Funding from the Masses: Kickstarter

(Marginal Disclaimer: I personally have no financial benefits from any of the people, projects, or sites I mention in this post. It would be nice but I do this for the benefit of all.)

Now, while I can lead a group of people, whether it be at work, gaming, or otherwise, I usually feel more comfortable when being a cog within a working team. Along those same lines, my spirit has much to give in the way of creativity but the body has a slight lacking of the skills to express it properly. Given that diatribe, I do want to say that I have great respect and admiration for those that have the skills, drive, ambition, and funding to be able to make their dreams into a reality. I used to believe in the creativity of people’s projects enough that at the time of the great CCG explosion of the mid-90’s, I would quite regularly buy 2 starters and a few boosters of just about any type of new collectable card game. Now I know that with the economy in the dumps as it has been lately that funding for new ideas is probably very sparse but it seems that the community has an answer for those looking for help with their ideas.

I had first seen this mentioned on Twitter and have since looked it up and I am quite impressed. Kickstarter, for those that don’t know about it already, is a site by which people can place their projects up for show to the world to look for others to back their project financially. Backers will usually receive some type of incentive for backing the project at a certain level as described in the project’s information (not unlike the PBS pledge drives you’d see). Projects need to reach a certain limit of funding from backers otherwise no money will be exchanged. Some projects won’t reach their goals while others will get there, sometimes only in the span of days or in 1 recent case, 24 hours. Double Fine Adventure is a project for a classic point-and-click adventure game that is being developed by Double Fine Productions, which is led by Tim Schafer. Tim had created some of the point-and-click games that I played around the end of the ’90s like Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle (and yes, I remember having to play them using actual floppy discs). Amazingly, this project, which was asking for $400,000 of funding, had accumulated over a million dollars in just under 24 hours! Now that is an impressive amount of support. At this time, it is just short of $2 million and there is still about a month left for people to back the project.

Now I have already seen some projects that I’m soon to be throwing some funding to because I feel that the ideas merit the chance to grow and become what the creator has envisioned. Now all the projects are gaming type projects but I will even look at stuff in other areas that are available, like technology, film, and food. There is one in particular that seems like it has some good merits to it and seems like the people that have been testing it have enjoyed it so far. The name of the project is School Daze and it will be a role-playing game. I hope to do a more in-depth overview of this project soon as I will be trying to contact the creator about it. For now, I say that if you value the games that we play and want to see new ideas and new products become available for gaming of any flavor, check out Kickstarter and look for something that interests you.

Magic: The Gathering (AKA Socially Acceptable Cardboard Cocaine)

A few days ago, while adventuring for D&D books, I finally decided to enter a gaming store. Man did it feel like no time had past since I had been in a store. Although it was a different store than the one I was used to, this place had the same look and feel.

I had noticed a significant shift in the merchandise and whom they seen to cater to. This place was very focused on miniatures, which I had never been very focused or interested in. Although it didn’t have a great assortment of gaming books like I would have liked to see, they did have quite the impressive amount of binders full of Magic The Gathering cards. Now, my old friend James used to be quite the competitive MTG player back in the day and I remember the times where him and I would be out and have to stop to get new cards or look at a newly released set. Admittedly, I had a bad habit back in the day that when a new CCG would come out, whether it be mainstream or kinda lame, I would have to buy a couple of starters and boosters and him and I would have to try it out. Thankfully, most of those games have gone by the wayside and I can sidestep that little problem, except for a return to Magic.

So, I admit, I wasn’t the greatest player in the past and I would wager that my skills now would be quite poor. But when I looked up at those binders of cards, I scanned over them until I found the last set that I remember buying cards for and saw it on the very top shelf, about 50 binders away from the newest cards. Let’s just say that my last real set of cards had Ice Age in them! If that doesn’t say how long I’ve been out of the game, nothing will.

Since I was still in the store and felt my need to help with capitalism, I went ahead and bought the Eldritch Onslaught starter from Innistrad (I figure the best way back in is through the current set). When I opened that pack, rummaged through the cards, and then opened the booster pack, I felt that rush of excitement most people get when they open a pack. It had been so long ago but I got that rush for the discovery and wonder of figuring out exactly which cards I just got. I admit, I’m a sucker for wanting to get all of the rarest and most valuable cards, even if I’m not the best player with them. Now that I’ve had time away from the game, I think I’m starting to see the appeal again and want to actually pursue playing the game and being competitive, not just cannon fodder or a newbie.

I hope to throw my hat into the ring during GenCon and see if I have the chops to actually take some games and possible be seen as a threat. Only time (and maybe a few Creepy Dolls) will tell.