In October 2020, nearly seven thousand people on Kickstarter backed Nova Aetas: Renaissance, a tactical board game playing in a fantasy Renaissance Italy. Estimated delivery date: December 2021. Actual delivery date to me: Today. I still haven't received The 7th Citadel, funded by over 33,000 people in September 2020, estimated delivery date May 2022, now expected for first half of 2024. On the other hand I have some shipping confirmation mails for crowdfunded games that are not more than half a year late. And I have never backed a board game crowdfunding project that didn't deliver at all. So, two years late is the worst case scenario up to now, with one year late being normal, and less than that being good.

There are two lessons in here: The fulfilment of crowdfunding projects tends to be a problem of project management, and a lot of people who are very good at game design aren't nearly as good at project management. And board game crowdfunding projects are a relatively safe bet, because the cost to produce a physical product and to ship it is somewhat more predictable than the cost to produce a digital product. Video games tend to do a lot worse in fulfilment of crowdfunding projects: The people who backed Star Citizens have been waiting for 11 years for the product to be finished, but only got access to early release versions over the years, with no projected date for the commercial release of the game.

- posted by Tobold @ 12:35 PM Permanent Link