You, Me and AI

Rambling Thoughts: When ever a new technology comes along, there are people, adopters, who have an interest. Cutting edge interest. They are enthusiasts who wish to own one of the 'things', Engineers who want to understand how the new thing works, and if they're both, maybe want to make a better version. And then there is a 3rd group, who can be broken down into Entrepreneurs and Vultures.

How we need to be aware of AI, because of the Vultures

When the car came along in the 1800s, it was a great idea, to move people from location A to location B on any fairly flat surface, back then the uses may or may not have been thought of, from motorbikes, trucks, planes, pumps, submarines, the concept had so many uses. Each allowed a second, third, forth entrepreneur the ability to asses, create, test it, go to market with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and become profitable. 

We had time to identify the market niches, varieties and discover if was a good thing or not to develop a company to supply a product, some stayed, some left, but over all we had a good range of products. It wasn't viable to cannabalise other companies. Some smaller manufacturers created cheap ripoffs of the market, but the cost to produce a car plant was very high, it took dedication and often govt inclusion to invent a local car to resist the imports. 

When the mobile came along, We saw a range of phone being developed by companies in multiple countries, and because of the ubiquitous nature of the mobile, many could create knock offs and replicas and cheap versions, Yet it eventually boiled down to two to three main rivals, and everyone else couldn't cope with the cost involved to stay relevant. Developing a major phone, and marketing it was expensive, if you were not in, in the early days, you would struggle to bring a product to market, and gain enough share to be relevant.

Today, AI stores are live. You can create a 'store' of a concept for an AI, and go to market, and because its new its still a good time to jump in. Yet, be aware that because its so easy to create a store, many people are going to create one. the barrier of entry is low, the flow of information how to create your own is high. The best will rise to the top, and if they price themselves right, will be the be all and end all of that niche. 

What do I mean by this.

If you create a Baseball AI right now, you might be lucky to create the right kind, the right style, maybe no-one else has thought to do a baseball AI, so you'll have enough lead time on the competition, to get your product working well. Price it within the market average, say $20 a month for now, and rake in a few hundred grand, to figure out how to do it better, price it a bit lower to maintain the edge on your potential competitors, and stay relevant, as it'll come.. The vultures will begin to swirl.

The cost to enter this market is low, extremely low, I doubt any $20 a month product will stay relevant beyond a year. The race to the price floor will be swift, maybe swift enough to kill off the whole idea, but you can be sure that the companies that stay afloat will have done one of two things. Sold out [data], or Consumed the competition.

Probably Both. 

Hold up.. Are you even aware?

Incase you've been living under a rock, the generic AI that was GPT 4, is so overwhelmed with data, its slowing down, so they decided to split it into sub sets of itself, based on specific topics, and instead of doing all the effort themselves, they're 'leasing' the whole thing to us consumers, to create our own niche AIs. 

You can upload all you know about baseball to your baseball AI and have it feed back specific information about existing games, or maybe predict future games, or maybe tell stories based on game stats, what ever you decide your app will do, and then you'll promote it to consumers, to use, and pay you for the advanced versions. They'll use it to make their lives easier, and you'll be providing data to GPT to they can train their AGI better. win-win, right?

But, this will only work for the 1st Baseball AI. and maybe the 2nd. just like Android and iPhone. There will be 2 camps in the end, BaseBall-AI and AI-Baseball. Each doing the same thing, with a slightly different feel. And all the rest of the world, won't have a chance to create a baseball AI because you've already done it. The barrier of entry will not be price, not be skill, or ability, it'll be recognition of who was 'first'. The cool kids will use the main one, and that'll be it. 

Are you going to be first?  

Ai in Me - story idea

 It happened, I managed to get my internal AI to work autonomously recently, 

I was in conversation, a boring average conversation. 

I just went through the paces, and realised I had done so, without needing to do any effort.

My internal AI managed to take over at last and do it all for me. 

It spoke about mundane things

It spoke of the weather and up coming events on the news,

I didn't need to.

My Social Life has become sentient. I can now retreat into my own mind and think more about more important things.

Its been a week and I barely noticed. 

I wonder if this is a good idea.

The Ever Swindling Supply

 1980s Christmas, for 24 days before, parents take to the shops after work, scrambling to find the toy their child asked Santa for, in hopes of getting that latest Barbie or matchbox car or science kit or light-up jump rope. Even on the 24th you could still make it to the shops to get it. Today? HA!

