number of items wanted, and let the backer let me know which ones they want at the end. That way, I can grade the pledges simply by number of things, and they can tell me which when we're done.

So I have to think about limited things people might like to buy, each of equivalent value, but also very different - i.e., not just five different PDFs or posters or whatever. Again, the idea is to set pledge levels for how many of these you want, maybe by $10 or $15 grades depending on what the things (collectively) are. I'd expect most backers wouldn't spend more than getting one or two, but I'd also be trying to make the appeal to be very broad by having such a range of items.

And also important: I have to identify my goal as something people would like to see me do,* along the lines of the trumpet player or filmmaker I backed. It would clearly bring tangible benefits to everyone in the long run which, without this particular activity, I probably couldn't get off the ground.

This strikes me as a pretty good idea. What are your thoughts?

Best, Ron

* Very funny. Shut up now.

[Thunder_God]

First, I've found the Kickstarter I referred to before, the Lords of Gossamer one, where the levels with a "printed" book are actually vouchers for a PoD but you still pay for the printing and the shipping directly to the printer, so the kickstarter knows exactly how much money they're getting from the kickstarter, as anything having to do with the printed copy is fully accounted for by someone else.

I've spent some time thinking of your post over the last few days, and before I get to the crux of the matter, I'd like to point out that you need to be extremely careful if you try to have both the "The funds need to already be spent - the product should already exist" while mixing/allowing any physical options that aren't extremely limited.
Let's look at such a miniature game kickstarter, let's say we're looking at the Relic Knights one, where they have 6 factions and you can get a varying amount of starter-sets. Not all factions are equally enticing, so if you order 1/6th of your order of each faction, but 80% of the kickstarters order only two of the factions, not only will you have a lot of dead stock on hand, you'll also have to order more of these two factions. This is just a variation on the old problem of printing too many copies of a book to get cheaper rates per book - but you're now ending with a lot of dead weight - it was cheaper per book, but more expensive total.

Finally, this is the point that actually matters, and it's a question - "Why? What do you get out of it?"
The only thing I can see it doing is if you have a lot of items, you avoid the need to have a billion different backer levels, but this is a procedural thing only, it doesn't conceptually change the kickstarter, does it?
Also, it does shackle you to the kickstarter survey. And finally, an amusing "issue" I've had before - I backed the Monster kickstarter by Kingdom Death, and added money for some kickstarter exclusive miniatures. When I backed the money, I knew which figures I intended to get, but when the survey came out 2 months later I forgot, and had to try and figure it out again - because they were all the same price ;-)

So, what exactly do you gain by this, "level" style of kickstarter, aside from more organization at the kickstarter page level?

The general idea of "provide things you can't get anywhere else, for a service that'd help everyone who backs/everyone" works in general, but the actual success/failure depend on the things at stake - not just what you kickstart (Ron-Con? A 5 page article on each of the "Seminal Forge Games"?) but the things you actually offer people - if I pay $50 for a book I wouldn't mind adding an extra $5 for a nice bead-bracelet, or if I'm already paying $120 I'd add an extra $10 for some Japanese style clothe I've always found attractive to begin with.
But I wouldn't buy these things and pay shipping on top if all I was getting was a $10 PDF, even though supposedly the point is to back your kickstarter, you know? (if there had been no shipping it'd be another issue, and once I get an actual product I probably will compare the cost to obtaining it independently, which is why your point of "Can't get it anywhere else" is vital).
I think that's where the issue will really sink or swim - more than what we backing, what we are receiving for our money.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi!

Those are all important considerations. I'm currently working out a model that might be applied repeatedly, each time for a given game or line of games ... and I think it might even avoid the pitfalls you're talking about.

Let's use Spione as an example, although in practice, it probably wouldn't be the first one I'd run. Say I wanted to promote the game at the Spy Museum in Washington D.C. Say that I've already set up the possibility with some person there, maybe even a scheduled event.

In this case, the Kickstart could pay for travel and other expenses, especially for useful items suited to on-site promotion like a display or very spiffy play-aids, which otherwise I would probably not want to pay for out of the "money on hand" Adept bank account. In other words, the Kickstart would turn something that's merely possible into something quite professional and much easier to do well. (Again, some inroads or assurance from the institution would be absolutely necessary beforehand.)

So I'd have a budget set up for those expenses and that would be the goal, i.e., my goal, for something that I get to do.

I'd set a baseline pledge level at some level, whatever I think is a reasonable casual point-of-purchase estimate. Maybe $25. So then I'd list five or six things, and the idea is, you buy whichever ones you want at $25 each. And you don't tell me which until you get the survey. I might even add more as time goes by. The things wouldn't be available again.

In this case, they would all be Spione related in some way, but not merely different versions of the same idea - they'd be genuinely different things, each one complete for its concept.

