Any publisher engaging in this practice is blacklisted from me. I'm a KS Whale & I will spend my hundreds - thousands on games from publishers that don't try this BS.
Really appreciate you covering this. Absolutely hate the practice and it's made me completely skip campaigns, Incredible Dream (Kinfire Council) I'm talking about you!
Same. I was so excited to jump into the Kinfire world, but their dismissive and condescending responses to criticism about it was a big turn off. If I have an opportunity to buy 2nd hand I will, else I'll just do without.
Yup. 100% agreement. I was strongly against the 1$ prepay, was told over and over it'd never increase, and here we are. Which is why I just ignore any campaign where I see it happening, there's plenty of other games (and old games) to play. (also, win win and such may be true, but I don't quite see why I should pay in advance to support the marketing effort of something that hasn't even made the effort to win me over yet. Me paying in advance so people may target their marketing better to me is iffy as is) The videogame industry is extremely predatory as is, filled with bad and horribly predatory gambling practices, and this practice is so legendarily bad it's not even a thing there. That's saying something.
I've simply had enough. Backed numerous games last year. None this year!!! Games are just too big and too expensive. And this prepay is beyond acceptable!
yes. I have a few kickstarters still coming in and I will probably have to cull some games if I don't want the shelf to overflow - I am completely burnt out on Crowdfunding. I won't back anything for a loooong while, if ever.
When people are paying $300 for a board game, there are a lot of marketing tactics involved to accomplish that. This just so happens to be the one that is annoying and transparent enough to cross the line.
Expect $10 within the next 2-3 years, followed by rinse & repeat until they reach some arbitrary price point where prospective sales are actually affected. They'll keep pushing the boundaries without really providing the typical backer with a practical sense of how to evaluate the "value" in such an offer. Will be curious to see if Awaken Realms adopts this approach, and if you view that as a potential conflict of interest, Alex.
If awaken realms ever does it, I disagree wholeheartedly. Period. They are allowed to do things I disagree with, but I'm also allowed to disagree with things they do.
Initially i was indifferent to this topic, and didnt really care…. But over the last two months I admittedly grew wiser, and now really dislike this practise, to the point of refusing to back such projects, or spend time on them (share facebook news, watch videos, etc)
Commenting to boost exposure. Thanks for continuing to bring this topic up for discussion. I have absolutely avoided campaigns when I was aware of this tactic being used. There was only one that I ended up backing only because it was a second printing of a game I was really wanting. I was on the fence, but I was already heavily committed before finding out. I still didn’t take part in the $1 pre-pledge, though. Luckily, there are plenty of games coming out and I already own plenty more that I can skip campaigns using this tactic.
Can’t stand this tactic! It’s too far for me and I have dropped pledges for games I was very excited for as a result. Sadly I imagine this becoming the norm. “Bigger” publishers I.e CMON etc will prob notice that while everyone whinges their $$$ increases regardless. Larger companies will continue with it. Smaller Indy companies will suffer and not fund as a result
I supported this message when you made the other video and I support it now. This is, without a doubt, a predatory marketing tactic that needs to stop. I have backed only 1 campaign that did this, and I really hope they don’t do it again. I’ve also gladly supported creators like Open Owl (Mythwind) who rightly cancelled that whole pre-backing bonus process partway through, very glad to see they listed to their supporters. And while $1 (and certainly $5) as a pre-back to back (which is essentially a pre-order, so now we’re pre-pre-ordering?) later is already ridiculous, it’s even worse when companies make the pre-back bonus an exclusive! I know 2 companies so far that did this, one cancelled that exclusivity during their campaign and offered to promo pack it was for to all backers as a small add on, and some kudos to them for that. The other, which was Furylands, kept their pre-back as an exclusive gameplay content gear pack, and while I support creators in their endeavors, and spend way more money than I should (less this year, but previously 1000s a year) on Boardgame crowdfunding, when their campaign failed to meet its funding goal, I was honestly relieved, and I hope they realize that while this pre-backing exclusive thing wasn’t the only reason for the failure (far too high of a base price was a big one too), it was a factor and may have very well been the thing they could have changed that made them reach the finish line (I’d even emailed them for months to advise how bad of an idea this was and posted it on their ad posts, they never responded. I even posted on the campaign page, right at the end to advise again on the points that may have affected their success, again no response). I agree that now is the time people need to voice their displeasure for this tactic, as it needs to stop happening before it gets worse.
I went all in on Cysmic not only because it looks like a great and fun game but because of the honesty and full transparency of the owner of the company.
I am 95% sure I will be all in late pledge. I followed the campaign and the honesty should be celebrated and given a chance to succeed and possibly have another campaign in the future. I truly wish them all the success
Love that you bring this to people’s attention because it in the long run really does put people off of crowdfunding where they might support multiple campaigns through the years
This is one of the reasons I started watching your channel. I appreciate you will occasionally tackle professional marketing ethics. A lot of people won't touch predatory practices.
I know we have differing opinions on some things in this topic but this is absolutely something we as a community should be vocally pushing back against if we don’t want to see the $1 to increase. The thing is though is that, and I know this is board game adjacent, GeeknSon were pushing a £100 coupon (basically pre-pledge) for their campaign months back which was non refundable. That completely shocked me and I was surprised it wasn’t coming up in conversations. I think videos like this are super important so thank you Alex. As much as we disagree on some points I definitely don’t want to see this pre-pledge offer amount increase.
