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[mainiac]

Remember what I was saying before about selling custom bolts at a 1 dollar premium?  That was after at a shop with two decades of experience making this very specific custom bolt.  Two decades and it was still costing us nearly a dollar per bolt in extra labor and capital costs because we didn't have the economies of scale that ACE does. 

Yes there is a learning curve.  No it is not remotely as downward sloping as you think.  SJG is a bigger operation so it wouldn't be as bad for them.  But delivering the quality product that people expect does not come cheap.

[MrWiggles]

SJG operating cost is around 2.3m dollars, you can infer this from their Stakeholder reports. When they break even net lose, they make around 2.3m. And they were in  bleak stake like for numerous years.

2010 remarks five years of having a net profit, and this year, they so happen to have much higher profit margin then before, making about 3.5m, over a million form last year.

And the million dollars is probably already eaten up by Orge, which is probably why we're seeing Orge out this year, regardless how well the kickstarter went.

And I think we should be stressing, that The Stakeholder report, shows us GROSS, not Net.  As in th 2.5m or the 3.5m dollar is before Taxes, Overhead, Payroll, Royalties and probably few other things.

SJG is doing well, but they aren't doing WotC well. They're being stable and viable. But they certainly dont have enough money to really experimenting on different product lines.

If you watch the Video on kickstarter, it would make Steve really happy not to work on Munchin game for a bit, as they're sorta locked into making munchin.

[Grakelin]

Can you link to the quarterly reports from SJG? This is a privately held company, thus reports to stakeholders aren't typically public knowledge.

However, if we're trying to say that SJG is poor and its employees need our help to produce their games, we can't remove the payroll from our net income.

SJG is not doing WotC well because WotC is a subsidiary of a $4 billion corporation. To compare the two is ridiculous. It's like saying the bakery down the store isn't doing too well because they don't make as much as Wonder Bread.

...

   You do realize that if 100 or so dollars is what its basically started pre-selling for that with all they have added, while they will make profit they are not going to make fistsfulls of money. Do you realize how much it costs to setup manufacturing for something like this? Its not just another run of cards for Munchkin. This is a whole new manufacturing line with new dies and stuff. They can't even offset prices by using generic things like for instance generic game box or anything as its all uniquely sized for this game.

I'm confused at what you're trying to claim. Let's look at how many people backed at $100 or more on the Kickstarter alone:

3,792 (as of May 8 ).

If we play pretend and cut all those down to just $100, that's still $379,200 in game sales. How much are they intending to pay for shipping, exactly? Especially when there are similarly massive, and cheaper, games on the market that didn't need a kickstarter to launch. Note that BGG lists the weight of these games. TI is 7.4 pounds, which expands rapidly once you start adding expansions. The last weighed version of Ogre is half a pound. I have seen the game in person. It is ridiculous that SJ is trying to make a 14 pound game out of that.

Since the Kickstarter goal was $20,000, I have to wonder what, exactly, would motivate somebody to tell us their manufacturing costs are crippling their ability to produce games.

I mean come on, guys. All my LGSes have big shelves filled with Munchkin goods. They're selling cheap boxes of easily reprinted cards for $20.00 a pop, often to the same people multiple times, and they've carved a sizable marketshare. Let's stop pretending these guys are a down-on-their-luck business in any sense.

[MrWiggles]

http://www.sjgames.com/general/stakeholders/

Oh shit, wow, the last time I peaked at that they had 2010 up, now they have 2011. Damn these last two ears have been great for Steve Jackson games. I guess getting Muchin into Target was quite the benefit. Or maybe I'm horribly butchering my millions here. XD

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...

   You do realize that if 100 or so dollars is what its basically started pre-selling for that with all they have added, while they will make profit they are not going to make fistsfulls of money. Do you realize how much it costs to setup manufacturing for something like this? Its not just another run of cards for Munchkin. This is a whole new manufacturing line with new dies and stuff. They can't even offset prices by using generic things like for instance generic game box or anything as its all uniquely sized for this game.

