Kickstarter and "Limited Editions"

[S. Carey]

In the words of Ron Burgundy "That's bush"

Just this year alone....

Randy Butterfield
Lotrek/Half Moon
Nat Iwata
Edgy Brothers
Michael Scott
Emmanuel Jose
Paul Roman Martinez

This doesn't even include Encarded, Uusi, Shane Tyree, Brain Vessel, Chris O from Calaveras, Lee McKenzie...

All these guys do great work.

[John B.]

We probably should not get off topic as to who is and is not pushing the envolope but I only knew like 2 of the guys on your list. and neither of them made something I felt was nice enough I wanted it. Personally encarded is my favorite, jackson robinson has some stuff I like and most of kickstarter imo are eh at most.

[DarkDerp]

Sooo. After reading the comments and questions I have come to the conclusion that writing still isn't my thang.

So artificial demand is a business term. Under suppling a demand to increase the value. I wasn't inferring it was bad, heck I use it as do many smaller independently run businesses in one way or another.

Limited editions. I dont disagree with anyones definition in the above.

The use of the word degrade was just stupid on my part. The proper term would be devalue, and as it applies to  market/ value proposition not a personal   "Your sucking the awesomeness out of everything" accusation.

Let me try and say this in a less confusing way. I personally do not back projects that use kickstarter as a marketplace. Kickstarter to me is about gathering start up capital. It is crowd sourced funding for those that have a dream or an idea but would otherwise be unable to gather the capital. The ability to get a loan, gather investors, and or successfully deal with venture capitalists can prove insurmountable to many.

I believe the use artificial demand, and the use of things like "limited edition"  hurt the "value" of kickstarter.  Gathering startup capital is now up against those with a  "first mover advantage".

I hope that clarifies a bit. If Jacksons Independence decks were  produced outside of kick-starter  I would be buying the ever loving heck out of them. Federal 52 are freaking incredible. I think Jackson has been part of a movement  pushing the main stream idea and view of what it means to be a  graphic artist. the art form of graphic art has been overlooked for years and abused by corporations for decades. I believe this is starting to change and I admire those who have not only the ability but motivation to challenge peoples perceptions.

[JacksonRobinson]

In the words of Ron Burgundy "That's bush"

Just this year alone....

Randy Butterfield
Lotrek/Half Moon
Nat Iwata
Edgy Brothers
Michael Scott
Emmanuel Jose
Paul Roman Martinez

This doesn't even include Encarded, Uusi, Shane Tyree, Brain Vessel, Chris O from Calaveras, Lee McKenzie...

All these guys do great work.

They absolutely do great work but I still stand by what I said.

[Don Boyer]

In the words of Ron Burgundy "That's bush"

Just this year alone....

Randy Butterfield
Lotrek/Half Moon
Nat Iwata
Edgy Brothers
Michael Scott
Emmanuel Jose
Paul Roman Martinez

This doesn't even include Encarded, Uusi, Shane Tyree, Brain Vessel, Chris O from Calaveras, Lee McKenzie...

All these guys do great work.

And for every name you listed, there's at least two more not on the list that put up (or more accurately, "threw up") lame-ass deck projects that either failed or only succeeded because they went with a low-budget printer willing to make the shortest of print runs.

My take on limited editions: sure, there's a certain cool factor to being the only person on your block or in your town that owns THIS deck and there's so few of them in the world that they're like art prints or something.  But I go to my toilet bowl every morning and create a "one-of-a-kind" work of (ahem) "art" that's as rare as the Mona Lisa, and I don't see people bashing down my door to own it.

In plainer terms, a limited edition piece of crap is still a piece of crap.  Spray it with Magic Finish and put it in a hand-numbered, embossed box drenched in metallic foil and closed with a custom seal made of gold and unicorn tears - IT'S STILL A PIECE OF CRAP.  The idea of something having value simply because it's limited in quantity is absurd - there has to be something more than that which makes it distinct, unique and worth owning.  People who buy decks solely because they believe them to be investment-grade are fools - as for anyone who would follow suit and play into that game, I quote from Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?"

Sooo. After reading the comments and questions I have come to the conclusion that writing still isn't my thang.

So artificial demand is a business term. Under suppling a demand to increase the value. I wasn't inferring it was bad, heck I use it as do many smaller independently run businesses in one way or another.

Limited editions. I dont disagree with anyones definition in the above.

The use of the word degrade was just stupid on my part. The proper term would be devalue, and as it applies to  market/ value proposition not a personal   "Your sucking the awesomeness out of everything" accusation.

Let me try and say this in a less confusing way. I personally do not back projects that use kickstarter as a marketplace. Kickstarter to me is about gathering start up capital. It is crowd sourced funding for those that have a dream or an idea but would otherwise be unable to gather the capital. The ability to get a loan, gather investors, and or successfully deal with venture capitalists can prove insurmountable to many.

