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Cyberpunk 2077 - The Worst Performing CMON Campaign In A Very Long Time
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- čas přidán 14. 08. 2024
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Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a big box strategy game with miniatures in which gangs fight for control of a city, with the city also being a living part of the game.
In the game, players assume the role of a gang leader, with you organizing your gang members to take power in the city. Your actions affect not only your game and your opponents but the city itself. Each gang has different attributes and goals, giving each player a different gaming experience.
BGG Link - boardgamegeek....
TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Introduction
0:00:58 - What Does This Mean?
0:01:25 - How We Got Here
0:03:00 - Different Reactions
0:03:50 - Other Campaigns
0:04:50 - The Campaign So Far
0:06:07 - Other Games
0:07:45 - Back at $1
0:08:30 - Shipping Prices
0:10:00 - CMON Didn't FOMO The Pledge Manager
0:12:00 - Goodwill With The Community
0:13:07 - Not The Failure Some Wanted
0:15:00 - The Shipping Cost Hikes Are Real
0:17:00 - It's Bad, But It's Too Early To Call For The Death Of CMON
0:18:55 - Wrapping Up
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For media inquiries, please email me at alex@boardgameco.com
Alex, I am sure as a content creator you know significantly more industry insiders than I do, I am sure you've talked to them about shipping and CMON's approach to their shipping charges. I can't imagine there are too many who think CMON's approach to shipping is reasonable. I'm just some doofus who just enjoys board games, and even I know industry insiders. I have asked them point-blank if this is the actual cost. They've all lamented how things have increased, not just shipping, but costs of manufacturing. Even then they are saying they don't know what CMON is doing here.
They're probably just going with the trend and how shipping has been going for the past few months and assuming it's going to continue to the Future and raise even higher. Fuel surcharges are only going to keep climbing as the price of oil keeps climbing. If you think the price of oil is going to drop your foolish it's only going to get higher and higher. We hit that breaking point in fossil fuels and oil where it's now at a scarcity level.
I find it a bit disingenuous to say people are "attacking" CMON. It's people holding them accountable and making themselves heard, because they have screwed people over and waited till the very end to charge people that much shipping AND not extend the Pledge Manager AND put out a BS Terms & Conditions you HAVE to agree to. You want to say they're not a big company but that just comes off as an excuse to deflect that they should know better after THIS long as a massively successful company. No offense but being someone to try to be moderate/fence-sit the issue or try to defend CMON a bit is tiring. They are a corporation, not a person and while people are angry at the Corporate entity, nobody is attacking people themselves and I get tired of people defending said corporations and act as if they shouldn't be held accountable and just forget it after a couple weeks.
Cyberpunk 2077 was not a flop, it was a disappointment. It was over-hyped, and under-delivered. That is always a disaster. But it's not like Anthem or the latest Battlefield, that have no players, shut down, and were complete flops. Cyberpunk 2077 still has a large player base, and the mod community is doing awesome things. It's just CDPR management that screwed up.
Cyberpunk was made by inexperienced amateurs and scammers
@@exysa2798 bot
For EU, the game is just over €2OO (with shipping and VAT). It just costs way too much. You also say 4.4k people back this campaign, but the actual pledge is 3k, 1.4k people are pledging at $1.
I also still do not get the idea of "freight prices" being in shipping in the first place, these should be in the pledge level/msrp price, not separate.
The freight prices vary outside the control of the publisher.
It doesn't really matter if it's included or not - at the end of the day we pay the sum total. So look at the sum total and see whether the game is worth it to you.
I think he didn't payed attention the campaing like seeing how many people is backing 1$ or the comments. Also on the comments you can see a lot of people say they will drop their 110$ pledge. They just backed that to unlock stuff and see how it goes.
I think some people will not "resist" and on PM they will buy the game.
@@oerthling I think the point is that if CMON is going to include the freight charges in the MSRP for the retailers, then they should do the same for backers. Otherwise, they overcharge on KS to subsidize retailers, which probably feels wrong for people like Bass Meo.
@@sylvaintremblay3311 While I don't really disagree on the detail, I still mean to say that people should look at the final price and make their decisions on that.
And people already do that in comparing with likely retail pricing. Alex here pretty much started this channel talking about the value and whether to wait for retail.
The argument for KS is only rarely price. It's often a wash or more expensive with KS - especially if you only look at the core game.
The argument to pledge/buy on KS is about KS exclusives (those tend to get very expensive on ebay later), convenience, assured availability (there's no guarantee that you get it on retail at a lower price if it's sold out) and, for smaller/new publishers to help them get it out at all.
That VAT on top killed it for me too. No way, wait for reviews, wait for retail.
In general: Shipping cost from CMOn Games incl. VAT is quite high. As an EU member you have to calculate e.g. 110USD (pledge) + 60 USD (shipping) + 19% VAT = 201 USD in total....which is almost double the amount of the price for the game alone. That doesn`t make sense anymore...especially when considering the "bad" policy of the company to release retrailers editions before KS contents. There was often the case that the localized retail version is hitting the market earlier than the english KS product, which is having more content, but costs almost twice as much as the retail edition.
Additionally I do not like their "melking the cow" (= squeezing out every cent from main brands) policy, which means...that means...."how many editions or versions do we have now with Zombicide?". Don`t get me wrong: The Zombicide Franchise is very successfull but that doesn`t mean that the company is seen in public as an innovative compnay bringing good, fresh and new ideas to the market.......that might lead in the end to the situation, where Not-Zombicide-Fans might exclude that company from their radar and when it`s coming to the point of new published games and the Zombicide-Fans are only interested in their franchise because they want to have a complete collection of zombicide titles on their shelf....well then you might have less potentials buyers as expected.
All in all: High prices (in total) for a KS game + in some cases later launches as retail products + main focus on Zombicide Franchise = CMON Games is not on my radar anymore when it`s coming to newly published games.
*cries in South America shipping being 100+ and taxes being 21% if the price goes over 200 which ALWAYS is because of shipping and if total a year is over 1000$ need to get a special paperwork or get fined , which funny enough you don't know if you were fined for up to 5 years after it happened*
The whole earlier retail launch thing simply isn't true. Sure, you can get the retail edition earlier sometimes, but it's not like they're making the Kickstarter edition available earlier at retail. It's a different product.
@@ryan_here_we_go to be precise, it is the same product in a different edition/add ons...
@@ryan_here_we_go It is true. You should read threads on BGG about Death may die.....but....to defend CMON soehow: There are also a lot of other publishers doing that (might be the result of producing extra stuff for the KS, which might take longer....nevertheless: You always readthis very often after the Spiel, that people are annoyed because of that.
Retail editions of CMON games always hit the market before backers get their games in my country (Canada)
The issue is that the shipping costs are higher than they should be. As you state, the retail will be 80-90. This includes, distributor and retailer profits as well as shipping to consumer. It is not possible that of that $90, a full 25-30 are shipping costs.
I agree. THEY CHARGED $100.00 for Massive Darness 2 and you got the stretch goals with it. Awesome value. That same game, without the stretch goals is 100 bucks on Amazon. So they MUST have a margin in there, and they had to pay to ship it to Amazon. Albeit at a lower price than it was to send it to me for the kickstarter because I'm an individual address, not bulk.