What's Happened?

Lets explore some of the problems I see, from supply chain to internet shopping, Santa's Letter to the night before Christmas, how stressful its amped up in the last 40 years.

December 1st, up go the decorations, before that, the Grinch would notice, steal into your house and damage things to need replacing, and you' have to double up on your spending for the year, Fear Not, no, lets stay the course and delay like good Traditional Folk to December 1st. 

Up go the Decorations. Out comes the Christmas Cheer, all the good boys and girls make up their Christmas list for Santa, post the Letter, having shown it to mum and dad for "spelling" So that mum and dad have enough time to find those toys in the stores.

Today, Shipping costs means the prices of goods, and this is 90% of goods for most places, are up as much as 50% from those shipping costs. That $30 toy you want to buy your kid, is $10 in shipping costs, if it were produced at the same cost locally, it'd have been $20. 

There is far too much choice, and at the same time, far too little ability. The cartoons that the toys are based on can come from a multitude of origins, which means the toys are not likely to be on the shelves for your kids, locally. So when little Susie says she wants a Masha and the Bear doll, well sorry, while the internet is world wide, that doll is produced for Russians.. good luck getting one of those these days.

Oh except of course, China probably does produce one of them, fake, cheap, will break in a week versions, and your kids will find that on google and ask Santa for it.

So what happens next, Your kids asks for the toy on December 1st, you quickly scan the internet that very day, and can take a chance on 21 day shipping for 50% markup, 14 day shipping for 100% markup, or 7 day shipping for 200% markup. 

Yeah, good luck if you kid takes 2 weeks to make up their mind, and another to write the letter, "Here daddy, can you post this for Santa, " on the 22nd "I want a Mongolia Sheep Herder doll, and a African Tribe Doll" which has a 31 day shipping and 2 day overnight shipping is 1000% of the dolls price, even if its cheaper than the barbies in Target/Kmart/Walmart.

So, what to do? How do you tell your kids that Santa couldn't get that doll in time, he can travel around the world overnight, and his elves (or Yetis) can make *any* toy. But he couldn't get *your*kids toys? 

Thanks Capitalism, Thanks. 

Today I learnt..

Its usually hard to pin point clarity. I think I did just now.

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

I am not yet a wise man, I'm still learning. Yet today I spoke to another, the intent to help, but they were not of a mind to heed advice, and spoke ill of me.

And I thought. What an Ass. Why would he take my words in a negative manner.

I sought to placate him with words of the same meaning, but different views, so he might understand that I was not his enemy.

But, It was the internet.

And I thought.. maybe wise men don't speak, because they understand that fools with rebuke their words, and cause them harm, verbal or otherwise. Maybe in ancient times, Wise men were the ones who learned quickly to keep silent, lest the foolish king rain down blows upon them.

Yet, in today's world, there is not a backlash so harsh to keep fools quiet, so instead the bleat upon the world, drowning out anything of consequence.

I thought I would be a great orator, I look out to see what great orators exist, and they do not. The last that I can tell is Carlin, he's passed now, also, he was a Comedian.

So, Maybe that is the path to Oration. I just need to learn some jokes.

Yet, remaining silent? Its just not me. 

Backstabbed by the Business

When you're part of something, and then someone in that group, changes the rules on you, or makes things uncomfortable for you, you feel anger, betrayal, disgust. If its a project leader, and they can justify this, you might feel less of it, but its still there, but when a company, treats customers like cash cows, after they have been tried and true to your product, you are left feeling helpless.

The Problem at the end of the day, is, we have little to no power. We are nothing more than cattle, coming to the trough, unable to affect major businesses.

What am I talking about, and in what context..

What I'm Talking About:

When I lived in Russia, Moscow specifically, you had a large range of restaurants you could visit. You could walk to something locally, and have 2-4 choices, but since the Metro was closer, you could ride the metro 2-3 stops and improve your choices by 10x. 4-5 stops and you had another 30-40 choices. Since the Metro was travelling 100km an hour underground, you could cross the city from top to bottom in 40 minutes, and could choose, on one line, from more than a thousand locations.

To put that in perspective, In my home city, If I travel for 40 minutes, I could drive to the city for a choice of 100 places, and search the northern suburbs for another 100. My home city has 3600 places to eat, Moscow, over 20,000.

So?