The most beloved game companies do not come across as predatory. In fact they have stories of helping make things right when a mistake was made, or was damaged etc. Those that engage in this tactic are creating an image for themselves that will in the long run only hurt them. I am completely against the $ follow campaign, and companies that do this move into my no longer support column.
I have a habit of doing $1 pledges to get into PMs. Have been for like 5+ years. When Ludus Magnus made it a $10 minimum to get to their PM (cant recall which campaign), I immediately drew a line at that moment and just decided i wouldnt be a part of that campaign.
@BoardGameCo I am very nice and have gotten really nice replies on every one. They each apologize and ask me to investigate the campaign later and hopefully judge the game separately. Everyone seems to understand it's not a great marketing look as they all apologize. But, companies keep doing it.... so maybe it's just a trend or maybe it works.
Make sure to paste the email in the comments section. Let everyone know how you feel and this is likely going to encourage others who feels the same way but didn't think about making their voice heard do the same thing. It also leaves an actual trace that anyone can find, if necessary.
I'm already backing significantly less this year, and will continue to pass on campaigns that use the pre-order tactic. Everything is already too expensive, I do not need to be nickel and dimed for a hobby as well. This is absolutely the kind of monetization BS that has destroyed the AAA video game industry. It starts with $1 but it NEVER ends there.
This is across my completely subjective line in the sand I won’t back anything from a company that practices this. Kelp, some of the IV studios games, bear mountain are all games I would have backed but didn’t and won’t buy on the principle of how much I dislike the tactic
My blacklist of publishers and creators is continuously growing and it will keep growing. A really easy way to get on that list is pulling shenanigans like artificial scarcity, VIP access or any form of pre-campaign payments. There are a lot of campaigns out there being interesting to me and there is no reason why I would go for one that disrespects me by reducing me to a wallet. There are many other ways to end up on my blacklist and they and they all come down to the same, simple understanding: You want my money, you face me respectfully and at eye level. And to be clear, I won't judge people, consciously or FOMO driven, go for such tactics; I can only speak for myself.
I definitely don’t want this to be the norm, and i have cancelled and not backed campaigns solely because of this. One thing you forgot to mention is that it’s already hard to keep up with ongoing KS campaigns, it’s harder to keep track of which campaigns have $1 prepaid.
Crowdfunding may have become very commercialized, but it's also still to some degree making dreams come true. It's not enough imho to say we should frown on something, or even also supporting certain things. I think like suggested, proactive>reactive, but I think that should go further. We should also ask what else we can do. Crowdfunding deserves to be protected. There are a million things platforms can do to PROTECT it. Requiring communication, making details clear, defining process to avoid gotchas, etc. Even little thing like layout of the platform page. We should all be sharing, asking, suggesting, supporting and frowning everywhere we can imho.
The problems I have with the VIP pre-crowd funding pledges is that: 1) the moment of clarify has a cost. The moment that you realise that you don’t need this $400 board game now has a cost to the consumer. It also makes the decision harder as you have already paid something for what turns out to now be nothing. 2) it punishes people who wait to see what a game is all about. I’m really likely to back Luthier when it hits KS, but if I could spend £1 at UKGE to get an upgraded first player marker I would never have done so. And that’s for a game I have researched. For the next game from the designers of Distilled with “interesting theme” put down $5, I’m unsubscribing from the newsletter and avoiding that campaign for most of it (until I see something I like).
I really appreciate you address it! I went from Earth Abundance and Deep Regrets being games I was excited for this year to Games I ultimate decided to skip. I just feel like it sucks and it mirrors alot of what I've seen with video game companies with battle passes and preorder bonus. You give these companies an inch and they will try to run a yard with this tactic. It won't be long before we experience a $10 pre-pledge campaign.
While I agree with you on most points it's a pitty that from all games Europa universalis was brought as an example. Campaign was on reprint plus expansion, meaning returning bakers had their chance to make their minds if they will want more content for game they already know. Also 5 dollars are more refundeable than 1 as it is more time worthy.
If a creator wants to optimize ads for buyers and build an email list, I'm all for it. Value needs to be in the now though. Not pre-order to a crowdfund that has no guarantee to deliver. I also am surprised Alex shared CMON's entire playbook for campaigns.
I've had two so far with the $1. They both offered a free upgrade to the deluxe version. At both times this was $20 more than the base game. I didn't mind it at that point as they were both games I was going to back anyway. I don't think I would go for $5, especially with the Australian exchange rate
more and more crowdfunding in general bothers me. so much about it needs to be addressed. im basically not doing it anymore. ill grab it later if i still want it. its always available somewhere
Didn’t like the practice at $1 and now that it’s up to $5 I feel even angrier! All of this to preorder a game that in some cases isn’t even finished yet… ridiculous.
really? I backed Kelp, never heard or knew of that. So this was the reason why one mini-expansion was free and the other not? I should have paid a dollar to an obscure newsletter no one I know ever heard of? sounds fishy... oh...
@@peterriecks9126 But the publisher got scammed by fake games being sold. It was a huge community effort to stop that. I don't want to be mean, and I am sure they are well meaning, but my cynical self thinks: Guess they got some instant karma there.
@@markusbaumgartner9266 That's what makes it so hard to vote with your dollar against the tactic. The companies using this tactic don't want you to know that they're using it. As someone that simply finds out about the campaign when it hits crowdfunding, you're unlikely to know there was a VIP/funnel option with an extra. There are 84 known games that have implemented this tactic. There's about 3-5 new games using $1-$10 tactic each week. Kelp and Botany were the catalysts that made this tactic far more common.
Is the promo offer generous? Do I have enough information to make an informed decision? Do I trust the creator? If the answer is yes, then I’m happy to engage. If no, then I’ll pass. It’s not the marketing strategy that’s bad, it’s the execution of it. The fake limited availability and early bird deals are much more egregious than the promo offers and should be the main topic of conversation in my opinion.
I will not back something with a "$1" sign up. Along with that i will back out of any campaign that adds add-ons throughout the campaign. Show me the whole thing at the Start. Let me make an informed decision. The slow roll of the real cost is so off putting i cancel after the first is "revealed". Stretch goals that get added to the games are fine/great. But saying here is a $70 game... Now here is a $50 expansion... Just kills me every time. I have backed more projects this year that have a crowd funding models of here's what the game is" combined with"eco-friendly" production. The game look good, but it is also what i want to see more of. So voting with dollars and hoping the trends continues.
This new $1/$5 tactic feels particularly gross to me and I'd be less likely to back. I won't be paying the up front fee and thus won't get the benefit and will be more inclined to not back. From a marketing perspective, following a campaign should give them enough information.
Little late to "beat the horse" but... Aforementioned campaign was exact reason for me not to back. Im huge fan of videogame, game has very nice bgg ratings and looks very interesting.. but because of practice i easily passed it (not gonna lie, i felt relieve not to spend another hundreds € as im all or nothing guy). And i intend to keep it like that, you try sell without even showing actual product, well go on (one can argue that whole crowdfunding is based on that, you will be right.. but.. there is a practice and there is a practice). But i participated in one case of that, Earth exp. campaign with their weather module, but gotta point on difference there... you could still "order" it for that 1$ during campaign, when you know if you are interested or not... that is kinda line for me. Ofc, never say never... but as of right now, whole practice is just making my choices easier.
Slippery slope is always hard, for me. This was never a problem because I was against it when it was a dollar even if it never would go up.... The fact that it was going to go up made it worse, not bad to begin with.
I don't back any games if I know that they ask for a pre-pledge before the campaign. How many financial transactions does a publisher expect me to trust? Kickstarter or Gamefound, no problem. The company running the pledge manager, okay. Now some shady marketing company, that uses multiple different names, wants to use my metadata for their advertising purposes, that's too far. As a superbacker, so I clearly have no problem supporting the publishers, but not ones that prey on manipulative practices like a sunk-cost fallacy.
Thanks for sharing your voice Alex. I just refuse to back any game I see with these type of greed incentives baked into their campaigns. I remember really wanting to back Biome but they also pushed a $5 early back to grab the deluxe at retail price.
Considering the huge percentage of you dorks that will pay for over deluxification and unnecessary add ons I don't wanna hear it about any amount they ask for advance considering how expensive the hobby is going toward making games a $100 norm. Yall brought this upon yourselves.
It's funny how you say stretch goals are made to make people feel like they get more than they really do because thinking back about it, for me, it often did the opposite. Typically when I look at a campaign, I only look once and form an opinion there. If there's locked stretch goals, they aren't even taken into consideration. And for the unlocked stretch goals, a lot of time they are individually so small (e.g. 2 extra cards, 1 extra token, etc.) that they just amount to basically nothing in my eyes, or they just become a blur that is equally meaningless. I think the only time they did something was when there's a campaign I'm on the fence for and they give an update summarizing the total of every stretch goals with the game (aka the real intent of the product), then I can look at the overall and make a decision from that, which would have been the same as if they gave that info from the start.
That is too bad I have a few thousand hours into EU4 and 1000% would have backed a board game version. Now I won’t go near it that’s too bad but I am not supporting this practice and I can’t back a game where I don’t get “everything” for it most of the time and I won’t be able to here
Mate - if if upsets people they wont buy it. The buyer has all the power here. If that eventually happens then the seller wont do it. Buyers are not slavish morons who dont know what they're doing with their money.
Corwdfunding (in comparison to the retail boardgame market) will in the near future be dominated by whales/collectors. The "bigger" and "grander" the game the more true this will be.
On a slight tangent, but can I ask how you select the games on display behind you? I am one of the many backers of the second Monumental campaign that have been gaslighted by FunForge and are resigned to receiving nothing. It just seems odd that with your awareness of the situation you decide to display Monumental.
Crowdfunding is a marketing concept, implemented and run by marketing professionals. The purpose is Cashflow and marketing (market analysis and advertising). There are two sides: Consumer investment has funded innovation.
1. Supporting interesting first games of people who could never make it otherwise. You know, the thing crowdfunding should be about in the first place. It sometimes happen even today. 2. Games that NEVER go to retail. 3. Games that are CHEAPER on crowdfunding. It happens. 4. Exclusives. 5. Probably I forgot something.
Do you actually pay for that? Every time I late pledged, I got access just by asking or clicking a late pledge button. Is this now a paid thing too? :o
There are a few main differences, the first is that I can't remember the last time you actually had to pay for pledge manager access. You can put down a dollar, but you can basically always get in anyway. And secondly, you're getting all the information you need on the campaign, the decision to do the dollar separately, forces the consumer to go Through two separate phases of research or just give up the dollar, or give up the reward.
@@BoardGameCoget better memory? Did Altered, a huge Kickstarter many covered, even have a pledge manager? It was pledge in the window or nothing for you. No one seemed to fuss about that FOMO from what I have seen.