But it's not like CMON is getting rich. The industry is tough. But they are charging us full retail price for 2077 and we have to pay 60 bucks shipping and what we get out of that is the stretch goals.
Kickstarter prices are about paying for stretch goals.
I really wanted to back it - looks like I would love the gameplay. Just took one quick look at the shipping and noped out.
Insane shipping costs for EU backers…. No CMON KS anymore for me, retail is the only option. If I want great games with lots of minis, stretch goals and great campaigns with reasonable shipping costs, Awaken Realms is my choice! They‘ve never let me down. ;)
The CZcamsr "The King of Average" has a video called "What a disaster. Is this the death of CMON?" ... from the minute 28: 50 to 29: 53 he talks about how he has reached out to some game developers equal or even bigger than CMON to talk to them about CMON's shipping prices, and he says that all these other dev's have said to him those number absolutely do not make sense and called CMON's move BS.
And as other people have already commented on this video, other companies are shipping bulkier and heavier board games for way less than CMON is charging, it is pretty clear CMON is just tryin to increase their profit margings using shipping costs as a smoke screen. I am NEVER backing a CMON game moving forward, if one of their games turns out to be good, I'll just get it at retail, you can't treat customers like this and get away with it, no sir.
A game developer bigger than CMON? I don't buy it. CMON has no equal in this space. I have backed a lot of games, lots of big projects and nothing arrives at my door in a consistently bulkier package than those of CMON. CMON games are consistently the ones with the bulkiest package by far. They also have the biggest KS successes, so it's: biggest package times biggest backer content = highest shipping cost. Those big packages are actually quite a negative and CMON has made the wrong decision for years to package games as bulky as they can. They should have invested in smarter packaging but they didn't and now they are paying the price.
King of Average does some good content. But he is a die hard cmon hater and in the past talked a lot of b***s*** about the company and their games. He is not very trutsworthy when it comes to this topic. Don`t get me wrong; i totally understand why people dislike cmon at the moment. Still some of the criticism is not rational.
@@draxxgecko2635 please go and watch the video I sited, he spends a great deal of time explaining how he has backed multiple CMON games and how lots of CMON games have been his game of the year in years past, he makes it very clear that he is not criticizing cyberpunk 2077 just for the sake of "hating" on CMON, but rather because it's a conversation that has to be had, in my personal opinion, he genuinely comes across as being very objective in his criticism and unbiased, because CLEARLY CMON are straight up disguising revenue as "increased shipping costs" they're basically lying to their customers, that is a scam.
@@Teilnehmer I would politely tell you that your opinion is not properly informed, even though it sounds logical what you are saying and I would have agreed, after having seen the video that I cited from the king of average, when he explains how many gloomhaven boxes would fit in a shipping container and the current prices of shipping a container from China and divides that cost amongst that number of boxes, the result is way less than CMON are charging for shipping, way less! And even right now other publishers are shipping games equally big for way less, CMON is Straight up creating revenue using shipping costs as a smoke screen, please go and watch the full video by the king of average "what a disaster. Is this the dead of CMON? "So you can be a little bit better informed with actual numbers
@@Kojimalosophy I watched it. Glad i did. He really did a good amount of research and his conclusions are convincing. Still do not like his style, cause it is a bit over the top for my taste. but that does not matter too much. the content counts.
i think goodwill does go a long way. the past leder and mindclash kickstarters i went ahead and just paid during the campaign in hopes that it does well and we end up with a good product. i'm even hesitant to put $60 of credit i have with cmon (forgot to confirm a pledge) towards their campaign.
Hi Alex,
Another very interesting videoe, thanks a lot.
Regarding the lack of social media presence of FFG or Asmodée compared to CMON, it also means those companies are selling finished games (mostly), they sell through retail.
As such, there is less fomo involved, no delay between paying for a game and receiving it.
The reason why they dont punish the 1$-late backer (e.g. by making it $120 in the PM for them) is, that it is for them financial attractive to have them. Everything they collect at the PM and not at the kickstarter costs no KS-fee.
All creators want more money during the campaign.
Cmon is a weird phenomenon.
I only backed 1 cmon campaign (Marvel Zombies), and I'm not that interested in backing another.
I think that there's a few issues that Cmon has that people focus on, whether justified or not.
1.Their shipping predictions are often comically low. This is not their fault only since shipping is ridiculous, but they should by now realize that whatever method they use to calculate their shipping cost is not accurate and should be changed. Other companies have used a spreadsheet that gets updated weekly or biweekly, which could be better.
2. Their kickstarter communication. Their communication is not up to par. After 51 campaigns, they should have better communication. When you talk about issues proactively, it can quell many issues.
3.They have become the stereotype of kickstarter. (Exaggerating) they have 800 boxes per game, rediculous shipping costs, long wait times, poor communication, Add 80 stretch goals, which most become add ons instead of free, miniatures are often the focus of their campaigns, they put out similar games (how many times have they put out Zombicide?).
4. With crowd funding there is a general expectation of better management. This one's a little unfair because many big publishers who have kickstarters don't get this one. You don't expect consumer friendly practices from Asmodee or Fantasy Flight. They don't do kickstarters and are kind of seen as the very corporate side of the gaming space. Crowdfunding is still seen as a smaller company thing, and it seems "hijacked" by Cmon. And it seems like cmon doesn't need to fix the issues with their management of campaigns because they'll still get money regardless. They don't feel like an underdog, but the big corporate overlord that doesn't need to fix the issues they have because people will back their stuff anyway. Is that view of cmon fully justified? I don't think so, but I can see why people would have that idea of them. Relatively large company, similar issues over and over again, makes a lot of gross capital even on the "bad" campaigns, makes similar games over and over.
About your point #4, I would argue that it is fair. When going straight to retail, companies have to invest massively into projects where they could make enormous losses (50%+ of the investment). On KS, companies don't have that risk, because backers offer funding and guaranteed sales for a future product. So backers should absolutely expect better since they are also somewhat investors in the project.
Not sure where you have the "aggressive" and/or "insulting" comments from.
Yes there are some bad eggs, but these comments have been rightfully deleted... but the majority of the "$1 Club" are respectful and just want make as much people aware of what happened and warn them to back... as you even did in this video... to back with $1. In fact several of the question from other backers get answered correctly from these people as well.
Sadly we have no other means to make ourself's heard since constructive critique and requests over other channels, like Facebook, emails to Support or Instragram have been deleted, blocked or left unanswered.
(This is all well documented where comments have been deleted or people being blocked.. sometimes rightfully so)
Also i want to strengthen my position by once again make clear it is not about the money for me, it is about communication of this company, how changes are getting communicated to backers/customers. When changes are implemented in regards of pricing for the backers/customers and lastly the inability to react to a situation in such a timely manner that people can cancel pledges without a monetary penalty. And once again, i DO NOT care if the 10% kept are not staying with CMON but with KS. It is CMON responsibility to be able to communicate and predict their prices by the END of the campaign and not weeks later. While i can not speak for all of the $1 Club Members, but i have a feeling this is the actual issue. The way how we are treated.... not the $$$ (of course its part of it). I simply think if communication would have happened early enough... including a sentence like... "Hey, look, this happened... we are sorry... if you wanna cancel let us know... we will refund your FULL pledge!" I guess we all would have reacted MUCH LESS hostile towards CMON. But.... well it did not happen... and the fact that MZ is now discussed, WITH collaborators in THIS Cyberpunk 2077 campaign is telling....
We could even have had a civil conversations in the comment section of the appropriate game... sadly this has not been the case either since, as soon as these campaigns are over... there is NO further communication of any colab in the comment section...
So we have to go there where we are heard and seen.
And I personally, dont want to sink the ship... but to give it a dent... and i am sure... that has been successful.
In a civil manner, to a point where maybe these points mentioned above, will finally be addressed by CMON, better communication BEFORE the fact, responsiveness and timely manner actions.
Maybe not...
To be clear, I didn't say it was the majority. I am saying that people have been aggressive and insulting and jumped into the campaign just to do so. In no way am I saying that it's most people. I apologize if it was taken that way.
@@BoardGameCo I might also have misunderstood... English is not my native language. However, it was important to me that we keep it civil.. here.. and in the campaign.
Thank you for answering Alex, i appreciate it and your clarification.
I’ve tried to make this point clear on the Anastyr page but it’s not about the shipping prices being high. It’s ALL about the companies estimating better, even if it means scaring some away with that number. Anastyr launched, only showed estimated shipping for the base pledge, added a ton more and an all in pledge at the end and never updated their shipping estimate or added a new one for the 2 new pledge levels. 1 month later opens the PM and charged shipping at crazy increases for a game that won’t ship for 1.5 years. We’re almost at 3 weeks from the opening of the PM and they have said absolutely nothing about it. They lit a bomb, threw it, and ran away. Companies need to do better or they need to get off crowdfunding.
I know you backed Anastyr too, I’m waiting on that video!
While this project is suffering the consequences of CMON's decision with Marvel Zombies (jacking up shipping prices less than 3 months after the KS closed), and future projects will continue to suffer from the fan loyalty they burned, the biggest reason this project is dooring poorly for a CMON KS is the lack of value - the lack of product backers receive for the money we are being asked to risk/invest. Manufacturing and shipping costs are way up so naturally prices are up. CMON needs to innovate and reduce prices to get back some of that value. If they don't, their projects will continue to struggle as long as we are in this current economic mess, which will be years, possibly many years.
Why are CMON not coming forward with a defense/explanation of why it is taking them so much money to ship? Why are they not communicating their stance on the reality, which seems to be so different to them as is to major publishers, who have come forward with totally different figures on shipping? Why are CMON not actively engaged in taking steps to remedy the situation, find a new person responsible for handling shipping, etc.? Questions, questions ...
Hi Alex, first of all, you are currently my favorite content creator on CZcams covering board games, so keep up the good work. Secondly, regarding the overall shipping crisis and everything, I do not think all the blame should be focused there. Sure, it definitely is a big factor, but I think that even without it, the companies were making some bad decisions, and this was ultimately the final nail in the coffin. For example, regarding Euthia and Diea Games company, I have read some articles, and before kickstarter they did another crowdfunding project, that just barely funded, and they had to put their own money into it, and although they raised almost $500k on kickstarter, they ultimately were loosing money, not making profit from that campaign. It is sad when a company has to shut down, and people are loosing their jobs, but unfortunately sometimes they are responsible for their situation, because of the decisions they made, and we should not just say that the shipping crisis is the sole source of all the issues.
I'm a CMON fanboy, went all-in on MZ but when it comes to Cyberpunk I sorta support the people that are mad about the whole shipping thing that is going on. The base game is 110$ which is high for the game but bearable, when you add 50-60$ for the core box it becomes ridiculous. 170$ for a core box for ANOTHER area control game is not worth it at all. I know you and Jesse enjoyed the game but to me, it looks worst than the Eric Lang trilogy. I know the people have gone out of their way to troll CMON on the comments and while I would like to call them petty, it is important for CMON to know that many of us went ahead and paid the ridiculous shipping because of the Marvel IP but it won't fly with any other projects. I'm still gonna back whatever CMON makes that calls my attention but I will definitely not back everything.
I will always back at a $1, no risk for me to do so.
Alex,
Have you played Blood Rage? You've played Godfather; Corleones empire.
Lol fair :)
I think one of the big issues that almost all of the Kickstarter based campaigns have gotten wrong is the inclusion of the freight costs into the shipping prices. For retail, freight is absorbed into the base cost of the game. The customer pays for the game and actual shipping costs. Now Kickstarter companies are charging higher shipping costs and often blaming the costs of containers. That they are experiencing these costs are very real and it does impact their bottom line. But that should mean that they have incorrectly priced the game as freight has been considered part of the base cost until Kickstarter producers decided to include it into their add on prices. I do understand that they most likely feel that if they added this increase into the base price of the game, that they would feel that their customers would scream that the costs were too high. So instead they hide it by directly passing these costs through to the consumer.
The issue I have with CMON, and other Kickstarter companies that actually so sell retail, is that they obviously don’t charge the distributors or retailers this cost, as then the retailer couldn’t sell it at retail, or often less, and still make a profit. So they are eating that cost when selling retail. That means that their Kickstarter backers are actually subsiding the companies retail sales. Those creators who aren’t big enough to go retail, where it is either buy Kickstarter or go secondhand market to get the product are the ones who likely are really financially hurting and if I want the game I have no issue with helping fund it. It’s the big ones, who charge backers freight subsidizing retail, that are the issue. They used to say that they would provide free ore at least subsidized shipping because they were making a better margin by selling direct rather than through distributors and retail. Well they are still selling direct and still avoiding distributors and retailers for the Kickstarter backers, but now they are charging both shipping costs and freight.
I agree completely with all you have said. I think including freight in the shipping is a bad business practice. It doesn't feel good when, as a backer, you feel like your subsidizing the retail release. I also think that, in general, backers will be open to pay some extra after the campaign (by sending additional funds or purchasing additional products) to help the newer/smaller companies if needed.
If you look at CMON sales (from their company records), their sales come about 50% to retail and 50% to kickstarter. Considering they sell at a steep rebate to retail, in terms of the number of goods sold, it's higher from retail than from kickstarter.
the video game did so awful that this kickstarter was going to fail 100% no matter what.
Yep, meanwhile over here the latest update for Grimlord's Village Attacks Grim Dynasty says 'Soz can't afford to deliver, we're pausing indefinitely until costs come down... someday'
Ya....
Yes some companies are charging similar prices for shipping (look at Anastyr)... yet many others are not. Seems odd to me that a company who has been doing this as long CMON has would not have better logistical practices and therefor they should be in the group who's gotten the cost down to a manageable level.
If this is going to be the norm I think we will see crowdfunding shrink considerably. People will probably pay 30% of the game cost in shipping but at 50% that will have an impact on backing decisions.
I also find it odd that CMON has higher rates. It would make sence for them to have lower shipping rates. It is confusing and i'm not gonna even act like I understand the shipping. I defiently do not. I'll be very selective moving forward with crowdfunding projects with the hopes that things settle. With CMON and Monolith (I think that is who did Anastyr.) Having high rates, it does make me think lesser companies would have higher rates then they do. I guess we can only wait and see.
For the base pledge, Anastyr is $25 cheaper than Marvel Zombies. Still not cheap by any means but at least they didn't show lower costs in the KS campaign.
