The Polar Ice is Melting!

In this article, game designer Sande Chen describes her playtest experiences with the card game, EcoChains: Arctic Crisis. 

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is doing well.  Here, in the East Coast of the United States, it's unseasonably warm for December.  While we may be enjoying the spring-like weather, up in the Arctic, the polar ice is at its lowest point ever. This is why 2/3 of the polar bear population is expected to die off by 2050.  :(  The climate change card game, EcoChains: Arctic Crisis, which was funded through Kickstarter and a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, hopes to bring attention to this global issue.

EcoChains: Arctic Crisis

I was recently sent EcoChains for review on this blog and I thought what better place to bring it than to NYC Playtest, the monthly meeting of board game designers.  They vigorously playtest board games to get feedback from other designers.  I played a game of EcoChains with the board game designers and then I played a round with people who play board games or tabletop RPGs with kids every day.

It's a fairly quick game, estimated 30 minutes long, for up to four players.  We played it incorrectly both times, despite multiple people reading the directions repeatedly.  We also did not use the advanced cards, which probably would have made the game more interesting.

Initially, we got some polar ice cards and starter animals.  Throughout the game, we built food webs, indicating which animals consume other animals.  For example, a seal can survive on arctic cod, but in turn, a polar bear can eat the seal.  Some animals, generally the higher order ones, require polar ice in order to remain in the food web.  When the polar ice melts due to climate change, the polar bear would have to migrate or die.  In the first game, we did not realize there could be more than one node in the food webs, meaning 2 seals can build on 1 arctic cod card, so we quickly reached a stalemate, whereupon we were continually passing around cards (to simulate the migration) around the table.  The second game, where this was rectified, did run much better.  While making food webs, players try to hit goals, such as sustaining 3 whales.

In both games, we did find it hard to keep track of our cards, as the food webs can get quite large.  You almost need some kind of placemat to organize your cards.  In the second game, we didn't realize that the "good" polar ice recovery event cards weren't played out immediately like the "bad" polar ice melting event cards.  I suppose this was to simulate the situation of positive externalities in that if one party makes the effort to help recover polar ice, this helps all parties.  However, the benefactor would have to choose between taking the "good" event card or selfishly continuing on the path of accumulating points.  The player who has accomplished the most goals and has the most animals generally wins.

On the education front, the game does make it clear through the gameplay that polar ice is necessary for animal survival.  Players do learn about food webs and different arctic animals.  However, my playtesters did not feel that this was a card game that kids would pick up and enjoy on their own for fun.  Rather, the game seems like it would fit in better as a classroom activity where teachers can provide context.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

Educational Games: The Big Picture Part II

In the weeks after the publication of "Is the School Market Still Just a Mirage?" on the Games and Learning website, I have seen that it has led to discussions about the state of the industry and perhaps some soul-searching as to how to improve the situation.  Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen wrote on the LinkedIn discussion that while the article was U.S.-centric, the lessons hold true for Europe as well.  This issue of commercialization ranks high on the list of concerns for educational game developers globally.  Other developers, however, are not yet at that stage of worrying about profits, but more generally are concerned about:  How do I fund the development of my game?

This important question is the focus of the second article, "The Real State of Learning Game Funding."  Much like in the book, Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform, I relate advice from developers who have walked the walk and come out with thousands of dollars to fund their projects.  What are other developers doing that you can learn from?  Read and find out.

In particular, check out the audio interview, which covers material not included in the article.


 

I would consider this article to be the most business-oriented of the four, but maybe that's why it's the most important.  While this stuff is not as fun as working on the game design, the nitty gritty details of how to find funding and how to make money are vital to a new business.  This often can be lacking in creative endeavors.  If you're starting up an educational game company, I think you'll find this article very informative.

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.

IGDA Webinar: Kickstarter

In this video, Howard Tsao, Team Lead of Muse Games, describes how Muse Games created successful Kickstarter campaigns to fund Guns of Icarus Online, its multiplayer airship combat game.

Remember to sign up for the next Game Design Webinar November 19 on the evolution of game design. Creative Producer Patrick Holleman presents the history of game design from Dungeons & Dragons to the modern era.

Top Ten Tabletop Kickstarters: How They Do It

In this article, novelist and game designer Matt Forbeck weighs in on why tabletop gaming Kickstarters are outperforming video game crowdfunding campaigns.

Over at ICv2, they’ve posted a list of the top ten tabletop gaming Kickstarters of all time (um, four years now, in Kickstarter terms). They don’t offer up much in the way of analysis there, though, other than to say “tabletop game projects are among Kickstarter’s most successful categories, with five projects at over $1 million, and three over $2 million.”

All true, but why is that? Why are tabletop games outdoing even video games, which are far more popular in general?

It has to do with the economies of scale of plastic miniatures.

(If that sentence put you to sleep, move on. Now. I’m going deep here.)

Every one of those games on ICv2′s list is a game or product that features lots and lots of plastic figures or terrain. Most of them started out with a decent amount of plastic in their boxes, but as each Kickstarter grew, the producers tossed in more and more plastic bits until the drives went from “cool stuff” to “awesome bargain on cool stuff!”

The Reaper drive for their Bones figures line is a perfect example of this — and was also the top-grossing drive, raking in more than $3.4 million. Their most popular reward came if you backed them at their $100 Vampire level. At the start of the drive, that got you a total of 67 figures. By the end, you racked up 240 figures, plus a number of other neat things, like a copy of my Hard Times in Dragon City novel, which unlocked at the $3 million mark.

So how did Reaper manage to nearly quadruple the number of figures they offered while keeping the price the same? The secret’s in the plastic.

Casting metal miniatures is a labor-intensive process that involves pouring molten metal into a spin-casting machine that distributes the metal into hollow cavities cut into a vulcanized rubber mold. The molds wear out after a while, and you have to make new ones. The metal’s a little pricey, but the rubber’s cheap, so it’s a great way to make miniatures if you’re making a few thousand or less.

However, if you can sell more than that many miniatures, you should make your figures in plastic instead, as the molds for these last virtually forever and the figures only cost pennies apiece. The trouble is that the injection molds for plastic figures are cut from steel, a process that costs thousands of dollars per figure rather than dozens. A small company can’t afford to make hundreds of these molds at once, at least not without a huge cash influx.

And that’s where Kickstarter comes in. If you can get your backers to pledge enough money to cover your steel molds, then you can give them lots of figures for their money. Better yet, if you bust through your initial funding goals, you can set stretch goals for new figures and toss them into the mix for either little cost (as low-cost add-on options) or bundle them in for free.

When the Reaper drive started, the per-figure price of their Vampire level was $1.49 each, shipped to your door. That’s a phenomenal bargain when you consider that most metal fantasy gaming figures cost around $5 each — or much more if you’re into a game like Warhammer. By the time the drive was over, the per-figure price fell to under 42¢ each.

Every time Reaper’s backers broke another stretch goal, the bargain got better and better for them. That gave them lots of incentive to tell their friends about the deal and rope them into joining the drive, and the effect snowballed with each stretch goal knocked down. By the time the drive ended, it was such a fantastic deal for anyone who’d ever pushed figures around a table that it became nearly irresistible.

All of the other miniatures-based triumphs follow this same kind of model. The recent Dwarven Forge Game Tiles drive, for instance, (on which I did a little consulting) followed this to the letter, and it brought in over $1.9 million.

Most other types of Kickstarter ventures cannot pull this sort of thing off. If you’re Kickstarting a novel, for instance, it’s hard to offer lots more novels in a time frame that makes sense for most readers. Evil Hat managed something close to this by bringing in lots of authors for its Spirit of the Century novel line Kickstarter, and the strategy made that the #5 fiction drive ever. (By my count, it’s actually the #1 straight novel drive, but that’s a separate post.)

The nature of minis, though, means you want to have as many of them to play with as once as you can manage, and with enough money a producer can manage this in a reasonable amount of time. It makes it a natural niche for a top Kickstarter — if it’s run well. It’s not something just any company can pull off though. There’s a lot of hard-won knowledge, skill, and expertise that goes into running and producing a successful line of plastic figures, and Kickstarter makes for the perfect way for the people who have that particular combination of things to capitalize on it.

[This article originally appeared on Matt Forbeck's blog, Forbeck.com] 

Matt Forbeck has been a full-time creator of award-winning games and fiction since 1989. He has twenty-six novels published to date, including the award-nominated Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon and the critically acclaimed Amortals and Vegas Knights. His latest work includes the Magic: The Gathering comic book, the MMOs Marvel Heroes and Ghost Recon Online, his novel The Con Job, based on the TV show Leverage, and the Dangerous Games trilogy of thriller novels set at Gen Con. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.

IGDA on Kickstarter

Check out some game projects on the IGDA Kickstarter page!

There, you will find games affiliated with IGDA chapters and other projects that are waiting to be funded.

The Trick to Kickstarter

In this article, game designer Matt Forbeck gives advice on how to get started on a crowdfunding project.

Crowdfunding is taking independent creatives by storm these days. People of all sorts are taking to the web, standing on a virtual street corner, and turning over a hat into which passerby can toss their hard-earned credit. And it’s working on sites like IndieGoGo.com and the current king of the hill, Kickstarter.

Well, it’s working for some people. Some projects fail to meet their goals, while others smash through their planners’ dreams and rake in tens of thousands of dollars. So, what’s the secret?

I launched a Kickstarter drive in early November for a crazy plan I have called 12 for ’12, in which I propose to write a dozen novels next year, one each month. At the moment, I’ve lined up nearly $8,000 worth of pledges, and we still have a few days left to go. (It ends at noon on December 4. You can find out more about it at http://forbeck.com/12for12.)

Before I submitted my project, I gave it a lot of thought, and I did a ton of research on other people’s ideas, trying to figure out why some worked or others didn’t. I did my homework, and you should too.
As with most things in life, success comes from hard work. Setting up a proper Kickstarter project isn’t for the faint of heart. On the surface, it’s a snap. You just set a goal and an end date, submit it, and watch the money roll in.

Of course, there’s far more to it than that. You need to come up with a proposal for your project, a story about what it is and how you plan to bring it to life. You need to concoct a schedule of reward tiers for your backers, a progressive list of things they can get for offering you increasing amounts of money. And you should come up with a video and some graphics to help you connect with potential backers and show them just how cool your proposed project is.

Some people can step up and post an idea and have thousands of dollars come their way. Others can have a nearly finished product in their hands and have their efforts wash out. One thing separates them: trust.

Backers only give money to people they trust to produce. If they don’t know you or at least of you, there’s little reason for them to believe that you can do what you propose.

You can build trust in a few different ways. If you put together a professional package — if you look like you know what you’re doing — people may be willing to trust you. If you get enough backers lined up behind you, others may take that as a sign that you’re trustworthy too.

The best and hardest way, of course, is to establish a reputation as someone who delivers on promises over the course of years, long before you launch your Kickstarter project. That usually comes with an established base of fans who you’ve trained to trust you, and they’re often the first people to sign on.

Give that a lot of thought before you launch your project. Who’s going to trust you, and why? If you have a good answer for that, you’re already on your way.

Matt Forbeck is an award-winning game designer and novelist with countless games and 15 novels published. You can see his Kickstarter project at http://forbeck.com/12for12 and learn more about him at http://forbeck.com.

November 2011: Crowdfunding

November 2011's topic, Crowdfunding, was submitted by independent developer Michael Lubker.


He writes:

Crowdfunding raises many questions, both in the business and design of a game. Some games give funders an in-game character. Others give out of game rewards, (metarewards?). People ask where to go and how many funding operations to start at once, and how to start. Is it distasteful, or a valid way of funding (and do Minecraft, Mount and Blade, Cortex Command and others point to the answers?)

Here are some questions from the Game Design SIG to think about, if you want to contribute an article:

1. Is it possible to use multiple crowdfund sources simultaneously? If so, is that distasteful? Regarding the "distastefulness" see http://gawker.com/5858118/end-online-panhandling-forever
2. What is the minimum expected / acknowledged amount of work needed for Crowdfunding to work? We have seen people have as much as a game demo, and some with as little as a description. What is found to work best?
3. which crowdfund sources have the highest percentage of completed/successful pledges?
4. What determines success of crowfunding? Obviously worthy project is a must :) but what else.   

Michael Lubker is an executive producer and designer at Axelo Inc, currently finishing up his first 2 games in a production/design position. He has also worked in QA on The Sims Castaway Stories,
Supreme Commander, and 1701AD Gold. He also was a founding advisor for the Independent Game Conference, is co-coordinator of the IGDA Indie SIG, and is a coordinator for the Global Game Jam in Austin, TX, where he helped produce a working XNA/Xbox 360 title in 48 hours.