Maybe a new deluxe poster map of Berlin with spy-stuff indicated. A deck of Spione playing-cards (the game is played with cards). A new set of operations sheets written for interesting agencies like Mossad, not featured in the current game (PDF). Pending some license or careful choices, a digital collection of cool period and local music by decade (that's actually very cool, this is Berlin after all). A film of a full game being played, start to finish. I could probably think of at least five more, and certainly I'd open up the pre-period to suggestions. Ideally they'd be easy to produce and provide, and the backer would pay shipping for physical items.

The idea is to make sure that more orders are really better and not more fuckin' work. Producing the poster and cards should only have to be done once, and if printing and sending these things are automated, it doesn't matter if ten people or a hundred people get one. Even more so for the electronic materials.

So I can look at the costs of making these things in both money and time, and commit to that in a realistic way based on current operating funds. Therefore the funds gained from the Kickstart would indeed go toward the goal, period. And funds gained over and above that are simply sales-profit, as the pledge rewards are effectively nothing more than a store for limited-release items.

I'm working up drafts of something like this for each game line. This is starting to excite me, so please, Guy or anyone, take a hammer to it to make sure I'm not missing something important.

Also, I think I implicitly answered your very important question "What do I get out of this," in terms of the goal - which in this case is to break into a different, spy-centric rather than gamer-centric venue for the book and game. But it is also plain good exchange between me and the pledgers: I provide some great limited stuff, and they'd like to buy it, in addition to helping me out. I think I'm hitting on a win-win without conflicts of interest between the kickstarter (me) and the backers. So it's a successful business-cycle too, yielding tons of good will and also the possibility of actual profits.

Best, Ron
edited to fix an incomplete sentence - RE

[Eero Tuovinen]

The only fundamental issue that I can see here is that it's a considerable amount of work to develop e.g. half a dozen separate spin-off products. To make it a profitable way to spend your hobby time, the items each need to be such that they attract a certain minimum amount of interest among the customer base.

And that in turn opens the door for the question of atomic sensibility of each transaction involved here. Namely, if we reduce the proposed sort of campaign to its constituent parts, does the campaign actually benefit from its central conceit of an event to be funded, or would you achieve the same or a better outcome by doing each separate transaction independently. You see, what you're basically suggesting here is that you should develop and sell new products, and then as a sales strategy convince people to buy because you promise to commit the profits of the sale towards a certain further project. Does this type of coupling add to the sales?

The alternative suggested by this question is to merely have a Kickstarter limited edition Spione product sales campaign. Sell whatever, pocket some profits and then do whatever you want with the money - go do some marketing in Washington, buy tequila, whatever, because it's your money now.

An even further deconstructed series of commercial transactions would be to make each of your spin-off products a separate Kickstarter campaign and run them e.g. three months apart. This arrangement might have the advantage of more even cash flow and higher sales - a fan who can only afford to put in $25 at a time might be able to do that several times per year, so you might be able to sell both the t-shirt and the poster to the same guy instead of just one or the other. Also, the practical hassle might be higher or lower, depending on your workflow preferences; on the one hand you'd have to get used to doing regular Kickstarter funding drives, but on the other hand you'd have to worry about just one product at a time instead of shepherding half a dozen different spin-offs at one time. I could see a part-time lone proprietor quickly getting overwhelmed by the complications of having posters, t-shirts, custom dice, shot glasses, postcards and whatever else produced at the same time. It's not impossible, but I wouldn't try it without having the graphic design department responsible for doing the product development in-house.

Off-hand it seems to me that the central argument for coupling these things (several spin-off products themed around a brand, and a non-paying associated project) together is that the customer base would be more willing to drop money on a larger, presumably higher-profile sale. If you ran smaller campaigns to sell limited edition spin-offs several times per year, the novelty factor would probably drop off pretty quickly, causing a decline in attention, and consequently in sales. (You'd still have the sales to the people who actually want a Spione t-shirt, of course, but it seems to me that those are always a small minority slice of the novelty market.) Similarly, even if you had a one-time-only Spione sale, but did not couple a central project into it, it's possible that people would have less motivation for buying the products if there was not a narrative of some sort tying it all together into a neat bow; Kickstarter seems to attract various sorts of idealistic money that would not be spent were it not for the warm feelings of getting to help somebody do something.

All told, this seems to make basic sense to me in terms of marketing strategy: one big push maximizes gossip visibility, and a central project works to theme and justify the sale in the eyes of the Kickstarter crowd. The big choke-point seems to be in the preparation of the spin-off product, that absolutely has to be done well in advance so it's just a matter of sending in the orders after the crowdfunding finishes.

[Thunder_God]

I'm going to take what Eero said and go along it a bit. In fact, I'm going to play the role of Ron Edwards from the original kickstarter thread, who raised some very interesting points about Kickstarter.

1. You said the other products, the product which you sell during the kickstarter have to be made/take no effort. How do they take no effort? I'm sure you need to work on them to get them to be kickstarter-ready. This is tied to assigning value to your time. Even if you make them primarily for yourself, can the same not be said of a lot of the RPGs we release and sell?

2. If the products we get during the kickstarter are that good, would it not make sense to sell them all year long, every year? Of course, marking them as limited can allow for an influx of money in one-go, and to people who might not have purchased them at all to purchase them, and perhaps even to earn a bit more for each one than would be normally had (people assign more value to limited objects).

3. Suppose it works, how useful can each of the things you add allowed to be? Can they add new content, rather than just be shiny (art, better character sheets, etc.) or just useful (explanations that help, but aren't mandatory?) - Say you're Apocalypse World, and you release 10 new character books - as a result of the kickstarter anyone who didn't kickstart is sort of barred from entering discussions where the material is discussed, due to not having access to it, and as time goes by assuming no piracy the chance people will manage to have a large discussion on the topic decreases (I know the example is not as good with AW and sharing, but you get the point).

[Ron Edwards]

Let's see if I can address those points, although I organized them a bit differently.

I want to provide items that are definitely good gear, but mostly not actual gaming material. The exceptions, like those new Operations sheets for Spione, would become public, and their "limited" nature applies to the opportunity to name the agency you want to see.

I don't want to run an ongoing store for gear: t-shirts, posters, et cetera. First, that turns into an ongoing pain of production and fulfillment (and I already hate that part for books), and second, I'd prefer that the artists use their ownership of the art for their own income. But I'm OK with doing it for a limited time.

Yes, it's effort to do these things. I'm willing to make a one-time effort, as long as (i) providing more of a given item doesn't mean more work, (ii) there's an identifiable benefit specifically due to its one-time nature, and (iii) the items very likely spur people's enthusiasm for the game itself.

My target audience is very specific, I'm realizing. They're people who:

own and like a particular game, but might not understand it fully or aren't playing it enough or at all
value the sense of the creator being interested in them personally
think of supplemental gear as a reciprocal statement of interest to the creator
might see supplemental gear as a prompter to play
would be more likely to pitch and play the game with others if they feel like they belong to a community of fellow game-owners
like to see the creator reinforcing or expanding that community
are excited by the idea of being of a little special in that community and having something others don't, or weren't committed enough to get

... um, with respect, like you, Guy. Or Hans, based on his posts in the previous threads. I think this audience, although very specific, is a real Kickstart demographic and I think my current notion can really serve their needs and mine at the same time.

All of these thoughts are very helpful; please keep them coming.

Best, Ron

P.S. I could also see including the game itself in the list of items to choose among, especially if I give it a this-time-only cover feature.
P.P.S. For Spione, I'm getting grandiose ideas of including real live intelligence officers (active or retired) involved in the promotional event. At the Spy Museum? Pretty cool, huh?

[Thunder_God]

The answers make sense. I mean, I knew there was a very real reason to do these things, which Eero pointed out as well - they do drive the kickstarter, but need to go into it with open eyes, especially since some of these things do run somewhat counter to what had been said before.

The examples you gave are solid, sounds cool.

I wrote a slightly longer piece about it - but even if I did like limited stuff for status/perception, I wouldn't mind it being said and wouldn't be offended about it. I think I like stuff that happens to be limited, often, and do tend to get it due to impulse-purchase and fear of being unable to obtain it later. I don't ascribe more value to limited for being limited, but I do have a harder time not-buying it. eBay sometimes works the same way >.>

I do wonder, personally, about the reciprocal part with say, wearing a game's T-Shirt. I do wear T-Shirts of games/anime/etc. but I don't think one whit of the publicity I give the author, or his "endorsement" of me. I wear the shirt for completely selfish reasons - I think it looks cool. I can wear a cool shirt of a game I dislike, or not wear an ugly shirt of a game I like.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

I think my current model - or better, prototype, to be subjected to intense internet thrashing-out and one solid test case - is consistent with my earlier points. I'm trying to find a way for a Kickstart to be maximally useful and fun to the initiator and to the pledgers without playing the two off against one another. One of my main points was to firewall the goal (mine) from the pledge awards (theirs).

In this case, I'm talking about a goal pertaining to a game which already exists, so it isn't about pre-ordering a game near the end of its production process. it's something for the game that I'd like to accomplish and which the money provided can fund. Excess becomes raw income, or if you like income offset by the promotion costs, which is how I'm thinking of the pledge awards.

I've made my peace with the unavoidable observation that the pledgers are shopping. So I provide product, especially production-sustainable product meaning I don't have to do much to make more of each one. As long as the money to produce is already in my accounts and earmarked for "spend on promotion," that suits me. And they get to pick and choose among stuff they might like.  it's not a problem to include the game as a pledge award, with the proviso that the physical version's shipping will cost extra.

I have some other ideas about what to do with a game in development, a very different situation, and so that model would be rather different.

Best, Ron