Rightly so. They have milked Kickstarter to the last drop. I hope this signals change.
However as much as I hope that, I believe the reason why the campaign is slow is because the IP didn’t have the impact CMON was expecting? Most people that bought Cyberpunk day 1 were burned badly. Cyberpunk in general does not elicit positive feelings. The IP is known for how much it disappointed players. It did a lot of emotional damage. I think that shows here. There simply isn’t as much love for this IP as say Marvel.
I've said this for a minute. The WB board games (Teen Titans, Scooby-Doo, and something else) did not do that well comparitively. KS is definitely not what it used to be, but it's not a retail store either. I'm excited for this game, and I'm not going to let my excitement be hampered. I back 2-3 games a year max, and I'm very selective about what I get. Ialso feel like folks are super burnt out on KS and crowd-funding as a whole.
Cyberpunk was made by inexperienced amateurs and scammers. Thats why its so trash. Almost everyone hates Cyberpunk and CDPR now.
@@Jeemo88 those games did relatively well for family and kid focused games. Cyberpunk is not that, it's very adult and appeals to the general masses of board gamers. Except it doesn't because of the tainted IP and the relationship with CMON recently
As someone who lives in Australia I cant justify paying $110USD + $72USD for shipping. I will wait for this to come to retail and consider it then. For the above price I can buy multiple games from my local game store.
Maybe if they'd stick with supporting IP they gobble up...
I heard somewhere that their shipping prices are high because they are using the money to sustain the company. They have expanded their company too much and employed too many people
It could be smart for CMON to raise their shipping to avoid the Marvel Zombies situation, and lower it in the PM, people would be happy about it and just buy addons with the 'saving', but probably not happening.
Yes, agree shipping is expensive. But is the shipping that kind of expensive? Shipping of Majestic pledge of Castles Of Burgundy: Special Edition only costs 32 EUR but shipping of cyberpunk 2077 costs higher than 50 USD? Comparing the size of this two games, it is a huge price difference.....
What you failed to do is compare the shipping prices, for the size of the game, to other campaigns right now. By those standards, CMON is overcharging.
If prices are lower in the pledge manager for shipping, then they'll have a lot of late pledges. I think the game is solid.
But all this backlash is over the shipping prices of their previous campaign, and that this campaign is over-charging too.
(I have ten years experience in international logistics)
Counterpoint: Anaystr
If they were upfront and stated whether the shipping was for the final miles or if it also included Freight and Fees in addition.
I keep hearing Tiny Epic Vikings costing high shipping which I'm not understanding. I only paid $10 for shipping. Is it the international cost?
I feel like people are so pissed off at CMON that upping the price in the pledge manager for dollar backers would hurt them more than help them.
People would expect it.
Thanks for this, Alex!
Hey Alex - thanks for your videos. Regarding the idea that CMON should be at least commended for at least leaving their $1 pledge as an option - I saw this from KoA on bgg. I like hearing from both of your opinions but this one stood out to me here so I figured it would be a good talking point:
The $1 pledge is Kickstarter enforced, so can't bypass that. What they *could* do is close off their pledge manager for late backers/$1 backers, but they wouldn't do that as PM's can often enough double or otherwise significantly raise the overall pledged amount, all without having to reveal more stretch goals.
@@Dstinct gotcha - ya but I think the balance there is losing late backers too. It just more feels like it's more a financial decision rather than a decision to generate good will imo.
I have plenty of plastic/metal minis for fantasy and Cyberpunk and don't want any more, do not know the IP, especially as have some more on the way e.g. Chronicles of Drunagor and Age of Darkness Apocalypse. Also not impressed with their other games. I prefer this theme but would prefer standees for a board game as opposed to a skirmish style board game. Played a few and own only one title a retail Project Elite.
Price point plus VAT, plus shipping (minis may be lighter but they take up space and that impacts shipping more), plus very little disposable income so no way I can I justify over a $150 at awful exchange rate.
Alex... its wasn't just the high prices of the shipping. It was the WAY they handled it, not being transparent, not being accountable. They ignored the furor for a month before putting out a non apology update explanation that all their other campaigns are losing money on shipping and so Marvel Zombies had to make up for it.
I get it. I got my full Massive Darkness 2 campaign and the shipping was dirt cheap. They HAD to lose money on that.
But.. they weren't transparent. Truly bad leadership. The CEO needs to step down and true leadership needs to step up.
Completely agree with you. They should have detailed what was included in their initial estimate shipping costs and then how those prices moved to increase the cost that much. Considering that going into a project with an unknown shipping cost is like writing someone a blank check, I believe that when costs change materially from the estimate, the company has a duty to detail exactly how they will spend your extra money, which CMON didn't do at all. For those that had backed over $1, it meant blindly trusting CMON or asking for a refund with a net 10% loss. In those circumstances, CMON should have refunded 100%, not issued a partial refund.
@@sylvaintremblay3311 I agree. And I DID ask for a refund on my $130.00 pledge. I got 117 back. I'm okay with that.
I would have loved the game. It's gonna be great. But... it was just not where I wanted to allocate my resources. I just wished they had handled it differently. 🙏
Hi, I was wondering if you were planning on revisiting Stellaris Infinite Legacy
How many un-delivered campaigns does cmon have?
Just one, where did you get the data that shipping for hanamikoji is 30$? I'm assuming you are talking about Hanamikoji: Geisha Road since this is the latest one and shipping for Hanamikoji the first one should have nothing to do with the shipping crisis. AFAIK, shipping for Hanamikoji Geisha road is only around 15$, still an increase from the 12$ estimate, but way lower than 30$
@boardgameco, I have lost all interest in CMOn not because of the issues thats been ongoing, but because the lack of their customer service. I have reached out numerous time for assistance in NOTLD zombicide as was missing the barbara figure and never got a response, I feel sorry for the designers for cyberpunk and wish another company would publish this game.
It will be interesting to see how CMON's next "blockbuster" campaign does.
Yes, I'm very curious.
I think they should go straight to retail and pace their expansions, FFG style. They can offer deluxe packs for those interested. They have the distribution covered with Asmodee.
Maybe the ‘The Last of Us’ will be a good test. Not sure if that will be their next blockbuster (or even if its state is developed is enough), but I certainly know I’ll have a VERY hard time not backing that one. And I can only imagine a lot of people will too. If the gameplay proves to be intriguing enough and true to the IP, I just know I’ll go all-in.
@@renatocarvalho6059 lmao after last of us 2 this brand is even more toxic than cyberpunk2077, marvel is their best bet
@@sillylittlesheepjax6009 I hear you, it’s true not everybody loved TLOU2, but a lot of other people did, myself included. And even those who didn’t, ‘hated’ on it for the love of the first. There’s plenty to exploit in that IP, imo. A TLOU board game with Joel (alive!) and Ellie in it, I really think would be very successful. Not Marvel Zombies successful (I would bet no other CMON game will ever be, at least for a long time), but still. I guess we’ll see what the future holds! :)
Like others already mentioned, CMON games are crazy expensive to get to Europe, even worse to Switzerland. So I generally don't back CMON already. On top of that, I have 0 interest in Cyberpunk. It was one of the biggest disappointments in gaming in the recent year and I do absolutely not want to be reminded of that game in any way. Especially not while having to pay 300 dollars for the base game incl. shipping, VAT and other fees.
