(KICKSTARTER -- February 27, 2018) Monolith: Batman - Gotham City Chronicles

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Another surprise stretch goal was unlocked. I never thought that I'd see the day that a "Holly Cow" would actually be in a Batman game. But here it is.

That should have been released on this Easter Sunday....

[BadgerTheBrave]

Getting close to the end. In fact there 38 hour left and a lot of stretch goals have just been unlocked.











Who will be next?
Will there be a next?
Is that a Batmite?

[tnjrp]

Well, that didn't go anywhere near as high as I expected it would

Not that over 4 mil is anything to sneer at, but still I thought it'd break 5 at least. Maybe the usually fairly predictable last minute ramp up failed to materialize 'cuz the project ended over the Easter weekend?

Not assuming any late pledge SGs, on the plus side (for Monolith, that is) they likely have a few iconic characters up their sleeve 3D'd and approved so they can launch an expansion KS sometime down the line. Hopefully they do fulfill this one before that tho... I want my ton of plastic and cardboard in about a year

[BadgerTheBrave]

Don't we all.

 

[ced1106]

Well, that didn't go anywhere near as high as I expected it would

Showing all the add-ons up-front front-loaded the pledging so, I think, there wasn't as much hype towards the later part of the campaign. If you don't make backer excited with the SG's, introducing add-ons can sustain interest.

The game focused on the last 15 years of DC comics, so only mostly appealed to readers of that time period. So anyone more casual probably didn't recognize many of the characters and so perhaps didn't pledge.

Still, 4.4M is quite a bit. It's in the top 10, and there's a BGG thread which KS it passed.

[psyberwyche]

Showing all the add-ons up-front front-loaded the pledging so, I think, there wasn't as much hype towards the later part of the campaign. If you don't make backer excited with the SG's, introducing add-ons can sustain interest.

The game focused on the last 15 years of DC comics, so only mostly appealed to readers of that time period. So anyone more casual probably didn't recognize many of the characters and so perhaps didn't pledge.

Still, 4.4M is quite a bit. It's in the top 10, and there's a BGG thread which KS it passed.

Quoted for truth - this is exactly it for me. I was going to back it, and the core game was a pretty good deal alone, but I found the stretch goals underwhelming - the sculpt quality, particularly on the female figures, was dubious, and even though I'm a comics fan I didn't recognize half the stretch goal characters. In the end I backed out, and actually have no regrets.

[Munindk]

Since the game is advertised as kickstarter only, I think they had to show the add ons from the beginning. Personally it helped me decide that I didnt want any of the add ons.

I dont know half the characters in the game as my Batman lore is from movies and the animated series, but I can read up on them and/or repurpose them as other heroes. A man or woman with a mask and cape is very useful. File off any logo and sculpt or paint your own and you're good to go.

[DivisMal]

Since the game is advertised as kickstarter only, I think they had to show the add ons from the beginning. Personally it helped me decide that I didnt want any of the add ons.

I dont know half the characters in the game as my Batman lore is from movies and the animated series, but I can read up on them and/or repurpose them as other heroes. A man or woman with a mask and cape is very useful. File off any logo and sculpt or paint your own and you're good to go.

Maybe that is true. For me it also helped me to decide that while the basic game was good value for money the add-ons weren’t. Maybe I will add the versus-mode add on, but even here I’m struggling, because as Munindk also said, the Batman lore they offered (who the hell are most of the guys, Manbat? Seriously?) is not what I was interested.

Last year the Joanne of Arc-KS had a different approach and really got me when halfway through the campaign the showed the terrain-add on, the infernal army etc. I quickly saw that all-in was a good option to get what I wanted plus lots of freebies.

With Batman it felt like the all-in gave you little price reduction on stuff you (well at least I) didn’t really want.

Anyway, nearly 4.5 millions is pretty good. I had hoped they would reveal Superman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the cool guys in an addon close to the end, but maybe that’s planned for the next KS.

[leonmallett]

SG (to Monolith) are a shop window. And this will be the last project that will have them. They are completely unnecessary evil for game designers. Everyone want's new SG to be made up on the fly or added from suggestions by backers....

Just pointing out mileage will vary on this; just because they are an unnecessary evil to Monolith does not mean the same for all designers.

[ced1106]

A post on BGG was that Monolith expected 8M, and needed 3M to break even.

If you look at the KickTraq Daily Data, Batman made 2.1M on the first two days with 8900 backers, but only .6M on the last two with 3400. Conventionally, boardgame miniature KS made 1/3 of their funding on the first two days, and 1/3 on their last two, but this is for KS that add add-ons during the campaign. So, it's not surprising that the last two days didn't make as much as the first two, but I dunno what model would have predicted .6M on the last two days.

EDIT: Here's a geeklist of the funding rankings. Pretty interesting that Batman and Nemesis funded about the same. That either says the Nemesis campaign did unusually well (Nemesis is a coop not-Aliens games) and/or Batman did not. https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/165271/top-10-funded-kickstarter-boardgame-projects

[tnjrp]

Late pledges will be available in May looks like. Will have to see if anything interesting happens at that stage.

ETA -- pledge manager dates are from May 3 to 31.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/batmantm-gotham-city-chronicles/posts/2165413

[tnjrp]

Pledge Manager has opened on FLUENT platform (plus we have a bonus stretch goal, yay!):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/batmantm-gotham-city-chronicles/posts/2177630

New to me but apparently used by Monolith previously. P&p to Finland was quite decent (ca. $36) but not so much to some other countries and with no immediately apparent logic in regards to location/cost (as seen in the KS comments, almost $300 to Malta ).

No idea how a late pledge would work in FLUENT but possibly Monolith will get around to enlightening us on the subject.

[Munindk]

Lots of complaining about the shipping costs for the all in pledge. It seems that people didnt read the fine print*: shipping estimates were for the core game pledge.

If you're buying 2-3 times the amount in volume, shipping costs are bound to increase.

*Apparently the some of the fine print was buried in the comment sections, bad from by Monolith

[tnjrp]

Apparently late pledge should work just by pressing the [[Late pledge]] button at the top of the KS page. Not sure tho, it gave me errors when I tested it but that may have been because I had a FLUENT token on my browser and the site didn't like it...

ETA -- anyway here's a bit more detail on what's going on with FLUENT & al: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/batmantm-gotham-city-chronicles/posts/2178585

[tnjrp]

Apparently the pledge manager will be open for another due to problems with getting p&p right. Presumably late pledges will work until it closes too tho they didn't say (at a glance):
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/batmantm-gotham-city-chronicles/posts/2200433

Anyhow a rather large percentage (ca. 25) of the peeps have yet to complete the survey

Hopefully the closing date won't start stretching into further and further into the future 'cuz folks don't know how to use FLUENT.