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 Manchu wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Frankly, for a Mod, you've taken this very personally, very quickly, I'd expect better than this from a regular poster.

I have also read this thread from the beginning and I have seen you among others trivialize other posters' viewpoints as "getting sidetracked" etc. again and again. As a Mod, it's my role to tell you give it a rest.

Just filter thread on my posts, I really can't see what you're targeting me for that others haven't said as well, more strongly or agreed with me. To jump all over what was genuinely intended as a positive post, which for some reason has clearly caught you wrong, is just a little unfair.

Hell, other mods have agreed with some of my posts, is isn't like I'm sailing close to the wind here.

I've never been a huge fan of the Predator tie-in, but those Aliens and Colonial Marines are pretty awesome.

 azreal13 wrote:
Just filter thread on my posts ...

Taking it to PM.

So the "big news" that they delayed from Friday till today is that they'll have more news in December about the inevitable kickstarter? That's GW levels of disappointing and hubris. There are more accurate words to describe it but Manchu is already pulling double duty in this thread and I don't want him to have to red text my post.

Kickstarter will probably kill this game for retail distribution. Not good.

 warboss wrote:
So the "big news" that they delayed from Friday till today is that they'll have more news in December about the inevitable kickstarter? That's GW levels of disappointing and hubris. There are more accurate words to describe it but Manchu is already pulling double duty in this thread and I don't want him to have to red text my post.

I am holding out hope that there is more information coming but if not, you can consider me frustrated a bit with Prodos.. I am not so sure that picture would of been difficult to post on Friday. The Predators in the picture however look great!

Kroot, can you extrapolate on that thought?

So, a Kickstarter coming in 1½ months, then the average 6-8 month wait for any product. Bah, Come back when you have a product to sell, instead of hype to flog.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Kickstarter will probably kill this game for retail distribution. Not good.

Maybe. But I feel like the name would have enough "Wow" value to pull people in at the stores, especially if it is boardgame-like and the retailers actively promote it.

Or did you just mean in Germany?

~Eric

Well it's half past five in the UK so I doubt that we'll be getting any more announcements from Prodos today. Really liked those Predators shown. Pretty disappointed about the Kickstarter news.

I wonder how getting the license for something and a kickstarter interacts, have we had examples of this before?

 Manchu wrote:
Kroot, can you extrapolate on that thought?

Well, small alternative tabletops have a small market. If a big share of it is satisfied by kickstarter, promising big discounts and exclusives, not much is left to justify retail distribution. It's like missing the first few months of sales of a new GW army.

Mantic (except Deadball boxes) was swept from the German market this way, Godslayer also didn't make it to a major distributor, with kickstarter people currently getting their stuff.

Some boardgames are able to finally make it, like Zombicide and Super Dungeon Explore crawling into the market now.
But ATM I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter.

I was hoping for a regular release but now, unless they really got a good deal with reasonably shipping and cool gak, I'm going to sit this one out until whenever my FLGS can start selling these.

 Kroothawk wrote:
I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter

KoW is doing okay, at least where I am, but I see your point. I am more concerned, however, about a small company getting swamped with money and despite representations of experience and confidence having to back track a la the recent RoboTech news from Palladium/Ninja Division. Warzone did well and seems to be coming along nicely. But AvP is BIG DEAL and will surely garner much more.

 Kroothawk wrote:
Kickstarter will probably kill this game for retail distribution. Not good.

I think it will be closer to Dreadball (or maybe even Bones) in terms of post-KS success, so long as Prodos can handle the logistics. This is one of the most popular IP's in Sci Fi, and the kickstarter will allow them to reach a wide market, fund many, many more units (or expansions) than they could otherwise, and possibly include a retailer level if they are smart.

If Prodos were just making a board game, then KS might hurt FLGS sales. If they make lots of units and add ons, then there will be plenty of people who want to expand their forces when it goes retail, or people who didn't have the funds for KS, or people who were gunshy about pledging, etc. If the KS creates a more full line of products and a lot of word of mouth, then the game will do very well for FLGSs.

Kickstarter. Oh how wonderful.

Well, I'll just wait till some actual news arrives.

 Kroothawk wrote:
I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter

BLACKWATER GULCH

edit.

On the Lamb Games also certainly counts.

I'm gobsmacked; actually agreeing with Bob is a rare experience

Don't forget how popular this IP (apparently, I had to be told ) is.
Add to that how much of a niche market KS still is, and how little it actually targets the somewhat more 'casual' wargaming market; with an IP that will have a huge draw, just to buy a retail unit box or two, I really can't see this *not* hitting any FLGS that remotely knows what's good for them

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
Wow, those Pred renders look awesome.

Totally agreed, AoE!

Manchu wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter

KoW is doing okay, at least where I am, but I see your point.

BrookM wrote:BLACKWATER GULCH
On the Lamb Games also certainly counts.

KoW and On the Lamb had years without a kickstarter, before they made a revised rulebook as a kickstarter.
All three games have no presence in Germany, never met anyone playing these.
Warzone not yet available.

Maybe the problem is with Germany and not Kickstarter?

I've seen that trend, too, though- Dropzone Commander made a traditional launch just as the Kickstarter frenzy hit, and they're in retail stores and doing fairly well.

I haven't seen the same for most kickstarted games... they seem to have a huge boom at the beginning, but excitement wears off by the time they ship.

Relic Knights is an example of something that would've been huge at retail, but by the time it delivers it will have lost all momentum :-/

Good points, RiTides. One explanation is that KS allows projects that would not otherwise get made because they'd have trouble surviving in retail. A proper AvP game probably would not fall into that category. KS seems a poor fit for the franchise even if it might be a good fit for the company. And maybe that shows a misalignment between the IP and the company.

Germany's one of the biggest games markets in the world though - it's the heart of the worldwide board gaming industry. Essen Spiel has something like 5 times the attendees of Gen-con. No game company with any sense would want to ignore Germany. If a game fails there, its unlikely to succeed elsewhere.

Best case scenario, they go a hybrid route- it sounded like they were ready for a traditional launch, so perhaps they can get the "base game" out and in to stores quickly (if it's already made, or being made) and then use the crowdfunding to accelerate future releases.

It would be better than going the pure KS route, at any rate! I am starting to think that campaigns that are ready to deliver on their core, and just use the platform to expand more quickly, will do better than ones with a year+ wait where nothing can be sold in the interim.

FFS i thought this was straight to retail not another ks.I was hoping this would be under my tree this xmas.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Manchu wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter

KoW is doing okay, at least where I am, but I see your point.

BrookM wrote:BLACKWATER GULCH
On the Lamb Games also certainly counts.

KoW and On the Lamb had years without a kickstarter, before they made a revised rulebook as a kickstarter.
All three games have no presence in Germany, never met anyone playing these.
Warzone not yet available.

Distributors didn't feel like talking to us before Kickstarter, nothing has changed. TBH, unless it's a game made by someone with a name don't count on it being in distro either way. Espically a minis game or RPG.

BrookM wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter

BLACKWATER GULCH

edit.

On the Lamb Games also certainly counts.

I don't have any personal experience with those games but I'd be hesitant to say they "made it" since I've never seen anyone talking about the games on forums outside of dakka (which is IIRC both their official forums) or mention them in person let alone actually playing them. YMMV depending on the definition of "making it" (fun game, turning a profit even if small, exclusively supporting the creator without a need for another job, making the ICV2 top 5, etc).

Manchu wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
I can't think of a tabletop that made it after a kickstarter

KoW is doing okay, at least where I am, but I see your point.

KOW though existing long before the kickstarter and was already in a fair amount of stores as the premium mantic "not GW" line.

edit: Ninja'd by the creator of one of the games mentioned above.