So, Adelaide, and Moscow (inside the metro limits) are approximately the same in size, yet little Adelaide has a little under a million, and Moscow in the vicinity of 15 million.

The point is, in Moscow, that each restaurant has, within a 5km radius, more people that it can cope with, for a year of being open. It has no need to cater to the whim of every customer. It can't. The prices of those places are exorbitant. The Average Cafe served eggs on toast with a coffee for 500 rubles, at the time, 2009, $15. Not bad for 2019, if its a good restaurant, in a western culture, with people earning 30 an hour. But Moscow, 2009, 500 rubles was double the hourly wage of an office worker. So you'd only went to cafes on dates, (or so I thought).

Yet, due to demand, the cafes were packed, they put in more chairs than were legally allowed, paid off the inspectors to turn a blind eye, and raised their prices another 20%, and they still were packed.

In Moscow, 2008-2010, You could open a restaurant, without training staff, over charging, ignore all the rules of , well anything, and you'd still be fully booked for a year.

I was regularly sitting in a place, waiting staff nowhere to be seen, food was average, paying twice what I should, surrounded by people, wondering how such a place stayed in business, surely all these people would tell their friends how sh*te it was, and the place would be empty in a month? nope.. the social power of all those people would be barely 1%, and even then, half would still go there just to see if it was as poor as their friends made it out to be..

Bad Publicity is still publicity.

So, to my context?

In The world of Board games, we are under a glut of games, Kickstarter has provided anyone the opportunity to bring their ideas to the world. These games come out, they bring fun, sometimes, they bring opportunity, and its all packaged in what seems to be a great deal... til it turns out you were just being brought to the trough, fattened up for the slaughter, and if you complain about it, if you realise you are being duped and raise your voice and squeal, you're quickly kicked out.

For every unhappy customer, there are a hundred customers who have yet to take off the rose coloured glasses.

Here is a list of games, where the creator & publisher have screwed over their Kickstarter Backers

• Gloomhaven: $154.95 (down from $220)
• The City of Kings: $85.95 (was $180)
• Pandoria: $49.95 (was $100)
• Death Note Confrontation: $25.95 (was $50)
• Sunken Sailor: $9.95 (was $40)
• Gaia Project: $109.95 (was $170)
• Root: $69.95 (was $100)
• Vast The Crystal Caverns: $50.95 (was $90)
• Burger Up: $16.95 (was $50)
• Burger Up Expansion: $5.95 (was $15)
• Kanagawa: $26.95 (was $52)
• Shipwrights of the North Sea: $29.95 (was $80)
• Kepler 3042: $48.95 (was $100)
• History of the World: $62.95 (was $120)
• Fallout New California Expansion: $37.95 (was $70)
• Petrichor: $48.95 (was $90)
• Star Wars Destiny (Two Player): $23.95 (was $50)
• Palace of Mad King Ludwig: $36.95 (was $100)
• Clash of Cultures: $75.95 (was $140)
• Gen7 A Crossroad Game: $96.95 (was $160)
• Spring Meadow: $56.95 (was $100)

That there is $1000 difference. Anyone who has bought 24 games in the last 2-3 years on kickstarter, spending $2100 on games, to find out if they'd just stuck the money in the bank 3 years ago, and when the game came out on special, bought it now, and banked $1200 ($100 savings + $200 minimum interest) would be mighty pissed.

There are arguments, they would have been playing the game all this time.. well no, most of these games only came out a year ago, or less. Even if they played each game, played twice a week, in rotation, they may have not yet, at this point in time, played more than twice some of these games.

The Argument that the game would not have been published without them, yes, and that's the point. the KS backers are the reason why the game exists. The publisher should be rewarding their backers, ensuring their backers have a reason to back it, other than just getting a copy. (which as often as not, they don't, or its poor, or its broken, missing bits, damaged, rules are poorly written, etc etc).

Backing games, is somewhat a lottery. You don't always get great games, you don't always get anything, but you're in it to win it, you back 20 games, one will never come, 2 will arrive with downgraded quality goods, 2 will have strange rulebooks that don't make sense, but 3 will be great games that you want to play every weekend, and 1 will be an awesome game that always comes out to be played.

Just now, you could have waited til everyone said how great those top 4 games were, bought them at 50% sale, and not even bought all those other duds, and gone on holiday with your awesome game, and played with friends on the beach.

The Capitalism, the Commercialism, has infected the creative industry, again, and Its sickening. again. 