Apart from this campaign being ridiculous to buy a base game for 200 dollars or more, is the fact I keep hearing this game is good. You, Alex and others in the Quackalope 'circle', been pushing the great gameplay. So far I have not seen this (imo) in any way whatsoever. Before the campaign launch I had high expectations, due to the theme, but I already dropped my 1 dollar pledge. Such an cascading disappointment. And this will be my last comment concerning this game (also, only important to me ;-)
Interestingly enough this might end up being a lot like the Cyberpunk video game's release. Super rocky start, but the game is actually fantastic. I was originally backing it just for minis alone, but I've since switched to a $1 pledge, it just doesn't really make sense to do anything else at this point.
It's a solid game, I'm excited for when we can move past the drama.
@@BoardGameCo that will take some time, probably until they start communicating with their backers again instead of ignoring uncomfortable questions.
oh and also reducing shipping costs substantially. As someone already pointed out, with VAT the total price is ridiculous.
When I read the title I thought you were referring to how bad the Kickstarter page is at selling the game. There is just a few sentences to unxplain gameplay.
I agree that it's their worst looking campaign they've done (as in visually).
Jepp, super little effort. Not everyone‘s got time to watch bad videos that don’t even have a full teach upfront
It's a weird combo of Cmon being quite expensive, it's just another dudes on a map game by eric lang that seems quite generic, and if the videogame was better it would have been boosted by that.
I also personally think their output is very mixed.
Exactly. People are saying this campaign isn’t doing well because of pricing and shipping, but I believe it also has to do with the IP. If this was Marvel of Star Wars the price wouldn’t matter. People go crazy for the blockbuster IPs and Cyberpunk is not one of them.
I've liked the Cyberpunk IP since the RPG days as a teen in the late 90s. When I think what I'd expect from a Cyberpunk board game, an area control "dudes on a map" style is...not at all what I'd imagine most fans of the IP would want. Certainly not me or any of my old gaming pals.
Containers have been dropping in price from what they were a year ago. Are they trying to re-coop their losses from earlier campaigns? Does the IP cost them more than it is worth? I feel like this was again a company getting an IP then trying to make a game. This box doesn't even look that big. It may be, but the pictures shows a slim box.
Jamie from Stonemaier even weighed in about the cost of shipping and how it breaks down per container.
( size not weight )
Mindclash just shipped Perseverance ( large box with a huge lot of minis) for $25. You can't be seriously saying next year they expect their prices to triple?
Yes people are upset about the last campaign and do not believe the cost of shipping they are charging for this one. some have said just raise the price of the game to $100 and charge $25 for shipping.
Is this a $100 game? I don't see it.
CMON deserves every bit of blow back and trash that comes their way. I wrote them off and quit playing their games years ago. Play what and with whomever makes you happy but I left those guys in the dust a long way back. ✌️
Where I wasn't happy with my shipping for MZ. It was very close to theprice I expected based on the estimates. With that being said. It did make me consider being more selective to what I'll back moving forward. As for the lack of sympathy CMON showed for their backers. It left a bad impression for me personally to consider jumping in on another campaign with CMON. Not to say I will never back another CMON campqign. However, it would likely have to be a MZ2 or a DC version. Which I would likepy pass on the DC one if not compatable. I'm looking to Sankokushin as a future campaign i'm sure to back. I do expect shipping in most campaigns in the near future having some higher than expected shipping prices. Again, this making me decide to be very selective with my choices of campaigns to back. CMON campaigns will probably not be an interest other than for MZ2. If that even becomes a thing.
It can make all the money it can but none of it will be me from me.
Hmm based on previous examples if CMON did overestimate the shipping price it's unlikely they would pass on any future savings. I suppose the only way this would happen if lots of 1 dollar pledges failed to result in full pledges.
Still the damage is done and regaining backers trust should be a priority though all it usually takes will be the right IP and seemingly people will conveniently forget.
Ultimately with CMON retail is generally enough content IME.. so for most that's a good option to de-risk it if your particularly upset for whatever reason.
I think it's just really the first big sign that the Kickstarter bubble is finally going to burst. The worldwide increase in manufacturing and shipping cost is just speeding up the process. Ever since Europeans had to start to pay VAT on Kickstarter games about 1-2 years ago you could see a small decrease in Kickstarter successes (VAT is actually more than 50% more than shipping for Marvel Zombies in my country). Now for Marvel Zombies it made sense to swallow VAT if you are a hardcore Marvel fan. For Cyberpunk 2077? Not so much for most people.
Kickstarters that were still up in the several million range last year either have incredibly strong IPs (The Witcher) or good company track records (Frosthaven, Awaken Realms, Too Many Bones) or are carried by >200$ core pledges (Primal - The Awakening). And a lot of Kickstarters have underperformed this year (Batman, Reaper, Kingdom Forlorn). I see a lot of people attributing this failure to some "broken trust" that CMON is guilty of but I don't see it. There has always been a strong current of negativity towards CMON for whatever reason. I don't really see much fault with what CMON did. Shipping is very volatile right now and a lot of people are aware of that.
Something that gets sidelined alot in this discussion is that CMON consistently delivers closer to schedule than other companies nowadays. Compare for example to delays in some Awaken Realms or Mythic Games projects. If you want to get timely shipping because you value delivery time over shipping prices then right now shipping is just going to cost a bit more. I received Marvel United - X-Men pretty much right on time (I think even a bit earlier) than the estimate in the original campaign! That's quite an accomplishment.
And I don't see Cyberpunk 2077 as hugely unsuccessful. I think this was somewhat expected. There was not a lot of buzz in social media that I was aware of. I would say that most 2022 Kickstarters were up to 50-75% below expectations (Batman below 2$ million, Anastyr just above 1$ mil, Kingdom Forlorn at just above 1.1$mil, Reaper 6 etc.). The game doesn't really sound that innovative for people who already have played a lot of area control games even though it looks like a lot of fun to me now after reading the rules, but still: the campaign does a poor job of explaining mechanics and the IP is just not as strong as expected when they made the deal (and I suspect CMON realized this, social media metrics aren't a secret); to be honest I am actually a bit surprised this game surpassed the Cyberpunk Tabletop adaption on Kickstarter that quickly. I think there are enough reason to explain why this game is not as "successful" as other CMON campaigns without resorting to vengeful backers.
If this goes up 700.000$ which I think is realistic then it's still somewhat of a success considering the general state of Kickstarter board games in 2022.
I am no longer a fan of CMON for a variety of reasons, but the most relevant here are as follows:
1] The game's design was started by Eric Lang but has been passed off to others for finalization (too many cooks spoil the broth...)
2] It's hard to translate much of what makes a video game special into a board game format and the design here appears underwhelming (FunForge learned this lesson the hard way)
3] A $60 shipping cost for just the core box seems excessive, even in light of the current global logistics situation
4] The assumption of delivery risk onto the backers as soon as the product leaves China is unreasonable (although other publishers may follow this model)
5] Did CMON actually think that their prior actions during the Marvel campaign would be forgotten?
This is not the death of CMON by a long shot, but it may be a wake-up call for them to reconsider some of their business practices...
