Thu 20 Jan 2022, 18:55
I suspect the economics of this are a bit more complex than that ... precisely the fact that it is so popular and highly anticipated might actually be the strongest argument for a Kickstarter.
With a wildly successful project, you could amass substantial up-front cash that can be employed to expand the scope (new chapters/sections, adventures, illustrations, page count, etc) and/or improve quality (print, materials, binding, etc) of the product through stretch goals, well beyond what would be possible if you go straight to print.
That way, you can also fund supplementary materials — dice, GM screen, additional books, cards, boxes, starter sets, miniatures, battle maps, etc — to be released together with or soon after the core game, that might otherwise have to wait or not be made at all.
As one might anticipate a Blade Runner RPG Kickstarter doing no worse than other licensed RPG Kickstarter projects, it might be worthwhile going that route. Question is just, as I noted earlier, is Genuine game for it?
As for what factors may govern Genuine's decision to allow or disallow use of the Kickstarter platform in this project — whether it's purely business considerations plain and simple, previous experiences, or some of the more … politically flavoured misgivings that seem to have companies like Mōidiphüs, Green Ronin, Grim&Perilous, Monte Cook, et al. — but not Ligan, mercifully ... at least, not until just recently — getting their knickers all in a twist (apparently having to do with objections to Kickstarter's union policies, and/or some interesting conviction that Kickstarter's ambition to explore blockchain based protocols to make future internet-based crowdfunding better for everyone will (a) force them into cryptocurrency and (b) get their asses canceled by the Gretaists, who believe it will blow up the planet).
While on the subject of Genuine's internal deliberations though — another interesting factor here is that this actually seems to be the first time Genuine comes back to a game publisher for seconds.
So far, they’ve kept shopping around — all three aforementioned games were each published by different companies. Genuine now to all appearances having committed to come back to Ligan with Blade Runner … I can’t help but have a question or two.
Suffice it to say, it would have been interesting to have a peek behind the scenes here.
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion