Joesph Browning makes some very good points about using Kickstarter for the OSR calender despite it failing. A lot of people have been focusing on the successes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo projects. How it allowed them to fund projects that would have otherwise not happened or taken very long to complete.
However Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites are a game changer not just for their ability to collect funding but also as a measure of market interest. Recently SJ Games Ogre Kickstarter went through the roof and I am sure that was something they were not expecting despite their careful approach to marketing and researching games.
The OSR Calender was an interesting idea but because of the failure of the kickstarter Joesph is now free to invest his time and money in other projects of more interest to others rather staring ruefully at boxes of unsold calenders.
I have a couple of friends thinking for the first time about publishing their own game for more than just their mates since the crowd funding thing really kicked off. I hope they do well, but you're right, if nothing comes of it, at least they will know that they didn't our a ton of their own money into something that didn't have a great deal of interest.
ReplyDeleteI think talking about this kind of thing would be a nice ending to the interview I hope to post up on my blog soon.
Agree 100%. Kickstarter is great both for producers and suppliers in the long tail. It basically is a marketing department for free.
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