I think this is the one game you should back. From a completionist POV, this will hold its value in the long run as collectors will look back on this blip in the industry and there won't be as much product out there - remember all your CMON playmats etc. If CMON bounce back - then this is undersubscribed and will have value. If CMON die - then its the last product which didn't have a high print run...
That shipping, plus VAT for UK and our exchange rate... Well its just not worth it. I will very curious to see MSRP when it lands.
I'm feeling more and like I'm done with Kickstarter / game found projects.
I think $120 example of late pledge if backed at $1 makes sense. Personally I completely agree with that option.
Heck maybe double incentivize/for the first 24 to 48 hours give backers and exclusive figure like anastyr did. AND if pledging late warn that it’ll be $10 bucks more or whatever
Pushing aside shipping and what or how I feel about CMON I look at Cyberpunk this way. Do I want it and if so is it worth backing? The first part is yes but its not an absolute I want it that I can't wait for retail instead. So is it worth it? The stretch goals are not that appealing. They are not jumping out like I want that exclusive. It also feels like they don't or might not enhance the game to any degree that worth giving up money now for a product that I won't get till later. That is how I see this. Different companies have different ways of pricing and shifting the expense around to their shipping. So long as their upfront its fine. Cyberpunk and the reason I am not backing it right now doesn't live up to the worth of backing it and not just waiting for retail. That the bottom line.
Why are they charging 50€ or 2-3x shipping, when others ( Castle of Burgundy from Awaiken realms ) do it for 9€ ?!? Its fact that this is a scam.
I would agree that I don't think the lower funding (I can't call a half million+ dollar campaign a failure) is much related to the pushback as it is to a smaller target audience and a game not as many folks are excited about. Marvel Zombie was their big no-holds-barred 50th KS, so I don't hold that as a comparison to anything. All they need is a new season of Cthulu Death May Die (with reprints of previous seasons). (Please don't make it Marvel flavored!)
zombicide black plague second edition 😀
@@denisloebner4882 As long as there is a conversion pack for all the black plague/Massive Darkness stuff I already have! :p
@@rgoresjr all they need to do: give it 10-20% more depth with cooler skills and enemy movement ala death may die, make it 10% darker to raise the tension a bit, paint better looking tiles and for addons introduce an actually good campaign mode that allows you to develop your character between missions. a solid conversion kit could be part of the corepledge to really get back all the fans and theyd have another multimill dollar campaign for sure.
I still think Kickstarter should put limits in on how many campaigns companies can run - it was designed to help bootstrap new startups/ideas/projects - it was not meant to be a way for massively profitable companies to get free funding as compared to the usual routes of selling stock/ borrowing money etc.
There are limits... but they don't seem to apply to CMON.
@@justanerd1138 There is not a limit
They have a limit for newbie campaign runners (after some Ponzi-like "start a campaign to cover losses in the previous campaign" companies that eventually went bust - look up 5th Street); for established companies like CMON, Queen etc. they do not apply.
I wonder what IP couldn’t stop people from backing, like if the cyberpunk came out first and had these postage issues would marvel zombicide been as successful? Something so original and people can’t miss without
$1 pledges are great for individuals but horrible for the community.. makes it harder to fund games and for publishers to estimate abilities to complete and release additional content
I agree, but I can't advise someone to potentially put themselves on the line when estimates have been off in the past.
That’s why i am a patreon and own 9 of your top 10 games.. your a trustworthy guy
People really don't realize how bad it has been lately. Places are going out of business, and there are talks of a recession on the horizon. Prices are high, this industry already operates on low margins, and consumers are too easy to become hateful if prices are raised to compensate it. Then the companies go out of business and the hobby shrinks. There is no allowance for businesses to adapt to costs without heavy push back. Especially on KS, you are investing in the project and taking on the risks to do so, don't get pissy because the prices need to rise to stay above the water. I can also see why one would not allow you to back out, you invested and share the risk, and the money sustains it for more than just the individuals. Imagine having too many back out just because of increased shipping making it impossible to pay for the product that was produced, or costing the company to go under supporting the costs themselves. I go into kickstarter expecting the increased pricing as that is what you should be doing with a investing style system. It is not retail...
On a side note, absolutely LOVE the gameplay. Definitely getting it. The edgerunners add new abilities and replay ability as such. They also seem to be adding a exclusive faction, story, and trauma team which provide nice content additions. I would hate to miss those especially. I expect ks to be costly, as long as the game is worth while, and from all the gameplay I have seen, It does look very worthwhile. Don't approach ks or other investment/crowd funding platforms if your going to rage over unfortunate increases. There are lows and there are high with being in on it early, it is the difference between them and retail.
gameplay looks very solid
Obviously, these games get designed years in advance, but I bet they thought Cyberpunk 2077 video game was a sure thing going to be a success and when it got all that negative press, they were probably punching air. Cyberpunk got dragged through the mud so bad their company actually got sued in poland. Sadly the board game could be great but the name really hurts it.
No doubt if the computer game were a success then the boardgame kickstarter would've been released ages ago. I think they've held this as long as they could without the IP becoming irrelevant.
It is a bit "worst of both worlds" that came together...
I feel bad for this IP, it's an absolutely incredible universe they (CDPR) created, hopefully the netflix anime won't have drama like the video game or Kickstarter.
I could see them dropping the shipping in pledge manager to create good will. What the do with that good will is the important thing. The jaded side of me wonders if they will pull the same Marvel Zombies style bait and switch on the their next very large campaign. Should provide some interesting times ahead no matter what!
I personally loved Cyberpunk 2077, have dabbled with (and enjoyed) Cyberpunk RED, and have played through Shadowrun games multiple times.... I love cyberpunk as a theme and would have ate this up... but the value just doesn't seem to be there, and the design doesn't really hit the mark for me. I jumped in for $1 to keep in the loop, but the kickstarter presentation overall seems lacklustre, and the stretch goals / expansion(s) seem to offer very little.
The cost of shipping, while a factor, I could have dealt with (realistically been paying decently higher than advertised shipping to Australia anyway), but definitely went from a "take a chance/grab it anyway' to a 'wait for retail'.
I guess on shipping / costs, as others have mentioned in the past, and Mythic have addressed, it might be time to look at producing smaller / less plastic heavy games. I get that many are into 'all that plastic' (I'm one of them!), and it's essentially CMON's schtick (at least on KS), but with inflation etc I can only see luxury purchases like board games dropping off as wallets tighten and individual have to make hard choices (although I guess the upside is that you can still play your board games when the electricity gets shut off because you can't afford to pay it!). As you highlighted, Euthia was just not practical in the current market, and it's unfortunate that they were unable to secure that backing, or to acquire other funding or pivot to another (smaller) title to stay afloat.
I guess ultimately we will see which court the ball is in when the next Zombicide or Death May Die pops up on kickstarter, but going forward, timing will definitely be key.
Thanks for sharing your opinion on the matter and, as a content creator that benefits from having good relations with cmon, having the guts to recommend a dollar pledge for the running campaign. I'd like to address two things. First the 1-dollar-pledgers being there to voice their opinion on the last campaign and second your marketing advices. For the first part, while I'm not part of the running campaign myself, I sympathize with the backers of marvel zombies being active in the cyberpunk campaign (without being harassing or insulting, of course). Cmon is very active in the comments section during a campaign but completly silent afterwards. Plus, they began censoring their social media platforms regarding the shipping price topic. So I feel their beaviour has contributed greatly to that circumstance.
Now, for the second part: I don't have as much insight in the board game market or experience in marketing as you might have, but raising the core box price or lowering the shipping prices in the pledge manager sound like huge PR-disasters to me. Having a higher price for the core box wouldn't be an incentive for the "complainers" to chose a higher pledge, as they're already planning to leave the campaign at the end or keep the dollar for the entertainment. Instead you would punish every backer who is genuinely interested in the campaign and isn't 100% sure yet or doesn't have the proper funding right now. It would only contribute to cmons reputation of being greedy. Plus, I think you are confusing late pledges (where you are not part of the campaign, but pre-order the game afterwards) with switching pledge levels in the pledge manager. Now, deliberately having high shipping costs only to have nice surprise with lower shipping costs in the pledge manager would not only lose them a lot of backers who are deterred by them, it would also varify, that their shipping costs are made up and do not reflect the actual shipping costs.
Again, I'm not an expert, it just jumped to my head, when I heard your advice. I would love to hear other opinions on that. Thanks again, sorry for the wall of text and I want to emphasize that I'm not looking to offend!
I agree with part one for the most part, the issue is the comments/complaints were veering towards harassment and misinformation. For the second part, I agree it would look greedy but it’s nothing new for campaigns to raise PM price for late pledges or even $1 pledges. The second is more rare, but I’ve definitely seen it. If they did do that though, I have no doubt the fury in the comments would be even greater, if you can imagine that 😆
I personally would be happy if shipping costs end up being lower in the PM. The current estimate is exactly what I paid for MZ, so CMON could say they were accurate estimates given by their shipping company and the actual cost just ended up being lower. So far, 2077 content for the core box seems less than MZ so I don’t think people will be too surprised if shipping ends up being lower.
@@Carlos52024 Agree, it has been done by others before. But they weren't recovering from a backlash like cmon does. To me the key factors in a crowdfunding campaign is communication and transparency. A good example might be Kingdoms Forlorn from Into the Unknown, a polish developer. They ran a campaign earlier this year and are raising the core box and have higher shipping than estimated. Yet the reaction was completely different, because they communicated it properly and cared about their backers. They announced it early on and gave backers a grace period to up their pledge, wich has been extended twice already, so backers of their previous game could get their games and review the quality before commiting. Regarding the higher shipping costs, they announced that they are calculating conservatively with the prospect of refunding remaining shipping costs. Now, since it is my first campaign with them, I can make no statement to their honesty, but so far they seem trustworthy and super nice. That makes me want to continue supporting them, unlike cmon.
Nevertheless, I hope you get your discount in shipping ;)
I don’t back CMON out of principle based on past experience, but revenge is not my motivation. I hope cmon improves and can win my business back. The question is where is that pain point is for CMON? So I’m glad in the sense that this may cause some self-reflection on their part.
If they're gonna do a Marvel Cthulhu: Death May Die, it should really be Shuma-Gorath: Death May Die.
More importantly, who wanted this Cyberpunk game? Case and Molly. Decker and Racheal. V and Silverhand. Cyberpunk is typically character driven... and they do a territory control gang-based game?
Should have done a co-op dungeon crawl. Some nice CMON plastic dashboards with spots for cyberware cards. Cool gear. If they do that game I'm backing it. This? Nah.
I've stopped backing C'MON due to thier anti customer behaviour.
As KoA mentioned, this can also be some kind of Snowball effect, where they have too many ongoing campaigns. They can’t charge more for the oldest campaigns (CMON is charging everything quite early, instead of waiting till before the actual delivery) so the newest campaings are paying for that reason more.
If this is the case, it’s bad for CMON. You can’t do this”hammer in the wedge with a wedge” tactic indefinitaely
Alex, good video but I have to disagree on 1 point. If CMON had gone in with the statement that costs would be higher in the PM, I'm pretty sure that it would have burned even more of the residual goodwill. Resorting to that coercion would have just caused even more anger and I don't think it would have improved their conversion rate.
They could have went around that by offering an "early bird". I know they used to do that. Either way, I believe CMON counts on PM sells in its business model (which, from what I've heard, often doubles the sales) and it's the reason why they always allow late pledge access to everyone (you don't even have to pledge $1 to get access).
I had the se thought. Do that and you could either put people off backing at all, or see people pull their $110 at the last minute if the campaign hasn't 100% won them over
Yeah, I agree that it's not that simple. In the end, the publishers likely go with what they believe will net them the higher total sales (campaign + PM).
Cmon burned me so as much as I love Cyberpunk 2077 I am not comfortable with standing by Cmon anymore.
Their comic book campaign was actually pretty good. I love the 3 different games I got expansions for through that one.
Good idea. I’ll back at 1.00
But I’ll probably get at retail.
This game just doesn’t seam like a 150 bucks to me after shipping.
I went all in on massive darkness 2, undead or alive, x-men United, marvel zombies without galactus, marvel United, and I bought death may die after market.
Paying $1 is cheap for the entertainment value from the comments and project updates anyway.
As you pointed out in the comparison to Marvel Zombies, the shipping price seem rather high for everything included. Additionally, I have felt that the stretch goals have been very lackluster and almost all of the updates are just a ding to say new stretch goal with no real connection to the backers. It feels as if they don't even care about this campaign and are just locked in from an early deal with CDPR.
The delivery on these games make no sense if i buy a game retailer it gets shipped using same couriers and it cost a fiver they say its tax but that should not be there it should be on the game price
Cyberpunk is a crowded genre right now. How many other Cyberpunk games are out? The only thing special is the title.
Cyberpunk has always paled compared to fantasy games. RPGs included.
I don't think $1 back is good idea at moment $200 buys some great games - One content creator I watched said the rules were still rough around the edges - even at $110 seems overpriced for components . I've backed a number of Cmon KS including MZ - I not anti-Cmon - I'm sure when everything settles people will move on - they will have some new big ones .
This campaign is unusual for Cmon - as normally feel you are getting good value . High shipping prices aren't new - many KS out of europe are straight no go to NZ - even seen game 125 euros - shipping 200 euros . Yet it's all a mystery when you see new campaigns with great shipping value - Skyrise Deluxe - chunky game $15 to NZ - Punky2077 I think $85 . With my Skyrise deluxe I get a beautiful game that I can put out for any group for next 30 years including 6 year olds - just a solid fun game
I think there's a huge mismatch between the mini representations and the roles they are supposed to play, that is really jarring and going to increase confusion for some. There's also a value calculation for other games. I counted 46 minis in the base game without stretch goals. That's gonna be a hard pass for many, considering that if you take duplicates out, you only get 22 sculpts if you were hedging your bets on being able to use them in a ttrpg. The stretch goals can fix that math, but the campaign needs to do well to do so.
I think Alex is right about the $1, then choosing later. I was disappointed about the extra shipping cost for Marvel Zombicide, but it was because it was unexpected and asked for quickly. I could have handled it if more time was allowed between completing the pledge and the "oh this is going to be more expensive than we thought" conversation.
I think he's also right about this not doing as well. Fantasy tends to sell better than sci-fi for some reason. I guess there's usually less body horror involved in fantasy? I dunno.
