RANDOM THOUGHTS #120
Steve Cole muses, just thinking to
himself that most of the time just TRYING something has a very real
cost.
Often, someone will suggest we try a particular project on Kickstarter. (We have a BBS topic for that and many people have made suggestions, a very few of which we will actually have the time to try within the next year.) Lots of people have made suggestions for such things, but many of them do not understand what Kickstarter is and is not good for.
In one case, the individual suggested that we try doing a glorious full-color version of the Federation Commander rulebook with lots of art. This was not a new idea, and I already knew what the cost would be because I already had to decide (years ago) that it was not possible to include that in the box. It costs almost 10 times as much as the black-and-white rulebook we did use and, because it has to be printed in minimum runs of 3,000, we would not be able to correct mistakes or update rules as we have with the black-and-white rulebooks we print for ourselves. (I also wonder if there is any point as the next time I do an FC product or correct a rules mistake the expensive color book is obsolete.)
The individual in question, however, knew that and was suggesting that we do this as a separate book people could buy. He knew it would cost a lot of money and he knew that we would never invest the money without knowing it would sell. To his mind, Kickstarter was perfect because if it didn't sell enough we could just drop the idea.
The problem was that I know how many Reference Rulebooks we have sold, and I know that number is less than the minimum print run for a color book, and so I knew we could not make that work. In theory, Kickstarter might let us raise just enough money to print the books even if we sold only a fraction of them, since we obviously sell books for more than they cost and the profit on a few books might pay for printing books we never sold. Of course, there isn't much point in going to all of the effort to create such a book just to break even when the same effort would produce something that would make a profit. (Understand that by profit I mean money to pay the company overhead, not money that would actually end up in my pocket. If a product isn't going to help pay that overhead, and it will take a substantial amount of employee time to do, we really would lose money even on a book that sold for more than it cost to print.
But there is more to it that that.
It takes a bunch of work just to get ready to do a Kickstarter project. (This includes getting press quotes, preparing graphics and a mockup and a video, and working up all of the stretch goals.) I should know, as I have four other games I'm trying to do right now, without having found enough information to do any one of them. (It seems dumb to stop working on projects half-finished to start some other project. We've done it before, but only when the new idea is just really cool. When the new idea is the pet project of somebody and that project had found no public support, it goes to the back of the line if it even makes it into the line.) Then you have the cost of managing a Kickstarter project, including two high-ranking employees continually monitoring everything posted, plus all of the marketing and supporting press releases and no end of other things. Giving something a try on Kickstarter is not free. Every time someone posts something, Jean and I have to discuss how to respond, and that takes time away from other work.
In this case, I carefully explained to him why I would not even try (despite some rather stressful badgering he kept up far too long). Anything we do on Kickstarter means something else we did not do on Kickstarter, and other things had much higher priority. This one didn't even get added to the end of that very long list because I could tell from the sales figures from a similar product that (as I explained above) could not justify the amount of company resources it would consume.
Giving a new restaurant a try is one thing. (You're going to eat anyway and one bad meal experience isn't going to ruin more than one day of your life, if that much.) Trying something that involves using very limited resources means we have to very carefully pick our battles, and this one did not get picked.
Often, someone will suggest we try a particular project on Kickstarter. (We have a BBS topic for that and many people have made suggestions, a very few of which we will actually have the time to try within the next year.) Lots of people have made suggestions for such things, but many of them do not understand what Kickstarter is and is not good for.
In one case, the individual suggested that we try doing a glorious full-color version of the Federation Commander rulebook with lots of art. This was not a new idea, and I already knew what the cost would be because I already had to decide (years ago) that it was not possible to include that in the box. It costs almost 10 times as much as the black-and-white rulebook we did use and, because it has to be printed in minimum runs of 3,000, we would not be able to correct mistakes or update rules as we have with the black-and-white rulebooks we print for ourselves. (I also wonder if there is any point as the next time I do an FC product or correct a rules mistake the expensive color book is obsolete.)
The individual in question, however, knew that and was suggesting that we do this as a separate book people could buy. He knew it would cost a lot of money and he knew that we would never invest the money without knowing it would sell. To his mind, Kickstarter was perfect because if it didn't sell enough we could just drop the idea.
The problem was that I know how many Reference Rulebooks we have sold, and I know that number is less than the minimum print run for a color book, and so I knew we could not make that work. In theory, Kickstarter might let us raise just enough money to print the books even if we sold only a fraction of them, since we obviously sell books for more than they cost and the profit on a few books might pay for printing books we never sold. Of course, there isn't much point in going to all of the effort to create such a book just to break even when the same effort would produce something that would make a profit. (Understand that by profit I mean money to pay the company overhead, not money that would actually end up in my pocket. If a product isn't going to help pay that overhead, and it will take a substantial amount of employee time to do, we really would lose money even on a book that sold for more than it cost to print.
But there is more to it that that.
It takes a bunch of work just to get ready to do a Kickstarter project. (This includes getting press quotes, preparing graphics and a mockup and a video, and working up all of the stretch goals.) I should know, as I have four other games I'm trying to do right now, without having found enough information to do any one of them. (It seems dumb to stop working on projects half-finished to start some other project. We've done it before, but only when the new idea is just really cool. When the new idea is the pet project of somebody and that project had found no public support, it goes to the back of the line if it even makes it into the line.) Then you have the cost of managing a Kickstarter project, including two high-ranking employees continually monitoring everything posted, plus all of the marketing and supporting press releases and no end of other things. Giving something a try on Kickstarter is not free. Every time someone posts something, Jean and I have to discuss how to respond, and that takes time away from other work.
In this case, I carefully explained to him why I would not even try (despite some rather stressful badgering he kept up far too long). Anything we do on Kickstarter means something else we did not do on Kickstarter, and other things had much higher priority. This one didn't even get added to the end of that very long list because I could tell from the sales figures from a similar product that (as I explained above) could not justify the amount of company resources it would consume.
Giving a new restaurant a try is one thing. (You're going to eat anyway and one bad meal experience isn't going to ruin more than one day of your life, if that much.) Trying something that involves using very limited resources means we have to very carefully pick our battles, and this one did not get picked.
posted by Federation Commander at 9:52 AM
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