I believe the use artificial demand, and the use of things like "limited edition"  hurt the "value" of kickstarter.  Gathering startup capital is now up against those with a  "first mover advantage".

I hope that clarifies a bit. If Jacksons Independence decks were  produced outside of kick-starter  I would be buying the ever loving heck out of them. Federal 52 are freaking incredible. I think Jackson has been part of a movement  pushing the main stream idea and view of what it means to be a  graphic artist. the art form of graphic art has been overlooked for years and abused by corporations for decades. I believe this is starting to change and I admire those who have not only the ability but motivation to challenge peoples perceptions.

If people are buying it, is "artificial demand" really artificial? 

While Kickstarter was originally conceived of as an incubator for the little guy with a dream, it actually exists as it does today because if they offered microshares of the company, they'd fall under the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  That was the original intent of KS, so make no mistakes about that.  According to the Wall Street Journal, they're still working on ways to turn microfunding into microinvesting.  Because of their reward system being an alternative to the microshares, it's become a de facto marketplace.  If I get defrauded by a company seeking funds on the site, I'd be pursuing the exact same course of action as I would if I'd been defrauded by a retailer in the brick-and-mortar world.  Like it or not, that's where it is.  Sure, a project creator could offer all kinds of alternative rewards that are not the thing being created by the project.  This is pretty much mandatory for projects to create things like a public work of art or a satellite to be launched into space.  But the overwhelming majority of projects on Kickstarter are ways of launching a product of some kind or another, and people who are interested in investing are naturally going to be interested in the product being produced, so it's no far-fetched plan to simply offer what you're making as part of the rewards.  Thus, a marketplace is born.

Using your definition of what Kickstarter is for, you'd probably exclude 98% or more of all Kickstarter projects from being worth your funding.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[S. Carey]

Almost every deck on Kickstarter is a "Limited Edition" it seems, whether the creator states it or not. I think someone mentioned it before but rarely are these projects printed again. Most projects are limited to 2500 to 5000 decks and that is it. When a project adds a deck with a super low print run and added features, they should probably be called the "Special Edition"  deck. Also, I think "Kickstarter Exclusive" would make more sense as a lot of people prefer a deck not be sold after the funding period and sometimes creators use the "Limited Edition" to imply "Kickstarter Exclusive". It might not be as sexy as LTD Ed. and Kickstarter won't allow the use of their name but that is exactly what the creator is implying.

"First Edition" works as well. Although it implies there will be a "second edition" at a later date as some creators like to think big.     

Anyway, if I made a quarter million on kickstarter, I'd probably still use kickstarter to fund my projects. It is a viable marketplace and it doesn't seem like Kickstarter is limiting the amount of projects a creator can make. Plus it lets designers focus on what they know like designing cards instead of worrying about technology, servers, payment processors, pci compliance and all that fun stuff with hosting the funding themselves. (Just a side note for those that don't know - you can't take pre-orders by simply charging a card like a purchase. It can be authorized but you aren't really supposed to charge until you are close to shipping the products, which this isn't even the case with Kickstarter but I believe they have it structured in a way that they can do this being they aren't technically an e-commerce store.) That said, Kickstarter is already built and did the homework on all the laws around merchant processing and the model is proven/works. Can't fault anyone for using it as a marketplace.

It might suck using it all the time since you are kind of sharing your branding with Kickstarter. If you want to be considered a big company, it might make sense to create your own infrastructure. At the end of the day every deck that goes on Kickstarter, is still a "Kickstarter deck" so you get lumped in with all the other Kickstarter decks including the crap.

That said, I think I've seen where Jackson and Paul from Encarded have mentioned getting off Kickstarter. Paul may be taking the leap before Jackson if I am not mistaken.
 

[DarkDerp]

 There is a line after establishing a brand identity and capital  when kickstarter becomes a storefront and I would say a majority do not fit in this category. Being able to use sales and marketing tactics like limited editions I would argue overshadows the startups in effect making them the  Ellusionist and Theory11s within kickstarter.

[Don Boyer]

There is a line after establishing a brand identity and capital  when kickstarter becomes a storefront and I would say a majority do not fit in this category. Being able to use sales and marketing tactics like limited editions I would argue overshadows the startups in effect making them the  Ellusionist and Theory11s within kickstarter.

I do actually understand this perspective.  I have at times wondered why deck designers (and in some cases, companies) keep coming to Kickstarter for project after project.  I figured that after all that time, they should be adequately funded to continue ongoing operations without needing to rely on Kickstarter.  And when I discuss this with people in the business, I generally hear the same answer - Kickstarter has become the 800-pound gorilla of the custom deck industry, sucking the air out of the marketplace for everyone else.  It's where the action is and it's where the audience of customers is - it's only logical to keep returning.

