I use DrivethruRPG to print my books, and I've sent them to Uruguay, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, and God knows where else for generally no more than the US shipping (around $5 for the base mail price). It takes a while, but it sure beats USPS standard rates.

Quote from: The Traveller;700215That's insane. So mostly by sheer force of reputation he decided to launch an entirely new line of games and whipped up sixty grand in the first day. Is this just social media in action or is he actually doing some heavy marketing elsewhere?

He's been active on the Social Media circuit but I didn't see any hints of this in either Twitter or elsewhere.  I found out when I got a Kickstarter e-mail from the Numenera project about it--so I think most people found out Yesterday.

He's obviously doing something right.  There are some name creators but they are few in this industry.  And most big names however don't pass their creation much--guys like Ed Greenwood, Hickman & Weiss and R.A. Salvatore don't do as well outside their famous creations (Forgotten Realms, DragonLance Heroes, Drizzt).  Even Gary Gygax never had as much of a following when he did his own thing as opposed to anything D&D related.  There are guys like John Wick, S. John Ross, and others who do their own thing but they don't seem to have the numbers Monte has.

I found it interesting that Numenera was the biggest Tabletop RPG that wasn't based on an already established existing property (World of Darkness, FATE, CoC).  He's established himself as not just the guy who writes "D20 stuff".  My guess is he's the biggest name in Tabletop RPGs in this day and age.

(Also should point out Bruce Cordell is likely the lead developer on this one.)

He's received over $100,000 in less than 24 hours now...

What's interesting are the Whales of the Kickstarter...70+ people have purchased a $450 package that gives them all the print products up until 2015!

Quote from: Ladybird;700135Fulfilment is going to be a nightmare for them.

Yes, it does seem like a flat shipping rate would have been much easier on them and on the backers.

I can't imagine having to ask 800+ people how they want their product shipped, then having to tell them they have to pay more if they're international, or if they're USA backers who want FedEx, or UPS, or USPS tracking, or USPS insurance, or USPS priority mail, etc.

THEN MCG says that they'lltrack if the backer paid more in shipping than what the shipping actually cost, and give them that difference as a store credit on another site.

That's a hell of a lot of work to distract from actually working on the product, unless they've just got an intern or fulfillment company that will take care of all that for them.

Quote from: Mark Plemmons;700599That's a hell of a lot of work to distract from actually working on the product, unless they've just got an intern or fulfillment company that will take care of all that for them.

I think the safe money is on a fulfillment company. Which leads me to a question that's been bubbling in my head for a while.

Did Kickstarter create the fulfillment industry or just provide fulfillment companies exposure by providing a bumper crop of potential customers?

Quote from: JRT;700586He's been active on the Social Media circuit but I didn't see any hints of this in either Twitter or elsewhere.  I found out when I got a Kickstarter e-mail from the Numenera project about it--so I think most people found out Yesterday.

Astonishing, so he fired up a facebook comment, sent out a few emails, and gets six figures in a day. He should license out his name, claim he's involved in designing games in exchange for a cut of the takings.

Bloody hell, a day in and over $100k. I suppose if we are wondering who the 'rock stars' of the RPG world are one need look no further than this fellow.

Shows as well that there's plenty of money (relatively speaking) out there in the RPG market, you just need the ability to tap into it and Cook has that, in spades. Impressed.

Not impressed enough to actually back the game mind, but still impressed

I've backed, not because of Monte's name, but because I've played Numenera and really enjoyed it. I suspect a lot of the other early backers are similar - MCG sent out a message to all Numenera backers telling them that The Strange Kickstarter was live.

There were breadcrumbs dropped by Monte, Bruce and Shanna too, about a week before the Kickstarter went live. So if you were active in the Numenera community you already new something was coming.

Yes yes yes, that's all good and fine.

But at what level do I have to back, to get access to the new man-eating succubus?!?

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;700682Yes yes yes, that's all good and fine.

But at what level do I have to back, to get access to the new man-eating succubus?!?

60 bucks, but more importantly, you need to pay with your parents' credit card.

Quote from: JRT;700105Interestingly enough, there's a lot of "whales" (to use Casino terminology)--25 people are paying $450 to receive all the print books in the first cycle.

I can't figure out the economics of that one. Subtract the $60 for the core rulebook and then divide by an average price of $25 for the other products and they'd need to release 15+ products between August 2014 and December 2015 in order to just break even on that.

Which isn't impossible, but does outstrip their existing schedule of releases by a significant margin.

Or, to put it another way, they need to release 10 products in those 17 months that AREN'T part of this kickstarter to make this tier break even with the $200 tier. (And that's assuming a $25 average price, which is higher than what they're currently averaging.)

Quote from: The Traveller;700215That's insane. So mostly by sheer force of reputation he decided to launch an entirely new line of games and whipped up sixty grand in the first day. Is this just social media in action or is he actually doing some heavy marketing elsewhere?

MCG released buzz over the past two weeks through their existing fan communities.

Also keep in mind that a successful Kickstarter is a long-term marketing bonanza: MCG has the ability to easily communicate with 4,600+ backers from the Numenera kickstarter. Just 20% of those backers is enough to put The Strange at $122,000.

I've been thinking long and hard about Kickstarter and RPGs recently and the conclusion I've come to is that I think I'm done with them.  For two main reasons:

First.  It's not that I don't want to support these games and designers, but the costs of international shipping from the US to the UK are so high at the moment that it's almost doubling the pledge total in a lots of cases.

Second.  The time involved.  I mean we're being asked to upfront a not inconsiderable amount of cash for game that unlikely to be delivered on time.  Classic example is CoC 7th Ed, the delivery estimate for that has gone from "We will have these books in your hands by Halloween 2013" to "We might be able to get them to you for March-April 2014 but we're not promising anything".

What I expect I'll end up doing is picking up a copy of the main book once it gets to the UK Gaming stores.  It'll save me an enormous amount of money on shipping and means I can just keep an eye out for the book in Leisure Games new releases.

Quote from: The Traveller;700658Astonishing, so he fired up a facebook comment, sent out a few emails, and gets six figures in a day. He should license out his name, claim he's involved in designing games in exchange for a cut of the takings.

Wasn't that what Iron Heroes was. Mike Mearls did most of the work, and Monte just put a big MONTE COOK PRESENTS on the cover.

So are we now saying he should go from being a rock star to owning a record label?

I think i'm gonna wait for the UK store release on this one as it looks good but the shipping just isnt worth it.

Quote from: UberMunchkin;700858First.  It's not that I don't want to support these games and designers, but the costs of international shipping from the US to the UK are so high at the moment that it's almost doubling the pledge total in a lots of cases.

Since I'm in a similar situation, what I'm doing is only backing projects for the PDFs. While I understand why people like to have a dead tree version, PDFs are usually a good deal for us international backers. If you later on find out you love the game, most of the time you can purchase a physical copy on a store later on.