I wrote a (relatively small) part of the freaking thing, so I'll be happy with an author's copy, but it's pretty astounding how it has gone - people claiming the crazy-level perks, and the project being so successful that they are actually starting to run out of ideas for goodies to add.

I knew RA was big, but never would have thought it was that big.

Quote from: Fiasco;552996This kickstarter has passed $191,000 with six days to go.  Insane.  Its running neck and neck with the Traveller one which is on approx $187,000.

Interestingly, Traveller has double the backers but is behind on funds raised.  This is because Rappan Athuk has some crazy insane fanboys including one who sprung $10,000 for two day long sessions run by Bill Webb himself.

15 backers have tipped in $48,000 between them into Rappan.  Are these two projects going to be the high water mark of the whole fundy experience or just harbingers of what is to come?

I find it astonishing that people can tip that kind of money into a kickstarter for such little return.  For $10,000 you could pretty much fund any module you want by any writer, yet here it just gets you multiple copies of the module, some shout outs and a bit of one on one time with the creator.  Amazing.

It just goes to show that love of the product is far more powerful than just the incentives on offer.

I found this whole RA/Traveler thing completely fascinating.

My take is that we're seeing a "perfect storm" of old school demographics.  While RA isn't itself stretching back to the 70's, stylistically and conceptually it's aiming for that vibe.  It also has a dozen years of it's own legacy built into it.  So you end up with two popular products that will appeal to people in their 40s to 70s.  If you were a thirty-something in the 70s then you'd be in your 70s now.  These people are going to have a lot more disposable income to play around with.  Heck, if you're in your 60s or 70s and financially comfortable then dropping $10k on some experience might be exactly what you are looking for in life at that point.

Then toss in the competition between Traveler and the stand in for old school D&D and it just keeps running away with itself.  If they both hadn't overlapped then these things might very well have been far lower when they finally end.

I would argue the OSR demographics would be strongly skewed to the 35 to 45 age bracket with people 55 and over the outliers. Having said that I agree with the rest of what you have to say. People in that bracket certainly have plenty of disposable income. It's why WOTC would be smart to continue to cater to the OSR. They most likely have a fair bit more disposable income than the 4E crowd.

Good job breaking that last stretch goal in the last possible moment.


Fiasco: From what I have seen of personal info people post about themselves, it doesn't look like "the 4e crowd" is actually significantly younger. It is used as a rhetorical device, like old school people doing their "harrumph, if you kids knew about those old days when our old, grizzled veterans carved our dice outta mammoth bones!" routine, but it seems to me the two demographics are largely drawn from the same age category.

If what you say is correct (and I certainly don't claim to know better) its not a good omen for the long term future of the hobby...

This has no 100% relevance to pencil and paper roleplaying games, but we are apparently about to see what happens when a successful large-scale Kickstarter fails. Not 'fails as in it suffers delays', but 'fails as in it fails fails'. Story.

QuoteFully Funded Kickstarter Game Goes Belly Up - 'Haunts: The Manse Macabre' Is Out Of Money As Programmers Call It Quits

What happens when a Kickstarter video game project fully funds and then abruptly runs out of money and programmers? We’re about to find out.

Kickstarter can be a wonderful way to fund a video game, but as I’ve said for some time now, the rules are pretty vague. Only one thing is certain when you put your money into a Kickstarter project: there’s no way to know whether you’ll get what you pay for.

Now one indie game funded on the site looks like it may have to call it quits.

Haunts: The Manse Macabre wrapped up its Kickstarter drive just over three months ago on July 6th. The turn-based horror strategy game raised $28,739 – nearly $4,000 over its goal of $25,000.

The game was initially designed as a single-player and multi-player experience.

Then, in September, the developer announced that the single-player component would be scrapped.
(...)
Then, earlier today, Dakan informed backers that the game was effectively dead in the water – at least for now.

“As I’m sure many of you suspect, things haven’t been going well for Haunts and Mob Rules Games,” Dakan wrote. “I am still determined to get the game out, but I no longer have any way of knowing when and how that will happen.”

The problem, Dakan says, is that the studio no longer has any programmers.
(...)
The game promised from the outset that it would be fully transparent with all budgetary issues and expenses.

As such, Mob Rules Games included in its Kickstarter the money it had received from The Lewis Charitable Foundation – a total of $42,500 which the studio has used primarily to pay salaries.

“Mob Rules Games believes that radical transparency is the best way for us to do business,” the Kickstarter page reads, “that if we are as open and straightforward as possible with our customers and the world, we’ll both earn their trust and be able to operate in an open and honest manner. We post our budget, schedule, progress, investors, and corporate policies on our web site.”

The problem here is two-fold.

Mob Rules Games’ last budget report was posted to their website in April, prior to the start of the Kickstarter drive. Since then, the money trail can only be guessed at.

Furthermore, no mention of the possibility of the game’s only two programmers leaving in the middle of the project is mentioned on the Kickstarter page, even though in Dakan’s update today he states quite clearly that the lead programmer “was always going to move on to something else after a year or so.”
(...)
With no money and nobody left at the studio that can actually program a game, Dakan has turned to outside help, writing that he is “currently in talks with another game company owned by some old friends and coworkers of mine, Blue Mammoth Games. They have expressed an interest in taking on Haunts. Austin and I would continue on in our roles, although we would both be doing so in our spare time. These new potential partners won’t be able to make the decision for a few weeks at least and then after that it would be months before anything came out.”

Whether Blue Mammoth Games would feel obligated to honor the pledge rewards is an open question, though giving away well over 1,000 copies of the game to backers seems unlikely.

Looks like this might impact not only the deliverables for this specific game, but also Kickstarter's rules, not to mention peoples' expectations for funding a project. Beyond disclaimers, risks will come to the forefront and receive more publicity than they used to. Of course, Kickstarter was too easy money from the start, so this readjustment is not necessarily a bad thing.

It'll be interesting to see how this is handled.

RPGPundit