The wild economy of tabletop board game funding

The wild economy of tabletop board game funding(npr.org)

133 points by slackpad 5 years ago | 109 comments

cycomanic 5 years ago |

Board games are an interesting thing because it's one of those global trends that did not originate in the US. Instead it game from Germany but with quite a bit of delay.

The German version of settlers came out around 1995 IIRC and sparked a big revival of board games (and strategic board games in particular in Germany. Then some time around 2008 or so I had friends in NZ and OZ who used to not play board games tell me about this cool game the wanted to play. I was quite surprised that it was settlers which I had not played since moving overseas in 2004.

So yeah the whole revival originated in Germany, but took about 10 years to suddenly go global.

User23 5 years ago | |

To be clear, board games have been extremely popular in Germany for a very long time. They just got even MORE popular. I'm not sure there was a house in post-war West Germany that didn't have at least a "games collection", something more or less like this: https://www.amazon.de/Ravensburger-01315-9-Familienspiele/dp...

hyperman1 5 years ago | |

We were playing settlers already around 2000 in The Netherlands, Belgium and France, all neighbouring countries from Germany.

iso1631 5 years ago | |

German boardgames became popular in the late 90s in the UK (although even before then several spiel de jarhes games were in mainstream shops like Toys R Us -- Hare and Tortoise and Scotland Yard come to mind)

Earlier in the 90s the games that were mainly for sale were games like Britania, History of the World, etc. Axis and Allies was always around too.

The German games brought in shorter games though, which didn't take an entire afternoon to play.

asdf21 5 years ago | |

Got popular in 2005 - 2006 in California

zeroonetwothree 5 years ago | | |

That sounds exactly right based on my recollection.

scj 5 years ago |

With the exception of board games that are related to existing games I already like, I treat Kickstarter as a negative signal for the first year.

Similar to a video game licensed movie, or a movie licensed video game; even if the title has elements I enjoy, I've been burned enough. Playing it is the only way I'll know I love it.

I can't even trust data collection on BGG, because typically the first wave of Kickstarter ratings are by people who have boarded the hype train. Followed by a re-alignment when people who are playing friends' copies step in.

Component quality bias, as well as cost bias are related (and typically compounded by Kickstarter) phenomena.

aaanotherhnfolk 5 years ago | |

I stopped kickstarting games too because I've had like a 10% hit rate.

One clear signal to me now is if they offer additional game mechanics as a stretch goal. It's hard enough balancing the base game and making it compelling. If a designer thinks they can do this not once but twice, and in a modular way no less, I question their design sensibilities in the first place.

It's possible that this is a flaw of kickstarting board games in general. The platform incentivizes stretch goals and they don't map well onto most board games.

mcv 5 years ago | | |

I think it's important to keep in mind that Kickstarter is not intended for purchasing a proven product, but to fund a product that you believe in, that you think needs to be made. It doesn't always work out that way in practice, but this is what it's intended to be.

For boardgames, stretch goals should indeed not be about adding or changing mechanics; that's a red flag. Stretch goals should probably mostly be about better quality components. Wooden or plastic pieces instead of cardboard, metal pieces instead of wood or plastic, a nicer board, more art, that sort of thing.

Extra options can work if options are already a big part of the game, and these are options the designer seriously considered but left out because they're not essential and too expensive to include. More money could mean they now can afford the non-essential options they originally intended but couldn't afford. But completely new game mechanics are a massive red flag.

It's worth noting that stretch goals are the area where a lot of Kickstarter projects mess up. Their original idea was good, but it was too successful and they promised too ambitious stretch goals which were just in the idea stage and never got properly developed, and suddenly they find themselves having promised things they don't have time for. I think this is one of the primary reasons why successfully over-funded projects end up being late.

Lazare 5 years ago | | |

An often overlapping problem is designers splitting a game into "expansions" that they sell at launch as part of the KS. "Here's the core game, it's everything you need to play! Not too expensive right? ....but here's an expansion with some new races. And another with a new hero. And another with some new missions. They're totally optional, but if you don't back them now you'll never ever find them in retail. How much do you trust that we've put all the good bits in the core?"

Awaken Realms has been one of the worst offenders with this (both fake stretch goals and fake expansions) but their newest KS (Nemesis Lockdown) actually abandoned all that for timed feature announcements.

Hopefully the start of a trend.

xmprt 5 years ago | | |

As someone who isn't a huge board game nerd, would additional cosmetics or characters be reasonable stretch goals? Characters might be harder to balance but if you have extra money, you might be able to invest more into it.

This is an approach similar to what a video game might do.

BurritoAlPastor 5 years ago |

Board games are uniquely well-adapted to the crowdfunding format because the game design can be 100% complete and playtested before any art or manufacturing has even started. (Of course, you need some art to sell the Kickstarter.) The upfront capital for developing a board game is about $40 at the art store.

In the extreme case, some campaigns link to a print-and-play version of the game so you can “try before you buy”. Try to do that with a video game!

Garlef 5 years ago | |

There actually are similar things for video games: Steam Greenlight / Early Access for example.

Also: Even a long time ago, both Quake and Quake 3 Arena had free versions out in the open before their relase.

Xelbair 5 years ago | | |

The thing is that Early Access has a very(rightfully so) bad reputation - because board game design needs to be finished prior to campaign, whereas you can drop empty game in early access, promise quite a lot.. and then abandon the project.

angled 5 years ago | | |

Bring back shareware?

armagon 5 years ago |

Its strange to me that the article says that board games are booming during the pandemic.

I haven't been able to have a regular board game night in months :-( I tried online but didn't love it (I suppose I should try it some more); I wish I could see how to do it in person and maintain physical distance, but it looks doubtful.

cletus 5 years ago |

So I went through a phase of backing a lot of board game Kickstarters, which probably started with Scythe, a game I missed out on (and bought off the BGG marketplace, at a premium). But I think Scythe is an outlier here.

I've gotten a number of mediocre games but some good ones (eg 7th Continent, Gloomhaven). In some cases what I bought ended up being cheaper at retail. I have gotten some reprints though, which are of course more of a known quantity.

I will say though that one nice thing to come out of all of this is "premium pieces". That's why I bought the Scythe Collector's edition. The game remains the same for those unwilling or unable to pay the premium but for people like myself with the ability and inclination to do so, it makes the gaming experience just a little nicer.

But I rarely back Kickstarters now. I'm glad it exists as a means of bootstrapping games.

ARandomerDude 5 years ago |

I'd really like to get into more board games, but so many of them have an occult flavor to them.

Suggestions? I have Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne.