Thursday, January 17, 2013

Did you guys back the Up Front Kickstarter?

Obviously, this is about 2 weeks too late, but still, it's worth noting the success of the Up Front Kickstarter, which easily hit 10x its funding goal, and had a ton of great stretch rewards.

First, regarding Up Front- I've only played it twice at a friend's house, but man, I had a great time.  Couple that with all the options you got from even a fairly basic bid- how could you not hop on the bandwagon and pick this up?  This game gives you a lot of tactical choices, and on top of that, it's really fun.  I'm pretty excited to just have this available again.

Perhaps more importantly is the success of Kickstarter in funding these out of print wargames, or even wargames in general.  Now, without talking about miniature games, there doesn't seem to be a lot of wargame ideas on Kickstarter these days.  Frontline General: Spearpoint 1943 Map Expansion was a successful campaign, and certainly is a wargame.  Battle Tank: Escape from Giant Robot Island certainly wasn't something historically driven, but seemed like a wargame... but wasn't doing very well before it was cancelled.

Now, several big publishers (GMT and MMP for instance) take a very similar approach to this when getting funding for upcoming games, by taking preorders, and charging when the game gets close to production, but I'm really surprised more small designers/companies aren't using Kickstater, given that good looking games really should have no problem making their funding.

Personally, I would love to see a reprint of AH's Gunslinger or Breakout: Normandy.  Heck, there are tons of AH games I'd love to see.  What about Magic Realm? 

The point is, I really hope that the success of Up Front gives wargame designers, especially ones that aren't being published by one of the big companies, the chance to use Kickstarter to see their creations come true.  We want to see them come out as much as you do, in most cases.

If anyone hears about some other wargame related campaigns, please- let me know!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.