Bicycle Sky Descender Playing Cards - Indiegogo & [KS]

[popetown]

I've not seen any indiegogo campaigns on here but this does look pretty good. Something about backing a guy so early and with likely little to no experience with it. I know it's a long shot but I figured a place like here with you guys is a good place to give it some legs.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bicycle-sky-descender-playing-cards/x/6510284

I searched on here and didn't see it anywhere but if I've overlooked it, please feel free to merge / delete as needed.

[bhong]

The artwork isn't too bad though I can understand that the one way court design can be a turn off for some people. I'm curious if it'd be metallic inks which doesn't look the good on anything but a white paper as it loses a lot of its shine when printed over another colour.

My biggest worry about the low goal and even with the disclaimer of "To be honest, I don't expect that this project can make me money -- it is all about dream. $4500 could be only half of the USPCC printing fee, not mentioning shipping and labor. I need your help not because I want to make profit, but I want to realize my dream", that doesn't help. That 4500$ is way short of what's needed to print with USPCC and doesn't even take into consideration the shipping cost so unless the creator is willing to throw in at least another 4000-6000$ more himself, even if the funding succeeds, I'd worry about backers getting their reward.

[vmagic]

Yes the $4500 goal is concerning. Based on the success rate of cards on Indiegogo i'd say the chances of this one getting funded aren't too good, which is a shame, he should get it on KS instead.

[popetown]

Heh. Yeah, I'm honestly not as informed on the logistics of KS's and the like and of printing with USPCC but the small goal still sort of worried me but I figure he's probably got, at best equal parts a chance of not making it or far surpassing it. I forgot I even had that $17 in the paypal account so it's not too much skin off my back. Hopefully if he takes off he'll start to realize the logistics...I'm not sure what he'll be able to do but I'll hold out hope.

So how much does the minimum order of 2500 decks typically run?

[Duke Boy]

print, QC, shipping normally runs 10K-12K minimum.

[Don Boyer]

print, QC, shipping normally runs 10K-12K minimum.

I've seen less, but costs have gone up - both USPC and USPS seem to be raising prices annually.  Even factoring in that I've seen less, I've never see this much less.

We do cover IGG projects, but they're just too few and far between to make us take notice.  That, and the fact that IGG allows flex funding doesn't help...

[BiggerDee]

Red flags galore. Even I'm staying far, far away from this one.

[popetown]

Heh, all fair points for sure.

Man, I didn't realize it would be that much though. I'm a little more concerned now but at least this one's fixed funding so if they don't meet, funds are refunded. Yeah, what was it about UPS, etc going up last year? I think almost everyone goes up every year across all services and products but I thought I remember reading that online commerce became a massively larger piece to the puzzle last Christmas that FDX/UPS had to really get on the reactionary for the first time in a while.

Shipping brings up a good point, I wonder if this guy is thinking that he'll be able to get some sort of flat shipping or something by shipping in a way that might otherwise jeopardize the decks? His site has gone up a bit since yesterday but yeah, it doesn't seem to be getting the visibility that a KS would.

[BiggerDee]

USPS went up significantly last year, and that's the method that virtually all mindividuals (Indiegogo/KS/et cetera) use for shipment. I've seend decks on KS (in thge last couple of years) go for 12-15K and the designer runs into problems and isn't able to deliver. There are several KS projects in limbo because the decks are produced, but the creator doesn't have any money to ship them whether due to their own skimming of the funds, or shipping rate increases catching them off guard. I would say that $15K for a USPCC run/QC/Shipping would be towards the low end of do-able, but if any issues came up, it could spiral out of control in a hurry since that would be a razor thin margin.

Unfortunately, the cost to print with USPCC and then ship has gotten so high that I have seen meany beautiful deck designs fail on KS simply because they couldn't attain that goal. Several went to less expensive printers, but it hasn't been until recently that there have been some less expensive options that were in the same quality neighborhood as the USPCC.

[popetown]

I'll be honest, I'm starting to have doubts after hearing so much about the costs and decks raising so much more than this campaign is even hoping for and failing. I suppose I'll hold off on looking into cancelling just yet and just see if this thing takes off. It looks to have stalled unfortunately. We'll see I suppose.

[Rob Wright]

Bicycle Sky Descender Playing Cards

A deck that is full of details and stories. A true Chinese style Bicycle deck manufactured by USPCC.

[Don Boyer]

There's things I like, and there's a HUGE RED FLAG.

The design is actually OK, but the choice of colors is so bland.  This should be more colorful.

The indices is too far from the corner.

But here's the fun part - not only does he not have enough budgeted for the job, but he HAS NO IDEA HOW MUCH HE NEEDS.  Meaning he might be good on the design, but he's terrible at the business.

A quote from the project home page - the bold part is my emphasis:

【To be honest, I don't expect that this project can make me money -- it is all about dream. $6666 could be only half of the USPCC printing fee, not mentioning shipping and labor. I need your help not because I want to make profit, but I want to realize my dream. 】

"Could be only half?"  Is that your way of telling us YOU DON'T KNOW??  Want some more laughs, read the "Risks and challenges" section.

I wouldn't touch this project if it was the last woman on the planet, and really attractive, too.

[Rose]

There is something wrong with me today, all the decks seem good, just not great, so I hope no-one takes this too personally. The dragon theme is beyond awesome BUT as Don mentioned the colors should be something else. Like Red or Blue or Green, well pick any one that is not brown.
The fan and the box is good.
The brown is driving me crazy...

[PrincessTrouble]

The brown is driving me crazy...

Yeah, not a fan of the turd brown either.  LOL

[PurpleIce]

I am very very sure i have seen this deck before some time back.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=6179.msg93110#msg93110

Seems like previously, this deck has already been flagged red for not knowing his budgeting well enough. The deck has made no improvements since then either.

I am really not too sure if anyone around here other than the creator is actually a fan of the brown. I could fall asleep playing with these cards.

[Don Boyer]

I am very very sure i have seen this deck before some time back.

http://www.playingcardforum.com/index.php?topic=6179.msg93110#msg93110

Seems like previously, this deck has already been flagged red for not knowing his budgeting well enough. The deck has made no improvements since then either.

I am really not too sure if anyone around here other than the creator is actually a fan of the brown. I could fall asleep playing with these cards.

I went and merged the topics.  One deck, one topic on the PCP.  It definitely appears that he didn't think it was a big-enough flop on IGG and wants to try KS this time around...  At least he didn't use flex-funding - flex-funding is like a license to steal money for projects that don't hit their goal.

The design itself isn't terrible, just the choice of the main color.  It's not even a nice shade of brown.  I'm betting there's a reason why USPC dropped using brown on their standard decks some years ago.