@@BoardGameCo "...I can't remember the last time you actually had to pay for pledge manager access." WHAT?!?! Many of the games that start on Kickstarter and use Backerkit for the PM do require you to pay on KS to get access on Backerkit. Maybe I don't know the secret handshake or password to get into the PM on Backerkit. Maybe it's as simple as emailing the game company? I know there's the flip side that many companies are now also doing a PM on GF after their initial campaign. But, that's not the norm right now IMHO. Also, my issue with $1 pre-campaign is they usually have no rulebook or gameplay explanation of the game they are promising. So, why should I pay for something I know very little about. Heck, even crowd funding campaigns have struggled to get an alpha rulebook posted before the campaign starts. It's usually 3-5 days into the campaign because so many comments say they are canceling their pledge because there is no rulebook. And speaking of commenting on the campaigns... Why do people need to pay for a pledge, just so they can comment in the comments section? What other avenue do the consumers have to ask questions so they can make informed decisions? They can email them via the Contacts page. But, I've done that and only about 50% of the time do I get an answer. Yet, if you comment, and people start upvoting it or replying they agree, then the game devs take notice. It truly is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. And it sucks as a crowd funding consumer because there are no guarantees. Guarantees regarding timeframes to get the game or that your money will be used to produce that game. All of the sites say that this is not a store. So, there is risk for consumers, even for established companies. I won't mention those companies that failed their trusting pledgers. They took the money from new campaigns to continue to fund their old ones. That wasn't the promise of the campaign. The campaign didn't say they'd use the money for any other game than the one you are pledging for. (I'm getting off topic now.)
Didn't even bother to highlight that this is an expansion campaign and was offered to previous backers, which completely changes the context. Talk about misleading your audience 😂
It absolutely would, as returning backers know precisely what they are going for and the value they are getting out of it. Hence, pretty much nobody is being emotionally sucked in, let alone being preyed on. Also, the tracking and targeting aspect of your video is off on this one, as these are returning backers they already have information about, which completely invalidates your point. I do get your point, and I also dislike being a victim of shady and abusive marketing, but this just not it.
@@BoardGameCo from what I see on a lot of them it is. There’s an option for $1-2 just as a donation to help the project out and then there will be one that gains you access to pledge manager. So when they have open the PM to only be for certain people for whatever reason. MOST don’t do it but I’ve seen it
There's $1 pledge manager access levels, but I don't think I've ever seen a required one. I have seen $10 pledge manager access pledge tiers. It's very rarely used (compared to the $1-$10 VIP/pre-launch funnel), but usually secures you the KS price and rewards. Late pledge usually costs $10 more than backers paid. It's a sleazy tactic, but there's only 1-2 publishers that I can think of that have used it. Additionally, what makes it different from the pre-pledge funnels, is that it's known information. The pre-pledge isn't something the creators are typically open about. They don't advertise, "Hey, you missed out on a $5-20 extra for not paying $1." With increased late pledge costs, they can't hide that the price has changed. The buyer can be informed. The deceptive nature of the pre-pledge is what I find most problematic. A backer needs to do their own research to even know if they're supporting a publisher using this type of practice. Outside of Room & Board, I don't know of any crowdfunding videos that are making their audience aware of the specific campaigns using this tactic. It's hard to vote with your dollar, when the publisher is deceptive. Crowdfunding would benefit from more transparency, not less.
Any publisher engaging in this practice is blacklisted from me. I'm a KS Whale & I will spend my hundreds - thousands on games from publishers that don't try this BS.
Yep
Oh God, help, police, don't go.
Really appreciate you covering this. Absolutely hate the practice and it's made me completely skip campaigns, Incredible Dream (Kinfire Council) I'm talking about you!
Same. I was so excited to jump into the Kinfire world, but their dismissive and condescending responses to criticism about it was a big turn off. If I have an opportunity to buy 2nd hand I will, else I'll just do without.
Yup. 100% agreement. I was strongly against the 1$ prepay, was told over and over it'd never increase, and here we are. Which is why I just ignore any campaign where I see it happening, there's plenty of other games (and old games) to play.
(also, win win and such may be true, but I don't quite see why I should pay in advance to support the marketing effort of something that hasn't even made the effort to win me over yet. Me paying in advance so people may target their marketing better to me is iffy as is)
The videogame industry is extremely predatory as is, filled with bad and horribly predatory gambling practices, and this practice is so legendarily bad it's not even a thing there. That's saying something.
The fact that it increased so quickly after we were all told we were overreacting over a dollar, is the primary reason for this video.
@@BoardGameCo Thank you for making it, honestly.
$1 is negligible, $5 is downright annoying. People need to stop participating in this stupid practice.
It is a slippery slope...
Then they will be asking for $10...
@@JJ_TheGreat Same thing with early bird, used to be a week, then a few days, now its back in the first 24h!!!
@@JJ_TheGreat There's already been one campaign that's been asking for $10 - Battle Blitz.
@@JJ_TheGreat Just skip it. "Vote with your wallet" as the saying goes.
I've simply had enough. Backed numerous games last year. None this year!!! Games are just too big and too expensive. And this prepay is beyond acceptable!
yes. I have a few kickstarters still coming in and I will probably have to cull some games if I don't want the shelf to overflow - I am completely burnt out on Crowdfunding. I won't back anything for a loooong while, if ever.
When people are paying $300 for a board game, there are a lot of marketing tactics involved to accomplish that. This just so happens to be the one that is annoying and transparent enough to cross the line.
Expect $10 within the next 2-3 years, followed by rinse & repeat until they reach some arbitrary price point where prospective sales are actually affected. They'll keep pushing the boundaries without really providing the typical backer with a practical sense of how to evaluate the "value" in such an offer. Will be curious to see if Awaken Realms adopts this approach, and if you view that as a potential conflict of interest, Alex.
If awaken realms ever does it, I disagree wholeheartedly. Period. They are allowed to do things I disagree with, but I'm also allowed to disagree with things they do.
Initially i was indifferent to this topic, and didnt really care…. But over the last two months I admittedly grew wiser, and now really dislike this practise, to the point of refusing to back such projects, or spend time on them (share facebook news, watch videos, etc)
Commenting to boost exposure. Thanks for continuing to bring this topic up for discussion.
I have absolutely avoided campaigns when I was aware of this tactic being used. There was only one that I ended up backing only because it was a second printing of a game I was really wanting. I was on the fence, but I was already heavily committed before finding out. I still didn’t take part in the $1 pre-pledge, though. Luckily, there are plenty of games coming out and I already own plenty more that I can skip campaigns using this tactic.
Also, there's a foreign currency transaction fee when spending the dollar, but we don't get that back when it's refunded
That's another good point
Can’t stand this tactic! It’s too far for me and I have dropped pledges for games I was very excited for as a result. Sadly I imagine this becoming the norm. “Bigger” publishers I.e CMON etc will prob notice that while everyone whinges their $$$ increases regardless. Larger companies will continue with it. Smaller Indy companies will suffer and not fund as a result
I supported this message when you made the other video and I support it now. This is, without a doubt, a predatory marketing tactic that needs to stop. I have backed only 1 campaign that did this, and I really hope they don’t do it again. I’ve also gladly supported creators like Open Owl (Mythwind) who rightly cancelled that whole pre-backing bonus process partway through, very glad to see they listed to their supporters. And while $1 (and certainly $5) as a pre-back to back (which is essentially a pre-order, so now we’re pre-pre-ordering?) later is already ridiculous, it’s even worse when companies make the pre-back bonus an exclusive! I know 2 companies so far that did this, one cancelled that exclusivity during their campaign and offered to promo pack it was for to all backers as a small add on, and some kudos to them for that. The other, which was Furylands, kept their pre-back as an exclusive gameplay content gear pack, and while I support creators in their endeavors, and spend way more money than I should (less this year, but previously 1000s a year) on Boardgame crowdfunding, when their campaign failed to meet its funding goal, I was honestly relieved, and I hope they realize that while this pre-backing exclusive thing wasn’t the only reason for the failure (far too high of a base price was a big one too), it was a factor and may have very well been the thing they could have changed that made them reach the finish line (I’d even emailed them for months to advise how bad of an idea this was and posted it on their ad posts, they never responded. I even posted on the campaign page, right at the end to advise again on the points that may have affected their success, again no response). I agree that now is the time people need to voice their displeasure for this tactic, as it needs to stop happening before it gets worse.
Yeah, I know there are a variety of opinions on this, for myself I can't support it.
I’m with ya, the one time I did support a campaign like this I was very hesitant to do so.
I went all in on Cysmic not only because it looks like a great and fun game but because of the honesty and full transparency of the owner of the company.
I am 95% sure I will be all in late pledge. I followed the campaign and the honesty should be celebrated and given a chance to succeed and possibly have another campaign in the future. I truly wish them all the success
@@felidonis_4z40 Jason is such a great and honest guy and I really want to see this labor of love from him succeed.
Same!
Love that you bring this to people’s attention because it in the long run really does put people off of crowdfunding where they might support multiple campaigns through the years
This is one of the reasons I started watching your channel. I appreciate you will occasionally tackle professional marketing ethics. A lot of people won't touch predatory practices.
I know we have differing opinions on some things in this topic but this is absolutely something we as a community should be vocally pushing back against if we don’t want to see the $1 to increase.
The thing is though is that, and I know this is board game adjacent, GeeknSon were pushing a £100 coupon (basically pre-pledge) for their campaign months back which was non refundable. That completely shocked me and I was surprised it wasn’t coming up in conversations.
I think videos like this are super important so thank you Alex. As much as we disagree on some points I definitely don’t want to see this pre-pledge offer amount increase.
The most beloved game companies do not come across as predatory. In fact they have stories of helping make things right when a mistake was made, or was damaged etc. Those that engage in this tactic are creating an image for themselves that will in the long run only hurt them. I am completely against the $ follow campaign, and companies that do this move into my no longer support column.
I have a habit of doing $1 pledges to get into PMs. Have been for like 5+ years. When Ludus Magnus made it a $10 minimum to get to their PM (cant recall which campaign), I immediately drew a line at that moment and just decided i wouldnt be a part of that campaign.
Thanks for raising this issue I fully agree. We must stop this bad practice from becoming mainstream. It is manipulative.
I simply refuse to give them this money and I email them and tell them.
The extra step of emailing is a lot, I think that's a great idea as long as it's respectful, polite, and firm.
@BoardGameCo I am very nice and have gotten really nice replies on every one. They each apologize and ask me to investigate the campaign later and hopefully judge the game separately. Everyone seems to understand it's not a great marketing look as they all apologize. But, companies keep doing it.... so maybe it's just a trend or maybe it works.
Make sure to paste the email in the comments section. Let everyone know how you feel and this is likely going to encourage others who feels the same way but didn't think about making their voice heard do the same thing. It also leaves an actual trace that anyone can find, if necessary.
