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A comment on 10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Kickstarter.

Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by danso on Friday March 24, 2017 @11:07PM (#13953892)
Would love to see this broken down into categories, e.g. Table Top vs. Video Games, and sub-categories, e.g. iOS/Android vs PC/Console.

I've never backed a KS board game, but as an outsider/layperson, that category sounds like an unmitigated runaway success with huge-money-campaigns [0] like Kingdom Death ($12M) and Exploding Kittens ($8.7M), and then humble projects that later became huge, such as Cards Against Humanity ($15K) [1].

But I have backed video games and pay more attention to that category in general. So while I'm aware of great successes like FTL, Undertale, Shovel Knight, and Pillars of Eternity, the category of video game projects seems seems to be much more infused with skepticism and even hostility because of high profile failures like Mighty No. 9 and Clang [2]. Hell, one of the earliest high profile KS failure that I remember hearing about was Code Hero back in 2011 [3]

Obviously, selection/survivor bias is in play here. I read tech blogs so I'll hear more about video game controversies than those of board games. But I feel -- as is the case for software development in general -- there are inherent challenges to video game development that make it seem more risky. Yes, board games have to deal with hardware-manufacturing issues, but it's hard to imagine anything like Star Citizen's creep scope happening to a board game campaign (not that SC is a failure, but its development has definitely evoked feelings of cynicism).

[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?category_id=12...

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maxtemkin/cards-against...

[2] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang

[3] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/primerist/code-hero-a-g...

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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by thaumasiotes on Friday March 24, 2017 @11:10PM (#13953904)
> I've never backed a KS board game, but as an outsider/layperson, that category sounds like an unmitigated runaway success

As someone with some direct experience with kickstarted board games, a few are smashing successes and quite a lot are, in terms of play, nothing special. I personally wouldn't want to back a campaign, because the odds are overwhelming that the final product wouldn't be something I'd really want to own.

There are enthusiasts who take the opposite approach -- they back everything because sometimes you get a real gem.

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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by danso on Friday March 24, 2017 @11:31PM (#13953952)
The appeal of board games (obviously, other than their entertainment value) is that they promise something of physical permanence and portability. When they manage to deliver, even if the quality isn't great (compared to professional products), you at least have a physical memento/token/souvenir.

But when software delivers a piece of crap, you end up with much less. Some of the successful iOS games I've backed from small devs don't even work anymore because they eventually stop keeping up with changes to iOS.

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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by Larrikin on Saturday March 25, 2017 @12:20AM (#13954093)
A working app that stops working sounds like an ecosystem problem.
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by ReverseCold on Saturday March 25, 2017 @12:44AM (#13954141)
Eventually you need to get rid of old things for whatever reason and embrace new things, Apple just does this a lot faster than others, and it's definitely a good thing.
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by smt88 on Saturday March 25, 2017 @02:50AM (#13954422)
Not everyone thinks it's good. I have some fantastic games from my childhood 20 years ago that work flawlessly on Windows 10. I really value that.
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by ghaff on Saturday March 25, 2017 @10:07AM (#13955690)
You have a lot more flexibility in general with desktop OSs, especially when you consider VMs and the like. And even with Windows it's not that straightforward. A couple of weeks ago I spent some time getting old games and mods running on a new Windows 10 system. It involved a lot of patches and otherwise fiddling around--and these were popular games with a large community still involved with them.
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by Nutomic on Saturday March 25, 2017 @05:08AM (#13954720)
I dont think thats the case on Android. Even apps written for Android 1.5 should still work fine on new phones.
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by TheSpiceIsLife on Saturday March 25, 2017 @02:49AM (#13954421)
Why is it a good thing that I've had to throw 5 iPhones in the e-waste bin?
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by thaumasiotes on Saturday March 25, 2017 @04:21AM (#13954611)
I don't see backing kickstarter projects as an end in itself, such that delivery of any object is just a bonus that serves to commemorate that time when I backed a project. I'd like it to be the other way around, where the benefit of backing a project is that you got whatever it delivered.
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by trhfgdgfsa on Saturday March 25, 2017 @02:32AM (#13954385)
Do you want a piece of crap cluttering up your house?
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Re:10,000 Games projects have been successfully funded on Ki... by aidenn0 on Saturday March 25, 2017 @12:22PM (#13956303)
The big difference is that most board games are already feature-complete before they start fundraising. I had a friend do a KS board game and the game had been played hundreds of times (on hand-written index cards &c.) before the fundraising started.

All that was needed was the manufacturing, and the costs for about 98% of what goes into a board game are fairly well established.

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