What information are you looking for in an announcement for a new rule set?

[Elbows]

While I don't use Kickstarter, it serves a bigger purpose than generating funds - it is basically a crash course in how much interest is out there.

I've seen several (many...many) Kickstarters which fail, and it's a good wake up call for those small companies.  Of course, conversely I've seen several Kickstarters fail, and the designers learn nothing and keep trying to Kickstart the same game without getting the message...

While amateur games are easy to self-publish, the second you start looking at hiring a factory or even just writers/artists, etc. the costs can sky-rocket.  Unless you have an artist friend, the cost of a dozen pieces of art for your game can be cost-prohibitive.  So doing a Kickstarter and realize no one is interested in your game can go a long way to saving you thousands of dollars.

Also, without any data to back this up, I'd assume that many people have a Kickstarter account and it's easier to follow a project there than a hype-page on someone's own website, etc. 

[ithoriel]

I've backed a couple of dozen Kickstarter, Indiegogo and pseudo-Kickstarter projects and have been delighted with them all, so far. Delivery has varied between a month earlier than indicated to almost 3 years late but they have all turned up eventually.

As Elbows says, for the producer it's a good way of judging demand and getting cash to fund the artwork/ figures/ etc that you need money up front for. Chinese factories aren't cheap 

  For the consumer it's a chance to save a bit of cash or to get extra goodies or just to get something into production that you want and which wouldn't see the light of day without a kickstarter style campaign to fund it.

Crowdfunding is the way of the world these days. I've just chipped in a few quid so my favourite Twitch streamer can upgrade their PC and do better Twitch streams. Nice to see some aspects of wargaming also lurching erratically into the early 21st century.

[tereydavi]

A great thread!!

TheDaR list is quite exhaustive but I think I think most boxes when I published Fear of the Dark.

After publishing a Game you learn a few things, I made a few mistakes (maybe too much) but you learn the hard way...

The main Thing I learnt was that no Matter how clear you think you are explaining everything, what you think is clear enough might be NOT so clear. Think that It is your Game and you know It by heart, but maybe people dont get the point you think is so f*****g clear.

I'll be publishing a new Game this Year and this kind of posts is great for people like me.

Thanks a lot for all your help!!!

[ced1106]

> Does it really HAVE to be a kickstarter?

It can also be GameFound or BackerKit! Other crowdfunding platforms with capitals in the middle of their name coming soon!

KS and GF *can* be cheap advertising. KS will throw you three recommendations at the end of a page of a KS you're interested in.

If you have a $1 pledge level for a complete game, FOMO can kick in. With stretch goals, you'll have a *few* of your backers do advertising for you.

But if it's free and you don't care about advertising, DriveThruRPG and WarGamesVault are less work.