Thoughts from a first time Self-Publisher Part 4: Previews and Reviews
Hello again! I’m back from a restful Maine vacation where I had a ton of time to dig into some solo games and -of course- spend a lot of time with the solo modes for Super Snipers. I tried to step away from the business side of game design for a bit, but with only limited success.
Best Part of my week (so far): Playtesting new characters for Super Snipers is going very well and I am excited to reveal them during the campaign. I also got to see my finished Kickstarter Video from Ori Kagan. It is freaking amazing!! I will be getting a shorter version/ teaser that I will be sharing in the near future.
Most stressful part: Assembling prototypes to try to get them out to additional reviewers this week and early next week. It’s a very time consuming process and, if there is a next time, I will look into the GameCrafter’s “concierge” service to save me the hour plus it takes me to de-soot and assemble each game.
The Numbers:
As of Wednesday at 1pm. Changes represent since two weeks ago as there was no blog last week.
The Big Number: I spent about $160 in postage and another $200 on a preview, bringing the grand total to: $21,960 invested in this project so far.
FB page- 128 followers. 121 (-7) - something weird here as I keep getting messages about new likes to the page. May be a FB issue.
Public Group- 47. 52 (+5)
Private - 64 No Change
Pre-launch- 120. 169 (+49)
Email list- 283. 512 (+229)
Discord- 55 No Change
TTS- 108 subscribers. 110 (+2)
YouTube- 18 subscribers. No Change
FB Marketing continues to bring in a steady stream of emails and KS launch followers even while I am on vacation! Now that I am back, I will need to put in the work to grow those group numbers and try to strengthen my engagement with the audience I have.
Previews and Reviews:
Several readers expressed interest in better understanding how to navigate/ think about previewers and reviewers in the context of running a Kickstarter campaign. As with most topics that I will touch on in these blogs, I don’t claim to have any particular expertise and am mostly just re-hashing the advice and guidance I have gained along the way from others who were a few or many steps ahead of where I am now. That said, I will talk about my approach and together we will see how well it works!
Quite a ways back, I spoke with Eric Geller (Quests and Cannons) about this topic (and quite a few others). He was extremely helpful and advised to start working on getting your reviewers and previewers lined up 3-6 months ahead of time. He also shared his Media Kit, a Google Drive Folder that he would link anyone interested in producing content with. The folder contains the following elements:
Info on his company written in the style of a press release.
Headshots of the designers
A playtest survey
A write up on information about the game which also included things like errata and what differences to expect in the final production copy.
A “Please Read” document that he used to politely remind reviewers to coordinate with him before releasing content.
I used this same basic format (minus the playtest survey) and also added a folder of additional images of the game and an updated PDF of the rulebook.
Why? - The Media Kit serves a few very important purposes:
1. It helps the reviewer/ previewer make a quick informed choice about whether they are interested in taking on the game. This is why I added a folder of additional art and pictures of the game.
2. It provides the reviewers and previewers easy access to what they will need for their review and provides you a level of control in how things are represented. They can simply cut and paste things like the tagline, company info, and overview.
3. It provides a single place for all the most current information on the game and allows you to address any errata (and their will be errata!) that you discover after shipping out the games.
Budget - If you ask for any help in figuring out how to approach this aspect of the campaign, you will invariably get asked what your budget is. There are a number of costs involved in putting together a preview campaign, even if you only use reviewers that don’t charge. All of the following must be considered:
Prototype costs
Shipping
Costs for paid previews/ how-to-plays, etc.
Expectations/promises of copies of the game to non-paid previewers
Prototypes: Unless you are doing a print and play, most places will need a physical copy of the game to do a preview for you. The review game doesn’t have to be final production copy but it really needs to look good and provide a comparable experience to what you are selling. I made mine through the GameCrafter. Bigger publishers will actually have them manufactured, providing a near-final, professional version of the game. But these cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars a piece to manufacture in such small quantities and this is typically not an option for a small indy publisher.
There are several advantages to making them through a print-on-demand sight like the Gamecrafter, and several challenges. The biggest advantage is the price difference. I’ve ordered a total of 11 prototypes of Super Snipers from the GameCrafter and they have cost me about $67 a piece. Because of some challenging timing considerations, I did have to do an “Urgent” order for 3 of them, which doubled the costs, but got them to me quickly. Also, in terms of costs, fixing a mistake through the GameCrafter is a very simple and much cheaper process than it would be with a manufacturer. Also, the quality of what you are able to make at the GameCrafter (assuming you do a good job in your choices, graphic design, and art) is very good now and “close enough” to what the final product will be, that it fully works for previews and how-to-plays without looking like a “prototype”.
One downside, alluded to earlier in this blog, is the need to assemble and clean the games before sending them out. Super Snipers contains a ton of custom cut pieces (the polyominoes being the most numerous) and these are cut by Laser, leaving behind soot on all the edges. I need to punch all of them out and use a moist paper towel to clean every edge to remove the soot. It is tedious, time consuming, dirty work. I also needed to carefully glue together the two-piece scope boards. Each game takes over an hour to assemble and package. For any designers reading this, unless your game doesn’t contain any laser cut material, DO NOT ship directly from the GameCrafter to the reviewer. Number one, they will not appreciate their now blackened hands. Number two, you need the opportunity to make sure there are no missing parts or misprints. The value of getting this part right outweighs the extra costs of shipping the games to yourself first, trust me.
A couple other quick notes about prototypes. In my first blog I discussed how a self-publisher will either need to have the skills necessary, learn them, or pay for them. If you elect to pay for everything, you are severely diminishing your ability to be successful. Learning basic graphic design and becoming at least passably proficient in a graphic design program, how to prototype and design print and play, and how to navigate making a complete game through a print-on -demand service are all things that I have learned how to do over the last 2 and a half years and is one of the areas where I am putting in the time to save some money. I also decided to print out all my rulebooks at home. This both saved some cost, and also bought me the time an ability to make adjustments to the rulebooks without having it hold up the printing process. I would also be remiss to say that there is no chance in hell these would look anywhere as cool as they do without the help of Hwa Siang who did the art and graphic design and also engineered the cut files for the Scope Boards.
Shipping:
I use Pirate Ship to get the best rates. My game fits in a medium flat rate box which means I can ship it within the US for $14. Shipping outside of the US gets pricey. It cost me $50 to get to a reviewer in Canada. It cost me $78 to ship to Sweden! And I will also be reimbursing for additional customs fees that they will incur to get the game. I will also be coordinating getting most of these shipped to a second reviewer before having them shipped back to me. Big costs, but they are investments. Videos and content will bring in backers and interest. And it is worth getting the prototypes shipped back because I can sell them through the campaign to recoup some costs. If you’ve ever seen a $200-$500 pledge level for getting a prototype, perhaps you can now better appreciate how much that $40 MSRP game and $60-$200 prototype has actually cost the creator up to the point they sell it to you.
Paid Previews: I have gone for a mix of paid and unpaid content. The beauty of an unpaid review is, a) it isn’t costing you (beyond shipping) and b) the content is seen as less biased/ more trustworthy. The downsides tend to be a) that the reviewers tend to be very selective about what they review and you may not make the cut. b) that honesty may hurt you. I was successful with some reviewers I reached out to, rejected by 2, and ignored by several (I follow up once after two weeks). I am most proud of landing Alex of BoardGame Co. Some unpaid reviewers will request a free copy of the game when the KS funds. I offer this even if it is not explicitly asked for.
Paid previews and how-to-plays tend to have the following advantages: a) You are often reaching a much bigger audience, and b) you tend to get more in-depth and more professionally produced content (not always true). I also believe that anyone doing a how-to-play should get paid as that is a lot of work! Not counting the reviewers that are free, the least I am paying is $250 for a play through, and the most I am paying is $975 for a combination preview and playthrough video. I look at this, and many other things in this campaign, as an experiment that will help inform me what actually works for the next time I do all of this.
Okay, that’s a lot of info for one blog! Let me know if you have any questions or future topics. I will end by sending a link to a video by Edo Barouf that was very helpful for me in learning how to approach reviewers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jqjgs3hgpM
