Is Kickstarter bad for RPGs?

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.