Board games have been nearly ruined by kickstarter.
Instead of buying a well reviewed and recommended game from a store, you have to back a hyped up sales pitch, and then wait 4 months for delivery, if the producers don’t just bail with your money or go “oops, we couldn’t finish what we promised, and we already spent all your money…”.
And if you don’t back it to later read the reviews, the game is out of print and still waiting for the first wave of deliveries, meaning a second print is still at least a year off.
Also, the ratings are heavily skewed by people rating on the hype or early/review copies, meaning the rankings are heavily amazonified.
EtA: Also games are heavily bloated with social media candy: heavy and fragile minis, box stands, blingy crap periferals (branded dice holding toucan) and still needing organisers, player aids and mods from third parties who’ve gotten review copies to make said supplements…
Oh, and the stretch goal extras (get another 150 vanity minis/3D printed scoring tokens) for only $150 and an 18 month wait!
If the game is actually good there will almost always be another Kickstarter later if it doesn’t go retail, but it could be years. Except for CMON games which are based on FOMO, those do not come back and retail can be significantly worse.
Board games have been nearly ruined by kickstarter.
Instead of buying a well reviewed and recommended game from a store, you have to back a hyped up sales pitch, and then wait 4 months for delivery, if the producers don’t just bail with your money or go “oops, we couldn’t finish what we promised, and we already spent all your money…”.
And if you don’t back it to later read the reviews, the game is out of print and still waiting for the first wave of deliveries, meaning a second print is still at least a year off.
Also, the ratings are heavily skewed by people rating on the hype or early/review copies, meaning the rankings are heavily amazonified.
EtA: Also games are heavily bloated with social media candy: heavy and fragile minis, box stands, blingy crap periferals (branded dice holding toucan) and still needing organisers, player aids and mods from third parties who’ve gotten review copies to make said supplements…
Oh, and the stretch goal extras (get another 150 vanity minis/3D printed scoring tokens) for only $150 and an 18 month wait!
If the game is actually good there will almost always be another Kickstarter later if it doesn’t go retail, but it could be years. Except for CMON games which are based on FOMO, those do not come back and retail can be significantly worse.