Can someone explain to me why a company needs to use Kickstarter to bring product they have been producing for several years to customers? While I was skimming through Kickstarter looking for interesting projects I came across Mayday Games’ Crokinole board campaign.

Did someone forget to tell these guys they have been selling these for several years? Hell, I even own one! So, why in the hell do they need to use Kickstarter to raise the funds to create a new batch of them? Obviously, this is a rhetorical question, but I wonder if they have no real concept of how to manage customer demand or expectations on a long term basis. I also wonder if they over-extended their money reserves on producing some of their crappy boardgames?

To be fair, this is their second Kickstarter campaign for these boards; the first campaign was in Jan 2013. Apparently, the new 2017 edition is super special, but I can’t tell how. This current campaign is already pulling in 80K. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy they can generate this kind of interest and cash flow, but I am an ardent believer that Kickstarter is NOT the platform for simple pre-ordering!

More and more I am getting dismayed with Kickstarter and how companies are using it. I spend more time that I would care to, sifting through all the pre-ordering crap to find those projects that need support. For example, there is a new publisher that is trying to bring a cool Call of Cthulhu RPG sourcebook to market. As you can imagine there is inherent risk starting a company and trying to get last little bit of funding to make your project a reality. These are the kinds of things Kickstarter was designed to help support–not a way to move all your pre-ordering risk to the customer.

~ Modoc

Follow Modoc on G+ or on Twitter