(And How to Avoid Them)
When you put money into an upcoming game, your hopes are high. It’s going to be epic, ground-breaking—a ton of fun. Sometimes your optimism is rewarded and it really comes through. But what about those times when you help crowdfund a game all the way into a developer’s bottomless pocket or into a disappointing, anticlimactic final product? What about when Kickstarter kicks you in the caboose and hands you an empty shelf or a terrible game, instead of a dazzling new tabletop adventure? What if the game is fun but it’s six months late arriving?
It’s a question worth asking, as the tabletop gaming market experiences an ongoing renaissance, buoyed to no small degree by crowdfunding sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter. In 2015 alone, the “hobby game” market (board and card games sold for gamers instead of just as toys) was worth around $1.2 billion in the US and Canada, according to the website ICv2. That’s big money that has only grown since then, and it goes to show that people love to play. They also love to attend board game fairs like the UK Games Expo in Britain, Essen Spiel in Germany, or Gen Con and Origins in the U.S., to name just a few.
The public is hungry for new games and they always like having the chance to play them through or fund them online. What they don’t like is to get enthused about a game and then have it fall through.
The Good, The Bad, and the Liability
This story is from the Fall 2017 edition of Casual Game Insider.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Fall 2017 edition of Casual Game Insider.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
GAME REVIEWS
This little card game takes only a couple of minutes to teach, but is surprisingly engaging and full of fun.
Fun Is No Mystery with: Scorpion masqué
Scorpion Masqué is a Montreal-based board game publisher founded in 2006 by former literature teacher and game enthusiast Christian Lemay
PAGE TURNERS: Games Unfurl Their Majestic Pages
Have you picked up a good book lately? Perhaps you've struggled to find inspirational reading material
Josh Cappel: A Man of Many Hats
The name Josh Cappel is synonymous with variety. If you have a shelf of board games, it's likely that at least one of them has been touched by Cappel
PLAY FUNKOVERSE LIKE A PRO
Have you ever heard about the Funkoverse board game series? If not, then you are in for a real treat
PASSPORT TO FUN: This Summer's Sizzling New Casual Games
From a quaint festival in Portugal to impending doom in ancient China, or from the peaceful tranquility of a Japanese garden to the tarmac of the Montréal airport, the new casual board games of the summer of 2023 read like a captivating travel brochure
Scram! CRITTERS VS. CAMPERS
One team faces another in Bezier Games' latest card-shedding gam
Hand-to-Hand Wombat is Major Fun!
The Concept - No one knows why wombats enjoy architecture. A desire to build towers is buried deep in their bones. But there are exceptions: wicked wombats, born to make trouble.
A Part-Time Venture Creating Full-Time Fun
hawn Stankewich, along with co-founders Robb Melvin and Molly Johnson, started Seattle-based Flatout Games in 2017. Robb and Shawn lived in the same dorm in college and developed a friendship through playing board games. Molly was already into games when she met Shawn and Robb in 2013. After four years of friendship and playing games, they decided to design their own.
THE KULTURE OF GAMES:
How Board Games Continue to Reflect Growing & Emergent Communities