 Cyporiean wrote:

Distributors didn't feel like talking to us before Kickstarter, nothing has changed. TBH, unless it's a game made by someone with a name don't count on it being in distro either way. Espically a minis game or RPG.

More or less, this. Gaming is niche. Most B&M stores don't even stock a fraction of what is available unless it is made by WotC, Paizo, GW or Privateer Press (or is a boardgame). Those pay the bills. Stuff like Infinity, Dystopian Wars, Malifaux or any other of the online darlings have a pretty low density of players (especially moving in to North America where we have a lot of low pop-density areas).

It doesn't really matter if something was launched via some more traditional route or KS. The only difference is that KS tends to be more visible and so when the usual interest drop-off occurs post-release, our confirmation bias kicks in when we stop noticing it being the talk of the town. But just like any other game in the industry it will likely keep chugging along whether you are actively looking or not (unless it dies off, a fate that both KS and non-KS games can share).

Some KS-based stuff goes on to see distribution fairly widely (still gobsmacked to see Zombicide, Sedition Wars and Dreadball at my LGS... as I said, they never seem to stock much outside of the bread-winning quartet; though I think all of those being board-game based is a bit reason). But most will have their big (relatively speaking depending on the game) splash and then fall off the radar for anyone not looking directly at it. In the end I have yet to see any direct evidence that the interest drop-off post KS is any worse than that seen for any other game not done via a Kickstarter.

Bottom line is, the LGS is a not a great representation of any kind of global market, nor is any other anecdotal "well I've never heard of anyone playing X" stuff. All games in the hobby (outside of a few) are niche as all hell, but continue on doing what they do whether you are actively looking at them or not. Considering all this, making any claim as to how Kickstarter effects the success of a game compared to a non-KS game is all kinds of pointless. In the end, KS stuff is simply more visible from the outset and through the whole process, so when it inevitably slips off the radar of those who aren't playing it they remember it more clearly than when generic, traditionally launched game Y does the exact same thing.

Prodos is a small company.

Aliens is a huge huge license.

If this KS gets out on major news sites, this could easily be multiple millions of dollars.

What'll happen is the "Kickstarter effect" - felt by Mantic and Palladium and many others - where the promises of new kits created by stretch goals equals a sacrifice in quality to make delivery (Mantic - Kings of War) or a sacrifice in delivery date to make the sheer number of new sculpts (Palladium - Robotech).

What I don't want to see is a KS with a delivery date of a year or more.

Because of the boutique level quality of the miniatures I was really hoping for a phased release. First set with x number of sculpts, $y. In two months, another round of sculpts. Traditional stuff. So I could get a few models at a time and paint them wonderfully.

But with the KS route we're looking at a small company trying to handle a huge license and conceivably one of the biggest Kickstarters. That means delays, straight up... how many months of shipping hundreds of packages per day did it take Reaper to finish Bones I? Five, Six months?

I'm still optimistic, but I'm not expecting now to have any of these minis til next Christmas 2014.

 RiTides wrote:
Best case scenario, they go a hybrid route- it sounded like they were ready for a traditional launch, so perhaps they can get the "base game" out and in to stores quickly (if it's already made, or being made) and then use the crowdfunding to accelerate future releases.

This IS what they're doing, I'm surprised that people have complained for 2 pages instead of posting this information from the Facebook comments. While it would have been nice for them to address this more directly, here's some relevant info:

Alien vs Predator The Miniatures Game wrote:Yes, it will be available through "normal" channels, the KS version is labelled as a "Special Edition", more info to come.
Like · Reply · 5 · 4 hours ago

Any chance you will be doing clear plastic/resin for cloacked predators??
Like · Reply · 4 · 6 hours ago

Alien vs Predator The Miniatures Game wrote: yes
Like · 23 · 6 hours ago

Also, I don't think anyone reposted the Predator pictures so I'll do so as well: