This
will be a complicated piece, and a complex issue. So let me start
with a few caveats and a few statements. First, I love roleplaying
games. I have been playing them since I was eleven. I feel they are a
part of me at my very core. I am not complaining about RPGs. Second,
I have a great many friends that make their living in the RPG
industry. These are some fantastic people, and they mean well.
Lastly, even though I like the idea of Kickstarter ‘crowd-funding’
as a whole is headed for a cliff. I apologize to everyone I am going
to offend, and I am going to offend people.
There
has been a renaissance of Kickstarter projects in the RPG industry
that is unprecedented. Many have been so successful that they have
raised over a hundred thousand dollars and wildly exceeded their
goals by five hundred percent or more. While on the surface this
might seem to be a great boon to RPGs as a whole I think this is the
beginning of the end. There are a great many things that Kickstarter
works well for I just don’t think that many RPGs are good
candidates.
Products
I love, and want to see are raising obscene amounts of money. Many of
these products are simply greedy publishers maximizing their own
profit at the expense of their own customers, and I think this is a
bad precedent.
My
first point is that retail distribution and sales have been
problematic for many companies. There are many reasons for this.
Retail is an expensive and capital intensive business. Quality
employees are expensive to hire and maintain. The OGL phenomenon has
lead to a wild proliferation of products. The major publishers have
set tighter guidelines. Distribution has shaved margins past the
point of profitability. However retail has always been the soul of
our hobby.
I
have spoken before about how I first started to play in Lincoln
Nebraska at Merlin and Mary Hayes original Hobbytown. In the last
twenty years I’ve been buying at Emerald City in Seminole Florida.
For decades the retail store has been the center of our communities .
It was where we bought our games, where we learned about new games,
and where we discussed the finer points of the hobby. Without the
stores and their commitment to us we would have been adrift without
any support.
Kickstarter
removes the retail component and redirects that profit to the
publisher. On the surface this is a boon for many publishers in the
short term, but each dollar of profit removed from the retail channel
intensifies the crisis that exists in the retail space today. Quality
retailers deserve our support and removing these products creates a
death spiral of shrinking margins and closing stores.
Second,
Kickstarter promotes bad business models. When I say this many people
are going to be angry. I’m sorry, just hear me out. Being a game
publisher is hard, you have to wear many hats, you need to write, you
need to edit, you need to sell, you need a diverse skill set, and you
have to raise capital. This unique blend of components creates a
level of excellence. Marginal games with limited appeal don’t get
made, and in my mind they probably shouldn’t.
The
Indie games community has been thriving for years creating boutique
games that explore new avenues and new ideas. Every once in a while
those Indie publishers have become very successful. Many people
forget that companies like Green Ronin, White Wolf and FASA were once
tiny little boutique companies. This system of using the market to
create better games has worked well.
Finally
Kickstarter is bad for the hobby because it excludes new players.
This is related to the retail question and the Indie game publisher
question because it affects our industry not just today but also
tomorrow. Our greatest evangelists have always been the game store
professionals and independent publishers that go out into the
community and bring new customers into the fold. RPGs are sadly dying
as computer games and social media give all of the utility of the
table top experience without leaving your home. While I am not a
luddite and understand that the wider world is not going back,
working from inside the hobby to destroy these paradigms is not
replacing them.
So
what do we do?
I
think that there is a place for Kickstarter, but I think we need to
set some ground rules as responsible publishers and consumers that
add value but don’t decimate the core business.
One,
set a goal and stop. Capital is hard to come by these days and
Kickstarter offers a fantastic way to raise money from like-minded
individuals and gauge the market. So if you need ten thousand dollars
to print your product, acquire art, or advertise by all means use
this tool. You should also stop funding when you reach your goals and
use that capital to support the retail and distribution network.
Two,
make your products valuable to the retailer. If you offer collectible
patches, special editions, and promotional t-shirts turn those
products into SKUs and sell them through the retail and distribution
channel as well. You can do a special color or designation for early
adopters, but you don’t have to cut those channels out of the
process.
Three,
change your idea when you fail. If your Kickstarter fails to reach
your goal solicit and use criticism that can improve your game and
make it saleable. If it fails again than it wasn’t meant to be.
Kickstarter
isn’t an RPG company, and they don’t build their business model
on what is best for our hobby. Another problem is that these projects
can make Kickstarter quite a bit of money, so the company has to be
conflicted as to what to do. Added to this is the fact that so many
different companies are doing so many projects in so many different
areas that the company does not have the resources to vet any
significant number of them. We have to be our own gatekeepers, and we
have to balance the needs of the consumer, the retailer, and the
company.