Sad State of Affairs

There was once a golden age, its time has come and gone, and the worst part is, those of us who grew up in that age, remember it. As time goes by, and things become less golden, the sheen wears off, it peels back to reveal maybe layers of lead, we start to fight, but its often too late.

At some point in time, we worked from 8 to death, we gathered food, tilled soil, fed animals, built our own farms, attended festivals, met friends, made enemies, had no expenses to deal with, just the gnawing stomach when times were lean and the fear of lean times when times were plentiful.

Then we left the farms, put on shirts, studied in school from 5 to 12, got city jobs to pay for food, and realised we had whole afternoons, lit with candles to entertain ourselves. Musical Instruments? Local friends? maybe some home-still juice? everything we needed.

But Winters were still cold, they needed wood from the forests delivered, or gas piped into the house. This cost money, so incomes needed to increase, so jobs needed higher pays, but through badly managed economies, we needed the elderly to leave work to allow young people to start, else they'd be unemployable, so now the retirement age came in.

Then we started to create entertainment, and whole industries of entertainment, but we needed money for entertainment, this meant more studies, so we went to school from 4 to 21, to get better paid jobs, but we needed electricity for entertainment, so we needed to create bigger plants, more power, more logistics, more grids, more networks, til now, its all one big network, called the Internet.

So, we're all entertained, so much so, that we don't have time for anything else, we're all connected, so much we don't want to connect.

Its like when I traveled overseas for years and years, I was not here, so when I visited, everyone wanted to see me, talk to me, visit me, because I was not available, but when I moved back here, 'we'll catch up' can mean not seeing friends for years and years, yet they live a stones throw away.

A Lack of something, creates desire for something.

Now, things have gone past this spectrum, we've passed through the eye of the storm, and things are taking a turn for the worst. instead of making lives better for everyone, we're reverting back to the old ways.

Old people, need to work longer to pay the bills, so they push for older retirement limits, this often provides governments with more income as unretired 60+yr olds are usually on the higher spectrum of incomes = more taxes. So the age of retirement creeps from 60, to 65, to 70.

Soon enough people will be working while in school, but because they're doing it all part time, they'll be in school longer, til 30 or worse.

They'll be unable to earn enough to start saving enough to create a nest, let alone a nest egg, so they won't be able to retire, as the prices of house climbs up and up beyond the means of any 30-40yr old.

The price of schools, education, healthcare, medical aid, living, gas, electricity, banking fees, transfer fees, it'll all go pear shaped as the cost to live will outdo the cost to die. the middle class will be squeezed, having children will be so expensive, only the top 1% will be able to put their kids through schools, the rest will go back to working menial jobs, curating videos or likes on entertainment social media for pittance, just to afford food, while living in sweat boxes.. better than outside in the cold.

The poor will be trapped in the never ending cycle of economical slavery, the middle class struggling to make do, with the rare few rising from the pile to greatness, giving hope to the rest, but its all part of the system in place to ensure the mass middle class don't rise up to topple the system. The few elite might cease to exist, as they slowly but surely put all the decisions into the hands of AI, too fast to be unplugged, the elite slip back down into the system themselves, unable to stop any changes.

Just like those babyboomers, realising now that they messed up so much, they're unable to make any changes, the system is a runaway train. The young are too engrossed in their mobile entertainment wallets to notice the chains being clamped around their feet.

How to escape? and where to escape to? remote forests? back to nature? I don't want to escape all of it, just the part where bills became more dominant than income, where people paid for entertainment, than make their own with their voices, their instruments, their hands and their minds.

The Goal?

I'd prefer a future where electricity is free, solar panels and watermills take care of it all. People work 20 hour weeks, study 10 more all their lives, can afford to buy a place to live by the time they are 30, so they can devote the next 20 years to something bigger than mortgages, bigger than themselves, 'Sundays' are forced offline, enjoy a full day off where shops and offices and banks and everything is shut, and TV is off and people have no choice but to get outdoors and just be.

Can we work towards that? please?

Kickstarters, You LIARS

I see you want to create something, and you need some financial help, thats great, how can I help? Money? Hmm, well, sure, but what do I get for my money? a copy of the product you are making, well that's fair. I'll pay for 1 copy, and help get my 100 friends to pay for a copy too, so you can produce it. How much each? $100? well, its a bit steep, but we love what you're doing, so sure, we'll all give you $100, we'll all talk about it, and help it, and grow it and be part of the community, so you can make your game.

within the month...