I think there are a few reasons that explain why "more board game companies are folding". The first reason is that there are simply more game developers around because the barrier to entry, with Kickstarter supporting the need to finance and reducing the business risk (that the game doesn't sell), is fairly low, which makes the market super competitive, and the micro-economy models for those markets is that 50% of companies fail over time (like in the restaurant industry). The second reason is that board game companies, probably due to competition, are creating bigger, more complex, costlier games (often called deluxified). These games imply a higher risk for the publisher, since production problems and cost overruns on any part of the chain of supply can be catastrophic for businesses already running a thight boat, due to that highly competitive market I talked about. If we look back four or five years ago, the $100+ Kickstarter (including shipping) was much rarer than now, and yet, there were less companies struggling financially. Lastly, value wise, the offers are less and less compelling. Even if customers understand why, as price goes up, less and less customers are willing to pay those prices.
Well reasoned advice. I wish more people listened to your breakdowns before making emotional reactions. Your steady hand is appreciated! As a viewer I appreciate that you're in my corner and willing to recommend the $1 pledge regardless of a potential impact on your business relationship with CMON as a creator who benefits from advanced review copies. Cheers.
Are the expansions nescecerry?
I don't know sorry.
I think that kickstarter has historically been a mutually beneficial relationshiop, where we help fund and take most of the risk out of making a game and get some extras in return. Given that we cohld get nothing if it falls apart I do think that entitles backers to something extra. That can be the exclusives, but can also be in additional communication and transparency that we wouldnt otherwise see from a company. Shipping may be what it is, but then we are left with respect, communication etc instead. I think dropping the ball in this area has been the most problematic. I can eat extra shipping and it may be accurate, but the way in which it was done was awful and the communication or lack thereof was the real problem. I think you are undervalidating (not necessarily undervaluing) legitimate concerns of backers and letting CMON off the hook way too easily. Saying they could have been crappier and gotten rid of the 1$ pledge or raised the price in the pledge manager doesnt balance out the equation. I think the question is what we are entitled to as backers, and are they doing those things? If we are taking the risk of backing does that not obligate them to us in some way? If I loan my friend some money and he tells me he is going to repay it next month, and the month comes and goes and he does not repay me or talk to me about what is happening I think I am justified in being frustrated and expecting more from them as a friend. I think I am entitiled to at least a conversation/explanation. I think is true even though I only lent money I could afford to loose and even if its not a big deal to get paid later. I don't know why we expect less from CMON.
I think a lot of this comes down to trust who do you trust we see this game charge X and another game charge Y. I think CMON lost money on shipping games like massive darkness 2 so now they are trying to make up for that with marvel zombies and game going forward by maybe over charging or at least making sure they don't undercharge. Look at blacklist games they have games right now that we may never see, and every update is a new reason that you don't have your game it all about trust. Now it's also getting worse with trust because you don't know who to believe with you tube creators saying different things maybe because they don't want to lose company relationships.
Shipping on everything, not just board games, is killing me lately. I'm just glad to hear that the game is good; the title of the video was a bit worrying. I really enjoy the cyberpunk genre (not the IP specifically) and I'm still pretty interested in this one.
Is it worse than Chai: Tea for Two?
The second CMON kickstarter campaign Alex has been critical of or recommended backing for a dollar DESPITE featuring in playthrough videos to promote the games (via Quackalopes channel).
I genuinely like cmon as a company. But I will always give the best advice that I can.
Alex did say that he likes the game. You can like the game but dislike the price. 😄
I'm still salty over Eric Lang cancelling the card game. Never been a huge model fan either. Especially when it's not super necessary.
They probably cancelled it as it couldn't be monetised as well as the mini format
@@christopherb1913 Expandable card games are some of the best whale bait.
@@Kool212 I think they require a lot more effort which is where they save the money. This is just a very basic area control game with a cyberpunk skin which costs little effort or time
@@christopherb1913 That makes it even worse. Mini bloat to make that game cost higher and less effort from CMON.
While I don't support people attacking CMON, they've definitely deserved the backlash they've gotten. Campaigns ive backed have had small increases in shipping and while im sure the companies are just eating some of the increased costs its still nothing like the increases CMON had, and these were campaigns that launched pre covid. I have also backed quite a few games from first time creators and all of them have done better at estimating shipping than CMON, CMON has zero excuses for messing up that badly. I wasn't going to back CMON campaigns before because they add so many extras the games become super expensive and bloated, and I find that having a million minis increases set up time, but I'm certainly never backing one of their projects now.
$1 backer here. Just wanted to send CMON that message. Will drop my $1 pledge in the final hours of the campaign and would love to see what happens if/when a large number of backers do the same... Ideal goal would be to leave this one slightly over the min funding goal.
That would send a message...
So 300.000 people would have to drop their 1$ pledge? I don’t think that is a likely scenario
@@joelbergvonlinde1389 I live in hope.
I’ll check some more gameplays. Now that you compare the game to the Godfather, it kind of makes sense.
The only thing that makes sense is not backing at all. If game is good (doubt it, CMON is becoming EA of board games and this one seems to be bad game with IP tacked on) it will be cheaper in retail. If not, there is no way it will hold it's value.
I've backed a number of CMON Kickstarters in the past. Aside from cost, one thing I dislike are the KS exclusives. I would love to wait for retail, but as a completionist those damn exclusives bug the hell out of me. They really do encourage poor financial decisions. Risk hundreds of dollars up front for possibly a year or more based upon a KS campaign and a few CZcams hype videos. Compared to waiting for retail to buy into a game piece by piece knowing that everything else is available unless it sells out, which is only based upon demand, not an artificial limit due to exclusivity.
Cyberpunk 2077 being $50-$60 to ship in the states is insane. Knowing that aside from the exclusives, I'll be able to order the game from a retailer online w/ free shipping because the price of the base game is going to exceed many of their min. for free shipping. Sure, KS guarantees me a copy, but that's a lot of money.
I have backed more then 70 campaigns (which is an issue in itself) but I also have become very reluctant for CMON campaigns. No because of the shipping prices, but because of the way they changed their way of communicating to their backers. The disclaimer in the MZ PM, the one way communication when things backfire.
All good examples of how not to engage with your loyal audience (which has become less loyal and more vocal).
I think it made sense for CMON to follow up on the Marvel Zombies drama with a project with less potential. They would suffer from backlash anyway, so why not ‘sacrifice’ a project that already was burdened with disappointment. I guess the next one will be one that has the potential to go above one million again as by then the emotions on MZ have gone done… or not 😬.
I view investing in Kickstarter/Gamefound to support game companies an their new games is just like any other investing. You should not do it if you can't afford to lose the money (the risk of a campaign not completing) or you don't have enough budget flexibility to absorb additional cost for volatile costs like shipping. That being said, I think the creators need to do a better job of negotiating the shipping costs and locking in shipping companies and delivery companies to prices. In the end I am investing in a hobby, trying to support interesting games that I can add to my collection with some of the kickstarter specials that you may not be able to get at retail. I also think it is fun to watch the progress of the projects until that exciting day that shipment is confirmed. The last couple of years have been rough on everyone, creators, manufacturing companies, shippi9ng companies, deliver companies, and ultimately us the consumers.