Appreciation post: The guy who warned me about Kickstarter board games at Gen Con last year

Last August at Gen Con in Indianapolis, I ran into this older guy near the Fantasy Flight booth. He saw me backing three Kickstarter games on my phone and told me to slow down. He said he lost nearly $600 in the last two years on games that never shipped or showed up broken. I laughed it off at the time, but now I get it. Three months after Gen Con, one of those campaigns went silent and the other two delivered parts missing. I finally emailed the third company last week and got no reply. That guy was right, I should have listened. Has anyone else had a Kickstarter game just disappear on you?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_anna22d ago

Gotta disagree with the old dude here honestly. I've backed like 30 Kickstarter board games in the last 4 years and only had 2 go totally silent. One was a small indie project that clearly got in over their head, but the other 28 showed up fine, maybe a few months late but nothing crazy. I actually prefer Kickstarter over retail because you get all the stretch goals and extras that come with the pledge. Lost $600 over two years sounds rough, but that's on him for not checking the creator's history or reading the comments before backing. I mean, you can see if a campaign updates regularly or if people are already posting warnings.

wesleyjohnson22d agoMost Upvoted

So you're saying you've had good luck with 28 out of 30, but what about the ones where the creator actually delivers but the game ends up being a dud? I've seen so many reviews where a Kickstarter game gets hyped up during the campaign, then shows up and it's basically unplayable because the rules are a mess or the components don't work together. That's not a total loss of money but it's still a loss of your time and trust. And honest question: did those 28 games actually play well, or did you just feel good about getting the stretch goals and extras? Because I've been burned by a few "fully funded" games where the bling was great but the actual gameplay felt like an afterthought.

amy85822d ago

I'm sorry, "lost $600 over two years sounds rough but that's on him"? That's a pretty cold way to look at it. Six hundred dollars is a lot of money to a lot of people, myself included. And you're telling me it's the backer's fault for not doing enough homework? I've backed things where the creator had great updates and a history of delivering, and the game still came out broken or with terrible balance issues. What's a person supposed to do, hire a private investigator? I appreciate that you've had good luck with your 28 out of 30, but some of us don't have the time or energy to become expert project analysts just to buy a board game. Good for you that it worked out, but calling it "on him" feels like you're brushing off a real problem with that whole system.