YAY, we funded it..

6-18 months later

YAY its delivered

3 months later, but sometimes at the same time...

What?! The game I lovingly helped create, and spent $100 on, and then another $20 in shipping, is at my local shop for $60? WTF.. HEY Kickstarter Guy.. Whats going on? You sold it to the shops cheaper than to US? I could have bought this for $60.. man this sucks, Kickstarter Sucks! I'm never going to buy anything from Kickstarter again.. B&*(&@#^%ds you screwed me.. how dare you.

Sound Familiar?

Welcome to Bannister Rails, where I act like an old man and have a screaming rant fest about things that annoy me. Sometimes I even go off the rails..

Kickstarter Scams and the Lifecycle of Funding Projects

I'm a Kickstarter Super Backer, this means I have backed over 25 projects of at least $10 each, within the last 3 years, or it was when I looked it up last. So I've had my fair share of the cycles of many projects. Of the 50+ projects I backed (maybe closer to 100), I have yet to receive half, some, because I only recently backed them, so their delivery is 2019 or 2020, some have yet to deliver, even though they said 2018 or 2017. Of those in the latter category, I think only one might not ever get made, and for kickstarter that's pretty good odds.

I've read about a few people who have backed four or more products, and have received nothing to date. Most of them have never backed anything again, and they have a right to that.

There was a time when I felt that backing anything on kickstarter was a coin toss if A), you'd get anything, B) you'd get something along the lines of what you were expecting, but poor quality in comparison to the hype, and rarely C) you'd get exactly what they said they were making (or even rarer.. something better)

As time has gone by, the vetting process of Kickstarter has enabled many various people to assess the project, let other know if its unlikely to back or not, based on their collective experience. As a result its much rarer to get nothing, you're pretty much always going to get something, yet are you going to get your moneys worth.

Some people get a bad feeling in their mouth about things, and they spew it out onto the forums of the next KS project that looks like it maybe, might, do the same thing that the last one did. Its an unfortunately cycle, but slowly we have begun circling the drainpipe of bad KS decisions, and while I hope it doesn't kill the platform, I'd prefer it dead than zombified version of itself consuming projects and spitting out filth before eventually rotting away.

What am I talking about?

In the beginning, you backed a project, you backed the project creators, you and a crowd, got together an mutually agreed to fund this project because of several reasons:

* You want to see the company succeed, if they produce this project, they are likely to produce similar projects in the future and you want to be on their mailing list and maybe get a discount for future products as an extra reward for helping build the company.
* You want the product they are making, there is a chance you might get nothing for your money, or a poorly produced product, but that risk is mitigated because you're getting something extra for your risk.

But whats happening now is out of sync:

* You're not being treated as a part of the process of making the product, you've being treated as a cash-cow by the company. Someone who'll buy their product, each and every time, regardless of the quality.
* You're being treated as a dupe, someone who is spending their money up front, because they are scared of missing out. where if they just waited, it'd come to them cheaper and faster.

How can I think/say this?

I engage in the board game community more than other KS communities, I have backed some books, some art, some minis and some tech, and each has their good and bad projects, but I have a majority of board games, so Its easier to pick on targets from that.. so here we go

Some companies have figured out they can produce a half ok game, pack in Lots of Miniatures, and I mean LOTS of miniatures.

See back in the day, Games Workshop produced the best minis, and they had, and still have, a premium price tag. 2 hours wages for a commander, or 3 hours wages for a box of 10 units.

Now, with 3D printing prototypes, 3D cad tools to design, companies like Reaper and CMON can produce decent quality minis at 50c and $2 each respectively, so they can ask people for a couple of hundred dollars for a box of a hundred minis, and like CMON, with some game tacked on, and they know they'll get funded, because the mini buyers are all over that price.

We saw a similar situation happen in the computer games industry. Decent titles being pushed to the back by weak games with fantastic graphics. Now its weak games with lots of minis.

These Mini boxes with some game rules treat the backer as more of a cash cow.. the mini backers will help fund the game and the game backers won't want to miss out on the latest hot 'lots of minis' game.

I can't fault them too much, because they still follow the basics of my understanding of how KS backers should be in on the deal. They produce a game, the game has a retail price for the base set, and a kickstarter set of goodies for the kickstarter backer. They seem to break even on the base + KS goodies, because they'll make a profit on the retail + add-ons, they know that a fair percentage of people are going to get some or all the add-ons, and all the spares will go into retail as limited edition box sets with a half decent hefty mark-up.

