"Don’t do anything physical," says Vincke, when I ask him about recommendations for his fellow developers who are thinking about using Kickstarter. "I would never again do all the boxed stuff, and I regret that we spent so much time on everything related to making a physical release happen."
Bad, bad, bad idea.
Almost half was raised just from adding "Physical Box, Collector's Box and Signed Collector's Box" alone (and no, I don't know why KickStarter's amount raised and number of backers is different than when you add up all the tiers manually).
Could be add-ons.
I'm only talking about those first 3 Project: Eternity Physical tiers:
1. Physical Box = $248,170
Pledge $65 or more; 3818 backers
Previous reward tier + BOX VERSION OF PROJECT ETERNITY. The boxed copy will include a DVD version of the game and a printed manual. This is in addition to the digital version of the game (so 2 copies total!). Please add $15 for international shipping.
2. Collector's Box = $489,440
Pledge $140 or more; 3496 backers
Previous reward tier + we will upgrade your box to a COLLECTOR'S EDITION BOX. You will find a CLOTH MAP OF THE GAME WORLD and the PROJECT ETERNITY CLOTH PATCH inside the box + EARLY BETA ACCESS + PROJECT ETERNITY MOUSE PAD. The collector's edition box will include a cloth map just like the old RPGs that we love. You will also get early access to the game with a BETA KEY. Includes Making of Project Eternity Documentary (DVD/Blu-ray). The game patch is an embroidered high quality non-iron on patch. Game patches are a tradition at Obsidian, and we want to share that tradition with you! Please add $20 for international shipping.
3. Signed Collector's Box = $436,500
Pledge $250 or more; 1746 backers
Previous reward tier + you get your COLLECTOR'S EDITION BOX signed by CHRIS AVELLONE, TIM CAIN, JOSH SAWYER, and the rest of the development team + full color printed PROJECT ETERNITY COLLECTOR'S BOOK + an elite version of the PROJECT ETERNITY CLOTH PATCH. The book will be a full color book that includes concept art, player's handbook, monster manual, exclusive information about the campaign setting and characters, and a special behind the scenes look at making the game. Please add $30 for international shipping.
I don't think you can say someone paying $250 for the Collector's Box is just after the other add-ons, they want that Collector's Box. Same as with the Physical box and the Signed Box. The total for tiers higher than that is another $489,750, which is only half of the $1,174,110 total from those three box editions above. I'm not saying don't do the really high tiers and bonuses, but you can clearly see people are looking for a copy of the game either in Digital Form, Physical Form, Collector's Edition or Signed Collector's Edition. They're the options that raise the most and have the most backers.
You ignore the fact that it's not the final amount the company gets. You have to subtract KS fees, sales/vat tax and actually produce physical goods.
Tax and KS fees are irrelevant as they're equally applied to all tiers. Producing the physical goods is an issue and I totally agree, but it's clear people are willing to pay more for those physical goods that should make it profitable. I do think some KickStarters got carried away and didn't realise how much some of this would cost though (which is just lack of business skills) - even with all the extra work they added for the digital tiers (adding in named pets, custom content for players costs development money).
So we don't know how much money there is actually left for developers. In manufacturing physical goods quantity is the main way to receive profit. Low quantity + high quality =/= profit (in most cases). Manufacturing boxed sets for PE, WL2 or some other big project might be feasible and slightly profitable, while for DOS it might be unprofitable.
If it was unprofitable for DOS, it was because they didn't have clear physical tiers and got caught up in their digital clutter. Look at the numbers and you can see D:OS raised most of its money from all the tiers under $65 (Over $575k or 65% of their funds raised). So again, people aren't after add-ons. They don't want extra personal digital crap as much. They're after copies of the game. Some people want a boxed copy though and that's what D:OS missed out on.
Another thing is that people who would not buy physical goods would likely buy digital version.
If true, then removing the digital tier would result in more people buying the physical tier. AMIRITE?
See how that doesn't work?
(How many people would you lose? How many people are buying the digital tiers because that's all the money they're willing to risk on the project and how many people are buying the Signed Collector's Box because money isn't an issue and they just want to support the game but want something physical to show for it?)
AND that could mean much more money for developers.
It wouldn't mean that much more - and in fact could mean less. The P:E digital tiers of $20.00, $25.00, $35.00 and $50.00 have 60,048 backers and raise $1,603,320.
By comparison, the $65, $140 and $250 tiers (the boxed versions) only have 9,060 backers (Less than 1/6th the number of people) and yet they raise $1,174,110. If we include all the super high add-on content tiers, it's about even. But if those 9,060 backers all decided, "Well, if I can't have a box / cloth map / signed box, so I may as well just get the digital tier" it'd only be $453,000 a
$721,110 reduction. You also add the risk that they could've decided "well, fuck it I'm just not buying anything" and you lose anywhere up to the full $1.1M.
While I do think they may have lost more money on that $65 tier compared to the $50 (or more accurately, made more money on the $50 digital tier), I don't think you can argue that an extra $110 to have a cloth map signed would be a "loss". Like-wise a Cloth Map, Mouse Pad and embroidered patch can't cost $75 to manufacture (the difference between the Standard and Collector's Edition). I can get custom printed Mouse Pads for $5 each from my local printer and that's at quantities of 500 and a quick google of a bunch of
fabric printing places shows prices around $20 for one-offs (depending on material and size). I'd think a few hundred (or getting it done in China) would reduce that down to around the $10 mark. Plenty of places do the embroidered patch too. Hell, I had a company name hand-stitched into a shirt for $15 and if you can buy patches online for $5 - $10 they can't be more than that to manufacture.
I do think the physical box tier at $65 is priced
way too low though. It's an extra $15 above the $50 "Digital Collector's Edition" tier. But then, it's a DVD, manual and a cardboard box. Those things aren't expensive and I'd trust a company that's made boxed games in the past to actually know their pricing on that.
Either way, that has impacts on the KickStarter and it's marketing - which I think is seen in the D:OS KickStarter where while they only asked for $400,000 and got $900,000 - P:E was asking for $1.1M. If D:OS had asked for $1.1M would they have gotten it without physicals? If D:OS had had better and clearer physical tiers, would they have made a lot more money and reached higher stretch goals? It then feeds into a "failed KickStarter" versus "successful KickStarter" in all the marketing. "Oh, here's this game that failed it's KickStarter..." which presumably would have a potentially larger impact on sales down the track.
Besides, you have a made a logical fallacy by attributing high level tiers to physical rewards. Designing a custom portrait, inn, a party or weapon should be digital. Or split even to not skew the calculation.
No, that's why I said for Eternity that "Almost half was raised just from adding "Physical Box, Collector's Box and Signed Collector's Box" alone" IE: Ignoring all the rest of that crap down the bottom and basically excluding it from
both sides of the equation. It's also why I posted the numbers, so you can actually see how much money comes in from only a relative handful of people compared to the masses buying the digital copies.