I'm confused at what you're trying to claim. Let's look at how many people backed at $100 or more on the Kickstarter alone:

3,792 (as of May 8 ).

If we play pretend and cut all those down to just $100, that's still $379,200 in game sales. How much are they intending to pay for shipping, exactly? Especially when there are similarly massive, and cheaper, games on the market that didn't need a kickstarter to launch. Note that BGG lists the weight of these games. TI is 7.4 pounds, which expands rapidly once you start adding expansions. The last weighed version of Ogre is half a pound. I have seen the game in person. It is ridiculous that SJ is trying to make a 14 pound game out of that.

Since the Kickstarter goal was $20,000, I have to wonder what, exactly, would motivate somebody to tell us their manufacturing costs are crippling their ability to produce games.

I mean come on, guys. All my LGSes have big shelves filled with Munchkin goods. They're selling cheap boxes of easily reprinted cards for $20.00 a pop, often to the same people multiple times, and they've carved a sizable marketshare. Let's stop pretending these guys are a down-on-their-luck business in any sense.

   At $100 they where making enough profits to sell the starting version of the game which weighed 13 pounds. They have added many things to the base game you get for that much including but not limited to 4 single sided maps instead of 2 double sided which increased the weight and the printing cost and they replaced the cardboard ogre garage(whatever that is) with a "heavy-duty vacuum-molded piece" which along with price and weight the actual size of the box will probably be upped because of it as you can't as easily break that down like you can with cardboard. Those two things alone would probably shrink their profit margins uncomfortably tight if they where just selling it for $100. Have you actually read the list of things they are going to do because of all the extra money they are getting? The idea of him going to a major con for anything besides Munchkins would in any other situation be highly unwise as Munchkins is what brings in the money and yet because of Kickstarter he is going to go to at least 2 major cons for Ogre.
   No his business is not doing bad but Ogre is not why his business is doing good and the kind of money they would have had to put out up front for everything they are going to do now would be impossible to justify. There are now over nearly 4k people paying enough to get the game. He was only going to have made 3k copies of the game and probably it would have ended there.

I don't know what you think I am arguing though so let me be clear on this. I think that
having them use Kickstarter is better for them and Kickstarter as a whole. This is exactly the kind of
things I want to see this odd tool for raising money used for. They had a game and wanted to
make it better and because of this they are making it better and reaching a wider audience.

[alway]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/421466407/oncolos-a-multiplayer-game-for-cancer-patients?ref=category
Are you someone who like games, but also has cancer? Then this is just the game for you! It will help remind you that you have cancer! It's designed to play like a fantasy MMORPG, to give the illusion of escapism; but you know better, there is no escapism, you have cancer after all! By the way, you have cancer, remember?
They want 50k to make a fantasy MMORPG specifically catering to a subset of a niche, and which may or may not come off as offensive to said subset of said niche. They may be even more delusional than Bartlet; even he had a better grasp on the amount of monetary support it takes to create an MMORPG.

AND NOW IT'S SUPER FUN TIME!!!! A game designed to pay homage to (see also: rip off) well known games of the past by creating a large number of minigames which will together make up SEWPER FUN TIEM. All the terrible games of a flash game website, but in a format which forces you to play through each and every last one.

[nenjin]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/421466407/oncolos-a-multiplayer-game-for-cancer-patients?ref=category
Are you someone who like games, but also has cancer? Then this is just the game for you! It will help remind you that you have cancer! It's designed to play like a fantasy MMORPG, to give the illusion of escapism; but you know better, there is no escapism, you have cancer after all! By the way, you have cancer, remember?
They want 50k to make a fantasy MMORPG specifically catering to a subset of a niche, and which may or may not come off as offensive to said subset of said niche. They may be even more delusional than Bartlet; even he had a better grasp on the amount of monetary support it takes to create an MMORPG.