Game company wins, KS backer wins, retailer can win if they stock only enough to make some sales but don't get greedy, non KS backer loses out?

This, is to some extent where the issue lies. If the retailer stocks too much, he has to discount the excess stock and then if the kickstarter backer has only backed retail and sees a retail version cheaper than his retail version, then the KS backer has lost out too.

So Issue #1, Retail versions going cheaper than Backer versions.

The other side, the KS company sets the price point for retailers so that its difficult to discount it lower than the Backer 'retail' version. Now the retailer is paying more, so the price has to be higher to begin with, and Retail customers are far more fickle on price than KS backers, so the games don't sell til they discount down to the same price as the KS price, because information is free and anyone can look up the RRP of the KS, but what retailer is going to buy in on a game that has such a small profit margin?

So Issue #2, Retails won't stock the product, and the KS project needs those retail sales to increase the production, so the cost to produce is lower per product!

OR, the KS project treats the backer as a dupe, their Fear of missing out (FOMO) means they'll pay a higher up front price for a product with the hopes they're getting a better deal, then, when they discover they are not, they can't return the goods, they can't sell it for the price they paid to the average consumer, because the retail price is lower, they can maybe sell at 70% cost, taking a 30% loss, a terrible investment, or they can try to recoup some worth by opening it, playing it a few times, and then selling it at 50% of cost, at least saving themselves some other potential cost of going to the movies or out to a bar, which would have cost $50-$100 (petrol, parking, food, tickets, drinks, taxi, etc) yet, these days there is another cost.. the other games you bought and the time loss of playing a game you don't really like, just to get some worth, vs a game you do like, so you can have an enjoyable evening.

Double Screwed.

So, the conclusion to that part is: If you don't go in for the KS exclusives, you won't have a resellable product, and if they're going to bring out retail, you may as well wait for the discounted version.

Heck.. if the game isn't the be all and end all for you, you may as well wait until one of those dupes above, sells his game at 70% brand new or 50% used.

This grinds me so much..

Stretch Goals, Kickstarter exclusives, dangerous waters.. 

There are two kinds of Stretch goals IMO, one good and one bad. Stretch goals can either add to a game, or confuse a game. A Good stretch goal improves the product quality, and a bad stretch goal, either should have been there all along, or should be a well thought out expansion, not a last minute tacked on untested fail.

There are two ways to consider a product improvement. When the Stretch goal is going to take a pretty good game and just make it all the better, that's a good stretch goal.

Case in point. You can produce cards for your game in around 5 possible qualities. The blue-core and linen finish are pricey, they are nice, but they are not required to make a game great, they just add a tad more durability, and quality. the 3rd quality, is often used by quality games and is a great starting point. If your game raises more funds, you can offer up the core & linen as stretch goals.

But if you start at paper and bring the product up to mid tier.. that's a bad stretch goal. You shouldn't try to fund your product as the crappiest version and stretch goal your way to average.

A Similar aspect is game components.

If your putting standees in, cardboard tokens, to represent your game characters. You'll likely miss out on a set of backers that want minis for all games, but you'll get a large number of people that can't afford to pay $$$ for a board game and are happy to play with standees, if they can at least play the game.

Offering a standee version and a mini version, you're going to get two sets of backers, you'll have to do some logistics to ensure you get enough mini backers to break even, but with stretch goals to unlock these, you can ensure that your staggered costs don't break the bank. classically, heroes, boss monsters, monsters and furniture, in that order, could be unlocked as add-ons, and then if you get everything unlocked, you can group them together for the 'mini version'

Or, maybe run two campaigns back to back.. to ensure the numbers of each set.

But some companies actually drop whole parts of their game instead, taking out monsters in sets, but selling them as add-ons. Add-ons should always enhance the game, not be required to play.

Apparently, there is an argument against kickstarter exclusives. Retail sales loss. There are people who will see a retail version of the game, knowing that there are KS exclusive add-ons who will not buy the retail version, because the FOMO on the extras. To acquire those extras, you'll need to convince someone to part with their extras, but not with the main game, or you'll end up with the main game and need to try to find someone else to buy just the main from you, hopefully at cost (but why would they, since its in retail at 25% off!)

This is the dangerous waters that came up before, that I touched on.. How Kickstarter has created this backlash situation, unintentionally, which is causing the issues and problems.