I'm already backing significantly less this year, and will continue to pass on campaigns that use the pre-order tactic. Everything is already too expensive, I do not need to be nickel and dimed for a hobby as well. This is absolutely the kind of monetization BS that has destroyed the AAA video game industry. It starts with $1 but it NEVER ends there.
We are some of the many that won’t back games by publishers that use this tactic.
This is across my completely subjective line in the sand I won’t back anything from a company that practices this. Kelp, some of the IV studios games, bear mountain are all games I would have backed but didn’t and won’t buy on the principle of how much I dislike the tactic
I don't like that tactic. I like that you're pushing against this. I have spoken.
Why don't crowd funding platforms punish lying?
As a super backer (or whatever is called on the 3 websites), can say I will not back any companies doing this
My blacklist of publishers and creators is continuously growing and it will keep growing. A really easy way to get on that list is pulling shenanigans like artificial scarcity, VIP access or any form of pre-campaign payments.
There are a lot of campaigns out there being interesting to me and there is no reason why I would go for one that disrespects me by reducing me to a wallet.
There are many other ways to end up on my blacklist and they and they all come down to the same, simple understanding: You want my money, you face me respectfully and at eye level.
And to be clear, I won't judge people, consciously or FOMO driven, go for such tactics; I can only speak for myself.
I definitely don’t want this to be the norm, and i have cancelled and not backed campaigns solely because of this.
One thing you forgot to mention is that it’s already hard to keep up with ongoing KS campaigns, it’s harder to keep track of which campaigns have $1 prepaid.
Yep, between the vip, crowdfunding, and pledge manager, there's now three separate phases to keep track of before a game is even printed.
Crowdfunding may have become very commercialized, but it's also still to some degree making dreams come true.
It's not enough imho to say we should frown on something, or even also supporting certain things. I think like suggested, proactive>reactive, but I think that should go further. We should also ask what else we can do.
Crowdfunding deserves to be protected. There are a million things platforms can do to PROTECT it. Requiring communication, making details clear, defining process to avoid gotchas, etc. Even little thing like layout of the platform page. We should all be sharing, asking, suggesting, supporting and frowning everywhere we can imho.
Agreed entirely
The problems I have with the VIP pre-crowd funding pledges is that:
1) the moment of clarify has a cost. The moment that you realise that you don’t need this $400 board game now has a cost to the consumer. It also makes the decision harder as you have already paid something for what turns out to now be nothing.
2) it punishes people who wait to see what a game is all about. I’m really likely to back Luthier when it hits KS, but if I could spend £1 at UKGE to get an upgraded first player marker I would never have done so. And that’s for a game I have researched. For the next game from the designers of Distilled with “interesting theme” put down $5, I’m unsubscribing from the newsletter and avoiding that campaign for most of it (until I see something I like).
Agreed completely on both points
I really appreciate you address it! I went from Earth Abundance and Deep Regrets being games I was excited for this year to Games I ultimate decided to skip. I just feel like it sucks and it mirrors alot of what I've seen with video game companies with battle passes and preorder bonus. You give these companies an inch and they will try to run a yard with this tactic. It won't be long before we experience a $10 pre-pledge campaign.
While I agree with you on most points it's a pitty that from all games Europa universalis was brought as an example. Campaign was on reprint plus expansion, meaning returning bakers had their chance to make their minds if they will want more content for game they already know. Also 5 dollars are more refundeable than 1 as it is more time worthy.
Props to you to respect and link to counter-views.
I don't want to be an echo chamber, regardless of my own opinion
$5 pre pledge is disgusting.
To be honest I expected it to happen, but not this fast.
@@BoardGameCo yeah and I fear it’s going to get worse.
If a creator wants to optimize ads for buyers and build an email list, I'm all for it. Value needs to be in the now though. Not pre-order to a crowdfund that has no guarantee to deliver. I also am surprised Alex shared CMON's entire playbook for campaigns.
I've had two so far with the $1. They both offered a free upgrade to the deluxe version. At both times this was $20 more than the base game. I didn't mind it at that point as they were both games I was going to back anyway.
I don't think I would go for $5, especially with the Australian exchange rate
more and more crowdfunding in general bothers me. so much about it needs to be addressed. im basically not doing it anymore. ill grab it later if i still want it. its always available somewhere
I don't disagree. I still back things, but so much rarer than I used to
I was about to write a comment disagreeing with you, but you convinced me with your argument at 13:20
I appreciate that, thank you!
Didn’t like the practice at $1 and now that it’s up to $5 I feel even angrier! All of this to preorder a game that in some cases isn’t even finished yet… ridiculous.
Yep, It feels wrong no matter what, and the escalation of the amount just makes it feel worse
Kelp did use the $1 prepay for the mini expansion “New Pursuits”
Ah, I missed that
really? I backed Kelp, never heard or knew of that. So this was the reason why one mini-expansion was free and the other not? I should have paid a dollar to an obscure newsletter no one I know ever heard of? sounds fishy... oh...
I didn't realize this until after the Kelp campaign had ended. If I had known I would have cancelled my pledge despite loving octopuses.
@@peterriecks9126 But the publisher got scammed by fake games being sold. It was a huge community effort to stop that. I don't want to be mean, and I am sure they are well meaning, but my cynical self thinks: Guess they got some instant karma there.
@@markusbaumgartner9266 That's what makes it so hard to vote with your dollar against the tactic. The companies using this tactic don't want you to know that they're using it. As someone that simply finds out about the campaign when it hits crowdfunding, you're unlikely to know there was a VIP/funnel option with an extra.
There are 84 known games that have implemented this tactic. There's about 3-5 new games using $1-$10 tactic each week. Kelp and Botany were the catalysts that made this tactic far more common.
Is the promo offer generous? Do I have enough information to make an informed decision? Do I trust the creator? If the answer is yes, then I’m happy to engage. If no, then I’ll pass. It’s not the marketing strategy that’s bad, it’s the execution of it.
The fake limited availability and early bird deals are much more egregious than the promo offers and should be the main topic of conversation in my opinion.
I don't disagree. The only reason I talk about this one more is because the other ones went away pretty quickly.
I will not back something with a "$1" sign up. Along with that i will back out of any campaign that adds add-ons throughout the campaign. Show me the whole thing at the Start. Let me make an informed decision. The slow roll of the real cost is so off putting i cancel after the first is "revealed". Stretch goals that get added to the games are fine/great. But saying here is a $70 game... Now here is a $50 expansion... Just kills me every time.
I have backed more projects this year that have a crowd funding models of here's what the game is" combined with"eco-friendly" production. The game look good, but it is also what i want to see more of. So voting with dollars and hoping the trends continues.
This new $1/$5 tactic feels particularly gross to me and I'd be less likely to back.
I won't be paying the up front fee and thus won't get the benefit and will be more inclined to not back.
From a marketing perspective, following a campaign should give them enough information.
Little late to "beat the horse" but... Aforementioned campaign was exact reason for me not to back. Im huge fan of videogame, game has very nice bgg ratings and looks very interesting.. but because of practice i easily passed it (not gonna lie, i felt relieve not to spend another hundreds € as im all or nothing guy). And i intend to keep it like that, you try sell without even showing actual product, well go on (one can argue that whole crowdfunding is based on that, you will be right.. but.. there is a practice and there is a practice). But i participated in one case of that, Earth exp. campaign with their weather module, but gotta point on difference there... you could still "order" it for that 1$ during campaign, when you know if you are interested or not... that is kinda line for me. Ofc, never say never... but as of right now, whole practice is just making my choices easier.
100% with you. The convo over in the Board Game Spotlight FB group got a little intense. Sometimes a slippery slope argument isn't wrong.
Slippery slope is always hard, for me. This was never a problem because I was against it when it was a dollar even if it never would go up.... The fact that it was going to go up made it worse, not bad to begin with.
I don't back any games if I know that they ask for a pre-pledge before the campaign.
How many financial transactions does a publisher expect me to trust? Kickstarter or Gamefound, no problem. The company running the pledge manager, okay. Now some shady marketing company, that uses multiple different names, wants to use my metadata for their advertising purposes, that's too far.
As a superbacker, so I clearly have no problem supporting the publishers, but not ones that prey on manipulative practices like a sunk-cost fallacy.
Thanks for sharing your voice Alex. I just refuse to back any game I see with these type of greed incentives baked into their campaigns. I remember really wanting to back Biome but they also pushed a $5 early back to grab the deluxe at retail price.
Yep, I understand why publishers do it but I have a hard time with it
Considering the huge percentage of you dorks that will pay for over deluxification and unnecessary add ons I don't wanna hear it about any amount they ask for advance considering how expensive the hobby is going toward making games a $100 norm. Yall brought this upon yourselves.
It's funny how you say stretch goals are made to make people feel like they get more than they really do because thinking back about it, for me, it often did the opposite.
Typically when I look at a campaign, I only look once and form an opinion there. If there's locked stretch goals, they aren't even taken into consideration. And for the unlocked stretch goals, a lot of time they are individually so small (e.g. 2 extra cards, 1 extra token, etc.) that they just amount to basically nothing in my eyes, or they just become a blur that is equally meaningless.
I think the only time they did something was when there's a campaign I'm on the fence for and they give an update summarizing the total of every stretch goals with the game (aka the real intent of the product), then I can look at the overall and make a decision from that, which would have been the same as if they gave that info from the start.
Yep, you're not wrong. Stretch goals can help and hurt because of that
Became $10 with Battle Blitz.
Yikes, I hadn't seen that one
I'm glad so far none of the publishers I follow have done that.
Good to hear!
That is too bad I have a few thousand hours into EU4 and 1000% would have backed a board game version. Now I won’t go near it that’s too bad but I am not supporting this practice and I can’t back a game where I don’t get “everything” for it most of the time and I won’t be able to here
Never going to prepay. If that results in missing out on something - that becomes a con for me eventually backing
I respect that, I'm mostly there myself
Mate - if if upsets people they wont buy it. The buyer has all the power here. If that eventually happens then the seller wont do it. Buyers are not slavish morons who dont know what they're doing with their money.
I really don't like what is going on in Board Game Crowdfunding lately.
yesyerday 1$, today 5$, tommorow 50$ ...
There is a cat stacking game i was following that asked for the $1 for stickers.
Ya, not a huge fan
Ya, not a huge fan
@BoardGameCo you the man, and thanks for always bringing this to light
Alex is so little fan of it. He said it twice! 😄
Hear hear!
2:37 Even though that dollar which you contributed is a sunk cost??
I agree with your point of view.
Appreciate it
Does anyone see board game crowdfunding collapsing at some point due to such cynical tactics? I've certainly soured on backing over the past year.
Seems to still be growing, the companies are just trying to push as far as they can - and it looks like that still is "a bit further". Sucks.
Corwdfunding (in comparison to the retail boardgame market) will in the near future be dominated by whales/collectors. The "bigger" and "grander" the game the more true this will be.
