Comparisons

We’ve just finished our first Gamefound campaign, after four increasingly successful Kickstarters. I’m going to do a bit of a deep dive on the differences (bear in mind my Kickstarter experience is now over a year old - things might have changed in the meantime).

Why did we change? Kickstarter was working well for us, we had raised over £75,000 through four campaigns. Why would we risk changing? Blockchain is the answer to that. If you live in Europe you’ll have probably experienced a record breaking heatwave in the last week. It was over 2 degrees C hotter than the previous record in the UK and over 4 degrees hotter than the previous record in my city. The world is on fire and it’s our fault. We need to make radical changes to prevent tipping points in the climate.

Blockchain is hugely energy intensive. BitCoin is the worse example, but even the Proof of Stake chains require a lot of energy. Kickstarter announced a move to blockchain last year without providing any real reason at all. When pushed by numerous incensed creators and backers they doubled down ‘Blockchain!’.

Contrast that with Gamefound whose equivalent message was all how how they would be helping creators and backers. Rather that pouring fuel on the planetary fire. We’d used them three times already for pledge managers, so it was a natural choice. But was it a good one?

TL;DR: It was our best campaign ever, but I’m pretty sure we’re would have raised even more on Kickstarter with the same campaign. But I don’t regret it at all.

Gamefound has a lot of advantages. You can have a preview page that’s a landing page with real content that you can make available before the project is reviewed. A dedicated account manager with good response times on queries. Add-ons and stretch goals are first class citizens. They handle EU VAT for you. And the pledge manager is in the same place. We were also offered a free banner ad on the site.

But there are also plenty of downsides (though this is very early days and I expect lots of these will get addressed quite quickly). The worse was the lack of notifications on comments - I find myself having to frequently check the page comments and all the updates to see if I’ve missed responding to any comments. The ads between updates and comments confused a lot of people, so we got responses to update questions on the main page comments. Our backers complained the site was hard to use and the ads were too intrusive. Some backers had pledges blocked by their card issuers (if you’re in the US a Polish company looks more dodgy that an US one). There’s no app and a much smaller user base so we got a lot less pledges on the last day than last time. In fact we probably lost a bunch of backers because they’ve never heard of Gamefound (but know Kickstarter). Kickstarter claim to provide 40-45% of the backers on our previous campaigns. I’d always assumed that was some creative accounting and most of it came from the ads we ran, but maybe not so much. We got almost nothing directly attributed to Gamefound.

There was also a few features of the Kickstarter dashboard I missed (the stream of pledge/adjustments/cancellations including backer name, the graph showing various pledge backer totals in a single place).

Campaign performance by day, darker lines are more recent

We had 40% more people on our mailing list, nearly four times as many followers at launch, three times the marketing budget and a bigger draw project - it added multiplayer rules which people have been clamouring for. And we raised 8% more than last time. It’s not quite a fair comparison as Gamefound doesn’t include shipping in the pledges, but even assuming similar shipping to last time that’s still only 24%. I’m pretty sure we’d have done better than that on Kickstarter.

But I don’t regret it. We need rapid systemic change to minimise the effects of climate change. Blockchain is an ecological disaster and companies should be avoiding it like the plague, not starting to embrace it. Our decision costs us money, but it’s one I’ll happily repeat - we’re going to have to collectively make far bigger sacrifices in the coming years.

New Home

We've run four Kickstarters for FlickFleet and its expansions.

Kickstarter recently announced a move to Blockchain that annoyed a lot of people including us while providing no sensible justification and no benefits for creators or backers.

So we're looking for a new home, starting with Xeno Wars this summer.

We've used Gamefound for all three of the pledge managers we've run.

They've started doing crowdfunding too, but are in beta.

Moving to them would streamline the process for us (and for our backers).

We've got access :)

I've started on the campaign this week.

It's not without risk though.

Kickstarter brings a lot of backers and marketing clout.

Plus it's much better known for new backers.

How much of a hit will we take for making the switch?

I don't think we'll ever know.

Enthused

Paul slaves like Vulcan/Hephaestus over the laser-cutter.

Churning out Kickstarter rewards.

For the first time we have paid him!

Meanwhile, 100 miles to the north I am deep in InDesign.

Updating prototypes.

Tweaking them.

Trying new things.

Progress is being made.

The last Kickstarter deluxe rewards go out today. 

Then there’s another 76 standards to follow. 

I’m testing, updating and iterating three designs.

Coalescence is coming along

After the long, dark tea-time of the Pandemic it finally feels like I’m flying again.

Firing on all cylinders.

This posts has been one long mixed metaphor.

Manifestation

A heat haze forms. Yet it is not that warm on this late September afternoon in Germany.

The air begins to bubble. Then boil.

An eldritch scream. The air is rent asunder. A Lost One manifests in this reality.

Normality returns.

Photo by Brandable Box @brandablebox Unsplash

It appears an unassuming box. It’s cardboard exterior looks ordinary. Pedestrian even.

Within, it seethes. Phenomenal cosmic power. Waiting to wreak destruction on an interplanetary scale.

It moves. Slowly at first. Then gathering pace. It takes off. Speeding through the sky as it approaches the nexus.

The nexus: North Yorkshire, UK. Calm. Peaceful. 

The box approaches. Soon it will burst. Spewing conflict and interstellar war across the globe.

The box has arrived at our supplier in Germany and is on its way back to us again.

Kickstarter fulfilment is near.

Frustration

The box that’s stopping us fulfilling the Kickstarter has spent two weeks in a depot in Germany.

Why?

I guess returns aren’t a priority.

The supplier has chased it with DHL.

Still no movement.

This is all so galling.

Before Brexit this would have just been delivered.

In a couple of days.

Job done.

It all went wrong when we didn’t receive a letter telling us there were customs due.

So we didn’t know it was waiting for us.

Now we’re waiting for it.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

At least Paul’s now finished cutting the deluxe rewards.

So things will move quickly when it gets here.

For now, the wait is on.

When will it get here?

Soon I hope.

Development

I’m still chasing the package we’re trying to get redelivered. 

It’s currently in a depot in Germany.

I’m also still automating things.

There’s a joy in watching a task that would have taken you hours get completed in seconds.

There’s a few more things I’d like it to do:

• import a Kickstarter spreadsheet, 
• import and match up a Gamefound spreadsheet,
• build a fulfilment spreadsheet from those,
• import the latest fulfilment spreadsheet,
• update the accounts.

Some of those are more urgent than others.

Once this is done it should free up a lot of my limited time.

Time I can spend on game design. Website improvements. Preparing for our next Kickstarter.

I’m looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, Paul is still running the laser-cutter into the ground. Cutting the deluxe rewards. 

That’s a big fleet!

Bagging what he can with the wooden bits we now have. 

But almost nothing can be shipped until that third parcel comes back…

Cross-Check

The invoices are done. 

They took about two minutes to generate almost 250.

They would have taken me about five minutes each to do manually. 

So 12 hours saved. Or 6-12 evenings. Or two to six weeks.

The program took a few days to write, but will continue to pay dividends for years to come I hope.

I also used it as an opportunity to check things. Got the program to double check everything added up right.

Found a couple of transcription errors.

Things that backers wouldn’t have got. Then had to be corrected. At our expense. 

Would have been a crap customer experience too.

Very glad I wrote the program.

Repetition

I’m trained as a Software Engineer. 

It was my day job until 2015 and then part of my day job 2019-2020.

It means I have the skills (though rusty!) to write computer programs. To automate tasks I spend months on.

There’s a saying that if you repeat a task you should automate it.

Every time we go to Kickstarter I spent months massaging data from one spreadsheet to another. 

Kickstarter backers and Gamefound orders together. Into the format Paul prefers for fulfilment.

Then from there into invoices.

I’m automating the invoice creation at the moment.

Should have done this years ago.

Would have saved a boat-load of time.

Time I could have spent on game design, graphic design or something else worthwhile.

I’m an idiot.

Four

I started Eurydice Games four years ago.

To self-publish hand-made games.

Specifically not to go to Kickstarter.

Or mess up like I did last time. To learn from my mistakes.

Things have changed!

Paul joined and we formed a limited company a year later.

We’ve been to Kickstarter four times, each more successful than the last.

This year is already our most successful ever, and we’ve a lot of games we hope to ship in the next six weeks.

Things are changing further.

Paul is going to be employed by Eurydice Games from September.

And earn a salary.

I never managed that with Reiver Games.

I really hope we can continue to be successful enough to support Paul.

Here’s hoping year 5 is a good one!

Return

Today we’re driving back to the North.

I’ve a bunch of housekeeping tasks to do on my return.

And then the invoices. Still thinking if I can somehow automate that process to save time in the long run.

Next up after that is Xeno Wars. And Coalescence.

And we need a better web shop setup. Our current one is pants.

We’re starting to pay Paul from next month. We need the website to support sales between Kickstarters - not to hinder them.

We also need to get the next Kickstarters lined up ready to go.

In Flight

I’ve spent the last week ordering bits for the Kickstarter fulfilment.

We’ve got the dice. The grey, red and blue acrylic and the printing for the game and expansion 1 reprints arriving this week.

Boxes have been ordered, but won’t arrive until late June.

We’ve also started shipping rewards - for people who’ve order a game and/or expansion 1 only.

My job finishes on Wednesday then I have 2.5 weeks off before I start the next one.

Need to order the remaining stuff and do the Print and Play rewards next.

Busy, busy!

Accounts

We’re a small company. Just Paul and me.

So we wear a lot of hats. 

Hats that would be worn by trained professionals in a bigger company.

One of my hats says ‘Accountant’ on it. But I’m not an accountant.

Still I do all the bookkeeping.

When I ran Reiver Games I did cash accounting. 

I hated it and often left it to the last minute. Months later I would be going through bank statements trying to work out where I’d gone wrong.

For Eurydice I do double entry. It’s more work. But so much better. There’s some error correction built in. You can easily see where everything is.

I quite enjoy it now.

Our books are usually up to date every day. I can check account balances at any point to make sure I’ve not made mistakes. Everything tallies.

The only time that isn’t true is now. During a Kickstarter we only get one payment (from KS), so it’s easy to record. During a big pledge manager we get over a hundred. And lots of those arrive the same day.

The books are slowly catching up. But they aren’t there yet. So I can’t check that they’re correct. Check I’ve not made any mistakes.

It’s weighing on me.

Grind

Crafting a Kickstarter page is about design.

Make it look great.

Get the words right.

Hone everything.

Will it grab people’s attention?

Launch!

Then wait and watch it work. Or not. Or only just.

We’re now setting up the Pledge Manager.

It’s very different. A chore.

Setting up a web shop really.

Populating your store with wares.

And we have a lot of wares.

It takes an age, but I’m hoping to finish before the end of the week...

The Eye

All is quiet.

We sit in the eye of the storm.

Kickstarter is a crazy time, comments to respond to. Ad reactions. Messages. Changes to the campaign.

It’s hard work. Even without the worry of funding or not, it’s stressful.

Evenings away from the family trying to keep up.

In a couple of weeks the Pledge Manager should be live on Gamefound.

It’ll be crazy again - loads of bookkeeping to do. Constantly evolving reward totals. Chasing the people who don’t complete it.

For now it’s all quiet. Just plugging away at the Gamefound page. Getting things ready.

A chance to recharge.

Landing

Our fourth Kickstarter finishes in just over 30 hours.

It’s been amazing.

Highest total by a country mile.

Highest backer count too.

We’ve unlocked six of the original eight Stretch Goals.

The seventh is very close.

At one point my (as it turns out wildly inaccurate) predictions spreadsheet had us nearing the point where we would have to register for VAT.

Kickstarters are a rollercoaster.

Less stressful than the first - where we very nearly failed.

But still, we’re small enough that we feel the joy of every new backer and the disappointment of every cancellation.

It’s nearly over.

A chance to relax and breathe.

The Pledge Manager will be right behind it though.

Busy, busy.

Lift Off!

The Kickstarter is going really well.

On course to be our best ever again.

Strong start!

Things are shifting though.

Our plans are changing. Adapting. Responding to backer demand.

We hadn’t intended to reprint Expansion 1 or Box of Flicks 1.

But people want them.

So we’re changing our minds.

It’s keeping us busy.

But we made the decision for the right reasons.

And people seem to like that.

All Systems Go!

Our fourth Kickstarter launches tomorrow. Another mini one like last time.

In some ways this is the most prepared we’ve ever been.

Pre-launch ads. Well over 100 project followers before we begin. Facebook group and launch events. Shared with channels ahead of time. A landing page on our website.

Ready to go!

I’m confident we’ll fund this time. Last time we weren’t confident. Even with a £500 target.

In other ways we’re unprepared.

Our Kickstarter project was initially rejected. Paul and I haven’t met in person for months.

Tomorrow we find out if we’re right to be confident...

First Time!

In the Lego Batman sense.

We submitted our latest Kickstarter for review a couple of weeks ago.

Nice and early so we would have a pre-launch page to share.

And to see if we got more sign-ups to that than our mailing list on the landing page.

Kickstarter rejected it.

Nothing new they said.

It’s a whole box full of brand new stuff.

We can appeal. Exactly once.

It was half-done anyway.

So we’ve made a load of changes.

Hopefully it’ll pass this time - we’re hoping to go live a week tomorrow...

First Time

Marketing is not my forte.

I’m still learning a lot.

Doing things for the first time.

Badly.

But I learn.

And slowly, I hope to get better.

We’re running ads ahead of our next Kickstarter for the first time.

Pointing to our first ever dedicated landing page.

Needs work

It’s not very good.

So I’ll improve it.

Expectations are low for this Kickstarter again.

So we can use it as a learning opportunity.

And hopefully get better.

For the next one...

More?

Paul and I have great plans for our next FlickFleet Kickstarter.

A stand-alone expansion that can be played on its own with two players, or together with the base game for up to four players.

Alien species with new weapons and abilities.

Investing some of our cash in a nicer video, advertising and graphic design.

But it’s not ready yet. And we can’t meet to test our ideas. Until COVID-19 starts to subside.

We’ve got a bunch of ideas for more human ships though. And mini-expansions with some new rules.

Revenge of the mini-Kickstarter?

We’re considering sneaking in another mini-Kickstarter, like the summer’s, with that content.

I wonder if there’s any interest.

I’ll ask in our next newsletter...