I genuinely lol'd at this.

[Servant Corps]

After thinking about the Kickstarter business model a bit more, I am beginning to suspect that (at its best) it is a form of white-collar charity, and I am not really sure whether I want to participate in it. If I do, I want to make it clear that I'm treating it as some sort of preorder/patron-style system, because the idea of begging to other people seems rather demeaning, for both me and for the people donating. I would rather give out rewards, since it'd mean that I am actually producing something of worth, rather than asking people to throw money at me for the "hope" that I fulfill a promise.

At its worst? Way too abusable, with no accountability from Kickstarter or Amazon (since they profit when the money is transferred, regardless of whether the project actually succeeds in its goal). I might even have moral qualms participating in such a money-making scheme, even if I do not intentionally defraud someone.

[Knight of Fools]

Two relevant bits of Internet:

An article about fraud in Kickstarter.

A comic, too.

[nenjin]

What is this it with this thread and "yeah, that was posted yesterday" things

In business, when you invest in something you can lose money. Sometimes you can lose everything you put in. Investors take the risk because they will get a cut of the profits if the project is a success. But Kickstarter donors don't get a cut of the profits. They just get a copy of the game, if it survives to release. Sooner or later a Kickstarted game will fail, and the backers will get nothing. There will be outrage and bad press and other projects will need to work even harder to assure potential backers they can bring a game to market.

This is primarily my gripe. People treat Kickstarter like they're investing in a product, but real investors share in profits. Now, inevitably someone will say "people are investing in fun" which is great and all. Except these are multi-million dollar projects. So I think it's a mistake to treat Kickstarter as an investment, because it's not. It's a high-energy, feel-good pre-order with an even lower guarantee of delivery than a real pre-order.

[SealyStar]

That's really quite sad, the article in the OP. Especially the chubby... person in the YouTube videos.
Man or woman? Nobody knows and nobody cares.

EDIT: Okay, after watching the videos, I have figured out the idiot is firmly a man. With rather feminine hair. And so much fat that any facial nuances that otherwise identify people by gender are impossible. But seeing the shape of his head, I now question his species identity.

Anyway, yeah, for every great idea on Kickstarter there are 50 terrible ones. Such is the nature of the internet.

[mainiac]

This is primarily my gripe. People treat Kickstarter like they're investing in a product, but real investors share in profits.

This isn't necessarily a good thing.  When I split a pizza with my friends do we start by raising capital so an investor can buy the pizza and sell us slices at a markup?  No, we ask "who wants pizza".  Kickstarter is the same principle on a larger scale.  "Who wants OGRE?"

[nenjin]

I'm not necessarily saying gamers SHOULD be investors. And yet the model that's evolving turns us into bottom-level investors. Which is fine on a game-by-game basis I suppose. In terms of a model for the whole industry though, I think it's got serious problems. We just haven't hit the first REAL high profile failure yet, where a good company takes in a lot of money and then turns out a product very few people are satisfied with.

[Draco18s]

This is primarily my gripe. People treat Kickstarter like they're investing in a product, but real investors share in profits.

This isn't necessarily a good thing.  When I split a pizza with my friends do we start by raising capital so an investor can buy the pizza and sell us slices at a markup?  No, we ask "who wants pizza".  Kickstarter is the same principle on a larger scale.  "Who wants OGRE?"

What he's trying to say is:

What if the pizza never arrives?

[lordcooper]

This is primarily my gripe. People treat Kickstarter like they're investing in a product, but real investors share in profits.

This isn't necessarily a good thing.  When I split a pizza with my friends do we start by raising capital so an investor can buy the pizza and sell us slices at a markup?  No, we ask "who wants pizza".  Kickstarter is the same principle on a larger scale.  "Who wants OGRE?"

What he's trying to say is:

What if the pizza never arrives?

We eat curry instead.