What IS kickstarter.

If its a retail platform, that allows people to buy a product, that would be harder to sell in the traditional manner, then why are traditional retailers even getting this product at all, and even if they are, surely its such a small amount that it doesn't cause too many problems..

If traditional retailers are happy to take on a product, then why didn't they in the first place?

You can't win both ways.. either take the risk, back the game as a bunch of retailers and sell it in retail, or run the campaign for backers and don't cater to the retailers at all for the Kickstarter product. Retail it later on 2nd print.

Solution?

Maybe a whole new website "RetailBackers", once your campaign has come to an end, your fixed costs are all paid for and you want to sell another round of games, the retailers all come together, get a 15% discount to purchase 6-12 copies, and the sales price is 25-50% higher than the KS price.

These retailers are getting a known selling game, but also, the main audience has already got a copy, so their market are those who could not back it in time, didn't have the money, or wanted to see if it was worth it and the standard retail customer who might buy as much as a year later.

KS backers who don't like the game can on-sell at cost, or up to a % of the retail price based on if they opened it or not. unscrupulous retailers who bought in early but at the higher price can sell their limited but was risky stock. If the game tanked, they'd lose out, if it rocks, they win.. like stock market.

Seems more like a win for all, except the greedy, who never deserve to win.

Conclusion

Being a KS backer has risks, Its one thing to back a game that may or may not be produced, that may be produced but lower quality than expected or advertised, you can research to mitigate this. Yet, having to make a choice that the game may retail lower than the backer price, may be delivered to retail before arriving at your door and at least you can see some reviews on the game before forking out any cash, breaks the whole KS model.

Why back/pay for a game that is just going to be in shops, cheaper, faster and stress free..

Final thoughts - with less rant:

Traditional Product creation allowed the product to be created at costs 1, sold to a merchandising company at price 2, who sells to a warehouse at 3, on to the retailer at 5 who sells to the customer at 7-10 dependant on seasons.

When the creator sells to the customer, they don't have the costs of the merchandiser, the warehouser or the retailer, but they also don't have the skills, the room to stock it, or the shop front. Yet in the world of websites and connectivity, They now have the shop front, and storage 'can' be cheap.

Yet deals have to be made between the stock you sell yourself and the stock sold to the merchandiser. If you undercut them, they won't buy from you and Traditionally, they couldn't undercut you, due to the price difference.

Kickstarter products are sold at such low volumes, that the fixed costs are not mitigated across tens of thousands of units, so the cost to produce is much higher. Yet once the product is produced, the fixed cost no-longer exist, so it seems simple to just cut the price for the next run, and supply the retailers at a lower price.

No deal has been formally made between the stock being sold by the KS creator and the retailer, so the retailer is in a position to undercut the creator. Most of the time, this is just discounts to clear stock. But unscrupulous online retailers are offering sets upfront at 10+% cheaper than the KS itself, with lower or hidden delivery costs. Either way the KS creator loses out, so the retail customer and retailer win.

KS backers, smartening up, will be unlikely to back a project if the retailers get the same deal, and retailers are unlikely to buy a KS project from retail if they don't get the full product. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

So, whats the preferred Win-Win? KS Creator and KS Backer, in my opinion, but whats happening more is the Win-Win is the online retailer and the KS aware retail customer, both of which screwing the KS ecology. Retail backers don't increase the funding, don't increase the rewards offered and this is a Win/Lose for the Creator, The Project only gets retailers if the project funds, the retailers don't back the project, they only 'open the door' for retail options. The only way a KS project is funded above and beyond, is if the Backers feel like their getting a great product, a great deal and will miss out if they don't get it now, (FOMO)

I have increasingly seen backer groups demand exclusives from a product or they pull out, They may not have the knowledge or the insight to understand their feelings well enough, but they are saying the same thing..

Why back it now, if I can get it cheaper later.. I'm waiting a year anyway, I can wait.. 

Final Final thoughts.. Backlash as a result:

I have seen private groups form, where a retailer forms a small team of at least 5, that purchase a retail pledge and buy 6 copies at the retail price, paying the Taxes themselves (on a reduced price) and their team all get a copy, maybe 10% maybe 50% cheaper than the standard KS backer, This only works for KS projects that give out retail copies, identical to KS copies. Follow that rabbit hole, and you might see KS just falling apart at the seems in the next few years.