OUR MANIFESTO
almost 5 years ago
– Wed, Mar 04, 2020 at 10:25:51 AM
I have written countless Kickstarter updates in the past many years, but this is the first time I have ever written one before the launch of a campaign. I wanted to have this ready to post right after the launch of the Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika Kickstarter Campaign so that we could all be on the same page as to Privateer’s intent with this game and this Kickstarter.
This will not be the last Warcaster Kickstarter. As you can see by how we have structured the rewards in waves, we are Kickstarting four months worth of content. Our plan is to do this every three to four months, Kickstarting blocks of content ahead of their releases, to ensure we are producing to demand and delivering the product to everyone who wants it.
Whether you are a player or a retailer, we want to reward you for your early pledge through Kickstarter. Every publisher wishes they could have a crystal ball, to know how much of a product they’re going to sell in the future, but traditionally, we just have to speculate and no matter what, it’s always too much or too little. Kickstarter provides us the next best thing to a crystal ball and helps us manage our business accordingly. And for the hassle of having to go to Kickstarter to place your order, we will do our best to make sure you get a greater value for your pledge.
To be totally transparent, we make about the same margin on an individual reward pledge as we do from a retailer pledge. So, if you’re more comfortable purchasing through your local game store, we encourage you to encourage your LGS manager to get behind this Kickstarter and stock the product line. Retailers who back the project will be shipped their rewards at the same time we ship to individual backers, so there won’t be any lag time if you’re getting your goods from a store that backs our campaign. We will, however, ensure that rewards are sent to all backers (retailers included) before product is shipped for a general public release.
So this is our manifesto for Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika, now and for our foreseeable future:
• We here at Privateer are going to work our hardest to bring you the best game experience we can, with the best models we can make.
• We have priced our rewards in line with how we currently price our products for general public release. After what we pay out in commissions to Kickstarter, credit card processing and shipping costs, we make about the same as we do if we sold the products traditionally, but Kickstarter gives us a platform and toolset to manage our business proactively instead of reactively, and to make sure that we’re making the right decisions so that we can keep achieving the number one goal, which is delivering you the best game experience and models that we can.
• We will do our best to make sure your pledge is rewarded with added value to your purchase as well as to your interactions with us.
• We will deliver on our projected timeline. But if something unforeseen goes off the rails, we’ll keep you informed and course-correct as quickly as possible. We don’t expect your confidence, we know it is our job to earn it.
• This is just the beginning. But it is also highly experimental. We hope that it works! We hope that you understand our motives and our reasons, that you like what you see and that you will be confident in backing this project. We are setting out to create a new model for the delivery of our products in an era of great change in how the game industry as well as how retail in general, works. We will endeavor to learn from each Kickstarter with the goal of improving each subsequent effort, because we believe this is the way of the future.
• We love you for your passion. We are grateful for your support. And we hope that this moment is the shared experience of a launch for a fantastic new tabletop miniatures game that you will enjoy for years to come. We have big aspirations for Warcaster and we would love to bring everything that we’ve dreamed up for it to life. With your support, we will.
On behalf of everyone at Privateer Press, thank you for your support. There is no Privateer without you.
Matt Wilson
Chief Creative Officer