Crowdfunding Season
CROWDFUNDING SEASON IS STARTING! I'm joking, it never ended. I've come to peace with it, I think, since I've been so available to chat to strangers in this real-life shop space. There is a sense it should be possible to have some integrity, to just make a game and have it played and eat food under a roof, but that's just a reality that needs to be accepted. And real life is marvelously inverted from the online world, in as much as HERE (real life, where I am sitting in a VERY warm shop) the people who seek you out to talk to you are enthusiastic, supportive, happy to see anything that resembles community or culture clinging on. Online, for whatever reason, selects for the opposite. It's probably how we're trained since social media came along, to attack and scorn and so on. It's intoxicating, can't deny it. There's a reason I have social media on send-only (thanks sendible.com).
So here are my current thoughts on crowdfunding:
1-It isn't a preorder (wink). This kayfabe is a fundamental part of crowdfunding and you can't ever admit it or else it stops existing. And, bizarrely, people do not buy preorders!
2-DO NOT TRY TOO HARD! There is no point imitating a £500,000 crowdfunder unless you are also going to imitate their well paid day job and useful connections.
3-If less than 1% of everyone is annoyed with you, don't worry about it. You probably have worse than that without knowing it every time you step on a bus.
4-Paid marketing is still shit and never makes an acceptable return. Don't give more than, like, 5% of your goal to any costs. Marketing is not for us plebs any more. Make a newsletter, stick it on your Itch.
5-There are less than 5 influencers who talk about TTRPG games who will result in a bigger audience for you, and only a couple that will change your life. No I will never name them that's rude.
6-Focus on what you're good at. Write, draw, make stuff. If we're in the business of imitating the big campaigns, it's exactly what they're doing.
7-Slap the next person who says "wE'Re AlL jUsT MoViNg ArOuNd ThE SaMe £5" and tell them to try making something good
So yea! Crowdfunding. It's going quite well and I've been happy with how we do things now. Go look at out latest one, it's a Swyvers expansion, kind like a judges guild ref sheet. I even made the video this time around 'cos Shuyi is on holiday. I'm unreasonably proud of it, especially considering how much of an AI world the internet is right now. You can see my grubby little finger prints on it!