Kickstarter For July 2012 Review

I've been a backer of quite a for quite a few projects on Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Figure I'd talk about where I'm feeling they are now.

Barrowmaze II I like some of the old school vibe, especially in the art field so I went in with it and even paid for a hardcover of the first Barrowmaze. It's essentially too soon to know how its going to fly but there have been some good notes thus far.

Blackwater Gulch: Cowboy miniatures. The updates have been coming with a fair degree of frequency but I'm not too thrilled by one of the latest updates where we have to order the material from the store using a special section. Maybe if I didn't go "all in" so to speak on the starter set and feel I'm doing a bit of "WTF" work. Still, everything has been good so far in terms of updates.

Bushido: The Ito Received all the current information we can but I'd like to see some more stuff on what's coming down the pipe in terms of greens and other goods. However, this doesn't appear to be a fly by night company or anything so I'm okay with it.

Deepwars:  Very pleased with the results so far in terms of how they're approaching it and the updates.

Dwimmermount: James is going to have to blow my socks off before I pledge anything for his projects again. Plenty of time for his blog, his WoTC work, and G+ hangouts but actual updates to the Kickstarter proper? And maybe it's just me being my own anti-social self but the project is already announced to be late and well, we'll see at this point.

It Came From The Stars: another case where there may be more going on in their own forums and what not but the posting updates have been slow, the project is already admittedly delayed, the bonuses for doing the higher level subscriptions don't look like they're going to amount to much outside of future promises. This will be another company that is going to have to pull a rabbit out of its hat if it wants my Kickstarter money in the future.

King For A Day: Jim has been providing a fair amount of updates including samples of the interior, maps and other bits. Looking forward to it.

Kings of War:    I've bought stuff from Mantic before. This was their kickstarter to do some more stuff. I'm into it for way too much but they've been pretty current with updates including previews of the shirts, model designs and other bits. As this is a company I've done business with as a physical entity I'm pretty comfortable with my pledge although the wounding to the wallet did require hella overtime.

Midgard Tales: I'm getting that sense of being a bit of a douche again. Another bit where the majority of the updates seem to take place on the forums. Yawn. Open Design has been using a patron system since before the whole Kickstarter though so I've got no worries about the final product. I know that may seem unfair to say company X is going to have to work hard for $$$ but company Y in a similar position doesn't but... here's the thing, company Y has already done it's share of these things in the past and company X talks a good game but talk is cheap.

Sedition Wars:  Thank god I don't have children because they would starve. A little too early to tell where the updates and such will be here, but again, an established company, using an established formula, with great perks.

Steampunk Musha:  I'm a fan of the genre and the game system but updates have been lax. Like some other kickstarters, the updates have often fell into the comments area.

Tectonic Craft Studio: They've stayed on top of their updates including photos, samples, demos, and keeping the people in the loop. I can't stress this enough. If you're going to be late with the project, DO NOT MAKE THE BACKERS ASK YOU. You need to be in front of that. You need to take ownership of it.

I'm sure I'm missing something somewhere.

Again, it seems the miniature companies take their projects very seriously and the RPG crowd is doing it as a one off or something. That's just my opinion. Too many delays, too many people having to ask what's going on, etc... I suspect that Kickstarter will be the place where reputations are made are broken and that companies are going to quickly learn the utility of conversation and communication on the internets.

But hey, I've been wrong before.