I've seen designers who actually didn't need a single penny of funding come to Kickstarter to raise funds for their deck.  Why?  Because it gives them greater exposure, more eyeballs looking at their page and getting interested in their work, than they could ever hope to generate on their own using their company webpage.  Others keep coming back because with each launch, more and more people are learning their name and seeking out their work.  It's so much simpler than selling on your own that it's almost ridiculous to have a company site for anything other than informational purposes.  (It's not perfect, mind you, or companies like Backerkit wouldn't exist, but it's still simpler.)

There's a theme WIlliam Gibson uses frequently in his cyberpunk novels and more recent fiction, and that is "the street finds its uses."  By this he meant that a technology intended for one purpose may end up used for some completely different and unintended use when it's out in the world and in people's hands, for better or worse - if it can be repurposed to fill a need, it WILL be repurposed to fill that need.  A real world parallel to this would be how a cheap, readily available blood pressure medication turns out to have a side effect of causing serious erections, and thus the same drug sells for ten times the price under the brand name Viagra.  Another example would be how a different blood pressure medication has the side effect of causing hair growth when applied directly on scalps afflicted with male pattern baldness and by rebranding the drug, Rogaine is born.

Kickstarter as originally intended looks a lot like one of those blood pressure medications.  Sure, it can still "regulate blood pressure"/turn the little guy's dream idea into reality, but the side effects it created have by far overshadowed the original intent for use.  As proof of how such overshadowing can completely obscure the original purpose, I'd wager that fewer than one in a hundred people can remember the names of the original brand name drugs from which Viagra and Rogaine were created - but that nearly one hundred in one hundred people know of Viagra and/or Rogaine.




FYI:
Viagra (sildenafil citrate) is sold as Revatio to treat heart disease and hypertension.
Rogaine (minoxidil used as a topical agent) is sold as Loniten as an oral treatment for high blood pressure.

[Paul Carpenter]

That said, I think I've seen where Jackson and Paul from Encarded have mentioned getting off Kickstarter. Paul may be taking the leap before Jackson if I am not mistaken.

Kickstarter is a very different place than it was 2 years ago. It is now as much a store as an incubator, whether the folks that run it will admit that or not. It is very valuable for the beginning artist and it makes sense to use it, removing almost all the risk from all sides. For the established artist, it provides a built-in fan base you've already cultivated, easy communication with them, and again the no-risk process.

When I did Tendril about 2 years ago I did view KS as the incubator model, designed my project around that and since then have been trying not to rely entirely on their process to do my projects. From the start I intended to establish a brand presence for my work. I like the control I have over doing things myself, as KS does introduce complication and expense in exchange for all those eyeballs.

But at the end of the day, whether you do things through KS or on your own, you are bringing to market a product to purchase (get that silly notion of simply "funding dreams" out of your head). Each way has merits.

[DarkDerp]

Don.  The "Oh snap, it also makes my penis hard" analogy doesn't address the crux of my issue. You can have a full set of hair, great blood pressure and fabulous boner  at the same time. How people use it doest negatively affect how others do.

 I understand that using Kickstarter for profit works. I also understand that moving outside Kickstarter brings with it the problems and headaches of running a business. But maybe the difficulty of running a website or handling orders wouldn't  be such a bad thing. The hardships of running a startup often lead to collaborating with others. Companies like Expert Playing Card Company are out there, other designers trying to compete are out there. Finding new relationships, and collaborating with  others is part of running a business.

Kickstarter is crowd sourced funding. I don't believe it should be used as crowd sourced pre ordering. 

[Don Boyer]

Kickstarter is crowd sourced funding. I don't believe it should be used as crowd sourced pre ordering.

It's funding, but funding for an individual project more so than funding for a business.  If you truly wanted to fund a business, you'd be buying shares instead of receiving products as rewards.  If I buy shares in Apple, do I get an iPad air or a Macbook Pro instead of dividends?  No, of course not.  (And buying microshares wouldn't get me an iPod nano, either!)  Rewards tend to be easier because as mentioned, it doesn't fall under SEC scrutiny.  The rewards tend to be the product being produced - for the same reason why, if I'm interested in milk when I walk into the corner store, I don't walk out with just club soda or a candy bar.  I'm interested in milk, I get milk, period.

Whatever the original intent of Kickstarter was, it's long since morphed into something more.  It's still capable of filling its original concept role, but it's become very profitable doing far more mundane things like attracting people into widgets and giving them widgets to choose from.  They may not say "store" anywhere, but it might as well be Etsy taking pre-orders...

[BiggerDee]

My two cents...

I buy what I like, with absolutely no intention of ever reselling. I buy for the fun of collecting. With the understanding that I'm just spending for fun, if the time comes taht I ever do need to sell, anything gained, whether above or below purchase price, is a nice surprise. I just put myself into that mentality. If my wife sells my collection someday when I pass away, and all of my Federal 52s, Ornates, and Aurums have become modern-day JNuggs, at $500/deck, cool. If they sell for $5 a deck, then it's something.

I call it the Boat Principle. I bought my boat with the mindset that it's a chunk of money spent just to have fun with family and friends. Unless i sell it within a few years, I will lost the vast majority of my initial investment, not to mention the cost of running it in the meantime. With that in mind, the expense for it, and the expenses to run it, don't bother me a bit. I have friends that are frustrated that they don't appreciate like a house, and they are refusing to sell for a normal loss.

The moral of the story is that it's all about mindset. If you buy cards, expecting them to make you a lot of money in the future, odds are that you are going to get burned. If you set a more realistic goal of enjoying the hobby first and foremost, and if you happen to break even, or make a buck or two in the long run, then it's found money, and you've come out ahead, but don't start your collection with the thinking that you'll retire on your collection's worth.

I buy LE decks because I like the challenge of acquiring something that has a bit more rarity. It's fun, and they are valuable to me, in my mind, for my enjoyment. No appreciation of value is ever anticipated. If you're a collector, you're in it for fun. If you're an investor, you're not really a collector.

[Sher143]

My two cents...

I buy what I like, with absolutely no intention of ever reselling. I buy for the fun of collecting. With the understanding that I'm just spending for fun, if the time comes taht I ever do need to sell, anything gained, whether above or below purchase price, is a nice surprise. I just put myself into that mentality. If my wife sells my collection someday when I pass away, and all of my Federal 52s, Ornates, and Aurums have become modern-day JNuggs, at $500/deck, cool. If they sell for $5 a deck, then it's something.

I call it the Boat Principle. I bought my boat with the mindset that it's a chunk of money spent just to have fun with family and friends. Unless i sell it within a few years, I will lost the vast majority of my initial investment, not to mention the cost of running it in the meantime. With that in mind, the expense for it, and the expenses to run it, don't bother me a bit. I have friends that are frustrated that they don't appreciate like a house, and they are refusing to sell for a normal loss.

The moral of the story is that it's all about mindset. If you buy cards, expecting them to make you a lot of money in the future, odds are that you are going to get burned. If you set a more realistic goal of enjoying the hobby first and foremost, and if you happen to break even, or make a buck or two in the long run, then it's found money, and you've come out ahead, but don't start your collection with the thinking that you'll retire on your collection's worth.

I buy LE decks because I like the challenge of acquiring something that has a bit more rarity. It's fun, and they are valuable to me, in my mind, for my enjoyment. No appreciation of value is ever anticipated. If you're a collector, you're in it for fun. If you're an investor, you're not really a collector.

I completely agree with everything you just said. 

[DarkDerp]

I feel what everyone is saying  is that they disagree with my opinion.

That and then something about  boner pills, ipod nanos, club soda,  and a love of corner store milk.

[Don Boyer]

I feel what everyone is saying  is that they disagree with my opinion.

That and then something about  boner pills, ipod nanos, club soda,  and a love of corner store milk.

Brother, it's not a contest!  Everyone's entitled to their own perspective on things.  And I sincerely doubt you're the only one who has such a perspective, either - they're just not posting here and now.

[D. Dorn]

As a new(ish) collector (as defined by BiggerDee above), and a new member here, I thought I'd put in my $.02.  I see where DarkDerp is coming from.  I was introduced to KS a couple years ago, and was impressed by the opportunities it gave the little guy.  It still does that, for the most part.  It does offer a place to pre-sell a product, though, especially playing cards.  That bothers me, a little bit. 

I've seen a deck of cards, that failed on a KS campaign, be picked up by a "larger entity" and be turned around and re-KS as a new project.  There was nearly zero work done on the part of the new owner of the deck, with even less involvement with the campaign itself.  Obviously just a way to sell the deck, and make a profit.  Not cool, but, I bought a deck anyway, because I thought it was pretty nifty.

I guess it's just the way things go, in this time and age.  Take advantage of what is available.  As a consumer, I want the best deal for the highest quality I can afford.  Sometimes it bothers my conscience a little, but I admit, I'm just selfish at heart.

I do think KS should be a place for the little guy to Make his Dream Come True.  I think it still is that place, for the most part.  Maybe our niche market has been corrupted a little, but there are still new folks creating new things.  As long as there are quality decks to inspire those beginners, I say keep it going.  Yes, I take advantage of the pre-sell on the next big thing by "X-Super Card Company" but at least I'm conflicted about it.

[Don Boyer]

It is indeed both.  KS does still let the little guy get his start or create his dream.  But it's also become a marketplace.  And that's about as far as this thread can really go, am I right?