On a slight tangent, but can I ask how you select the games on display behind you?
I am one of the many backers of the second Monumental campaign that have been gaslighted by FunForge and are resigned to receiving nothing.
It just seems odd that with your awareness of the situation you decide to display Monumental.
It’s not that deep, dude. He’s just displaying his games and it so happens to be there.
Does this combo with stretch pay?
In theory it can, they're two different systems
Crowdfunding is a marketing concept, implemented and run by marketing professionals. The purpose is Cashflow and marketing (market analysis and advertising). There are two sides: Consumer investment has funded innovation.
I've never backed anything and don't understand the appeal of crowdfunding. 🤷
1. Supporting interesting first games of people who could never make it otherwise. You know, the thing crowdfunding should be about in the first place. It sometimes happen even today.
2. Games that NEVER go to retail.
3. Games that are CHEAPER on crowdfunding. It happens.
4. Exclusives.
5. Probably I forgot something.
I'm still a bit confused on how this is different than paying for Pledge Manager Access though - is that considered predatory as well?
Do you actually pay for that? Every time I late pledged, I got access just by asking or clicking a late pledge button.
Is this now a paid thing too? :o
There are a few main differences, the first is that I can't remember the last time you actually had to pay for pledge manager access. You can put down a dollar, but you can basically always get in anyway.
And secondly, you're getting all the information you need on the campaign, the decision to do the dollar separately, forces the consumer to go Through two separate phases of research or just give up the dollar, or give up the reward.
@@BoardGameCoget better memory? Did Altered, a huge Kickstarter many covered, even have a pledge manager? It was pledge in the window or nothing for you. No one seemed to fuss about that FOMO from what I have seen.
@@cjpeach11 How could it not have had one? You need one to be able to deliver the product and handle shipping, VAT etc...
@@BoardGameCo "...I can't remember the last time you actually had to pay for pledge manager access." WHAT?!?! Many of the games that start on Kickstarter and use Backerkit for the PM do require you to pay on KS to get access on Backerkit. Maybe I don't know the secret handshake or password to get into the PM on Backerkit. Maybe it's as simple as emailing the game company? I know there's the flip side that many companies are now also doing a PM on GF after their initial campaign. But, that's not the norm right now IMHO.
Also, my issue with $1 pre-campaign is they usually have no rulebook or gameplay explanation of the game they are promising. So, why should I pay for something I know very little about. Heck, even crowd funding campaigns have struggled to get an alpha rulebook posted before the campaign starts. It's usually 3-5 days into the campaign because so many comments say they are canceling their pledge because there is no rulebook.
And speaking of commenting on the campaigns... Why do people need to pay for a pledge, just so they can comment in the comments section? What other avenue do the consumers have to ask questions so they can make informed decisions? They can email them via the Contacts page. But, I've done that and only about 50% of the time do I get an answer. Yet, if you comment, and people start upvoting it or replying they agree, then the game devs take notice. It truly is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. And it sucks as a crowd funding consumer because there are no guarantees. Guarantees regarding timeframes to get the game or that your money will be used to produce that game. All of the sites say that this is not a store. So, there is risk for consumers, even for established companies. I won't mention those companies that failed their trusting pledgers. They took the money from new campaigns to continue to fund their old ones. That wasn't the promise of the campaign. The campaign didn't say they'd use the money for any other game than the one you are pledging for. (I'm getting off topic now.)
Didn't even bother to highlight that this is an expansion campaign and was offered to previous backers, which completely changes the context. Talk about misleading your audience 😂
How is that misleading? I'm not sure at all why that would change the context?
It absolutely would, as returning backers know precisely what they are going for and the value they are getting out of it. Hence, pretty much nobody is being emotionally sucked in, let alone being preyed on.
Also, the tracking and targeting aspect of your video is off on this one, as these are returning backers they already have information about, which completely invalidates your point.
I do get your point, and I also dislike being a victim of shady and abusive marketing, but this just not it.
The $1 for access to pledge managers or late pledges is a bigger issue than the one spoken about in this video.
Is that even a thing? I can't remember the last time I couldn't late pledge regardless of the $1
@@BoardGameCo from what I see on a lot of them it is. There’s an option for $1-2 just as a donation to help the project out and then there will be one that gains you access to pledge manager. So when they have open the PM to only be for certain people for whatever reason. MOST don’t do it but I’ve seen it
Sorry, I completely disagree. Because I'm that case, you are deciding after seeing the entire campaign and making the choice yourself.
There's $1 pledge manager access levels, but I don't think I've ever seen a required one.
I have seen $10 pledge manager access pledge tiers. It's very rarely used (compared to the $1-$10 VIP/pre-launch funnel), but usually secures you the KS price and rewards. Late pledge usually costs $10 more than backers paid. It's a sleazy tactic, but there's only 1-2 publishers that I can think of that have used it.
Additionally, what makes it different from the pre-pledge funnels, is that it's known information. The pre-pledge isn't something the creators are typically open about. They don't advertise, "Hey, you missed out on a $5-20 extra for not paying $1." With increased late pledge costs, they can't hide that the price has changed. The buyer can be informed.
The deceptive nature of the pre-pledge is what I find most problematic. A backer needs to do their own research to even know if they're supporting a publisher using this type of practice. Outside of Room & Board, I don't know of any crowdfunding videos that are making their audience aware of the specific campaigns using this tactic.
It's hard to vote with your dollar, when the publisher is deceptive. Crowdfunding would benefit from more transparency, not less.